This is SmokeyDaBear's blog! If you read it prepare for a heavy dosage of my opinion (it is MY blog after all). So beware!!! This place isn't going to be all peachy, it's gonna be a dark and ugly place that only the bravest of souls will dare to travel. I'm an opinionated individual and I'm not going to soften up my views to make everyone happy. If you disagree with what I have to say, feel free to tell me about it. If you agree then you should also feel free to tell me about it. I welcome any discussion as long as it doesn't get out of hand. The main purpose of this blog is to express the opinion I have on certain game related issues and to talk about my experiences with certain games (because I know you care so much), however life isn't all about gaming so I will have some entries that take place outside of the gaming realm.

Prepare yourself for the trials ahead.

There will be 5 page blog entries that will drive you to the brink of insanity. There will be opinions of mine that you won't agree with and you will disagree so much that you have to make me know about it... that's how painful it is going to be. There might be spelling and grammar that will be so poor that it will cause blood to flow from your ears. Your favorite video game might be torn to pieces by my words in this very place, so don't come crying to me about it... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. If you took some of that stuff seriously then you need to get your head checked. -Smokey

• 13Nov 09

  What is this ****!? It sure does stink.

  Note: This issue is so important, so controversial and complex that only I can address it appropriately.

  

  So during my typical commute to college I was talking to my brother about the current state of vidoegames, and the subject of "grinding for xp" arose... such a vital subject, is it not? Anyway, to the point... we all know that you can find this monotonous styIe of gameplay in MMOs, but now it's making its way into FPS games, and that's not a good thing if you ask me.

  Well, maybe I'm overstating the current prevalence of grinding for experience in FPS games, but with the insane popularity of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, it is a foreseeable staple in Multiplayer FPS' to come. So, before you go "Smokey stop being a little Nostradamus groupie!" please listen to what I have to say... this is all based on the possibility that Call of Duty styIe multiplayer mechanics will become the norm in future multiplayer games.

  

  Wow! That guy is such a bad-ass!

  Do you remember the days when we could all be lazy ***** and have access to all the weapons in a game from the very start of multiplayer? Sure, we would have to go through the insanely difficult task of finding weapons and picking them up, but we didn't actually have to dedicate countless hours of our valuable time in order to get a fair chance against those losers who would play the game 24/7.

  

  Sometimes I'm too damn lazy to unlock the stupid weapons.
  

  This is the problem I have with games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, they force lazy *****, such as myself, to work for my guns! Now, this "work" isn't particularly hard, but videogames aren't about work. Games are about fun. You really need to ask yourself the question, does this... "leveling"... truly make the experience better? Sure it sucks you in, it makes you feel like you have to play the game constantly, otherwise, one of those nerds might get the upper hand. But does it really make the experience FUN!?

  No.

  At least not in my opinion. A good multiplayer experience gets you hooked, not on cheap gimmicks, but great gameplay mechanics. For example, look at Quake Live. Quake is all about fast movement, accuracy, and prediction. These things get my adrenaline pumping. On the other hand, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare isn't really about skill. Sure there is some skill involved, but the main focus is on the time you spent grinding. It's only until after you have all the guns that you can finally relax and play the game the "way it's meant to be played". But after achieving this goal you have to ask yourself, do you really desearve it? Or did you just have different priorities which gave you the advantage?

  Now look at Counterstrike. Although this game may be a bit contradictory to my previous statements, it still provides a good example of how the "working" for your guns thing can actually enhance the experience. The grinding in this game is kept to a minimum since you buy weapons rather than unlock them, and your money does not accumulate in each server you join - it resets. The game rewards you for being good, not for how many hours you sat in the game spraying-and-praying until you got the airstrike, which - in excess - inevitably unlocks the P90 for even more spraying-and-praying. Counterstrike rewards the player for being skilled, and if you suck... well, you have to wait up to 4 minutes before you can get back into the action. There are no risks and rewards associated with the Call of Duty sytIe multiplayer, only rewards, and for that reason I cannot enjoy it as much as others.

  Honestly, I haven't read much about Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2, so I don't know if there are now risks involved, but even if there are, I doubt that they are severe... they wan't this game to be as successful as World of Warcraft, and the only way they can accomplish this mission is to get people addicted to the grind.

  Do you remember the days when you could pick up more than 2 guns at a time; do you also remember the time when your health couldn't regenerate out of the blue... ah nevermind, but you get my point - don't you? Popular games have a heavy influence on what comes next, and grinding in FPS games just so happens to be one of those influences that doesn't attract me.

  

  I guess it's human nature to grind, just like I do every day in my commute to college, but grinding is a *****, and there is no need to have that ***** nagging at you while you're trying to have fun.

  Sorry for the harsh language and imagery, but I really can't stand all this grinding for experience stuff!

  • Posted Nov 13, 2009 5:04 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 12Jun 09

  Rising from my grave...

  

  Lame picture, I know.

