Acid for Blood

"I have not seen your face hitherto"

It's been a long time since I updated this thing with my current gaming activities. I have made some significant purchases in the past several months, most notably a Wii and a PS3.

For the Wii, I have two games: Mario Kart Wii and Okami. I played Mario Kart for a few weeks, and did enjoy it for the most part, but I haven't really played it after the initial shine wore off. I haven't even touched Okami, sadly. The Wii gathers dust, though it's more a sign of my lack of time in recent months to devote to games than a dislike of the console.

I bought the Metal Gear Solid 4 80 GB PS3 bundle. I played a bit of MGS4, but that's largely untouched to this day, and not because I don't like the game. I'm either too busy to play games these days, or there are other games I'd rather be playing.

I got completely hooked on Pokemon Diamond from late Spring to mid-Summer. Even though I had the Wii and the PS3, the lure of Pokemon proved very strong. I haven't finished the game yet, as I am bored of level grinding, and I don't want to move on without a stronger party. I've mostly stopped playing Pokemon right now, but I'll pick it up again later on. It's a great game and I do want to finish it.

Shortly after I got my PS3, I got Rock Band. Holy crap, is this game good. I'd been playing it at friends' places since it came out, so I'd been eager to get my own copy. I recently got my PS3 online and downloaded quite a few songs. I love this extension to the lifespan of my game. I played Rock Band avidly for several weeks, but after I got stuck on "Green Grass and High Tides" on drums (Medium), I decided to take a break, much like I took a break from Guitar Hero III after I couldn't defeat Tommy Morello in the boss battle.

Recently, I was given the gift of SingStar to cheer me up during a particularly stressful week. I've wanted this game for a really long time. I actually don't own any karaoke games for the PS2, which is probably surprising since I really enjoy karaoke -- though I have no vocal talent to speak of. SingStar caught my eye several years ago when it was initially released on the PS2, to great acclaim in Europe. One look at the song list guaranteed a purchase in the future, but with the proliferation of SingStar themed games, the threat to my wallet was great. I decided to hold off until I bought a PS3 and could pick and choose songs to download.

I've been having loads of fun with SingStar. It's harder than Karaoke Revolution, but I like it a lot more than KR. I like that SingStar plays the original music videos to the songs you sing. I also like that it's no-frills -- you don't have cheesy, brightly-coloured characters or customisable avatars prancing about, singing along with you. It just gets on with what you're interested in -- singing. Having said that, I do like the left-to-right scrolling text and tone indicators that both Rock Band and Karaoke Revolution have, rather than Sing Star's bottom-to-top method.

I've been eagerly anticipating the next North American SingStore update, which will be out later this week. I downloaded a bunch of songs last weekend, but I really hope that the North American SingStore catches up with Europe in terms of number of songs available and variety. I looked online to see which songs are available in Europe and in the States and I'm pretty disappointed that I can't buy up absolutely every Coldplay song available for SingStar. Why is "Clocks" available as standard on the disc, yet I can't buy "The Scientist"? Both are from the same album. Why can I buy a few songs from X&Y but not others? I would understand the licensing issue more if certain regions were denied access to entire albums, but individual songs makes less sense. The whole situation is a little frustrating. I've read about some workarounds whereby North American players can purchase, download, and install songs from the UK SingStore, but it all seems like quite a lot of effort just to give Sony my money.

I downloaded a few demos from the PlayStation store. Right now I'm playing Echochrome and Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War (official site).

Echochrome is this neat puzzle game in which your character, a featureless figure, wanders about a black and white world where the physical reality depends upon perspective. You can rotate the three dimensional stages around to help your character reach marked locations on the map. It's a lot of fun. The puzzles are challenging, though having to complete them within a time limit is a little annoying.

