arne360

A weekly log of the games I’ve played accompanied by some random thoughts about them

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Castle Crashers
I’ve been waiting to play this since I put my hands on what amounts to be the first level way back at GDC 2007 when Castle Crashers was part of the Independent Games Festival (IGF). So far I only played through to the end of the first level again, but this was the first time doing it solo. What is it lately about my attraction to the retro 8-bit aesthetic? I even really, really like nu-retro like what Pac-Man: Championship Edition or Galaga Legions were designed to look like. So of course, that means I’m instantly in love with the retro name-selection screen used as the game credits sequence. That’s not to say I don’t like Dan Paladin’s art design in the game, because I do as well. God, I love Golden Axe so much and this is just like that so far, but better — upgradable items and a multi-path overworld map? Awesome. Although that means this game really won’t shine until you can play it co-op. The one game I was invited to disconnected–which seems to be a well-known issue–and I don’t have any local options right this minute to round out players 2 - 4. I stopped after beating the boss of the first level, which was an easier task than I imagined it would be. As I stopped for the night, I’m left with a nail-biting choice: the dock or the forest entrance…

Unidentified Secret Game A
This wasn’t a game from where I work, but I can’t talk about it. More fun than I expected however and I haven’t played this series of games before, much to the chagrin of some industry friends. I will revisit this one again, but it’s not a high priority at the moment.

Unidentified Secret Game B
Yup, can’t talk about this one either. I wanted to just “try it out for a minute.” Ha! Fate had more diabolical designs in mind and some unseen force compelled me to continue playing until i was a third of the way through.

I have but two words, my friends: frothing demand.

Grand Theft Auto IV

Today begins my restart of Grand Theft Auto IV. I got motivated again because I’ve been thinking a lot about movie trailers, game trailers and the similarity between GTA IV’s debut trailer and Koyaanisqatsi–read the comment responses in this post by Jenn Frank for some insightful discussion.

The first time through I couldn’t get Michelle to go on a date with me again for any reason. I found out that this was weird when talking to some friends, because they had no problems having her like pretty much anything you did with her on a date. I wasn’t happy I struck out, not to mention I think I missed a mission when I accidentally jumped out of a moving car on the phone. So now I’m right back at the very beginning, listening to Roman talk about American titties over and over again. At least I hadn’t made it very far that pretty soon I’ll be back to parts of the story I haven’t encountered yet.

*****

Thursday, August 28, 2008

[Struggled with some massive self-inflicted PC issues tonight, which cut into my gaming time.]

Grand Theft Auto IV
Banged out a few missions today but still not back to where I was before I restarted. I’m back to where I can take my first mission from Vlad, but I haven’t done that yet. I realized I need to relearn which cars are the “good” cars to jack since it’s been so long since I last played it. Turned off the radio in all the cars tonight, for some reason I’m not longer thrilled with that and just want to hear the sounds of the city. I’m starting to get impatient to start making new progress.

*****

Friday, August 29, 2008

Grand Theft Auto IV
Took time to make some more progress. Got my second date with Michelle and she liked it and me afterwards. Progress! How much are lapdances at the strip bar anyway? I walked in with $230 and I still had the bouncers come after me after I accepted all the offers to continue. This time I beat up the two bouncers and made a run for it, somehow retaining all of my money. Score +1 for having no morals whatsoever. I’m still about two missions behind from where I used to be, but I’m almost there. Then the fun starts again.

*****

Q.E.D.

A weekly log of the games I’ve played accompanied by some random thoughts about them

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Lord of the Rings Online
Over the course of the day I managed to put in a few hours in LOTRO. I hit level 21 with my Lore-master doing quests, which included my first Fellowship party with one other person as we decimated Elite spiders in Minas Eriol for a quest. I think I saw my first Fellowship maneuver opportunity, but I wasn’t sure because I’ve never seen one. If it was, I totally wasted whatever it was I could do for epic win. I also have managed to accumulate over 1 gold in this time. After that I started doing low-level quests in Buckland and The Shire to hit 22 because everything else I have flagged is either to high of a level or requires a Fellowship to complete. It is nice that I can walk past a ton of level 10 mobs, right up to the item I have to retrieve as part of my quest, get it and walk right back out without a fight. With only about 9k XP left, I’ll probably hit 22 this week so I can spend some of my silver getting new Lore-master skills. Am I a nerd yet?

*****

Monday, August 18, 2008

Bionic Commando: Rearmed
Finally got a chance to try this out this week. I realized I had my NES copy of the game, but since my NES isn’t hooked up at the moment, I didn’t get any practice in before BC:R was released last week. I remember I used to be so smooth with swinging around with the bionic arm and getting through levels. I am definitely rusty. Most definitely. I defeated the first boss on my third try, that’s how sad it was. 16 minutes just to clear the level.

Lord of the Rings Online
More LOTRO. What I have become. Continued the easier quests to hit level 22 until I got greedy with a quest that required a Fellowship around level 18. Deep in the Old Forest, after a bunch of spiders, there was a big nasty Elite Haunted Barren-oak tree, with some bad tree root friends. I managed to get it down to about 24% before I died. The thing is, I was stupid. I only had one add that I could have kept indefinitely stunned or I could have kited the tree away a bit and maybe, just maybe I could have outlasted the Elite tree. Not going back to this until I am a higher level. Or with a Fellowship. Quit the session with 1.2k before level 21. All these low level quests are less than 200 XP each, so it’s slow going.

