I just got my review for my thesis back from the teacher. I enjoyed it so much I decided to copy it down here so I have it to read later when I'm not feeling the need to write, because that will happen, and this will help me.
Dear Adam,
Thanks for your excellent work this term. it's note very day I have a student pioneer a mode of narrative I haven't seen before. This is formally inventive work, and I'm very excited to see how you might use this new language to the advantage of your story and character. I think you've done a great job using your technique to keep the narrative fresh-- while, at the same time, never letting it feel rote or tiresome. Whenever a student tires for something radical, my fear is always that they'll wear out from so much going against the grain -- you've been able to avoid doing so here.
My other worry about your approach -- before I'd actually read any of your writing -- was that the voices of the characters would blend together. Again, that hasn't been the case. You distinguish Pia, Kendel, David, and Britney nicely. For the most part, I could tell who was speaking even if the name-headers weren't there. The only two who sometimes run together a bit are David and Kendel -- you might think about how to further differentiate their voices.
Throughout, your language and pacing really work. And your HUMOR-- so successful! You're a natural as far as that's concerned.
Since you seem to welcome formidable criticisms, I'll say this: reading through everything in context, the dream environments still aren't really working for me. They feel too stagey, too arbitrary, and even somewhat tone-deaf to the character's emotional realities.
If I were you, I'd think of it this way: what are some scenarios that really have deep, psychological resonance? Trapped in a maze or a desert island maybe? Trying to rescue people from a burning building? I don't know, but there's nothing about the medieval times or the 1950's that seems to speak especially to the consciousness of any of these characters. That's just not how dreams work, and so it feels like a projection of the author.
Instead, I would come up with four new scenarios-- and be sure that each one subtly responds to the mental state of at least one (or more) of each character. maybe Pia's is a huge hospital where the floors must be constantly swept clean, where Britney is consistently raiding the pharmacology lab. Do you see how much more clued in? I know you put them in character specific roles, but this just doesn't seem like the dreams these folks would have -- they're too particular, and have none of that universal subconscious language we all know from dreams: water, falling, lightness, and dark.
I'm VERY engaged by the sleep lab sections and the way you've set up the whole experiment. That's really excellent. I love, too, that Omel is the villain here -- as I mentioned int he forum, you might want to bring out that point of tension even more. I'm excited to see where you take that.
Anyway, excellent work this term. I've really enjoyed reading your stuff. Best of luck.
Joe.
Apr 4, 2014
Apr 3, 2014
Trust Issues- The Games I've Played
By this point I was trusting of people that said, "this is the best game ever, you have to play it!" and so a friend handed me their copy of a game, and said that exact line. I assumed that they wouldn't lead me in the wrong direction, so I threw it in, and gave it a shot.
I popped it in, and started playing the story. I don't remember much of the story, but I can remember that every so often I'd switch the point of view that I was playing as. In one moment I'd be one guy, in the next, I'd be another, and nothing besides the cutscene between things happening, and what people on my radio were calling me really changed with the different characters.
This game is amazing to some, but I only finished the story line because I wanted to figure out if I could understand what in the world was going on. I still don't know what happened because Modern Warfare 2 follows the idea that I actually cared about Modern Warfare 1 and know who everyone is. I didn't. I made zero connection to the characters, didn't care about any of what was happening, and every time anything would happen all it boiled down to was start here at point A- run towards point B- kill anything that isn't trying to kill you. You did that? Great. Time to move you to a different point A in a cutscene, and you'll do it all over again.
My rule about if the number 2 or higher not being an option in buying/giving me a game without some sort of introduction to the series, comes from this game.
My rule about the game needing to be a game, and not just an online multiplayer lobby also came from this game.
That's the worst part about this game, the story line is interesting and what you can do offline is fun (for some people) but the only real reason that anyone gets this game is to play online and shoot at strangers. Don't get me wrong, I like a good killing spree of people I've never met before like anyone else, but I don't always have the stabby urges, and most of the time while playing a game I want to unwind, not get wound up because people keep yelling at me, teabagging my corpse, and spawn camping.
This game is the reason for 'no fps games unless directly asked for' being a major rule of giving/suggesting me games. It's not fun. It's a modern version of a rail shooter, and a poorly made rail shooter at that. At one point I was running along with a platoon of soldiers ready to kick in some terrorist heads, and decided to stop and look around. I took too long looking at the art direction and the graphics that someone spent some good time on, and because I stopped the rest of the NPC's ran ahead of me and . . . killed everyone. I wasn't needed to progress the game forward. This didn't just happen once, but quite often in the campaign. I would stop and start looking at something, or try for a sneakier route to killing besides running straight towards the enemy with guns blazing, when the NPC's would assume I wasn't interested in killing and clear the map.
Then came some mechanical/technical issues that I had with the game. The game is about shooting a gun. Aiming, pulling the trigger, you know the deal. Apparently, aiming is too hard for some people, so the game provided a 'snap targeting' program where you would quickly tap and untap zoom on your weapon and the weapon would instantly target in on the thing you should be shooting. It wouldn't work if you were pointed in the wrong direction or you were looking a bit away from the target, but as long as you were looking in the general area of something you should shoot, you just do this quick zoom-unzoom trick and you're shooting with perfect accuracy. That's how much it would hold your hand. Not only does this game make it so that you don't have to actually work to progress the story, it also makes it so that you don't have to aim a gun in a shooting game.
