Mordred19's Blog

Title	Score
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising	1.0
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves	1.0
inFamous	1.0
Halo 3: ODST	1.0
Batman: Arkham Asylum	1.0
Velvet Assassin	1.0
Lumines Supernova	1.0
Call of Duty: World at War	1.0
Halo Wars	1.0
Resident Evil 5	1.0

2Nov 09

Gaming Woes, Killzone, Battlefield: Bad Company, and British Imperialism

I go onto Killzone 2's website, and I often see some pretty funky readings on the game counters: 783 players logged in, 0 players logged in, 0 games in progress. Eh, so they have issues, not just a drop in community population.

It's a huge shame the online has lost momentum. I have a blast with this game most of the time, even though I've never used voice chat on it. I'm still able to find games, as long as I don't pick any specific maps or any specific gametypes on the list. No one wants to play just the DLC maps apparently.

The Killzone 2 DLC has been good. They are intricate maps that are also large and they even trophies with their DLC as incentives to play. Now they have every right to charge for these maps, but I'd like to see some console developers see if giving the maps away boosts their communities. But there's probably a bigger reason for the drop.

Looking back, it now seems that locking away the different classes and requiring new players to level up for them was just an arbitrary restriction, and limited the accessibility. Players could unlock SMGs, shotguns, and then LMGs at first, but they'd be running into air drones, turrets, C4, and invisible snipers without being able to play as them. Sure, sniping isn't easy in this game, the snipers perform very specialized roles, but the new players really should have had the opportunity to use the sniper rifle and cloak right from the beginning, see what that is like, and then choose how they want to play.

Looking into the bright and gritty future, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is coming out in March of next year. That's much too long. The destruction truly makes the difference between it and other games. It looks like the movement and shooting is much smoother in 2, so it's the best of both worlds, almost. Big levels, big destruction, and the fundamental shooting is satisfying and not awkward.

I do have some concerns about the game however. At first I was worried they were simplifiying the game by merging classes together so there were only 4. It looks like that is just the smallest part of the assymetry present in the game, with primary and secondary weapons being changable, as well as equipment. But will the SMG users be able to become unstoppable CQB gods with the motion tracker? How is that going to be balanced? Assault rifles can now have scopes attached. That is totally awesome, but is that going to overstep the role of sniper too much? Everyone can have the tracer dart gun as a sidearm, what will that mean for the tanks? Will the confirmed kill-cam kill the strategy of stealth? So many questions.

The info section for the game says it will have the characters from BC1 but with a "more mature story". Wait, what? What needs to be mature? The un-seriousness was a fresh sty/e. I don't want some super-serious war story, there is plenty of that in other shooters, and not all of it actually works.

I have a huge research paper to turn in at the end of the semester. The subject I chose was the poem "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling. It's a poem with pretty ambiguous wording: was it an affirmation of imperialism and racism, or was it satirical, quietly making fun of the concept in plain sight?

15 sources required. 5 of them peer-reviewed journal articles. 5 weeks estimated time for studying. I also need to use that dang library, I mean I did take a course on how to use it. I need to pack up the games, and focus.

So the shall have to go away while I work, and some may have to go away for good, like Infamous. Infamous is an okay game. Fun, but the city is pretty repetitive and the moral choice system annoys me. I may trade it in with Operation Flashpoint 2 in exchange for Assassin's Creed 2 or maybe L4D2. Still not sure about L4D2 though. That game will be a quality product as usual from Valve, but it just doesn't convince me that it's 60 dollars of quality following a 1 year old game.

Posted Nov 2, 2009 11:01 pm PT
Category: N/A
0 Comments

18Oct 09

Thoughts

-Assassin's Creed 2 (that itch for some stealth has returned, but will AC2 really raise me into the heavens of next-gen glory like AC1 was supposed to? who knows, but at least it won't be hard to surpass 1 at least a bit)

-Borderlands

-Demon's Souls

-Forza 3

-Left 4 Dead 2

-Brutal Legend (again, for myself)

-Infamous (old, but want to add to collection, maybe)

-420 dollars

I bought the new Operation Flashpoint last week, and played the first mission. It was very different for me. Interesting, very slow paced, sometimes boring, sometimes tense. I stopped playing after the first day. I pretty much got it on impulse, not sure if I should stick with it. Sometime I'm going to have to give the online coop a try to see if that makes it a better experience.

Finished Uncharted 2 on Thursday, and have resisted the urge to start a new game, so far. I want to reflect on the first-time experience. It may not have been the most epic story, but it was a very good one. I laughed quite a few times, especially during the little in-game exchanges of dialgoue. The cutscenes, my god, they are the new standard for detail in games, period. Shooting was super-smooth, and the stealth-bits were a great way to spice up the firefights.

