As I sit here reading The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein, a book that decries social networking as one of the worst things to happen to today's youth I am also signing up for Facebook. Fuck. I used to be able to say I didn't have a myspace, a facebook, a blog, any of that shit. Then came one small concession, a blog, a great place to rant about whatever's bugging me that no one reads. Then E3 hit and I wanted to follow the coverage, well, most of the gaming journalists I like were covering it live with Twitter as well as the articles at the end of every presentation. So I broke down and got a twitter account. Nice service actually... useful for bitching about something via cellphone in semi-real time.
And then Microsoft announced its partnership with Twitter (great, I already have one) Last.FM (Again, awesome, I've got one that I don't use!) and Facebook. Now it's going to be even easier to use facebook since I can catch updates from my 360. And of course, everyone at work uses the damn program. Bloody Everyone! I feel like an ass because I missed the birthday of a co-worker a couple of weeks back that I would have known about had I actually used Facebook... And so my resolve faltered...
Now, in another tab I'm signing up. There goes all the cred I got for scorning the social networking bullshit. Ah well, 'least I don't play WoW...
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Damnation: First Impressions
This is a hard review to write, on the one hand I want to love Damnation, it is an interesting game that has loads of potential and a lot of style. On the other hand, the devs are obviously fucking retarded. Right off the bat I saw that something was very, very wrong. There are only two difficulty settings unlocked: Casual and Hardcore. I may not game in every minute of my spare time but I'm not a casual player, I play shooters for fun. Hell, I'm anything but an unskilled player, give me half a chance and while I'm not a gaming Savant I'll still kick a little ass. But... Hardcore? Where's the "normal" setting?
Ya see, on Hardcore, it takes two rounds from a sniper rifle or two medium range blasts from a shotgun to kill you (one if you're right up close), and while that is wonderfully realistic I'm not playing Rainbow Six here. I am some nigh mythical badass steampunk cowboy! But it seems that physical agility and upper body strength are all that was covered in Badass training with this game since I can't shoot for shit, aiming sucks, and the screen goes black and white from damage in about half a second flat. And that's not fucking right. Did anyone playtest this and say, yeah, I think the player should be killed for just rounding a corner, that's a good idea!
Fucktards. Scale back the damage or add a "Normal" difficulty. Shit, I've seen enemies eat half a magazine of the "assault rifle" before going down... Why can't I do that? Supposedly all the enemies are using some fucked up combat drugs. And in one of the opening cinematics the main character took a vial of said drugs off of a dead enemy's belt. Why can't I start injecting that shit? Velvet Assassin gave us Morphine mode...
So... the guns suck. They're cool and interesting but they fucking suck. The "Assault Rifle" is inaccurate as hell and takes a third of the magazine to kill one enemy at close range. The Pistol is the only gun you'll ever use. The shot gun is nice... if you are up close. This rarely seems to be the case. The sniper rifle was your average sniper rifle, but since I'm not seeing any ammo crates around it's a dixie cup (use once and throw away). I found a machine pistol... it replaced my regular pistol... The two types of ammo were not interchangable... Turns out I figured out it was a machine pistol and fired so fast that I would have to reload in about five seconds. Dixie Cup! In my short play I also found a "Railroad Pistol" The name might be a bit different. Same ammo problem as the sniper rifle but you can hold the trigger to charge up the pressure and fire your shot for a lot of damage. Reminds me a lot of the Bow from Gears. (Actually this whole game reminds me a lot of Gears but instead of a really nifty cover system I have a a really nifty platforming system THAT DOES NOTHING TO STOP THE BULLETS!)
That segways really nicely into the Platforming, which is really really good. I only played the Demo of the new Tomb Raider but unless I missed something those games are all about platforming and this definately did it better. Shit, other than some annoyance with the game not explaining itself well enough in tutorial popups it's the best platforming I've seen in a while. Smooth, looks good, and opens up a lot of options. Opens up a lot of options for the enemy as well... Taking cover from the five enemies you just ran into is really hard when two of them are above you and have the angle to fire right into your cover. Still, great system. It's hard to believe that this game started life as an Unreal Tournament 2k4 mod.
