The Laughing Blog
Wow, what a year for gaming. I ended up having a crazy schedule this year, I didn't get to go out much or do much with friends because of my work schedule, but every night from midnight until around 4am or 5am I had all to myself for gaming goodness. (And not too much else to do!)
And there was alot of goodness! My prediction that this year would be a good one was spot on. And when the year came to a close, when I was looking at some leftover holiday money and wondering what to do with it, I found I had pretty much all the greatness I could have gotten! I'm still holding off on a PS3 until much later this year, so I don't have any games from that platform represented, but the Wii/PS2/360/DS camp covered the majority of the excellence this year anyhows. I also completed a record number of games I started, some of them even getting multiple full playthroughs like Mass Effect.
This year should be another very interesting one. Not the gold standard year we just had, but it should be good. The world economy has really woken up to video games, and the massive success of games like Halo 3, WoW and Mario Galaxies means that there are more people playing than ever. There is bound to be some real stinkers this year as games are pushed out to cash in or just don't meet the expectations of thier developers, which is normal for any year but this year I think there will be alot more of it. More people playing means more people making and there is an evolution to these things. With a year like 2007 behind us, 2008 is bound to be alot more hit and miss, but what games end up really shinning through will be something trully special.
2008 holds a new job and a new schedule for me. I should be able to catch most of the Gamespot live shows before they end, so it's nice to see a few familiar people in the chat rooms from a year ago. I still have time to game, but this year I'll be sharing this time with other normal-evening type activities. I won't be able to play super-obsessively for 4+ hours every night, but I'll still be playing every day and I'm sure I'll still get a ton of gaming in before I fall asleep at night. Plus, weekends actually have a meaning for me this year, so those are opportunities to really dive into titles like MassEffect and other games that seems to be better when you can devote large chunks of time to them.
This looks like a good year coming up all around. Wishing everyone the best for 2008!
I think this is going to be a good year for gaming. Especially if you have a 360. And if you don't have a 360, they are supposed to get cheaper this year, so you can get yer'self one! It's a good system, and makes an excellent stand for my PS2. Getcha a black faceplate for the 360 and they just blend together. :-D
Happy New Year!
I played the game for a few days straight and unlocked all but the last achievement, which you get for playing 50 hours of in-game time. I was alittle suprised I didn't get that one, but 50 hours is fairly lengthy. Other than that, I did it all. Once I figured out the depth and width of the game, so to speak, I started leveling up and getting chocolate coins like crazy. At one point I remember going up about 15 levels in just a couple minutes! Catalyzing plants is definately the way to go. And what's up with that trader's brand of 'special' fertilizer. He says there's a funny story behind it that he'll tell me later. I'm not sure this is a story I want to hear! Or one he should be repeating!
Now that I'm feeling better I was drawn back to Gears of War like a Mothdrop to a flame. I mean a moth. I said moth! Anyways, the time away did me some good and jumped back in with both boots covered with blood and locust gray-matter. I finished up the single player mode on Hardcore (without having played Casual) and it was a really nice satisfying run. After the credits I kept up the pace and hosted a multiplayer game, by 4am we had some great action going with 2 full teams and I was starting to learn my way around the levels. The multiplayer on this game is really incredible. I could have been playing a lan game for all I knew, and the silky-smooth conditions were share by the other players. For my first real multiplayer experience with Gears it couldn't have gone better. Another run through the different maps and I'll be ready to get my ass handed to me in the ranked matches for sure.
Guitar Hero continues as always, probably being the #1 thing played on the PS2. After almost completing GH2 on Hard mode (Psychobilly Freakout and Carry Me Home will not let me even get past their start!) I went back to GH1 since I had never actually played Hard mode on that one. Wow. Talk about easy! The Hard mode in GH1 is like the medium mode in GH1 or GH2, a combination of the main, rythm and bass guitars are used to created a good stream of music to play. The hard mode in GH2 is only the lead guitar with a note-by-note reproduction. The difference in difficulty is rather astounding. After getting pretty much all 3 stars on GH2 Hard, with a smattering of 4s and some 5s in the bonus tunes, I returned to GH1 Hard and started getting 4s and 5s on pretty much every song. So my new plan is to take a short break from grinding GH2, play all the GH1 songs on hard, and hopefully my hands will have limbered and learned enough to get me past the 7th set in GH2!
I still have multiple people who want to teach me real guitar, I still haven't taken any of them up on it. I really should do that, some of these folks actually get paid to teach normally so it's pretty nice of them to offer lessons for free. Hmmm...
Other than that; .hack//GU:Rebirth, Final Fantasy XII, Godfather... what else? Quite a few games are currently in 'orphan' status, waiting patiently for me to pick them up and finish completing them. Thankfully the season for new game releases has mostly passed until probably around March of next year, so I should have plenty of time to finish up. Guitar Hero may also soon be ready for a 6 month or so hibernation, last time I did it for GH1 it resulted in my increased ability when I returned, so maybe after this one I'll be ready for Expert mode? Who can say! The 360's upcoming version of GH with downloadble songs might prolong the expereince, whenever it actually arrives.
And on the hardware front:
PS3, didn't get one. Tried a bunch!