I read two interesting things on Eurogamer, a tech analysis of ODST, and a retrospective on Bushido Blade. Please you must all read them, for the good of gaming-kind.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-odst-tech-analysis-article

It always seemed to me that complaints about Halo 3 and ODST's graphics were simply unreasonable. "What do you want?" was always on my mind, and this article pretty much sums up my thoughts, except for all the technical babble which I don't understand.

Class-based enemies make Halo interesting, simple fact. Halo is capable of rendering large enviorments with lots of said-class-based enemies, even simpler fact. Halo has vehicles and ragdoll physics, very simple fact. Oh but noooo, it should have looked like Killzone 2, with the tight corridoors and no vehicles!

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/retrospective-bushido-blade-article

When I thought hack-and-slash games, even Ninja Gaiden, were a little too ridiculous with the trivialization of getting cut across the chest with a blade, I didn't know a game already existed as an answer to that. A modern incarnation of this would be amazing.

As a matter of fact, before the new Prince of American-Accent-Persia came out, hearing that the combat was now all about very focused one-on-one fights made me imagine deep combat mechanics involving striking and blocking different hit zones and making every strike significant. That direction pretty much lends itself to something deeper like that, don't you think? But, it turns out the only thing PoP had worth playing was the platforming. I hate to bring up something old like that, but hey, when I have something that belongs on my "Stupidest Things Ever" list, it's pretty much a moral imperitive to always remember them. The more we remember these mistakes, the quicker we can make sure they don't happen again.

Posted Oct 18, 2009 12:14 am PT
Category: N/A
3 Comments

13Oct 09

Uncharted 2

Have you ever seen graphics... that made your face go numb while you stare slack-jawed at the textures, particle effects, animations, depth-of-field, motion blur, and lighting?

Uncharted 2's third level made me feel that way. The mansion enviorment that Uncharted 2 begins with, or even the snowy train prologue, pale in comparison to the jungle you enter an hour later.

Posted Oct 13, 2009 1:09 am PT
Category: N/A
2 Comments

3Oct 09

Games that dazzle....

... and then, stop... dazzling.

These aren't just games where you are blown away at first and then the buzz wears off before you finish. These are games where the immersion and sense of newness is consitant till the finale, and upon going back to replay it, you find yourself just going "meh".

GTA4 doesn't count because I got bored with the main story 3/4 of the way into it.

The true one-shot games, that go from full-throttle-awesome to snooze-fest right after:

COD4, Resident Evil 5, Dead Space, Batman: Arkham Asylum

what about you?

Posted Oct 3, 2009 12:08 am PT
Category: N/A
0 Comments

26Sep 09

Reach

I just had a thought about Halo: Reach. While Bungie may be putting the Halo 3 engine to rest, there's nothing stopping them from using a storytelling structure like ODST's flashbacks for the single player campaign. That was really a great move for that game, and for a story that covers the destruction of the human race's second-most well-defended planet, it could work even better. Play as a weak little marine on the surface, getting wupped by Wraiths, then play as a MAC gun operator, shooting down approaching Covenent ships (just kidding. Bungie never did those forced turret-section shooting galleries so many other FPSs insist on pushing on us )

But there is something we can be sure about: The Elites will be our enemies again. So those who hated the brutes can now rejoice. (what was wrong with the brutes? I mean, I liked fighting the Elites, but the brutes were perfectly adequate replacements I think)

Posted Sep 26, 2009 1:33 am PT
Category: N/A
2 Comments

16Sep 09

Another Game of Wutizzit: ODST

Remember that game from the Bozo the Clown show? What Iz It? (or What Izzit, or... whatever, it was a long time ago)

Well let's take a look at that interesting product being released next week: Halo 3: ODST

Is it an expansion? Is it a full game? Those are questions I've seen a lot lately, but my only answer is another question: why must those things be considered mutually exclusive?

The engine ODST uses is a slightly modified Halo 3 engine, so what consumers end up with is the visuals of Halo 3 but in a much larger urban setting. But what you interact with, a large part, came from Halo 3. Brutes, brute armor, Hunters, grunts, grunt sound effects, animations, etc.

Now of course they did put original assets into it. Level design, voice acting, and a new musical score. Enough to create a campaign-experience while mostly eliminating the engine costs that Halo 3 had.

So is a game containing the "guts" of the previous while wearing a new face, an expansion? I think so, and I don't think that is a negative. But I see some posters who are adamantly against the idea of calling it an expansion. Some point out the price, 60 USD.

Well I find that I can't ignore this small little detail of the mulitplayer bundled with the basic ODST SKU. The Halo 3 multiplayer, that big popular thing that grew and got updated and supported for 2 years now. Is that suddenly being released for free, as well as the 3 new maps alongside the (still charged-for) Legendary map pack and Mythic map pack 1?

