All posts tagged vanlandw

Halo 3: ODST

By | 7 October 2009 | General, Rant, Video Games | 8 Comments

Let me begin this by stating, this game has an awful title. The original working title “Recon” was considerably better. Just throwing together a bunch of random letters is not particularly helpful. I can understand if they did not want it to be confused with Halo Reach, which is supposed to come out some time next year. However, they could have just as easily gone with something simple, like “Shock” or “Trooper,” but whatever I guess.

Last week I managed to procure this game. Sadly, I had to put it on a credit card since I am too broke at the moment to be able to pay for it in cash. Hurray for interest. Sadly, since my purchase was delayed, I missed a marathon session with vanberge, and vanlandw (who wussed out and played on Heroic). Luckily, vanlandw was up for a second play through so I was able to obliterate the campaign on legendary with him and my brother, Jason. Good times.

The game itself is basically halo 3, but a little suckier. There is HUD system that obscures a lot of screen, and sucks on split screen. Additionally, they decided to put health back in to the game. So, it effectively works a lot like the original halo, where you have a “shield” and health. I have to say that the past two games have made me a bit soft, because it sucks to have to find health packs again. There are a few quirks in the system as well, for example, if you pick up a turret it makes you run faster, whoops.

When we started there were some serious lag issues. For the first couple of levels the game was lagging so much it was barely playable. However, during this time vanlandw was experiencing smooth game play, so I assume my degraded performance was due to caching data to the hard drive or something. Anyhow, after a few levels everything started working smoothly.

The campaign was pretty fun, not as good as Halo 3, but better than Halo 2. I hate the flashback aspect of it it though. And, the story is not particularly interesting, especially if you listen to the audio clips. The whole “save the girl” storyline…give me a break. The campaign was effectively short though, as the three of us were able to beat it on legendary in under five hours. And, there are not really any tough choke points like there are in Halo 3.

Firefight kind of sucks. It is not fun to solo, period. And, while you can play with friends, there is no matchmaking so if none of your friends on online you’re by yourself. Also, the skull handling is pretty annoying. I would really like to have more control over it. I tend to prefer things that are set so you know specifically what is required of you. This constantly changing the terms of battle only deters from the experience. Even if all they had was a way to “buy” disabling of a skull with points kind of like you do in Cal of Duty: World at War in Zombie mode.

Most of the achievements in the game are pretty easy to get, in fact you get about half of them just by playing through the campaign. However, there are some tough ones, particularly the vidmaster challenges. I am not sure about the fightfight achievements. I haven’t been able to get four people together to play it, and so far the best I’ve done with a group is 120,000, and that took quite a while to get.

I am not exactly sure why, but I think the game designers took a page out of the Gears of War book with the way things are setup. The level designs are much more muted than what I’m used to in Halo. And the “visor mode” just washes things out worse.

Basically, I’d say the game was fun, but not great. I would recommend it to every Halo fan. However, I think that most casual gamers would not get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I’m giving the game a 3 on my undecim rating system.

Metroid Complex

By | 19 September 2009 | Video Games | No comments

shadow-complex-01Recently I have been playing a welcome new addition to the Metroid style adventure game genre, Shadow Complex. The game is a hybrid of 2d/3d, as you are confined to a two dimensional plane while everyone else is running around in three dimensions. It takes a little while to get used to if you’re used to 3d games. But, once you get the hang of it, it is a load of fun. The game built on the unreal engine, so the graphics are decent, but not revolutionary.

Shadow Complex features a basic leveling system in combination with unlockable equipment and upgrades. The game areas are designed well so you can get around without having to back track through some of the more annoying ones. And, as you advance through the game you grow enough in power to make you feel like a super hero. And, I am not kidding, you start out as a dude in a shirt and jeans, and end the game decked out in futuristic armor all but invincible. Another nice feature of the game is that on subsequent play throughs you start with the experience from previous run throughs. I love this feature, and I would like to see it in more video games. I still go back and play through Chrono Trigger from time to time with my godlike team.

Unfortunately, despite all the good in the game there are some glaringly bad issues. The first, and foremost is aiming. Aiming is achieved through a combination of the left and right analog sticks, and it can be maddening sometimes. You mostly have control on the 2d plane, thought it is a little touchy. The main problem lies in relying on the “auto aim” to shift the aiming axis in the third dimension. It is infuriating when you are sitting there, looking at your laser pointing over the enemy only to have your bullets go whizzing by them. On my first play through I was playing on hardcore, and while the aiming issues were annoying, it was forgiving enough that it usually did not get you killed. Unfortunately, on insane difficulty the aiming issues make some sections nearly unplayable.

Other game play issues are not so much a problem, but are really annoying. The first one is related to aiming, and that is using the hookshot. Apparently, the hookshot has a fairly limited number of angles it can work at, so you’ll be frustrated trying to swing around only to find the hookshot going in the wrong direction and thus miss the mark. A tip to new players, when maneuvering with hookshot, aim with the right stick and hit the hookshot button without jumping (this doesn’t cover all situations but it will save you a lot of head aches).

Next, is wall jumping. I would say that wall jumping works most of the time, but there are times when your avatar just refuses to cling to the wall and you just have to try over and over until he eventually latches on. Last, ceiling grenade panels. Seriously, grenades are time delayed explosive devices, why require the player to destroy panels on a ceiling with them? Basically this has to be done using foam and then chucking a grenade into it. Usually it is just a pain in the ass that doesn’t really add anything to the game. But, even with these short falls, I love this style of game.

Super Metroid is one of my all time favorite video games, and I am afraid I have been depriving myself of this style for too long. I really enjoyed getting back into the exploration adventure style of game play. Originally I was considering passing on the game, but vanlandw was gushing over it so much that I decided to give it a go thinking that if its like Super Metroid, it can’t be that bad. The irony here is that I loved the game, and vanlandw cannot stand it.

