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| Oh, I'm keeping up Fox! |
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| I did this for you sir! |
Sunday, July 24, 2011
I Got Some New Digs
Check out the revamped page for I Sometimes Call Myself Chase Robertson (or ISCMCR for all you cool kids out there), they always say you need to keep up with the Jones's but in this case I'm keeping up with the Tonino and I didn't want it to look like I put more effort into Retentive Gibberish (even though it is fantastic and you should bring yourself over to that link which is now conveniently on your left!)
The first change you should notice is the vomit-inducing pattern in the background, it is a series of bullseyes something, but I liked the way it looked and it sure beats the plain black. I have also changed the fonts for a few things, both the font for the blog title, and for each of the post titles have been changed from generic-brand font, to looking like it was written by a 7 year-old. I also set up a new right-side and left-side design so you don't have to strain yourself to scroll down a little further to see my massive set of labels on the right. My last big change is adding a little excerpt about me in case if you are one of those people just discovering this awesome page now and don't want to read all the nice autobiographical posts leading up to this moment. Well I just wanted to show and acquaint you with my new look, and don't be scared of change, most of the time its only superficial, just like every one of you out there!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Only In Dreams
Hello all. Once again I'm going to talk about sleeping trouble and general weirdness, possibly due to my lack of sleep as compared to my normal schedule.
It started about a week ago on Sunday night and I had to go to sleep to wake up early on Monday morning, but this was made hard by the fact that I slept rather late that morning so I wasn't tired at a normal hour to wake up at 6:25 without feeling like absolute shit. When I decided that I was tired enough to try sleeping, I quickly found that I was wrong and fell into one of those situations where you try to sleep but get riddled with thoughts about what you should be doing instead (whether at that moment or in general). If I am the only one who comes across this situation quite often please tell me because that probably isn't a good thing. Eventually after about an hour and a half of hating myself for stupid things I've done in days past and telling myself that I'm going to partake in some new endeavors with my life I fell asleep. That is when the real fun began. I had a dream about some sort of really weird alien epidemic (possibly induced by playing Dead Space: Extraction earlier that night) and it started with a first person perspective of a woman being woken up, and in the shock of her change of state she punched the person who woke her right in the face. Once we established that that was her default response to being woken up, we met some other girl who spent her days laying in the middle of her pet Giant Venus Flytrap (now were getting into the weirdness) and that there is an epidemic that turns people into angry killing zombie-like aliens, but it can be kept in check by some measures. This is when the first lady catches the epidemic but she is kept in check so she is a semi-alien but can still act coherently like a normal human. This is when we hit the interesting part of the story, the infected lady gets woken up and reacts as she normally does by punching the other in the face, and this is when Giant Venus Flytrap Girl defensively grabs the infected woman and unleashes her pet upon her, the results were not pretty. This freaked me out and woke me up, I was freaked out to the extent that I tried to rewrite the dream. I don't know if I rewrote it correctly because I didn't dream again before being abruptly woken up for work (I didn't punch anybody).
The next night I once again battled the same battle with my brain before going to sleep, but that is nothing to discuss at the moment because I once again had a survival-horror dream. This time rather than an alien epidemic and fictional characters, the antagonists were light-fearing zombies and my siblings and I were the main characters trying to survive in a two-level warehouse I have never seen before. This dream wasn't nearly as vivid as the last to me but from what I remember we had one light in the warehouse and were standing in it because we knew it was the only way we would be safe from the incoming horde. It contained a lot of dialogue and I retained exactly none of it, but some action finally came as one of my brothers decided that our barricades were insufficient and decided at the last minute to run out into the darkness and down the hall to fix them, the dream then ended with my starting to venture off after him to help. The world may never know if we found the light.
This was strange to me in that it was the first time in a really long time that I have had notable dreams on consecutive nights, and was also notable in that I usually needed more than 2 hours after waking up to be vaguely useful. The third night I tried to avoid the typical thinking myself to sleep by just staying up later until I was ready to sleep, which worked to some small extent. That night I know that I had a dream, but I didn't retain any of it at all, all I remember about it was there was no setting, no purpose, no people and no words. The dream was just a sequence of images being thrown at me randomly and the worst part is that I don't remember any of what they were. I feel like something interesting happened in writing about this so I really hope that you enjoyed hearing about my dreams and maybe I'll try to tell them more when I have them. Enjoy the song I named this after.
It started about a week ago on Sunday night and I had to go to sleep to wake up early on Monday morning, but this was made hard by the fact that I slept rather late that morning so I wasn't tired at a normal hour to wake up at 6:25 without feeling like absolute shit. When I decided that I was tired enough to try sleeping, I quickly found that I was wrong and fell into one of those situations where you try to sleep but get riddled with thoughts about what you should be doing instead (whether at that moment or in general). If I am the only one who comes across this situation quite often please tell me because that probably isn't a good thing. Eventually after about an hour and a half of hating myself for stupid things I've done in days past and telling myself that I'm going to partake in some new endeavors with my life I fell asleep. That is when the real fun began. I had a dream about some sort of really weird alien epidemic (possibly induced by playing Dead Space: Extraction earlier that night) and it started with a first person perspective of a woman being woken up, and in the shock of her change of state she punched the person who woke her right in the face. Once we established that that was her default response to being woken up, we met some other girl who spent her days laying in the middle of her pet Giant Venus Flytrap (now were getting into the weirdness) and that there is an epidemic that turns people into angry killing zombie-like aliens, but it can be kept in check by some measures. This is when the first lady catches the epidemic but she is kept in check so she is a semi-alien but can still act coherently like a normal human. This is when we hit the interesting part of the story, the infected lady gets woken up and reacts as she normally does by punching the other in the face, and this is when Giant Venus Flytrap Girl defensively grabs the infected woman and unleashes her pet upon her, the results were not pretty. This freaked me out and woke me up, I was freaked out to the extent that I tried to rewrite the dream. I don't know if I rewrote it correctly because I didn't dream again before being abruptly woken up for work (I didn't punch anybody).