Well... it would be except for the graphics. Now, the graphics aren't bad except in cutscenes. Seriously, the voice actor is giving some (half assed) emotion, maybe have that show on the character's face? But honestly, it's Unreal 2k4, not pretty by today's standards but not ugly. The few enviroments I explored were pretty same-y but still had a good feel to them. They were big areas with good views and it was just interesting to look around. I can't honestly complain about the graphics except in the (awful) cinematics... and even those weren't the worst I've ever seen.
The checkpoint system sucks. Fuck you too Devs, fuck you too. The Ally AI is an abomination against AI and gamers but I discovered something wonderful... if you just ignore the fuckers they don't die. Just like in gears an icon pops up saying they're down (although in Damnation the icon doesn't also function as a compass pointing you toward your dead friend. Great work there devteam, drop my ally then make it hard for me to find them!), that doesn't mean anything! You can just leave them and at the next checkpoint they're back up and ready to go. So, I cheerfuly ignored the idiots and used the (awesome) platforming to outflank enemies and do a lot of good.
It's those moments where I see what the game could have been, and it makes me sad. If the shooting had been made a lot tighter, given any coats of polish (at all), and you know... been made to even be as good as Unreal 2k4 it'd be an awesome game. Sure the story is a bit silly... at least to my eyes. Steampunk US, robot soldiers, combat drugs all awesome. Then they added bullshit native american magick. Yeah, you all know how I feel about native americans already. I thought Steampunk meant science but nooooo... gotta add mystic bullshit and native powers. Fuck that shit! Get it out of my game. The voice acting isn't "bad" but it is far from good. No good quotes like those in Gears 2 which were just so over the top they were good. The actual writing is shit. Why more studios don't hire real writers to look over the dialog I will never know.
If gamefly wasn't a monthly fee I'd be disappointed I'd even spent the money to rent this title. Gonna try co-op soon with Burne. Yeah... that'll be fun. If you can find the game for the 5 dollars it's worth... don't fucking bother. So much wasted potential.
Ya see, on Hardcore, it takes two rounds from a sniper rifle or two medium range blasts from a shotgun to kill you (one if you're right up close), and while that is wonderfully realistic I'm not playing Rainbow Six here. I am some nigh mythical badass steampunk cowboy! But it seems that physical agility and upper body strength are all that was covered in Badass training with this game since I can't shoot for shit, aiming sucks, and the screen goes black and white from damage in about half a second flat. And that's not fucking right. Did anyone playtest this and say, yeah, I think the player should be killed for just rounding a corner, that's a good idea!
Fucktards. Scale back the damage or add a "Normal" difficulty. Shit, I've seen enemies eat half a magazine of the "assault rifle" before going down... Why can't I do that? Supposedly all the enemies are using some fucked up combat drugs. And in one of the opening cinematics the main character took a vial of said drugs off of a dead enemy's belt. Why can't I start injecting that shit? Velvet Assassin gave us Morphine mode...
So... the guns suck. They're cool and interesting but they fucking suck. The "Assault Rifle" is inaccurate as hell and takes a third of the magazine to kill one enemy at close range. The Pistol is the only gun you'll ever use. The shot gun is nice... if you are up close. This rarely seems to be the case. The sniper rifle was your average sniper rifle, but since I'm not seeing any ammo crates around it's a dixie cup (use once and throw away). I found a machine pistol... it replaced my regular pistol... The two types of ammo were not interchangable... Turns out I figured out it was a machine pistol and fired so fast that I would have to reload in about five seconds. Dixie Cup! In my short play I also found a "Railroad Pistol" The name might be a bit different. Same ammo problem as the sniper rifle but you can hold the trigger to charge up the pressure and fire your shot for a lot of damage. Reminds me a lot of the Bow from Gears. (Actually this whole game reminds me a lot of Gears but instead of a really nifty cover system I have a a really nifty platforming system THAT DOES NOTHING TO STOP THE BULLETS!)
That segways really nicely into the Platforming, which is really really good. I only played the Demo of the new Tomb Raider but unless I missed something those games are all about platforming and this definately did it better. Shit, other than some annoyance with the game not explaining itself well enough in tutorial popups it's the best platforming I've seen in a while. Smooth, looks good, and opens up a lot of options. Opens up a lot of options for the enemy as well... Taking cover from the five enemies you just ran into is really hard when two of them are above you and have the angle to fire right into your cover. Still, great system. It's hard to believe that this game started life as an Unreal Tournament 2k4 mod.