Bladestorm is a squad-based tactical hack-n-slash action game in which you assume the role of a mercenary in the Hundred Years' War between the English and the French. The action is largely mindless fun, though you do need to plan your attacks appropriately by selecting the correct type of troops and your approach before you rush off into a skirmish. The voice acting is quite bad, but awesome all the same. The graphics are pretty good and look great on the PS3, but the art style is uninspired. The game is mediocre as a whole, but I shamelessly admit that I'm having a great time with it. If I haven't had enough mindless action after I finish the demo, I'll probably get the full version.

EDIT - 20 August 2008: I have been gently reminded that I also played Odin Sphere briefly in the early part of the summer. Odin Sphere is a fun multi-perspective RPG/side-scrolling beat 'em up. I love the 2D Japanese art style, and I'd also like to call out the fantastic use of colour throughout the game. The music is also really good as well. Unfortunately, the English voice acting is gross. I originally started playing with Japanese voice acting enabled, but I decided to do a comparison with English. I quickly switched back. If you want to read a more in-depth review of Odin Sphere, you'll find a lot on the web. I stopped playing because my ability to stick to one game and finish it is lacking, as we've seen from the first part of this post. :-P

Still Alive

If it wasn't already obvious from the lack of content, I've been too busy to post. Blogging will be sparse for at least a month, possibly more. More on why later. Watch this space.

My gaming computer's been broken for a couple of weeks and I haven't had time to deal with it yet.

I have not finished Portal or anything else I said (a few months ago) I would finish. I've been playing Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on the DS lately. I finished it the other day, so I suppose that is an accomplishment because I suck at completing games. I'm trying to get to level 50 so I can PvP without getting owned during every single match.

Guitar-ing and Racing

My, my, it's been a while. Let's do a brief gaming update.

• Have not been playing Guild Wars like I said I would. Am planning on playing for at least a few hours this coming weekend.

 

• Have, however, been playing Mario Kart DS and Guitar Hero III.

 

• Sadly, have not gotten a Rock Band fix since last year.

 

• Got a free-to-play copy of Lumines for the PC. Have not played it as much as I would like. Apart from being busy, am fearful of addiction.

Let's drill down.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

For me it's not as good as Guitar Hero I and Guitar Hero II for a few reasons: 1) boss battles, 2) story mode, and 3) changes in a few of the characters. Overall, I do like the game. I bought the game mainly for the music, and I got the one with the guitar so that I could play with someone else. Most of the music is great. There are loads of songs that I'm familiar with and that I like, as well as songs that I've never heard before which appealed to me. I have no complaints about the music and actual game play, so I'll go into detail about what I disliked.

Boss battles are pointless, unskippable interruptions in gameplay. I just wanted to continue unlocking songs. The first boss battle, with some guy named Tom Morello, was bloody difficult for me to get past. I got really frustrated because I didn't get the hang of how to defeat him. I ended up not playing the game for a few weeks because I was so fed up. When I did return to it, however, I defeated Tom Morello on the second try. Fucking Tom Morello...

As for the storyline, which is shown to you in a series of cut scenes when you unlock a new group of songs, they also interrupt the flow of song unlocking and rocking out. However you can at least skip them. The cut scenes are a minor interruption, but I found them just as pointless as the boss battles. I didn't care about what was going on. I just wanted to carry on playing.

Most of the glaring irritations are the character department. The first is the removal of Pandora, one of my favourite characters from the first two Guitar Hero games. I didn't see the point in taking her out of the third game. She was great, so why mess with greatness? The designers also decided that it would be a fantastic idea to depict Casey Lynch and especially Judy Nails in a sexually objectified manner. The also added a new female character, Midori, who quite frankly is a guitar-playing, sexually-objectified racial stereotype. Another character I disliked intensely is the generic female lead singer (when you play a song in which there is a female lead). Her mannerisms and attire are so repulsive because it's clear the decision to do this was to appeal to a male gamer. Content like this simply alienates me. I also really disliked the fact that, at certain times in the game, these female go-go dancers appear and dance suggestively to your guitar playing. The first two Guitar Hero games enjoyed much success, and it wasn't because the Harmonix decided to depict the female characters in a glaringly sexist way; it was because the game design and music were great. Neversoft should have understood that if they make a good game, people will buy it even if the female character designs don't pander to the male gaze.

