Hans On Video Gaming

Pulling Up Stakes

2011-03-24T16:03:00.002-07:00

Too busy to post here on a regular basis. Also, one-liners are better suited for Twitter anyway. So @hidannik on Twitter is my new home. Be well, citizens. Hans

One Liners

2010-03-30T17:39:00.001-07:00

Red Faction II: Squad of space marines blows stuff up real good.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: This can't be Wright!
Star Wars Battlefront: Battlefield 1942 with a Star Wars skin.

One Liners

2010-03-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

Ben There, Dan That: Two wisecracking friends; A point-and-click adventure; Sam and Max cry foul.
God of War II: Greek gods demote him; A Spartan sides with Titans; Olympus threatened.
Assault Heroes: Tasty twin-stick tidbit.

One Liners

2010-03-12T14:55:00.001-07:00

Mass Effect 2: Mordin. Awesome.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood: McCalling you out!
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Miles to go.

One Liners

2010-03-11T13:08:00.001-07:00

Team Fortress 2: Rocket jumps! Turrets! And shoot the Medic.
Civilization IV: Ruthless conqueror; More fun than anything else; Gandhi surrenders.
Pinball FX: Floaty ball physics; Tables too small for play; Program gathers dust.

One Liners

2010-03-04T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time: Every boy needs a fairy!
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Naughty Nazi Necromancers.
Obscure: The Aftermath: Mmm mm that smell... Can't you smell that smell?
Jedi Outcast: Lightsabers and blasters are fun. FPS jumping puzzles are not.
Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation: Like every other Ace Combat, but prettier.
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection: Black Knight!
Timesplitters: Future Perfect: Embrace the goofiness.
Advance Wars: Chibi kids go to war.
Battlezone: Nostalgia value only.
Silent Hill 4: The Room: Is that... blood... on that toy bunny's muzzle?

One Liners

2010-03-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

Black: Satisfying explosions vs. rage-inducing unskippable cutscenes.
GRID: Exciting races.
Battlestar Galactica: Not the Live Arcade one, the good one.
Crackdown: Skills for kills, agent, skills for kills.
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures: Legos... Why'd it have to be Legos?
Puzzle Pirates: Tetris ahoy!
Star Ocean: Till The End of Time: What's this high fantasy doing in my sci-fi RPG?
DiRT: Rally round, boys! Rally round!
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (for PS2): I can use these PS2 controls, or chop off all my fingers? ... What? Hold on, I'm thinking...
Jedi Academy: Jedi High.

One Liners

2010-02-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

Galcon Fusion: RTS simplified, purified, intensified, addictified.
Jade Empire Limited Edition: Magic Kung Fu fighting to save the Empire.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: Player pursues purloined president by messing up Mexico.
Braid: What if you could go back and do it over?
Persona 3 FES: How can we improve this hundred hour game? I know, let's add content!
Indigo Prophecy: It's what happens when game developers eat peyote halfway through producing a game.
Forza Motorsport 2: Race. Win. Acquire. Upgrade. Unlock. And no stinking license tests nor Kudos challenges.
Mercenaries: GTA, but with mercenaries and North Korea.
Max Payne: Dyspeptic detective depopulates designer drug dealer demographic.
Perfect Dark: Corporations, A.I. and Gray Aliens, oh my.

One Liners

2010-02-23T12:48:00.001-07:00

Descent 3: Mercenary: Yes, Mr. Dravis.
Descent 3: Die, Dravis!
Serious Sam II: Serious Sam, prettified.
Bejeweled 2 Deluxe: Time-sink trance.
Too Human: Slide attack!
Namco Museum 50th Anniversary: Galaga!
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars: Kane is back, as are silly overacted cutscenes.
Bionic Commando: Rearmed: Hooked.
Star Wars Starfighter: Special Edition: Better than the prequel movies, though that's not saying much.
Eternal Sonata: Chopin's dying dream is a high-fantasy JRPG?

One Liners

2010-02-22T12:57:00.001-07:00

Project Snowblind: One man army blows up Hong Kong real good.
Tomb Raider Underworld: Lara Croft blows up her own mansion??!!
Darkwatch: Old West Painkiller.
Fallout Brotherhood of Steel: Diablo, Fallout style.
Fallout Tactics: Fallout with squads.
Half-Life: Source: Half-Life plus physics.
Halo 2: More Halo, but with pop-in and an abrupt ending.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Diablo, with superheroes.
Okami: Beautiful odyssey through Japanese mythology.
Universe at War: Earth Assault: Five-cornered fight between humans, aliens, AI robots, powerful ancient Earth-dwellers, and dodgy framerates.

One Liners

2010-02-20T00:31:00.001-07:00

Ridge Racer 6: Drifting into victory.
Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Hob check shun!
Lost Odyssey: Dino-men vs. the pull-ring hat army.
Fable: The Lost Chapters: More fables.
Ridge Racer V: Understeers, understand?
Persona 4: Can we make this game any longer? Yes!
Prince of Persia 2008: Fun flowing free-running.
Fallout 3: Leave It to Beaver meets Mad Max.
Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories: Card combat craziness.
Banjo Kazooie: Gotta collect 'em all. Notes and jiggies and coins, oh my!

XLink Kai, The PlayStation 2, And Gotchas

2010-02-18T16:41:00.004-07:00

Recently I and a distant friend were trying to start a game of Project Snowblind on the PS2. We discovered that the Internet servers had been shut down long since. But the game supports LAN play, so we started looking for LAN-over-Internet solutions. At first we tried Hamachi, but discovered that nothing we could do with that tool would bridge our two LANs so that our PS2s could see each other. Next we tried XLink Kai. This we eventually got to work (and work well), but there are some gotchas which I'll list here for the benefit of others who may want to play PS2 LAN-enabled games over the Internet.

As of this writing, XLink Kai version 7.4 does not work with PlayStation 2 consoles.
Instead, install version 7.3.1.7. The user interface is far more confusing, but it definitely works.
Kai's instructions are misleading on a critical point. They say that to get Kai to recognize your console, you should search for a game to join. This is true enough, for games that get their network address when they search for a game.
What actually happens is that when the console asks for an IP address from DHCP, XLink Kai assigns the address before the router can get to it. It's the point at which Kai assigns the console an address that it recognizes it.
In the case of a game like Project Snowblind, the game connects to the network and asks for an IP address before the user makes a choice whether to host a game or search for one.
So it's vital that Kai already be running when starting multiplayer on a PS2 game. It's easier to just reset the PS2 after starting Kai. This guarantees that Kai will be running whenever the console asks for an IP address.

It's also worth noting that I successfully ran Kai in Windows XP, which was running in a VirtualBox virtual machine set for bridged networking.

Hamachi And Console Gaming

2010-02-18T16:13:00.004-07:00

I tried the other day to set up PlayStation 2 console gaming via Hamachi with a far-away friend. We could never get it to work.

Since game consoles cannot run Hamachi clients, we needed some method for bridging our LANs across Hamachi so that packets sent from one console would show up on the other LAN.

The first thing we tried was using Windows Bridging to connect both our real LANs to Hamachi's virtual one. Broadcasts and pings sent from one LAN did not show up on the other.

The second thing we did was to set up static routes from one LAN to the other across Hamachi, according to a document he found on the Hamachi wiki. Again, broadcasts and pings did not go, even when we turned off (briefly) our firewalls.

Since neither of these methods worked, we gave up on using Hamachi for console gaming, and turned to the dedicated solution: XLink Kai.

One Liners

2010-02-18T16:08:00.001-07:00

Gateway II Homeworld: More Heechee clickee.
God of War: Chains of Olympus: Kratos is angry again. Who would've guessed?
Gears of War: Look out! Cliché overload!
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3: Manapults!
Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath: Kane saves face. Well, half.
R-Type Dimensions: Classic hardcore punishing shmup.
Silent Hill: Homecoming: Little Brother is watching you.
Enchanted Arms: Magic guns.
On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 2: Perverted Produce Penetrators.
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne: The Joy of Sax.

One Liners

2010-02-16T13:24:00.001-07:00

Tron 2.0: Disk? Oh, tech!
Tribes Vengeance: Fuel dump frenzy.
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch: Gordon Freeman was killed by a flying toilet.
Far Cry: Dr. Moreau's Deathmatch Delight.
Duke Nukem 3D: Damn, I'm looking pixellated.
Half-Life: Opposing Force: Yo Adrian!
Half-Life: Blue Shift: Alien: Oh no, it's a security guard! Run!
Half-Life: Physics geek defeats alien horde with crowbar.
Frederik Pohl's Gateway: Point. Click. Explore the Heechee universe.

One Liners

2010-02-12T00:40:00.001-07:00

Sacrifice: Soul food.
Lure of the Temptress: Pixel hunt.
Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and the Damned: Do not operate motorcycle with face contacting tire. Unless it's someone else's face.
Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage: Shoot Chinese soldier. Replenish ammo. Repeat until bored or finished.
Exit 2: Taking escapology to the next hundred levels.
X-COM: Terror from the Deep: UFO = Underwater Flying Object.
X-COM: UFO Defense: SHADO war.
Castle Crashers: Merry mayhem.
Beneath a Steel Sky: Grim tale set to cheerful music. Say what?
Unreal Tournament 2004: Run. Shoot. Kill. Die.

One Liners

2010-02-10T11:39:00.000-07:00

Halo Wars: They're everywhere!
Halo: Combat Evolved: FPS comfort gaming.
Empire Earth: Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Mindworms! Bzzt bzzt.
Age of Empires II Gold: Lift that barge. Tote that bale. Build that army. Invade that neighbor.
Duke Nukem 3D: Damn, I'm looking good.
Burnout 3: Takedown: Yes, officer, I do know how fast I was going. Road-blurringly, cheek-ripplingly, face-meltingly, doors-blowing-offly fast.
X-COM: Interceptor: Controls as awkward as a nerd's first date.
X-COM: Apocalypse: Unremarkable Steam sale filler.
Tomb Raider Underworld: Beneath the Ashes: Undiscovered ancient tomb beneath tomb raider's mansion? Well isn't that convenient.

One Liners

2010-02-09T16:22:00.002-07:00

Killzone: Server still up. Multiplayer still fun.
flOw: Eat or be eaten.
Fallout 2: More mutant merriment.
Fallout: War never changes. Humans, however, mutate.
Darwinia: Paper dolls vs. origami snakes.
Armagetron Advanced: MS Office apps ride light-bikes when they're not working... who knew?
Alien Hominid: The original Flash game. At least I can get groin-kicked for free with this version.
Tomb Raider Underworld: Lara's Shadow: Lara's more badass evil clone.
Prince of Persia: Epilogue: Doing my part to make the DLC problem worse.

One Liners

2010-02-08T10:31:00.001-07:00

Alien Hominid HD: This game is hard. Hard. Did I say hard?
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena: More Riddick, but with guns.
Desktop Tower Defense: Dune 2000, but more boring.
Dead Space: I dismember you!
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth: I'a Dagon!
Peggle Extreme: Half-Life 2 themed Peggle demo.
X-COM: Enforcer: What, I have to shoot some more aliens?
Mona the Assassin: Don't mess with Mona.
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast: Short tech demo.
Frozen Bubble: Bubble Bobble boosted.

One Liners

2010-02-05T06:15:00.001-07:00

Titan Quest: Click. Click. Click click. Click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click ...
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories: I have to drive how far to get to a save point?!
Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles: Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, all in one convenient package.
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars: Eco, Brown, or Spielberg? We'll see.
Project Gotham Racing 4: Kudos! Again.
Halo 3: Bad cyborg!
Bully: Scholarship Edition: Preppie pranksters.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay: The dark... My favorite.
Condemned 2: Bloodshot: Oil men.
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts: If you build it, it will go.

One Liners

2010-02-04T18:04:00.003-07:00

Syberia II: More mechanical mystery.
Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow: Good PSP shooter. Yes. Good. Deal with it.
Speed Racer: Like WipEout, but with cars. And anime style talking head text balloons.
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway: More Brothers in Arms.
Infinite Undiscovery: Infinite Unexcitement.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Pretty prequel.
Devil May Cry 4: No one can escape... the claw!
Medieval II Total War: Total strategy.
Rez HD: Trippy musical rail shooter. Great aiming system for consoles.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions: Not a new game; just FFT, portable.

One Liners

2010-02-02T11:58:00.002-07:00

Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories PSP: Fun if you like GTA. I like GTA.
Star Wars Republic Commando: Cloning around.
Mirror's Edge: Parkour bliss. Shooting not so much.
Flatout 2: Demolition derby delight.
Battlefield 1942: Fun camping the enemy spawn point with a tank.
World in Conflict Complete: WW3 strategy.
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition: Giant ice bugs and mechs.
GUN: Fun Old West shooter/RPG.
Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars: A different perspective on GTA. Still GTA. Fun.
The Orange Box: Portal: The cake is a delicious lie.