Well... it would be except for the graphics. Now, the graphics aren't bad except in cutscenes. Seriously, the voice actor is giving some (half assed) emotion, maybe have that show on the character's face? But honestly, it's Unreal 2k4, not pretty by today's standards but not ugly. The few enviroments I explored were pretty same-y but still had a good feel to them. They were big areas with good views and it was just interesting to look around. I can't honestly complain about the graphics except in the (awful) cinematics... and even those weren't the worst I've ever seen.
The checkpoint system sucks. Fuck you too Devs, fuck you too. The Ally AI is an abomination against AI and gamers but I discovered something wonderful... if you just ignore the fuckers they don't die. Just like in gears an icon pops up saying they're down (although in Damnation the icon doesn't also function as a compass pointing you toward your dead friend. Great work there devteam, drop my ally then make it hard for me to find them!), that doesn't mean anything! You can just leave them and at the next checkpoint they're back up and ready to go. So, I cheerfuly ignored the idiots and used the (awesome) platforming to outflank enemies and do a lot of good.
It's those moments where I see what the game could have been, and it makes me sad. If the shooting had been made a lot tighter, given any coats of polish (at all), and you know... been made to even be as good as Unreal 2k4 it'd be an awesome game. Sure the story is a bit silly... at least to my eyes. Steampunk US, robot soldiers, combat drugs all awesome. Then they added bullshit native american magick. Yeah, you all know how I feel about native americans already. I thought Steampunk meant science but nooooo... gotta add mystic bullshit and native powers. Fuck that shit! Get it out of my game. The voice acting isn't "bad" but it is far from good. No good quotes like those in Gears 2 which were just so over the top they were good. The actual writing is shit. Why more studios don't hire real writers to look over the dialog I will never know.
If gamefly wasn't a monthly fee I'd be disappointed I'd even spent the money to rent this title. Gonna try co-op soon with Burne. Yeah... that'll be fun. If you can find the game for the 5 dollars it's worth... don't fucking bother. So much wasted potential.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
On writing
This is a short update, and part of it is stolen from my Twitter. Which, one day, I will get a goddamn Blackberry so I can update it properly. Maybe next month if I save properly.
Either way. Firstly, I saw something awesome at work. Ironically, it was in the bathroom. Someone copied the graffiti from XKCD. They fucked up the punctuation a bit but god damn, they beat me to it! Whatever glorious bastard did this, I salute you.
Secondly, I need to start writing again. Fuck rpol. Fuck people. Fuck video games (until dragon age methinks. I need a good RPG. Might replay Mass Effect soon.). I need to create something worth a damn. And I will...
Either way. Firstly, I saw something awesome at work. Ironically, it was in the bathroom. Someone copied the graffiti from XKCD. They fucked up the punctuation a bit but god damn, they beat me to it! Whatever glorious bastard did this, I salute you.
Secondly, I need to start writing again. Fuck rpol. Fuck people. Fuck video games (until dragon age methinks. I need a good RPG. Might replay Mass Effect soon.). I need to create something worth a damn. And I will...
Friday, May 29, 2009
Ah Insomnia ... Now Where's McWheat?
I’m having an interesting brain wave lately, something just plain clicking and sending me spiralling off in some random thought pattern that defies some forms of logic unless you think the same way I do … twisted and sick.
Insomnia has been plaguing me for some time now that it’s actually getting to the point where I’m up for at least a day on end now for what appears to be no reason at all. I can even take sleeping pills at double the dosage and still be like “WTF why am I not sleeping?” Granted things are known the cause trouble going to sleep but with the way this has been going I might as well be detached from reality and sitting in a padded cell waiting for General Frosty McWheat to show up. If you don’t know who Frosty McWheat is I may elaborate on him at some other time but for now let’s just say you’re better off not knowing.
I will say it’s an interesting feeling after a while of random sleep patterns, walking around feeling like one is floating in the clouds and dreamy but still somewhat connected to the world around them. I find it to be a strange feeling, interesting but I’m not getting anything done in this state. My memory functions in an odd way to the point where you could hold a whole conversation with me and I’d retain absolutely nothing unless it sounded interesting to me or was helping my train of thought.