Mario Kart DS

I got this game because I like Mario Kart. In fact, Mario Kart is the only Mario-related series that I really like. I have avoided the Mario platformers since Super Mario World on the SNES. I also got this game because I wanted to use the non-default karts when we have DS gaming lunches at the office. I have not played a Mario Kart game avidly since Super Mario Kart for the SNES. This means that I really, really suck compared to my significant other, who has played nearly every Mario Kart game to death. Despite my poor racing skills, I do enjoy the game. I am still trying to figure out which character most closely matches my driving style, though.

Holiday Gaming and Gaming Priorities for 2008

I'll be out of the country for Christmas. I don't plan on taking anything but my DS with me. I'll also be taking reading material with me and that will compete for time, so I'm not sure how much I will actually be able to catch up on my neglected Final Fantasy VI save game. Still, I should be optimistic, yeah? I'll bring it along just in case.

After Christmas I'll be back in the States. I will be popping into Guild Wars for the Wintersday festivities on New Year's Day, but that will probably be about it. I may or may not have time for quests, but I definitely need those hats!

Gaming Priorities for 2008

• Finish Guild Wars Nightfall -- Not finishing Guild Wars Nightfall is fairly pathetic on my part. It came out in Autumn 2006, and I really have no excuse for not finishing it except the following: a brief dalliance with World of Warcraft (September - December 2006), good stuff related to the personal life (Autumn - Winter 2006), getting a new job (January 2007), relocating from the East Coast to the West Coast of the US to take up said job (February - March 2007), adjusting to the new location and job (Spring - Summer 2007), trying to find time to play Nightfall with people instead of alone, not being in the mood (various points throughout 2007), having a personal life which was more interesting than playing games (Autumn - Winter 2007), having a social life which included playing games that are not Guild Wars (Summer - Winter 2007), and so on.
• Finish Guild Wars: Eye of the North -- I played it a lot when it first came out several months ago. I finished all the Ebon Vanguard surface quests and made significant headway into the Asura surface quests. I needed a break from constant Guild Wars after a while, and then National Novel Writing Month happened.
• Finish the Guild Wars Bonus Mission Pack -- This came out at the end of November. I haven't touched it yet. This fell victim to the social/personal life. I love games, but other activities took priority.
• Finish Portal -- This also fell victim to the social/personal life. I'm at level 15. Still. I know. I know! Eventually, okay?
• Finish Shadow of the Colossus -- Arguably, I have even less of an excuse not to have finished this by now. Shadow of the Colossus has been with me, unplayed, for almost two years. I'm playing it now though. The difference now is that I have a wonderfully persuasive (and generally wonderful) person in my life who issues constant threats against my person if I don't play. I've defeated four colossi so far.
• Play my 60-day trial of Lord of the Rings Online -- I recently acquired this at a party. (Yes, it was a party filled with gamer geeks.) I won't apply the access keys until after the holiday, for maximum gaming damage. Rather than play on my friend's spare account, I will use this trial.

I'm not sure about longer term gaming priorities at the moment. This bears some thought, but not right now. I need to stop blogging and get packing! This will probably be my last post before the New Year. I hope everyone has a lovely holiday!

We Are Really Vulgar

There's a little rhythm game called Rock Band which has been making the rounds. Whilst I own neither the Xbox 360 nor a PS3, I am lucky enough to have friends/colleagues who do, so I've been able to play. Every Monday night several of us tromp over to Xaroth's and JavaLuv's place for band practice, which has supplanted the pre-Rock Band arcade and console gaming.

