What’s it to you?

I was browsing the Xbox Live Market Place and noticed that there are some dumb things being sold. Gamer Pictures and Themes are not worth the dollar or so they are charging. I love my Slurpee icon and that was free of charge. That led me to thinking; what would I pay for?

1. Level Skips

Recently I have been going through the Call of Duty 4 campaign in order to get some achievements. In doing so I noticed how devilish those missions are. I would have happily payed a dollar or two to get by because that would add to my enjoyment of the game.

I’ll admit that it sounds crazy to basically pay for achievements however, does it really matter? Achievements are not some kind of noble sport that is above cheating. Just look at the massive save trading going on. I think that anyone who takes points seriously is just sad. If someone is willing to spend their money on something you find stupid it should not bother you. Just support whatever you want to support. If it is truly stupid then no one will buy it and it will end on its own.

I just noticed how easily I got tracked off of my main point. I started talking about bad values then transitioned into points then went back to buying practices. In short, put level skips on XBLM.

Why Fanboys Suck, Vol. 1

The release of Metal Gear Solid 4 triggered the usual parade of PS3 fanboys to come out and say how the messiah has arrived to take us to the promise land. Don’t get me wrong, I dont have any problems with people expressing joy for a game. However along with all of the banner waving comes the Sony Defense Force to declaim every media outlet that does not give their game a perfect score. Thats the first thing that pisses me off, whenever heart felt anger is expressed they make it seem like they put their blood, sweat, and tears into the game. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you do not qualify to be in that posistion.

The second thing that gets to me is that most of the time the game they are looking at gets a 9 as opposed to a 10. I feel the need to put out the fact that the number 9 is right next to 10. This is expressed perfectly by this comic. I’ll express how I see this, if you are looking at a review and are outraged at the number then you are a fanboy. You see, at this point your not looking for buying advice, you are just a fanboy trying to confirm your love for a faceless, cold hearted, cooperation that cares no less about you then the discarded soda can in the garbage. They are a company built to make money. They are not your friend built to make you happy. While they might do that along the way thats not their main purpose. They main drive is cold hard cash.

So this is where I say, fanboys…..SUCK IT!

Games everyone love but me, Burnout

My friends go into a frenzy whenever a new Burnout arrives and everytime I would eventually make it over to one of their houses and try out these games. Every single time I see them having a really fun time and I just dont see why. I get it the cars go fast. Oh, you can boost to make your car go even faster? Great.

With the release of Burnout Paradise I was really psyched about the concept. The whole open world idea seemed like the good change of pace that I have been waiting for. However when I got it I found it extremly repetitive after you acquire your licenses. It was basically the same as the previous games but no instead of navigating menu’s you navigate a virtual world.

The only thing I like about the series are the visuals. Criterion games always put out games that blow my mind visually but when I get to the game play I always leave feeling underwhelmed.

Games everyone loves but me, Tony Hawk

Every year for seemingly forever a Tony Hawk game has come and gone. And every time one of these games came out I wondered was this the one? Would this be the one where the secret awesomenes that everyone one else saw in the series would be revealed to me. However I have rented a majority of them and played them for about four or six hours I always come out being really disappointed.

For me personally I do not feel compelled by the game play. To me it seems to be alot of grinding and going off ramps mashing alot of buttons to bust out a combo. Also, it seems that I am very prone to motion sickness. Whenever I play these games I end up with a mad headache and curse the constant up and down motions of the camera.

As I do with most games I can see why some people like it but for me personally, I could not care less.

I need Call of Duty 4

I’m starting to hate Halo 3.

I need Call of Duty.

Thats all I gotta say.

I wanna go Old-School

I dont know what line of thought led me to want a RetroDuo game system but now I really want one. Im going to assume that you do not know what this is so I’ll explain simply. The RetroDuo is a system that can play the old school NES and SNES games. Being a big fan of gaming I always hear tales of the original Mario games, the never ending stream of Street Fighter games, and the old school RPG’s being the best games ever.

I’m not sure if I really want to spend the $50 on the system and the money on the games at the moment. I dont want to spend the money and have it just end up rotting in my basement. I’m going to have the think about this for a while. By the way here’s a pic of it:

Image courtesy of Vista Products

Thats the end of that…

I was in the middle of updating my PSP so naturally I had my PSP plugged in to an AC adapter in my wall. During the middle of the update the power went out, and since it was about 11 O’Clock at night this was bad, in the middle of the confusion I dropped my PSP which cause my battery to fall out. Ironically enough the instant I dropped it the power came back on. If you didn’t know if you lose power for some reason, like my moments of idiocy, there is a chance that your PSP will brick. And that exactly what happened. Now I have a shiny, 160$ paperweight staring at me.

Now I’m kind of pissed because that was my Crisis Core machine which was my source of morning entertainment on my bus ride to school.

I just want to have fun…

While I was playing BioShock yesterday I was really into the whole experience until I reached my second Big Daddy fight. I just kept dying over and over again, all I did was get into one of those vita chambers, which are basically respawn points, I would run back to the Big Daddy and get a couple shot gun shells off and die again. Then I would just repeat the cycle over and over again. I found this really frustrating and started a new game on the easy difficulty.

When I made that switch the game became alot more fun for me. I no longer feared turning the next corner and the long walk I would go through every time I died was no longer a worry. Playing both I noticed that Im not really missing much playing it on easy. It just makes the whole experience more fun for me.

Who cares if Im playing on Easy mode. I play games to have fun and whatever guarantees me the most amount of fun I’ll do it. If you are not playing games for fun then what are you playing for?

BioShock Impressions

I got a copy of BioShock from my friend and started playing it today. The first thing I noticed was the visual and audio presentation. This game looks fantastic. The water really stood out to me because its so detailed and the small effects on your screen add to the realism effect. The other things in the game environments look really polished as well. I really enjoy the art deco style because almost no game follows this style. This is really refreshing compared to your typical space combat scenario. Another strong suit is the audio; when you are walking around rapture, the under water metropolis you play in, all kinds of really creepy noises make the atmosphere extremly tense.

So far what I’ve noticed is that when you compare the visual and audio together the atmosphere created is amazing. No other game can come close to the tenseness of Rapture. I was legitimately scared by the game when the crazy splices began to attack you.

The thing I’ve noticed is that so far I am not a fan of the game play. The shooting mechanics does not feel satisfying like Call of Duty and Halo. I just don’t feel powerful while I’m wielding them. However the plasmids feel really awesome. Shocking someone or lighting them on fire feels really visceral. The plasmids, as they call them, seem to be the main mechanic to focus on.

Overall I’m really impressed with BioShock’s visual and audio presentation but I feel that the gameplay is not satisfying. These are only my initial feeling so they are subject to change.