Here is the first of many game related posts that I will write for the Phoenix while I am there:
http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2009/02/04/gaming-news-roundup-week-of-feb-4.aspx
Not that anyone reads this.
p.s. Thanks for the comment, Kara. Not that you will read this either. (what a weirdo). You look like a blueberry.
04 February 2009
14 January 2009
Today
I spent about 50% of my Christmas break in California playing Little Big Planet (I was sick. Sue me. Sick levels take time). Due to certain circumstances, my 360 and PS3 were being held captive for the last two weeks in Manalapan, New Jersey. I have been playing nothing but Pikmin 2 and Mario Kart Wii since I got back to school, and I feel like I haven't done any real gaming in months.
However, it seems the planets have once again aligned themselves correctly, because today I am going to play the shit out of Gears 2. Thank God.
However, it seems the planets have once again aligned themselves correctly, because today I am going to play the shit out of Gears 2. Thank God.
06 November 2008
Little Big Time Consumer
I've been meaning to write on here a lot more, but unfortunately an adorable piece of software called Little Big Planet is taking up every minute of my free time.
It has got me by the balls. I'm losing sleep because for some reason my brain considers resting less important than tweaking this rubber band and adding that falling fire log and making this other thing move up and down so that my custom level will garner more hearts when I finally decide it's ready to be published.
The only reason I've found the time to write this now is because I have nothing due tomorrow and I haven't yet figured out how to bring my PS3 to class.
I haven't even finished all the storyline levels yet. I keep going back to the ones I've already completed to get all the items I missed the first time through. There's another reason though, and that's for inspiration.
After completing the tutorials and playing around for a few hours in creation mode, the realization that, given enough time, I could basically recreate any of and all of Media Molecule's level washed over me like a bucket full of cold, deliciously intoxicating beer. The tools given to players are not so myriad as to cause befuddlement, but they are varied enough to make almost anything possible. In other words, they are perfect.
I suddenly find myself bursting with ideas. The level I've envisioned begins on the eyelid of a gigantic, colorful mustachioed face. Adventurous Sackboys will traverse down the cheek, across the mouth, up the nose, and onto the other eye. For a novice creator like me, this is taking a lot more time to create than it should, but I already feel like I'm getting the hang of it.
I play the developers' levels for inspiration because every inch of every object, environment, creature and everything else they dreamed up is pure, fucking, stone cold genius. The most complex puzzles and objects in the game appear at the same time entirely obvious and hopelessly out of reach. I understand exactly how each object was built, but what I fail to grasp is how anybody even thought of it in the first place.
I haven't even mentioned the Sackboys and Sackgirls themselves. They are the cutest things ever. They are like newborn kittens combined with that youtube video of baby Charlie biting his brother's finger and a troupe of trick or treating 7 year olds.
And here I thought the video game mascot was dead. On the contrary, Sackboy is just that, in the purest form possible. Like Mario, the Sackpeople have little to say, but lots of personality. My roommate and I spend half of our play time giving our Sackboys angry faces and slapping each other, or just waving their arms around and hula-ing invisible hoops with the Sixaxis's motion technology (mark this as the very first time I've actually enjoyed that gimmick).
I have to give Sony credit for allowing Media Molecule to make this game. As much as I love my PS3, I just did not think they had it in them to come up with an app this killer.
My life's not completely hopeless yet. I haven't skipped any classes lately, and I still go to work. I spent four hours yesterday interviewing experts and writing a 900 word article for the Huntington News, where I hold a staff position.
Yet relief flooded over me last night when, as soon as I sent in the completed article, I grabbed my Sixaxis and jumped right into the giant face level I've been working on for the past several days. This, despite the fact that I had only slept four hours the night before, and the only thing I had eaten at that point was a donut 8 hours earlier. My body was telling me to make a sandwich and take a nap, but something else, something much harder to resist, told me that I needed to keeping creating.
It has got me by the balls. I'm losing sleep because for some reason my brain considers resting less important than tweaking this rubber band and adding that falling fire log and making this other thing move up and down so that my custom level will garner more hearts when I finally decide it's ready to be published.
The only reason I've found the time to write this now is because I have nothing due tomorrow and I haven't yet figured out how to bring my PS3 to class.
I haven't even finished all the storyline levels yet. I keep going back to the ones I've already completed to get all the items I missed the first time through. There's another reason though, and that's for inspiration.
After completing the tutorials and playing around for a few hours in creation mode, the realization that, given enough time, I could basically recreate any of and all of Media Molecule's level washed over me like a bucket full of cold, deliciously intoxicating beer. The tools given to players are not so myriad as to cause befuddlement, but they are varied enough to make almost anything possible. In other words, they are perfect.
