All posts in Video Games

GTA San Andreas

By | 24 August 2005 | Video Games | 4 Comments

Unfortunately, I have finished GTA SA this evening. Fortunately for the rest of the world this means a new post.

All things considered the media is nuts. I just played through this entire game without the “hot coffee” modification. I have to say that “hot coffee” is like smurfs compared to the rest of the game. Here is a list of some of the things that I did in the game. They may not be the worst things, just a few that I remember.

1. Killed corrupt police officers
2. Stole a military jet, and shot down other jets trying to take me down
3. Did several “pimpin” missions
4. Acted as a vigilante many times killing over 300 criminals
5. Tipped over “port-a-potty” with a construction forman then pushed it into a whole that I promptly filled in with concrete
6. Used a remote control airplane to slay delivery people
7. Used an crappy airplane to intercept a jet, boarded the jet, killed everyone on board, and landed the jet
8. Started a ridiculous amount of gang wars
9. Traveled 10 miles on foot
10. Committed 32,345 criminal offenses

For those of you that have played the game, what do you think was the most morally offensive mission in the game? I think the port-o-potty is probably the worse thing I did in the entire game.

Thoughts?

Lord of Pain

By | 3 April 2005 | General, Video Games | 1 Comment
Kratos

For those of you that have been following my meanders of life, you know that I have recently acquired a PS2 game entitled, God of War. The game focuses on a Spartan charactered named, Kratos. He begins the game wield dual chained blades called the Blades of Chaos. The fluidity iin which they move is pretty amazing, and equally as impressive. Most games use whips pretty much as long poles that only swing straight (Castlevania).

Unfortunately, the only problem with this game is the obvious, it is a PS2 exclusive. This means below average graphics (those these are as good as it gets on the PS2), and you are bound to the PS2 controller. For those of you that are not familiar, the PS2 controller is backwards compatible version of the PSX controllers, where were good for their time. Unfortunately, the PS2 controllers are woefully obsolete when compared to the GameCube, and Xbox controllers. The only reason that I can think of that so many people like it, is because they are so used to it. The controller itself is on the same side, so all the buttons are jammed together, and the design itself is not ergonomic, so it causes stain on the hands and forearms when you play.

For most people, the design of the controller is not a problem, and for me it never was during the old PSX days. Though, I think that, that is likely because practically no games used the analog, which has awful placement. Anyhow, my main problem is my carpotunnel. The unnatural position of the hands just sends shocking pain through my wrist. I’m pretty pissed off about it in general. I was trying to play today, but could not even defeat common enemies, or navigate the stage. Now, my carpo is so inflamed that I can hardly type. Thus, I conclude this post.

TMNT = Crack?

By | 24 March 2005 | General, Rant, Video Games | 14 Comments

TMNT

Well, I have been waiting for God of War to come out for some time now. However, being strapped for funds I have had to wait for Game Rush (at Blockbuster) to get it so I could get the $30 trade in deal. In the mean time I have been renting the various volumes of the first season of The Shield on my video freedom pass.

From what I have watch so far (half of season 1), the show to have some potential. The episodes are rather hit and miss. I would say that every fourth episode is really good, and the other are of average quality. I’m going to keep my eye out for the box set to come on sale for around $15-20. I was going to watch another four episodes tonight, as I have been watching one volume a night, but this day just kept on dishing out distractions. The worst, is probably TMNT: Mutant Melee. But, I’ll start at the beginning. As it is probably the most irritating.

In the middle of the night (mine aka morning) my dad had and office space moment, and destroyed his printer. So, I have to go up, and hook up the photo printer to his machine so that he could print out an urgent document. Normally, that kind of stuff does not bother me too much, but when I have to get up in the middle of slumber, well that is another matter entirely. To make matters worse, my mother needed me to stay up after I took care of that problem, because one of the daycare children got sick as school so she had to go pick up the creature. Eventually, I was allowed to return to bed, but I did get up later than usual since I had a two hour interruption. Apparently, I was supposed to just suck it up and get less sleep.

I woke up with just enough time to work out, take a shower, and rush to my brothers basketball game. Unfortunately, I had just missed a couple periods of it. He played alright today. He really needs to work on his overall level of aggression. I also took some pictures, since we brought the camera to this game, which is rather unusual. Anyhow, some of them turned out all right. For some reason we were sitting as far away as possible so it was a bit of a trick holding still enough with the zoom to get a good shot. After the game, we were rushed off to his next event.

The 4th, 5th, and 6th grade orchestras were all performing in some kind of concert. Today was the first time that the 4th grade students have ever been in a concert in Grand Haven. Traditionally, they have just performed in the morning at their respective elementary schools, for good reason I might add. When they jam packed all the different grades together for the opener, there was standing room only. I think they were trying to play Ode to Joy, or something like that. It sounded what I imagine a herd of cats would sound like as the life was slowly choked out of them. Luckily, the 6th grade group played first, so I did not have to suffer through the renditions of the 4th and 5th grade solo groups.

After the concert I ventured on over to Blockbuster. Upon arrival I walked over and picked up the next volume of the Shield, and then went to the counter to do the usual trade in deal. At the counter, I inquired whether or not they had yet received their shipment of God of War. Unfortunately, they got shafted on the release date, so I had no idea when they would actually get it. Luckily, they had got it today, and I managed to procure the last copy. I carried in my trade in games just in case. So, I traded in Dead to Rights and Jet Set Radio future, and got $8 in trade in value, plus the $20 off retail for the game, making it a grand total of $22. Not bad for a new release.

When I got home I setup the new printer that my dad purchased to replace the broken one. The new one is much better than the old one ever was, so in that respect I’m glad it occurred. The next printer is an OfficeJet 6210. It seems pretty decent. And, it came with good reviews. The setup took forever, which always sucks. I don’t know about HP’s new software/driver setup deal. I liked the old days when you could download just the driver and you were off to the races. Now, you have to suffer through 45 minute installs.

