G-pinions

First, some non-GTA-related stuff: Check out the video for Bumpy Trot, the most awesome hyper-cute mech rhythm action game I've ever seen. I'll eat my cat if it comes to America, but it's still worth a look (and a petition, maybe?); also, it's from the guys who make R-Type. WEIRD. Next, while it's not a must-see, this PC game PT Boats: Knights of the Sea (yeah, we don't endorse PC gaming, but just check it out) has the most realistic-looking water that I've ever seen in a videogame. Lastly, on a rather sad note, Destroy All Humans! has been delayed until Q1 2006. It was probably my most-anticipated game of next year thus far, but I suppose I can't have it all (Juiced was also delayed until then, but who the fuck cares about that - though it is pretty funny that PSM reviewed it last issue before Acclaim folded). Actually, in even sadder news, I have a feeling that Bloodrayne (the movie) will make House of the Dead look like Usual Suspects (how the FUCK did Boll get Michael Madsen, nevermind Ben Kingsly?). Not so much a feeling, actually, more a direct impression based on that trailer. Now, for some good news.

GTAGTAGTAGTAGTA. This game is goddamned unreal. IGN was right on the mark with their 9.9. Penny-Arcade haven't played enough of the game yet, and Gamespot are being reeeeally picky. Sure, the game has problems - lots of tiny problems. But 99% of the time, none of them affect your enjoyment of the game. See the justification? Anyhow, the last two hours of the game that I played were two of the best hours I've ever had in front of a TV. Firstly, the second-to-last mission before you leave Los Santos (temporarily, of course) is mind-meltingly fun. All I'll say is that it ends with that shot of you motorcycling over two exploding trucks from the second trailer for the game. Then, for various reasons, you find yourself in the countryside. Let me tell you about the country. Earlier in the game, when I had driven out to the woods to see just what the fuss was about, I decided that the game was too big and that no great use could be made of the space. There was no chaos, no people randomly shooting at you, and no sirens. It took some forced time away from the city with just me, my motorcycle, and the country radio station (anything else would be HIGHLY inappropriate) to realize how truly magical it is. Kind of like the real countryside, in real life. Sure, the missions you'll get into out there are fantastic (running over people with a crop thresher, anyone? off-road ATV uzi fights?), but it's nice just to get away from it all. You can just cruise, and it feels really, really great. I even felt bad hitting passing drivers, thinking that they were probably having as nice a time as I was. I even parked my car properly in a diner's parking lot in the middle of nowhere. It makes you respect your environment, and in a game like GTA, that's nothing short of a miracle. Oh, there's also Mount Chiliad, which took me a good fifteen minutes to get to the top of (on a motorcycle). Guess what's at the top? A parachute. And a ramp. And, thanks to religiously perfect timing, a stunning sunset. I'll let your mind wander.

GTA:SA has now become the defining game of this generation. It's throne might be usurped two wednesdays from now, but to be honest, I doubt it. No game is anything like GTA, and no GTA thus far is like San Andreas. You'll feel things in this game - sure, there's bloodlust, vengeance, deviance, adrenaline, sick pleasure, nervousness, and frustration, but there's also freedom, tranquility, reverence and pure joy. A motherfucking work of art.


P.S. I played the two-player mode a bit with Nate Dogg; it's pretty damn fun, but nothing to buy the game over. Though Dan and Ben will never leave the house if they try it. Ever.

So Sony has finally announced the price point for the PSP and, guess what, it isn't ridiculously expensive. For only 185 Japanese dollars (I think they call them Buddha Bucks) you can get your very own sleek and shiny portable PS2. How do I feel about this most shocking of good deals? I'm pissed.

I don't think Sony has brought anything of worth to the video game industry. Oh, you can point to Grand Theft Auto and Metal Gear Solid all you want, but Sony had nothing to do with them. They have brought no innovations and underpowered hardware for two consecutive generations. They have come out on top by securing exclusive deals with soulless companies like EA and shelling out a ridiculous amount of marketing dollars to squash Sega before the Dreamcast even had a chance.

If Sony can weasel their way into the handheld world by releasing a do everything system for only a little extra cash than Nintendo's machine, this could spell the end for portable gaming. The PSP is little more than an underpowered PS2 that can play a proprietary form of movies. It does not innovate. There is no reason for anyone to purchase this system if they already own a PS2.

Granted, I am not big on the Nintendo DS right now. But at least Nintendo is trying. I don't think they have the games to justify the innovations on the DS yet, but at least Nintendo has created a portable that will actually push portable entertainment forward. Sony, as expected, is merely releasing what everyone expected and, unfortunately, will make a ton of money because the average consumer is so brainwashed by Sony's "We're cool" marketing.

I have no idea how to write about Fable. It took me around 20 hours to win the game and I was very disappointed when it was finally over. The last 3 hours I found myself running from town to town, trying to do anything to eek a few more hours of entertainment out of it. I clearly had fun playing this - it took me less than a week to get through it - and I even found myself sitting in class thinking about what I was going to do in Albion when I finally went home.

