Into The Grey

Note: In an effort to talk about something different for once, I present my attempt at another movie review. Of course this doesn't actually mean I review it.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a large percentage of people who don't watch movies properly. Or maybe I should say ... are incapable of watching movies that are otherwise different from your standard Hollywood film but for whatever reason decided they would watch it. Now I know, movies are as subjective as other types of media. What one person likes is no guarantee that another person will like the same thing. I am not a fan of Scott Pilgrim VS The World, for example, but mainly because I believe it to be a stupid movie that is overrated. This opinion was brought on by the hordes of people saying it is the greatest film of 'our' culture and a film I would therefore thoroughly enjoy. This process, in my mind, created a space for a film of deep meaning, emotional story telling and with excellent cinematography. Scott Pilgrim did not deliver this.

This can be attributed to the fact that it was not anything like what I regard to be a brilliant movie, essentially what it was talked up to be. It is usually a strong combination of the three previously mentioned factors that result in a film I regard as worthwhile. These are the factors I look for in films which is where said subjectivity arises. I can understand if they are not the same factors other people look for in films ... but I do need to ask myself why.

What is it that people look for in the movies they watch, and why do people often have such vast differences in opinion regarding particular films? I feel there is a large audience out there that have become accustomed to the typical spoonfed style of Hollywood movies and therefore regard anything that slips off the boat as "boring", "weird" and "confusing". They are there for the laughs, the explosions, the same ridiculous romantic stories between impossible characters in unreal situations. If a movie lacks any of these tried and true attributes it is therefore somehow lacking in substance and not worthy of viewing.


So I finally come to 'The Grey', a movie I thought I knew what it would be like and what it was going to be about and, generally speaking, I was mostly correct. It was a film very much in the vein of something like The Thin Red Line, except to do with survival instead of war. It has an interesting way of delivering the story, a story that I will attempt not to spoil much of here. From forum posts, reviewer comments and even people I have met, opinions of this movie were very mixed but generally in the negative. "Boring", "weird" and "confusing" were terms being thrown around by many, while others complained about the foul language (?) and apparently dodgy ending.

For some, such negative peer remarks would dissuade one from seeing the film, but for me it only increased my interest. After all, this was a film I thought I knew what it would be like, and for it to be as bad as I thought it would be good ... well, I just had to see it then. If only for clarification and understanding.

So I saw it. As I thought, it was a movie that had elements of story telling similar to that of The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life and even 127 Hours. I do not mind this type of story telling at all. It can be quite effective in its abstractness, if that was the intended style of the movie's narrative. However, I came out of the movie at a complete loss as to what other people were complaining about it for. The questions and arguments they had against the film were not even remotely complaints for me ... and it bugs me. It bugs me because some of the arguments are so completely invalid, naught and unwarranted that I wonder if I actually saw the same movie as these people. Perhaps it is best described if I detail these arguments in a question and (my) response format, so you can understand my meaning:

1. Why did they move away from the plane crash?

My reply:
They had just crash landed on an ice plain in the middle of nowhere with rapidly dwindling food supplies. There are also freezing winds and sub-zero temperatures and they have barely any shelter. Also there are wolves attacking them and they believe they are on the wolves hunting grounds. Kind of hard to have missed that point...


2. Why was there over-dramatic, irrelevant and boring bits of self-reflection and happenings from the past?

My reply:
A lot of movies do this. Some don't even attempt to tie them in with the story at all (which is alright). A character looks at a photo and some random clip of them from their childhood is shown for a few seconds, seemingly unconnected. Or is it? I don't know what the term is, but I am going to call it impressionistic, non-chronological story development. Neeson's character allows for several moments of this style to be presented, all tying in some way to the movie. A poem by his father, a sentence from his wife, recollecting a prior event, experiencing a somewhat similar symbolic situation etc. Somehow they will have an impact on the development of the story. If you cannot see this, understand how it works or appreciate it as a method of exposition ... than you really shouldn't be watching this kind of movie at all. The message has failed upon you. Or rather, you it.


3. The ending sucked. What happened?

My reply:
Really? The ending seemed rather conclusive to me. He ended up in a situation he could not possibly survive and instead of throwing in the towel (like he was doing at the start of the movie), he chose to make a personal stand. Everything about the story, especially the impressionistic, non-chronological scenes, were leading up to this point. A final outcome against insurmountable odds, one in which you will most likely die. It was about accepting fate and the purgatory of life but still resisting it even if it is futile. Did he regain his faith? Did he kill a wolf? Did he even live? Good questions. Do you need to know the answers to them? In my opinion, the ending of the movie is far stronger with these questions left unanswered.

There is a higher meaning to films like The Grey than your standard Hollywood flick. Those who came expecting a movie where Neeson mindlessly punched wolves in the face were bound to be dissapointed. Those who came expecting a clear and happy ending were left a similar result. Not everything in life ends well, and this is a film that exposes that. Depressing? Maybe. I would prefer to call it honest.

The Grey is therefore not for everyone. Do I recommend it? That depends. I personally think it is a decent movie, one with deep meaning, emotional story telling and with excellent cinematography. However, that is what I personally look for in a movie and if your taste differs in any way, then no, I cannot recommend it to you. If, however, you can watch something a tiny bit different from what you expect and appreciate the light amounts of impressionistic, non-chronological story development it uses, than sure, you may get an interesting watch out of it.

