Okay, fine, I’ll talk about other things too. That other Wii Mario game looks fun, with the four-players and the side scrolling and like the penguin suit and so on. Metroid: Other M looks so entirely unplayably complicated that I’m really keen to find out how it actually controls.
What about the other consoles? Well, there really isn’t much. There’s a new Castlevania coming out on the 360 and PS3 that you’d think I’d be really excited about, but it looks a lot like Curse of Darkness, which was smelly. Sure, it has Patrick Stewart in it, but so did at least one Star Trek movie I didn’t like. So I don’t know if that’s enough. Especially since, if the trailer’s to be believed, you spend more time sitting around under trees crying into your hands about your deep, serious angst than actually fighting fucking monsters.
There are two new Metal Gear Solid games coming out, which I guess finally and completely invalidates Kojima’s claims that Metal Gear Solid 4 would be the last game in the series. Probably they’re both boring and dumb and everyone in the media will shit himself trying to invent new, higher numbers to award them, while simultaneously complaining about them non-stop in the meat of the review. At least one of them is all Raiden, which is not promising.
Final Fantasy XIII still isn’t out yet, and still looks completely awful, but that didn’t stop Square Enix from showcasing Final Fantasy XIV also. That is apparently another MMORPG, thereby lending further credence to the idea that it’s completely batshit stupid for the MMO entries to have main-series numbers. Apparently the designers have been "influenced by World of Warcraft." Hey guys, welcome to 2009, where everybody in the fucking world has been influenced by World of Warcraft on account of its having made more money than all other video games ever made combined.
But the Final Fantasy pain train isn’t over yet. There’s apparently a Wii Final Fantasy coming out, and it looks bad. But, more to the point, it sounds bad, since even the teaser trailer’s voice acting is cringe-inducing. I mean, there’s nothing like bad dialogue delivered badly to curb my enthusiasm for a game that’s going to be 80% dialogue.
You see why I focused on Mario Galaxy 2? It’s pretty bleak otherwise.
July 8th, 2009
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Darien |
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Like I said in the comments on my previous post, Fallout 3 is a lot less frustrating when you can actually find Megaton. I’d like to thank the internet for helping me with that, since the game sure damn didn’t want to. Thanks, internet!
I did finish the ants in the subway quest — did it with almost no ammunition, in fact, since I hadn’t found Megaton yet — and so I was optimistic that the worst was behind me. But then I started work on this Wasteland Survival Guide quest. Fine for the most part, but then I get to the step where she sends me to fight rats. I will not tell you where she sends me to fight rats. You know why? Because you goddamn already know, is why. Have you played a video game? Then you know where I was sent to fight rats.
The game’s starting to get to me with its sameness. I hope something happens soon to shake things up, since right now, no matter what mission I’m doing, it seems pretty much the same: I go to some dingy brown-and-grey cave and fight raiders, rats, ghouls, and super mutants. It’s really long and windy and twisty and the map isn’t good for a goddamn thing. Eventually I find the Noble Spittoon or whatever that I was sent to retrieve, and then I go home. Maybe I’m just in a rut.
You know what I don’t like? Not only is ammunition limited, but your gear all wears out over time and needs to be repaired. That’s a whole lot of bookkeeping that I need to do just a shoot a zombie in the head.
July 7th, 2009
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Darien |
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"When you put that many runs up, it makes it uncomfortable for the other team."
Mr. Hamels, of course, is refering to the 22 runs the Phillies scored against the Reds last night. It’s not that I don’t agree with him, so much as I think he’s pretty severely understating the case. A 21-run hole is probably well and truly past uncomfortable and all the way into "Let’s have Nick Swisher pitch and save the bullpen" territory. Which, to his credit, Dusty Baker pretty much did, but only after burning four arms out of his bullpen.
I have to wonder if Johnny Cueto’s problem in the first was caused by that toothpick-munching assbag’s pitcher misuse anyhow.
July 7th, 2009
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Darien |
Baseball |
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Fallout 3 is on sale this weekend on Steam, so I finally picked it up. Been meaning to play that for a long time, but I like when stuff is half-price, and Steam has frequent sales, so I waited.
My first impression of the game was that it’s a lot like Bioshock — it contrasted an old-timey look, complete with period music, against scenes of destruction and devastation, and then it gives me the same sort of almost steampunk nanotech that Bioshock had. My second impression of the game wasn’t so good; the intro cutscene and then the bit in the hospital were both stupid and predictable. But then character creation starts up, and that’s a good time. There’s a lot of stuff you can customise about your character, both visually and stat-wise, and the mechanism for doing so is pretty interesting and well-paced. The bit in the nursery is really annoying, though, since it makes baby noises non-stop; it’s like playing Yoshi’s Island, but there’s no bubble to catch to make him shut up.
The rest of the intro stuff is pretty fun; I enjoyed my time in vault 101. Once I got out of the vault, though, I started liking the game a bit less, which is probably because I don’t know what I’m doing. Fallout 3 is very much an open-world game, and I find myself wanting a bit more structure than it provides. Right now I don’t really know where I am or what I’m doing, and I get a bit frustrated with that. I prefer to have more direction along the main quest than I’m getting, but still have the "other" places to go to explore and quest. Right now, I’m fighting giant ants in the subway because it’s really the only thing I’ve found to do so far — lord knows if there’s one thing I like more than fighting rats in a sewer, it’s fighting giant ants in a ruined subway tunnel.
But it’s decent overall. If the cohesion picks up a bit and the subway tunnels full of ants get somewhat less pronounced, I’ll probably like it quite a lot.
July 5th, 2009
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Darien |
Games |
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Super Mario Galaxy 2
That font was not big enough, but it’s the best I had. So… sorry.
There was a lot of other stuff announced at E3 this year too, but then Nintendo showed the Mario Galaxy 2 trailer and I forgot what it all was. Sorry about that. The only other thing I remember for sure is that the chick they had do two-thirds of their press conference wasn’t half as awesome as the halcyon days of Reggie.
If you’re too faggy for Mario, well, I’m sure Square Enix will release four more movies about Final Fantasy VII this year that you’ll just love.
Happy Fourth of July!
July 5th, 2009
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Darien |
Games |
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