b-ruce

10 good years, 1 great cat

MGS4 Impressions

I won't call this a review because I don't feel like going that in-depth on the subject but allow me to share my thoughts on the game.

Pros:
Fantastic visual presentation
Wonderfully interesting narrative
Fun gameplay mechanics at times

Cons:
Sometimes feels non-interactive
Boss battles seem not up to series standard
Ends weakly

Overall I don�t think I�m disappointed in the game but I won�t say that I�m overly impressed either. Much like GTA4 I think if you look past the glitter and shine you find a game that either refuses to or can not match the luster and be as special as their predecessors.

MGS4 article in New York Times

Got to love the press... I find it most amusing that the author references the editors of PS Magazine or 1up.com as he would a professor of woman's studies or a think-tank pundit.

They've finally done it, they've killed my car, man!

... or Xbox 360. So I got the red ring of death today. After a couple years of dreading this more than likely occurance it came upon me as I unsuspectingly turned on the console after a day of non-use. So obviously it's not an overheating issue.

It's disappointing, especially because I've been getting back into Rock Band and NBA2k* again, but actually Microsoft seems to be handling this whole thing not too badly.

I had always hoped that I'd be one of the lucky few not to get this but really I'm a little happy with the timing. Nothing huge and pressing right now for Xbox.

Everything old is new again and shinier!

So the Patriots weren't able to stop me from getting my hands on a copy of MGS4 and god damn if I'm not overjoyed about it. 4-6 hours in and it's just sheer joy, nostalgia mixed with an incredible graphical presentation mixed with Kojima's trademark crazy ass narrative.

You know a game's good when you are considering replaying it even before you're finished.

Age of Conan is here but MGS4 is right around the corner

So Age of Conan, it's incomplete. There's largely no real endgame material yet, which wouldn't be that big of a deal if it wasn't so darn easy to reach it. Within 10 days of release legitimate players using legit means were reaching the max level of 80. And then they started building their guild cities. And then I think we all realized in horror that there's nothing to do with them after that. At some point guilds with big fancy safe guild cities will be able to plant their flag in contested land and defend their square footage of dirt and cinder blocks. But for now all we can do is whine.

But don't get me wrong the gameplay is highly amusing. I'm using a controller to play for the most part and am having a blast in the thick of the fight. I think when more content gets added the game could be a real special experience. But for now it feels very limited, small and unfinished.

The point of a series

I finished the main narrative in GTA 4 over the weekend. And I know it's good and all but I can't help but still have this strange feeling of let down from it all. The driving mechanics and physics have changed to make the whole process much less enjoyable which in turn makes the radio much less enjoyable. And those two things are the heart of the series for me. But let's not also forget that they moved away from having any celebrity casting, limited your clothing options without improving that clunky store interface at all, removed all silencers, removed the "skip the car ride" option to streamline missions, stopped the tradition of having a carry-over character in mission critical cutscenes, took all the fun out of driving the motorcycle as the merest hitch will cause you to fly 80 feet due to their crazy rag doll physics engine, took out the bike and airplane vehicles, turned the standing gun gameplay into paramilitary duck and cover rather than just fun old run and gun, no driveby camera angle, etc

It just feels a bit too different from its predicessors.

IGN gives GTA 4 a perfect 10

Hilary "Bulldozer" Goldstein's GTA4 review is up and hell if it doesn't make me envy pAjAmO's ablitiy to get advance copies all the more. I on the other hand have to wait until Monday nite nite. Still I'm very excited, especially since Hilary sez that the main character has a lot of heart and the story is more layered and subtle. Now I thought that is what made its predicessor one of the best games I had ever played but no one spoke on that much at the time. So I'm well interested to see this for myself.

On other fronts the IGN networks are tent calling for Age of Conan like mad, and it done got me an open beta key. 12 gigs are downloading as we speak. Which is a little bogus because I just had 12 gigs of the Gamespot beta but it wouldn't transfer over. Oh well, when servers open on May 1st I'll be there man. Ooo! I wonder if I'll be able to play the single player intro as soon as it's installed!