On the day that Rock Band was released, Xaroth, who had not pre-ordered it, queued up to obtain his PS3 version. He was able to snag one, and he brought it to work. When I arrived at work that fateful morning, I found that it had been set up in one of our conference rooms, and people were already jamming away. After securing my mug of morning tea, without which I function poorly, I walked down the hall and joined in. I played a couple of songs, once on the drums and a few times on the guitar. The morning session ended shortly thereafter, as everyone needed to get to work. Come lunchtime, however, it was time to rock out again, and rock out we did. We feared that the noise from our incredibly awesome playing may have disturbed the office building's other occupants, however no one complained. Playing Rock Band at work on the release day was incredibly cool. It's truly a special thing to be able to play videogames at work with your colleagues and friends.

Since the release of Rock Band our group, Really Vulgar, has met every week to jam. The roster sometimes varies, depending on the availibilty of members. I have missed a few band practices due to illness and whatnot, but I join in when I can. Recently, one of the fellow bandmates/colleagues shared the Rock Band soundtrack with us, the reasoning being that if we're more familiar with the songs, we'll be able to perform better. I've been listening to the Rock Band songs for the past two days.

My favourite instrument to play in Rock Band, like many others, is the drums. Whilst the feel of the Rock Band guitar is new and different and also quite fun, the drums require new skills and I like the challenge. I'm still not quite used to the guitar, but I expect it's only a matter of time. I do like the feel of the guitar, though I often find myself accidentally hitting the orange fret button (I only play on Medium) when I mean to hit the blue one. I'm a terrible singer, as are most of the other band members, but we all still try anyway. We need to. When people created their characters, someone designated the singer as the leader, and apparently the band cannot play without the leader.

Another annoying aspect of the game, which I've seen people mention as well, is that the game's characters are tied to their instruments. Everyone in the band switches from instrument to instrument, but our characters cannot. This is understandable if you're trying to make it as close to reality as possible, but it's a game. We should be able to have our characters follow us. It's silly to expect that gamers will only play one instrument and never try anything else, and irritating that a game which provides so many customisation options would not permit players to take their characters with them when they swap instruments.

There are a few other irritating aspects of the game, but it's still loads and loads of fun.

GW, HG:L, D&D

I haven't been doing much (electronic) gaming in the past couple few weeks.

I played Guild Wars: Eye of the North hardcore when the servers opened at the end of August. I amassed over 20 nearly 30 hours of game time during the three-day holiday weekend of release. Since then, my Guild Wars play time has gone down. Last weekend, I think I mustered about an hour or so, and I didn't even finish any quests.

Last week, I started playing the Hellgate: London beta, but I can't write about it in detail because of the NDA. Apart from creating a Summoner and completing a few quests, I haven't done much. I half-heartedly created an Evoker, but decided I didn't like the Class. My graphics card, unfortunately, is not modern enough to pick up all the details of what, from screenshots, appears to be a very cool game, visually. I think I've played Hellgate: London for all of an hour, all told.

Most of my hardcore gaming these days consists of the table-top variety. My Dungeons & Dragons group, which meets fortnightly, had its third session last week. I created an in-your-face melee character, a Barbarian. I generally don't play front line melee classes, either in table-top or electronic games, so this has been an interesting change of pace. The storytelling/role-playing aspect has also been quite enjoyable.

What else have I been doing with my free time? Socialising with people on the internet, preparing for a personal project beginning next month, and wanting to smash people's faces in.

Continuing the Journey

Recently, I have been splitting my time between Guild Wars and The Longest Journey. I have picked up The Longest Journey again, and this time I will finish it! To avoid inordinate amounts of frustration, I am now using a walk through. I only use it when I am really stuck and don't want to spend half an hour looking for clues. Cheating makes my accomplishments less satisfying, but I do get to find out what happens much faster than if I relied on my apparently middling detective skills.