However, it is the type of movie I would watch by yourself. There are some movies that are simply ruined by the presence of more impatient/talkative fellows and this is definitely one of them.

Also he does kill the Alpha wolf. Patience is a virtue.

Four Da Whored!!!

"You know you can take a noob, to like, water, but you can't, like, make a noob drink" - Jeremy, Pure Pwnage

I swore I would never play and pay for an MMO ever again. A game that has no end, no conclusive end goal or conditions to meet is not a game I want to be paying $30 a month for, and that's not including initial retail fees. To this day I have not broken that vow. Not even with what I am doing now.

Where's Wally?

What am I doing now? Well, its very simple. I am playing Vanilla WoW. For free. My end condition is to PvP my guts out. Not for gear, but for glory. For fun, whether that be derived from nostalgia or generated from happenstances, I know what it is I want to do with the game. So far it has worked out pretty well, though perhaps I should start from the beginning.

Roughly 3 weeks ago, before a trip overseas, I stumbled across what appeared to be a very popular and well maintained private vanilla WoW server. Advertised as 'blizzlike', it had a few notable changes to game play, some of which I much approve of. The most notable of these changes is simply a 12x increase in experience your character gains while leveling. This makes leveling ridiculously easy, fast and enjoyable, far removed from the painful grind to 60 that was the original WoW experience. I know this must have been difficult for some because I know of so many casual players who could not even reach 60 in the time that they played vanilla WoW, which in all honesty was only like 1/5 of the actual game.

You level so fast that quests go grey before you can even hand them in...

Leveling aside, the community also seemed incredibly active with up to and including 3500 players during peak and possibly up to 10,000 players total. This is smaller than your average Blizzard server, but for a private server that number is apparently considered huge. Someone, somewhere would at some point be doing or at least want to do the same sort of things you do, guaranteed. My experience in a few groups with members of the community have also been positive, the vast majority being experienced veteran players who are mostly playing classes they have played before. This also makes them competent PvP buddies/opponents, but I will get to that in a second.

Excited, I mentioned this 'opportunity' for potential free fun to the majority of the friends I thought would be interested. I remember thinking that a group of five of us instance hopping to 60 in a matter of days would at least be entertaining, with 12x experience, non-stop action and blues dropping by the bucketload fueling interest levels. Alas, after my two week vacation, it appears I have misjudged everyone's interests, which is unusual considering many of them complain about us not 'doing anything game related' together anymore.

-_-

I know exactly how you feel ...

This, however, did not stop me from undertaking this mission by myself. Even without company, not doing a single instance (until 60), and having terrible gear along the way, I still found the process to be quite fun. When you are not struggling to make a dent in your XP gain, attempting to maximize your questing efficiency and make travel times a minimum, you can comfortably explore and wander around the world at a much more relaxed pace. Knowing you could power level to 60 in a couple of days, but choosing not to is an interesting perspective, one that is unnatural in a game like WoW. It completely changes the leveling process and almost makes it optional instead of required. The 'grind' simply doesn't exist.

While I still feel this was a massively missed, face-palm worthy opportunity for a group of us to not be doing (hence my noob related introductory quote), I have decided not to let other people slow me down this time. In fact, I have moved onto something I have wished for for quite awhile, that being a return to objective style battle arenas set in a fantasy, RPG setting. Or, more simply, battleground PvP. I did my fair share of this back in the day and while I have no incentive to put in the number of hours I did back then, I am keen to experience the glories of yesteryear once again.

I'm talking about the massive 40 vs 40 AV battles that lasted hours, the intensity of close 1990:2000 AB games and carrying the flag in WSG into an open field to face off against the enemy team, with your own team at your back. The entire reason I kept playing WoW was mostly in hope of this aspect of the game to continue and not to be replaced with dueling matches in a box (i.e. Arena). If I wanted a dueling game I would go back to TTM in UT99. But, it wasn't meant to be and BG PvP slowly dissipated from the minds of players, even resented and branded as noob by the rating obsessed, gear spoiled elitist jerks of the WoW Arena community. But that's a topic for a different discussion...

Arcanite Reaper HOOOOOOO!!!!

So I got to 60 in just under two days 'played', and that was with a LOT of fucking around. Mining, afk, leveling smithing and first aid, doing quests for gear etc. I could probably have done it in 1 day played if I didn't care about it. Now that I have gear suitable enough to PvP with, I will turn this game into the game I wanted it to be so many years ago, that being a casual BG PvP game. Think League of Legends, except in 3rd person, less hero classes, more randomness and a billion more buttons to press and you get the idea. I don't care about ranks, I don't care about gear. I just care about fun.

And by golly will I have it. With or without company.

Edit: The following video is a quick edit of my horribly geared warrior in PvP. As much as I will probably never edit to Eminem ever again, I thought the editing style was interesting and effective at points and I will probably use it for another video in the future.

Ultrakill LAN 2012

Recently I hosted another Ultrakill LAN after the somewhat failure that was the last mini-one, with people leaving and not playing games all over the place. This one went somewhat better. In fact, this one was probably more like the LANs of old that I remember in my highschool days. A dedicated and keen crew playing multiple games in a somewhat undisturbed peace makes for true LAN experiences, something I witness rarely these days.

