You got "There WIll Be Blood" in my "Red Dead Redemption"

Just something I noticed last night while playing RDR was that a town I was riding to happened to be named "Plainview." Now if you remember from the amazing (sorry Juniper) "There Will Be Blood" the main character's name is Daniel Plainview and he's an "oil man." Well, not only is the town named Plainview, but on the map there's an oil derrick and in the small town there's one right in the middle of it.

Just wanted to point out a cool reference to a very cool movie in an awesome game.

That is all.

Blur Trailer

I'm sure you all roll your eyes whenever I find another time to mention my love for the Project Gotham Racing franchise. I've been playing it since the original Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast.

Anyways, Bizarre Creations is done with PGR and their next game is Blur. It's basically a grown up version of Mario Kart. Here's a hilarious trailer that openly mocks Mario Kart.

Red Dead Awesomeness

I'm nowhere near writing a review on this game, but I'm having a blast playing it. My favorite game since Fallout 3 for sure.

Basically just wanting some cool situations you guys may have come across in SP or MP.

My favorite online moment was when I was in Free Roam just running around a town minding my own business and some other human player comes charging down the street at me on a horse shooting his rifle. I real quick pulled out my six shooter Schofield and aimed at him and shot his horse in the head on accident. While the horse was falling it slammed into me and I thought it killed me. Turns out it just knocked me down and when I got up what did I find? The bastard that was trying to kill me getting up from the ground by his dead horse. I finished him off. Then I changed my underwear.

Unbelievable badass game.

One final word on the Reach Beta

I've been reading on the forums on Bungie.net and came across this post. Unlike almost every other post on there, it's actually pretty well thought-out and well-written. It summarizes the problems in the game, and gives reasons WHY they're a problem. I'm not sure I agree with his thoughts about competitive gaming, and while he makes great points about the guns being too weak, it also seems like deep down, he just wants the Battle Rifle back. I'm also fine with the speed and jump height. Anyway, this is mostly for Amateria and 3N3MY, but of course anyone who played the Beta can relate. It's a little long, too, but give it a read.

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=44376218&postRepeater1-p=1

Red Dead Redemption

Juniper: "YES" I'm picking up my copy after work. I do have band practice tonight, but I have tomorrow off and will hopefully be playing all day after Masen's doctor appointment!

I'll admit that this was a last minute decision by me, but after looking at reviews and a lot of videos and talking very briefly with Lead Salad about it I think it's gonna be stellar. Not the biggest GTA fan out there, but I agree with Lead Salad that this is the time period, location and "life style" that Rockstar was meant to make a game for.

8 Player Free Roam looks like an MMO styled blast. Hope you guys get it as well.

Me, Lead Salad, brjahu (possibly) and at least one other guy on my friends list is getting it for sure, Patondeez, and he's cool as hell.

Patience, Competition, and Me.

Lead Salad got me thinking about something, something that's been halfway on my mind for what seems like a long time.

Competition has become a huge part of the gaming culture. Although this doesn't really constitute any huge revelation for any of us as experienced players, it deserves some thought.  When an activity that could be considered intrinsically "fun" (i.e. Videogames) becomes a competition, often times the level of "fun" we end up having depends strongly on what the outcome of the competition was.  Example: I may enjoy playing this specific game, but if I don't win, I don't enjoy it.  Some out there may argue that the experience itself is still fun, but if one consistently loses, I refuse to believe that the experience could hold the same degree of "fun."

(For the record, I recognize a great deal of this is subjective, so please bear with me and apply as appropriate to your own lives/experiences.)

It's almost impossible to avoid a competitive mindset though.  The cards are stacked against us in this manner.  It's a very common gameplay element now to have a competitive multiplayer, so common in fact that it's sometimes surprising that the designers omitted one intentionally.  Outside of that, we even find competition within the gaming systems interfaces, using achievement points and trophies to give us feedback on our progress, and a relative measure of how we "rank" amongst others who are undergoing similar tasks.  I'm not trying to imply that achievements and trophies are one dimensional and can't do more than compare us, but those comparison tools are part of the interface of the operating systems, so it's almost impossible to argue that a little bit of friendly competition isn't woven into their design.