Of course- regenerating health, checkpoints, and chest high walls scattered everywhere for convenient places to duck and cover in case you ever do take a dozen bullets and need a breather so you could heal up, are rampant in this game. It also does something that I refer to as Zelda syndrome. You work really hard (or not so hard in the case of MW2) to get a new toy. It could be anything, but typically a new way to kill people or move around. Once you get it, you use it once to do something super cool in a boss battle or some other great way. . . and then you never worry about that thing that rocked everyone's socks off ever again because you used it where it was needed and then decided to move on. You get a grenade launcher (super cool and deadly) and then only use it in a few set circumstances that are predetermined. You get the ability to use controlled drone strikes, and then never speak about them ever again. I honestly do not understand how that a game like this can have millions of followers and sales in the billions with such a horrible, miniscule, poorly designed, game that has some of the most toxic community. Why people keep coming back to it and saying that it's 'fun' is a mystery to me. Unfortunately, I didn't learn my lesson from taking advice from friends about games, and this wasn't the last time I got a bad recommendation from a friend.
Finished It
A major game, a casual player, I didn't play every day, and most of the time I put in only a couple of hours, and yet it only took me a week to go from the starting scene to ending credits. As great as a game it was, I'm still shocked that it was so short. Compare it to Skyrim that I played for some serious time and it took me two months of some good gaming to get through that one, a week for a game just seems lacking.
I'll get into it later when I follow up my game's I've played posts, but I just wanted to put it out there that this game is SUPER short.
Apr 2, 2014
Interesting
I am hiding this post a few days back from when I actually wrote it. I wrote it on 4/22, but I'm putting it as 4/2 so the blog will post date it and hide it in the archives. I'm only doing this because it's a legitimate rant, and as much as I want it to be part of my rant, I don't want it on front page for the casual viewer.
Gwen sent me this - "Collin posted a new full time English position at one f the campuses and rumor has it that they will be adding another posting sometime soon. Let me know if you can't find the listing"
Alicia doesn't want to go.
The interesting part, it's a full time position, in exactly what I want, and Alicia says that she'll feel guilty if it's because her that I don't get it. She then says that I should be the man and make the choice about what we are going to do, where we're going to live and all of that, but then turns around and puts restrictions on it telling me that it has to be within a certain mile radius of Vegas, but not in Vegas because she hates Vegas, and not outside of Vegas because she hates those towns too, but not in certain parts of S. Utah because those towns are too small, and not in Arizona because she doesn't speak Spanish and doesn't want to become an ESL teacher, and not in California because California is horrible, and not in Northern Nevada because of reasons (that she went on about for about an hour).
I'm supposed to be 'free' and move us around and be what I want where I want. . . but the entire map quickly gets minimized down to about a 50 mile by 50 mile square that I have to find the perfect well paying job in, meanwhile there's a perfect job that my own family is championing for me to get, but because it's not in the golden area that changes nothing within Alicia's life, but also keeps me stuck where I'm at.
I want to be selfish and say that it's all about me and move us without regards to her, but then I have to live with angry unhappy Alicia, and no one wants that. I'm stumped.
Gwen sent me this - "Collin posted a new full time English position at one f the campuses and rumor has it that they will be adding another posting sometime soon. Let me know if you can't find the listing"
Alicia doesn't want to go.
The interesting part, it's a full time position, in exactly what I want, and Alicia says that she'll feel guilty if it's because her that I don't get it. She then says that I should be the man and make the choice about what we are going to do, where we're going to live and all of that, but then turns around and puts restrictions on it telling me that it has to be within a certain mile radius of Vegas, but not in Vegas because she hates Vegas, and not outside of Vegas because she hates those towns too, but not in certain parts of S. Utah because those towns are too small, and not in Arizona because she doesn't speak Spanish and doesn't want to become an ESL teacher, and not in California because California is horrible, and not in Northern Nevada because of reasons (that she went on about for about an hour).
I'm supposed to be 'free' and move us around and be what I want where I want. . . but the entire map quickly gets minimized down to about a 50 mile by 50 mile square that I have to find the perfect well paying job in, meanwhile there's a perfect job that my own family is championing for me to get, but because it's not in the golden area that changes nothing within Alicia's life, but also keeps me stuck where I'm at.
I want to be selfish and say that it's all about me and move us without regards to her, but then I have to live with angry unhappy Alicia, and no one wants that. I'm stumped.
I need to go back- The Games I've Played
You can explore, you can sneak, you can melee, you can snipe, you can sweet talk your way through things, or you can avoid the story line all together. This game is massive in it's scope and the freedom that it offers from that is amazing.
Then came the combat. I'm not the best at FPS games because I just have never been good at them. Golden Eye 64 was one of those games I hated playing in a group, Halo games always had me on the loosing capture the flag team, and the list goes on. Then Fallout hands me a gun, tells me that I'm going to be fighting with it in real time and saves the day with VATS.
This game also ruined my experience with games because you didn't have to kill everything. If you wanted to sneak or talk your way out of things, you could! The list kept going on about things that you COULD do, but you didn't have to. For example, your gear gets messed up and you have to get it repaired. Now, you could go to an NPC to get it fixed, or you could live the life of a hermit and fix it yourself with other pieces of gear that you pick up on your way. You can sit in town doing quests for people, or you could just go and live outside and make a 'dungeon' your home and store all of your gear there. There's not a single point within this game that you are forced within an option except for maybe the final cut scene of the entire game.
This, back to back with Borderlands, ruined me. The freedom and the grand scale of everything just made my day. Borderlands is a bit more linear with story line and plot, but the two of them have such broad open worlds with freedom to do whatever you would like to do that it makes it fun. Every one will play Fallout 3 a little bit differently than everyone else. You'll explore something different do a different story line quest, use different weapons, sneak more, or whatever it might be. That freedom, and that mobility to do whatever I want, is exactly what I want from a game. This is what makes a great game for me.
Mar 31, 2014
Too Late Now!
This new semester is starting to roll out, and one of my teachers made a youtube video for their preview of the class. As part of it she says something along the lines of, if this class is too hard for you, maybe you shouldn't be in acedemics.
TOO LATE NOW!!!