I suddenly find myself bursting with ideas. The level I've envisioned begins on the eyelid of a gigantic, colorful mustachioed face. Adventurous Sackboys will traverse down the cheek, across the mouth, up the nose, and onto the other eye. For a novice creator like me, this is taking a lot more time to create than it should, but I already feel like I'm getting the hang of it.
I play the developers' levels for inspiration because every inch of every object, environment, creature and everything else they dreamed up is pure, fucking, stone cold genius. The most complex puzzles and objects in the game appear at the same time entirely obvious and hopelessly out of reach. I understand exactly how each object was built, but what I fail to grasp is how anybody even thought of it in the first place.
I haven't even mentioned the Sackboys and Sackgirls themselves. They are the cutest things ever. They are like newborn kittens combined with that youtube video of baby Charlie biting his brother's finger and a troupe of trick or treating 7 year olds.
And here I thought the video game mascot was dead. On the contrary, Sackboy is just that, in the purest form possible. Like Mario, the Sackpeople have little to say, but lots of personality. My roommate and I spend half of our play time giving our Sackboys angry faces and slapping each other, or just waving their arms around and hula-ing invisible hoops with the Sixaxis's motion technology (mark this as the very first time I've actually enjoyed that gimmick).
I have to give Sony credit for allowing Media Molecule to make this game. As much as I love my PS3, I just did not think they had it in them to come up with an app this killer.
My life's not completely hopeless yet. I haven't skipped any classes lately, and I still go to work. I spent four hours yesterday interviewing experts and writing a 900 word article for the Huntington News, where I hold a staff position.
Yet relief flooded over me last night when, as soon as I sent in the completed article, I grabbed my Sixaxis and jumped right into the giant face level I've been working on for the past several days. This, despite the fact that I had only slept four hours the night before, and the only thing I had eaten at that point was a donut 8 hours earlier. My body was telling me to make a sandwich and take a nap, but something else, something much harder to resist, told me that I needed to keeping creating.
27 October 2008
Enemy UAV is airborne
My roommate is addicted to CoD4. He plays it every night.
I am not addicted to CoD4. I only play it when he plays it. That's the only reason I'm playing it right now.
All I have to do is advance to General. That means that I only need 264 more points, which means that I'm playing one more game.
I think I'm only playing one more game, until fucking choklitSTARFISH starts spawn killing me with grenades from across the Bog. This guy needs to be taught that the only thing he has going for him right now is luck, and that luck rarely lasts more than one round. So I stay in the lobby when the game ends and wait for the next one to start up.
I prove my point by going 14-8 on Strike while he gets stuck at 0-1 before quitting halfway through the match. A silenced P90 nets me a helicopter and a 9 kill streak. I'm going to assume it was my perfectly executed revenge that caused him to quit, rather than the fact that it's 3 am.
My roommate (the one with the problem) went to bed an hour and a half ago. He has class tomorrow. I wouldn't have even started playing this tonight if it hadn't been for him, so why am I the one up trading kills with a guy who chose to name himself after a Limp Bizkit album?
I know what it is about this game that makes me need to keep playing it almost a year after its release. The always rewarding cycle of level up, unlock new perk / weapon, repeat, etc. is addictive like drunk WoW, and the massive number of possible perk, weapon, and attachment combinations make me want to try every strategy I can think of.
I can pretend it doesn't exist when no one else is playing it. In fact, I've gone months without putting the disc in my 360. I've got better things to do. I've got better games to play. I never finished Persona 3, and I'm still only on chapter 7 of Dead Space.
It's my roommate's fault. He should be spending his time more wisely.
I think it's time for an intervention.
20 October 2008
Dead Space
Shuffling down the gore splattered, dimly lit corridor, trusty pulse rifle in hand, I'm anxiously waiting for the next horror to pop out of a ceiling grate, latch onto and eviscerate my face.
That's when an unknown force rips off the hull door three feet away from me and I'm suddenly plunged into the vacuum of deep space, with only my magnetic boots separating me from the deep and lifeless blackness.
Well, it's not exactly lifeless. Not if you count the undead mutants hopping like grasshoppers around the outside of the ship as life, at least.
And it's definitely not black, since the salmony pink orb of the mining colony planet far below me is looming large on the horizon beyond the constantly flowing debris and asteroid field surrounding this defunct mining station, the USG Ishimura.