The Week in Not-Blogging and Gaming

I've been quite busy over the past week. I have some new responsibilities at work, a new flatmate (my generally non-gaming brother), and a friend is visiting for a spell. All activities related to these have supplanted blogging, and to some extent, keeping up with gaming news and gaming. As usual, I do try to keep current on the blog-reading, though the commenting may be light. I am posting this to make sure you internet people don't think I've simply vanished. Maybe I'll have something with more substance soon.

Computer Update

No progress. I'm afraid to turn it off in the event that it never again starts up. I haven't made any time to deal with it. Will try to get to it this week. Maybe? Need CD-Rs.

Gaming Update

Played Guild Wars yesterday. Made decent progress in Nightfall with my Paragon. I looked at the list of Paragon Elite Skills and again came away disappointed with how situationally specific most of them are. I'm continuing to keep the faith, though. I like my Paragon. I'll just try and make the most of them.

Created another Guild Wars character. I didn't want to take my Prophecies Mesmer out of Pre-Searing, but I've always wanted to play a Mesmer Primary. Created a Nightfall Mesmer. Spent an irritatingly long time deciding upon her first name, as per usual.

All nine character slots in my Guild Wars account are now filled. I don't delete the unused characters for various reasons, mainly birthday-related. I will revisit this policy after the respective characters reach their anniversary dates. My first Guild Wars character, my Necromancer/Mesmer, will turn two next month. I'm excited.

A couple months ago, I said that I was aiming to become all "hardcore" and play as much as possible so I could actually progress in Nightfall and the other campaigns. This hasn't quite worked out, because there's like, this pesky world outside games that I've had to deal with. Weekends are generally when I can devote quite a lot of time to gaming, but my weekends have been kept pretty full over the past few weeks. This coming weekend is no exception, with all-day outings to Santa Cruz and San Francisco planned. Weeknights are generally filled with light gaming (my house guest is playing Odin Sphere, and I engage in the classic past time of watching the story unfold as someone else does all the 'work'), errand-running, life administration (e.g. bills, cleaning, etc.), and sometimes social engagements.

A colleague has a DDR machine in his flat. Went there after work last week to play. Was cool. He has just about every single DDR mix ever. I'm so out of practice. I was fairly worn out and just settled on playing arcade games. He has an arcade cabinet crammed with them. Beat the Aliens vs. Predator arcade game, which was so awesome.

Peering Out of the Vault

A friend gave me a copy of the Fallout collection, which includes Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. I've been reading all the buzz about Fallout 3, and since I haven't played any of the Fallout games, I'm obviously missing just what the big deal is. Apparently Fallout 3 is scheduled for an Autumn 2008 release, so that should give me plenty of time to play at least Fallout.

I like science fiction, so you'd think that I'd have played Fallout by now. I really like that, at least from preliminary pictures, Fallout 3 is set partly in Washington, DC. I used to work not too far from the White House, and I grew up in Northern Virginia, so the familiar setting is neat for me. I'm not sure whether my computer will be able to handle Fallout 3 next year, but I can at least start at the beginning of the series.

I don't have a good reason for not having played all of those "really awesome" computer games of 10 or so years ago, except that I didn't have my own computer and my access to a computer was limited. I don't have a good reason for not playing those games now, except a bit of laziness and that daunting feeling you get when you're about to embark on something potentially momentous and/or time consuming and you can't quite bring yourself to get stuck in -- almost like housework or a large project.

I won't get started on Fallout in earnest, however, until I complete Mr. Robot. Guild Wars activity to recommence soon as well.

* The title of this post references The Vault, one of the reinforced structures used to house some survivors of a nuclear war in Fallout.

Resident Evil Knife-Only Speedrun

Ghacks.net is a website which focuses on helpful computing hints, tips, and technology news. Martin regularly writes about games as well.

He recently posted his personal top five favourite speedruns, including an impressive Resident Evil knife-only speedrun (72 minutes long). I haven't played Resident Evil, so watching this speedrun was informative as well as entertaining.

The only Resident Evil game I have played a lot of is Resident Evil 2. I've played a bit of Resident Evil 4, too.