This is my last semester, NOTHING, quite litterally NOTHING is going to stop me from getting that degree and doing what I want. I don't care if I hate your class, I don't care if it takes 30 hours a week to finish, I'm going to pass it, and I'm going to get what I want. Save your 'get out now' speech for your Freshman students that don't know what they want to do with their lives, and stop insulting people that have put in this much time and effort to make it to where we are by your stupid scare tactics. If we were going to quit, we would have done it without your permission or prompting.
Cut it out, don't try to scare me, stop saying stupid things, I'm doing what I'm doing, and your silly little class no matter how hard, how rigourous, how fun, or how boring, it might be isn't going to stop me.
The blog won't let me link this video because it can't be found through search, but if you want her really 'great' oppening trying to scare away grad students, have a blast and watch it yourself.
SNHU: My Expectations for Deliverables
My favorite is when she says that we must go beyond what she asks. THEN IF YOU WANT US TO DO MORE, TELL US TO DO MORE! I don't get it, if you're asking us to do more, or if you're asking us to respond more, THEN TELL US TO DO MORE! It makes no sense to me when she says, "I don't want you to respond to the prompts" THEN WHY IN THE WORLD DO YOU WRITE THE PROMPTS!? If you want something more, then write something more!
I don't care if you get bored by our posts, or if you're uninspired by them, it's not our job to entertain you. It's YOUR job to get what you want out of us and to lead us there. It's not our job to magically create that. We're paying YOU to teach us. So teach. Don't make some crazy youtube video about how you want us to strive and do more, AND THEN NOT TELL US WHAT YOU'RE EXPECTING!
Get over yourself.
I don't get it. This is the most BS misguided youtube post that I have ever seen. I get what she's saying, that she would like more, but she can't say that she wants more without requiring it. You can't grade me for providing you exactly what you ask for.
Why aim for mediocre? BECAUSE I HAVE A LIFE! Because your class is not everything. Because I want to get the grade, and move on. Because your topic isn't as great as you think it is. Because I want to move onto a topic that I actually care about, and not this BS that you're spouting. You tell me, look at the rubric, produce what is on the rubric so that you can get a good grade. . . but then tell me that I should stretch beyond what you're asking for and produce what I want, not what you're telling me. I'm sorry, I'm going to stick to being quiet, passing the class, and getting the grade.
What's even better than this 12 minute waste of my time of a person who rambled on by saying that they want me to be great, but can't actually grade me for doing exactly what they're asking for? THERE'S A SECOND VIDEO!
Holy Cow She Doesn't STOP
TOO LATE NOW!!!
This is my last semester, NOTHING, quite litterally NOTHING is going to stop me from getting that degree and doing what I want. I don't care if I hate your class, I don't care if it takes 30 hours a week to finish, I'm going to pass it, and I'm going to get what I want. Save your 'get out now' speech for your Freshman students that don't know what they want to do with their lives, and stop insulting people that have put in this much time and effort to make it to where we are by your stupid scare tactics. If we were going to quit, we would have done it without your permission or prompting.
Cut it out, don't try to scare me, stop saying stupid things, I'm doing what I'm doing, and your silly little class no matter how hard, how rigourous, how fun, or how boring, it might be isn't going to stop me.
The blog won't let me link this video because it can't be found through search, but if you want her really 'great' oppening trying to scare away grad students, have a blast and watch it yourself.
SNHU: My Expectations for Deliverables
My favorite is when she says that we must go beyond what she asks. THEN IF YOU WANT US TO DO MORE, TELL US TO DO MORE! I don't get it, if you're asking us to do more, or if you're asking us to respond more, THEN TELL US TO DO MORE! It makes no sense to me when she says, "I don't want you to respond to the prompts" THEN WHY IN THE WORLD DO YOU WRITE THE PROMPTS!? If you want something more, then write something more!
I don't care if you get bored by our posts, or if you're uninspired by them, it's not our job to entertain you. It's YOUR job to get what you want out of us and to lead us there. It's not our job to magically create that. We're paying YOU to teach us. So teach. Don't make some crazy youtube video about how you want us to strive and do more, AND THEN NOT TELL US WHAT YOU'RE EXPECTING!
Get over yourself.
I don't get it. This is the most BS misguided youtube post that I have ever seen. I get what she's saying, that she would like more, but she can't say that she wants more without requiring it. You can't grade me for providing you exactly what you ask for.
Why aim for mediocre? BECAUSE I HAVE A LIFE! Because your class is not everything. Because I want to get the grade, and move on. Because your topic isn't as great as you think it is. Because I want to move onto a topic that I actually care about, and not this BS that you're spouting. You tell me, look at the rubric, produce what is on the rubric so that you can get a good grade. . . but then tell me that I should stretch beyond what you're asking for and produce what I want, not what you're telling me. I'm sorry, I'm going to stick to being quiet, passing the class, and getting the grade.
What's even better than this 12 minute waste of my time of a person who rambled on by saying that they want me to be great, but can't actually grade me for doing exactly what they're asking for? THERE'S A SECOND VIDEO!
Holy Cow She Doesn't STOP
Borderlands - The Games I've Played
Where do I even start with this amazing game?
Let me just tell you it this way, upon the request of two of my friends, I got this game. The first time I played it, we went straight to online multiplayer, and they blew through the introduction in a whirl of crazy, and I was hooked ever since then.
This game is part of the reason that I get in trouble with a few other games that will appear on the list. The reason being, that it's so awesome, that I started to trust people to suggest games that I should get. My logic was that if they thought this was so awesome, then they must have the right idea about other games. Not really the truth which means I got some bad choices on my list, but at least they got it right with this one.
Although this is a first person shooter, Borderlands breaks all of the standards you'd expect out of a first person shooter. The game play is not linear, you can skill points into your character in one of the four classes that you can play as, and multi-player is possible, but not essential, and it only makes the game that much better.