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| That's some scary ass shit. |
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| Imagine this with only one light bulb and complete darkness otherwise |
This was strange to me in that it was the first time in a really long time that I have had notable dreams on consecutive nights, and was also notable in that I usually needed more than 2 hours after waking up to be vaguely useful. The third night I tried to avoid the typical thinking myself to sleep by just staying up later until I was ready to sleep, which worked to some small extent. That night I know that I had a dream, but I didn't retain any of it at all, all I remember about it was there was no setting, no purpose, no people and no words. The dream was just a sequence of images being thrown at me randomly and the worst part is that I don't remember any of what they were. I feel like something interesting happened in writing about this so I really hope that you enjoyed hearing about my dreams and maybe I'll try to tell them more when I have them. Enjoy the song I named this after.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
New Endeavors
As I hinted at in the article I wrote yesterday, a friend of mine and myself were thinking about collaborating to make a new blog that would contain pieces from both of us. Today, we got together and along with a couple other friends, we made that a reality! So for anybody who happens to read me, be sure to take a look at Retentive Gibberish and read a few exclusives I will write for that. Thank you, and enjoy.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Top 100 Modern Games? I may beg to differ.
Being the video game nerd that I am, I have made looking at random articles on IGN.com one of my daily activities even though I tend to disagree with them on nearly everything I have read. To make the disagreements even more incredible they have recently released a "top 100 modern games" list, considering modern to be the current generation of home platforms and PC games since the release of the Xbox 360 in late 2006. This was tailor-made for me to disagree as I have no interest in FPS's and consider myself to be a devout retro game fan. So without further delay I will look at this list and make comments on the games I have played and what I think. (Note the numbers will jump quite a bit because a good half of them I have never heard of).
#99 League of Legends
I have never played it but a lot of my friends at school do and I have watched it played before. Pretty high for a free game and it looks like it could be worthy of the ranking but I am not much of a strategist so I'll continue to pass on playing it.
#95 Kirby's Epic Yarn
Haven't played this game either but it looks cool as hell. I'm happy that it was taken seriously enough to get on the list from game critics who I'd have imagined would look at the different art style and written it off as a "little kiddy game."
#93 Angry Birds
I don't get the appeal in Angry Birds, I guess I'm weird or something.
#92 Tom Clany's Rainbow Six: Vegas
Here's a game that I own. I was particularly a big fan of it because I'm not good at shooters and the spacing between checkpoints is like 40 minutes of playtime. This game taught me two things, grenades are powerful and playing the same 40 minutes of a game over and over gets old really quick. But I understand it's placement because the gameplay was good enough for me to buy it after playing the demo.
#83 'Splosion Man
Yeah this game is really cool, and it is a 2-D platformer so it was right up my alley. It didn't do anything that really blew me away (pun intended), but it had an incredible sense of humor and was very enjoyable. And I do love doughnuts!
#82 Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
If you have read this much you might guess that I like Tom Clancy games, but I really just like the Splinter Cell series and bought Vegas that once. So as you might guess now I think this game should be higher. This game was a fantastically done and I did not disagree in any way from them changing the Splinter Cell formula from the past games (I still think Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory were better though). I enjoyed almost everything about this game, the story was quite fantastic, the co-op was very fun, the game itself was really fun, and it rather than punishing you for not being stealthy as in the last Splinter Cell games, it rewarded you instead for being stealthy. This was one of my favorite games of the current generation, and I actually may go play it soon after finishing this article.
#76 Brain Age
How do you compare this to real games? Not a shot at Brain Age because it is entertaining, I just wouldn't be able to compare it to other video games.
#67 Donkey Kong Country Returns
I have always been a fan of Super Mario's unforgivably difficult half-brother of a platformer, the Donkey Kong Country series. So I was extremely happy that in the wake of other 2-D platformers that were getting a rebirth that Donkey Kong and Diddy were not left in the chasm of time. The level design and difficulty of this game were both top notch even though some of the boss fights were a little weak. I'm also going to say this should be higher because it gave me a lot of lasting value and a trip down memory lane.
#65 Mega Man 9
While were on the topic of brutally hard retro platformers why not talk about the king of classically difficult games, Mega Man? Capcom's decision to revert back to NES-style 8-bit graphics and sound for this game in 2008 is a statement in itself that you don't need all these fancy graphics and high polygon counts to make a game look nice, you just need to make a game look nice. This game also came out at the perfect time because 2008 was when I entered college and in my first year of college a couple of my friends and I had a period where we tried to beat all of the classic Mega Man games, and never ended up beating Wily's Castle on any of them. I have downloaded this game and made it to the final boss (who I have never beaten), and if I remember they kept all the things I liked about Mega Man games of old intact so I was quite pleased. This game was ranked too low.
