Power Glove Love

I played this beta some more. The destructible environments are seriously topnotch. Hiding in a building and having a tank knock a wall down is something I can only describe as fucking awesome.

The control scheme itself is a bit too much like Call of Duty 4. I know that shouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s playing it safe. It’s something people know. They’re comfortable with it, and it’s not really going too far out on a limb. Aiming down your iron sights is useless. There’s a gigantic target reticle right in front of you.

The frame rate, for me, seems uneven. It may be the head bob, I don’t know. Something definitely feels amiss, however.

This was about as far as I got in my analyzation. That story will be explained shortly.

Sorry for the gigantic delay between posts. It’ll change, I swear. And not in the alcoholic, abusive father kind of way.

Josh and I have gotten access to the Bad Company Beta. My first impression about this delightful little muffin is that it needs way more time in the fucking oven. Infinity Ward’s gonna sue somebody, too. It’s like COD4.5 or something. I’m gonna give it another chance, play it tonight, and have a nice big paragraph of verbal diarrhea about how it does/doesn’t suck.

See you then.

Assassin’s Creed seems like an exercise in copying from as many games as possible. It’s like they said “Hey, let’s take the sympathetic mass murderer main character idea from God of War, the sandbox concept from GTA and, oh yeah, the completely obvious twist ending from Crackdown.” Though they don’t seem to have ever admitted it, AC is pretty obviously supposed to be a spiritual successor to Prince of Persia, the way Bioshock is to System Shock. The problem with this is that Prince of Persia really sucked towards the end of the series. Like Samuel Johnson is alleged to have said about another writer’s manuscript, Assassin’s Creed is both good and original. Problem is, the original parts are not good, and the good parts are not original. Luckily for us, most of the game isn’t very original.
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My birthday is in November. While I attempt to save money to upgrade my PC, a shit ton of games release at the same time. This year, I couldn’t hold my cash in my pocket any longer. I spent it. Since I did, I can tell you something about all the big releases. So I will take this time to do so…after the jump. [Read more →]

So, after Josh BLATENTLY called me out, I’ve decided to throw down my impressions of Mass Effect.  I intend to keep this short, as I have to get my pre-Thanksgiving stomach distention on, if that made any sense…  Anyhow.  I’m REALLY enjoying this game.  I’ve been told it’s better than KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic for you that have been living under a rock) of course since I’ve never played KOTOR I’ll have to take their word for it.  I’m somewhere near 8 hours in and have only completed 3 main missions.  That may sound bad, but the hours FLY BY.  I’m not one to play a game for any more than an hour or so before I get bored and/or distracted. (Oh look, it’s raining…)  But I keep jumping on Mass Effect, telling myself I’ll play for 15 minutes or so, and an hour later I’m finally looking at the clock.

Time for a new paragraph.

You are given several options during your player creation screen, such as background, class, and psychological profile.  Whew, big words.  The game is affected by almost everything you do, making it so immersive it’s crazy.  For example a short time after a suprise interview, I got an intergalactic call on my intergalactic cell phone by my superior congratulating me on how well I handled the reporter’s asinine questions.  The game continues like this with its movie-like cutscenes and immersive storytelling.  But just a warning to all of you, don’t start it unless you have time.  After shutting it off to do some homework I was jonesing to play it again 15 minutes later.  So much for class…

Two more things…

 I truely am sorry about the gigantic picture, but I felt it was the only way to express my view of Josh.

Also, why is an upper case ‘I’ smaller than a lower case ‘L’?  “I’ll”

At the PGL (as we like to call ourselves) we can never agree on anything. I love Halo but Andy and Chase hate it. I say they hate it because they are garbage at it and I am rad. I’m sure we disagree on other stuff too but I really just want to talk about the one thing no one here argues about. Arcade Fire is a great band! Not just great, fan-fucking-tastic!!!!

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Dear Microsoft,

I have been a loyal customer for over 3 years now. Never in those 3 years has your service been comparable to a trashcan full of baby shit. I guess there’s a first time for everything. After joining eight matches on COD4 in quick succession of one another, I was repeatedly dropped. Everyone else in the room got dropped…one by one…in a cinematic fashion. WTF

After throwing my controller across the living room, I attempted Halo 3. No dice. I lagged through a match, got dropped out of a handful of lobbies, and retreated into my pile of teddy bears. My tears are your fault. What ever happened to the downtime XBL had last night? Did you even accomplish anything? I’d put money on the table saying you didn’t.

After being stubborn and trying COD4 again, Infinity Ward promptly informed the entire community that XBL was having issues and that they were being worked on. NO SHIT. HURRY UP AND FIX THEM.

Signed,

Chase Ruyle

P.S. : Sending me a 1 month card of XBox Live won’t rectify this situation. Ever since you changed the setup to REQUIRE PEOPLE to have an open connection, you have ruined everything that I once called XBox Live. And I hate you forever, I just can’t quit you.

Apparently I am one opinionated person. I have been called a snob on many levels. Snap judgments are my forte. One of these judgments was made against Criss Angel. For a long time I believed that Criss Angel was a tool of massive proportions. When I hear the name Criss Angel I associate it with Dane Cook. HEY LOOK AT ME, I SCREAM AND YELL AND ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! I’M DANE COOK! All this came to an end 5 minutes ago. Criss Angel is now in the pantheon of rad fucking dudes. He is no James Randi, Penn and Teller, or The Dude. Although he is approaching that status.

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Need for Speed, ugh.  I don’t know what happened to Need for Speed: Pro Street, but the demo was garbage.  I’ve always been a bit of a fanboy, defending myself when all the haters would bash the series.  But EA has crushed my love of the series.  I cried myself to sleep the night I first played the demo.

            Need for Speed was always a fun arcade racer, but for whatever reason they have made it halfheartedly into a sim.  I’m okay with playing a sim racer, but in Pro Street it’s like they didn’t know whether to make it an arcade or a sim racer.  For example, it has three difficulty settings.  On the easiest, the game essentially plays itself.  All you have to do is mash on the accelerator and the game helps you turn and even slows you down when heading into a corner.  Kick it up to the highest difficulty and the game actually gets easier, but is still frustrating.  At times your car handles like an arcade racer, but as soon as you tap the brakes or edge off the pavement, your car goes careening out of control, and you wreck and die. 

            Not being able to finish a race after many tries makes me angry.  Especially when not finishing is because of ridiculous handling and irritating game play mechanics.  Owning several NFS games and growing up with the series, I’m not even going to pick up this game.  I guess I’ll have to resort to playing the Burnout…I disappoint myself sometimes.

The stage is set. World Series 2007 is starting today!

The matchup? The American League’s Boston Red Sox vs. the National League’s Colorado Rockies.

Place your wagers, gentlemen!

Here’s the breakdown: 

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