One Liners

2010-02-01T09:59:00.003-07:00

Civilization Revolution: Pure. Simple. Fun.
Bejeweled 2 Deluxe: Endless mode? Gem-matching trance.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Epic space battles.
Frontlines: Fuel of War: A game I play to escape everyday worries about politics, economics, the environment, dwindling energy supplies... oh wait...
Battlefield: Bad Company: "Hold the phone. Did you just say I can blow up anything?"
Tales of Vesperia: Pretty JRPG.
Ico: Heart-tugging protectiveness among lonely magnificence.
Guitar Hero 2: Rock out with the band. And practice.
Guitar Hero: Rock out with the band.
Fable II: Good dog!

More One-Liners

2010-01-29T10:41:00.005-07:00

Mass Effect 2: What light through yonder window breaks?
Duke Nukem: Never Forever.
Pandemic: Sick. Dead.

Labels

2010-01-28T14:49:00.003-07:00

Screw the labels. One of the reasons I haven't been posting is that I have to spend too much time putting labels on, formatting my paragraphs, and so on. From now on this is like Twitter. I have a thought, I post it. No more writing entire "articles."

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for PS2

2010-01-28T14:33:00.002-07:00

Am I imagining things, or does this have worse graphics than Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4? And is anyone else getting lost when trying to run through the frozen nightmares?

Gamer's Diary - 2010-01-28

2010-01-28T11:53:00.014-07:00

Been playing a little more. But it's been a while, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet. Here come one line impressions, two words when I can manage it. Thanks to The Digital Cowboys for the idea of doing it this way.

Shadow Complex: Finished twice.
Lego Batman: Batman. With Legos.
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Funny superhero lawyer like Phoenix Wright.
The World Ends with You: Hipster RPG.
Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal: Funny pirates.
Rainbox Six Vegas 2: More RSV.
Battlefield 1943: Battlefield. Fun.
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin: More scary Alma.
Half-Life 2 and Episodes: Nth playthrough.
Brutal Legend: So Metal.
Red Faction: Guerrilla: Demolition fun.
Half-Life: Decay: Decay okay.
Half-Life PS2: Finished it (again) with keyboard and mouse.
groov: Musical twin-stick shooter. Frantic fun.
Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp: Funny platformer.
Lucidity: Sweet dreamworld timed puzzler.
Space Invaders Extreme: Space Invaders. Awesome update.
Saints Row 2: Mo gangsta.
Hitman: Codename 47: Frustrating controls.
Wolfenstein: Occult Nazi experiments gone wrong.
Halo 3: ODST: Chiefless Halo.
Batman: Arkham Asylum: Gargoyle predator.
Descent 2: Fun multiplayer deathmatch.
Painkiller: Frantic multiplayer deathmatch.
Prey: Gravity-bending multiplayer plus portals.
Quake 3: Hilarious Catch The Chicken multiplayer mod.
Star Trek Elite Force 2: Multiplayer: Set phasers to frag.
Team Fortress 2: Awesomely fun class-based shooter.
Torchlight: Diablo evolved.
Patapon 2: The rhythm is gonna get ya.
World of Goo: Very goo(d) phyics puzzler
Giants Citizen Kabuto: Funny game, ugly graphics.
Red Dead Revolver: Old West gunfighter fun.
Silent Hill Origins: Another Silent Hill creep-out.
Just Cause: Superspy GTA Banana Republic.
The Maw: Cute ever-growing planet-eating blob.
Assassin's Creed II: Way better than I.
Blast Off!: Gravity physics puzzler.
echochrome: Nifty Escher-ish puzzler.
Lost Planet Colonies Edition (Xbox 360): Performs better than on PC.
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (Xbox 360): RPG + Bejeweled = videogame abuse problem.
Bejeweled 2 (Pocket PC): Endless Mode? Endless amusement.
Machinarium: Charming robot point-and-click adventure.
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix: Sci-Fi RPG + no-gravity Bejeweled = just one more battle!
Elite Beat Agents: Super fun super silly rhythm game.
IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey: Hardcore flight sim, arcade fun, you pick.
No Gravity: The Plague of Mind: Very like Colony Wars.
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (PSP): Mobile videogame abuse problem.
Bookworm: Twisty word finder.
Canabalt: Jump, dammit!
Miner Dig Deep: Dig dug homage.
Vandal Hearts: Flames of Justice: Turn-based tactical RPG comfort food.
Portal: Still Alive: Still awesome.
Saints Row: Original gangsta.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories: Run? Run where?
Mass Effect 2: Two terrific!
Astraware Sudoku: Sudoku. So?
Gran Turismo PSP: Gotta drive 'em all.

Gamer's Diary - 2009-09-15

2009-09-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

Other things have been taking up my time in the last four months, so I haven't played games that much. I'll just mention a few highlights.

I gave Civilization another chance, in the form of Civilization Revolution for the Xbox 360. Ruthless dictatorship does have its rewards, and I'll be applying that strategy again on this one or on Civilization IV.

Shadow Complex on Xbox Live Arcade is so awesome. I'm not a completionist, yet this game is so fun I'm playing through it a second time to get every item and visit every location.

Sins of a Solar Empire is fun, but hard. I lost my first game played on normal difficulty with a small map, but it was still a treat to watch two fleets engaging in a massive space battle.

I prefer my RPGs to have a battle system that is either pure turn-based or pure real-time, none of this silly ATB hybrid stuff. Tales of Vesperia is notable for its all-action combat system that more closely resemblers a fighting game like Street Fighter or Soul Calibur. It's a refreshing change of pace.

Gamer's Diary - 2009-05-28

2009-09-17T22:50:00.001-07:00

I really haven't had any time for games per se since my last entry, save for a demo (Space Invaders Extreme) and to use a game to test new video drivers and hardware (Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, GUN, Peggle Extreme, Half-Life, Half-Life 2) . I spent little more than five minutes with each.

Space Invaders Extreme was more than the same old game with jazzed-up graphics; actually it changes a lot about the way the game plays. It's more of a re-imagining than a remake. This one goes on my buy-later list.

An update to Linux broke both the proprietary and open 3D drivers for my two-year-old ATI graphics card. ATI is no longer updating the proprietary driver, and no fix would be coming any time soon for the open one, so I was stuck with a 2D driver. And the prospect of playing my games in the Windows partition for some undetermined number of months or years until the open driver was fixed and enough functions added to it to match the proprietary one.

Not acceptable.

So I said goodbye to ATI and replaced the card with an upper-middle performance NVidia one. The result? Easy driver installation, easy configuration, performance improvement, and glitch-free graphics. By contrast ATI driver installation and update was a nightmare, configuration was confusing and inconsistent, performance was poor, and there were always graphics glitches, problems and failures.

So why is ATI lauded by Linux advocates and NVidia castigated? Because the ATI hardware specs are open, making possible the (mostly useless) open-source driver.

A man walks into a butcher shop and asks for a pound of hamburger. The butcher wraps it up and says, "That'll be two dollars." The man says, "That's outrageous! The shop down the street has it for one dollar a pound." "So why not buy it from him, then?" asks the butcher. "He's out," comes the reply. "Well," says the butcher, "When I'm out mine is fifty cents a pound."

Gamer's Diary - 2009-05-09

2009-09-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

On the recommendation of Rebel FM's Game Club, and because console versions were hard to find, I picked up GUN on Steam. It wasn't the cheapest option, but it was still inexpensive and by far the most convenient.

Although I succeeded in getting it to run on Linux via Crossover Games, the hassle of glitches and poor frame rates drove me to run it in my Windows XP partition instead. There it ran just right with one notable exception.

It crashes from time to time.

What's worse is that it has no autosave. Even knowing that, I managed to get bit by it when the game crashed and I lost all my progress. I need to get back into the habit of saving every minute or so. Thankfully it does have save-anywhere.

I'm not sure whether it's my chemo-numbed fingers, the game having been originally designed for consoles, or my growing comfort with playing first-person shooters on console controllers, but I found GUN much easier to play using an Xbox 360 controller than with mouse-and-keyboard.

I've enjoyed what I've played of it - it comes across like a Western movie, recycling clichés from the genre without feeling clichéd itself. It's quite fun, and I'll be playing more of it in the future.

Gamer's Diary - 2009-05-08

2009-09-17T22:48:00.000-07:00

Some critics have talked about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars as if it's a return to the days before GTA3, when the perspective was top-down, the gameplay was simpler, and the games were supposedly more light-hearted and fun.

They're right. The perspective is top-down. But with the exception of that, and of the absence of voice acting, this is a modern GTA title. Everything looks and moves like the latest games, and the plot, mission structure and gameplay system works the same way. Even the post-GTA3 mix of serious themes treated seriously, satire and over-the-top lunacy is there.

I suspect the reason for the top-down view is technical. The more objects a game has to draw, the more system resources it consumes. With the normal GTA view, the game has to draw stuff all the way to the horizon, or until it runs out of memory. With a top-down view, the farthest thing that has to be drawn is the ground.

The game's pretty fun, in its modern GTA way. I'll be playing it again.

Gamer's Diary 2009-05-07

2009-05-07T20:58:00.002-07:00

A reference to Portal in a recent videogame podcast got me thinking about it. I wanted to hear Still Alive again, so I bought the soundtrack to The Orange Box on iTunes and downloaded it to my iPod. And set Still Alive as my phone's ringtone. And last night played through the game again so I could hear it in context.

I had meant to load a save from the end of the game so that I could go straight to the credits, but I'd never made one there. So, I decided to play all the way through again and re-experience the awesomeness that is Portal.

I planned to play a half-hour and save the rest for another night, as I had four games that had just arrived in the mail - I hadn't even opened them yet. I started a new game of Portal and began playing.

Four hours later, I was watching the end credits. Yeah, it's that good.

Gamer's Diary - 2009-05-06

2009-05-06T08:27:00.002-07:00

Dancing, sleeping.

Gamer's Diary - 2009-05-05

2009-05-06T08:27:00.001-07:00

Dancing and working late, no games.

Gamer's Diary - 2009-05-04

2009-05-06T08:26:00.002-07:00

No games yesterday - too busy dancing and catching up on my sleep.

Gamer's Diary - 2009-05-03

2009-05-06T08:25:00.001-07:00

The Gamers with Jobs website had an article recommending the short, free platformer Meat Boy, so I downloaded it. It runs fine under Crossover Games, so that's how I played it.

It's pretty fun. Well worth trying if you like 2D platformers at all.

Gamer's Diary - 2009-05-02

2009-05-06T08:23:00.002-07:00

Yesterday I installed and played three free games I'd heard about through blogs and forums.

Progress Quest is, quite literally, a joke. It's an RPG that plays itself, a satire on the grind one finds in every game in the genre. No player input is required or accepted once it starts running. It kills enemies automatically, picks up loot drops automatically, sells loot automatically when encumbered, and upgrades equipment automatically.

Progress Quest distills an RPG down to what its author sees as the essentials - the grind - and then automates that. It says, "RPGs are so mindless and stupid, and offer so little actual choice, that a robot could play them and win. Here's one that does."

The Linear RPG is a similar kind of satire, though this one gives the player some choice. The player can move left, move right, or stand still. One's health goes down as one moves left or right (from automatically resolved random enemy encounters), and experience points go up. Death at zero health points subtracts some XP and resets health to match, while reaching the end of a segment restores health (an "inn" or "save point"). Each segment further to the right has more damaging enemies.

So here the author sees the essence of RPGs as the cycle of fighting, resting, and grinding levels by going back and fighting weaker enemies. It takes about ten minutes, it's mildly amusing, and there's an associated text story that scrolls up and down as one moves right and left along the path.

FreeRealms wouldn't install or run in either of Crossover Games or VMware with Windows XP, so I had to put it on my Windows XP partition. It ran fine there.

This game is Sony Online Entertainment's first try at bringing a Korean-style micro-transaction-based MMORPG to a Western audience. The player plays for free, but pays for conveniences and for gameplay-neutral customizations (such as costumes).

I spent a few minutes with it, and will probably return at some point. It was easy enough to play, and seems squarely aimed at the casual player who may only want to solo and play a couple of hours a week. It also seems almost aggressively family-friendly, as if it were a Disney MMO for kids. I'll have to see later if I can find a dark side in it.