As the piercing hiss of my pressurized and heavily armored RIG's oxygen system kicking in gives way to the painful gasps of Isaac's labored breathing, I'm already looking for a way out. The air supply on my back counts down from 67, and I'm faced with a choice. Go back to (possible) safety the way I came, or forge onward through the vacuum and risk getting lost, only to be forced to watch myself violently suffocate and float away into space.
Of course, I know that that hull breach was supposed to happen, and that it wouldn't have unless I had enough oxygen to keep going.
But Isaac doesn't know that, which is why this is a tough choice, even for me.
I am on this orbital mining station, making a desperate bid to reroute power to the Asteroid Defense System (ADS) so the Ishimura's hull doesn't get ripped to shreds, and me with it.
Isaac, and me.
This is why Dead Space absolutely succeeds. It's not the first game to try this hard to immerse me. It's just the most successful.
There are no cut scenes. There is no HUD. The only instance in which control is taken away from me is when Isaac is being slammed repeatedly into the ground in the iron grip of a giant god damned hook-toothed ringworm monster.
Isaac's "health" is represented by the blue glowing segments on the spine of his RIG suit. The ammo count appears on the display of each weapon as Isaac readies it. Maps, inventory and video logs are all accessed via a holographic screen that appears in front and to the right of Isaac's face, and as the screen zooms in slightly so I can see as well, the game remains live.
The only thing that detracts from this immersion is the fact that I'm aware of how perfect it is. And my roommate listening to music on the couch behind me.
That was the first thing I noticed as the tiny USG Kellion docked in the Ishimura's ruined hull, and my team and I disembarked to investigate the station's mysterious communications blackout. The second thing I noticed was the graphics.
The space station looks like a space station, the flamethrower looks like a flamethrower, and the three-armed projectile-firing freak baby bastards look like.. well, yeah.
Particles of dust float this way and that in the dim orange fluorescent light made to flicker by the slowly revolving fan between Isaac and the bulb. It's beautiful, but after all, isn't that what we've come to expect by now?
The third thing I noticed, after they had made their predictable ("Isaac, you go over there and check out that control console while the rest of us stay over here!"), but effective, entrance, was the creatures themselves.
It takes a few close up encounters for you to realize that these abominations did, in fact, used to be human. They are not typical zombies. They're scarier and more revolting, if a lot less subtle, than RE4's Ganados. They're nimbler, more mobile, more varied, and they have too many limbs that end in hooked spikes.
A third of the way through, I can say with confidence that I am not yet sick of systematically hacking their limbs off with my gravity saw and then torching their bodies to make sure they're dead.
After my momentary lapse into reality I decide to head onward and upward, despite my rapidly depleting air supply. After passing up the first unlocked door, based purely on instinct, I open the larger one at the end of the hall. As it shuts behind me, the Ishimura automatically injects a deliciously breathable atmosphere into the newly sealed room. The pressure is visibly released from my RIG with a satisfying hiss of something resembling steam.
Only then do I notice the two black and shining zombie freaks standing in front of me.
Dead Space does a great job of making me feel as panicky about two or three enemies as RE4 made me feel about ten. Maybe that's because they're a whole lot less predictable. A "necromorph" can be slowly strutting side-to-side, balls out, peacock style, webbed limbs in the air in a gaudy display, only to be rushing toward you a split second later like a methed-up linebacker with an insatiable hunger for intestines.
Or maybe it will simply continue its mating dance of death for a little bit longer, distracting you long enough for the one behind you to get you by the throat.
Dead Space makes me wish Metroid Prime was scarier. And had better graphics. The I-shouldn't-be-here-feeling you got when you were stepping over corpses as Samus Aran on the GFS Valhalla in number three is here in spades, except it's a lot more deliberate.
RE5 is going to have to seriously deliver if it wants to topple this gargantuan accomplishment and maintain the series' place as the top tits on the survival horror scene.
Yeah right. RE5 will sell no matter what. (Kidding- knowing Capcom it will be fantastic.)
Back on the planet-cracker Ishimura, I use my stasis beam to slow down the two necromorphs in front of me, switching the plasma cutter into horizontal mode so I can deftly remove their vertically oriented attacking arms.
As they fall to the ground in slow motion and I use the weight of my magnetic boots to messily amputate their remaining limbs, just in case they decide to get back up (which they frequently do), I remember to keep looking over my shoulder.
That's when an unknown force rips off the hull door three feet away from me and I'm suddenly plunged into the vacuum of deep space, with only my magnetic boots separating me from the deep and lifeless blackness.
Well, it's not exactly lifeless. Not if you count the undead mutants hopping like grasshoppers around the outside of the ship as life, at least.