I think the magic ingredient is, as mentioned, to play lot of different game types at a moderate pace. Roughly 2hrs a game is plenty and gives everyone the opportunity to shine at games they are most comfortable with. Providing that you participate, it is humbling to get your ass whooped in X game repeatedly when you know you did the whooping not too long ago in Y game. It makes your random victories in Y game more satisfying, but keeps the gaming environment fair and friendly.

Despite some ... differences in opinion between participants, I think everyone got along well enough and I look forward to hosting another one sometime in the middle of this year. Granted, anyone who attended this recent LAN will be the first to be invited.



I am still irritated about the demo recording for Sven Coop getting corrupted though. It would have easily been the most hilarious and insane footage from the LAN by far and made the associated video that much more entertaining.

Terrible Yet Beautiful

It is not often that I play games in the vein of GTA 3 anymore. After San Andreas, I was done. Not because it was a bad game or anything. I just felt the genre didn't have anything else to offer me.

Just Cause 2 proved me wrong in that regard, as insane and explosion-porn-like as it was. I would say however that it kept me interested mainly because it wasn't about rival gangs and hoods in a stereotypical American city, but rather an oppressed island nation fighting back against the government. It was incredibly open, diverse and looked and played great. Being a game where you are essentially spiderman with a gun will do that.

I didn't have much of an interest in Saint's Row The Third when it came out. It seemed to me like just another GTA clone that would probably be worse than GTAIV was, which apparently was boring and had lost its charm. I wouldn't have purchased the game if I wasn't informed of its $20 price tag from greenmangaming, but since buying and playing it I am glad I did. I think there is a lesson in this, that being that your non-experienced impressions can occasionally be wrong and you should go to the effort to making up your own mind in an informed manner. There isn't really much to say about it so far (not even 1/2 way through atm) so I will simply post this picture/comic of your everyday encounter with innocent citizens in this digital world:


... terrible, yet beautiful. All it needs is a trollface.

Edit: Video testing coop gameplay.

My horror story

Edit: I should probably mention this earlier in this post lest anyone get the wrong impression. I don't dislike consoles or the games that are best designed for them. There are, in fact, many games that I think excel on console and should only ever be played on console. Fighting, driving, sports, shmups and platform games are all examples of these. My issue lies when games and more importantly, game design suffers when games that shouldn't be built for consoles are. It is of my strong opinion that both RTS and FPS games fall into this domain, and why I have such a seething resentment for FPS games that are built exclusively for the console market. It should never have happened to FPS games and they are worse off today because of it...

Recently I attended a social event organised by my university colleagues and I to play some games that involved catchup options in modern games. To provide an example of what a catchup option is, think of the Ultra bar that charges slowly when you take damage in Street Fighter IV. It is something that allows a losing player to equalise the playing field, should they know how to effectively employ it. A lot of fighting, racing and even FPS games have them. I do not have a problem with catchup options as I am all for allowing players who are losing considerably, slight advantages for them to still remain competitive. As long as they don't tip the balance in an overpowered manner or effectively rubberband the winning players from their deserved position. I am, however, totally against options that allow a winning player to continue winning ... but that is a heated topic for a later date.

So ... this event. We played a number of games and people generally had fun. There isn't really much to say about the specifics of what happened as it would probably seem pretty boring to an observer/outsider. There was, however, one thing that stood out dramatically for me which is why I am making this post. I consider it a brainfuck of epic proportions now that I think about it, mainly because it both proves and hammers home everything that I despise about console FPS games. Yes, it's one of these posts again. Sif not.

While I was busy fighting some people in SSFIV (a game I still consider to be terrible at), I couldn't help but notice that Halo Reach was being started up on the TV adjacent to the one a group of us were playing on. I wasn't aware of there being catchup options in a game like Halo Reach. In fact, I was quite certain (and still am) that there are not, as it is in fact the opposite of catchup with the whole regenerating shields/HP bullshit that it spawned in the last generation of shooters. Nevertheless, for some bizarre reason, I was curious as to why everyone was so keen to try it out. What was I missing?

As the afternoon continued, I noticed some people were giving up and handing controllers over to others. It seemed like some of the people, namely the ones who wanted to play the game in the first place, were feeding off the less competent in a rather egoic fashion to the point where the less fluent were not willing to contribute anymore. Some of the non-fluent players openly admitted to finding both the genre (FPS) and the method of control (360 controller) to be cumbersome, which I remember thinking was a fair statement at the time. I did not inquire as to what their preferred genre or method of control was as I was too busy pullling off an Akuma Ultra, but it did irk me somewhat. Eventually my sparring partner and I had enough of fighting each other and surrendered the game to another two people, so I made my way to the other television, only to squint at it in utter disbelief. Now, we were playing on rather large 50" TV's at a reasonably close distance. Admittedly my eyesight is not perfect, but it wasn't so much a resolution issue as it was a framerate and visual clarity related one. I suppose the 360 shouldn't be expected to run four instances of the game (at least from a UI point of view) in four separate windows for four players with any respectable visual magnificence, but it seriously looked like something from the early 2000's. But then I noticed that one of the screens wasn't moving. There was also a controller on a seat where someone had given up and just left it there. I don't know why I did it, and I regret doing it even now, but something akin to the competitive berserker I knew in my early years of UT99 fired at that point, so I grabbed the controller and sat down.