Harmonix lays an egg on the eve of GTA launch

So it finally happened. Much like all things, the good folks are Harmonix, makers of the fine "Rock Band" have failed me miserably. Today the first full album became available for download and play. It is "Screaming for Vengeance" from Judas Priest. An interesting first choice to be sure, especially with nuggets like "Who's Next" and "Nevermind" rumored. Still, I was very excited to finally see it, as the ability to play a full album was something I really wanted to experience in Rock Band. I thought it would be the perfect culmination of learning how to play the game and figuring out where I stood in the difficulty hierarchy. "I have an hour to play something, I'll pop in 'Pinkerton'" I imagined myself saying in the months to come.

But what we have so far is a failure to combine interface with intention. So as it stands the play-experience for an album is to first write down the order of songs, then go to the quickplay, choose song #1, choose difficulty, play it, choose "new song", look up what song 2 is, find it amongst the 100+ tracks, choose difficulty, play song, and repeat until album.length = trackNumber. Talk about buzz kill. Shouldn't it be enough to pick what album you want to play? To let the players change difficulty after a failed attempt but keep their place in the setlist? It seems like such a minor adjustment would be needed from the gameplay they already have implemented in the Band World Tour. This is going to stick in my craw for a while. I feel gypped by laziness and greed. And no one outlazies and outaverices me! With only a week until GTAIV comes out, I'm afraid the best gaming movement of the last year has completely lost steam.

Fishin for Bass

I got a nice big Bass off eBay and while I had hoped to have some new audio to show for it, finals haven't been cooperating. Still I am developing one hell of a new callous on my index finger to show for it.

They are so good at this

GTA 4 radio station widget. I can't wait to hear more!

More like: �There Will Be No Third Act�

PT Anderson, get back together with Fiona Apple cuz whatcha been up to since you two split hasn�t even been close to your work when in flagrante. Or mayhaps you all Anderson writer/director types only have 2.5 good movies in ya (with apologies to Wes, I haven�t seen Darjeeling, yet and if I do love it when I do see it I claim poetic license, it�s a really witty line.)

I can�t believe Anderson�s �Blood� is receiving the kind of acclaim it has been getting. It�s a B, B- at best. Have you guys even seen �No Country For Old Men�? Really? Watch it again, I�m going to, but I�m pretty sure it�s waves better than �Blood� or �Juno� for that matter, which was actually quite likeable, despite or perhaps because of it�s completely unrealistic teen dialog. I yearn to met a Gen Y-er who knew the words �wizard� or �boss� in the uses found in that film.

Still the film�s theme of �Gen X bad, too selfish, Gen Y good, so quirky� hits me in a soft spot. I suppose I�m more of a Twixter than true Gen X but still I couldn�t help but see the Jennifer Garner character as my Mom as she was the night I saw the film babysitting for our neighbors and completely delighted to be playing with a one year old. Combined with the wonderful feeling our house had when we played host to my cousin and their two little ones and I get it. Motherhood (Grandmotherhood) really suits my Mom. She probably yearns for similar little ones that look kinda like her to dote on and babysit on a regular basis and now while arthritis hasn�t completely taken root in her hips, or the Alzheimer�s my father�s brain. And I can�t help but feel responsible for not giving that to them. In my selfishness I have allowed my development to become quite arrested as an excuse to not have any real responsibilities. I wasted ten years of my life only to end up pretty much exactly where I was when I graduated high school. �Juno� put a spotlight on that and while I laughed at its jokes I couldn�t help but feel the true punchline as I walked out of the theater. This got me in the mood for some Belle and Sebastian, even if it wasn�t in the film I always like going to them if I�m going to have a nice sulk.

But really what�s with all the twee pop in �Juno�? That�s not Gen Y, Michael Cera was a little baby back when Wolfie was unavoidably everywhere around me in that house in Urbana and we were all listening to �If You�re Feeling Sinister.� As the janitors used to always say to the student-workers in the kitchen when they would dance to Al Green or Marvin Gaye, �don�t you go on, you don�t know nothing about no Al Green� don�t know nothing about him.� Which is exactly how I feel when the 16 year old at work tells me she�s listening to the �Juno� soundtrack and she�s into other �weird� music like that, lol.

Again and again

Gamespot reports Age of Conan is delayed, yet again. This time til May 20th. Pretty damn bogus.

new song!

A pop punk protest piece. It's playing on my myspace, so check it out!

Rock Band does indeed rock

I'm in love with a drummer and that drummer is me! I still wish it had a creative aspect as we hoped it would have when we first heard about the game but still it's hella fun.