Now typical games have single player story line, and multi-player story line. If you have online multi-player it's typically Call of Duty style where you're trying to murder each other. Borderlands does none of that. Multi-player is when a person joins your game (either in house or online) and they instantly start where you're at in the story, doing whatever it is that you're doing. The best part about this is that the more people you have playing with you (up to 4) the stronger the monsters get, and the better the loot gets. That means that even if you bring in three of your friends to fight the big bad Rakk Hive-
Borderlands also breaks down a few of the typical gripes I have against FPS games. Regen health? It's not always there, and if you do get it, there's a reason that you have it because your shield that you just equipped heals your health. Regen shields? The game explains how it works, and depending on your shield that you find different things can happen. Respawn points? The game explains those, and death comes with a real life cost of having to pay to be put back together again. Linear story line? Don't you wish.
That's one of the biggest draws to me, the story line to Borderlands does have a typical start and end, but the path you take to get there and what you use to get there is anything but linear. The game randomly generates ALL of it's drops, and depending on your class, your skill build, and if you're playing with friends, it changes how the game plays and how you play it. Then there are all of the side quests. There are dozens upon dozens of side quests that each have their own interesting little story lines that add depth to the world that you're playing in. You don't have to play them, but if you do, you get levels, weapons, and some interesting side knowledge to what is happening around you.
The best part about the entire thing? It doesn't take itself too seriously. It's not over the top humor, and it's not 100% serious all the time, but Borderlands is willing to make pop culture references (I'm On A Boat!) and make quick little jabs within their writing and world to make you laugh, but you're laughing at the same time you're machine gunning down a swarm of psychos who are holding grenades in their hand and running towards you.
Everything 'bad' about this game is so miniscule compared to the big picture that you hardly notice them. Car controls are down right horrid, some places aren't designed that well, and monsters get recycled just with bigger names or different colors, but that's not why you play Borderlands. You're not looking for a deep monster list with unique skills and abilities, you're looking to get a better weapon, a better grenade set, so you can go back to story line and melt some faces.
This game is the start of me focusing only one one game, and playing that game out until there's nothing else to do. Before this I played a bit of one game, a bit of another, and had to balance between them, but then Borderlands happened and I didn't do anything but play Borderlands. The worst part, you have at least four playthroughs that you can play (one for each class) and then you have different builds that you can play for each character, different weapons that you can level up and become more more powerful in, and then on top of that, you have DLC's and New Game+ where everything is only harder to kill but you get even more awesome guns to deal with the monsters.
I know that this game says that I have 100% it, but I easily could go back into this game right now and play it through all over again, and have a completely different experience than I did the first time (because I only played the sniper 100%, I haven't touched anyone else).
This game ruined me. It showed me that not all of the games out there were like the first two that I ever played, but then it also set the bar very high for the rest of the games I played. I could rationalize getting a game that I could spend 80+ hours in and still have things I've never done, I can not rationalize getting a game where I spend 20 hours in it and see the ending credits and only have online multiplayer to do anything 'new' with.
XIII - The Games I've Played
Final Fantasy caries with it a whole crazy list of expectations. The thing is, to look at any of the games, you have to completly forget about anything else that has come out in the series up to that point because the game isn't going to match. Just like 7 is nothing like 8,
or 10 is nothing like 11
13 decided to go in it's own way, and it doesn't work to compare it to anything else that came before it, even if they share the same name.
Final Fantasy 13 is the first game that I put in my ps3 and really saw what everyone was talking about with HD quality graphics. This game is BEAUTIFUL. It is very easy to just start looking around where you're at and see the amazing surroundings that you're killing your way through. Then come the amazing cut scenes. Some of the cutscenes are just rediculous in how detailed and graphic heavy they are, but they never drop frames, and the game always manages to keep up with the detail that it's creating.
However beautiful the game might be, there's the problem of trying to keep up with the story. The names of everything start to blur together and you're not sure if you're a l'acie, fal'ice or anything else that shares a similar name.
Then there are the excessive use of cutscenes within the story line. Until you get into the end game, expect to run into cut scenes around every corner. I played about half of this game (and then ran into Borderlands and stopped playing it) when my playstation had a hard drive issue and I had to system reset the entire thing and wipe the memory. I had played a few dozen hours, and wasn't looking forward to playing through the same things all over again. The good news was that there was a movie skip button. In three hours I managed to do what it took me in almost 20 hours because I was able to skip past every single movie that I had watched. The movies are great, but to watch all of them, and to not get a bit tired of how often they interrupt the game is a bit obvious.
As a person who likes RPG's, this one starts to break the mold a bit. It's focused more on beauty and amazing graphics than it is on story and game play. It's still worth a play for the story line because it's still about 1,000 times better than the junk that gets thrown at you during a typical FPS game, but it just takes a bit of work to keep up with.
The one thing that I missed with this game was the freedom to move. Until the very end of the game, there is one direction that you can move. The line some time spirals, or waves, or draws other funny patterns, but until the end of the game there is a line that you need to follow and it's held together by a string of videos. If you break it down to the most basic elements, the majority of the game is hallway - video - hallway - video - hallway - video - hallway - video. The hallways might be different sizes, or may even be outside, but they always start at point A and only give the option to go to point B. Even the character skills follow this linear growth. They give the illusion that you're making decisions, but if you go down the sentinel path with your main character, you don't get any options, you just get to go down the path and do exactly what is expected of you. It makes you want to think of FFX's sphere grid, but the mobility and flexibility of the sphere grid isn't there.
FFXIII is a much more rigid and linear RPG than the typical final fantasy game. It's still better than other games out there, and you still have some freedom, but it's just less than what you're used to in a massive world covering story.
or 10 is nothing like 11
13 decided to go in it's own way, and it doesn't work to compare it to anything else that came before it, even if they share the same name.
Then there are the excessive use of cutscenes within the story line. Until you get into the end game, expect to run into cut scenes around every corner. I played about half of this game (and then ran into Borderlands and stopped playing it) when my playstation had a hard drive issue and I had to system reset the entire thing and wipe the memory. I had played a few dozen hours, and wasn't looking forward to playing through the same things all over again. The good news was that there was a movie skip button. In three hours I managed to do what it took me in almost 20 hours because I was able to skip past every single movie that I had watched. The movies are great, but to watch all of them, and to not get a bit tired of how often they interrupt the game is a bit obvious.