We do know that Halo 3 itself is not free at this present time. However it may have depreciated after 2 years, one is still charged for it if they want it. I can't break out a measuring stick and directly judged the exact value of each in the ODST bundle. I can only look at the context surrounding them. What it points to is that ODST, while undoubtedly a well-made campaign (and MP experience with Firefight), the game reaches 60 USD in price because of the extra content packaged with it, that we know Microsoft does not give away for free.

So in the case of Halo fans who purchased that content before, we run into the real issue, how inflexible this distribution model is for ODST. When you look at Xbox Live's download service, allowing you to purchase full titles like Mass Effect and Battlefield: Bad Company, you wonder why the actual ODST, the campaign and Firefight (and the Mythic pack 2 for that matter) aren't available for download on the launch day. With that option, early buyers of the older content, which we can be sure there are many, only have to pay for what they want and can use, and not at an inflated price.

Note: I just realized I may have not correctly expressed my point. I need to get some sleep before I try to edit this.

Posted Sep 16, 2009 1:00 am PT
Category: N/A
1 Comment

6Sep 09

Tim Burton

I turned on the TV and watched for the first time in months. There was nothing on of course, so I settled on Batman Returns in Spanish. I watched a little bit, and Micheal Keaton looked pretty awkward in that batsuit as it turned into a hang glider when the camera had cut away. I think that was when I saw the Burton touches in it, and didn't see it from the perspective of a Batman movie. The music, the visual design, that was all his, or Danny Elfman's to be technical. The whole thing is just pretty comical today, the crowd producing vegetables to throw at Danny Devito for instance, I had to laugh.

But it reminded me of what I'd been trying to remember to look forward to this month. No, not ODST, but 9, the movie. First time I saw the advertisment stills for it, I really thought someone had leaked screenshots from the completed Epic Micky game. Watching the attached trailer, it looked just as dark and strange as the former could be. It's a Tim Burton movie, so that's one of my incentives, and the music is very appealing, what I've heard, and that is also Elfman's work. I am worried that it might be too action heavy, but that could just be from misleading marketing that puts focus on the sack-people jumping around with improvised melee weapons, fighting robots in a way that makes it look like Lord of the rings.

Posted Sep 6, 2009 9:59 pm PT
Category: N/A
1 Comment

27Aug 09

You're Making Me Blush, Doc!

I think I may be addicted to something, Arkham Asylum that is. It's not just the satisfying combat or the sweet sneaking sequences, but also the riddle-solving and storyline.

I suppose the combat is indeed like Assassin's Creed, but this is actually fun. It's tight and responsive and I really feel like Batman as I break wrists and arms and throw batarangs to down bad guys. I can't believe what a return that I am getting from mechanics that are so incredibly simple. I've nearly masterd it and it's such a rush to stun two gun-wielding baddies in a group with a double batarang attack, drop down from directly above, and then dish out 360 degrees of pain on the 4 leftover enemies with flawless timing.

I've laughed quite a few times, and shuddered as well from the game's dialogue. Mr. Zasz's or the Scarecrow's audio tapes, or the Joker's comments to his henchmen over the PA system.

"I'm just sitting here watching cartoons. If any of you guys would like to come over here and join me, let yourselves in. Oh but don't lookup when you walk through the door, you'll spoil the surprise, and my experiment."

I had to put the controller down for a minute right then.

I really really like what I've seen from the scarecrow encounters. Without going into detail, it's trippy and creative and I appreciate that kind of stuff in games, especially the execution in this game.

There have been quite a few epic moments that make me feel extremely satisfied to be playing this, I can't wait to see what else there is ahead.

EDIT: Ah, finally beat the game. Oh boy, were those some satisfying fistfights, I really showed those goons what they were really laughing at!

The final enemy however, was dumb from a gameplay standpoint and from a story standpoint. Maybe story is the wrong word, but it was just too comic-booky even for this superhero game, and it just didn't fit the tone as well as something more subtle and less "I'm-a-3-stage-boss-fight-focusing-on-brute-force". Considering the extremely trippy disturbing events courtesy of the Scarecrow, and the creepy Joker-TV-head-mannequins in the Visitor Center of Arkham, something more creative and cerebral, making better use of the hero's and villian's defining qualities would have been welcome.

EDIT EDIT: You know, I could extend this to the rest of the main villian fights, with the exception of Scarecrow. They are simply too simple, repetitive, or both. They feel way to conventional and forgettable. Considering the mechanics that work so well for the rest of the game, it's a shame they get left out for these "epic" encounters.

Although, that WAS the most badass use of explosive gel I'd ever seen, so it's not all bad.

Therefore, I award this game a nice score of 1 out of 10, just like everything else. Because games aren't math problems.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Poison Ivy was HOT

Posted Aug 27, 2009 10:11 pm PT
Category: N/A
2 Comments

11Jul 09

Saw Bruno

Couldn't stop laughing.