Gamer's Diary 2009-05-01

2009-05-06T08:23:00.001-07:00

No games yesterday. Fell asleep in my chair instead.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-30

2009-05-06T08:21:00.001-07:00

My latest cheap deal, Syberia II, arrived in the mail yesterday. This is an original Xbox game that is backward compatible on the Xbox 360, but I played it on my original Xbox.

It's a point-and-click adventure game, and I like those kind of games. I've enjoyed what I've played of this one so far. I find the story concept appealing, the artwork pleasant, and the voice performances competent though no more than that.

To me, the game has a distinctly European flavor. I can't quite put my finger on what makes it so. It's probably a combination of a lot of little things, like the protagonist's hair style and dress, the prominence of a train as the main method of transportation, and the interactions between the characters.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-29

2009-04-29T22:29:00.002-07:00

No games yesterday; besides the time I spent dancing, the rest of the time was spent reconstructing an approximation of my games database from entries posted here. A glitch on the 27th deleted my database (among other files) from my PDA's SD card, and the last backup I had was from February.

Moral of the story: Back up your files, kiddies.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-28

2009-04-29T22:24:00.002-07:00

This was another day of great deals I found through Cheap Ass Gamer arriving in the mail.

Syphon Filter Logan's Shadow has a great way to implement a shooter on the single-analog-stick PSP. Let the player get into cover, then peek around it to aim, and finally snap off a shot but getting back into cover immediately after. I found this much more enjoyable than the run-and-gun other PSP shooters attempt, which just doesn't work with a single analog stick.

Speed Racer is a mildly enjoyable racing game (with tricks) on the PS2. There's nothing really exceptional about it, but if you like the franchise it performs as a competent racing game. It's certainly no wipEout or Gran Turismo, but what it does it does pretty well.

What I played of Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway told me that it was just more of the same thing that you get from other entries in the series: great physical acting and voicework, a serious tone and mature approach to the subject matter, enjoyable single-player and squad shooter game systems, and that's pretty much it. Those who were looking for more innovation or major innovations in the narrative structure will be disappointed, but those who would enoy a continuation of the story in Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood without a lot of extra new foofaraw (like me) will be satisfied.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-27

2009-04-27T21:40:00.001-07:00

I got word from the 'net that Best Buy was marking some games down to a clearance price of $10 USD. I picked three games from the list, and waited for Best Buy to open yesterday. My local store only had two of the three titles, but that's okay; I'm not a big fighting game fan, so missing Soul Calibur IV was no big loss. I did find Devil May Cry 4 and Infinite Undiscovery, and made an impulse buy of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core.

Devil May Cry 4 is much like its PS2 siblings, only prettier, and with the new character Nero instead of Dante. What struck me about it is how much the character Kyrie resembles Aerith from Final Fantasy VII.

Infinite Undiscovery seems like a pretty standard JRPG, with action-oriented combat mechanics.

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is in familiar FF7 territory, but has a stronger emphasis on the technological aspects of the world. It also has a very action-oriented combat system.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-26

2009-04-27T21:01:00.001-07:00

More deals, mostly from Cheap Ass Gamer.

Broken Sword is an old fashioned LucasArts-style adventure game on the Nintendo DS, originally on PC. It is well adapted to the DS, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. Unlike most of the LucasArts games it resembles, this game isn't particularly funny. The player takes on the role of a journalist, originally invited to meet a French dignitary but then finding herself investigating his murder. Descriptions of the game suggest that the investigation will lead her to ancient global conspiracies involving the Knights Templar, but I haven't gotten that far yet. All I have so far are hints, a cloth with a cross on it, and a cylinder with writing on it suggesting a connection to a Catholic graveyard. I'm looking forward to digging deeper into the mystery.

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for PSP is essentially Rondo of Blood with an unlockable Symphony of the Night, with some minor updates to the localization. I played through a bit of the main game, and boy is it tough. I will be coming back to it - when I want a serious, old-school challenge.

I played some more Elite Beat Agents. It's hard to put this one down. It's definitely got that "just one more time and I'll get it" vibe.

I hadn't realized it, but Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions is a port (with minor updates and improvements) of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PS1 - which I already have. Given that, I'm happy enough with it, but I probably wouldn't have bought it if I'd known.

More Rez HD. Flow it has.

Medieval II Total War and Medieval II Total War Kingdoms took a very long time to install. I only played the basic campaign (England), but I don't expect the Kingdoms content to be much different - different skins, and maybe some differences in weapons and balance, but mostly the same. Fun stuff. Just like Rome: Total War, I'm enjoying the back-and-forth between Risk-style strategic empire management and tactical level real-time combat.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-25

2009-04-27T19:22:00.002-07:00

I recently discovered CheapAssGamer.com and have been using the site to find sweet deals. They even have a site feature which will send you an email when a game's price falls below a threshold you set.

Using them I found a great deal on Elite Beat Agents and Project Gotham Racing 4, and picked up both.

I didn't expect to like Elite Beat Agents that much, as my last experience with a rhythm action game (excluding Guitar Hero) was the PS2 port of Space Channel 5. That game had a poor system for player input and feedback, and its difficulty was unforgiving, to put it mildly.

So I put the game in my DS, and played it a while. I discovered that I was right. I don't like Elite Beat Agents.

I love it.

The controls are just right, the music is upbeat, and the stories are funny. I found myself repeating the same mission again and again, even after I'd finished it, in order to get a perfect run where I'd hit every beat. When I succeeded, I'd get that sense of flow that I crave.

Project Gotham Racing 4 seems to me much like Project Gotham Racing 3, with motorcycles. There are some changes to the interface and mission structure, but the change that stands out is the bikes. I can't say yet whether I like how it handles bikes. On the one hand, the forgiving nature of driving the bikes makes it far more accessible than something like Superbike or Moto GP. On the other, the way the view tilts - and rather abruptly - when turning a bike can be disconcerting, almost to the point of vertigo.

Other than the bike jerky tilty thingy, it's a lot of fun. I haven't played enough of it yet to know whether it requires one to focus on Kudos challenges, which I despise almost as much as the Gran Turismo series' license tests. I'll find out when I play it some more.

My ex-girlfriends's son sent me a message on Xbox Live and invited me to play some Halo 3 with him and his girlfriend. So I did. And had fun, though I sucked at it. I think you'd have to play an awful lot of this in order to get really good at it.

Rez HD continues to delight. I managed to hundred-percent the first area, and got an awesome sensation of flow doing it.

Apology and Explanation

2009-04-26T23:13:00.003-07:00

I apologize for the massive info dump here, after two months of silence.

I write blog posts on my PDA whenever I have a spare minute, and often forget to post them when I'm at home.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-17

2009-04-26T23:08:00.002-07:00

Between finishing taxes and working overtime, didn't have time to game much until last night.

Amazon recently had Mirror's Edge for $20 USD as its Video Game Deal of the Day, so I picked it up. Sadly, they'd already sold out of the Xbox 360 version, so I ended up with a PC copy.

I also picked up Bully: Scholarship Edition for the 360 at the same time, as it was also $20 USD and the folks at Rebel FM Game Club recommended it.

The package from Amazon arrived yesterday, and while I waited for Mirror's Edge to finish installing, I put Bully in the 360 and started it up.

Rockstar is known for mining pop culture, especially movies, for its games. Grand Theft Auto and The Warriors are good examples of this. With Bully they appear to be tapping into any number of movies, television series, and books about teens and high school. The developers have mentioned movies like Sixteen Candles and books like The Catcher in the Rye.

The player will find all the usual cliques here: the jocks, the nerds, the preppies, and so on. Rockstar establishes the player's character in the first scene: an angry, alienated teen kicked out of other private schools being sent to the bottom-of-the-barrel Bulworth Academy by his divorced mother and her smarmy new fiancée. I'm only an hour or so in, but he's already gotten into fights with the rough crowd.

I'm expecting a lot from this one.

Mirror's Edge required only minor video adjustments to run well on my PC, and it looks great. I was playing it within five minutes of completing the installation.

For some reason, I find the actual game far easier to play than I did the demo. And once I get going on the free-running, I get a sense of 'flow' similar to the one I get when performing at the limits of my abilities in a sport or when dancing in the groove. Excellent!

Much has been made of the awkwardness of the combat system, but I haven't encountered it yet. Perhaps that's because I escape and evade whenever possible, only fighting when it's unavoidable. Or perhaps it's because I haven't needed to fight much yet.

Anyway, I think that after I finish the game and the time trial DLC, I'll probably go back and replay them. Not because I'm a perfectionist, I'm not, but because by becoming skilled enough to move through an entire level without stopping, I should get that feeling of flow for minutes at a time.

Love the art style. The predominance of blues and greys, of concrete and hard, shiny surfaces gives it the kind of totalitarian futuristic vibe one gets from the Citadel in Half-Life 2, and the architecture in movies like Conquest of the Planet of the Apes or Equilibrium.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-14

2009-04-26T23:07:00.002-07:00

Rez.

More The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay on the Xbox 360. I'm not sure why. Riddick is not a particularly sympathetic character, and the universe he inhabits is grim, violent and ugly.

Perhaps it's a matter of fascination. Perhaps it's like Blue Velvet, Schindler's List, or Sling Blade - uncomfortable to watch, but packing a powerful emotional punch.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-12

2009-04-26T23:05:00.002-07:00

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is, as one would expect, a collect-a-thon. But I am finding enough humor, interesting environments and fan gameplay activities to keep my interest. I'll be playing more of this one - after some other games that I'm currently more interested in.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix on Xbox Live Arcade seems pretty much like Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, replacing the fantasy theme with a sci-fi one. I'm enjoying it more than the reviews say I ought to.

Reviewers have complained about the DS version's loading delays, the hexagonal puzzle board, and the overly frequent need to hack jumpgates. The XBLA version has no loading screens, the hex grid doesn't bother me at all, and jumpgate hacking hasn't annoyed me...yet.

Alien Hominid on Xbox Live Arcade is pretty much the same game it is in Flash or on the PS2. But somehow it doesn't seem as punishingly difficult here as on the other two platforms. Perhaps it's not. In any case, that's where I'll be playing it in future.

I am liking Condemned 2: Bloodshot better than I did Condemned: Criminal Origins. The combat is significantly more varied (almost to overcomplication) while still being visceral. The sets and lighting convey a much darker and creepier atmosphere than the first game. And the protagonist's character, portrayed in the cutscenes as a disillusioned, cynical, angry, violent drunk, is entirely congruent with the brutal acts that the player must make him perform in order to progress. This at once makes the character's dramatic consistency far better than, say, Niko's in Grand Theft Auto IV, and harder for the player to identify with. I think though that identification may be overrated as a dramatic virtue.

I'll be playing it again...after I finish the first one, to find out how the rest of the story unfolds.

Gamer's Diary 2009-04-09

2009-04-26T23:02:00.002-07:00

I haven't been playing a lot of games in the last two weeks, at least until last night.

I did give Desktop Tower Defense a try during that dry spell. I beat it on easy, and it was amusing. I did bookmark it afterward (it can't be played offline), but I doubt I'll be playing it again. I've seen everything in the game, and beating it on a harder level just doesn't appeal to me. If I want a mindless distraction, I'll play Klondike or Bejeweled 2 in Endless mode.

Also, twice when I had fifteen minutes to play, I fired up Rez and played through the first level. This is a game I keep coming back to, especially when I don't have a lot of time.

Then came yesterday. I bought two games that were Day One purchases for me: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and the Xbox Live Arcade version of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. While at Target, I also made two bargain impulse buys: Dead Space ($30 USD) and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts ($20 USD). I only had time to play two of them last night, but I really enjoyed both.

Of the four, the only one I still have reservations about is Banjo Kazooie. Banjo games are for completists, and I'm primarily a tourist with only mild completist tendencies. But I enjoyed the gameplay in the demo, so there may be enough to see in the game to make it worth my while. And at $20 USD, it met my price point for a game on the bubble.

I still have The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for the original Xbox, but I bought Dark Athena because I wanted the new content and HD upgrade. So I put it in and started playing, and before I knew it I'd played to - and past - the same point I'd gotten to in the original game.

What a great game this is. I had to tear myself away from it to play my other pick for the night. I'll mention one thing that stood out for me, then leave you to find and read other reviews of it on the 'net. Riddick knows what Doom3 forgot: in a shooter with dark environments, guns come with integrated flashlights.

Dead Space was a lot better than I had expected, after the mixed reviews and the ridiculously hard demo. In the demo I died in my first room full of zombies, every time. Not fun. But with the full game, I started on the easiest difficulty setting and have enjoyed every minute of it.

The most important thing about a horror game is whether it's scary. Reviewers have claimed that Dead Space is not particularly scary. Well, they're right if your definition of scary is monster closets. But really, haven't we had enough of that from Doom3, Resident Evil and the like? What this game does, and does fairly well, is to create an atmosphere of dread, much like the Silent Hill series.

