A Gamers Voice

Success! I got myself an XBox 360 on Sunday along with Halo 3, The Orange Box, Destroy All Humans: Path Of The Furon, and Sonic The Hedgehog. As luck would have it, on Tuesday I caught the Flu, which had me packed, quarantined, and pampered in my room all week long. So, one can imagine the gaming hours I got in. Or at least, should have. Now, with 5 straight days of alone time with my newly acquired gaming system, I am certainly shocked that I didn’t get more gaming in than this… But, This is an inventory of my success. Beat one Sonic level. Got roughly half way through Halo 3, Played an hour of Half-Life 2, Got to the second level of Destroy All Humans, and completely beat every aspect of Portal. Haha, so it sort of speaks for itself to say the game that got me was Portal. Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve played Portal. I played it at a friends house when it was first released and instantly knew it was true love. Immediately after I bought the game. Shortly after that I realized I don’t have an XBox 360. Yes, a stupid choice, but in the long run it held smart, I feel. After these almost two years of NO PORTAL and having to go back to astranged, mundane games such as Red Faction 2, Tetris Worlds, and Shadow The Hedgehog (games I once thought would never be usurped as my favorite) I seem to have become newly infatuated with GLADoS and her zany antics. I know this is gonna sound like a plug, which it might be, but now that I am “thinking with Portals” shall we say, it’s like my whole world is in Portals. It’s this strange new way of seeing challenges. Any other game has an almost guided line for how to get there and, while Portal has a somewhat basic “get from here to here using this” method, it doesn’t hold you to any specifics. One particular room (Test Chamber 18) is shown here:

The method that I used was very different (and, not to brag, more efficient…) from this players method, until the room with the turrets. And, one thing I didn’t notice when I was first in this room, was that this room also has tons of different solutions that all get you to the same place. In fact, this player manages to practically skip that entire room.

Ways I never thought possible to complete the level. So imagine; if you can, independently, create these methods on your own, you’ve surpassed the ability to think with Portals, and began the ability to use an area of your brain that games like these were meant for. To these people, Portal isn’t a game anymore. It’s a tool. And I’ll be surprised at how fantastically they use Portal 2.
But moving on past Portal, I’ve gotten around to getting in to the whole “Halo” thing, admittedly late, and I must say that on a big ass HD TV, Halo really is the game above all others. This is quite a thing, coming from me. I used to despise Halo, loathe it. I’d played the first two on little TVs and always thought to myself “Jesus… Half-Life is waaay better than this…” But there’s something so epic about this third installment that it changes my perception of it. Of course, I’m spending the whole game thinking “this’d be some much more awesome with portals…” but that’s not the point. On the other hand, sometimes I find myself preferring Half-Life 2. It just depends on what game I’m in the mood for. A partial puzzle/action/shooting game is definitely Half-Life 2. But for the epic/destroy all/shoot everything epic killfest, it’s definitely Halo 3. It’s the moods that determine which game is “better” I suppose.
In closing, I present you this.

Good-Bye!

Sorry I haven’t been on lately to update!  I’ve been moving into my new home and it’s been awfully troublesome.  The worst part is that right after I got done moving in, the people I moved in with went on vacation for a week, displacing me YET AGAIN!  ARGH!  Oh well, I’m back now =D and I am going to be updating much more regularly.

Well, the character you see above is the RE5 version of the Chainsaw character from 4, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about.  This is a chance for me to go all nerdy about the graphics of this game.  Since I am soon going to college to get a degree in graphic design of Characters and Levels, I’m obviously already inclined to geek out over graphics.  But this particular screenshot always gets my eye and screams “I’m amazing!”  Haha, so what always gets me about it is the flesh on the chainsaw character.  Focusing on the torso alone, the cracks and chunks of missing flesh are cool enough, but the videos this is featured in show the incredible detail and power of the PS3 and XBOX360 processors.  These realistic skins and sounds of this character really immerse you in the game and can seriously freak you out.  This character without the chainsaw could really freak me out, but throwing in the chainsaw can just make you pee yourself haha.  His crackly arms do the same and it’s really just genious.  But the part that always makes me giddy with anticipation is the head.  This wrapped up bag thing and the way he’s clutching it like he’s just seriously pissed off is intense.  It seems this particular Resident Evil character might be sort of Silent Hill esque in that if you can sneak up, just watching this character move alone could freak you out before he even sees you.  This game really is just beautiful.  It’s all there is to say about it.  And I’m going to be staring at screenshots and videos until I FINALLY get a chance to put the game in my hands.

Primal Rage was a game for arcade systems and various game consoles. I had this game as a child for the Sega Genesis. I loved it! I loved the extreme violence, the quirky idea, the simple gameplay, and it’s party value. After over ten years, I’ve recently acquired another Sega Genesis and given the opportunity to play this game again. It takes me back and keeps me entertained even all these years later. I find the grotesque humor as funny as I did then. I find the extensive gore just as enthralling as once upon a time. The simple gameplay intrigues me just as it did once. And the idea of dinosaurs killing each other for control of Urth is still a fantastic idea to me. Needless to say, this raises yet another question in my mind. Why the hell didn’t they remake this game?! If they could update the graphics and maintain the humor and gore without fucking it up with a stupid story or voice acting or shitty controls, it would be a hit! Tons of characters, extensive violence, funny attacks, awesome levels, this game is practically already made to be the next great fighting game of the new generation of consoles. But, unfortunately, the world wants more of it’s Halo and Final Fantasy. Fighting games have to be long running series to even be worth looking at anymore…

Well, Resident Evil 5 has pretty much been the hottest thing for all of us RE fans for a few years now. And now that it’s getting closer I’m looking back at some old news about the game. For instance, in December, Mikami stated that “I probably won’t play it. I won’t like it, because it’s not going to be the game I would have made.” link. To me, this raises my own sort of doubt. I mean, part of me was extremely excited to see that they were expanding the RE4 formula. (Or as some of us call it, the 4mula). But oddly enough I’m almost scared. Like, to think the series is in the hands of someone that’s not the original creator and to think it’s taken over by someone completely different kinda makes me worried. Mikami also said that unless 6 reinvents the series much like 4 did, the series will NOT survive like it has in the past. This seems to me like it might sorta go the way that the telephone game has. Mikami got it to 4, yes, and 5 seems to stay true to 4 whilst staying true to the previous chapters. Here’s what scares me. 6 needs to revamp the series, which means it might not stay as true to the rest of the series. The more you get into it, the further it may get, until it ceases to be Resident Evil anymore. I fear the same is happening to Silent Hill. They’ve become more fan/action games and it’s only a matter of time before they’re just monster kill fests. I guess that just opens the door for original games to come in and try to be the next big thing. I know that soon I am going to start pumping random amounts of money into indie games, just to see what hasn’t quite been made yet.

Hello there!  I’ve just recently began this plethorous extravaganza into the universe of commercial video-gaming as a hobby, lifestyle, and massive media empire.  I do have very simple goals and they’re very advantageous to you, my dearest reader.  One is to educate those who wish to know about what it is we gamers find so alluring about the digital entertainment world.  The other is to express the voice of the gamer, the views of the king of the controller.  Now, don’t let my adjectives fool you, I enjoy a fun laugh now and again.  Har har.  But what’s most important is my pure love of the media.  So I suppose this is adieu for the moment, as I’m in the midst of writing a real Maiden voyage post.  So, in short, Happy New Year and enjoy my ramblings.