The Lamer Gamer

4th of July.  Up way too early on a holiday.  Got in an 8 mile run before 9AM.  That should count double or something.

Considering I haven’t fired up the Xbox in 4-5 days, I’ve banked a good amount of play time.  I think I’ve nearly given up on Alpha Protocol anyway.  It’s really annoying trying to figure out how to get certain outcomes over the course of the game and even with my OCD I find it unlikely that I’ll get 1000/1000 out of this one.

Made a slight mistake in grabbing Alpha Protocol.  It’s not that it sucked bad in general, but it did suck bad at being an RPG.  About the only thing that they get right is the abundant talking.  Other than that, it tries to be a Mass Effect-ish action RPG and it’s just not well executed.  The inventory customization bit fails as the weapons just don’t feel very different when customized and aside from the Endurance/Damage Reduction bonuses on armor, nothing else feels like it has a huge effect (e.g. hacking bonus).

On to another pet peeve I have.  Without reloading saves at critical points 3+ play throughs are necessary to get all of the achievements.  I know I’m just achievement whoring at this point, as enjoyed my one play through but am now fast forwarding through all the dialog and  at the same time trying to pay enough attention to it to sway one NPC or another into doing what I need for the achievement.

On the plus side, since this game isn’t so awesome and I already sent back Red Dead, I’ve been getting a little more exercise.  about 10+ miles this week.  Nothing ridiculous, but still good for me.

Lego Harry Potter on its way.  Gotta get something family friendly once in a while.

I can’t really put my finger on why, but I never got into Grand Theft Auto.  I like mob movies, love sandbox games, tried most of the GTA games in the last 5-10 years and they just never grabbed me. 

So for me, Red Dead Redemption was a bit of a risk.  I might play it a bit and the lose interest just like with all the rest of its more modern ilk.  Yet after a few hours I was legitimately hooked.  The game is beautiful, vast, the characters deep, and gunfights abound.  The combat system is great, though I still don’t have Expert targeting down just yet.  There’s so much to do in Red Dead that it’s hard to get bored.  Skin some bears, hunt some boars, fight a few duels, haul in a few bounties, all in a day’s work.  Single player took to around 1.75-2 days play time.  Not bad.

Multiplayer is better than I thought it would be, though worse in some ways too.  Playing coop through gang hideouts is plenty fun, and the Outlaws to the End hasn’t even been released yet (plus it’s free DLC, gotta love that).  On the down side, it’s a little too easy to get bullied by higher ranked players who just feel like constantly shooting you in the dome.  Since the weapons get significantly better as you rank up, as opposed to MW2 where in general there’s a lot of parity, you can be held at the mercy of a guy that just lives to give you a hard time as he’s harder to kill with your cattleman’s revolver than you are with his high power pistol.  I’ve blown a few hours being harassed in that way already.  They can follow you if you go to a different Free Roam session too, so that kind of adds to it.  The PvP modes don’t appeal to me much.  Played some Gold Rush, thought it was okay.  Maybe the experience there is better with a bigger crowd of friends.

All in all it’s a great experience.  Well worth the current rental, likely to a buy in the not so distant future.  Before Red Dead becomes too much of a time sink, I need to get into Alpha Protocol.

I’m kind of surprised to see a bunch of mediocre reviews of Alan Wake.  83 isn’t a bad score on Metacritic, but I find it hard to believe that people were really that dissapointed.  Claims like “There aren’t any memorable moments” were clearly made by people who dislike hair-metal, rock shows with pyrotechnics and zombies consumed by darkness or simply hadn’t actually played the game.

I’m speaking of course (spolier) about the showdown at farm when you face waves of the Taken while Barry works the light show.  The game had been up until that point been fairly serious, and this was a great break in the otherwise darkdarkdark atmosphere.  I had some much fun playing this part I restarted my checkpoint when it was cleared I’d nearly reached the next.

I can see some gripes about the nightmare difficulty not being all that nightmarish which also goes against how this was billed a bit as survival horror, it’s really not.  Also another pet peeve of mine, why do I have to unlock nightmare mode?  You’re wasting my time.  The enemies are rather unvaried.  But the story!  It’s good.  It has a solid novel quality twist near the end, I continually wanted to know more.  Visually it’s well done, but the facial animation sucks major ass. I’d already mentioned that the atmosphere was great, it’s scary and dark though not nearly as scary as Dead Space.  Speaking of which, Dead Space 2 coming up!

All of a sudden Modern Warfare 2 is the worst game I’ve ever played. The Javelin/Semtex thing was kind of anoying, but it didn’t ruin a whole game.  Tonight, every fucking game I join has assholes rapid firing grenade lauchers, thumpers, RPGs whatever.  Nice hack…

I hope the fuckers who came up with this one are banned for life. 