#61 Alan Wake
I just finished this game about 5 hours ago, and I completely loved it, enough that by finishing the game I meant finishing the game and all of it's downloadable content. This game was incredible to use a single word, being a big fan of Remedy's Max Payne I was really pleased with their storytelling prowess as the story moved forward at a perfect pace without any needless side stories (I'll be back on this topic later, just wait) and the subtle Max Payne references scattered about. I would like to recommend this to anybody and everybody because it is one of the top arguments for video games as an art, it was a great experience and so far outside the mainstream that it's lack of sales saddens me because every good unique title never gets enough profit to warrant other companies to take chances as well (Jet Grind Radio anybody?) This is a top 5 title for me.
#58 Wii Sports Resort
I didn't know that game critics liked fun!
#50 Battlefield: Bad Company 2
I've never played this game and don't have any opinion on it, I would just like to point out this game marks the halfway point so "this deserves to be higher" is probably going to turn into "this should be a lot lower." A few people I work with play and like this game a lot though.
#49 Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
I only played the demo of the first one, and that game is awesomely addictive. Simple shooters like this tend to keep my attention, and that ignores the fact that this game's imagery is incredibly beautiful and trippy.
#47 Super Street Fighter IV
Mortal Kombat's release in April reminded me that Capcom fighters are overrated. Not a bad game at all, but I'd prefer a Mortal Kombat any day of the week.
#43 Tetris DS
Tetris is timeless fun. Probably the only good thing Russia had survive the Cold War.
#37 Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
I don't have a PSP so I never played Peace Walker, but this is representative of the MGS series as a whole and I did play Metal Gear Solid 4. I am a big fan of stealth action and a big fan of intriguing boss fights, the Metal Gear Solid series is a master of the two. It also contains way more cutscenes than most gamers would prefer to see, but it is an effective way to tell a story and they do a fantastic job of making them look movie-worthy so I actually see that as a positive. I dare anybody to play any of the MGS games and not remember a single boss fights, some of the best ever, so this deserves to maybe be a little higher.
#36 Shadow Complex
A great game made in the spirit of the old Metroid games, but there was one thing that I didn't particularly like about it. That one thing was that every second I played Shadow Complex, I just wanted to play Super Metroid which I don't think was the complete intention of the game. It was a really good game, but it didn't have the same spirit so I think this was a fair place on the list for it.
#35 Borderlands
Loved this game. The only way to make a FPS more likable for me is to add RPG elements to it (which is funny because I'm not really an RPG fan either), and that is exactly what Borderlands did. The mechanic of doing these missions for newer and better guns and a chance to upgrade your abilities was insanely addictive, and they even added a little humor into the game. When you also add in a post-apocalyptic environment into the mix you have me hooked. This game is great and probably belongs in the top 20, but it wasn't as good as another post-apocalyptic fusion of RPG elements with an FPS style that I know I will be talking about a little later.
#34 LittleBigPlanet 2
Another game that I didn't play but represents a series in which I played another title. The first LittleBigPlanet was tons of fun and a nice breath of fresh air to have a lighthearted game in an era where almost every big name game is guilty of taking itself far too seriously. I find this to be a fair ranking.
#33 NBA 2K11
The controls were really blocky and foreign to me, but I did have fun playing this game in a friend's room. It was a good basketball game, but in general I don't think I would call it a good game in general. Maybe the franchise modes and other of that sort were phenomenal, but I thought this was too complex to be a pick-up and play game like sports games should be (See NHL Hitz.)
#31 FIFA 11
Quite possibly the best sports game ever created. If you understand and like soccer you need to play this game, I didn't have the money to purchase it so I have gone the entire year playing it at a friend's house and waiting for FIFA 12 to come out in hopes that it will be better and in knowledge that it will be a great purchase. Since Americans are stupid and hate soccer and some dorks don't like sports, this is probably the perfect place to put this game on the list.
#29 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
I own this game, and unfortunately never gotten too far in it. I can never give it the attention it deserves, because every time I play it I realize it is a great game and wonder why I don't play it more but then I find another diversion and realize I don't have the time necessary to spill into it. Maybe one day I will play enough of this game to know whether it deserves to be higher or not.
#28 Forza Motorsport 3
You know what I don't find any fun in at all? Racing simulators.
#25 Mario Kart DS
You know whats more fun than a racing simulator? An arcade-style kart racing game that fuses undeniable fun with tight controls and a logarithmic-style learning curve so people who try to be good at the game can always get better.
#24 Rock Band 2
Music games had their time, it came and went, and Rock Band was probably better than Guitar Hero except for the fact that their original guitar controller sucked. I am past my phase of music game addiction, but I do look back at the times of playing them with friends and remember how they were undeniably fun. I also discovered some good music in the process so all was not lost.
#22 Gears of War
I have such a nostalgic fondness for this game more than any other that will be on this list. My junior year in high school and the following summer did not see a single weekend night that I was not online with my friends playing this game until around 2 in the morning. A lot of our inside jokes and bonding moments were born in the Gears of War lobby, and this game single-handedly justified my purchase of the Xbox 360 over the PS3 (until the recent hacking of the PSN). This would be a top 3 game on my personal list, and I would've liked to see it higher on this list.