I remember being quite enthusiastic. "Why not?" I thought. Surely they can't be as bad as I have been preaching all these years. Maybe I have just been a misinformed, biased lunatic and simply havn't gotten over the hump that is the torture of using a controller for playing FPS games. If I could get past that, maybe I could look past all the other bullshit that evolved as a result of it.

Below is a graph of my enthusiasm over time:

Note: The game played was actually Halo Reach, but it is essentially the same

Roughly linear, it took me less than a minute to go from a highly enthused, keen-for-frags young man to a blank faced, eye-twitching Hannibal Lecter, observing the silly man who could not play his instrument properly in the orchestra. To an extent, that pun is two-fold. I was watching a tiny screen of a player not doing things correctly ... but I was watching it from a player who knew how to DO them correctly. You see, in that less than a minute of play I had performed the following sequence of events:

1. Turned around, taking a good second or two
2. Moved to the end of a corridor, in what seemed like a year of gameplay
3. Realised it was a non-obvious dead end with nothing in it and and frowned at the point of the corridor
4. Walked back down the corridor, looking back at the SSFIV screen longingly while doing so
5. Exploded around a corner from a grenade not thrown at me
6. Respawned back in the corridor
7. Ogled worriedly at the responsiveness, speed and sensitivity of the controls
8. Started a gunfight with someone who got the jump on me
9. Noticed the significant amount of auto-aim granted
10. Still managed to shoot walls and windows more than I shot the dude
11. After a year, killed him (I think I had more shield regenned due to floating around jumping)
12. Got one shotted in melee
13. Respawned back in the corridor

If I wasn't holding a controller I think I would have face-palmed around about that point. I continued playing for a few more minutes, longer than what that graph suggests (you get the point though). At some point I found a sprint button and laughed out loud at the meager increase in speed it offered, sacrificing aim. Everything. Everything I had been saying and ranting about for the last few years was still true. Worse in fact, if that was possible. I remember thinking how had we come from the glorious days of Quake, UT and Half-life to this shamble of game play and mechanics? The precision of keyboard and mouse, the multi-task capability of the PC, the flexibility of graphical and control settings, the variable and ever increasing speed of the internet, LANs where everyone would bring their own terminal and comfortably do what they wanted, when they wanted, how they wanted ...

... to sitting in a stinky, cramped room around a TV, squinting at 1/4 of a screen, trying to make out the environment from the UI/weapon, taking forever to do anything using a horrible control peripheral with a horrible control scheme, fighting the game more than I am playing the game, a game that is apparently a FPS and supposedly a good one at that. HOW!!!?? Why is this considered normal, good and fun? This has to be the shittest FPS experience I can think of!

Halo Reach - your average frag video (recent)

The thing is, it is considered normal. Not just by the developers, the publishers and the general media. By the consumers. This is apparently what the average consumer wants and what the average consumer considers to be an enjoyable FPS experience. At some point during my play I actually glanced at my opponents/colleagues in bewilderment, eyebrows raised, to see their reactions. They were having a ball! Laughing, joking, merry as can be. I felt sick. Have I really been missing something important all these years? Hours of fun playing console FPS games with friends, squinting my eyes into blindness at 1/4 of screens every weekend? My god, surely the problem wasn't me ...

But then I looked at their screens. At what they were doing. The simplest of movements. No vertical aiming. No circle-strafing. Chasing someone for ages with a powersword, to kill them instantly only when they stopped moving. No jumping. Camping on weapon/player spawns. No defensive retreats, no running backwards pot-shotting around corners. No strafing, checking corners, looking behind for an instant to check for chasers. No sense of awareness, no sense of self-preservation, no strategy and no plan.

Nothing that I was doing and everything that I wasn't doing.

It was then that I realised ... that they were all just a bunch of scrubs. To them, seeing enemy and running forwards while pressing fire was the limit of their FPS capability. Even with auto-aim, wrestling to keep the crosshair on a target using the horror that is console controls WAS the challenge. Everything and anything that goes beyond that exceeds their ability to perform in a multi-task manner ... and I couldn't blame them. I was struggling to perform 1/2 the shit I was doing in a timely manner and more often than not, it was getting me killed. So used to circle-strafing a target while engaging, quickly checking a door way while bunny-hopping, checking for respawns and equalising distance based on enemy location/firepower that it was actually inhibiting my ability to play the game. Simply put ... you CAN'T! At least in any acceptable amount of time. The sluggish controls of the console controller and the responsiveness translated into the game are not worth the effort of doing. So you are quite literally forced to just move forward and shoot if you want to have the advantage over someone you come across. You meet them, you shoot before they shoot, you wrestle to keep the crosshair on them and whoever did that better wins. Gee-fucking-gee!