But, even with some good moments in the game, it really wasn’t very good at all. The combat was choppy at best, the graphics were technically impressive but unimaginative, there was no challenge to speak of in either combat or puzzle solving, the story would have been better if it was completely omitted, and there is no replay value at all. In fact, I can’t think of even one aspect of this game that would receiving a grade higher than “average” from me.

You can see the bind I’m in now.

And the worst of it is how this column is practically mirroring Nick’s last post about Knights of the Old Republic. Granted, Nick did at least have some love for KotOR for the first half of the game whereas I had to put up with the abundant amount of frustration Fable served up for almost all of my 20 hours of gaming. Though the first hour was amazing, it went downhill in every way after that. Anyway, no one wants to sound like Nick. And even fewer people want to reread something Nick wrote.

So, I’m going to try and explain the reasons I so feverishly tore through this game.

First, as hit or miss as the combat system is (get it? Hit or miss? Because the targeting sucks…) it really is fun to kill people. Some of the best parts of the game are when you find yourself surrounded by a legion of angry enemies and you have to hack them all to bits. It may not be difficult, but I don’t always play games for a challenge.

The strategy I took into most fights was just slashing every enemy that came near me. Then, when someone was about to stab me in the back or the swarm just became too darn thick, I let loose a Force Push, throwing everyone 30 feet from me and hurting them in the process. Then, I could go after one particular enemy until I was forced to repeat the process. It may not sound terribly exciting, but when a small army of the undead is slowly closing in on you there is nothing better than blowing them all away in one swift move.

One-on-one fights were much different and, unfortunately, much easier. During a few parts of the game you face off with one big, bad foe who wants to destroy you. This is when I whip out my Nightcrawler move and destroy them without being hit. You can see this game isn’t too imaginative; the two best magical moves are stolen from Star Wars and X-Men. But, it is fun to teleport behind an enemy, stab him in the back until he faces you, then repeat. Ah, the slow, powerful boss character. They never win, do they?

And that's about it for the good stuff. Now, on to the bad!

All that stuff about good and evil is completely useless. Most people would say that it sucks because you can kill a whole town then come back later and find it repopulated and your heinous acts forgiven. I, however, think it sucked because none of the other parts of the game were any fun. Sure, you can woo and eventually marry a woman (or man) but it’s even more work then real life and way less fun. Wooing consists of just hitting a direction on the D-Pad, which causes you to flirt or give them a gift. Then you hit another button to give them a ring. So fucking boring. Couldn’t it have at least been an Ikaruga-type mini-game?

You might ask “Tom, how could this have been done better?” Well, if you aren’t going with my Ikaruga idea and want to keep the integrity of the woo in tact, there is only one solution: take it out. Why not create some more missions or write a decent story instead of wasting our time with this toned down Sims crap? I don’t play The Sims because it’s boring to live out someone else’s life when I have to face my own stupid reality anyway. Being placed in a world where I can do horrible things I wouldn’t be able to in real life, like destroy a village, is a blast. But being placed in a world where I can do things I do in real life is an exercise in tedium. Ugh… I can’t believe I wasted 10 minutes of my life trying to have sex in Fable. I feel dirty now.

Furthermore, the game is so damn limiting it may as well be Final Fantasy X-3. There is no exploration at all. None. You are confided to specific paths in the road. How did this game go from allowing you to go anywhere and do anything to holding your hand from one mission to the next? Grrr.

Anyway, I’m done ranting. I had fun, but I also love video games. I see no reason anyone else would need to play this, especially with Jade Empire only months away.

Goddamn. I just typed a nice long post about some awesome GTA stuff, my computer froze (which it NEVER does), and I lost my entire post. Anyhow, I'll try to rewrite some of it, but bear with me if it's somewhat abridged. I started by saying that Tom and I played a somewhat unsatisfying session of GTA today, mostly because we were stuck on several hard missions and stubbornly didn't explore our other options. The whole experience caused him to say egregious things such as "seems like GTA 3.3", though I don't blame him based on his time with the game. Turns out all the badass missions and features plopped into my lap as soon as I booted up the game after driving him home (don't worry Tom, I'm saving a save game for you to play from right before my favorite GTA mission EVER).