*****

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Lord of the Rings Online
Yes, more, more, more. Soon I’ll be treated for OCD. Or be found in an Internet cafe in Korea. Hit level 22 finishing one quest and defeating random things in the Old Forest. Picked up my one new Lore-master skill (Cracked Earth) which I’ve read is useful later on and completed the requirements to get the Apprentice level for Weaponsmith. I have a bunch of recipes for Scholar and Weaponsmith that require Journeyman level. So maybe soon, after some farming. I sold some stacks of crafting components at the auction house. I also gained two new class traits–Healer and Beast-lore. Too bad I only have one more free until level 27. Anyhow, I hit my goal so I can take a break on LOTRO for now. Just occurred to me tonight that I should have been taking screenshots to go with my updates.

*****

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Galaga Legions
Wow, this totally kicked my ass. This isn’t quite as tight or brilliant a remix as Pac-Man: Championship Edition was, but this is right up there regardless. The vintage, retro skin is where it’s at. Don’t even bother with the new or “standard” skin. Obviously I’m still struggling getting some of the game mechanics and patterns down so I can get better, but I do like the idea of side-pod guns that can you place in one of four cardinal directions whenever you want, even if they aren’t near you. This makes it feel like there is a rhythm towards clearing some of the stages because of how, where and when waves come at you. I know I’ll never get to the point where I can really maximize bonuses. Definitely going to keep playing this. I want to play more Pac-Man:Championship Edition now too.

*****

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty
Shamefully I’ve never played a Ratchet & Clank game, nor have I played the most recent iteration, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Therefore I felt a little dirty playing this episodic “sequel” of sorts–I’ll definitely have to myself the favor of grabbing the full title next week since what little I played so far was pretty fun.

Braid
I went back to Braid after a lengthy hiatus because I felt stuck and couldn’t figure out some of the puzzles. I’m still missing one puzzle piece in World 2 that I’m almost tempted to look up a solution for, but I won’t… yet. I solved the World 4-3 and then immediately got stuck and frustrated with trying to wrap my head around World 4-4 (”The Hunt”) so I gave up. Instead, I took a quick peek at World 5 and I was totally not ready for the shadow mechanics I encountered. Still managed to get a few puzzle pieces off of this one before I called it a night.

The highlight of the session was being completely stuck on World 4-3 thinking I had ruined my playthrough because I rewound too far when it turned out I had solved the puzzle by accident. One could say “eureka!” if one was old, which I am not, so I didn’t.

*****

Q.E.D.

Although I now hold a minor grudge for spoiling a specific quest I might not ever get to in Oblivion, I recommend reading Nayan’s editorial on HDRLying about story in games and the use of the unreliable narrator. It was thought provoking enough that I even passed this around to a couple people at work today. For me, the missing example here that everyone could easily relate to would be using the somewhat obvious and darling-of-everybody game for interesting story and with a unreliable narrator: Portal. Although, this might be the most accessible of examples, there are some flaws with using Portal as a concise example. The reveal and impact–and subsequent questioning of one self and one’s surroundings–aren’t as compelling as the Oblivion example. In Portal, the unreliable narrator, GLaDOS, is revealed as such far too soon. At least too soon to grow some level of trust before you realize the diabolic nature of your unseen guide and narrator.

I mentioned this to Nayan, who unfortunately hasn’t had a chance to play Portal yet. Talking a bit more, lead to the following bit of exchange:

• me: max payne is another good one.
• Nayan: Is max an unreliable narrator? there’s a lot of doubt that you see in his dreams
• Nayan: like, in Max Payne 1, you kill yourself after you kill your own family…but i always thought that was a metaphor for essentially killing your family for being married to your job
• me: if only you take it far enough to question whether his dream sequences have affected his judgement in reality.

That was just the start of it. It was nice to read something last night that got me thinking a bit more about some of the games I’ve played with, ones that I especially hadn’t considered from a more critical point of view. Even better was that Nayan’s post generated discussion between me and a few other folks about storytelling in games.

Spotted this off of Joystiq today and knew it was worth the repost…

Flickr user Matthew Johnston has put together a pretty sharp photoset showing key Liberty City landmarks and their real-world versions around New York City. I still haven’t spent much time at all in Grand Theft Auto IV yet but this is great stuff!

Matthew Johnston’s “Sightseeing in Liberty City” photoset

Word came out that the Sundance Film Festival 2008 is doing something really cool and right up my alley — they are making the short films from their festival available digitally. Some will be free to watch on the Sundance Film Festival web site and you can download up to forty-five of them via Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, iTunes or Netflix. In short, this is simply amazing to me, especially when there are films by directors such as Leighton Pierce (Number One) — one of many favorites from my limited classes in art school — among the films to be released. I can’t wait to purchase some when they finally make their digital debut on Video Marketplace (since I don’t have a fancy new Apple TV HD).

I hope some other festivals pick up on this idea, as it makes sense — I don’t expect the Chicago Underground Film Festival to have that kind of budget or pull with the digital distribution services, but I can dream can’t I?

Back in early December, the Xbox 360 dashboard update brought with it some extra things to flesh out your Gamercard — the ability to enter your name, location and a short bio — as part of an enhanced online profile. So I figured I’d make the most of it, only to find out that my current city of residence contains “a word or phrase that isn’t allowed.” Perplexing as I don’t exactly live in a disputed territory in the Sea of Japan.

So, fellow Santa Monica residents, perhaps Microsoft knows something we don’t: Los Angeles is set to annex a neighboring city yet again. Of course, I’m kidding, and this is just a minor, yet amusing, situation — I’m going to guess that “Santa” is the likely culprit here for the many holiday and religious uses it could have.

As a result, I settled on a slightly more accurate location to reside: in ur xboxs, steelin ur gamerscores

In the absence of any real update, I present to you the Xbox Live Status Advisory System chart. Courtesy of Keyser Soze on NeoGAF.