When I was younger, I never understood how people could sit there and tell me how they liked the sound of vinyl over that of a CD. I knew that the audio quality of the CD (Digital vs. Analog) was far better than the quality of a vinyl record; a record that would slowly degrade with each listen. I finally did understand it with the help of my own analogy: I still really like the chunky dated graphics of the Playstation and Nintendo 64 era of games.
Now I do not think that the graphic quality of games such as Parasite Eve, Super Mario 64, and Metal Gear Solid is better than that of the current gen, HD mega games. I understand how much the technology has moved on and how dated the Playstation and Nintendo 64 games look when compared to games such as The Last Guardian and L.A. Noire. Yet it is that very dated look that makes me love them. I grew up in this world of blocks and polygon counts, and I gazed out over the pixelated skylines of the 16 bit. It was this that helped rocket my growing love of video games into my consciousness forever. The look of these games is tied to my memories of being a kid, of growing up and living out those carefree days of youth; those same days that I hope to give to my own kids, some day.
I hope that one day my own kids will look back at the games their dad loves, the archaic discs and hunks of plastic to them, and learn to appreciate them. Will the games be so outdated as to be unplayable to them, or will they be like my generation and its love of vinyl? Will the Playstation and Nintendo 64 become the hip things to play, much as the Nintendo and the Super Nintendo is for gamers of my generation? I hope that one day, I get sit down to play through these games and create new memories, with my own family.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Sorrow and the Old West
I wanted to finish Red Dead Redemption sooner rather than later. So a couple of days ago while I was hanging out with my good friend, I decided it was high time I sat down and started my final push to the end. I loaded the game onto my 360 hard drive, and started the old girl up.
Something wasn’t right.
The load screen said something akin to a welcome, almost as if I was starting the game from the beginning. ‘But I was in Mexico’, raced through my mind again and again as the little revolver chamber loaded the game. ‘I just forgot the name of the last mission is all, everything is going to be fine,’ I reassured myself when the screen faded to black. ‘Everything is going to be fine.’
I was wrong. I wasn’t in Mexico; I was walking off the boat in Blackwater. I was at the very start of the game. Everything was not fine.
‘Okay, calm down. Just load your game from the load window, it probably loaded someone else’s file is all. Everything is fine, don’t worry about it.’ So I pause the game, and load up file 2 (the same save slot I have used since I was a kid playing A Link to the Past on my SNES. Always slot 2). Same name, same mission, same disappointment.
It is not like Red Dead is a bad game, far from it. The story is amazing, and the dialog is easily the best I have ever heard in a video game: it’s well written, and superbly executed. The world of Red Dead is interesting, and riding around the country side in search of adventure was/is always a joy. Yet with such a large game, I feel so daunted to have to replay the hours, and hours, and hours I had logged before just to get back to where I left off. Hours and hours to get back to the point where I still have hours and hours to go until the end does not sound like something I feel like doing at the moment; I already have my grind with the recent release of The Firelands, WoW’s new content patch, and my ever growing collection of games.
This is the reason why I do not like people playing my stuff when I am not there. I know it sounds rude, but this is not the first time something like this has happened. Saving over someone’s file is sacrilege, and one would think that Rockstar would have finally (after years) fixed their terrible save system; no one liked it in Grand Theft Auto 3, why does it keep being reused?
One day I will return to the west. And one day, I will finish what I started. Not today, and sure as hell not tomorrow, but one day.
Something wasn’t right.
The load screen said something akin to a welcome, almost as if I was starting the game from the beginning. ‘But I was in Mexico’, raced through my mind again and again as the little revolver chamber loaded the game. ‘I just forgot the name of the last mission is all, everything is going to be fine,’ I reassured myself when the screen faded to black. ‘Everything is going to be fine.’
I was wrong. I wasn’t in Mexico; I was walking off the boat in Blackwater. I was at the very start of the game. Everything was not fine.
‘Okay, calm down. Just load your game from the load window, it probably loaded someone else’s file is all. Everything is fine, don’t worry about it.’ So I pause the game, and load up file 2 (the same save slot I have used since I was a kid playing A Link to the Past on my SNES. Always slot 2). Same name, same mission, same disappointment.
It is not like Red Dead is a bad game, far from it. The story is amazing, and the dialog is easily the best I have ever heard in a video game: it’s well written, and superbly executed. The world of Red Dead is interesting, and riding around the country side in search of adventure was/is always a joy. Yet with such a large game, I feel so daunted to have to replay the hours, and hours, and hours I had logged before just to get back to where I left off. Hours and hours to get back to the point where I still have hours and hours to go until the end does not sound like something I feel like doing at the moment; I already have my grind with the recent release of The Firelands, WoW’s new content patch, and my ever growing collection of games.