You might recall that earlier this year when they announced San Andreas I said that "I want gang turf immunity/assistance depending on whom I side with (optional NPCs for any mission)". Well, check it out: Gangs and gang territories are in it, and they're AWESOME. Basically, depending on your respect level, you can recruit random gangbangers roaming your hood (I can get three right now, I don't know how it will work with more), at which point they'll hop in your car or walk behind you if you're on foot and follow you into whatever nasty business you're involved in. I haven't tried using them in a mission yet, but I'm assuming it works on at least a couple. Regardless, they're great for gaining turf. Turf, you say? Yes, turf, that's what we call it in the hood, busta. Your map is split up into colors, each associated with a different gang. If you roll up into any one that's not yours and start shooting at any tough-looking dudes on the street, you'll start a gang war (you actually have to kill a couple, but this isn't a goddamn semantics debate). Your boyz (whaaa??? a 'z'???) will back you up if you have any, and basically you'll face three waves of increasingly larger groups of thugs whom you have to eliminate. They drop awesome things like AK-47s (which make beating a certain goddamn "chasing a train" mission a cinch), body armor and cash, and if you kill them all you win the turf, which you then collect money from. The more turf you control, the more you'll constantly be bringing in (and the thugs in those zones won't shoot at you and you can recruit guys from there as well). And while you're driving around aimlessly later in the game, you periodically get a message that someone is attacking your turf, and you can go defend it if you wish. It's fucking sweet, to say the last.

Other quick-shot awesomeness so far: Doing massive bunny hops on your BMX bike over fences, hedges, and other cars, pinning down civilians with a stream of water from your fire truck, stealth kills, and overheard dialogue making fun of Driv3r. Lots more to come, fo sho.

So what does Nick think of GTA:SA? I mean, I know everyone is dying to know, even me, and I'm Nick. Well, I'll tell ya, it's pretty great. Pretty really great, so far.

What are some highlights? Great cutscenes, unabashedly vulgar, with a man I like to call Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson playing one of the characters. Swimming kicks ass, and driving a car off of a pier and living to tell about it rules. One of the new 'collectibles' (i.e. hidden packages) is covering up spray paint with your own gang's tag, so you can actually know which ones you've done already. The police A.I. can be ruthless; one cop even jumped off of a bridge after me, landed successfully, and shot me dead. The music is even better than Vice City (RATM, Soundgarden, Dr. Dre, anyone?), and the talk radio and commercials are laugh-out-loud, stop-and-fail-a-mission-just-to-listen funny. The new targeting system is a godsend, and being able to, say, target a car's gas tank with manual aiming is bomb. You can climb over and up onto things, such as fences, boxes, dumpsters, roofs, billboards, etc. People on the street yell things like "I have crabs the size of baseballs". The weapons are much harder to find, but a lot more rewarding to use, such as a shovel. Though most of the game has similar graphical quirks to Vice City, some of the lighting, grass and city views are really spectacular. Customizing your character's clothes, hair and tattoos is actually a ton more fun than you'd imagine, and makes each outfit feel somewhat like a whole new game. All of the workout mini-games actually work your fingers, and are more than worth doing. The BMX bike owns.

So, that's a bit for now. Tom and I are planning on putting a good 5+ hours into the game tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have plenty more to report on soon enough. For now, another attempt at following that train on my motorcycle so that my passenger can gun down thugs on top of said train while I dodge oncoming trains, trees and exploding cars.

Thirty-nine hours later, I finish KOTOR. I've gotta say, before anything else, that I thought the last quarter of the game was shit (the first being Taris, the middle two being the regular planets, and the last being after the big plot revelations for those who have played before). Well, shit is a harsh, smelly word, so we'll just say that it was vastly inferior to the rest of the game.

Everything seems to be going swell, until you happen upon and realize several things: While Lucas created a wonderful, whimsical universe, most of Bioware's original creations for it are lame, from planets to creature races; most of the items you find in the game are useless, and you can easily get through the game without ever using most of them; the story is actually somewhat simple, only every character beats every nuance of it into your head dozens of times; the latter worlds seemingly disable your shit transit ability just to artificially extend the game by making you run back and forth on tedious fetch quests; the fucking Rakatan people's base looks like a palette-swapped version of the Sand People's base; some of your more advanced force powers (see: stasis) make every battle ludicrously easy, while others are fairly pointless; most of the game is crazy easy, except for the last area which just uncharacteristically throws wave after wave of guys at you; the crappy pathfinding of your AI teammates becomes a big hassle when you actually need them to keep bad guys busy, and not die; some skills (such as awareness) are a waste of time, while others (security) are very important, and you don't realize this until way too late when you've already developed the majority of them; you find the best weapons that you're going to get about two thirds of the way through, yet the game continues to throw them at you.

Blah, I could go on. As I say, these things really only become big issues late in the game, but it all crumbles almost as cohesively as it melds together earlier in the game. I mentioned in an earlier post that basically the game is much more than the sum of it's parts, but that doesn't last forever. Even the voice acting starts to slack, which is weird. And jeez, the inevitable final battle - you spend all game developing badass force powers, only to end up fighting an opponent who seems to go down easiest using your most basic attack.

I guess I'm just kinda pissed right now that I crammed this weekend to finish KOTOR before GTA:SA tomorrow (drool...), and didn't even enjoy it that much. I'd probably still give the game an 8.5 or something overall, but I'm not sure how anyone gave it game of the year last year who actually played it through to the end, especially with PoP as a choice. Speaking of which, Tom says he beat it in 17 hours, and even with not getting two of the characters, I think he's crazy, a liar, a crazy liar, or a gaming god and found the most streamlined way through the game possible.