Posted Jul 11, 2009 10:14 pm PT
Category: N/A
3 Comments

24Jun 09

Not sure why I'm writing this

Hot day at work today, not as bad as yesterday and the day before though, which were in the high nineties. still hot and humid, made worse by that power washer being used in tight spaces. with all the dust and grime out here, it's a smelly sauna.

I'm sweating bullets out here on the fairgrounds, in the shade, sweeping water out of here with a squigee. but it actually feels good to sweat, to be moving around, even though I think little of the work of cleaning up a restaruant that's out of action for ten months every year. I'm now active for much of the week, and it's a nice change after those two sedentary school semesters. there was that soreness that I remember that comes with activity after so much inactivity. now that has passed, and I'm into work and effort again. I feel like I could keep going. if I try, I might be able to kick this fat of mine for good.

I doubt this work is good on Rodney, my co-worker, however. He's fifty six years old, but I would have guessed at least 66, from his several prominantly missing teeth and extremely weathered features. a vietnam veteran, he's definetly not against using the "G" word when referring to people of asian descent. I definetly don't feel like there's much to chat about between us during the shift.

2 o'clock, time to go to the dentist for that appointment. ditch the grease stained clothes, take a shower, replace them with clean stuff, then head out across town to the davidson family dentistry. the girl at the counter greets me by name, though I don't remember hers after six months.

sit in the chair, bite down on the x-ray tabs, get hit with elementry particles that bombard my teeth in less time it takes for me to comprehend, and I get the good news, no problems. then comes the metal probe that shows my flabby wimp gums have not been buffed up with properly scheduled flossing. I don't know why i stopped doing it so regularly over the winter. maybe this time I'll keep it up until the next appointment, maybe.

4 o'clock on my way out with sore gums and polished teeth. I've got time to stop at the mall. I arrive at the mall with no car accidents thankfully, despite my distraction at trying to spot that baugel restaruant on my way down the street. go to gamestop, look at the 360 isle like a slow person, not seeing what I want. they do have a used Lost Odyssey (finally spelled it right) for 27. but i really want to play Red faction. I don't want to spend 90 today. pick up a quesadilla on the way out with the game, get home, sit down, pop in the game, blow up a few things in the time I have.

5:30, time to head out to grandma's house for dinner. just me alone visiting her after a few weeks. the meal is salmon patties and fried potatoes. the patties are dry. i don't mention it, but I do take some mayo out as a substitute for tarter sauce. I hope that doesn't insult her cooking.

why does grandma have to have the TV up so loud at the table? typical I suppose for people over 80 I think. then after watching the feature on that woman who performed chemotherapy on herself in antartica who finally died of her cancer, grandma brings up how her mother died of breast cancer. this is new, i think to myself, while I respectfully stay silent. she tells me it gets her upset to talk about it, and she goes on, and she does get upset. to see her tear up makes me want to say something but i had absolutely nothing to say. her mother had to go to the hospital and get diagnosed which was the first time she had been in a hospital in 40 years. she had to have her breasts removed one at a time over two days, which i can imagine was the most unpleastent thing imaginable. then she tells me how her father died while she was there in the hospital, under a transparant oxygen tent for his lung cancer. he went into a seizure right there when she saw him, and he died before she could call her sisters to come over.

I wonder why she has told me this all at once. then on the news, still with the volume up loud, there is a story, about a man who lost his fiance-to-be to some freak wave or shore current that I've never heard before. they're walking on the sand, water to their knees, he turns to propose to her, and she's gone, swept away as the water suddenly turns 180 degrees toward the open ocean.

how perfect. another subject to apply my questions of fairness in life. it boggles my mind however. it almost sounds like something you would make up.

but i also want to ask, "did that actually happen?". it's like this subject is so terrible to think about that it brings up some idea of solipsism about life and death in my mind. can self-aware individuals really come to such an end? one is going along as normal, and then everything is turned upside down then there is just nothing? if perception remains in some afterlife, do they care?

there's a lot more I wanted to write, some more details I feel compelled to write down. but right now I'm going to play some red faction.

Posted Jun 24, 2009 6:03 pm PT
Category: N/A
1 Comment

13Jun 09

MGS4 Retrospective

the countdown to the countdown to the arrival of the retrospective begins in:

250 hours

Posted Jun 13, 2009 8:02 pm PT
Category: N/A
17 Comments

29May 09

Finished Assassin's Creed

It's too bad that the second half of the game felt like work to me. There are a lot of things in the game that I'd like to refer to with the offensive "R" word pertaining to mental deficiency. As a stealth game, it fails. I'm thinking that the scale of the game probably should have been pulled back so they could focus on the AI and mission variety. I could have gone without the Kingdom hub world completely, as stealth was pointless when you could only be inconspicuous if you were walking as slow as possible in front of the guards that were positioned ever 20 meters in open terrain.