As a person who likes RPG's, this one starts to break the mold a bit. It's focused more on beauty and amazing graphics than it is on story and game play. It's still worth a play for the story line because it's still about 1,000 times better than the junk that gets thrown at you during a typical FPS game, but it just takes a bit of work to keep up with.
The one thing that I missed with this game was the freedom to move. Until the very end of the game, there is one direction that you can move. The line some time spirals, or waves, or draws other funny patterns, but until the end of the game there is a line that you need to follow and it's held together by a string of videos. If you break it down to the most basic elements, the majority of the game is hallway - video - hallway - video - hallway - video - hallway - video. The hallways might be different sizes, or may even be outside, but they always start at point A and only give the option to go to point B. Even the character skills follow this linear growth. They give the illusion that you're making decisions, but if you go down the sentinel path with your main character, you don't get any options, you just get to go down the path and do exactly what is expected of you. It makes you want to think of FFX's sphere grid, but the mobility and flexibility of the sphere grid isn't there.
FFXIII is a much more rigid and linear RPG than the typical final fantasy game. It's still better than other games out there, and you still have some freedom, but it's just less than what you're used to in a massive world covering story.
Little Big Planet 2 - The Games I've Played
Little Big Planet 2 does a crazy, yet totally awesome thing. It gives you a story line. The story line isn't anything amazing, but it can take you a while. While you're in the story line you can play with people online, or some friends at home, and you can have some good fun. You pick up stickers, can decorate your character, and things are pretty much a full game. If it was only the story line and the fun things you can do with that, it'd be an A+ sort of game-
The story line and what you get with the game is interesting, and somewhat difficult, but it's not until you get your ps3 onto the internet and see just what other people are making that things get crazy.
If you were the kid that had a box of K'Nex and Legos when growing up and just liked making ridiculous buildings or being creative in any way shape or form, Little Big Planet 2 is right up your alley. Even if you weren't the creative kid when you were growing up, you can still get this game and use the creative kid's building to play around with without having to do any of the work yourself.
Mar 28, 2014
Got it for 'Free' - The Games I've Played
When you buy a console, it's traditional that you also get a free game or two with it. It's the way things work. Back in the day, you bought an N64, you'd get a Mario 64 with it.
Buy a wii, get a wii-resort game. Buy a ps3, get a free Uncharted 2.
Now, let's go back in time to March of 2011, before this I had NEVER owned my own console. I'd played other friend's games, but never one of my own. I didn't know any better of what I would like and what I didn't, or even what controls I would like, so this game. . . oh this game. . . it broke me and is part of the reason that I hate certain types of games and avoid them to this date. One of the funniest things that this game taught me was what type of controls I liked using. In a weird twist of me not knowing what I liked and what I could do, you can invert or not invert ALL of your controls, and then you can do it again when you're zoomed in when targeting with a gun. My controls were so backwards. In one form they were inverted, in a different one they weren't. I had such a hard time understanding the controls, because I was brand new to console gaming, but I don't blame the game for that, I blame more of me trying things out and making the controls much more complicated than they ever needed.
You see, it's a semi-decent triple A game. It has everything that the sterotypical gamer would want out of a game. It's got the stealthy stealth sections, shoot 'em up sections, puzzle sections, and of course the hot girl sections. The graphics are okay, the music is okay, and all of the things that you'd normally review with a game, this game does decently well. All of the things that game reviewers said that I should like were there, but I didn't like them.
Let's start with the story. There's an item! Go get it! Yeah, that's about as much as I can remember. The story didn't really grip me. I didn't care about any of the characters, it didn't grab me and make me want to find out about them more, and it didn't give me anything more to work with than that. This was also the start of my rule of, if it's got the number 2 or higher in the title, I need to do more research. I'm 99% sure that if I understood what in the world happened in the first game, I'd understand and love the characters in 2 a lot more, and actually care about the story.
Respawn points/ checkpoints. I didn't know that I hated them until I really played a game with checkpoints like this. The theory is simple, if you die, mess up, or otherwise don't play the game right, you start back at the last checkpoint. The problem? What in the world is going on? Why is this never explained? How in the world do I just keep popping back into reality with all of my limbs intact and having to talk to the exact same people yet again, just to have the people not realize that I'm going to kill them this time? I don't like checkpoints. They are there so that if you ever get off of the linear story line that is set up for you, that you hop back on and have to finish up what the developers want you to do. I quickly learned through this game that checkpoints are there for game producers to force you to do something the way that they want you to do it. I still remember the stealth section and how frustrated I was with the checkpoint system because I had to keep listening to the same things over and over again. We'll get into checkpoints with later games, don't worry, I'm not done with you.
Difficulty- This is where I don't understand some games, especially first person shooters or action games like this. Difficulty never came through anything more than a guy taking more bullets to take down than usual. That was the difficult part, something was tankier than others. The puzzles never got harder, the directions were always clear, and I always knew exactly what Drake could do and what he couldn't. For example, Drake is a climber. He can scale up and do jumps from ledge to ledge like a mountain goat. He's a nimble little guy that has crazy upper body strength that lets him climb all over things. . . but only ones that are slightly more yellow than others because those are the ones the developers want you to climb on, everything else is a no go.
You can see EXACTLY which bricks you're allowed to work off of, they're the ones that are shaded unlike anything else in the system. Now, this is okay to highlight them at earlier levels. Let me know that walls, pipes, and other things are climbable, but then to keep that same system there until the end of the game? It makes me feel like the game is just handing me things.