#20 Dead Space
It's Resident Evil for those who don't like Resident Evil! I really need to play this game, I borrowed it from a friend and played a little so I know that I like it but much like Metroid Prime 3, I was never able to play it consistently to give it the attention and time it deserved. This is likely a good place for it to be.
#19 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Whew, this is a lot lower than I thought it was going to be. Let me introduce you to the game that ruined all future FPS's for me. I will admit that it was an extremely good game for it's time, but it quickly annoyed me with even though the upgrade system online was really good, it was just taken way too seriously by most of the people online. I don't know about everybody else, but video games are like golf to me, I want to do well and improve myself, but at the end of the day it is just something I do to have fun. So I would appreciate it if you stopped correlating my performance at a video game with my sexual persuasion, and claiming that you have in one way or another partaken in sexual activities with my mother, thanks. Also I would like to point out there have been 3 new Call of Duty releases and another one coming soon in the just under 4 years since this game was released.
#15 New Super Mario Bros.
I didn't play the DS version, but I played the one they made for the Wii, and much like every other title in this recent retro revival is a great breath of fresh air. Adding co-op multiplayer to the Super Mario series worked much better than I expected, mainly because they made it just as easy to play while sabotaging as to help each other. I would love some more of these titles.
#14 Halo: Reach
I already stated that I'm incredibly bored by all these FPS's coming out and Halo is no exception to the rule, which is sad because I loved the first one and playing the second one split-screen at a friends house was the only thing that pulled us away from Gears of War in high school. But the new generation came around and nothing seemed to change at all in the Halo universe, which annoyed and bored me. I will say that I'm happy they chose Reach of all the titles because it did add a little more to the formula. And also for those who may be thinking I'm "hatin" on Halo and CoD because I suck are probably right, but this is my blog so my opinion is what you are going to read.
#13 Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
I like Pac-Man fine, but I really don't understand how this game could be THAT good, what does it do that previous Pac-Man games haven't done before? I guess I'll have to check that out sometime.
#12 Half-Life 2: Episode 2
I didn't finish this episode but I did finish the other ones, and I like this series. The story isn't quite as good or well told as people make it out to be, but there is always something appealing about being a revolutionary and shooting your way to change. I also love the way they were able to vary the experience enough to make different levels of the game feel like completely different titles in themselves, Ravenholm was a gaming experience I don't think I would ever forget. Again I will say this is at the right spot on the list, maybe a little bit lower, maybe.
#11 Grand Theft Auto IV
GTA games have always tended to bore me after a few hours, and I have never liked the weird weight you always feel in every Rockstar game. I never played this title itself, but I'm pretty sure I would think it is an overrated game if I got around to it.
#10 Super Smash Bros. Brawl
The reason I bought a Wii, and one of the few reasons I don't regret that purchase. The only reason I feel like I should try to say something bad about it is because it is so good that a lot of my friends in college played this game so much that I got burned out from it. Its been a good while since I played it last so it would probably feel both comforting and foreign to start playing again. A great game and very deserving of a top 10 spot, shout out to anybody else who had Olimar as their primary character!
#9 Batman: Arkham Asylum
I never played it, but it seems like a good excuse to leak that I may be collaborating with a friend of mine Toninho on a new blog, and he absolutely loves this game. You can read his opinion on the game on his "Exciting Developments" article. End of Advertisment.
#8 Assassin's Creed II
I owned the first one, and thought it was not bad, but expected a lot more from it. This one supposedly was what I expected from the first one, but I never played it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't worse than the first one.
#6 Fallout 3
Before I played Borderlands I fell in love with Fallout 3, this game would be my #1 if I was making this list. The story was good enough to keep you pushing through the main quest, but the real lasting power of this game was in the side quests, the Capital Wasteland, the people you could talk to in the game, and the atmosphere created by fusing a post-apocalyptic wasteland with upbeat 50's hits on Galaxy News Radio with Three Dog. Between this game and it's semi-sequel Fallout: New Vegas I was able to pour in at least 120 hours and never sat down to play for less than 3 hours, I was able to get so drawn into this game to a point where I would forget time existed and would even willingly miss meals to keep playing. Forget modern games, I would consider this to be in the top 3 all time games, but not number 1, I have a whole article to write about that love affair.
#5 Portal 2
I chose to buy Mortal Kombat instead on the it's release date. While I wouldn't disagree that it must be a great game in it's own right I haven't ever regretted that purchase. What I liked the most about the first Portal game was the dark sense of humor they put into it, maybe one day I will give Portal 2 a try for the laughs I would likely get out of it, still think the rating a little too high though.
#4 Super Mario Galaxy 2
The first Super Mario Galaxy game didn't blow me away as much as it did for most people, it seemed more like a dumbed down version of Super Mario 64 than the groundbreaking title the media claimed it was. I have been wanting to give it another try, and have been wanting to give it's sequel a try as well because of the inclusion of Yoshi! As like with many other games this high on the list I'm going to say it is too high until further decision, and I want Yoshi to get his own Wii game, I feel like Yoshi and Star Fox were made to use the pointer controls.