The last third of the game was when the story became truly interesting, suggesting ancient treasures with magical properties which suddenly revealed itself to be something entirely secular instead. The story had become dissapointly boring with the pondering way the details were handed out to you, namely from the assassination targets.

That is another thing, the assassination structure, even after the beurau-investigations-beurau-again part, didn't allow for much freedom or creativity. You watch an unskippable cutscene, you kill the target(usually while spotted), then you watch another very ham-handed exchange between you and him. The writing just beats you over the head with its messages about ambiguity and how "oh I'm not bad, this is for the greater good, blah blah". I guess I'm just outside of that demographic that doesn't have time for subtlety.

The ending reached its climax of intrigue while hitting the low of gameplay. Yahtzee said the amount of enemies thrown at you made Space Invaders look conservative, and he was not joking in the slightest. There were so many shoulder-to-shoulder foes surrouding me, that at one point, I couldn't even see individual attacks coming at me, because of all the torsos and arms blocking the view. Then I had to run, then I had to fight some more, then I had to run a bit, then fight in some repetitive instant-death fight sequence involving some unwelcome trial and error. Then I got the ending cutscene, which of course, decided not just to suggest a continuation, but to demand one.

Is it really ever necessary to stamp onto the end of the disc "THERE HAS TO BE A SEQUEL" with a billboard-sized branding iron? I killed 9 nine guys who all repeated basically the same message, only to have something new be implied at the end and that's when the gameplay ends?

And while this game was far from great, only hitting "good" because of the thrilling free-running aspects, I'm pretty interested in the sequel. Maybe its because it's so reasonable to assume Ubisoft can make a big improvement over something that so much room for improvement.

Posted May 29, 2009 7:58 pm PT
Category: N/A
0 Comments

26Apr 09

Valkyria Chronicles

I feel bad for not playing this game sooner. Had this since my birthday in January, and I only started it this morning. I was pretty intrigued by the tactical options just from the third mission where you hold off the enemy tank. Now that I just got access to building up a squad, leveling up classes, and upgrading weapons, I feel like I've tripped into the deep end of the swimming pool unexpectedly.

The story I've heard good things about. I've studied a lot of WW2 as a hobby, and it's really interesting seeing a psuedo-WW2 played out with anime characters. The setting and art sty/e remind me of Fullmetal Alchemist, minus the alchemy. I hope there's more intrigue with the intelligence part of the war, with traitors and spies and defections and politics, but I really have no idea what's coming up next.

Posted Apr 26, 2009 9:37 pm PT
Category: N/A
1 Comment

7Apr 09

Short story rough draft.

Something I wrote up all at once last night. Very rough, needs work, felt like sharing anyway:

Navarro pulled off his heavy jacket and threw it onto the couch. The heat outside was blistering but the jacket made for an image he liked, and the air conditioning couldn't cool him off unless he took off some layers first. He surveyed the library he was standing in. He merely looked, neither approving nor disaproving. This wing was just a part of the large reminder that he and his comrades were standing in, the reminder that one of their sympathizers was a very wealthy individual, and that made him very useful.

This executive's little castle might not have seemed to be the best place to have their final meeting before the plan went into effect. But things were working out in ways they wouldn't have dreamed of five years ago. Ceaser Diego was an extremely careful man, able to keep his nose spotless and make himself in fact look like he was dirty with the other side, that of the government, the rest of the pigs. Diego defied Navarro's expectations of him as a petty conniving pencil pusher with no guts. Was it confidence that made him okay the meeting here? In any case, he wasn't nervous about the arrival of navarro's partners. The man may have been old, but he wasn't intimidated whatsoever by these fighters, men that were called brutal, to Navarro's knowledge. He preferred the term "hard" himself. They carried hard calibers, every one of them.

While secrecy may have been garanteed, they weren't flaunting their arrival, nor was diego worried, because he didn't bother reminding them or wringing his hands over this, again, against navarro's expectations. They drove cars, not trucks, and nearly filled his considerable driveway, which sat directly in front of his considerable house, lined with a considerable number of carefully planted palm trees. They weren't being watched, Diego had made sure that not a single clue led back to him, and the government couldn't watch everyone, so the inconsipcuous got to keep their privacy.

They were all down in the basement now, that too a considerably sized one. Diego was no doubt showing off the hardware he had aquired as he said he would. It also served as an excellent command center, with the large television being the centerpeice of diego's personal office, his second to be exact. His first, and more stereotypical office was just in the next room from where navarro was standing right now. He caught a glimpse of it through the open doorway while walking into the study. Large laquered oak table, green carpet, large windows behind that revealing the marble balcony overlooking the back lawn, complete with the fountain, of course.

