My Gaming

• 27Nov 07

  Going Against the Grain (Part 1)

  I have played through most of the big games of the year and have found myself in a perplexing situation as there are 3 major game releases this year that I have felt like have not lived up to the critical aclaim that the games have gotten so far. I have finished each of the games to about the full level that I am willing to go or have finished the games completely so I am coming at it from the most informed perspective that I feel like I can.

  Am I wrong for finding these so called gems not quite up to par with the hype that they are receiving or am I possibly finding myself jaded by those games that I do find to be possibly superior in their perspective fields? Should I not enjoy these games that are supposedly redefining the next generation and have been a source of good times and cheer for most gamers?

  Not only do I find myself wondering about those games that I do not attain that much pleasure from as do others, but I have started to doubt myself with those games that I do find myself enjoying that people seem to pass and those games that I am indefferent about. When I play games it all comes down to pleasure for me, did I find it a pleasure or pain to play this game through to the end.

  Missing the Pleasure

  Bioshock (x360)

  I do find that this game does give a rather immersive atmosphere in which I am stuck there are certain parts of the game that I find disconcerting and actually detract from the potential enjoyment. I experienced a rather large amount of texture pop-ins in my play time. Constantly fallen big daddies and certain parts of environments would fail keep me entwined with the otherwise rich atmosphere. Another pet peeve of mine is the camera. While it provided a challenge in order to take pictures of enemies while they were attacking you and you did benefit from said pictures. If I was getting attacked by crazy people bent on killing me I for one would not be taking pictures but attempting to fight for my life, it just seemed too out of place. The plasmids, which were supposed to be a card up their sleeve for the game, seemed useless to me. I could complete practically any task, which I often did, without the use of plasmids. When I forced myself to incorporate my plasmids more into my regime I felt encumbered by them and always seemed to resort to using my shotgun or crossbow to deal out the damage. The combat aspect felt as generic as any other first person shooter and did little but detract from my overall experience.

  Orange Box (x360)

  While their are some redeeming qualities within the whole package, I feel a lack of the "wow" factor that everyone else seemed to experience. The two most redeeming qualities within this nice little myriad of gaming are the overall value of getting 5 games in 1 and Portal in and of itself. I enjoyed the small slice that Portal gave me, but should 1 of 5 parts be worthy of my overall adoration of a title? When looking at Half Life 2 as a whole package, including Episode 1 & 2, I felt that there were too many experiences that felt out of balance that kept me from finding my gaming bliss. The pacing of Half Life 2 felt totally broken as an overall experience. I had too many stretches where I felt like I was just grinding through and found too little moments that kept my pulse throbbing and got my heart beating faster. I can only point to 1 expereince that got my blood rushing and gave me that gaming "high". Team Fortress 2 tries to provide a certain balancing and squad experience that is second to none, but in the end it fails to provide me with that euphoria. Lag issues and team balancing constantly kept me frustrated with what could have been a great experience. I tried to look back at the game from an unbiased opinion and not comparing it to other games but the very nature of what there were doing kept me comparing Half Life 2, to other first person shooters and TF 2 to other multiplayer experiences.

  Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

  Where to begin with this one? While I acknowledge that Nintendo may be trying to appeal to a larger crowd with their console, I felt like they did a disservice to their audience. While applaud Nintendo for their liberal use of different atmospheres, their mind bending use of gravity in various experiences, and their appropriate use of motion capabilities I can't help but feel as though previous Mario titles have set the bar too high. I felt as though the game is far too easy for the overall aspect and the only challenging parts of the game are due to poor camera angles. Mario 64 set the precedent for finding multiple stars in a single cohesive playiing field, but with SMG they decided to give you that but hold your hand to get you those stars. You aren't given an open field to find the stars as a challenge, but instead they define that path for you and walk you through it step by step. The Mario capabilities of the past are back with a few new additions which fail to live up to those of the past. The new capabilites are either time based, or are just not fun to use and feel tacked on. The older hats have been reworked to either making them frustrating to use, ie Fire Flower Mario, or are barely used at all, ie Flying Mario.

  While I did find all of these titles enjoyable to a certain degree, I did not feel a sense of astonishment and wonder that I was expecting from so many people telling me they have. While my complaints are few and far in between in the overall experience of what are vast titles, in my hierarchy of pleasure very little was found. These games could have been the Superb games that many people have found them, but instead found them to be Good. I am not completely writing off these games from my library but instead filing them under a different category but not the upper shelf.

  Next time I will discuss those games I found great pleasure in that either found small amount of critical acclaim or those that were written up as lukewarm experiences.

  • Posted Nov 27, 2007 8:06 am PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 11Jun 07

  Time for a Return

  Well, it has taken me about another 2 months, but this time I plan on coming back at least a little bit more regular. I will try and post about 1 a week at the least if not more often, and I will make sure to not limit it to video games. Movies will also start to play a big role in my posts.

  So I pretty much have given up on Gears of War. I had a lot of fun while I was playing it, but at the end it seemed more like work to me than anything else. I may pop it back in from time to time in order to get my multiplayer mix, but I definitely want to branch out and play a lot more different games. There are a lot of games that I would like to try, but Blockbuster never really has them and Gamefly doesn't really seem economical considering it will take a long time for shipping. Wait, I thought I remember hearing something about an east coast depot opening up so I will have to do some more research.

  I currently have Condemned and I am going to start playing that today. A lot of people really seemed to enjoy it, so I figured what the heck why not give it a try. I will try and start writing reviews again once this game is over, but I can't guarantee anything.

  • Posted Jun 11, 2007 5:41 am PT
  • Category: General
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• 25Apr 07

  Long Time No See

  So, it has been a ridiculously long time since I did a blog post, but well nothing big has changed. Right now I am trying to kill time until I am able to go to my next class and get it over. I have only 3 more achievements to get in Gears of War and I will have all of them. The Hammer I will get eventually, but the Seriously... will take a long time, if I ever get it.
  • Posted Apr 25, 2007 2:20 pm PT
  • Category: Other
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