This game has been fairly reinvigorating and has inspired me to replay Super Metroid, which I plan to do soon. And, since Castlevania Symphony of the Night has been ported to XBLA I am considering picking that up as well (I didn’t have time to play it when it originally came out on the PSX). So, on my special undecim punctum scale, I have decided to rate the game a 4.

UPDATE: Since I originally wrote this post (its been sitting in my drafts folder for a while), I have since “completed” the game. I managed to get all the gamer achievements, and even some of the zero value achievements in the game. And, I have to say, I have never had so much fun grinding. Today I was power leveling, so I played through on insane, got most of the items, beat the game, and started again. I cannot think of the last time a game would good enough to play through more than once, let alone starting over immediately after finishing. Good stuff.

Granted, not everything is rosy. The Proving Grounds challenges are pretty brutal. Most of them are cake, but once you get to the third level you’re sure to start pulling your hair out. So, I don’t really expect to go back and try to get better times on those. But, I can see myself going back and playing the campaign more. I have been debating trying to do some speed runs now that I am level 50. My personal best time is just under 50 minutes, and that was when I tried to do the sequence break the first time, I wasn’t even trying to beat it quickly. I’ve gotten pretty good at the sequence break, but I need to work on my time for getting the missile pack. But, I digress.

Now that I have played through the game six times, I have decided to revise my initial impression, and give this game my maximum score: 5.

Psuedo Accomplishments

By | 29 August 2009 | General, Humorous | 1 Comment

mr_aaahThis post exists for the solo purpose of poking fun at vanlandw.

A few days ago he shared out a game he thought he would like on the iPhone. But, he doesn’t have an iPhone, or iPod Touch so he couldn’t get it.

The game consists of a dude that swings from platform to platform like spider-man. The only control you have in the game is telling the dude when he should let go, which in turn determines whether or not he would live and how many points your timing is worth.

This game could easily be a cheap flash game on one of the cesspools of the internet. And, since vanlandw has been posting the completion of flash games as psuedo accomplishments, I had my brother take a photo of me completing this game so I could post it here.

Mwah.

Netflix Party Play

By | 21 August 2009 | General, Movies | 2 Comments

In a recent update to Netflix, the ability to watch a film simultaneously with three other people was added. It’s a pretty slick feature, but I recommend that you only use it on “fun” movies. Otherwise, its just a grind.

When I hoped on my xbox to try out Shadow Complex, vanberge sent me a party invite. So, I joined in to watch “The Union: The Business Behind Getting High” which was painfully slow, and not a group film. However, after that vanlandw queued up “Double Team” with JCVD, which is a much better party film.

Unfortunately, during the viewing vanberge and vanlandw had to take off, and when the party was disbanded it booted me from the theater ending the film. Bah.

Final Fantasy X, One Post Wasn’t Enough

By | 15 August 2009 | General, Video Games | 2 Comments

It would seem that I was not detailed in my last post about FFX, vanlandw pointed out a couple of critical areas I missed. So, I have decided to do a follow up post.

Exciting World of Micromanaged Combat

There is a huge problem with the combat in FFX. Characters can only get experience if they are actively involved in combat. For example, if you had three people in your party and only one person killed the enemy that person would be the only one to get experience. Your other team members would be left with nothing. This violates a convention that RPG gamers have gotten used to over the years. That standard is everyone in a party splits experience regardless of what they did during the battle.

While this new system may be innovative, and slightly more realistic is makes battles a pain in the ass and utterly tedious. This is because you have to swap out party members during battle so they can do something. This requires constant juggling of characters and a lot more micromanagement that I’d like to think about while grinding. My preferred method is what was used in FF7: everyone in the party gets full experience, and everyone not in the party gets half experience.

Wretched Crystal Room

I do not even know what you would call this area, but people who have played the game will know what I am talking about. Within Sin there is a room you have to run around and collect gems that appear, and disappear (usually just before you get to them). While you are running around trying to collect the gems before they fade away there are crystal shards that jut up from the ground at random. Normally, this isn’t that big of an issue, but the way it is setup is just sadistic. You spend almost the entire time running blind across the circular area trying to find the gems, because the camera is facing your character so you cannot see where you are running. I can only assume the game designers did this to be dicks, and to increase your chances of running into shards.

If you hit one of these shards you are instantly propelled into battle. And, these battles are nothing to laugh at. Most of them just force you to spend precious items you have collected. But, one in particular is just sadistic. The Great Malboro is an insidious creature that has a special attack called “bad breath.” This horrible ability utterly screwed my team, as it inflicts various status ailments, including some kind of confusion. The result was that it could slowly pick away at my characters while they slaughtered each other, and all I could was watch.

Sadly, I had never encountered anything like it in the game up to that point. As a result, I was not at all equipped to face it. Luckily, I happened to have a return sphere so I was able to add first strike to one of Auron’s weapons. I charged his overdrive and held it until I fought the creature. I was pretty strong when I faced it, so that over drive was usually enough to get it before it could get me. Ugh, I still get furious just thinking about it.

Moonflow

Be careful what you name things. I have read several books that use the term “moonflow” to refer to menstruation. Unfortunately this made much of this sequence of the game quite disturbing, and / or just gross. The thought of moonflow glowing is just wrong. And, riding a creature the lives off of organisms in the moonflow, ugh. The stories about Yuna repeatedly jumping into the moonflow as a child…and then, when Tidus and Wakka just jump into the moonflow…the thought of that battle still makes me feel dirty.

Although this should be an unwritten rule, it is an important one: do not name things after menstruation.

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