One of the other problems with this state is I become easily prone to a variety of suggestions, some of it just gets bizarre at this point and some people have gotten me to do some rather odd things and I’m going to omit the details on the grounds that it best be left unsaid lest anyone like to repeat the acts of pain I’ve inflicted upon others. It’s interesting to see how people react when faced with the idea of cause and effect and in this state the outcome intrigues me far more for some suggestions that I’ll do things without a second thought … or even a first as has been the case before. Sometimes it’s all the more interesting to see moral dilemmas unfold with people and then you can sit back and have a good laugh as they hash it out in their heads. That’s the kind of thing I lose when I’m in the suggestive state … morality, but I do know the difference between a good idea and a bad one and will stick to the fundamentals of the perceived right and wrong from my stand point as getting arrested isn’t fun.
The fun part is that insomnia is listed as a symptom of some [usually] underlying mental problem someone has. One of those problems I thought was kind of amusing was schizophrenia and another being anxiety, both of which made me go “DUH!” Someone either of these things would be hard pressed to be able to sleep since one gives you a range of mental problems which includes multiple personality disorder. The other just makes you worry about everything under the sun and god forbid the collection people come the next morning for that bill you got in the mail today. Since I have neither I’m a bit limited in what could be wrong with me … or what’s right, either way. The only thing I can really do at this point is wait it out like I’ve been doing the last few years and hope for the best.
Insomnia has been plaguing me for some time now that it’s actually getting to the point where I’m up for at least a day on end now for what appears to be no reason at all. I can even take sleeping pills at double the dosage and still be like “WTF why am I not sleeping?” Granted things are known the cause trouble going to sleep but with the way this has been going I might as well be detached from reality and sitting in a padded cell waiting for General Frosty McWheat to show up. If you don’t know who Frosty McWheat is I may elaborate on him at some other time but for now let’s just say you’re better off not knowing.
I will say it’s an interesting feeling after a while of random sleep patterns, walking around feeling like one is floating in the clouds and dreamy but still somewhat connected to the world around them. I find it to be a strange feeling, interesting but I’m not getting anything done in this state. My memory functions in an odd way to the point where you could hold a whole conversation with me and I’d retain absolutely nothing unless it sounded interesting to me or was helping my train of thought.
One of the other problems with this state is I become easily prone to a variety of suggestions, some of it just gets bizarre at this point and some people have gotten me to do some rather odd things and I’m going to omit the details on the grounds that it best be left unsaid lest anyone like to repeat the acts of pain I’ve inflicted upon others. It’s interesting to see how people react when faced with the idea of cause and effect and in this state the outcome intrigues me far more for some suggestions that I’ll do things without a second thought … or even a first as has been the case before. Sometimes it’s all the more interesting to see moral dilemmas unfold with people and then you can sit back and have a good laugh as they hash it out in their heads. That’s the kind of thing I lose when I’m in the suggestive state … morality, but I do know the difference between a good idea and a bad one and will stick to the fundamentals of the perceived right and wrong from my stand point as getting arrested isn’t fun.
The fun part is that insomnia is listed as a symptom of some [usually] underlying mental problem someone has. One of those problems I thought was kind of amusing was schizophrenia and another being anxiety, both of which made me go “DUH!” Someone either of these things would be hard pressed to be able to sleep since one gives you a range of mental problems which includes multiple personality disorder. The other just makes you worry about everything under the sun and god forbid the collection people come the next morning for that bill you got in the mail today. Since I have neither I’m a bit limited in what could be wrong with me … or what’s right, either way. The only thing I can really do at this point is wait it out like I’ve been doing the last few years and hope for the best.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Man it's been a while...
I always feel bad when I look at my toolbar and see the icon for this blog and I feel bad that I really don't have much to say. I guess it's because I feel I should be posting something of substance on here. Other times I have to remind myself that blogging (and to a greater extent Twittering) was created to tell people about every little that you are thinking or doing, regardless of it's relevance to... well anything. So with that in mind here are some things.
I do not like to pack, it's not like it is really hard for me. I rarely have that much furniture to move. The problem is that I like to get stuff done when I can so this often results in having half my stuff packed weeks in advance, and the other half packed a few days before the move. I'm not sure if this is normal as I have never really been involved in any large scale (such as a family and the contents of a house) so I can't really be sure if this is a problem.