Quake 3: Arena - your average frag video (old)

I remember back in the day I would have struggled with this even on keyboard and mouse. Aiming, moving and shooting were the limits of my skill. Over time however, it became muscle memory, a reflex that is instinctively ingrained in the way I play these games. I don't think about it, and I think for a lot of people who grew up playing FPS games on PC it would be the same. So you consider other things, get better at other techniques, learn weapon mechanics and so on and so forth. Not for every game, but at least for those that offer them. When you go 'back' to a game where all you really have to think about is aiming, moving and shooting because that's all you really can do ... it's hard to break out of habits. I want to do certain things and I just cant do them. This is, in my opinion, a problem.

I didn't voice my opinion of the game at the time, mainly because I knew it would have gone on deaf ears and because it wasn't what other people wanted to hear. As much of an elitist prick I can be on this blog at times, I know when my views are not welcome in a social situation. So, I swallowed my pride, took my helping of fail and smiled politely when the owner of the game boasted of their score at the end, repeatedly. Remaining humble and collected was more of a challenge to me than expressing my opinion, something I think more people should do more often concerning other topics in life. I did quietly kick his ass at SSFIV later though :)

So, to cut a long story short, this event can be summed up as a realisation of two things:

1. Console FPS games (like Halo Reach) are not designed to allow players to employ many of the techniques, skills and logic that origintated from their PC ancestors
2. People enjoy playing the aim-move-shoot mini-game that essentially is these sorts of games nowadays because its all you can do and because it is in itself a challenge due to the impracticality of the controller

Subconsciously I have always known this, but to see it laid out in front of me from a first-hand, social experience is horrifying.

My Diablo III beta experience

After receiving the opportunity to try out the Diablo III beta from a friend, I have come to the following conclusion: I am going to fuck up the final year of my PhD because of this game. Let me explain...

I have always had a strange relationship with Diablo. I never played the first one and was introduced to the second one roughly the time it was released by a cousin of mine. He was addicted to the game and explained how it was affecting his first year university studies. I gave it a go and didn't really see the appeal. Too much clicky, not enough rewardy is probably what I was thinking at the time. After a couple of hours I grew bored and shelved it with the intention of never playing it again.

Oh what a fool I was! But how was I to know? How was I to KNOW!? It's the numbers, you see. Oh yes, it was ... it was the numbers ...

sif not

So ... it was the numbers. Anyone who has played an RPG seriously or dabbled into the likes of games such as WoW will know what I am talking about. You 'see' numbers, whether they be related to your health or armour or critical strike chance or perhaps the damage you are doing, and so you ... see ... them. You see? See, the numbers are how they get you. It's like licking grains of crack every time you see and mentally process what they are. Low on health, a big crit, fuck tons of armour. The numbers don't lie, and your ability to maintain and fix a situation using other numbers is somewhat satisfying. You can be a terrible mathematician and still enjoy the process of observing big red numbers above your avatar, refilling your health bar with green numbers while simultaneously pressing buttons to make orange and white numbers appear on the enemies. It's all to do with numbers and people's want/desire to manipulate and rectify them.

Now, that probably sounds a bit insane. It probably is. In a normal situation, the previous scenario would likely be described by a regular fellow as (for example) "killing an elite who is doing a lot of damage to you while you pot and spam your abilities". That sounds more like a game, doesn't it? Still, while you may think you are looking at textured polygonal meshes translating and animating in three dimensional coordinate space, you are still undertaking the process of manipulating and rectifying numbers. It's just prettied up a bit to deceive you from your true nature - that you are obsessed and compelled towards changing numbers. Forever.

You're your yore

What the flying fuck am I talking about? Well, let's get back to what I was originally describing with my early Diablo experiences. It didn't take long for the numbers to haunt me back in the year 2000. As much as I thought I didn't want to play the game, I just could not let my health pool be that low. That axe could probably have used an upgrade too, hitting only from 3-6. What about that sash? It's only got 1 armour, is cracked and looks like shit! Come on, have some style at least. And so it began. I did eventually stop playing the game some time in 2002, though my high-school friends and I eventually picked it up again in our final year and eventually took it into first year of university. While some awesome moments did arise from that (e.g. the fabled Ratmen incident), Diablo slowly slipped away in the face of bigger, prettier and more time consuming games of similar nature. By which I mean World of Warcraft.

"Fuck! I died" - The Ratmen Incident

So, Diablo III. This post is already getting stupidly long and I don't care about going back and making it shorter so I will sum up my experiences of the beta so far in bullet point format:

• The beta is overall far too easy. No enemies, not even the boss at the end, really pose a challenge
• It was incredibly short
• It doesn't actually look that great. This is something I have a problem with Blizzard and their latest games. While I am all for performance, their production timelines are confusing
• It's very dark and gloomy. Hopefully this changes as the game continues
• Combat is somewhat boring and repetitive early on. This is unfortunately the nature of these sort of games though
• Sound design is excellent
• It feels very similar to Diablo II, albeit a few changes here and there (e.g. Artisans)
• Killing/destruction streaks give you incentive to pop the shit when you fight a screen filled horde of enemies
• It is addictive
• I will more than likely buy the game when it is released

So, with that out of the way we can get to the most important part of this post. Oh yes...

... that being the NUMBERS!!!!!! GLORIOUS NUMBERS!!!!! Mwaahaahaglrgrgrll!!!

HUEHUEHUEHUEEHUEHEUHUEH!!!