Navarro didn't feel like sitting. He was too busy to sit, thinking about everything going on, what was going to happen tomorrow. His friends, downstairs, unloading those new guns, paid for with Diego's magical manipulation of bank accounts. He could see their matte black suppressors standing dominantly on the ends of steel barrels sheathed in black and grey composite material, their magazines of ammo almost transparent, making them seem alien and far in advance of their own relatively low tech guns. But this wasn't like they were being tooled up from this meeting alone, no. this was really a top-off to their already considerable arsenal. The body armor that would no doubt be in the boxes underneath the new guns, along with the helmets, would turn them into the most dangerous shock troops imaginable for this nation. With these tools, they would overwhelm the central chambers of the sovereign's office, along with the main chamber of the parliament, with all the members inside.

Navarro allowed himelf to smile with satisfaction, at the fact that they had all trained for this action, taken every detail into account, made sure the timing would be perfect. The council would be taken, all those helpless politicians, their security useless, and the rest of the army would bow down in submission, unable to deal with this checkmate of such magnitude and precision.

He took out his own gun from the armpit holster and held it loosely in his hand. He would not be using that gun on that day. Ideally, bloodshed would be minimal, and there would be no executions of any person, enemy or friend. But he knew it was only right that it be clean and in as perfect condition as possible for the historic occasion. Pressing the button on the side, he removed the magazine, pulled the slide and took out the round in the chamber, and set them on the table at the end of the couch. He took out the rag in his back pocket and took the weapon apart. Laying out the parts on the table, he was interrupted by a call on his cell phone. Diego. Reminding him to be right in his office so they could talk, without being delayed if navarro was taking a drink from diego's not-so-minibar on the other side of the house. Navarro left the gun in several separate parts sitting on the spread out rag on the small table and walked into the office.

He sat down in the chair in front of the desk. He let his hand rest on his chin, elbow on the armrest, a position he didn't normally assume. It made him look tired, or to him, indecisive, something he always made sure to stay away from. He had no doubts, but like he allowed himself to smile, now he allowed himself to mourn. His cousin, his uncle, his closest comrade and his mentor. His family. He closed his eyes and rememberd their words before they parted ways, and before they would be ambushed and killed, added to the tally on the opposite side, soemthing they no doubt kept.

In mid sigh, ready to go back into his decisive image the moment he heard Diego coming, a noise went off. Muffled, but umistakable, coming from downstairs. A grenade. Then shooting. Now breaking glass at the end of the hall, heavy boots running on hardwood floors. Glass crunching under feet. Other sounds as well, shouting, yelling taunts, cries of pain. Downstairs, shouts of "Clear!" again and again, or "Freeze!". And now those voices were up here, on his floor. He heard the front door get blown in, falling off it's hinges and slamming into the floor on it's face, followed by many more sounds of boots and shouts.

Soldiers.

Navarro jumped out of his chair and two seconds considered his options. His gun was in the next room. Going for it would expose him in the hallway, and he heard them moving from room to room, clearing each and moving on. And they were fast, oh, they were doing this fast. Downstairs was compromised, he had nowhere to go, but out. Behind him, the windows, the outside, it was the only choice. He spun around and ran to the window, hitting the edge of the desk with his thigh, but he didn't slow down, just kept himself from tripping over and tore the curtains apart. He didn't try to pull the windows open first, that would waste time, because he guessed right that the latch would be locking them, but unlocking it cost him a valuable half-second and as he pushed open the right window panel, he heard the boots reach the doorway to the office.

He was already stepping onto the windowsill when he heard the soldier behind him to freeze, and as he stepped up to jump out, he saw the reflection of the soldier in the left panel facing back into the room behind him, saw the black equipment, helmet, goggles, vest, and balaclava covering the features entirely. The soldier's shotgun was pointed right at him, but navarro was far too dedicated to escape, or die trying. Both feet now on the windowsill, he jumped foreward, out into the muggy night air, destined to land a few feet downward and onto the ornate stone veranda. The soldier fired.

Navarro could not see it, but while at the arc of his shallow jump, a small plastic cylinder had crossed the gap from the barrel of the soldier's shotgun and navarro's back. He could not see that it had three angled fins sticking out at the backend, giving it a rapid spin. When the object made contact with the middle of navarro's back, while he was experiencing a very brief freefall onto the veranda, short barbs on the tip went through his shirt and stuck into his skin, easily done with the force from a gun behind it. The impact or the barbs would not have caused much discomfort to navarro, who was running on full adrenaline, but the electric current from the device now sticking into this skin demanded his full attention.

His body jerked uncontrollably, and so his landing was thrown off, his legs were no longer steady and prepared, and so he landed in the worst way possible, onto his left knee, while his downward and foreward momentum made his body arc foreward from there at the marble railing. His jaw struck the edge with all his momentum left over after what went into breaking his knee on the paving stones.

