Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Didn't care for killing bunnies: 5 sentence review of Red Dead Redemption


This is my five sentence review on playing the first hour or Red Dead Redemption.

Well it sure is a brighter game.


It also answers the question, "Will there be some kind of forced vehicle that will have flight, like Assassins Creed 2 had?"


Where the motorcycles failed, for group riding, horseback riding with a group is a great improvement to the engine.


It is really fun to make your guy look cool while moving, something almost impossible in GTA4.

Didn't care for killing bunnies.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Cake is a lie for Mac users now.



You are a Mac user, and you could care less about games, and more about productivity and style.

You are not known as a gaming system, and that is fine. I am sure there are some people that love playing the few games that are available for Mac, "Virtual Coffee Batista," and "Call of the Conscientious Objector: Modern Recycler."

All terrible jokes aside, big news. Not only is Steam, the god father of game deployment systems now available for Mac, the very Mac styled Portal is available for free right now.

FREE.

http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/

All Valve related games are going to be relates for the Mac through Steam. I highly suggest you check it out.


Monday, May 10, 2010

Learning lessons from idiots

I feel as though when video games do not have some sort of auto save, it is done to be spiteful. I do not need to learn lessons from a video game. Lessons can be learned from the subject matter, I don't want to learn any lessons from some game designer claiming his reasons for not including it are it shows some other failure of modern society, "because when we wanted a game saved we had to stop and make a conscious decision."

You know what? Fuck you, and your lesson plan. I don't need to be bullied around by some ass wipe with the best intentions for the final product in mind.

MY intentions! Mine! I am the final user! Not you, your commitment to pure is just unnecessary. You can not bring in so much new and so much that the consumer is just over loaded with everything being wonderful and perfect.

These excuses would never have been tolerated with innovation before.

We are not playing fuckin Rygar here. Enough of your snobbery to the genre. As a collective group we are the ones that brought you here, and be careful because these are the things that will take you off your pedestal. All of this has happened before and will happen again. Because you think no one is able to see the difference, I will tell you you underestimate people. You have no idea what we as consumers are capable of. You are the one I pity in the next life.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Are Achivments killing the "art" in video games?


Games should be about having fun and making a personal experience, and connection. I pose this question. Is the social networking experience and achievements taking away from the artistry of the game?

If you read a book, you don't get a medal for it, you put in on the shelf and talk about it with friends. When you go to a museum and look at a painting you don't get a sticker for it, or a stamp like some kind of passport. No one stands there and tells you what to look at and what to look for. However when I went to the Prado in Spain I got a tour guide and it was very interesting. Critics tell you what you might want to look out for, and look past, at the end of the day the most important critic is you. You decide if the art work is worthy of an award or if it is an achievement.

Keeping track of stats and a win loss ratio is a very understandable records to keep. What is truly the purpose of the achievements, bragging rights? Say what you want about Call of Duty Modern Ware 2, but there are no multiplayer achievements to unlock. All of the achievements can be unlocked in the single player game, or the Spec-Ops game mode. All of the achievements are based how well you can play the game against the game not seeing how many people you can kill in a row with dual shotguns.

All that being said, I wonder if achievements are meant to keep people from lying.

"Did you beat Final Fantasy 7?"
"Yeah I beat that."

Did you really or did you just read the Wikipedia and watch the cut scenes on Youtube?

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Valve steps up their game: Team Fortress statues


A defining moment for a franchise comes when it transcends its original form into something else; an action figure is made, a statue or bust is cast, a movie tie in or a comic book. We embrace stories and characters when they go from one from to another, this is the truth this is what happens.

The first time I saw Hellboy merchandise besides a poster or a t-shirt, I thought there could be no better day. What is that feeling? Is it caused by a need of acceptance from peers with similar passions? The average Batman fan does not have to look far to be shown that what he is passionate about has been long accepted by those who make acceptance. Since I have been alive there has always been some kind of Batman toy.

Rather than waste time trying to figure out ways to market themselves, and exploit the consumer they only concentrate on the product itself. Since its release 119 updates have come out from Valve. Those 119 updates have all been free and have included everything from game fixes, new maps, new weapons, and novelty items. Once you buy the game there is nothing left to buy. Team Fortress 2 should be the standard model on how to support a game and community.

Valve has licensed its characters to be released as statues. Starting first not with Gordon Freeman, the nexus for all things Valve, but with very charismatic Heavy, from its successful Team Fortress 2 game. With their stylized looks these characters more than almost any other have been crying out to be moved to the next level.

Team Fortress has grown so much over the years, starting from very humble beginnings as a mod for Quake, an moving all the way to being a one of the four corner stones in the church of PC gaming. That community now has something to put on their desk that is made with the same level of quality that the original product was made, a 229 dollar resin sculpture of The Heavy.




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