  I just looked at my GS level and it's 55 "Rise from your grave;" I thought that would make a fitting title for this entry because it's been a long time since I've done anything with my blog. Essentially, I just want to write about my thoughts on e3. No, I did not go, but I did watch those press conference things, so I guess I still have some basis for discussion. I hope that people are still willing to read and discuss the topics within; otherwise, I just wasted my time typing this damn thing.

  After watching these things for the past few years you learn what to expect, and that's a lot of talk about boring statistics and a ton of lackluster surprises, but every now and then there are some legitimately shocking announcements. Unfortunately, nothing really surprised me this year, but there were still some good looking games amongst the plethora of extremely ***** looking ones.

  

  I was originally going to start this entry off by explaining my feelings about every single press conference, but then I just decided for the sake of my always-dwindling sanity, I should make a "list" of the good and bad things that happened. Right now, I have no need to be all doomy and gloomy, so I'll begin with the good things about e3.

  The good things...

  Probably the most important aspect of e3 is the games themselves, and there were many quality titles this year, so I was not disappointed in that area. My personal favorite is AVP3, just because I love the movies that the franchise is based on, and the past games are amazing too. The stuff Rebellion revealed at e3 did not disappoint. It looks like the series has evolved a bit in it's gameplay and it has most certainly evolved in visuals. If Rebellion does everything right with the Marine campaign then this game will certainly join my short list of truly terrifying games. Perhaps the only complaint I had with the gameplay footage was the trophy kills. Although they looked impressive, I could see them becoming redundant rather quickly unless they increase the number of brutal death animations.

  
  

  Another game that ranks high on my list is Brutal Legend. I'm getting a bit tired of all the depressing/serious games, so having a funny game like this should be refreshing. Not only does the game look fun to play, but the concept is awesome as well; a whole world based in metal music, gotta love that. So yeah, Brutal Legend is certainly high on my list of games to buy.

  

  The new Splinter Cell game also caught my eye. The action looks good, and it has some interesting concepts; however, despite these positive elements I'm still rather disappointed with the direction of the game. It looks more like a Hitman game than a Splinter Cell game. In the original games, stealth and realism where emphasized, but the demonstration for Splinter Cell: Conviction gave me the impression that it is now a cartoony, action game. It looks like the intense stealth action of the originals is replaced by shooting-based action. Stealth looks like an option rather than a necessity in this game. Even though this is disappointing, the game still looks enjoyable, so I will definitely be renting this game when it comes out.

  Finally, I'd like to mention Bayonetta. This game looks fantastic. Not only does it have a unique styIe, but the action looks insanely fast paced too. Further increasing the awesomeness of this game is the fact that the people who make the Devil May Cry series are involved.

  
  

  Other games I would include if I wasn't so damn lazy:

  
  Alan Wake

  Borderlands

  Dragon Age: Origins

  God of War 3

  Mass Effect 2

  Uncharted 2

  some other games I can't think of at the moment

  The last thing on my "list" of goodness at e3 is Sony's motion control demonstration. Although the presenters were not very good, the visual presentation itself was great. The main difference between Sony's demonstration and MS' Natal is the fact that they showed better applications for the device. Sure, painting is fun, but talking to little boys... I'm not so sure about that. Sony actually showed how their motion control could be used for shooting games, sword fighting games, horror games (use the controller as a flashlight with realistic shadowing), and many other things. The vibe I got from Natal was that it was going to turn the Xbox 360 into a better-looking Wii, and that's something I'm not interested in. If they showed impressive applications for the device then I would certainly place it on the list of good things.

  
  

  Now it's time to move on to the list of bad things at e3. I'm not going to talk about many games here, instead I'm going to talk about the new innovations each company brought to the table. Since Microsoft's show came first, it is only logical that I start there.

  The bad things...

  As I mentioned before, Project Natal is something that I'm not interested in, at least not yet. Don't get me wrong, this is a great concept, but the presentation was seriously lacking, and I think the implementation would not be very good for so called "hardcore" games. My favorite part of the presentation was when Peter Molyneux came out with his usual "this is the greatest thing ever" BS. He claims that science fiction books and movies never envisioned something like this, but anyone who has seen a crappy movie about virtual reality would know that his statement is full of crap. Also, the Milo presentation would have been impressive, if I believed it. The problem I have with this is that it seemed far too programmed to be real. Maybe, Milo really was reacting to what was being said to him, but I guarantee you, he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between a fish being drawn on his paper or the word's **** you. I bet he would have still said, "that's a nice fish" regardless of what you drew or wrote on the paper. The voice recognition is promising, but at the moment, I seriously doubt that we will be having a legitimate conversation with any of our favorite videogame characters. Furthermore, there are mixed reports on whether or not the Milo demonstration is real, so until I see it for my own eyes, I will remain skeptical.

  

  Is it just me or does this guy look like a (you can fill in the word).
  