Either way I will soon be at my new apartment, and for those of you that don't know it I will living with my girlfriend of 3 years (4 years in October). When I first brought up this idea to my friends and coworkers I got a lot of unexpected responses. The stereotypical reply I always assumed would be that this is a bad idea, kills the romance, etc... But most of the people I have talked to, namely those that already see their girlfriends on a regular (day to day) basis or basically live with them anyway, thought this was all well and good. I was pleasantly surprised by these responses.
Now to the festering meat of what has been occupying my thoughts lately. For those of your I have not already excitedly told, I am working on writing a book. I say I am working on writing it because at this point that is about as far as I have gotten. I am stilling mapping out the events of the story. This is taking some time, since basically the first 2/3 of the story are based on the events of an online roleplaying game I was a major player in, and the last third is of my own creation. I could go on and on about why this is the case but that is another post/rant altogether mostly cause it deals with a lot of stuff outside that particular game. None the less I am still using the events of the game before it basically ended and as such I am constantly pouring through the posts of the game to make sure I am covering the points of the story I wanted to cover.
I have ideas for how I want the conclusion to go but the more I talk about them I realize they are just that, ideas, often scattered and disjointed from a form that resembles storytelling. Part of the problem is my own. really all the problem is my own, but that too is not the point. I am used to taking the fragmented and random ideas that pop into my head and using my friends as a sounding board to help me sort them out and in this case I am trying to do this basically on my own, using my friends for final editing. In short, I want to write this book myself. Not so much to be able to claim credit, but mostly to prove to myself that I can.
I have over the course of my life had many ideas for stories (mostly short ones) but never had the patience or care to work them out into something resembling a proper story. With this I want to see if I can follow this through to the end. I may or may not bother with ever publishing this thing, but if I can get to that point then I will have made my point to myself. This is something I am doing with my spare time, it's not my job, I won't delude myself for a minute into thinking that I could write for a living, but for me it is something I want to do and hopefully that will be enough.
So long for now, I may try and get my other rant up soon.
I do not like to pack, it's not like it is really hard for me. I rarely have that much furniture to move. The problem is that I like to get stuff done when I can so this often results in having half my stuff packed weeks in advance, and the other half packed a few days before the move. I'm not sure if this is normal as I have never really been involved in any large scale (such as a family and the contents of a house) so I can't really be sure if this is a problem.
Either way I will soon be at my new apartment, and for those of you that don't know it I will living with my girlfriend of 3 years (4 years in October). When I first brought up this idea to my friends and coworkers I got a lot of unexpected responses. The stereotypical reply I always assumed would be that this is a bad idea, kills the romance, etc... But most of the people I have talked to, namely those that already see their girlfriends on a regular (day to day) basis or basically live with them anyway, thought this was all well and good. I was pleasantly surprised by these responses.
Now to the festering meat of what has been occupying my thoughts lately. For those of your I have not already excitedly told, I am working on writing a book. I say I am working on writing it because at this point that is about as far as I have gotten. I am stilling mapping out the events of the story. This is taking some time, since basically the first 2/3 of the story are based on the events of an online roleplaying game I was a major player in, and the last third is of my own creation. I could go on and on about why this is the case but that is another post/rant altogether mostly cause it deals with a lot of stuff outside that particular game. None the less I am still using the events of the game before it basically ended and as such I am constantly pouring through the posts of the game to make sure I am covering the points of the story I wanted to cover.
I have ideas for how I want the conclusion to go but the more I talk about them I realize they are just that, ideas, often scattered and disjointed from a form that resembles storytelling. Part of the problem is my own. really all the problem is my own, but that too is not the point. I am used to taking the fragmented and random ideas that pop into my head and using my friends as a sounding board to help me sort them out and in this case I am trying to do this basically on my own, using my friends for final editing. In short, I want to write this book myself. Not so much to be able to claim credit, but mostly to prove to myself that I can.
I have over the course of my life had many ideas for stories (mostly short ones) but never had the patience or care to work them out into something resembling a proper story. With this I want to see if I can follow this through to the end. I may or may not bother with ever publishing this thing, but if I can get to that point then I will have made my point to myself. This is something I am doing with my spare time, it's not my job, I won't delude myself for a minute into thinking that I could write for a living, but for me it is something I want to do and hopefully that will be enough.
So long for now, I may try and get my other rant up soon.
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