I don't believe, however, that the competition we currently see in videogames is an unnatural progression.  In almost any hobby/activity, we have backseat drivers who look on condescendingly almost as to say, "gimme a turn, I can do better", if they don't just go and say it outright.   This principle may even just be built into our humanity.  Anyone ever have someone tell them better directions to go somewhere, even though you already know a perfectly adequate route?  Or have someone criticize a popular sports teams decision? Or just take the grilling tool straight out of your hand to do a better job?

In my personal opinion, a huge issue that magnifies this common principle is a lack of patience.  We're such a busy culture/world, having patience to let things play out and see the result is something that we lack overall, and it's got to be infecting our gaming as well.  We get frustrated at delayed titles, canceled DLC, slow load times, someone sitting next to us on the couch "playing it wrong."

Now about Halo: Reach (HA HA! You knew it was coming...)

I know Halo can be a bit of a hot button out there, but I'm using it as an example because it's the most current example we're all familiar with.  Reach's multiplayer has gamers across the world torn between loving it and hating it. Bungie has quite a task set before them - they not only need to meet expectations of a revamped multiplayer and gameplay overall, but they also need to not ignore the hardcore Halo fanbase that's currently in motion.   Bungie set aside, I think a little bit of patience when undergoing a new multiplayer experience goes a long way.

My personal experience with Reach has been interesting.  I was frustrated at first.  My experience in other Halo games wasn't really helping me out here.  Things were way too different for me to play in my same traditional Halo style.  After I was able to nail down a control scheme I liked, and experienced some of the loadouts that I responded well too, I was finding a great deal of success.  It was shortly after this happened, that I realized I wasn't the only one who was finding what worked.  It was harder to win, more frustrating to lose, and as a result, more difficult to enjoy.

I'm now at a turning point in my decision making with Reach.  I feel like I've gotten a pretty good cross-section of what it's like, what it's supposed to be like, and a few fair predictions on how it's going to be come launch.  How much patience though, should I exercise.  It's arguable that any single person, given enough patience and time, could master any game and ultimately enjoy it well enough.  How much should I dump into Reach?  Should I quit if the armor lock setup isn't nerfed a bit?  What if they change the grenades around?  Is it worth my time to learn the nuances of the game before I make a judgment, or are those changes and differences from my expectations too much of a dealbreaker.

Obviously this is a Beta, so we'll have to see where it ends up, but I don't see any reasons why a similar thought process and asking personal questions like these can't apply to any game we undertake.   We do it pretty regularly in single player experiences, but it's harder in multiplayer.  In a single player game we can forgive wonky controls, weird AI control, and even bad all-around gameplay because the only hurdle we have is whatever baggage we bring going in.  We don't need to worry about a winner/loser condition to dictate our fun.

Where do others sit with issues like this.  I'm a big fan of Halo, so it's easy for me to give it a little patience and try to learn the system to gain success, but I'm not so patient with Call of Duty.  It's not really about the title we're playing, but how we relate to it.  I've had friends who have encouraged me to look past my own instincts with single player stuff because the benefits of being patient were worth the time - how is any multiplayer experience any different?

Skatch and brjahu

Are they alive? I know I saw brjahu at Amateria's wedding, but that's it.

"The thing you gotta know about Sam Fisher is..."

Time for a formal look at Splinter Cell: Conviction.  Since the game's been out a while, consider this your fair warning to SPOILER ALERTS.   I'm gonna try to use a little bit of a Kotaku style review system.  Little bit of a breakdown about the game and it's elements, a small section of bullets breaking down personal likes and dislikes, followed by a general thumbs up or down.  (If this works well, maybe we'll try to find a unified format for reviews on this site, maybe even create our own that isn't from a much larger more popular gaming forum.