  I'm only going to put one game on my bad list, but there are more which deserve to be there. The game that made it onto my bad list is Halo: Reach. Now this might be a good game, but I was expecting something new from Bungie. I know that they are more than capable of making good games outside of the Halo universe, so I don't know why they need to continue with Halo (other than money). I'm pretty sure that Microsoft is already working on Halo 4, therefore, I don't feel that a sixth Halo game is really necessary. A new ip would have been far more interesting.

  Probably the worst part about e3 was Nintendo's press conference because as usual they fail horribly to get me interested in buying a Wii. They did reveal a few interesting games like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and a new Metroid Game, but ultimately these things were overshadowed by colossal piles of ****. Mainly, I'm talking about the Wii Vitality Sensor. No offense to anyone who is interested in this, but it's probably the dumbest thing I've seen in a long time. Even though it is ridiculously stupid, and its relevance is almost non-existent, I still got a good laugh watching the person talk about it. To add insult to injury, they made a stupid speech about how they are trying to attract "Maybe" gamers. I have no problem with this, but in Nintendo's process of getting the "Maybe" gamers, they've turned away a lot of what they call "Core" gamers. For example, I can't find any decent FPS or RPG games on the Wii. I don't see how they can talk about reaching the biggest audience possible, when there is an absence of FPS games. Didn't Call of Duty 4 reach around 14 million sales (counting all platforms)? That is a lot of people, and many of those people aren't satisfied with what the Wii has to offer. Nintendo, you can try to get soccer moms and grannies to play your games all you want, but you should know that in the process "Core" gamers are losing interest in your system. There's no reason why you guys can't balance things out. How about you stop making **** like Cooking Mama for a while, and start making something new that interests people who have been gaming for a long time.

  

  I can't wait to use my Wii Vitality Sensor!
  

  Well maybe Nintendo isn't as dumb as the next thing, downloadable content. I understand the fact that this lets the developers make more money from their product, but really, a lot of this newer DLC seems like a joke to me. The prime example of stupid DLC is found with Rockband: Beetles. Guess what! If you buy the Xbox 360 version then you get to buy an extra song a few weeks later! Not only is this DLC small in size, but really this is the dumbest deal ever. Only an idiot would think that they couldn't add this song in real quickly before release, and that's where DLC is annoying the hell out of me. I'm fine with DLC that adds many things to the games (basically small expansion packs), but when they pull stupid **** like this, that's when it annoys me. I don't like it when they make you pay for crap that could easily be put in before the game is released. Another annoying element of DLC is the exclusivity. I don't have a problem with this, but I know people who don't own both a Xbox 360 and a PS3, so they can't get the full experience from their game when there is actually something worth downloading. That's pretty stupid if you ask me. I know this is how business works, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.

  Overall, I thought e3 was good. It returned to its old format with booth babes and all of that nice stuff, and it was far more interesting than last time. I could have gone into more detail about the games I liked and disliked, but in the end, I felt that it wasn't necessary. Anyone who watched the show knew about the games that made the most impact, and the games that fell flat on their faces, so it would have been like beating a dead horse.

  Other stuff you don't need to know...

  The main reason why I've stopped blogging is that I'm focusing on more important things in life. I'm finally getting into a real University this fall (it's about damn time), and I'm finally going to get a job that I'll enjoy (hopefully). Before I didn't have much to do, but now I'm doing all kinds of things, so I don't have the time to do an entry every week. However, despite my lack of dedication, I still want to keep this thing alive. I have a few entries in mind, but I don't think I'll be finished writing any of them anytime soon. In addition to blog entries, I'm still working on a few videos which I'll post on Youtube. One of the videos is going to be a contemplation of many FPS games (both old and new), and the other is my fourth weight lifting video. This time I'll have my brother and some of my friends lifting; it should be a lot more interesting then the other videos. I'm going to try really hard to make these videos good and lengthy, so it'll probably be a long time before I finish any of them, but I think the finished product will be worth the wait (not that anyone will actually wait ).

  

  I guess I'll end this entry with a metal song just because that was sort of like a tradition back when I was doing this every week. The song I've chosen is D.N.R. by Testament. The reason why I chose this song over some others is that I just recently saw them live and I thought this song kicked ass.

  • Posted Jun 12, 2009 6:20 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 22Jan 09

  My gameplay videos...

  I was looking through one of my old harddrives and I stumbled upon some old gameplay videos that I made a few years ago. I decided to post them on youtube just for the hell of it and I thought I should just post them here too...

  Counter-Strike Source

  Battlefield 2

  Day of Defeat Source

  Doom 3

  Painkiller

  I also decided to post another weightlifting video...

  Weightlifting Movie

  I'm planning to make some more gameplay videos in the future and I'm sure they will be a lot more interesting. So please watch these if you like and feel free to leave comments on GS or youtube.

  • Posted Jan 22, 2009 9:36 am PT
  • Category: Games
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