The soldier and his comrades caught up with him, and made their way out the window, guns pointed at navarro, who wasn't presenting a threatening target at that point. He couldn't think, he didn't know where he was, it was just the white-hot flames burning in his joints and muscles, and his skin coming apart at the seams from the electricity still being shot into his skin and spread throughout his body, along with the broken bones making up his lower jaw and upper teeth, and his leg, which was once very good at running.

Zip ties went around his wrists, and he barely felt them. he did know a minute later that he was lifted up and dragged by two of the soldiers holding him at the armpits. All the way around the house, which was a long walk indeed; navarro came close to passing out but did not, yet he could not even ask himself any questions about this. Nothing came to him. There was just the moment. The paving stones under his dragging shins giving way to perfectly maniqured grass that had recently been watered. The throbbing in his face and leg accompanied by the sound of cicadas from the nearby woods. The blood in his mouth, and the missing or broken teeth making him aware of his mouth as if for the first time.

There were never any questions, because he got the answers first. Out in the front of the mansion, the government trucks along with armored vans were parked, empty, the occupents out and doing their jobs. His friends, his men, like him, restrained and lined up, those that could stand being walked into the back of the armored van.

He couldn't take in the view for long, because he was still being moved along, being pulled past the line of his comrades and thrown into the van ahead of everyone else, as if he were something too hot or perhaps unstable for the soldiers to prefer to hold onto. Before the interiror of the van engulfed his view, he saw the edge of the action in the direction of the front gate, where there were just two people standing, away from the vans and the flashlights and the orders being barked. Undoubtedly the commander of this force, his helmet removed, under his arm, speaking with the other man. The man in the expensive suit, arms folded, looking in the direction of the action while nodding calmly and speaking sideways to the commander in turn. Diego.

Posted Apr 7, 2009 7:51 pm PT
Category: N/A
1 Comment

28Nov 08

Completed GeOW2

Story spoilers, duh.

Overall, I like the game a lot. The story in the campaign was pretty good, but some parts were dropped mysteriously, like the exact sigificance of the research going on at that creepy laboratory, or the apparent civil war within the Horde between Lambents and the rest.

I gotta say though, when I found Maria, I first thought I was seeing yet another sappy and incredibly implausible, cheesy happy ending for Dom. But something wasn't right on the surface, and that little doubt gave way as the color in the scene was desaturated... and well, you know...

The rest of that cutscene is so incredibly sad and dark, I have to hand it to Epic Games for having the guts to do that.

Finally, got to meet the Queen. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm sure it wasn't what it turned out to be.

Nice ending, not bad. The humans have lost Jacinto while the Locust have lost the Hollow. The Queens final dialogue was a nice parrallel to the rest of the scene.

Gameplay wise, it's extremely satisfying. On the gunplay side, that is. The tank section made me wish it were over in the first 10 seconds, seriously. The Mako is a better vehicle to drive purely because the Mako can at least strafe. Then you've got the cheap ice breaking lake bits, that could've been worse if there had been more.

The worm's interior section was okay, for being interesting. Other than that, it was just obstacles and shooting rushing foes. Funny, but meh.

The Leviathon "boss battle" was tedious and became frustrating when the game would glitch on me, like making me get stuck on the bow of the boat and get chomped no matter what, or randomly making me get hit by the attacking tentacles, when I am clearly in the established "take-cover-here-and-you're-safe" location. When I would die from that, or from the imprecise method of killing the beast from the inside, I'd have to go through the whole drawn out scripted tentacle bit with the dialogue all over again. Bleh.

I just did not like those sections in which Epic would deviate from the core gameplay of taking cover and popping/stopping if firefights. I greatly enjoyed the gunplay, and I understand that they wanted to "spice up" the campaign with these other sequences, but they just weren't as good, and shouldn't they be as good?

On the multiplayer side, it turns out Horde was just as addicting as everyone said. I made it to level 50 tonight with my buddy AutomatikOcelot, his friend friend's brother, and fuzzysquash. Those Bloodmounts weren't so tough when we had five lines of fire on them. Overall, it was a chaotic mess of semi-tactics, blood, body parts, smoke, poison gas, and tracer rounds. It was extremely fun.

I really have not tried out the competitive multiplayer, but I might get into it now that I've completed Horde at normal level.

On the technical side, this game is beautiful. The improvements to graphics have been subtle, and while that made me reflexively think "Gears 1.5", I'm glad Epic didn't sink all the system resources into nothing but superficial visual improvements. I love the sight of slabs of stone and chunks of wood falling apart under gunfire (or blowing apart upon Torque-bow fire ) as you take cover behind it.