Breakdown:

    In this fifth iteration of the Splinter Cell franchise we find a pretty strong departure from the stealth systems that were found in most all of the previous games.  When the original Splinter Cell came out for the original Xbox, we saw a redefinition of stealth in a way that most games had never seen.  Metal Gear was probably the most realistic that most of us got, but to call Metal Gear is to stealth what Mario is to plumbing.  The series involved stealth, sure, but a majority of Metal Gear's gameplay revolves around tactfully displacing and manipulating the AI.  Whether or not you agree with the claim about Metal Gear, Splinter Cell changed things.  It added shadows and noise and movement to the list of things to worry about.  The rules for sight-lines and AI changed now that we had a light sensor to let us know when were cloaked in the beautiful darkness, and a meter for sound to let us know if we were walking to quickly.

    The system was so revolutionary that it spawned 2 (and a half) sequels that almost followed it to a fault.  Every game added some new stuff along the way, for better or worse, but it all seemed to be formed on the same foundation.  It almost looked for a period of time that Conviction was going to be growing from that tree also... until Ubisoft realized that their gameplay designs were too close to Assassin's Creed and needed to revamp their "homeless sam" idea, a tough financial decision I'm sure, but was probably for the best in the end anyways.  Assassin's Creed's crowd blending technique was unique, and using that as a core element in a competing (both ubisoft, btw!) game couldn't have been a good choice.

    As a result of the lack of discussion amongst Ubisoft as a company, we get a new branch to the Splinter Cell series that looks more like a branch that was grafted in from Jack Bauer's playbook.  Sam's life has been pushed to it's limit, with the loss of friends and coworkers at Third Echelon, the loss of his last tie to sanity, his daughter, Sam is a loose cannon.  He seems to be calm enough and keeping to his own for the most part, until an old acquaintance, Grim, the intel from the previous games, decides to light his fuse with promises about his daughter being alive. 

     Insert the generic government conspiracy story here.  I'm trying not to rail on it too much, because the story wasn't that bad, but it sure wasn't anything that surprised me.  It worked well enough though, giving a context to the super fast gameplay.  Using new techniques like the Mark and Execute functionality, Sam can literally breeze through a room of tangos and not even have a second glance. Although this new gameplay is super fun, it's hard not to think about how different it is from the Splinter Cell's of yesteryear.  More on that later.

Things Liked:

- Mark and Execute - Using this is a must, so it's pretty fortunate that it's really rewarding.  After getting a close range hand-to-hand kill, Sam earns a few quick executions on some targets of his choosing.  This is probably the biggest change to the Splinter Cell formula due to the fact that it basically requires the player to rethink why they're hiding in the shadows.  Older Cell games would reward the player who demonstrated patience, timing, and execution.  Conviction provides the player with immediate gratification rolling these older elements into the simple mark and execute format.  The only real difference is that you only need to be as patience as you need to, not the entire time.

- Co-op Modes - Although cooperative gameplay modes are becoming a standard in most games, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (their 3rd title) really brought something special to the table with their co-op story mode, and the Conviction team definitely showed some respect to their older brother here.  Co-op play has a unique campaign to the main campaign, multiple gameplay modes outside of the story, as well as a vs. mode (have yet to try...).  Although very similar to Sam's gameplay, two player play lets players share their executions with team mates, creating a sort of back and forth feel with the momentum of the gameplay.  It's an incredibly rewarding experience, something I'm glad to see brought back after it's absence in Splinter Cell: Double Agent.