Wllaarrgrala!! Wllaarrgralaaaaa!!!!

BOOOOOMMM!!!! BOM!!

Glleeenerghg!!!!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

awww...

Berserker Rage: Sated

Not really much to say about this except that it is likely the last Skyrim execution video I will make. I have done enough executing to last me a lifetime, and that was before I even started Frapsing for this video. Now I can play and enjoy the game more without my framerate dropping to 30 fps everytime I find a dude to kill.



I have went for a slightly different editing procedure this time, not using heroic/trailer music and instead using a couple of tracks blending into each other. They are from X-Men: First Class and were used to make the video seem a little bit darker/edgier. Not entirely sure if I am happy with the results. I think heroic music just suits the world of Skyrim better.

Additionally, I have improved upon my original Skyrim weapon after painfully leveling alchemy, the only profession I actually regard as taking some skill and effort to level properly (unlike facerolling smithing and enchanting). This is mainly because you actually have to find the vast majority of the ingredients you need to make stuff (to simply level) instead of just rocking up and buying out a vendors supplies and making 50 iron daggers. The following 2h Daedric Greatsword I have appropriately renamed as 'The Soulreaver' (sif not Legacy of Kain) is the result of this process and in all honesty, a complete waste of time. Even on master, the game has become too easy as these weapons just do too much damage. I don't think this damage was intended by the developer.

"The descent had destroyed me... and yet, I lived"

This is with both Berserker Rage (100% extra) and a Fortify two-hand damage potion (130% extra) activated.

2011 Game Roundup

Well, the year is nearly up and it is unlikely that I will be buying anymore games other than what I have pre-ordered and are still yet to be released. I honestly think that this year has been the best year in games for a long, LONG time. Possibly up to and including a decade, depending on how you look at things, but I will get to that.

The point of this post is really to contradict a belief that I and many other people (some notable critics e.g. Yahtzee) believe in terms of rating a game: you cannot rate a piece of artwork/entertainment numerically. As leisurely activities and appealing media are and always have been subjective in nature, applying a value out of 5, 10 or 100 for the masses to decide over is a little silly. What works and appeals for one person is not necessarily the same for everyone. Nevertheless, it is a little hard to make this post without ranking things in at least an order of appreciation, so I have decided that just this once I will break this rule and rate the following games I have played this year out of 10 in ascending order. I will however say that these values represent how much that I, and only I, enjoyed each of the following games and that YOU may and should have an entirely different opinion. Which is perfectly fine.

Bulletstorm - 5.5/10

Ugh. The utter dismay I express and disappointment I have for Epic Games, making this abomination of blissful theoretical oldskool design but awful modern FPS execution is one I cannot forgive. A misleading advertising campaign (Duty Calls parody video, "kill with skill" trailers?), a horrible PC port and just bad, boring, linear game design has put this game as the worst game I have played this year. Yes, I know I am biased with the whole console FPS perspective thing I have going. But the fact it is Epic Games, forgetting their once strong and proud Unreal Tournament, PC fanbase and cashing in with the console Gears of War crowd just makes it all the more bitter. While I still love their old games pre-UT3, I have come to despise the company that made them. It is their design philosophies and trends that are the cancer which plagues much of modern AAA game design these days.

this is probably the best part of the whole game, but still manages to suck

Duke Nukem - 6/10

Duke Nukem was just a bad game. There isn't really much to say. It is by no means the worst game ever and there were even bits of it that were kinda cool and funny. However, after over 11 years of production, the shamble that was released mid 2011 is inexcusable. I don't blame Gearbox Software. They were merely picking up the corpse left by 3D Realms and tried stuffing some life into it for as cheap as possible. For them it was a profit deal. Like Bulletstorm it suffered from modern-day FPS syndrome, but not quite as bad as Bulletstorm did. Mainly it was regenerating health and the inability to carry more than 2 weapons that threw the towel in for me. The King did not return.

maybe if he did less of this and more ass kicking while lacking bubblegum supplies ...

Crysis 2 - 6.5/10

I loved the original Crysis and its expansion Warhead. They were easily the best shooters of 2007/8 and they are still some of the best looking games ever made. Don't get me wrong, Crysis 2 is gorgeous as well, but goddamit. Going from kilometers of lush tropical beaches and snowy mountain ranges to cramped, cement buildings in a fucking American city was just stupid in my opinion. God I hate cities. GARRGH. Linear design, fucked up story, barely any advances graphically (used Dx9 on release) and far too many cutscenes and quicktime events. Like the sequels to the original film The Matrix, Crysis 2 is a game I prefer not to remember.

no! don't look!