I wouldn't say that it reaches the level of creepiness of, say, Silent Hill 2 - it especially lacks some of the more disturbing aspects - but it is pretty frightening in its own right. Much of this is due to the excellent sound, set and lighting design.

The use of sound in particular is well-crafted. There is little more unsettling than to hear the muffled cries of terror from one of the few remaining survivors as they're torn apart on the other side of a bulkhead, or the nearby skittering sounds of one of the zombie monsters moving through the ventilation system. Even the nearby sound of a malfunctioning door repeatedly opening and closing contributes to the pervasive unease.

But enough reviewerish (yes I know that's not a word) details. Suffice it to say that Dead Space will scratch your Tourist itch, especially if you like creepy horror games like Silent Hill 2 and movies like The Shining.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-26

2009-04-26T23:01:00.001-07:00

I got further in the ship portion of Call of Cthulhu: Dark corners of the Earth, but that's all I've had time for.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-21

2009-04-26T23:00:00.004-07:00

I continued playing Call of Cthulhu: Dark corners of the Earth on my original Xbox. I got back to where I'd been on the 360, but with severely diminished health; the slightest damage from anything killed me. Tomorrow I'll start from an earlier save and see if I can't get back to that spot with fewer injuries.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-22

2009-04-26T23:00:00.003-07:00

I continued playing Call of Cthulhu: Dark corners of the Earth and got to the ship portion. The Creatures from the Black Lagoon killed me pretty severely, though. Next time I'll have to close and bolt the door.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-20

2009-04-26T22:59:00.002-07:00

In order to find out whether the autosave problem I was seeing was an emulation bug, and to avoid the game-breaking emulation bugs I'd heard about, I started replaying Call of Cthulhu: Dark corners of the Earth on my original Xbox. Somehow it looks better that way than in emulation. I got pretty far, but I keep getting killed at the cannery.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-19

2009-04-26T22:58:00.002-07:00

I finished Peggle Extreme and played through the Xbox 360 demo for Peggle Nights last night. And that was enough. I won't be buying any Peggle games any time soon.

I played some more Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. What really irritates me with this game is that the autosaves don't work very well. If I die and choose resume, most of the time it just loads the save in the first save slot. When I start the game after turning on the console and choose resume, it always loads from the first save slot. Perhaps it's a problem with the Xbox 360's emulation. I'll find out when I replay it on my original Xbox.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-18

2009-04-26T22:57:00.002-07:00

Last night, after hearing so many gaming podcasters wax enthusiastic about it, I installed Peggle Extreme in Crossover Games. It ran perfectly, and I played through five of the ten levels (essentially a demo).

I don't know what they're on about. It just didn't grab me. I'll play the rest of the levels and then I'll be done with it. No need to buy Peggle Deluxe or Peggle Nights.

I also made some progress in Call of Cthulhu. The final Game Club podcast on this is already out, so I will simply have to not listen to it until I finish.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-17

2009-04-26T22:52:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend I tested and tweaked quite a few games with my newly upgraded PC software. The ones that continued to work without any trouble, or work better, were (entries in bold I played a bit):

Alien Hominid
Armagetron Advanced
Beneath a Steel Sky
flOw
FreeCiv
Frozen Bubble
Frederik Pohl's Gateway
Gateway II Homeworld
Half-Life
Half-Life Blue Shift
Half-Life Opposing Force
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Mona The Assassin
X-COM: Enforcer
X-COM: Apocalypse
X-COM: Interceptor
X-COM: Terror from the Deep
X-COM: UFO Defense

One game started working that wouldn't before: Team Fortress 2. This means I can join the Gamers with Jobs play sessions without having to reboot to Windows.

The games that needed tweaking to work in the new environment were Darwinia and Blood Frontier.

The ones that still didn't work in Crossover Games and had to be run in Windows XP, either in the Windows partition or in VMWare, were Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Age of Empires 2, and Empire Earth.

Three that formerly worked in Crossover Games and didn't in the new setup were Fallout, Fallout 2, and Sacrifice. The Fallout games I could install in VMWare Windows XP, but Sacrifice had to be run in the Windows partition because it uses 3D acceleration.

I also tried installing Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel in Linux, but it worked neither in Crossover Games nor VMWare Windows XP, so I'll have to install it in the Windows partition.

I also spent some time catching up with Rebel FM's Game Club by playing through some more of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-13

2009-04-26T22:50:00.002-07:00

I played an online round of Halo Wars, partly to try it out, but mostly to get entered into Microsoft's Play and Win sweepstakes. My opponent was beating me handily when he resigned. He must have also been playing just to enter.

There was some Halo: Combat Evolved and Rez HD for comfort gaming, and some Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth in an attempt to catch up with Rebel FM's Game Club.

After listening to Anthony Gallegos on Rebel FM telling tales of how he destroyed A.I. civilizations in Civilization IV, I became interested in those kinds of games again. Anthony's tales showed me that the reason I've not enjoyed playing 4x and similar strategy games is not the lack of feedback, nor the lack of narrative, but rather that I've been playing like a wuss.

I role-played myself in those games, and tried to build a civilization that would reflect my libertarian political ideals: non-aggressive, maximum freedom for the citizens, wealthy and technologically advanced, seeking out other nations only for trade, and only fighting when attacked. In other words:

Boring.

So I've decided to give the 4x and 4x-ish games another chance. But this time I'm going to play like a complete bastard. I won't trade with my neighbors; I'll conquer them. My citizens are not there to live their lives and make themselves happy and wealthy; they're there to make me wealthy and produce what my army needs so it can attack other countries. Dissent or rebellion I will violently suppress. Attila the Hun will look like Gandhi compared to me.

So I took Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Age of Empires II, and Empire Earth out of my giveaway bin, and downloaded FreeCiv, an open-source freeware clone of Civilization and Civilization II. Alpha Centauri and Age of Empires II I installed in Windows XP under VMWare Server, Empire Earth I installed in my Windows XP partition, and FreeCiv is a Linux program.

That same weekend I picked up Lost Planet; Extreme Condition in a Steam sale for $5 USD. After installing it in the Windows XP partition and some tweaking of settings I played it a little. I'm still not thrilled by the idea of bugs that live in a cold environment, but for a fin I'll certainly give it a chance.

During the week new DLC for two of my games went up on Xbox Live Marketplace, so I downloaded and sampled them. Prince of Persia: Epilogue continues the story of The Prince and Elika, while Tomb Raider: Lara's Shadow gives Lara Croft's doppelganger something to do. I'll be playing more of both of them later.

Also during the week I successfully backed up the Linux partition on my PC, and that gave me the confidence to upgrade Ubuntu Linux, my ATI video drivers, and Crossover Games. There were some kinks to work out, and that left no time to test games with the new setup.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-06

2009-04-26T22:49:00.001-07:00

I played a little PS2 Half-Life earlier this week, and discovered that my console was sending a very loud sixty-cycle buzz through the component A/V cable. I eliminated all the potential sources of the problem except the system unit - or so I thought. After I bought a new PS2 and got it home, I discovered that the real source of the problem was the aftermarket LCD screen I had attached. Once I removed that, the problem disappeared. So now I have a backup PS2.

To test my replacement PS2, I played Half-Life and Burnout 3: Takedown. I was quite surprised to find that EA's servers for this game are still up! Given their previous behavior in shutting down servers after the multiplayer population drops off a bit or the next game in the series comes out (Madden), it's a shock to see that despite very few players visiting the servers, and two sequels being out, I can still play Burnout 3 online. Kudos, EA!

After that, I got Alien Hominid and flOw working in Linux, and played a little of Duke Nukem 3D, Killzone, and Halo Wars.

There have been complaints from the gaming enthusiast press and hardcore RTS players that Halo Wars is "dumbed down" for the console, that it's overly simplistic. Maybe. Maybe. But it's fun.

Gamer's Diary 2009-03-04

2009-04-26T22:48:00.001-07:00

Due to overtime at work, I haven't had time to play games as such (had to miss the LAN party too), but while waiting for compiles and such did put in a few minutes to get some games running on Linux, and to sample some Xbox 360 content I downloaded.

The games now working in Linux, either through Crossover Games, DosBox, or Scummvm are: Sacrifice, Lure of the Temptress, X-COM: Apocalypse, X-COM: Interceptor, X-COM: Enforcer, and Half-Life 2. Team Fortress 2 still won't run, and I've run out of things to try. The others I'll put more time into when I have free time again in my schedule.

Xbox Live content I sampled includes Exit 2, Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and The Damned, Tomb Raider Underworld: Beneath the Ashes, and Groov. I'll be spending more time with these when I have more time to spend.

Gamer's Diary 2009-02-24

2009-04-26T22:47:00.003-07:00

A little more Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. That's all I had time for.

Gamer's Diary 2009-02-25

2009-04-26T22:47:00.002-07:00

No gaming. Too busy dancing.

Gamer's Diary 2009-02-23

2009-04-26T22:45:00.001-07:00

Last night, prompted by a desire to keep up with the Rebel FM Game Club podcast, I started to once again play Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Long ago I had by arcane means transferred my Xbox game saves to the 360, but something had happened since then to render those saves corrupt. So I either had to attempt to transfer them again, a rite involving strange instruments of adaptation and supplications to dark PC gods, or just replay the game from the beginning.

I nearly reached the point I'd been at before, but the late hour forced me to stop while still in the sewers. I did get to that part faster than ever, as I played for speed rather than savoring the experience. Knowing what to do and where to go helped as well.

Despite the speedrunning I was reminded both of how much I like this game and how frustrating it can be. The Attack of the Fishmen aroused the same feelings of panic as before, while the tricky jump near the end inspired the same controller-hurling levels of rage.

The podcasters opined that the opening cutscene, which shows the main character trying to hang himself in an insane asylum, is set somewhere in the ten years between the prologue and the game proper. I disagree. Lovecraft's stories frequently end with the protagonist dying, going insane, or becoming something unhuman. The Shadow over Innsmouth, which appears to be the inspiration for this game, has such an ending. And the stories sometimes begin with the end, the rest being told as a flasback. I think this game will have a similar structure.

Incidentally, The Attack of the Fishmen shows just how off-base Capcom is in claiming that restrictive controls are necessary to make games like Resident Evil 5 scary. CoC:DCotE has full-on first person shooter controls, yet the escape from the hotel is possibly the most terrifying sequence I've ever experienced in a video game.

Gamer's Diary 2009-02-17

2009-04-26T22:44:00.001-07:00

On Sunday I spent my game time making sure I'd be ready for the lan party at the end of the month. Since it didn't (and still doesn't) look like I'd have all the party games running in Linux by then, I booted Windows and played each game briefly to make sure it was up-to-date with patches and properly configured. So I played Unreal Tournament 2004, Duke Nukem 3D (with a hi-res texture mod and lan play support), Prey, Flatout 2, Quake 3 Arena, Star Trek Elite Force II, Painkiller, Far Cry, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, Battlefield 1942, Tron 2.0, and Tribes Vengeance.

Yesterday I continued bringing Windows (and DOS) games over to Linux. In this round I installed through Steam X-Com: UFO Defense (again), X-Com: Terror from the Deep, X-Com: Apocalypse, X-Com: Interceptor, and X-Com: Enforcer. I played the first two, and Terror from the Deep plays very much like UFO Defense.

Also on Monday I played some Castle Crashers (fun!) and Beneath a Steel Sky (puzzling and humorous).

Gamer's Diary 2009-02-14

2009-04-26T22:42:00.001-07:00

Friday, after hearing good things about it on the Gamers with Jobs podcast, I decided to give Castle Crashers a try. The art style, humor, and fun gameplay convinced me to buy it.

Meanwhile I kept trying to get Team Fortress 2 to run in Crossover Games Linux, but without success. I ran out of things to try, so I opened a support ticket with Codeweavers and sent them a debug log. I'm waiting to see how they respond.

Gamer's Diary 2009-02-13

2009-02-27T07:47:00.005-07:00

Tuesday I started going through my Steam games in alphabetical order. I successfully got Half-Life, Half-Life: Blue Shift, and Half-Life 2: Lost Coast installed and running. To cap the evening off, I gave Fallout 2 a brief try (which I'd forgotten on Friday), and it ran beautifully.

Wednesday I installed and ran Darwinia (for which I found a native Linux executable), and Half-Life: Opposing Force.

Then on Thursday I tried to get Team Fortress 2 to install and run, but Steam refused to unpack the game files, instead giving me the all too familiar error message, "This game is currently unavailable. Please try again later." I had no luck getting past it, but I haven't run out of things to try yet.