This is the reason why I do not like people playing my stuff when I am not there. I know it sounds rude, but this is not the first time something like this has happened. Saving over someone’s file is sacrilege, and one would think that Rockstar would have finally (after years) fixed their terrible save system; no one liked it in Grand Theft Auto 3, why does it keep being reused?
One day I will return to the west. And one day, I will finish what I started. Not today, and sure as hell not tomorrow, but one day.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
War for Cybertron
War for Cybertron was really not a bad game. While it is not anything ground breaking or amazing, that does not mean that it is not worth your time. If you are a fan of the giant 80s robots and overly dramatic plotlines then transform, roll out, and keep on reading.
At its core, War for Cybertron is your basic third person action/shooter. How it deviates from this framework is the ability to transform at will; instead of being stuck as either a robot or vehicle, you can switch seamlessly between the two with the push of a button. Now your average third person fire fight is interspersed with zipping around the battle field as a car, or soaring through the skies as a jet in attempts to get the drop on your enemies. The transformers themselves are separated into class types (scout, leader, etc.) which affect what type o weapons you start with, and what special moves you can perform when you have collected enough energon.
The story is a cannon entry into the Transformers lore, which is either going to mean something to you or mean absolutely nothing. The game is the story of the original reasons why the Autobots and Decepticons are caught-up in civil war with each other. You get to experience events like the first meeting between Megatron and Starscream, and the rise of Optimus to his position as leader of the autobots. Like I said, you will either love or you have no feelings towards it. That being said, it is geared towards Transformer fans; just saying. You also get to play as fan favourites such as Soundwave, Silverbolt, Optimus Prime, and many more.
The game also has multiplayer, but with no one playing it anymore, I cannot say what it is like. I did play a game of the escalation/horde mode, and it was what you expect that mode to be; fight waves and waves of progressively stronger foes, restock in-between, and see how long you can last.
My one problem with the game is that you can either choose to play as either side whenever, even though there is a clear cut storyline that can easily be followed. This design choice shows its flaws after you finish the Decepticon campaign (the first one when going in order), and then end up fighting the same enemies, yet a different colour, in the Autobot campaign. They even go as far as to introduce the different types of enemies the same way in both campaigns. I just feel that we could have seen more variety in everything from enemies, to encounters if you had no choice but to play the story as it should be told.
That one thing aside, I did really enjoy War for Cybertron. I know that a lot of it has to do with my lifelong love of the Transformers, but it is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination.
At its core, War for Cybertron is your basic third person action/shooter. How it deviates from this framework is the ability to transform at will; instead of being stuck as either a robot or vehicle, you can switch seamlessly between the two with the push of a button. Now your average third person fire fight is interspersed with zipping around the battle field as a car, or soaring through the skies as a jet in attempts to get the drop on your enemies. The transformers themselves are separated into class types (scout, leader, etc.) which affect what type o weapons you start with, and what special moves you can perform when you have collected enough energon.
The story is a cannon entry into the Transformers lore, which is either going to mean something to you or mean absolutely nothing. The game is the story of the original reasons why the Autobots and Decepticons are caught-up in civil war with each other. You get to experience events like the first meeting between Megatron and Starscream, and the rise of Optimus to his position as leader of the autobots. Like I said, you will either love or you have no feelings towards it. That being said, it is geared towards Transformer fans; just saying. You also get to play as fan favourites such as Soundwave, Silverbolt, Optimus Prime, and many more.
The game also has multiplayer, but with no one playing it anymore, I cannot say what it is like. I did play a game of the escalation/horde mode, and it was what you expect that mode to be; fight waves and waves of progressively stronger foes, restock in-between, and see how long you can last.
My one problem with the game is that you can either choose to play as either side whenever, even though there is a clear cut storyline that can easily be followed. This design choice shows its flaws after you finish the Decepticon campaign (the first one when going in order), and then end up fighting the same enemies, yet a different colour, in the Autobot campaign. They even go as far as to introduce the different types of enemies the same way in both campaigns. I just feel that we could have seen more variety in everything from enemies, to encounters if you had no choice but to play the story as it should be told.
That one thing aside, I did really enjoy War for Cybertron. I know that a lot of it has to do with my lifelong love of the Transformers, but it is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination.
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