Posted Nov 28, 2008 10:30 pm PT
Category: N/A
0 Comments

23Nov 08

Fallout 3's ending

*credits roll*

That was it?

You've got to be kidding me.

Posted Nov 23, 2008 12:33 am PT
Category: N/A
3 Comments

14Nov 08

Watchmen video game

OMG

I just got my issue of EGM. Rorshach. On the cover. O_O

I said it could not be done. "There's hardly any action compared to dialogue and characterization." Maybe it could have been an RPG then.

It's a prequel? Set ten years before?

The riots of 1972 in America. Wield The Comedians trusty grenade launcher and gimp mask!

Hm, it's downloadable and episodic too? I hope they don't rush it then.

God I hope it doesn't end up ****ing. -_-

Posted Nov 14, 2008 11:45 am PT
Category: N/A
4 Comments

25Oct 08

Completed Dead Space

Total playtime came in at around ten hours. It should be noted though, that I completed the game on a second file, on hard difficulty, which I started after I had gone through about two thirds of the game on the first save file. So for most of my complete playthrough, I had advance knowledge of enemies, puzzles, etc.

Very good game. Excellent sound design. Boss battles were a bit meh. It scared me a lot of times. While it did resort to jump out scares quite a few times, it was also able to establish such a sense of tension, that I got into the habit of checking every corner with my gun's light, as if it were Rainbow Six. Some of the scares were just damn creative.

The game was able to pull the rug out from under me at a point which I had believed I was safe. Throughout the game, this sense of security in a particular situation that the player regularly goes through, had been very gradually built up. So that by the time this jump-out scare happened, I was basically completely unprepared. Me: "Doot de doo do doo" and then "OMG WTF JESUS!" Then "huff... huff, that is SO against the damn rules!"

This game had a great story. Though some of its universe felt a little derivative, in regards to some details about the monsters you face and the technology. But I appreciate that it really had no huge gaps in it's narrative. It was really well rounded. Thanks to the text and audio logs, everything was pretty much fleshed out. I was never like, "Wait, this makes no sense, when did that happen?" I think I'd have enjoyed the story just as much even if I hadn't watched most of the Dead Space animated comic.

Got to say though, the game's backtracking and overlapping of whole levels in order to have another chapter is kind of weak.

I loved the interface though. Using the lights on Issac's back was as easy as referring to any indicator in the corner of the screen in other games.

All in all, a very enjoyable and cinematic action-horror game.

PS: I'll never think of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" the same way ever again.

Posted Oct 25, 2008 10:14 pm PT
Category: N/A
4 Comments

16Oct 08

The Horror.... The Horror!

Please, have mercy on my money!

Fable 2

Far Cry 2

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

Fallout 3

Mirror's Edge

Dead Space < status > Purchased

Little Big Planet Soon to be purchased

Gears of War 2

Resistance 2

Call of Duty: World at War

Saint's Row 2

Left 4 Dead

Socom: Confrontation < status > Limbo. Waiting for confirmation of bugs fixed

Portal: Still Alive < status > Really freakin expensive seeing as I already own the original game.

Valkyria Chronicles

estimated total default retail price: 795 US dollars

Posted Oct 16, 2008 9:26 pm PT
Category: N/A
4 Comments

6Oct 08

Dasvidanya, Bioshock

For Bioshock, I got 12 dollars in store credit at Blockbuster. Used to think I'd never trade this in, but let's face it, I played the game 7 times, and I got all the achievements for it. Games aren't cheap, and I can't be sentimental right now.

Auf wiedersehen, Oblivion. Blockbuster wanted 13 dollars for you.

Au revoir, Ninja Gaiden Sigma. 16 dollars in credit for you? Damn, must be that ninpo magic.

So that is 43.46 dollars in store credit for those games.

On top of all this, Blockbuster was selling new copies of Battlefield: Bad Company (360 version) for only 40 dollars.

So I end up with a dollar left over in store credit, when I was sure I'd have to pay up some cash. A good game buying day for me.

So then I check Gamestop's website, and they're selling BF:BC for 60 dollars. They also wanted to give me 9 dollars credit for Oblvion. Yeah, I think I know where my business is going, from now on.

Posted Oct 6, 2008 12:44 pm PT
Category: N/A
1 Comment

My Friends

My Recent Ratings

Gaming Woes, Killzone, Battlefield: Bad Company, and British Imperialism

Thoughts

Uncharted 2

Games that dazzle....

Reach

Another Game of Wutizzit: ODST

Tim Burton

You're Making Me Blush, Doc!

Saw Bruno

Not sure why I'm writing this

MGS4 Retrospective

Finished Assassin's Creed

Valkyria Chronicles

Short story rough draft.

Completed GeOW2

Fallout 3's ending

Watchmen video game

Completed Dead Space

The Horror.... The Horror!

Dasvidanya, Bioshock

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