- Our Costco had 8 on launch day, but then they had to send them back since they were only to be sold through the website. Scratch that opportunity with a friend who worked there.
- We had a Circuit City open the day before launch day, they said they had 20 units to the people lined up outside. When morning came, they 'mysteriously' had 8. :-P
- Lastly, Costco.com was not ready for the web traffic it seemed! Even though I was one of the first people to get the PS3 in my online shopping cart, I was never able to complete my order due to thier server's repeated crashing. I tried for quite a few hours until the item expired in my cart.
Wii, also didn't get one. But I didn't try that hard. Sorta worn from the PS3 ordeal I just decided to wait till I could get my hands on one through my local game shop. It's looking like I should have it early this week. Excellent!
One last thing, I'm gonna say it's hardware related. I managed to land a un-opened FireBat action figure from the StarCraft series off eBay for $2.99! This thing is even more awsome than it looked back when I didn't buy one from Blizzard's website! It's big, it's heavy, it's been hand painted (atleast the highlights) and just oozes quality. It's got tons of articulation, and seems likely it would break anything it was thrown at rather than the reverse. This is the type of heavy toy that I miss from being a kid and I've been fooling with it non-stop, talk about happy!
And with that I'm off. Till next time, or next chat!
Why did I get a game through GameFly when I just got a couple new ones? I'm not actually that stupid, this game showed up a week late because the first copy got lost in the mail. Then a week after that, the original lost copy they sent out showed up on my doorstep, unopened! So, being the decent sort, I emailed GameFly, told them it showed up and mailed it back. I guess GameFly thought I was cool or something because they sent me the next game in my list, without even telling me! And it was Enchanted Arms! Yay. Crap, I didn't even remember putting that on my list, and I had pretty much decided I was going to pass on that one.
But hey! Free game right! How can you not put in a free game.
So I played it, and didn't like it. I thought it was trying to be a dumbed down version of something like FF:Tactics and that was really ticking me off, because I really dislike games that take the industry backwards. But after finding the option to use the FAR superior japanese voice track I decided to stick with the game alittle more, if only for the sake of my gamerscore and the 1000point deficit that occured as soon as it touched my 360. (MS, you bastards, like we didn't notice.)
After pushing through the admitted shallow start that most all JRPGs share I started to realize that the meat of the game wasn't quite the dumbed down tactics game I saw at first. Rather, they took the standard my-side, your-side, turn-taking JRPG standard battle system and added positioning and attack ranges and things of that nature. Basically they took the standard FFVII type combat and added some levels to it with the grid system. Suddenly the game went from annoying to fairly interesting! After that I discovered the 'auto' battle option, which lets a really good AI control your teams battle, along with a 'fast forward' option to increase the speed. This turned the excessive random encounters into brief combat cutscenes that happen to get me money and exp. Something interesting or difficult pops up and I can take the reigns, but the tedium is pretty much gone. Even leveling up to meet specific goals or needs of money and materials is streamlined by this and it rewards investing in the skills for the main characters.
I think when I am done I'll try writing another review, this time for Enchanted Arms. If it ends up not being completely pedestrian I'll be sure to put it up.
Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time on my Dead Rising review while interspersing that with some PGR3 action. The review came out okay, but it seemed way too generic. Once upon I time I did so much writing I even had a few short stories published, but it's been a whole bunch of years in the real-world since then and my skills are definately not-sharp! It needs some rewording, some editing, alittle something special. I'll hold off on posting it for another day or so, we'll see if the full-time grind has dulled my edge or not.
Having mentioned PGR3 I'd like to say it's a new aquisition, recently purchased when the price plummeted at GameStop. This is the way I like to pick up 'old' 360 games, really cheap. It seems that BestBuy is now engaging in some price slashing of its own with a bunch of titles dropping to $30 price tag. I think I'll grab TombRaider:Legend for some good fluff until the next big thing comes along, probably Saint's Row or Xenosaga3. Of course, Xenosaga3 would really mean I should finish Xenosaga2, which means re-playing the game due to memory card death... Probably not gonna happen right now.
Yesterday was a day off from gaming. As rare in my life as a pegasus, it does happen from time to time. Dead Rising is the culprit in the best possible way.
After a day long gaming session with Dead Rising I completed it. At least I thought I did, getting a good ending means there is more game to go, quite a bit more. Dopey from lack of sleep and totally hooked on the game I pushed through to completion, received the True Ending, and peered behind the curtains to discover it had gotten light out. Not just a little glow on the horizon, morning had come as Frank fought his way out of the Mall From Hell and it just felt right. What a great experience!
So as I said, yesterday I took a day off from gaming. My gaming itch had been scratched so satisfyingly that I thought I'd do other things (like this blog) and just enjoy the glow. Dead Rising isn't perfect, but it has a quality to it that is something special. Not just the killing of tons of zombies, something else, an aspect that the old video games had that would hook you in even if the characters on the screen were only made up of a handful of pixels and the sounds were mostly beeps and boops.
Dead Rising is a great game, I'm writing my first review on it now. I can already say it scored a 8.7, unless I change something. The way they figure out the ratings for reviewers here on GameSpot it pretty cool. I'll probably have to go back at some point and lower some of my one-shot score reviews by a half-point here or a point there to keep them in scale with the written.