Rage - 6.5/10

Despite the textures in this game looking like absolute turd, the game play is actually decent. It was not, however, decent enough for me to not get bored after arriving at the first major town though. I don't know what it is about this game but I just cannot get stuck into it. There is just something inherently ... noobish ... about it. Like you are being led by the nose by some invisible man, telling you where to go without you knowing it. I think the illusion of free space, but not actually HAVING free space to move and explore things creates this feeling for me. I feel trapped. I don't want to help any of these cunts and the inability to just fuck off and do my own thing really bugs me. I had decreasing levels of expectation for this game leading up to its release and its console FPS design was not unexpected when I eventually got my hands on it. I don't think iD have gone completely the way of Epic Games just yet. I still have hopes for them delivering in the future...

this is actually a texture in the game

F.3.A.R - 7/10

Still yet to finish this game, but it has been ok so far. I actually quite like the story, the tale of two evil but powerful brothers coming to terms with both their and their mother's existance is unique, at least to other video game stories. While it has the same bullshit weapon restrictions, regenerating HP and cover systems that make my eye twitch every time I indulge in them, the gore and pacing of the game is still interesting enough. A spiritual successor to Max Payne's bulletime, the enhanced reflexes of the protagonist makes for some entertaining weapon play at the very least.

hello

Marvel Vs Capcom 3 - 7/10

This is a decent game and I probably would have rated it higher if not for one simple reason: fighting games are multiplayer games. As I seem to be the only person I know who is avidly interested (but still terrible) at fighting games, getting other people to play and enjoy fighting games too is almost impossible. I have made posts about the merits of playing fighting games before so I won't repeat myself here. Nevertheless, MvC3 is slick, stylish and fast as hell, but suffers from being a little too dumbed downed and ... incomplete, for lack of a better description. Dumbed down it may be, you won't see many new people picking up and playing this game as it is still one of the most complex and mechanically confusing fighting games out there, second only to MvC2.

i wonder if she plays basketball...

Dirt 3 - 7/10

There is nothing really wrong with this game, it's just that it is nothing really special and new compared to Dirt 2, a game I enjoyed far more. While GRID is still the undisputed champion of Codemaster's last few racing game titles (for me), Dirt 3 doesn't really raise the bar on any level. In fact, I would go so far as to say it actually looks and plays worse than Dirt 2. When it boils down to it, I wish I didn't buy this game, basically.

if only

Sanctum - 7/10

Interesting game concept, something I have thought about myself many times but never thought would actually be successful. Turns out there are people who are interested in FPS tower defense though. For a cheap, indie game there are few complaints about it but there are definitely elements that could be better. The DLC is a bit of a dick move though.

ass rockets ftw

Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online - 7/10

Again, a fighting game and again it suffers from the same personal flaw of mine: No one I know wants to play it. Still, as a remake of a decade old game, it still has some nostalgic and historic aspects to it. The game that put some of the best Street Fighter players where they are today (e.g. Daigo) is easy to play but hard to master, especially the parry mechanic. Maybe I should take it online, like the name implies...

well, at least two of these ladies play basketball. clearly the one on the right

Magicka - 7/10

This game had a lot of appeal early on in the piece, but fell off rather slowly as time went by. I'm not sure what exactly is the cause for this. It might be that it gets repetitive and annoying remembering and plugging in the same spell combinations over and over and over again, sometimes having risky or unexpected results. Comical at first but later frustrating down the track. Additionally, playing with people who have played it much more than you have, making frequent use of overpowered, non-team oriented spells gets a little annoying. Especially when they get you killed.

blaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh!!!

Spacemarine - 7.5/10

A tiny bit disappointing but overall a good game, Spacemarine satisfied my need to kill greenskins ... and then some! While the singleplayer was enjoyable, with random spurts of godlike jump-pack goodness, the most fun I had was with the free DLC survival mode Exterminatus. Most definitely a challenge, it was the only foraging I did into the game's online multiplayer, something that seemed rather enjoyable for the brief bit of time I spent with it. I imagine if I hadn't had so much to do and had so many other games to finish, I would return to this game's multiplayer for a second helping.

it really, really is ...

Trackmania 2 - 7.5/10

If your need is for speed, then Trackmania will definitely do the trick for you this year. As crazy as ever, Trackmania 2 is pretty much the original with a slight facelift and an interesting theme. I could not justify forking out the money for this one but luckily I was gifted it by a friend. It's fun, I'll give it that, but from a purely competitive point of view it is not really my type of racing game. That is because you aren't really racing, but competing for times. Without direct means of influencing the success or failure of my opponents, they feel less like opponents and more like ... other people who are just trying to get a good time on a track. To me that makes the game slightly less engaging.

i iz driving car!

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition - 7.5/10

This isn't really an entirely new game, being an expansion pack for Super Street Fighter 4. Arcade Edition just adds some tweaks, balances and 4 new characters. Two of them I fucking hate (Yun + Yang), mainly because they seem uninspired and do nothing but add to the sausage fest that is the SF4 roster. Evil Ryu and Oni are at least interesting aesthetically and add some interesting gameplay mechanics (air dashing, chargeable ultras). Personally I would have enjoyed the expansion much more if they added a few more female characters to the mix, possibly Elena and R.Mika. That would have made it perfect.

now that's just uncalled for

Portal 2 - 7.5/10

I totally forgot about this game. As big as it was and enjoyable to play as it could be at times, I guess it just slipped off my radar after awhile. That might be because of its limited replayability. Solve a puzzle once and there really isn't anything else to it, unless you are extremely forgetful. Some of the puzzles were genuinely challenging and mind boggles, and coop with a friend could be entertaining at times. I will probably come back to it in a year or so for another run, but it was never the sort of game I was going to get down on my hands and knees and worship as a god. As much as I like and respect Valve, their most recent games just havn't been kicking it for me as much as their older ones. I'm sure they have something refreshing in the works though.