And it's definitely not black, since the salmony pink orb of the mining colony planet far below me is looming large on the horizon beyond the constantly flowing debris and asteroid field surrounding this defunct mining station, the USG Ishimura.
As the piercing hiss of my pressurized and heavily armored RIG's oxygen system kicking in gives way to the painful gasps of Isaac's labored breathing, I'm already looking for a way out. The air supply on my back counts down from 67, and I'm faced with a choice. Go back to (possible) safety the way I came, or forge onward through the vacuum and risk getting lost, only to be forced to watch myself violently suffocate and float away into space.
Of course, I know that that hull breach was supposed to happen, and that it wouldn't have unless I had enough oxygen to keep going.
But Isaac doesn't know that, which is why this is a tough choice, even for me.
I am on this orbital mining station, making a desperate bid to reroute power to the Asteroid Defense System (ADS) so the Ishimura's hull doesn't get ripped to shreds, and me with it.
Isaac, and me.
This is why Dead Space absolutely succeeds. It's not the first game to try this hard to immerse me. It's just the most successful.
There are no cut scenes. There is no HUD. The only instance in which control is taken away from me is when Isaac is being slammed repeatedly into the ground in the iron grip of a giant god damned hook-toothed ringworm monster.
Isaac's "health" is represented by the blue glowing segments on the spine of his RIG suit. The ammo count appears on the display of each weapon as Isaac readies it. Maps, inventory and video logs are all accessed via a holographic screen that appears in front and to the right of Isaac's face, and as the screen zooms in slightly so I can see as well, the game remains live.
The only thing that detracts from this immersion is the fact that I'm aware of how perfect it is. And my roommate listening to music on the couch behind me.
That was the first thing I noticed as the tiny USG Kellion docked in the Ishimura's ruined hull, and my team and I disembarked to investigate the station's mysterious communications blackout. The second thing I noticed was the graphics.
The space station looks like a space station, the flamethrower looks like a flamethrower, and the three-armed projectile-firing freak baby bastards look like.. well, yeah.
Particles of dust float this way and that in the dim orange fluorescent light made to flicker by the slowly revolving fan between Isaac and the bulb. It's beautiful, but after all, isn't that what we've come to expect by now?
The third thing I noticed, after they had made their predictable ("Isaac, you go over there and check out that control console while the rest of us stay over here!"), but effective, entrance, was the creatures themselves.
It takes a few close up encounters for you to realize that these abominations did, in fact, used to be human. They are not typical zombies. They're scarier and more revolting, if a lot less subtle, than RE4's Ganados. They're nimbler, more mobile, more varied, and they have too many limbs that end in hooked spikes.
A third of the way through, I can say with confidence that I am not yet sick of systematically hacking their limbs off with my gravity saw and then torching their bodies to make sure they're dead.
After my momentary lapse into reality I decide to head onward and upward, despite my rapidly depleting air supply. After passing up the first unlocked door, based purely on instinct, I open the larger one at the end of the hall. As it shuts behind me, the Ishimura automatically injects a deliciously breathable atmosphere into the newly sealed room. The pressure is visibly released from my RIG with a satisfying hiss of something resembling steam.
Only then do I notice the two black and shining zombie freaks standing in front of me.
Dead Space does a great job of making me feel as panicky about two or three enemies as RE4 made me feel about ten. Maybe that's because they're a whole lot less predictable. A "necromorph" can be slowly strutting side-to-side, balls out, peacock style, webbed limbs in the air in a gaudy display, only to be rushing toward you a split second later like a methed-up linebacker with an insatiable hunger for intestines.
Or maybe it will simply continue its mating dance of death for a little bit longer, distracting you long enough for the one behind you to get you by the throat.
Dead Space makes me wish Metroid Prime was scarier. And had better graphics. The I-shouldn't-be-here-feeling you got when you were stepping over corpses as Samus Aran on the GFS Valhalla in number three is here in spades, except it's a lot more deliberate.
RE5 is going to have to seriously deliver if it wants to topple this gargantuan accomplishment and maintain the series' place as the top tits on the survival horror scene.
Yeah right. RE5 will sell no matter what. (Kidding- knowing Capcom it will be fantastic.)
Back on the planet-cracker Ishimura, I use my stasis beam to slow down the two necromorphs in front of me, switching the plasma cutter into horizontal mode so I can deftly remove their vertically oriented attacking arms.
As they fall to the ground in slow motion and I use the weight of my magnetic boots to messily amputate their remaining limbs, just in case they decide to get back up (which they frequently do), I remember to keep looking over my shoulder.
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