Gamer's Diary 2009-02-10

2009-02-25T09:07:00.003-07:00

Over the weekend I started a new gaming project: Get most of my PC games working in Linux, so I would only rarely have to reboot to Windows. Along the way I play-tested each game to see if it worked, so I played a lot of games.

Friday night I got the Good Old Games versions of Fallout and Fallout 2 installed in Crossover Linux Professional. I play-tested Fallout, and it ran great.

I also installed Frederik Pohl's Gateway and Gateway II: Homeworld, a couple of old DOS games that were made freeware by the publisher before it went under. These I installed in DosBox, a program for many platforms (including Linux and Windows) that emulates a PC running MS-DOS, and used DBGL to make them easily launchable. They ran very well in Linux.

I did not, however, play enough of any of the four games to form an impression of them. I'll write about them when I've played more of them.

Saturday I reinstalled Crossover Games, then installed Steam in it and started trying again to get my Steam games running in Linux. I had success in installing X-COM: UFO Defense and Half-Life and getting both to run properly, but Half-Life 2 was another story - and not a happy one.

It kept hanging after the initial loading screen. I tried many different combinations of command-line and in-game video options, to no avail. Finally I gave up and called it a night.

Sunday I tried varying my video driver - again without success - until I remembered that the way to deal with proprietary ATI video drivers in Linux is to use Envy. So I did, and noticed during the installation process that Envy relinked the driver to the Linux kernel. Aha! This was why I'd been experiencing issues with video for a while; I'd updated my kernel a couple of times since I last installed the video driver, and now they were out of sync.

After I updated the video driver, Half-Life 2 started working. Steam didn't work that well though; I started getting "server too busy" when trying to download a game, and "application unavailable" when trying to launch one. I managed to find workarounds for both problems, and command-line options that worked reasonably well for running the game, but eventually encountered settings that hung the game and prevented me from getting back to Linux. So I did a hard reset of my PC, and after that Crossover Games didn't work right. So I uninstalled it, reinstalled it, and started the painful downloading process once again.

Monday I tried Half-Life 2 again, without much luck, and decided instead to focus on getting two kinds of games to work: single player games I don't have on other platforms, and multiplayer games. So I gave up on Half-Life 2 and instead tried to run Half-Life 2 Deathmatch.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work either. It simply refused to go past the menu screen and start a match. So I gave up on it too. When I'm at a lan party, I'll just have to boot Windows.

Gamer's Diary 2009-02-06

2009-02-25T09:06:00.002-07:00

Last night I picked up four used games, and gave each a try:

God of War: Chains of Olympus for PSP scratches the same itch that its PS2 brethren do. It looks and plays just as good as them. After I finish God of War II, I'll be playing this one.

Sadly, it has one of my most-hated game features, quick-time events. It appears to be a staple of the God of War series. Fortunately, these games contain the least obnoxious use of it I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the success of this game series has led to other game designers imitating this feature, typically with annoying results.

Designers, don't make your cutscenes "interactive" by using QTEs; it's a cheap attempt to hide the fact that the player can't make the character do those actions through gameplay. It's more enjoyable to just watch.

Gears of War I gave away to a friend months ago, thinking I was done with it. But I recently started jonesing for it again, so I bought another copy and fired it up. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed this game.

I like the Command and Conquer series, so Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath is something I've had on my radar since it was announced. I always meant to buy it when the price came down, and that time was last night. I played the tutorial and the first mission, the latter of which kicked my butt on easy. Next time I will turtle more. It seems to be much the same as C&C3, with some tweaks to the controls to improve them.

I like it. I find the hammy, badly-acted cutscenes with their cheap special effects especially enjoyable.

At the same time I completed my Command and Conquer collection with Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. What I said about Kane's Wrath applies in large part, except that the units are sillier and the cutscenes over-the-top, even when compared to the rest of this over-the-top series. Great fun!

Gamer's Diary - February 5, 2009

2009-02-05T21:50:00.003-07:00

Last night R-Type Dimensions showed up on Xbox Live Arcade and I picked it up. It's a port of R-Type and R-Type II with the addition of 3-D views, an infinite lives mode and online co-op.

This game is hard-core. Casual gamers need not apply.

I finished it, but only because I played in infinite lives mode. Had I played in normal mode, my three lives would have evaporated within seconds.

I did notice one bug: From time to time, while playing in 3D view, the game will switch to 2D without user input (you can use the Y button to switch). Minor issue, but annoying.

Gamer's Diary - February 4, 2009

2009-02-05T06:47:00.002-07:00

I played some more Silent Hill Homecoming and beat the first boss. I did consult a walkthrough to do it. I would never have guessed the monster's weakness otherwise. Ironically, the very next time I restarted the boss battle, the loading screen also revealed that weakness.

Sean "Elysium" Sands on the Gamers with Jobs podcast recommended Mona: The Assassin, a professionally produced mod for Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. I'd already given away my PC copy of MP2, so I shut down Ubuntu, booted Windows, and downloaded it from Steam ($10 USD). I then downloaded and installed the mod, and played a half hour of it.

It has the same vibe as Max Payne 2, and all that good bullet-time shootdodging action. There are no plot-moving comic-book cutscenes, but that's understandable considering that this is a free mod. I'll be playing more of this in the future.

Gamer's Diary - Catching Up

2009-01-28T21:43:00.002-07:00

Note: My experiment with E-Prime is over. I can find less excruciating ways to avoid passive voice, when I wish to do so.

The week of Christmas I visited family in another state, so I only took portable games with me. The previous year I took my PS2, but decided not to this time as TSA employees have been known to steal valuables from checked baggage (One got cauight with something like 100 stolen items). I only played one game while on vacation: Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney. Replaying it puts me in mind of rereading a favorite book.

After I returned I resumed playing Ridge Racer 6 and finished the normal races. Shortly after that I realized that I'd grown tired of the game, and put it away. I'll tackle the special and advanced races some other time.

Then I bought as my first new game of the year Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 2. I didn't do more than sample it, as I'd prefer to play it after I complete Episode 1. What little I tried of it suggests that it plays much the same as the first, and continues the story and humor.

I played some more Half-Life: Decay and found myself frustrated by it. The difficulty has increased to the point that I can no longer use it as comfort gaming. So, back into the random playlist it goes.

I don't mention this often (if at all), but I still play Bejeweled 2 in Endless mode on my Xbox 360 and iPaq. It fits perfectly into those moments when I'm waiting in line or on a download etc. and don't care to engage my brain at all. I won't mention it again as I have little to say about it.

For my second new game of the year I picked up Silent Hill Homecoming. I like this series, and Silent Hill 2 has the distinction of convincing me that I could enjoy games in the third person perspective. I much prefer getting creeped out to getting startled; these games have a Lovecraftian atmospheric creepiness as their stock in trade, and I found Homecoming's stockroom full.

This Penny Arcade article, which I came across while reading something else, convinced me that I should give Enchanted Arms a try. Gabe described it as an unabashed pure turn-based JRPG with an interesting story and good presentation, and when I play a JRPG I want exactly that. Also, the price of a used copy has dropped to $20 USD, which fits it nicely into my budget. So I did try the game for an evening, and Gabe totally called it. I'll play it some more after I finish the Silent Hill games I'm in the middle of, or when it comes up in random rotation.

Since then I haven't played much; I've concentrated instead on learning ballroom and swing dancing, cooking, and organizing tax paperwork. I did find time to try a couple of demos and pick up a new Xbox Live Arcade game.

The F.E.A.R. 2; Project Origin demo creeped me out and provided some fun FPS (and mech) action as well. If the rest is as good as the demo, I'm buying.

The Resident Evil 5 demo didn't grab me nearly as well. It didn't frighten me or creep me out, and when my character got killed by the first wave of zombies, I felt neither shock nor fear nor sadness, but rather frustration. I had no desire to restart from the last checkpoint or try the other included level.

I'll probably end up buying the damn thing eventually, because it is, after all, Resident Evil, but that certainly won't be on launch day nor at full price. I'll reveal one little detail as to why:

You can't move and shoot at the same time.

That's right. Aiming your weapon glues your Goddamn feet to the floor. You can still turn, but you can't go anywhere. It's like one of those dreams where you're paralyzed and can't run away, but this time what you want to run away from is the game designer.

I had heard and read good things about The Maw, so I downloaded the trial from Xbox Live Arcade and gave it a go. It's cute and funny and easy and you can't die, so when I reached the sample's end I immediately fed The Maw 800 MS points so it could keep eating. I'll be playing more of this one.

Gamer's Diary - Fallout 3, Ridge Racer 6, Phoenix Wright, Prince of Persia 2008, Persona 4, Ridge Racer V, Fable, Lost Odyssey

2009-01-07T18:56:00.004-07:00

Fallout 3: Recently I finished it a second time, in this case completing all the side quests first (except the one that requires the player to enslave others; I played a virtuous character). That done, I decided to let my randomizer pick the next game I'd play, and it picked

Ridge Racer 6: It has simplicity in its structure and gameplay. Some might say it has too much, and that may account for some of the mediocre reviews. Gameplay consists of driving and drifting, and progress of unlocking new cars. It has little else besides multiplayer. But I think the main problem most people have with it lies in its lack of a feeling of speed. Ridge Racer 6 doesn't give the player anywhere near the face-melting sense of velocity that either Burnout 3 or Burnout Revenge does, and not even as much as its own cousin, Ridge Racer for the PSP.

But I enjoy it well enough, the sensation of speed grows as I progress through the car classes, and I am steadily nearing the game's single player finish.

Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: I had loaned my copy out and the borrower lost it, so I replaced it. Then I had to play it to make sure it worked. It sucked me in again, and now I play it from time to time in much the same way I reread favorite books. Knowing the answers doesn't lessen my enjoyment at all; instead it allows the story to flow more naturally.

Prince of Persia (2008): I originally felt pretty lukewarm towards this game. The series had gone downhill since The Sands of Time, and I expected more of the same from this next title, but with cel-shading and an artificially stupid companion. Then I read that the platforming and combat flowed naturally, and my interest began to perk up. Then I read that the characters and environments looked beautiful and animated smoothly, having the style not of a cel-shaded cartoon but rather of a painting come to life. Then I read that the developers had created an interesting and well-told story. Then I read that the voice actors had delivered solid performances. Then I read that the player controls the delivery of the story by (optionally) triggering each sentence of dialogue. Then I read that the game had virtually no camera issues, with it almost always placed to show the player what he needs to see. Then I read of the companion AI's elegance, with nary a pathing problem, no need to protect her, and that she never got in the way. I had become very interested. Then I read of hardcore gamer complaints that the game made things too easy for the player.

I bought it.

And all that I had read of it was true, from its art design to its story to its lack of difficulty. Well, not everything; it doesn't "play itself," and there are challenges to overcome, from tricky platforming sections to tough boss fights (well, tricky and tough for me, anyway).

I've enjoyed it immensely, and I consider it a contender for the best new release I've played in 2008.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4: I liked what I'd played of Persona 3 - a lot, and the reviews for Persona 4 glowed, so I picked it up on release day. I've liked what I've played of it so far, despite it lacking 3's gimmick of releasing one's Persona by shooting oneself in the head with a magic gun, or the 25th Dark Hour of universal unconsciousness and stopped clocks at 12:00 midnight. This one will be getting more play.

Ridge Racer V: I popped this into my PS2 to compare it to Ridge Racer 6 and see if I dislike it as much as I remember. And I do. I don't see how it ever managed to get a gamerankings.com score of 80. The game runs on the PS2, but has graphics not much better than PS1 games. I have difficulty handling the cars, often crashing into a wall rather than drifting around the curve. I also have trouble keeping up with the degree of difficulty; I haven't been able to win even the first race, and coming in fourth (the minimum placement to progress to the second race) took all my skill.

So to have fun with Ridge Racer V, I recommend this:

Remove the game disk from the console.
Throw it like a Frisbee. Or,
See how many pieces you can break it into.

Fable: The Lost Chapters for Xbox: I'd looked for this one for a while, having had it on my wishlist ever since I found out that the Xbox had it as well as the PC. I found it in a newly opened GameStop near my home. I tried it first on my Xbox 360, as I found it entered on the backwards compatibility list. Sadly it had a framerate on the slow side and would occasionally freeze for a good fraction of a second. I then put it in my original Xbox and it played smooth as butter. I'll play it when it comes up in random rotation. And I expect I'll give away to a friend my PC copy of it, and my Xbox copy of Fable.

Lost Odyssey: I'd had this on my wishlist for some months also, and finally the price dropped to a level I could buy at. Pretty graphics, interesting story, turn-based combat - just my kind of JRPG. It turns out the combat does have a timing-based mini-game, but it doesn't bother me much, as it presents far fewer annoyances than, say, Final Fantasy X. I look forward to playing more of it when it comes up in random rotation.