#3 Red Dead Redemption
This game was really good, so good that I was able to forget that I hate the controls in Rockstar games. But having said that I still think while this likely is a top 10 game of the generation I would personally take at least 11 of the previously mentioned game over this one. The world around was great but there was nothing that rewarded your for exploration the same way that Fallout did, the storytelling was okay but way too slow paced and (like I alluded to in my discussion on Alan Wake) Mexico dragged on as we had to save some Mexican girl's family like 18 times in a row in what turned out to all be completely useless time-wasters that Rockstar added in there to give the game more longevity. I did like the game enough to buy the Undead Nightmare expansion for it, but I never got too far into it because it also suffered from bad pacing and random time-wasters which wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't a story based game.
#2 Bioshock
I'm obligated to say something since I said something about everything else in the top 5, but I never played enough of Bioshock to have any opinion on it. Of my friends that bought it, about half have liked it enough to finish it, and their opinions are very polarized. From the demo I played it seemed like a good enough game, but seemed like if you got far enough into it you would either think it was the best game ever, or it had it's head so far up it's own ass it was trying to chew its way out of its esophagus. I won't complain for lack of knowledge.
#1 Mass Effect 2
Boom, I've made my way through the entire list and sifted through all the shit they had to say (or at least all I could sift through.) I played the first Mass Effect and was starting to get really into it, but then Mortal Kombat came out (thats Mortal Kombat reference #3, guess what game I thought deserved a spot) and I got really sucked into that when it came out. I will return to Mass Effect later on and try to play the second one, which is apparently the best game of the generation. I have a friend who owns it and played it and he basically swears by it, so I would imagine it is probably good enough to be in the top 5, but I think Fallout is #1 no matter what. And thats all folks.
Games I would have liked to see: Mortal Kombat (who would've guessed), Crackdown, Heavy Weapon, and I guess thats all. Thanks again for wasting your time reading my ramblings!
#99 League of Legends
I have never played it but a lot of my friends at school do and I have watched it played before. Pretty high for a free game and it looks like it could be worthy of the ranking but I am not much of a strategist so I'll continue to pass on playing it.
#95 Kirby's Epic Yarn
Haven't played this game either but it looks cool as hell. I'm happy that it was taken seriously enough to get on the list from game critics who I'd have imagined would look at the different art style and written it off as a "little kiddy game."
#93 Angry Birds
I don't get the appeal in Angry Birds, I guess I'm weird or something.
#92 Tom Clany's Rainbow Six: Vegas
Here's a game that I own. I was particularly a big fan of it because I'm not good at shooters and the spacing between checkpoints is like 40 minutes of playtime. This game taught me two things, grenades are powerful and playing the same 40 minutes of a game over and over gets old really quick. But I understand it's placement because the gameplay was good enough for me to buy it after playing the demo.
#83 'Splosion Man
Yeah this game is really cool, and it is a 2-D platformer so it was right up my alley. It didn't do anything that really blew me away (pun intended), but it had an incredible sense of humor and was very enjoyable. And I do love doughnuts!
#82 Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
If you have read this much you might guess that I like Tom Clancy games, but I really just like the Splinter Cell series and bought Vegas that once. So as you might guess now I think this game should be higher. This game was a fantastically done and I did not disagree in any way from them changing the Splinter Cell formula from the past games (I still think Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory were better though). I enjoyed almost everything about this game, the story was quite fantastic, the co-op was very fun, the game itself was really fun, and it rather than punishing you for not being stealthy as in the last Splinter Cell games, it rewarded you instead for being stealthy. This was one of my favorite games of the current generation, and I actually may go play it soon after finishing this article.
#76 Brain Age
How do you compare this to real games? Not a shot at Brain Age because it is entertaining, I just wouldn't be able to compare it to other video games.
#67 Donkey Kong Country Returns
I have always been a fan of Super Mario's unforgivably difficult half-brother of a platformer, the Donkey Kong Country series. So I was extremely happy that in the wake of other 2-D platformers that were getting a rebirth that Donkey Kong and Diddy were not left in the chasm of time. The level design and difficulty of this game were both top notch even though some of the boss fights were a little weak. I'm also going to say this should be higher because it gave me a lot of lasting value and a trip down memory lane.
#65 Mega Man 9
While were on the topic of brutally hard retro platformers why not talk about the king of classically difficult games, Mega Man? Capcom's decision to revert back to NES-style 8-bit graphics and sound for this game in 2008 is a statement in itself that you don't need all these fancy graphics and high polygon counts to make a game look nice, you just need to make a game look nice. This game also came out at the perfect time because 2008 was when I entered college and in my first year of college a couple of my friends and I had a period where we tried to beat all of the classic Mega Man games, and never ended up beating Wily's Castle on any of them. I have downloaded this game and made it to the final boss (who I have never beaten), and if I remember they kept all the things I liked about Mega Man games of old intact so I was quite pleased. This game was ranked too low.
#61 Alan Wake
I just finished this game about 5 hours ago, and I completely loved it, enough that by finishing the game I meant finishing the game and all of it's downloadable content. This game was incredible to use a single word, being a big fan of Remedy's Max Payne I was really pleased with their storytelling prowess as the story moved forward at a perfect pace without any needless side stories (I'll be back on this topic later, just wait) and the subtle Max Payne references scattered about. I would like to recommend this to anybody and everybody because it is one of the top arguments for video games as an art, it was a great experience and so far outside the mainstream that it's lack of sales saddens me because every good unique title never gets enough profit to warrant other companies to take chances as well (Jet Grind Radio anybody?) This is a top 5 title for me.