Superhuman human. Drake is supposed to be a normal guy. Normal guys don't get shot, shake it off by hiding behind a wall, and are just fine. This was the start of my hatred towards regen health that has no explanation. If you're going to do crazy things like have me be able to run around without taking damage long enough to heal all damage done to me, at least explain how normal Joe is able to do it. There are some great games that approach this and explain exactly how and why you're able to eat bullets, hide, and then feel okay. This, along with checkpoints, made it seem like there was no challenge in the game. It wasn't a game that would be fun, exciting, or test me on skill, it'd be a test of how many times I could run away and heal up or just respwan and start at the last checkpoint. Everyone is going to do pretty much the same thing, and you might as well just strap me on the choo-choo train of story telling so I know that nothing I do will ever alter the story no matter how many times I die, or how many bullets I catch with my body, the ending is always going to be the same.
I can't complain about much with this game. As a whole, it's a solid game, but the core mechanics of what people consider essential to a great game make me sort of sick to my stomach. If I wanted a linear story where I had no input on what is happening, I'd read a book or watch a show. I play a game so that I can interact with the story and make a difference in what is happening.
You see, it's a semi-decent triple A game. It has everything that the sterotypical gamer would want out of a game. It's got the stealthy stealth sections, shoot 'em up sections, puzzle sections, and of course the hot girl sections. The graphics are okay, the music is okay, and all of the things that you'd normally review with a game, this game does decently well. All of the things that game reviewers said that I should like were there, but I didn't like them.
Let's start with the story. There's an item! Go get it! Yeah, that's about as much as I can remember. The story didn't really grip me. I didn't care about any of the characters, it didn't grab me and make me want to find out about them more, and it didn't give me anything more to work with than that. This was also the start of my rule of, if it's got the number 2 or higher in the title, I need to do more research. I'm 99% sure that if I understood what in the world happened in the first game, I'd understand and love the characters in 2 a lot more, and actually care about the story.
Respawn points/ checkpoints. I didn't know that I hated them until I really played a game with checkpoints like this. The theory is simple, if you die, mess up, or otherwise don't play the game right, you start back at the last checkpoint. The problem? What in the world is going on? Why is this never explained? How in the world do I just keep popping back into reality with all of my limbs intact and having to talk to the exact same people yet again, just to have the people not realize that I'm going to kill them this time? I don't like checkpoints. They are there so that if you ever get off of the linear story line that is set up for you, that you hop back on and have to finish up what the developers want you to do. I quickly learned through this game that checkpoints are there for game producers to force you to do something the way that they want you to do it. I still remember the stealth section and how frustrated I was with the checkpoint system because I had to keep listening to the same things over and over again. We'll get into checkpoints with later games, don't worry, I'm not done with you.
Difficulty- This is where I don't understand some games, especially first person shooters or action games like this. Difficulty never came through anything more than a guy taking more bullets to take down than usual. That was the difficult part, something was tankier than others. The puzzles never got harder, the directions were always clear, and I always knew exactly what Drake could do and what he couldn't. For example, Drake is a climber. He can scale up and do jumps from ledge to ledge like a mountain goat. He's a nimble little guy that has crazy upper body strength that lets him climb all over things. . . but only ones that are slightly more yellow than others because those are the ones the developers want you to climb on, everything else is a no go.
Superhuman human. Drake is supposed to be a normal guy. Normal guys don't get shot, shake it off by hiding behind a wall, and are just fine. This was the start of my hatred towards regen health that has no explanation. If you're going to do crazy things like have me be able to run around without taking damage long enough to heal all damage done to me, at least explain how normal Joe is able to do it. There are some great games that approach this and explain exactly how and why you're able to eat bullets, hide, and then feel okay. This, along with checkpoints, made it seem like there was no challenge in the game. It wasn't a game that would be fun, exciting, or test me on skill, it'd be a test of how many times I could run away and heal up or just respwan and start at the last checkpoint. Everyone is going to do pretty much the same thing, and you might as well just strap me on the choo-choo train of story telling so I know that nothing I do will ever alter the story no matter how many times I die, or how many bullets I catch with my body, the ending is always going to be the same.
I can't complain about much with this game. As a whole, it's a solid game, but the core mechanics of what people consider essential to a great game make me sort of sick to my stomach. If I wanted a linear story where I had no input on what is happening, I'd read a book or watch a show. I play a game so that I can interact with the story and make a difference in what is happening.
Mar 27, 2014
Sonic '06 - The Games I've Played
I'm going to start out with this. . . game?
Still not quite sure where to start when talking about Sonic '06 because it's a weird, weird, WEIRD game, and this is coming from a person who enjoys old school rhythm games like Frequency, but this one is just a solid chunk of junk that no one really knows what to do with.
Now, everyone that is anyone, when they hear sonic, do not think about a 3d character, but instead instantly get transported to good ol' platforming 2d sonic.
The story- simple.
The graphics- simple.
The game play- run and jump (and in later versions, run and spin).
For the time, the game was perfection. It didn't give you much, but we weren't looking for much back then. We were happy with jumping platformers, and chiptune sounds. We liked the 'minimalistic' view of everything back then, because minimalistic was high tech. The problem with this is when you take something that is historically minimalistic, and historically bare bones when dealing with much of what gaming has turned into, and then try to translate it into next gen gaming- only bad things are going to happen. Indeed, bad, horrible, laughably dreadful, things happened.
I'm going to be honest, this game was so horrible, I played the first level and didn't touch the game ever again.
I've sat through some bad games. I've put up with bad graphics, bad gameplay, bad story line, and a lot of other bad things, but this game (one of my first games for ps3) has been a game that I've never had any desire to ever return to, ever. This game is bad.
Sonic is a fast little hedgehog. He's notoriously fast. They somehow thought that putting him going stupid fast was essential, but then forgot to think about what that means in a 3d setting. Part of speed is that you need to know what you're headed into so that you know what you need to do. If you don't know what's around the corner or what's happening to you once you do go super fast, you're just going to wreck. And you're going to wreck, over, and over, and over, and over again. With a speed that is too fast, trying to control Sonic with any accuracy is pointless. You push left, and he's two miles away from where you want to be before you can straighten out. You accidentally run into one of the speed pads or jump pads, and you have to pray that you can see where you're headed by the time that the game arbitrarily wants you to input a button.