Gamer's Diary - More Half-Life comfort gaming, X-COM, Fallout series, Fallout 3

2009-01-07T18:48:00.004-07:00

Half-Life for PC, Half-Life Source, Half-Life Opposing Force, Half-Life Blue Shift, Half-Life 2 for PC: To make my Half-Life series comfort gaming possible, I set about redownloading and reinstalling these games from Steam. Of course I had to play them all as well to see if they worked, and as a result I spent an entire vacation day with them. I don't regret it though; I discovered that Half-Life Source does not look or play significantly better than the original Half-Life, and rediscovered just how pretty Half-Life 2 still looks, four years later. It doen't have the advanced bump-mapping and shadow-casting of Doom 3, but in every other way (and overall) its presentation looks superior.

X-COM: UFO Defense: I found out that all of the X-COM games have become available through Steam, so I fired it up and bought the entire collection. At $15 USD for five games, I thought it reasonable to check out all of them, despite some having less-than-stellar reviews.

I tried the first game, X-COM: UFO Defense, the one that everyone raves about. I left the others alone, for now. I found that the game has something in common with most games made before the late '90s: The player needs to read the manual before trying to play. The game has no tutorial, and the controls seem less than obvious. It definitely does not go into the "comfort gaming" category. So I put it in my randomized rotation, and will read the manual the next time I play it.

Crossover Games: I installed Ubuntu Linux earlier this year as a dual boot with Windows XP. Now, only when I play games do I boot the Windows partition. So I have an interest in getting my games to run on Linux. To that end, I picked up Codeweavers' Crossover Games on the day Codeweavers made it free. This product provides a compatibility layer for Linux so that Windows games can run.

I then set out to install Steam and all the Half-Life games, which Crossover Games specifically advertises that it works with. Sadly, it doesn't, at least on my system. Attempting to download the games through Steam's My Games interface always results in an error that claims Steam's servers appear too busy. I found a trick to get by that problem, but once Steam finishes downloading the game it won't launch it. It always puts up an error message claiming the game appears unavailable. I don't know what that means, beyond not allowing me to play the game.

Half-Life and Half-Life: Decay for PS2: Having given up on Crossover Games, I returned to the two Half-Life games on the PS2. I found Decay a bit less than restful because of its lack of save-anywhere, so after getting killed in it I played the original Half-Life rather than start the level over. Much more comfortable.

Fallout Tactics for PC and Fallout Brotherhood of Steel for Xbox: Knowing that I would purchase Fallout 3 when released, I decided to complete my collection of Fallout games. I picked up Tactics from Good Old Games, and Brotherhood of Steel from the bargain bin of a local Gamestop. I played the first just long enough to see that it works just like Fallout and Fallout 2, except for giving the player direct control over more than one party member. I played the second just long enough to verify that it plays exactly like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Dark Alliance 2 but with a Fallout 'skin'. And I deem that okay; I like the Dark Alliance games.

Fallout 3 for Xbox 360: I bought this in its release week, and played nothing else for a month. I have played through the main quest once, and since then I have played through all the side quests. Terrific game.

Gamer's Diary - Various games, comfort gaming

2008-10-27T00:12:00.009-07:00

There were too many games to put in the title, so here's a list:

Descent 3
Fallout
Fallout2
Half-Life: Decay
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo 2
Halo 3
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Okami
Portal: Still Alive

Descent 3 and Descent 3 Mercenary: I pulled out my joystick to play these as they don't work well with the mouse. I enjoyed the Descent 3 campaign, but Mercenary's BlueDevil level doesn't seem to have any way to complete it.

Okami: I played this for several days and it enchanted me again. I don't know how long I will play before tiring of it, but it will take some time.

I find the total package of Japanese mythology brought to life in a game that looks like a painting charming, to say the least.

When it gets old - assuming I'm not comfort-gaming again - I'll turn to the next game that came up in the shuffle, Burnout Paradise. That may not happen for a while.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance: A while ago I took a break from Okami to play online with an old friend who lives halfway across the country and only owns a PS2 and a low performance Windows laptop. I picked the game this time, and because I wanted to play with my friend instead of against him, I chose Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

We didn't get as much enjoyment out of it as I thought we would. First, the action seemed kind of samey after a while - beat up bad guys, find puzzle piece, rinse, repeat. Second, while the game supposedly revolves around getting and using superpowers, we had no difficulty progressing through the level using nothing but the two basic attacks. Third, once I loaded a co-op game from a save, it became impossible to change the difficulty level. So we couldn't see if perhaps the superpowers would become more necessary at those higher levels.

Halo, Halo 2, Halo3, Half-Life: Decay: I've spent the rest of the time up to now comfort-gaming. I played through all three Halo games on easy, and they entertained as always. Then I set my sights on the comfortable Half-Life series. But instead of playing one of the games, expansions or episodes I'd already completed, I chose the only one I hadn't: Half-Life: Decay.

Decay comes with the PS2 version of Half-Life. It offers a co-op (or single player) experience, set during the Black Mesa disaster, but from a different point of view (like Opposing Force or Blue Shift). It departs from the Half-Life 'formula' in several ways:

Instead of a mostly seamless, load-on-demand world, it breaks the story up into discrete levels, called 'missions'.
Decay does not offer quick-save and save-anywhere. Instead one can only save at the end of a mission. Die during a mission and you must start that one over.
The game presents two protagonists, whether playing single-player or co-op. In single-player one can switch between them. Some puzzles require the two characters to work together.

I've enjoyed what I've played of it, though I found some of the co-operative puzzles a bit tricky when having to switch between characters in time for the second to take advantage of an opportunity created by the first. The 'aimig assist' feature also added frustration. You have to get the aiming reticle quite close to your target, then hit the 'lock-on' button to have a decent chance of hitting the enemy. The extra time spent locking on means that the small, fast headcrabs will jump and take a bite out of your face before you can zero them. I solved that problem by using a USB mouse and keyboard, which the game supports and which made targeting enemies (especially the headcrabs) much easier.

Perhaps I made a mistake choosing Decay for comfort gaming. Too late; it has hooked me.

Portal: Still Alive: I found it a bit pricey since I already had Portal (twice, actually - both PC and Xbox 360), but I just had to have the challenge levels. I didn't play them, though; I started playing through the main game again, partly to refamiliarize myself with the gameplay, and partly because it feels so darn good.

Fallout, Fallout 2: A new website called Good Old Games (gog.com) has arranged with the license holders of some good old PC games to offer the games as DRM-free downloads that run on Windows XP and Vista at very reasonable prices ($5.99 for most titles). I'd never played Fallout before, and at these prices I couldn't resist.

I didn't play either game much, just enough to begin to get a feel for the gameplay. I'll be returning to them when they show up in my random game selection. Meantime, I've returned to playing Half-Life: Decay, and that scratches my comfort-gaming itch.

Gamer's Diary - Halo 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Halo 3, Universe at War

2008-09-30T19:10:00.001-07:00

Halo 2: Finished it on Easy. I think Bungie made a mistake in having the narrative switch tracks (between Master Chief and the Arbiter) every couple of chapters. It makes it significantly harder to follow the story. I could and did follow it, but it took more effort.

This sort of thing works in movies because they have more frequent switches. This prevents the viewer from forgetting what happened in one track while following another. The Empire Strikes Back and the last two movies of The Matrix trilogy exemplify this technique done well.

Games have playtimes too lengthy for this to work well. I think Bungie recognized this and corrected it in Halo 3, where the player becomes the Master Chief for the entire game.

Bungie could have made this work in Halo 2 by turning the Arbiter's chapters into short cutscenes. But that would have meant cutting the game's length by a lot, which would have not gone over well with many reviewers and players.

Duke Nukem 3D: I bought it on Xbox Live Arcade. It plays and looks just as I remember it. All the humor and gory gibbing remains intact, as do the low-resolution textures. I could wish for the high-res mod, but understand that licensing issues likely prevented them from including it.

Halo 3:: I finished it on Easy, so my comfort gaming ends - for now. For my next such experience I expect I'll play through the Half-Life series, including Portal.

Universe at War: Earth Assault: After finishing Halo 3, I started this game again. I began from the tutorial mission in order to re-learn the controls. The next night I played through the two Earth faction missions and the first Novus mission (take down a Hierarchy walker). The game seems fun, but the controls strike me as complicated and hard to remember. I may have to replay the tutorial mission once or twice to memorize them.

Gamer's Diary - GTA Vice City Stories, Halo, Universe at War, Halo 2

2008-09-25T17:30:00.000-07:00

Issues in Real Life (work, chemo, surgery) kept me from playing as much as I'd like, though the hospital visit through some strange business accounting magic gave me this past weekend completely free.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories: I played this in the hospital, mostly because I remembered to bring my portable games, and forgot the books I wanted to read. I find it fun, although the quad bike race seemed gratuitous and frustrating. It struck me as one of those game tasks one grits one's teeth and soldiers through in order to get to the next fun bit.

Halo: Combat Evolved: Upon getting home from the hospital, I wanted to play, but nothing too taxing. So I loaded Halo and restarted the game on easy. I think of it as 'comfort gaming'. Fun as always. On easy the story stands out better than on the more difficult levels. I finished it over the weekend, with a short side trip to Universe at War: Earth Assault.

Universe at War: Earth Assault: Later I felt a little more ambitious, so I started playing UaW:EA the next entry on my wanna list. I only got through the video tutorials and the tutorial level, so I can't say yet what fun it may contain. The controls seem pretty good though.

Halo 2: More comfort gaming, with a restart of the game on Easy. Haven't finished it yet. After I do, I'll replay Halo 3.

Gamer's Diary - LAN Party

2008-09-25T17:27:00.002-07:00

Saturday the 13th I attended a LAN party that a co-worker holds at irregular intervals. I arrived first, dropped off homemade chocolate-chip cookies and fudge, set up my pc, and futzed about on the Internet until playtime.

I missed the last few games because I needed to leave early (work next day, and fatigue from chemotherapy), but participated in the majority of sessions. Of the games we played, I participated in:

Serious Sam II
Team Fortress 2
Star Trek Elite Force II
Far Cry
Flatout 2
Painkiller

Everybody else had started playing Tron 2.0 when I left.

The host added animation to the proceedings with exultant laughs, curses and insults hurled at other players. He did it all in a spirit of fun, of course, and others hurled just as much back, but at lower volume.

Everyone had a good time with a minimum of technical issues, making the LAN party a success.

Gamer's Diary - Too Human

2008-09-11T07:09:00.001-07:00

I may have spoken too soon about beam weapons. I still favor them, but the latest enemies I've come up against seem nearly immune to them. I've seen the Valkyrie animation a lot lately.

A tip: Shoot the floating fat undead guys. They come with an army of nigh-invincible undead soldiers. Once you dispatch the leader, most of the soldiers seem to disappear, and you can kill those left much easier. I think the floating fat guy keeps them alive.

I found it difficult to target the floaters from within their army, but distance makes it much easier. Distance also makes it easier to kill them as guns have a longer range than the floaters' area attack.

I have finished the game. I had a very difficult time trying to take down Hel. I think the problem consisted of me dying so often that my weapons and armor all had zero state. In that condition I could not inflict any damage on Hell. The next time I played I repaired everything and re-spec'ed my skill tree. After that I successfully got to the final battle with weapons and armor in non-zero state. Then she went down in pretty short order.

I have one complaint about the game, something that all the reviewers seemed to miss: The game (with tutorials on) does not adequately educate the player in how things work, especially charms and battlecries and the skill tree. That information may reside in the manual (I haven't read it yet), but players should have it all available to them in-game.

Gamer's Diary - Too Human

2008-09-01T07:32:00.002-07:00

I've played this off and on for the last several days. Not a lot new to report, except that the story does make sense to me (so far), and that some of the weapons and armor you can get at levels starting in the mid teens deserve the term "sweet". And beam weapons (like the "silver beam cannon of rooting" or the "honed pulse rifle of hypnosis") rock. And cyborg zombies? Too cool.

Gamer's Diary - Too Human

2008-08-27T10:18:00.002-07:00

Too Human continues to entertain. I do not regret my purchase. As Kevin Pereira said, "Screw the Haters." Now, back to my questing and bashing of robot heads.

Gamer's Diary - Too Human

2008-08-24T21:21:00.003-07:00

I said that I would play Universe at War: Earth Assault next, but with Too Human in my hands, I couldn't resist giving it playtime first.