#58 Wii Sports Resort
I didn't know that game critics liked fun!
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| They think it should be higher. |
#50 Battlefield: Bad Company 2
I've never played this game and don't have any opinion on it, I would just like to point out this game marks the halfway point so "this deserves to be higher" is probably going to turn into "this should be a lot lower." A few people I work with play and like this game a lot though.
#49 Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
I only played the demo of the first one, and that game is awesomely addictive. Simple shooters like this tend to keep my attention, and that ignores the fact that this game's imagery is incredibly beautiful and trippy.
#47 Super Street Fighter IV
Mortal Kombat's release in April reminded me that Capcom fighters are overrated. Not a bad game at all, but I'd prefer a Mortal Kombat any day of the week.
#43 Tetris DS
Tetris is timeless fun. Probably the only good thing Russia had survive the Cold War.
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| Oh shit! The Commies! |
#37 Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
I don't have a PSP so I never played Peace Walker, but this is representative of the MGS series as a whole and I did play Metal Gear Solid 4. I am a big fan of stealth action and a big fan of intriguing boss fights, the Metal Gear Solid series is a master of the two. It also contains way more cutscenes than most gamers would prefer to see, but it is an effective way to tell a story and they do a fantastic job of making them look movie-worthy so I actually see that as a positive. I dare anybody to play any of the MGS games and not remember a single boss fights, some of the best ever, so this deserves to maybe be a little higher.
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| You will never forget this fight. |
#36 Shadow Complex
A great game made in the spirit of the old Metroid games, but there was one thing that I didn't particularly like about it. That one thing was that every second I played Shadow Complex, I just wanted to play Super Metroid which I don't think was the complete intention of the game. It was a really good game, but it didn't have the same spirit so I think this was a fair place on the list for it.
#35 Borderlands
Loved this game. The only way to make a FPS more likable for me is to add RPG elements to it (which is funny because I'm not really an RPG fan either), and that is exactly what Borderlands did. The mechanic of doing these missions for newer and better guns and a chance to upgrade your abilities was insanely addictive, and they even added a little humor into the game. When you also add in a post-apocalyptic environment into the mix you have me hooked. This game is great and probably belongs in the top 20, but it wasn't as good as another post-apocalyptic fusion of RPG elements with an FPS style that I know I will be talking about a little later.
#34 LittleBigPlanet 2
Another game that I didn't play but represents a series in which I played another title. The first LittleBigPlanet was tons of fun and a nice breath of fresh air to have a lighthearted game in an era where almost every big name game is guilty of taking itself far too seriously. I find this to be a fair ranking.
#33 NBA 2K11
The controls were really blocky and foreign to me, but I did have fun playing this game in a friend's room. It was a good basketball game, but in general I don't think I would call it a good game in general. Maybe the franchise modes and other of that sort were phenomenal, but I thought this was too complex to be a pick-up and play game like sports games should be (See NHL Hitz.)
#31 FIFA 11
Quite possibly the best sports game ever created. If you understand and like soccer you need to play this game, I didn't have the money to purchase it so I have gone the entire year playing it at a friend's house and waiting for FIFA 12 to come out in hopes that it will be better and in knowledge that it will be a great purchase. Since Americans are stupid and hate soccer and some dorks don't like sports, this is probably the perfect place to put this game on the list.
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| If you take the effort to make Mesut Ozil look realistic, your game better be good. |
#29 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
I own this game, and unfortunately never gotten too far in it. I can never give it the attention it deserves, because every time I play it I realize it is a great game and wonder why I don't play it more but then I find another diversion and realize I don't have the time necessary to spill into it. Maybe one day I will play enough of this game to know whether it deserves to be higher or not.
#28 Forza Motorsport 3
You know what I don't find any fun in at all? Racing simulators.
#25 Mario Kart DS
You know whats more fun than a racing simulator? An arcade-style kart racing game that fuses undeniable fun with tight controls and a logarithmic-style learning curve so people who try to be good at the game can always get better.
#24 Rock Band 2
Music games had their time, it came and went, and Rock Band was probably better than Guitar Hero except for the fact that their original guitar controller sucked. I am past my phase of music game addiction, but I do look back at the times of playing them with friends and remember how they were undeniably fun. I also discovered some good music in the process so all was not lost.
#22 Gears of War
I have such a nostalgic fondness for this game more than any other that will be on this list. My junior year in high school and the following summer did not see a single weekend night that I was not online with my friends playing this game until around 2 in the morning. A lot of our inside jokes and bonding moments were born in the Gears of War lobby, and this game single-handedly justified my purchase of the Xbox 360 over the PS3 (until the recent hacking of the PSN). This would be a top 3 game on my personal list, and I would've liked to see it higher on this list.
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| Baird, with that hair you had it coming.. |
#20 Dead Space
It's Resident Evil for those who don't like Resident Evil! I really need to play this game, I borrowed it from a friend and played a little so I know that I like it but much like Metroid Prime 3, I was never able to play it consistently to give it the attention and time it deserved. This is likely a good place for it to be.