Then comes the camera. The camera is NEVER stable. It jumps around from different perspectives at the most random points. If you look at it like a television show, or a movie, the camera jumps are great and theatric, but if you're trying to control the blue streak of Sonic during those, you don't know if you're supposed to be pressing up to run straight, or right, or down, or whatever angle you're forced to look at him from.
People talk about ET or Superman 64 being some of the worst games that are in existance, I'd like to put Sonic '06 on this as well.
Gameplay and the funky speed/camera issue that I talked about before. Then there's the set up. Sonic is a platformer. You jump, you run, you get the coins and that's about it. Sonic '06 has a mission base system where you run quests for people, but then has upgrades and improvements that you can make to Sonic, and then makes you go Mario 64 style, and jump into different worlds/areas to do levels in them. It's core structure is a mess of games, trying to be a lot of different things and then not doing any of them well.
You know it's bad when one of your biggest fans, a person who is so obsessed with the game that he can easily say that he's played it dozens of times start to finish, and is not exaggerating, says"It's one of the most famous Sonic games. . . for all of the wrong reasons."
Source-
This game- along with most/all of the other 'starter' games that I had when I first got my ps3, are going to get some of the worst reviews. They are the reason that I read and research games for months before buying them. I thought that they were great games because of what friends or 'professionals' said. . . and then I realized that I had extremely different tastes in games than those people. All I know is that this game never made the loop back around. It never got so bad that it got good, it just got worse and worse.
Still not quite sure where to start when talking about Sonic '06 because it's a weird, weird, WEIRD game, and this is coming from a person who enjoys old school rhythm games like Frequency, but this one is just a solid chunk of junk that no one really knows what to do with.
Now, everyone that is anyone, when they hear sonic, do not think about a 3d character, but instead instantly get transported to good ol' platforming 2d sonic.
The graphics- simple.
The game play- run and jump (and in later versions, run and spin).
For the time, the game was perfection. It didn't give you much, but we weren't looking for much back then. We were happy with jumping platformers, and chiptune sounds. We liked the 'minimalistic' view of everything back then, because minimalistic was high tech. The problem with this is when you take something that is historically minimalistic, and historically bare bones when dealing with much of what gaming has turned into, and then try to translate it into next gen gaming- only bad things are going to happen. Indeed, bad, horrible, laughably dreadful, things happened.
I'm going to be honest, this game was so horrible, I played the first level and didn't touch the game ever again.
I've sat through some bad games. I've put up with bad graphics, bad gameplay, bad story line, and a lot of other bad things, but this game (one of my first games for ps3) has been a game that I've never had any desire to ever return to, ever. This game is bad.
Sonic is a fast little hedgehog. He's notoriously fast. They somehow thought that putting him going stupid fast was essential, but then forgot to think about what that means in a 3d setting. Part of speed is that you need to know what you're headed into so that you know what you need to do. If you don't know what's around the corner or what's happening to you once you do go super fast, you're just going to wreck. And you're going to wreck, over, and over, and over, and over again. With a speed that is too fast, trying to control Sonic with any accuracy is pointless. You push left, and he's two miles away from where you want to be before you can straighten out. You accidentally run into one of the speed pads or jump pads, and you have to pray that you can see where you're headed by the time that the game arbitrarily wants you to input a button.
Then comes the camera. The camera is NEVER stable. It jumps around from different perspectives at the most random points. If you look at it like a television show, or a movie, the camera jumps are great and theatric, but if you're trying to control the blue streak of Sonic during those, you don't know if you're supposed to be pressing up to run straight, or right, or down, or whatever angle you're forced to look at him from.
Gameplay and the funky speed/camera issue that I talked about before. Then there's the set up. Sonic is a platformer. You jump, you run, you get the coins and that's about it. Sonic '06 has a mission base system where you run quests for people, but then has upgrades and improvements that you can make to Sonic, and then makes you go Mario 64 style, and jump into different worlds/areas to do levels in them. It's core structure is a mess of games, trying to be a lot of different things and then not doing any of them well.
You know it's bad when one of your biggest fans, a person who is so obsessed with the game that he can easily say that he's played it dozens of times start to finish, and is not exaggerating, says"It's one of the most famous Sonic games. . . for all of the wrong reasons."
Source-
This game- along with most/all of the other 'starter' games that I had when I first got my ps3, are going to get some of the worst reviews. They are the reason that I read and research games for months before buying them. I thought that they were great games because of what friends or 'professionals' said. . . and then I realized that I had extremely different tastes in games than those people. All I know is that this game never made the loop back around. It never got so bad that it got good, it just got worse and worse.
World Finals
It might be worth mentioning, but world finals for the e-sports that I follow is happening this weekend.
http://www.twitch.tv/honcast
http://www.twitch.tv/honcast
Suggestion From Work
While bored at work, was talking to my group and we started talking about gaming and the sort. We started talking about some of the games that we've played and some of the pro's and con's of them, and I told them about my bookshelf and my quest to try to finish off my bookshelf and spend some quality time with some quality games (while skimming through those other games that don't have so much going for them besides a semi-interesting storyline).
With about 40 ps3 games already under my belt, a passion for writing, and some strong opinions about games- why don't I write reviews?
Now I know, I know, a strong majority of my games that I'd be writing these reviews for and doing stuff for would be completly useless and not really worth much considering their release dates were along the lines of first games ever released with the ps3, however, I think it's a fun idea to give me a break in my writing of Dream Analysis, so I might give it a shot.