its kinda scary this chick is more cut than most dudes

Serious Sam 3: BFE - 9/10

Bit of a jump from 7.5 to 9, huh? I guess I didn't really play anything that I felt only just fell short of being awesome. Speaking of awesome, SS3:BFE is the shit. I will probably do a more detailed review of this at a later point, but for the moment this will suffice. After over a decade of waiting, a company, Croteam, has finally decided to pop its head up amongst the sea of garbage and say "Hey, this stinks. Let's go back to the way things used to be", with, in my opinion, resounding success. While there are very slight traces of modern FPS game design in here, some of which are alien in a Serious Sam game (reloading, ironsights, sprinting, melee), they are but minor nuances to the overall experience that is shooting into a horde of monsters while running for your life over some sand dunes. To be fair though, some of those minor nuances can detract from the experience. Reloading gets you killed more often than not, but sprinting is actually a useful addition. Melee is ok I guess, not something you really focus on at all. Ironsights though? I really don't see the point of it being in the game except to make modern FPS players feel slightly more at home ... at least initially. I almost feel Croteam have put it in just to troll you as you won't be using it at all later on (you move slower while ironsighted). Actually, I feel the first few levels are just one big troll fest by the developer, resembling something out of COD or Doom 3 before finally dropping you in an arena and saying "Sup bro? Heard of strafing bro? You'll hear about it now. BRO". The latter levels become increasingly more chaotic, almost to the absurd level. I don't think I have openly swore in joy at an FPS game since UT2k4, so it is kind of sad to know that the game probably won't sell very well. It will inevitably get average ratings and being PC only (for the moment), will be ignored by 99% of the FPS community. However, I cannot see how you could use a controller for this game at all (vertical aiming). Still, the best FPS I have played this year, paying true homage to the oldskool games of skill and fun. Hmmmm. Excuse me ... I have something in my eye ...

come at me bros!!!

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 9.5/10

It is hard to describe this game. There is so much to do and be and kill that it almost becomes something more than a game. Hell, some of the guild based quest lines are more engaging than entire AAA games made today, which is saying a lot. Atmospheric would probably be one word. Immersive would be another. I have made enough posts about it already for my view to be expressed. An excellent game, an excellent PC game (despite a few issues) and as far as singleplayer RPG experiences go, you will be hard pressed to find something better. I think everyone will get something out of Skyrim because it really gives.

i am so totally immersed right now ...

Shogun Total War 2 - 9.5/10

This isn't the final game on this list because it was better than Skyrim but because it is equivalent to it. It is funny that out of the three best games I played this year, one of them was the first game I played. Still, it resounded and lasted all the way up to now, inevitably ranking high for the sheer amount of hours and enjoyment I got from this game. Dominating Japan with a friend in a coop campaign has resulted in some of the most memorable gaming experiences I have had, something that few titles do for me these days. Great soundtrack, solid multiplayer and just an ... enlightening theme is what makes this game. Again, I have mentioned this all before so I won't recant it now.

die motherfuckers!!!

And that's it. These are the games I have played enough of this year to form a solid opinion on. While they are mainly FPS games there is still a decent mix (fighting, racing, RTS, RPG) on both console and PC to not limit myself with. Where is, you may ask, Arkham City, for example? Good question. While I did buy the game this year, I am still yet to finish Arkham Asylum, a game I started late last year. It will likely be one of the games I complete next year at some point. I seriously have too many games to play, with many still to come on the horizon. Most notable are Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Street Fighter x Tekken and undoubtedly Diablo III. Then there's Max Payne 3, Torchlight 2, Farcry 3, Soul Calibur V, Aliens: Colonial Marines ...

... O.o

I think I probably play too many games :S

The fruits of ones labor

This wont be a long post.

Skyrim is an addictive game. Anyone who has seen me on Steam recently has probably noticed this. I should probably cut back a bit. After my most recent effort, I probably will.

After marrying Lydia, giving her a Daedric Greatsword, Bow and set of armour like myself, I began the insane process of enchanting all of our shit to give us the highest potential damage output that we, combined, could achieve while still maintaining some utility (stamina draining bows, magicka draining weapons, magic resist amulets/rings). Long story short I have resulted with the following weapon. Well, two of them to be precise:

my precious...

Having a wife for a companion in this game is also ... interesting. After reading articles like this it is not hard to understand how people can become attached to certain things in this game. It does a good job of making you care. Lydia was easily the best choice for me, and makes a wicked apple pie, if you know what I mean :). Having another me running around in scary gear also has its merits, especially if I am too busy looting a corpse, confident that she will clean up the rest of the army of bad guys in the room we just walked into. I don't take her out all the time though. Someone's gotta clean the house...

She cooks an apple pie for you and it is good - wtf did you think I meant!?

Anyways, the following two screenshots sum up the result of this ... relatively easy but still time consuming mission to make high quality Skyrim gear. The target is an Elder Dragon, one of the highest HP enemy dragons in the game:


Needless to say I will probably be increasing the difficulty very shortly :S

Edit: Thought I would put this here too instead of making a new post. Fuck I laughed when this happened. Lucky I was frapsing at the time too.