I don't get all the hate that reviewers and some gamers have unloaded on this game. I for one totally dig the cyberpunk retelling of Norse mythology, and the gameplay, as Kevin Pereira put it, "makes you feel like a complete badass." I will probably play this game every play session until I complete it.

I suggest playing the demo first. That will tell you if the game suits your tastes.

Gamer's Diary - Galaga Legions Demo, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Command and Conquer 3

2008-08-21T17:56:00.001-07:00

Galaga Legions Demo: I downloaded, I played, I deleted. It just didn't grab me. Though it has perhaps too many controls, the game doesn't suck. Though I much appreciate what they've tried to do, I still prefer the original - which I have. And I only really need one shmup in my library.

Bionic Commando Rearmed: I started it up to register some facts about it in my games database, but soon found myself engaged by it and playing for a half hour. Good game.

Command and Conquer 3: I made this the main event of my playtime, and it did not disappoint. I much enjoyed beating the Hampton Roads level with just the commando.

Also, I found that the new (to me) unit selection modes offered less of an edge than I'd thought, though I should have used them more at Langley. By contrast, the select-entire army mode got a lot of use, and provided a fair amount of glee in seeing my total forces just steamroll over the opposition. Good times, good times.

Gamer's Diary - Bionic Commando Rearmed, Command and Conquer 3

2008-08-20T17:41:00.001-07:00

Bionic Commando Rearmed: Despite comments that the game would inflict punishment on the non-elite player, the demo, erm, hooked me. I had never played the original, and so had no basis for comparison, but taken on its own merits the game delivers a healthy helping of fun for 800 Microsoft points.

As far as I can tell, the major review sites have given this title the praise it deserves. I played the demo, enjoyed it, and paid for the full game.

Command and Conquer 3: I'd had a yen to play this - and Universe at War - for days, and finally got to. Then I played it for three days straight, starting over from the beginning as I've done on other games I haven't played in a while.

On the first day I finished the tutorial and the prologue mission. On the second I got my rear repeatedly kicked by the first campaign mission (The Pentagon). On the third I did some research and found that the tutorial had omitted a selection option that made things easier. With the aid of that option I handily defeated Nod at the Pentagon. After that I checked the game manual and found more selection options.

This both gladdened and saddened me. It gladdened because I now have additional ways to organize and command my forces. It saddened because it makes the game a throwback to the days when vital information needed to play resided in the manual. Lose the manual and you couldn't play the game, or in good conscience pass it on to someone else.

That aside, the limited selection modes annoy me. Why not offer drag-select? Even the Playstation version of the original C&C had that. And I found a selection action which even the manual doesn't mention: holding the left shoulder button and moving one of the analog sticks presents something that looks like a formation selector. Though, why you would need something like that in a game like this mystifies me.

Don't let my griping put you off the game. I only spend so much time complaining about this one defect because the rest of the game delivers brilliantly. The selection issue certainly doesn't break it. Nothing satisfies quite like seeing my grenadiers blow the stuffing out of a garrisoned building which only recently rained bullets and rockets on my troops, or seeing the ion cannon strike I called in make the enemy base blow up real good.

Next up: One more session of C&C3 (to try out the additional selection options), then I will play Universe at War: Earth Assault.

Gamer's Diary - Jade Empire, Eternal Sonata, Star Wars Starfighter

2008-08-14T23:34:00.004-07:00

I've slowed a bit in my posts as a result of chemo-related fatigue. I have spent more time sleeping than playing. But I have done some, so here comes my blatherings about it.

Jade Empire: Another winner from the random game picker! I hadn't played Jade Empire in over two years, so I started fresh on Thursday. As before, I chose a balanced character to play as, and this time I chose the easiest difficulty instead of the default.

The whole package just works for me, delivering an entertaining mix of RPG, martial arts action, magic, and a story of an ancient alternate China. I've found a couple of "Whoa! Nifty!" moments so far, and both story and gameplay entice me to continue. This one definitely stays in rotation.

Eternal Sonata: I started this one over as well on Sunday, mostly to refamiliarize myself with the combat system and the story. It struck me, memory having faded in the year since I've played it, just how gorgeous the game creators made it. Even the sewers look beautiful.

The game revolves around the story - fortunately - since the gameplay, especially the battle system, elicits little more than a yawn. The game creators have given us get another ill-bred combination of turn-based fighting and realtime action in the form of action bars, with a twist or two not worth mentioning. I far prefer one or the other - either give me turns or give me action.

On the other hand, the story fascinates. What if Frederic Chopin had a dying dream of a magical, musical world that seemed to him more real than the world he fell asleep in? Might that dream world survive his death? Might that dream world offer him an afterlife? Play and find out.

Star Wars Starfighter Special Edition: Unable to sleep Sunday night, I rummaged through my playlist and chose this one. I wanted something that would offer plenty of action while taxing neither my brains nor my reflexes over much. Starfighter fit the bill admirably.

I enjoyed my time with it, though sadly I had to play it on my original Xbox; the 360 does not yet have a working emulator profile for it. Still, it looks good and plays well and offers plenty of fun.

Gamer's Diary - Braid, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

2008-08-07T20:09:00.005-07:00

Braid: I'd heard all kind of buzz about Braid and its creator Jonathon Blow, so when it popped up on Xbox Live Arcade I thought I'd give it a try. Twenty minutes later I plunked down the Microsoft Points to buy it outright. I found the mix of platforming and time reversal (all the way to the beginning of the level if you want!) engaging.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: I hadn't played this, my game picker's selection for last night, for over a year. So I started over and went through the tutorial again. An hour's play reminded me of what I liked and didn't about it. I like category the action and the ability to command your squad, as well as heal them. I don't like the complexity (and sometimes arbitrariness) of the controls, and the fact that nobody can heal the team leader - he has to find a health pickup for that (weapons locker?). I find the drawbacks minor, so it stays in my rotation.

Gamer's Diary - Persona 3 FES

2008-08-06T17:12:00.002-07:00

I enjoyed an hour with this game Monday night. I like this kind of RPG - the 100% turn-based battles, the adventure-game aspect when not in battle, the ability to control the camera.

I also like the way that the social sim aspects of the game feed into the combat abilities. By becoming a better, more rounded high school student and making friends, the player's character gains combat power.

I don't like so much persona fusion. It incorporates a bad game design, in that it not only encourages the player to paint himself into a corner, it virtually forces him to do so.

First off, the player cannot undo persona fusion, so if one gets a less useful persona, one cannot go back (except by reloading a game save). When fusing personas, the player can see the name of the persona and the names of its skills, but the skill names look like Japanese words (or maDe-up ones) and the game offers no way to view a description of them prior to fusion. So the player must do fusion blind.

I suppose the next time I play it, I'll keep a FAQ handy so I can find out what the fused persona's skills actually do. I don't consider that cheating.

I consider this a minor defect, however; I suspect that one can play the game and win through to the end without ever fusing personas, and I mean to play that way as lohg as possible. In any case, I'm still enjoying the weird story and interesting combat.

Gamer's Diary - Forza Motorsport 2, Indigo Prophecy, Star Trek Elite Force II

2008-08-03T18:51:00.007-07:00

Forza Motorsport 2: The last time I played this I described it as "sweet, sweet candy." This time I found it somewhat disappointing. The game hasn't changed; I have. Since I last played Forza Motorsport 2, I've also played Codemasters' DiRT and GRID. Forza, while still fun, suffers by comparison to these.

Two main factors make Forza less fun than the other two. The selection of cars for unlocking lies at the heart of the first factor. In Forza much as in Gran Turismo , the player must spend much of the first hours of the game driving slow, poor-handling cars. These can be upgraded, but it takes quite a bit of time. By contrast, games like Burnout 3 , DiRT , GRID, and even Project Gotham 3 give you fast cars and a sense of speed right from the get-go.

The second main factor shows in how Forza handles racing. Much like Gran Turismo , it plays more like a driving game than a racing game. A.I. competitors tend to drive the perfect racing line, spread out in a queue, never battle the other cars, and pretty much ignore the player. But in DiRT and GRID , the A.I. opponents race against each other, use different strategies for getting around corners, make mistakes, and seem willing to trade paint with the player.

Playing Forza Motorsport 2 provides significantly less excitement than the other options I've mentioned, with the exception of the Gran Turismo series, which it surpasses. If you want an attempt at accurate vehicle simulation, play Forza or Gran Turismo . If you want racing fun, play DiRT, GRID, Burnout, or FlatOut

Indigo Prophecy : This game surprised me with just how much I disliked it on playing it again. Perhaps I overlooked it before, but this time I was struck by the game's reliance on "quick time" events for, well, pretty much everything. Pressing buttons in sequence or flicking the analog sticks in particular patterns is okay in very small doses, as in the recent Tomb Raider games or God of War , but too much resembles loading a fine martini with vermouth - it ruins it.

This game would have come across much better if it had stuck to the 3D adventure game framework, with action flowing naturally from the controls, much as in Dreamfall .

I think that I shall trade this one in or give it away, and I already got the rest of the story from online FAQs. The intriguing story line does not offer enough interest for me to play through the broken control design to get to its end.

Star Trek Elite Force II: I played this before, but only got as far as getting repeatedly killed by Borg in the first level. This time I played a little more intelligently, and instead of the half hour I'd allotted myself to play, I put a half hour plus three into it, finishing the first two action levels (Borg, Dallas).

I really enjoyed this game. It still looks great, controls well, and has a really good Star Trek vibe to it. I'll definitely return to this one when my random game chooser picks it again.

Gamer's Diary - Max Payne, Burnout 3, Mercenaries

2008-07-31T21:15:00.002-07:00

Max Payne: I ordered the Xbox version of this at the same time as its sequel (cheap!), and it arrived in the mail Tuesday. So now I can give away my PC version and still play on a console.

I had no problems playing it on the Xbox 360, beyond a barely-noticeable hitch when the comic book cutscenes start. I had fun spending an hour with Max. I like this Max better than the one in the sequel. He has an edgier look and a more distinctive face. The Max of the sequel looks more generic, more bland. The world-weariness and sardonic attitude don't show through in sequel-Max's face.

I also like the over-the-top 40's pulp crime story monologues. It goes so far over-the-top that one cannot take it seriously, and edges into parody of the genre. By contrast, the sequel does seem to take itself seriously, and as a result delivers grimness rather than humor. It makes Max Payne 2 less fun.

Don't get me wrong though; I liked both games. I just have a little more love for the first one.

Burnout 3: Takedown: The Picker selected the PS2 version of this for me to play. If I had to summarize this game in two words, I'd choose "bottled fun." With the face-melting sense of speed, the rough and tumble of takedowns, the joy of unlocking even more insanely fast vehicles, the brilliant destruction of crashes, the widescreen 480p graphics you wouldn't have thought possible on a PS2, the energetic music, and the mayhem of online racing and crashing, this game contains the perfect storm of ingredients for making an awesomely fun evening.

I only have two minor complaints to make about Burnout 3. First, the over-excited radio DJ, "Atomica", gets wearisome after a while. Second, the aftertouch camera points in the wrong direction. How can I guide my burning wreck into the path of racers behind me when the camera is looking ahead?

Except for those two tiny items, Burnout 3: Takedown delivers a truckload of fun.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction: The Picker chose this for me Wednesday night. When I first bought the game, I didn't understand it. I thought it a linear game, with a single path through the objectives and movement outside that path restricted. So I played it that way and got bogged down in killing an inexhaustible supply of enemies.

When I played it Wednesday night I decided to go straight for the next objective and only kill the enemies that got in my way. I soon found that I progressed much faster playing that way, and discovered that the game actually offers an open world with various missions to complete, GTA style.

In fact, if I had to choose a more descriptive name for the game I'd pick something like "GTA North Korea" or "Crackdown North Korea". Instead of a criminal you play a mercenary, instead of a city you have a country, instead of working for criminals you work for the U.N. coalition forces, and instead of doing crimes for pay you capture North Korean war criminals... for pay.

I had a lot of fun with it.

Gamer's Diary - Max Payne 2, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Perfect Dark

2008-07-29T08:46:00.002-07:00

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne: I ordered this (cheap!) as part of my campaign to replace my PC games with console versions. I found it in my mailbox Sunday, so of course I popped it in to the 360 to see if the game had scratches or data errors, to see if it would run on the 360, and to re-acquaint myself with one of my old favorites.

The disk had a pristine surface and no errors, it played flawlessly in emulation, and I enjoyed an hour of stepping into the shoes of my old friend Max.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance: My random game picker came up with this for its second choice; first it chose a Japanese RPG that would have required more time and brainpower than I wanted to put in.

I put in the 360 version (I also have it for PS2, because I play online co-op with a friend who has it for PS2 as well) and quickly discovered that I didn't have much progress in it. So I started over. I enjoyed playing as Wolverine for an hour, then put it away for another time, satisfied with my progress.