After the new printer ordeal, it was time to socialize with my grandparents for a while. They had come into town to view my little brother play basketball, and do the concert thing. Tomorrow, we get to break out the XL1 to film he last game, as my other pair of grandparents were not able to make it. After my grandparents had retired for the night, it was time to play some video games with my other brother. He is in town from Ferris on Easter vacation. Anyhow, this is obstacle that prevented me from playing either God of War or watching The Shield. I had rented TMNT: Mutant Melee yesterday, because I had not idea when God of War was going to come in.

We started playing around 11:30 PM and ended up playing until 4 AM. Those blasted TMNT games are very addicting. Mutant Melee kind of slipped under the radar though. It is a bargain title, coming out for the low price of $20. From what I have played so far, I would say that it was well worth the price. It is a brawler were you can play with up to four people in Multiplayer. In adventure mode, only one person can play, but there can be up to six characters on the field. The difficulty of this game runs the full spectrum, from defeating training bags to protecting April for a specific amount of time. At times, the difficulty of the game is infuriating, because no matter how good you are with a given character, it is almost always a roll of the dice as to whether or not you will defeat certain stages.

So far, we have played through Michelangelo’s and Leonardo’s adventure. By far the most difficult stage was one where you had to defend April for 60 seconds. At face value it does not sound very difficult, but believe me, it is. You have to defend her from Hun, and two whirlwind foot soldiers. Now, if it were just that it would not be too bad, but they threw and extra challenge into it. There is a control panel in the stage that allows someone to control a crane, if you snatch someone with the crane they are dumped into a pool of molten metal. Now, if you drop a foot soldier, or Hun in the metal they lose a little power and respawn on the field of battle, just like you do. However, if April gets dropped in she instantly dies, regardless of how much power she has remaining. Furthermore, it only takes the computer a split second at the control panel to snatch April. My brother and I tried that stage over and over again for over 45 minutes until I finally got lucky enough to defeat it.

Considering that this game stopped me from playing God of War, and watching the Shield, I am going to have to recommend it.

And, since I know Rusty doesn’t like video game rants, I included all the other mundane details of my day. :razz:

Resident Evil 4

By | 1 March 2005 | General, Video Games | 10 Comments

Buy Resident Evil 4
at Amazon ($19.99 or less)

For those of you that do not already know, I have been playing Resident Evil 4. This is entirely do to persistent pressure from one, Wesley “Abcess” VanLandschoot. While chatting, he constantly spoke about what a great game it was, and how I had to get it. Well, it took some time and careful evaluation of reviews before I finally broke down and purchased it. I was able to cash in on some horrid games in my collection (Phantasy Star Online, Jet Set Radio Future, etc…) to get a decent deal on the game: $24.58 after tax. I have to say that it is one of the few games that I have ever played that is worth $50.

Today, I finally beat the game. Let me tell you this, it is no Ninja Gaiden, but it will definitely give you a run for your money. The best part of the game is when you are holding up in a shack of a house while “possessed” villages beat on the doors and windows. Without a doubt, I would say that the village section of the game was the strongest. If you are a fan of the original Resident Evil game, you will probably like the Castle the most. I am a fan of out door environments, so I really disliked this section.

Now, I have only played the first Resident Evil game before this, because I struggled with the camera so much. I can say with certainty that all the problems I have with the series before have been fixed in this title. There was however an element that I did not care for at all, and that was reflexive button pushes to avoid instant death. Most notably this occurred during a cutscene, when you are relaxing, and trying to prepare yourself for the next undead invasion. I do not remember these in the first game, and am not sure if they were in the second or third game. There is one particular sub chapter where you have a cut scene with several of this things, and if you fail one, you die. Dead. Dead. Horrible. Then, immediately following that sequence you go into a hallway from hell, where you have to do more of the same, just not in a cut scene. This brings me to my next point; the wonder of checkpoints. The thing that bothered me the most about the original is that you had a limited number of saves. That was just awful, I hated dieing and having to return to a point from hours before. That problem has been completely removed as you can now save as many times as you want at one of the many save points throughout the game. Though late in the game, you will be wishing there were more, but I digress, back to checkpoints. The new checkpoint feature allows you to instantly return to a section without penalizing you by making you return to the last save point. I honestly do not know if I could have made it through the game without these, because would have gone insane repeating specific scenes over and over again.

I have had a GameCube for a long time, and I consider this to be the only must have title. I would qualify it as the Halo 2 of the GameCube. I have only had a PS2 for a short period of time, and have not found any game that really stands out, so I cannot comment there. I know that this title will be coming out for it later this year, but there is not way that it can be as good as it was for the GameCube.

Here are my final stats:

Accuracy: 48% (my favored weapon was the TMP for most of the game)
Kills: 927
Time: 12:40:28
Deaths: 38 (Krauser, you bastard!)

DMC

By | 13 February 2005 | Video Games | No comments

Finally, after many a year gone by, I have played the title, Devil May Cry. It was a pretty sweet play through. I was able to beat the game in under five hours, and most of the time the gameplay was fun. There were moments of perfection in the level design, and art style. This game really had that touch of Japanese flare that I have been missing in my American made games. Don’t get me wrong, I still much prefer games like Halo. But, it is nice to go back and remember what games “used” to be like. Also, on that note, I was instantly assaulted by the PS2′s substandard graphics. Also, the fix camera was a bitch, especially during the jumping puzzles. I have really been spoiled by Xbox games.

All things considered, it was a pretty good game. If you are like me, and were a long time hold out, now is the time to pick it up.

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