- Environmental Guidance - I don't even know what to call this one, but it was awesome.  Having my goals and objectives built into/onto the environment I was apart of not only have me the information I needed without breaking up the flow of the gameplay, but provided me with some actual directions to help me on my way.  Absolutely brilliant.  (Carried to far in some cases... see below)

- Death and Execution Animations - Although purely stylistic, the death, execution, and interrogation animations are super fun to watch.  The player is given a small degree of control here, using the environment to get the facts they need out of uncooperative baddies.  I would imagine the temptation to make some sort of quick-time event for the interrogation scenes was high, but I think the detail work in the animation draws the player in enough without all that super exciting button-pressing immersion.

Things Not So Liked

- The dialogue - All of it.  Too much. Too heavy. Laid on too strong.  Oh, and everyone really loves to swear.  It's so distracting from the gameplay at times.  It's a clear attempt at trying to thrust the player into a fearful situation that Sam should be in, but the heavy-handedness of it all along with the high use of profanity makes it difficult to take it seriously, and it mostly comes off as juvenile.  "Fisher! You can't f***in' hide, this is an airport!"  ::sigh::

- Who is this? - "The thing you gotta understand about Splinter Cell: conviction was this... Sam Fisher.  He's the main roll. Who am I?  The thing you gotta know about me... is that I'm the one... the guy who's narrating this story... that surrounds Sam... ..." I couldn't wait to finish the campaign so this guy would stop talking.  Everything he said was the last thing he would ever say.  I'm still not entirely sure why he was needed to narrate the story anyway.  It seemed to stand on it's own really well, and this guy always seemed to distract me.  Whatever.

- Environmental Feelings - Although the objective guidance built into the world worked really well, projecting Sam's inner thoughts and feelings felt odd and simple.  Words like Rage, Hate, Revenge, being printed in front of me don't make me any closer to feeling those words, character decisions do.  Also, what tense are these in?  Sometimes the wall writing feels like tips and instructions from on high begin written for the players benefit.  Sometimes it feels like Sam's inner dialogue.  I'm alright with either, but both happening simultaneously was a small, but borderline sloppy choice, I think.

- Sonar Vision - What am I a bat? Give me my night vision goggles back.

- Desaturated Stealth Alerts - In Conviction Sam doesn't have the support or the resources to have a fancy light meter reading suit like he previously did.  To work around this, designers used the color saturation as a means to let the player know when they were hidden.  This gets kinda frustrating because color saturation doesn't really have a "middle ground" the way light brightness does.  It also takes away from the brilliant colors of the game being seen.  I'm supposed to hide, right, if I'm playing the game right?  Then why does my game look better when I'm not playing it right?  (This one is up for debate... maybe messing around with color saturation is cool now.)

Final Thoughts

I'm a little surprised at how easy it was to come up with dislikes and how hard it was to articulate the great things, as I generally liked this game.  I'm still cranking through all the co-op modes and looking forward to doing some achievement hunting with this one.  My guess is that my knowledge and love of previous Splinter Cell titles has really held my mind back, letting me see more that's "wrong" than right, even if these "wrong" things were pretty cool design choices (i.e. color saturation).

I could easily recommend anyone giving Splinter Cell a fair shake.  It's unique enough that it won't feel like white noise amongst the myriad of shooters most of us have filling our shelves.  Older Splinter Cell fans might feel a tad bit alienated by it, but once the game is looked at for what it is, instead of what it isn't, a much better and well-done product is found.  My only other warning would be the length.  The campaign is one of the shorter ones out there, only clocking in between 5 and 6 hours.  The only reason that this didn't make the "dislike" list was because the replay value is pretty high if you enjoy it.  Finding places to climb, routes to take, and ways to work through most levels cooperatively or solo really opens the doors to many possibilities.  I don't think it's gonna feel like any real work to get these achievements since I'm looking to play most of it again anyway.

Drop your thoughts and weigh in on this.  I'm almost more curious to get the opinion of someone who's not played the previous Splinter Cell installments... figure out of some of these dislikes are really issues or maybe just my nostalgic expectations not being met. 

Amateria, out.