Hey IW!  Fix this shit already!

Read more:  modernwarfail.com hahahaha

I still suffer from crappy broadband syndrome, but RFG’s multiplayer is still a good time.  Coming with a pool of game types that center more around objective style competition rather than deathmatch, RFG provides a well balanced multiplayer experience.  Siege is a great, unique mode where you take turns attempting to demolish a series of buildings and this really caries forward the carnage fiesta of the single player experience.  Other popular game types like Capture the Flag and Territories style matches are there too, but Siege is a fave of mine.

To my knowledge no other developer has matched COD4s rather forgiving bandwidth requirements, and RFG isn’t so different.  I curse the game frequently for deaths I feel were lag based, and I’m clearly more productive when hosting, but they did take a cue from Halo 3 and the simultaneous beat downs work for me.  Speaking of which, melee is a bit odd.  Your sledgehammer is an instant kill, but other weapons are pretty lame for melee, and there’s no apparent bonus for a sneaky hit from behind.  I wish there was some quick switchtosledgeandswingit button.

One other small gripe.  The muliplayer achievements are pretty bad.

• Play 250 Games
• Win 250 Games
• Kill 5000
• Gain a Kazillion XP in Multiplayer

They don’t ruin it or anything, but why even have them?

I’ve only rented it from GameFly but, thinking about keeping it.  The DLC was just released in last week or so, and might be worth it.  Then again, I could also grab the new and old DLC for Mass Effect for the same price.  Hmm, not to mention a copy of ME is about $12 right now.

Before I overstate how much I like Red Faction: Guerrilla, the  ’roids comment was meant to imply how impossibly strong the player is, not that Red Faction is a better game than GTA IV per se.  That said, I never really fell for the GTA series, and I do like Guerrilla more than GTA IV.  And what’s not to like?  RF:G is incredibly satisfying in providing a playground of demolitions waiting to happen.   And happen they do, in all sorts of amusing ways.  Try taking down a building with a handful of mining charges, hit one with a rocket or two, maybe move on to my personal favorite, drive a tank through it and watch the structure crumble all around you.  Oddly the only ridiculous bit in all of this is that you can take down whole buildings with a few swings of your sledgehammer, hence the ‘roids.

The general gameplay follows the GTA style.  Jump in random cars, complete missions in an open world with a less than entirely linear story line.  You, a recent arrival on Mars join the Red Faction in a Guerrilla campaign (shocker, right?) where you are pitted against limitless numbers of Earth Defense Force troops and challenged with completing missions in a get-in/get-out style.  Pick up a vehicle, drive somewhere, demolish/defend/rescue something/someone, that’s pretty much it.  There’s essentially no sense in standing around trying to kill all the EDF troops as they just keep respawning right in from of you, literally.  That is one of the few technical failings of the title, enemy spawns are not concealed in any way, they just show up 10 feet in front of you when the alert condition is high enough.  Also, the demolition physics is a little lacking.  Despite your juiced sledge, buildings tend to keep standing on 1 of 4 of their original walls, but you can of course just smack that one too.  It doesn’t really detract from the experience unless you’re nitpicking.   The missions, various weapons  and generally well structured gameplay make up for that, and let me have a ton of fun.   BUT… The campaign is pretty short, I’m guessing less than half of GTA IV or less.  Multiplayer, however, eases the pain via its own breadth of match types.

Supposedly some good DLC is around the corner too.  August 15th to be precise.  Hopefully they can do better than BioWare did with Mass Effect DLC, one add-on is kinda lame when you talk it up as a feature.  It’s a great time sink, and if multiplayer holds its appeal, it’s  decent purchase.

Spent the last month playing 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and Ghostbusters.  Both equal timesinks but WAY different games.

I’ll get this one out of the way first.  I’ve listened for a long time to complaints that most games center around a white antagonist, and I immediately felt strange playing a game focused on 4 black guys blowing up a large number of arabs, but I got over it fast.  Why?  Because 50 Cent: BotS is freaking hilarious.  I sort of had that pegged just from watching a few in-game videos.  But until you get into it, you have no idea.  BotS has an arcade feel and it really shows when 50 runs through the streets in his stylish Kevlar, and even on the hardest difficulty, he’ s crazy bulletproof.  Taunting and shooting, tossing grenades along with the constant dialogue between 50 and whichever member of G-Unit is just so out there that I kept cracking up while plowing through the game.

There’s the real downside.  The game is short.  In 2 weeks of playing about 30 minutes-1 hour at a time, I completed everything there was to do, and that included going through the game again on co-op, because I’m an achievement whore and sometimes I can’t help myself.  Still it’s a gas to play, especially once you buy the better weapons which just make it comical how powerful you are.