#19 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Whew, this is a lot lower than I thought it was going to be. Let me introduce you to the game that ruined all future FPS's for me. I will admit that it was an extremely good game for it's time, but it quickly annoyed me with even though the upgrade system online was really good, it was just taken way too seriously by most of the people online. I don't know about everybody else, but video games are like golf to me, I want to do well and improve myself, but at the end of the day it is just something I do to have fun. So I would appreciate it if you stopped correlating my performance at a video game with my sexual persuasion, and claiming that you have in one way or another partaken in sexual activities with my mother, thanks. Also I would like to point out there have been 3 new Call of Duty releases and another one coming soon in the just under 4 years since this game was released.
#15 New Super Mario Bros.
I didn't play the DS version, but I played the one they made for the Wii, and much like every other title in this recent retro revival is a great breath of fresh air. Adding co-op multiplayer to the Super Mario series worked much better than I expected, mainly because they made it just as easy to play while sabotaging as to help each other. I would love some more of these titles.
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| You still look Goofy |
#14 Halo: Reach
I already stated that I'm incredibly bored by all these FPS's coming out and Halo is no exception to the rule, which is sad because I loved the first one and playing the second one split-screen at a friends house was the only thing that pulled us away from Gears of War in high school. But the new generation came around and nothing seemed to change at all in the Halo universe, which annoyed and bored me. I will say that I'm happy they chose Reach of all the titles because it did add a little more to the formula. And also for those who may be thinking I'm "hatin" on Halo and CoD because I suck are probably right, but this is my blog so my opinion is what you are going to read.
#13 Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
I like Pac-Man fine, but I really don't understand how this game could be THAT good, what does it do that previous Pac-Man games haven't done before? I guess I'll have to check that out sometime.
#12 Half-Life 2: Episode 2
I didn't finish this episode but I did finish the other ones, and I like this series. The story isn't quite as good or well told as people make it out to be, but there is always something appealing about being a revolutionary and shooting your way to change. I also love the way they were able to vary the experience enough to make different levels of the game feel like completely different titles in themselves, Ravenholm was a gaming experience I don't think I would ever forget. Again I will say this is at the right spot on the list, maybe a little bit lower, maybe.
#11 Grand Theft Auto IV
GTA games have always tended to bore me after a few hours, and I have never liked the weird weight you always feel in every Rockstar game. I never played this title itself, but I'm pretty sure I would think it is an overrated game if I got around to it.
#10 Super Smash Bros. Brawl
The reason I bought a Wii, and one of the few reasons I don't regret that purchase. The only reason I feel like I should try to say something bad about it is because it is so good that a lot of my friends in college played this game so much that I got burned out from it. Its been a good while since I played it last so it would probably feel both comforting and foreign to start playing again. A great game and very deserving of a top 10 spot, shout out to anybody else who had Olimar as their primary character!
#9 Batman: Arkham Asylum
I never played it, but it seems like a good excuse to leak that I may be collaborating with a friend of mine Toninho on a new blog, and he absolutely loves this game. You can read his opinion on the game on his "Exciting Developments" article. End of Advertisment.
#8 Assassin's Creed II
I owned the first one, and thought it was not bad, but expected a lot more from it. This one supposedly was what I expected from the first one, but I never played it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't worse than the first one.
#6 Fallout 3
Before I played Borderlands I fell in love with Fallout 3, this game would be my #1 if I was making this list. The story was good enough to keep you pushing through the main quest, but the real lasting power of this game was in the side quests, the Capital Wasteland, the people you could talk to in the game, and the atmosphere created by fusing a post-apocalyptic wasteland with upbeat 50's hits on Galaxy News Radio with Three Dog. Between this game and it's semi-sequel Fallout: New Vegas I was able to pour in at least 120 hours and never sat down to play for less than 3 hours, I was able to get so drawn into this game to a point where I would forget time existed and would even willingly miss meals to keep playing. Forget modern games, I would consider this to be in the top 3 all time games, but not number 1, I have a whole article to write about that love affair.
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| This game gets a big thumbs up! |
#5 Portal 2
I chose to buy Mortal Kombat instead on the it's release date. While I wouldn't disagree that it must be a great game in it's own right I haven't ever regretted that purchase. What I liked the most about the first Portal game was the dark sense of humor they put into it, maybe one day I will give Portal 2 a try for the laughs I would likely get out of it, still think the rating a little too high though.
#4 Super Mario Galaxy 2
The first Super Mario Galaxy game didn't blow me away as much as it did for most people, it seemed more like a dumbed down version of Super Mario 64 than the groundbreaking title the media claimed it was. I have been wanting to give it another try, and have been wanting to give it's sequel a try as well because of the inclusion of Yoshi! As like with many other games this high on the list I'm going to say it is too high until further decision, and I want Yoshi to get his own Wii game, I feel like Yoshi and Star Fox were made to use the pointer controls.