Chances of anyone reading them? Super low. Fun for me? Of course. I'll start at the bottom of my play list and work my way up, not forgetting about the two games that don't have trophies when I tackle them (Sonic '06 (which actually released in '07 for ps3) and Resistance 1). I like the idea, and it's better than the Quantum Leap-esque story line that I was playing around in my head that I was thinking about writing a short intro for, so I just might get that started soon.
I'll be following a rough play order of this list- http://psnprofiles.com/Adrillf/log?order=date&dir=asc&p=1 I haven't always stuck to the one game at a time rule, so at times we'll see which one I plan to do next, but we'll start at the start and work through it as we run into things.
With about 40 ps3 games already under my belt, a passion for writing, and some strong opinions about games- why don't I write reviews?
Now I know, I know, a strong majority of my games that I'd be writing these reviews for and doing stuff for would be completly useless and not really worth much considering their release dates were along the lines of first games ever released with the ps3, however, I think it's a fun idea to give me a break in my writing of Dream Analysis, so I might give it a shot.
Chances of anyone reading them? Super low. Fun for me? Of course. I'll start at the bottom of my play list and work my way up, not forgetting about the two games that don't have trophies when I tackle them (Sonic '06 (which actually released in '07 for ps3) and Resistance 1). I like the idea, and it's better than the Quantum Leap-esque story line that I was playing around in my head that I was thinking about writing a short intro for, so I just might get that started soon.
I'll be following a rough play order of this list- http://psnprofiles.com/Adrillf/log?order=date&dir=asc&p=1 I haven't always stuck to the one game at a time rule, so at times we'll see which one I plan to do next, but we'll start at the start and work through it as we run into things.
Mar 26, 2014
Little Things
I don't know if I should be content, or sad that the little things make me ridiculously happy.
Today, a bunch of little things made my day, really, REALLY good. Silly things, that don't matter in the least bit, and all things considering are a bit sad on the grand scale of things.
For example, on the way home my shuffle decided to start playing some of my favorite songs that are just bouncy and happy and always make my day. My bar is set really low right now for an amazing day, and I don't know if I should raise it to better standards, or just keep it low and find myself singing on top of my lungs to a song that has no words to it, or trying to try to sing along to a song that starts out with some really wubby bass lines.
Meh, I need a good day more often. So thank you. Thank you for the good day. Thank you for somehow making a normal day into a day that I can't stop smiling.
Today, a bunch of little things made my day, really, REALLY good. Silly things, that don't matter in the least bit, and all things considering are a bit sad on the grand scale of things.
They Found Me!
AHHHH!!!!! A person found me!
And I was hiding my rants/stupidity so well too! That's what I get for putting direct quotes from people in class so that when you google the crazies from class you'd pull them up and accidentally run into me, because let's be honest, out of all of the Adam Walters that exist out there the Australian journalist is going to get a lot more press than me.
Close runner up is Adam Walters the comic book artist.
Close runner up is Adam Walters the comic book artist.
Last Night Loading
Back in the day you could put in a game to your console, and it'd start playing. You didn't need to download updates, download patches, or install some of the information onto your HD. Yesterday I finished Resistance 2, so I popped in Resistance 3. . . and then the loading and downloading screens started.
I was faced with the loading and install screen for a LOOOONG time. . . and I'm not proud to say it but then I dozed off.
I fell asleep on the couch, waiting for the game to install until 3 in the morning. At three I woke up, realized that I had been on the start screen for who knows how long, and then headed to sleep. It's sort of funny, but also sort of sad, that I spent an entire night of gaming with a loading screen.
I fell asleep on the couch, waiting for the game to install until 3 in the morning. At three I woke up, realized that I had been on the start screen for who knows how long, and then headed to sleep. It's sort of funny, but also sort of sad, that I spent an entire night of gaming with a loading screen.
Mar 24, 2014
Late Night Gaming
Tonight I know exactly what is going to happen when everyone is asleep.
Put These Here
Here's the finals for this term. Lovely times trying to get these done in time for the due date.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2wADUNjl47IUFIxYzNodWZQOFVHQl9vVHgzS0FGUEZ0V19n/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2wADUNjl47IRTRIdnpXd3Y1eG5aVGswc1V3a0hfSVRGbi00/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2wADUNjl47IeUJoRTF6ZDZtN1ZEZjNKMG5KLTZDNTJoR0RZ/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2wADUNjl47IUFIxYzNodWZQOFVHQl9vVHgzS0FGUEZ0V19n/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2wADUNjl47IRTRIdnpXd3Y1eG5aVGswc1V3a0hfSVRGbi00/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2wADUNjl47IeUJoRTF6ZDZtN1ZEZjNKMG5KLTZDNTJoR0RZ/edit?usp=sharing
Logic Fail
One person is a little sick at work today.Tony decided to open up the window in our room because, "The air will circulate and the sick will go out the window."
That's right, he thought that if he opened up the window that he wouldn't get sick from the person (who by the way isn't even that sick) who is ocasionally coughing.
I love how stupid people at my work are.
That's right, he thought that if he opened up the window that he wouldn't get sick from the person (who by the way isn't even that sick) who is ocasionally coughing.
I love how stupid people at my work are.
Mar 19, 2014
Research
Happy Days!
I spent all night typing up all of the quotes and references that I want to use ONLY FROM THE BOOK to prove my point. I didn't include an intro paragraph, formatting, or anything from my secondary sources, and I'm already at 10 pages.
This is going to be an easy paper to write. Every time I add something from here on out, I get to edit out some of the fluff that I don't think is 100% essential. It's a great place to be in, having TOO MUCH research.
I spent all night typing up all of the quotes and references that I want to use ONLY FROM THE BOOK to prove my point. I didn't include an intro paragraph, formatting, or anything from my secondary sources, and I'm already at 10 pages.
This is going to be an easy paper to write. Every time I add something from here on out, I get to edit out some of the fluff that I don't think is 100% essential. It's a great place to be in, having TOO MUCH research.
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