::Edit:: I realized after I published this and went to bed that the impression I may have left was negative, due to the high quantity of "cons".  I really enjoyed this game a great deal, and I think if you've got someone to play the cooperative modes with, the replay value and in turn, the enjoyment you get from the game, will ultimately be there.

Canceling my plans to Preorder Reach (DUN DUN DUNNNN)

I've been saying it and you guys jinxed it! Don't talk about grenades being too powerful or they'll take them away and we'll be stuck with Halo 2 and 3 all over.

Seriously, I'm majorly bummed about this because IMHO they were revitalizing the series. Bungie just does what the community of NEWBS bitches about and ruins the game for others. It's not like less people would buy the game if they kept the damage up where it should be. For me when it comes to actually getting kills in Reach a lot of it boils down to the increased damage of the grenades because the majority of guns are as powerful as a Super Soaker 150...or the KLOBB.

If they wanted to balance the game get rid of the damn Sword and Hammer, but I guess that would make too much sense.

Bummer. I was really looking forward to being proven wrong because the Beta is pretty damn fun.

GameCube

Is there anyone out there that still has a soft spot for this system? I don't mean Nintendo as a whole, but this actual system?

I've been wanting to play Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and The Two Thrones before playing the new release "The Forgotten Sands" and since the 360 doesn't play those two I decided to get them for the Cube.

I broke it out last night and got it all hooked up and got my TV settings just how I like them to "help" the picture some and all in all it doesn't look that bad....especially compared to a non-upscaled PS2.

Anyways, I started messing around in Metroid Prime and I had a rush of adoration for the console. From how comfortable the controller was in my hand to the sound of the menus to the tiny discs. This was actually the console that shoved me into modern gaming thanks to Lead Salad my sophomore year of college. He knew that I loved my N64 and was a huge Resident Evil fan so he literally brought me to his room and said, "play this." It was the amazing remake of the original Resident Evil on the Cube. Then he really wowed me when he put in Metroid Prime.

That year I got a GameCube for Christmas and even though some time later I felt betrayed by the same system I played the hell out (damn you to hell Super Mario Sunshine) I still love my GameCube.

Great GameCube games that have and will always remain in my collection:

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
Resident Evil, RE 2, RE 3, RE Code Veronica, RE4
Metroid Prime
Super Smash Bros: Melee
Wind Waker
Ocarina of Time and the Master Challenge

I love you GameCube. Especially since every time I break you out of your mess of a box that has a PSONE, PS2, 2 Dreamcasts and a Turtle Beach headset....you work like new.

Assassin's Creed 1 and 2

Author Note: This is written more in love than frustration.

This needs to be brought out in the daylight. Amateria hates, mocks and despises Assassin's Creed. Why wouldn't he? I mean he played the 1st one for at least an hour.

I'll admit (for the 100th time) that the 1st game got repetative, but I still played the hell out of it and it's a phenomenal game IMHO. The 2nd game is nothing short of breath taking. Everyone on this blog that has played it loved it. Juniper told me it's the best sequel he's ever played. Lead Salad told me he wished there were more hours in a day to be able to keep playing.

Saying that you didn't get the story you were promisd in marketing material is incredibly dumb. That's like saying The Sixth Sense sucked because Bruce Willis was a ghost all along! The "twist", if you could even call it that, takes place about 5 minutes into AC and is NOT a game breaker. In fact I have always felt and argued that it enhances the game and allows for a much richer story across several generations of assassins, the AMAZING conspiracy stories in the 2nd game and allows you to experience what Desmond Miles experiences coming in and out of the Animus.

I've been right about so many amazing games that you mocked or didn't give a crap about until you FINALLY came around to playing them. Half Life 2 (which you still haven't fully beaten), Mass Effect and even the show Arrested Developement and Wes Anderson are just 4 examples off the top of my head of things you never wanted to get into when they were recommended to you. After you play them or watch them you talk about how great they are and those of us that played them a year or two ago are just left saying, "We told you this a year or two ago."