It’s a rental, but a good one.

I’d already commented that it was unreal how I’d missed Dead Space when it was first released.  More unbelievable is that everyone I know managed to miss it too, one of them only picking it up right at the same time as myself.  Having mostly finished it now, it’s proven to be a breakout title for me, particularly in the horror genre.

Not only does the game look pretty, or at least pretty gruesome, but it plays real smooth.  I’ve gotten into the habit of installing all games to the HD, so the load times were quick for me.  Rarely, the Metroid-like doors don’t open until the room on the other side is ready, but that’s completely bearable.  The interface is very well thought out.  The communications, menuing, ammo, life and other displays are attached to your suit or float in the air via holographic projections, all in real time .  Most importantly, your interactions with the interface behave as if this were actually possible.  In that I mean it doesn’t pause the game, there are no separate menu screens, no reprieves, save for one oddity I noticed, when accessing the store you become invulnerable to the smaller enemies.  Helpful hint, don’t look at your map while being attacked.

Gameplay reminds me a lot of watching my little bro play Resident Evil back in the day.   Ammo is a lot less scarce (unless you’re me, and blow money on upgrades) and saves aren’t restricted, but a lot of that feel remains.  You can’t run that fast, and worse, if you do run away, they just follow you, quickly, sometimes popping through an airduct into you current location.   You’ve really got to make sure you go for the high damage limb severing shots and not just try pumping your target full of ammo.  Weapon diversity is good, but the best weapons is essentially the first one you pick up.  Occasionally one works better, but overall, go Plasma Cutter.  Upgrading the weapons is also a brief minigame (I’m being generous with that assessment, really it’s hardly more than figuring out an optimal path on the weapon upgrade grid).

I gravitate toward titles that spend a lot of time on backstory and the mythology of their own made up universe.  Dead Space is like a black hole in that way.  I love finding items, and Dead Space is chock full of collectibles (the logs) which fill in a ton of the story.  Beyond that there’s a ton of alien, (well it’s in English, but encoded) writing all over the walls that you could take the time to decipher if you wanted.  Really, there’s so much going on and in separate media too like the comics and anime that I’m sure I’ll never quite cover all of it.

Lots of comments I’ve read note that the game wasn’t scary, but I jumped, A LOT!  The environmentals are nerve-wracking, the sounds and score, the lights, the fact that some razor clawed monster just popped out of the wall behind me.  So you run, and everything calms down, then there’s some Lost type music which comes out of nowhere and suddenly a tentacle is dragging me down a hole.  I’m not typically a fan of the whole Survival-Horror thing, but Dead Space grabbed me.  Oh, and the ending, CREEPY!

One annoyance that I’m trying to get around is that this is yet another game which lets you unlock a higher difficulty, and worse has an achievement for it.  While it falls into my category of “Actual Achievement”, completing the game on “Impossible Mode” didn’t really appeal to me.   The storyline was compelling enough that I plowed through Dead Space in about 12 hours.  But on another playthrough, the story would be the same, and as far as I can tell there aren’t any other rewards for doing so.  I always went right to Legendary for the Halo games, it was challenging and provided some different (sometimes extra) cut scenes.  Maybe I’ll come back to this one later and go through Impossible, maybe not.  The only downside is the single player, single playthrough campaign.  Mass Effect handled that by having other classes, but that’s not a guarantee of replay value.  Anyway, that wouldn’t have worked with Dead Space given the plot, and I’m not faulting it really.

Bottom line, this game was SOLID.  4.5/5 easy. I loved playing it.  I’m sure there will be a number of sequels.  I can’t wait.

Because I managed to upgrade the drive on the 360, I’ve now got room for tons of demos and I’ve cued up pretty much every one I can find.  I’d heard about Dead Space from a number of people, and the most commonly used term between all of them was “overrated”.   So fine, it’s not all that it could have been or what it was hyped to be. I’d tried watching the Dead Space anime on Netflix, and I didn’t find it all that hot either, so I didn’t think much more of it.

But then I got the popup that Dead Space Dismemberment had been downloaded, and I thought, “why the hell not?” After I playing all of 10 minutes of the demo, all I want to do is find a copy of this game so freaking badly right now it’s insane.  I’m wondering why it was that these guys were dissapointed.  I mean, maybe the campaign is short or something, or it just gets tiresome after a while, but it looks and plays so freaking sweet I can’t help but be really excited to get my hands on the full game.  In a way, it feels a lot like BioShock, which I also rather enjoyed.   This is what I get for listening to other people.