Perfect Dark: On Monday the picker chose this after several unsuitable titles. Playing this on my dusty Nintendo 64 reminded me of just how much developers can get out of limited hardware. I completed much of the Carrington Institute training and the first two levels of the campaign, and had plenty of fun doing it.

The graphics, of course, don't hold a candle to anything current, the limitations of the Nintendo 64 controller make playing a first-person shooter a bit awkward at times, and the voice acting didn't impress, but the overall gameplay still offers a lot of fun and the story promises interesting twists.

Gamer's Diary - GRID, Battlestar Galactica, Black

2008-07-27T22:42:00.005-07:00

GRID: Thursday evening I played some more, enough to win the Tuned Pro event. My strategy of restarting races until I win each race in an event continues to work well. But I've become tired of playing the same game too long, and so I've started picking a different game each time I sit down to play.

Battlestar Galactica: Before I talk about it, I should mention which one I played. I played the game released in 2003 for the Xbox and PS2, a space fighter simulator along the lines of Star Wars Starfighter or Wing Commander Prophecy, not the arcade game released for Xbox Live Arcade and PC in 2007.

I didn't put it in meaning to play it for any length of time; I wanted only to verify something I'd noticed before, that engine exhaust flares were incorrectly rendered in the Xbox 360's emulation. I ended up spending a good hour with the game anyway, because I was having fun trying to beat a mission.

Beyond that, I also ran the test I meant to; I played the game on both my original Xbox and my Xbox 360, and discovered that the 360 does in fact misrender exhaust flares. On the Xbox they appear white, as you'd expect, but on the 360 they appear black with a fuzzy white outline. I find it slightly distracting, but have no doubt that once I get used to it I'll stop noticing it altogether.

Black: Since I currently want not to play the same game for any length of time, I needed to pick a new one to play Saturday. I picked randomly from my playlist, and approved of the first one I found: Black. This game has lots of explosions, lots of shooting, and lots of destruction hung on a fairly thin plot. I think it's just the thing to relax with and turn off one's brain, like a fun action movie.

EA released Black to mixed reviews. While reviewers liked the things I've mentioned about it, they also criticized it for its lack of story depth, lack of any hint of multiplayer, and short length. None of those things bothered me about it; I don't care that much about multiplayer, I think too many games get artificially lengthened to satisfy those vocal players with an excess of free time, and a game about shooting things and blowing things up needs about as much plot justification as a pornographic movie. The developers called Black "gun porn" for a reason.

Gamer's Diary - Crackdown, Puzzle Quest, GRID

2008-07-24T16:35:00.001-07:00

Crackdown: Having beaten the final crime, I set about going after the achievements I mentioned in my last post. I got to the top of the Agency Tower, and I got all my skills to four stars. Then I shelved the game.

I found scaling the tower repeatedly to get the water jump achievement and grinding my skills to max tedious. So I put the game away (for eventual replay - it has lots of fun in it), and found another to put in my playlist: Perfect Dark Zero.

Puzzle Quest: Another hour of grinding roadside encounters, and I'd had enough. I still only have level 23, and need level 26 (25 if my luck is good) to progress on the main quest and some of the side quests. I still had fun with it, but I really wanted to play something else.

GRID: I have reverted to my old racing game tactics. If it looks like I'm going to lose a race, I restart it. Since GRID has no car tuning options (like DiRT and TOCA Race Driver), engineering my way to victory is not an option as it is in series like Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, and Need for Speed.

By restarting I was able to win both of the demolition derby races, and claim the gold cup for the event. Next up, the Tuned Pro event.

A comment on GRID's design: while it has licenses as does theGran Turismo franchise, it doesn't have GT's tedious and frustrating license tests to get them. Instead, I get licenses by winning races. I like to play to race, and this satisfies that urge. This has, like Forza, much more fun in it than the artificial skill tests in GT (license tests) and Project Gotham (kudos).

Gamer's Diary - Crackdown

2008-07-22T08:17:00.001-07:00

Friday I defeated the Shai-Gen's last general and started after the final boss, Wang. It annoyed me to discover that I needed a four-star agility rating to reach Wang's rooftop garden, particularly since I'd already climbed halfway there. I spent the rest of my game time grinding that rating by sniping thugs from a rooftop and finding agility orbs.

Saturday I took on Wang and beat him. I found a rocket launcher useful for this. Either a Firefly or Hothead will do. Tip: Don't lock on to the bad guys, shoot the ceiling above them. Then I beat the final crime, and the game treated me to its mildly plot-twisting cutscene.

Next, I quit the campaign, respawned the gangs, and re-entered. I have two achievements I'd like to make before I put the game on the play-again-someday shelf. I'd like to scale the agency tower, and max out all the skills. The first does not require a gang respawn, but the second does. Skills for kills, agent; skills for kills.

Gamer's Diary - Too Human Demo, Tales of Vesperia Demo, Crackdown

2008-07-18T08:41:00.003-07:00

Tuesday evening, after gorging on trailers from E3, I tried the demo for Too Human. I had meant to play it for twenty minutes in order to get a taste for it, but ended up spending more than an hour. Needless to say, I enjoyed it. The combination of action gaming and RPG-style levelling, similar to Oblivion or Crackdown, left me deeply satisfied. I have put it on my to-buy list.

Wednesday evening I tried the Tales of Vesperia demo before returning to Crackdown. I liked the combat system - it seems to be pure action rather than a hybrid - and the game looks exceedingly pretty, with an art style somewhere between Dragon Quest 8 and Eternal Sonata. Other than that I found that it had little to offer beyond other RPGs - a story that, at least in the demo, didn't grab my interest, and the usual cast of misfit characters.

After that I spent some time trying again to cl9mb the Agency tower in Crackdown. I can get the SUV to start climbing a wall, but cannot seem to time the button presses right to keep the vehicle stuck to the surface. I think I'll just wait until I have a four-star skill rating in agility, then climb the tower the normal way - on foot.

I finished up the evening by taking down another Shai-Gen general. All I have left is two undiscovered generals, and Wang, the boss of Shai-Gen.

Thursday I tried to take down Shai-Gen's big boss, and discovered I don't have the moxie to do it without ridding him of his generals first. As soon as I began the assault on his HQ, so much fire came from so many directions that it transformed my agent from genetically enhanced supercop to genetically enhanced swiss cheese.

So, while waiting for the next general's dossier to download, I amused myself by scaling a tall tower and sniping random Shai-Gen enforcers. The rooftop cover makes it hard for them to shoot me, and the altitude means I get a small agility bonus for each one I kill.

Gamer's Diary - Crackdown

2008-07-15T07:01:00.002-07:00

I still have not reached the top of the Agency tower, though I've seen YouTube videos of those that have. One actually drove the Agency SUV (with four star driving skill) straight up the side of the tower. Another did it on foot with four star agility.

I don't have four star agility, but do have four star driving skills, so I think I will make my next attempt in the SUV.

After an unsuccessful attempt Saturday to scale the Agency tower, I directed my attention to the next Shai-Gen general and took him down handily.

Every general has a finite number of guards, and in his HQ alcoves or other bits of cover where an agent can hide to recharge his shields and health. You can keep killing the guards and recharging until no more come, then take on the general alone.

Don't get killed while doing this, or quit the game; either will reset the general and give him a fresh supply of guards.

Finally, to kill generals I like to kick them to death. This might have something to do with my maxed out strength skill.

Sunday I tried scaling the tower with the SUV, and discovered that climbing walls with that vehicle takes more finesse than I have right now. So I switched to assaulting generals and took down another.

Next I shall spend some time learning to climb buildings with the SUV.

Gamer's Diary - Crackdown

2008-07-12T16:21:00.001-07:00

The Volk I vanquished Thursday. Only the Shai-Gen remain. Not all of Pacific City's three boroughs have a final boss, though they each have a final crime. Los Muertos have a final boss, the Volk have something different.

I found the Volk's final crime easiest to tackle with a vehicle. Preferably one with guns, like the max-level Agency supercar.

Friday I killed the first of the Shai-Gen generals, after spending some time in Los Muertos territory grinding my agility skill. I'm starting to really like the rocket launcher - it fires like a gun, but gives really satisfying explosions and boosts the explosives skill.

Gamer's Diary - Crackdown

2008-07-10T15:09:00.004-07:00

I finally figured out how to lower the 'drawbridges' to the Volk general's drydocked cargo ship. But I didn't have time to exploit them and reach the villain. I will try again tonight, though I'm getting a little tired of blasting a hundred thugs (or so it seems) every time I assault the docks.

Tip: For those who have trouble when faced by large numbers of enemies, I have discovered a simple trick that will help you take them down without suffering significant damage yourself. For this to work, you need cover higher than your head between yourself and the thugs, and a fully loaded Colby EAR50. It wouldn't hurt to have maxed-out shooting skills as well.

It works like this: Aim in the general direction of your enemies, maybe down a bit. Hold the left trigger and jump. While in the air, make sure you get a lock on an enemy. Once down, target the enemy's head and wait for the targeting reticle to shrink all the way. If the target is a long way away, activate the zoom and max it. Next jump, and when your target appears in your field of vision, shoot. A single headshot will usually do it. Rinse and repeat until all the enemies are gone.

By the way, this technique also works with grenades (except for the body-part targeting and the zoom), and will help you boost your explosives skill.

Gamer's Diary - Crackdown

2008-07-09T17:28:00.002-07:00

Monday night I put down another couple of Volk generals. Cleaning up this part of Pacific City shouldn't take much longer.

I have discovered, to my delight, that not only can you add commandeered vehicles to your garage, but the Peacekeepers offer (no unlock needed) their own set of snazzy cars and trucks that equal or outperform the Agency equivalents. The Peacekeeper pursuit car, in particular, rocks. It has more speed and better handling than any other vehicle in the game, and it can drive under other vehicles and launch them into the air like the Agency supercar.

I had quite a lot of fun driving the wrong way around the Pacific City highway loop, launching car after car into the sky and earning the hatred of gangs and Peacekeepers alike. I think I have begun to understand why some people skip the story missions in Grand Theft Auto games and just wander around inflicting mayhem on the populace. Severing the traces that bind us to civilized, rational behavior and letting the Id roam free to wreak havoc, even if only in a pretend world, gives us a sense of freedom and wild, savage joy.

Tuesday night I continued my campaign against the Volk generals, but found myself unable to reach the next one. I have so far failed to find a route to get on board the drydocked freighter, where I think he has hidden himself.

Gamer's Diary - Crackdown

2008-07-07T23:12:00.002-07:00

I spent a fun hour Saturday taking down the Volk's transportation operation. When I want to relax ard have some intellect-free shoot, drive, and blow-stuff-up play,I know which game to get it from.

I spent several more hours Sunday in the game. I have had so much fun with this game that I will probably keep playing until I finish it.

I have found a new favorite weapon in the harpoon gun. It hits instantly like Halo's sniper rifle, has a scope, provides a one-hit kill on most enemies, and then pins the corpse to the wall behind it. Sweet!

Gamer's Diary - Crackdown

2008-07-05T21:55:00.002-07:00

When I sat down to play last night, I wanted something different, some game I hadn't played in a while. I picked games at random from my play book until I found one that sparked my interest. I chose Crackdown.

I remembered enjoying it when I'd last played it over a year since, and that it didn't require a large investment in time or mental effort. So I thought it should offer the kind of after-work brain-switched-off half hour of fun I had looked for. I suppose then that irony best describes what happened next, for I spent four hours playing it.

I had forgotten just how much fun this game has in it.

Shooting criminals with a fully automatic assault rifle from insane distances, picking up cars and throwing them at bad guys, running them over with the Agency super car, leaping up the sides of tall buildings in a few bounds, jumping off said building and sniping a thug while in midair, making a Hulk-like dent in the pavement on landing, making a chain reaction of explosions including the cars the crooks hide behind, launching gang vehicles into the sky by driving under them with the supercar - I find very little not to like.

Finally, I really like the art direction. The game producers have done everything up in a semi-cel-shaded comic-book style that integrates well with the game's central premise of a superhero cop who partakes equally of Dirty Harry, Mr. Incredible, and Demolition Man.

Gamer's Diary - Puzzle Quest

2008-07-04T22:18:00.002-07:00

Still grinding. Still fun.

Gamer's Diary - GRID, Puzzle Quest

2008-07-03T21:47:00.001-07:00

GRID - I beat the demo derby event, but haven't won both races yet. I have still a little to do there before I move on to the next event.

Puzzle Quest - I keep grinding away. When I reach level 24, I can rejoin the main quest.