Bottom line is you're wrong about Assassin's Creed and those on this blog that have played it will tell you it's amazing and that...well...you're wrong.

Breaking News

Breaking News:

Amidst the turmoil of Infinity Ward employees abandoning the company like rats from a sinking ship and fed up with Activision and it's CEO Bobby Kotick, Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson, Private First Class Joseph Allen, Private James Ramirez, Captain John "Soap" MacTavish, Simon "Ghost" Riley, and Captain John Price will not be returning to the Call of Duty series.

It was officially confirmed this morning that none of these stars will be featured in any future Modern Warfare game titles. Though several of these characters were killed off in the series, they refuse to appear in any flashbacks, memory montage's, pictures, documents, videos, and any and all other means.

Captain John "Soap" MacTavish

MacTavish spoke with reporters, saying "I refuse to participate in a series that is saturating the market with short campaigns, raised prices, less bullets, unstoppable perks. Also, Bobby Kotick is an ass." MacTavish went on in length on how he wanted to show his support to the Infinity Ward employees by leaving the Modern Warfare 3 project. He is confident that he will be able to find work in other war-themed games and claims he has already been approached for a brief cameo in Medal of Honor and possibly Battlefield 3.

Captain John Price

Price said that he had no comment for reports but stood to the side, nodding his head in agreement, as MacTavish spoke with reports. Price did confirm that he will not be staring in a role in Modern Warfare 3.

Simon "Ghost" Riley

Simon Riley, best known as "Ghost", covered his face when confronted by reporters, even going so far as knocking a camera to the ground and threatening physical violence if he was not left alone. No charges have been filed as if this time.

Bobby Kotick

Upon contacting Activision, Bobby Kotick, in his real form, said in a statement "#$%*&% them and their &#$#& mothers. They #$@*&$# tried to make gaming #%*&$#* fun and we'll have none of that #*$&$^ at Activision. Modern Warfare 3 does not need their $^%@#*& in $^$%*#@ or #$^%$%@."

Bobby Kotick's PR Manager paraphrased, claiming that Activision was sorry to see them go but fully understood their desire to pursue other projects and said that their parting was on good terms with Activison and it's CEO.

Trials of St. Lucia and 60K

Last night I finally purchased the "Trials of St. Lucia" DLC for Dante's Inferno. For those that aren't aware it's basically just a challenge pack. The neat thing about it is that it also allows individual players to create their own challenges and post them for everyone to play. Super cool idea and from the short amount of time I spent with it yesterday it works really well. LOTS to add and very easy to create large scale battles that will really test your skills.

You can vote on user challenges and upload your own to be voted on. There's also a new coop mode that allows you to play as the St. Lucia the Patron Saint of the Blind (I guess the real St. Lucia had her eyes plucked out because she wouldn't marry her betrothed). I haven't had a chance to try the coop yet, but when I played as Lucia she's a very fast character so mixing up styles with another good brawler will be oodles of fun.

Funny enough the ONLY problem I've found in the DLC is all the fault of the players. Since, like most DLC, there's new achievements the overwhelmingly large amount of user created maps were all made to get easy medals for achievements. The other maps that were more serious were 1st or 2nd time attempts at making something compelling and weren't too good. I blame ourselves as gamers for this problem and I truly look forward to the garbage maps being weeded out and seeing what the community can create. I wonder if the developers saw this coming because at least they added 50 new challenges that they made that are actually difficult.

Also, I broke 60,000 achievement points last night and have a larger penis because of it.

Coolest moment of Reach Beta so far:

For me, it was when I saved a teammate by killing the guy who was performing one of those long assassinations. I saw that animation start, zoomed in from halfway across the map with the DMR and put him down with a headshot...and my teammate survived it.


I've got lots of thoughts on the Beta, but I'll reserve judgment until I play more (all 4 maps, all gametypes) and we can talk about it in a different post, but has anyone else had a cool moment like that?