#3 Red Dead Redemption
This game was really good, so good that I was able to forget that I hate the controls in Rockstar games. But having said that I still think while this likely is a top 10 game of the generation I would personally take at least 11 of the previously mentioned game over this one. The world around was great but there was nothing that rewarded your for exploration the same way that Fallout did, the storytelling was okay but way too slow paced and (like I alluded to in my discussion on Alan Wake) Mexico dragged on as we had to save some Mexican girl's family like 18 times in a row in what turned out to all be completely useless time-wasters that Rockstar added in there to give the game more longevity. I did like the game enough to buy the Undead Nightmare expansion for it, but I never got too far into it because it also suffered from bad pacing and random time-wasters which wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't a story based game.
#2 Bioshock
I'm obligated to say something since I said something about everything else in the top 5, but I never played enough of Bioshock to have any opinion on it. Of my friends that bought it, about half have liked it enough to finish it, and their opinions are very polarized. From the demo I played it seemed like a good enough game, but seemed like if you got far enough into it you would either think it was the best game ever, or it had it's head so far up it's own ass it was trying to chew its way out of its esophagus. I won't complain for lack of knowledge.
#1 Mass Effect 2
Boom, I've made my way through the entire list and sifted through all the shit they had to say (or at least all I could sift through.) I played the first Mass Effect and was starting to get really into it, but then Mortal Kombat came out (thats Mortal Kombat reference #3, guess what game I thought deserved a spot) and I got really sucked into that when it came out. I will return to Mass Effect later on and try to play the second one, which is apparently the best game of the generation. I have a friend who owns it and played it and he basically swears by it, so I would imagine it is probably good enough to be in the top 5, but I think Fallout is #1 no matter what. And thats all folks.
Games I would have liked to see: Mortal Kombat (who would've guessed), Crackdown, Heavy Weapon, and I guess thats all. Thanks again for wasting your time reading my ramblings!
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| Totally overlooked... |
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Things I Want (Because I'm Needy Like That)
I want to have more time and more ideas to write on this blog with.
I want to have more free time for myself as I have all of these hobbies and projects that are in progress and I never have time to get around to all of them.
I want to get a time machine that will send me back to the early to mid-90s at the age I'm at now, it sometimes feels like I'm an anachronism.
I want music to come back to the way it used to be where the artists put their heart into it and you could hear and feel it.
I want video game makers to stop taking the fun out of games, either that or just make Nintendo and Remedy make more games (Bethesda and Ubisoft can come too).
I want to like money as much as the other people that are out there, I just don't see the point in working so many hours when you have no leisure time to enjoy it, and I don't even have a girlfriend or anything better to do with my time.
I want to know what the appeal is to sexting, at no point in my life have I considered a picture of my penis to be either a fitting or appealing response to any text message. Maybe it's a rich people thing.
I want to try doing stand-up comedy at least once in my life, Dave Chappelle just made it look like so much fun.
I want to find a stroke of good luck, it seems like its been quite some time since Lady Luck has smiled at me. To quote Max Payne (game, not movie),"Sooner or later it was going to catch up with you...You'd find that Lady Luck was really a hooker, and you were fresh out of cash."
I want to track down the person who first suggested that you don't write how you speak, it is just a plain stupid thing to say, let my writing be living proof of that.
I want to know why only writers, musicians and artists are allowed to have muses, a math muse would kick ass and probably help.
I want the rest of the world to enjoy weirdness as much as I do, there is plenty of it and you really need to enjoy it.
I want everyone to stop taking themselves so fucking seriously, the world is a scary place as it is, why do you have to keep making yourself miserable being so serious?
I want to point out that I enjoy peculiarities, I tend to like things that people don't expect me to like.
I want to hear some news on whether or not there actually are going to be sequels to Sin City, I loved that film.
I want to stay a child, my short time with being semi-grown up isn't what its cracked up to be.
I want to want more things but I suppose this is all I want.
I want to have more free time for myself as I have all of these hobbies and projects that are in progress and I never have time to get around to all of them.
I want to get a time machine that will send me back to the early to mid-90s at the age I'm at now, it sometimes feels like I'm an anachronism.
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| Oh Hell Yeah!!! |
I want video game makers to stop taking the fun out of games, either that or just make Nintendo and Remedy make more games (Bethesda and Ubisoft can come too).
I want to like money as much as the other people that are out there, I just don't see the point in working so many hours when you have no leisure time to enjoy it, and I don't even have a girlfriend or anything better to do with my time.
I want to know what the appeal is to sexting, at no point in my life have I considered a picture of my penis to be either a fitting or appealing response to any text message. Maybe it's a rich people thing.
I want to try doing stand-up comedy at least once in my life, Dave Chappelle just made it look like so much fun.
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| Man mastered his craft like nobody ever can or will. |
I want to track down the person who first suggested that you don't write how you speak, it is just a plain stupid thing to say, let my writing be living proof of that.
I want to know why only writers, musicians and artists are allowed to have muses, a math muse would kick ass and probably help.
I want the rest of the world to enjoy weirdness as much as I do, there is plenty of it and you really need to enjoy it.
I want everyone to stop taking themselves so fucking seriously, the world is a scary place as it is, why do you have to keep making yourself miserable being so serious?
I want to point out that I enjoy peculiarities, I tend to like things that people don't expect me to like.
I want to hear some news on whether or not there actually are going to be sequels to Sin City, I loved that film.
I want to stay a child, my short time with being semi-grown up isn't what its cracked up to be.
I want to want more things but I suppose this is all I want.
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| What do YOU want for Christmas little boy? |
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