I was getting kinda antsy because there weren’t any updates to the Playstation Store for about 2 weeks.  Then all of a sudden they took it all down for maintenance and released a new update for the PS3.  With it I saw they released an update for the game Lair.

Now I bought Lair about 5-6 months ago, played it for a while, then kinda forgot about it without finishing it.  It was a fun game and I enjoyed playing it, especially with the innovative controls.  That was the one part of the game that got what I feel was a lot of undeserved criticism.  Instead of relying on a control stick or direction pad for movement, it solely used the Sixaxis abilities of the controller which is basically a motion sensor, much like the Wii has but not nearly as used.

Personally, I think the controls were pretty good.  It played a lot like a flight simulator would with the pitch and yaw controls.  Gives you a lot more control over things than just a stick.  Along with many other people, however, I did have a problem with the dashing and 180° turns.  Especially in the heat of battle it was easy to lose control of what you were doing and start thrashing the controller all around.  A lot of people didn’t even give the game a chance because of bad reviews of this system.

But anyway, this patch they released after I had mostly forgotten about the game enabled analog controls.  People were complaining about needing them since the game was released, so they finally added it in.  Now I’m not really sure what I think about it.  On the one hand, I think the controls were fine to begin with.  It didn’t have any more control problems than a lot of other games that get released had, it just had a different format that people would have to get used to.  On the other hand, having the option to play it differently is never a bad thing to include.  I’m going to go back through it now and see how it plays, and hopefully finish it this time.

Of course, besides the controls people had a wide assortment of other things to complain about.  None of which I took very seriously.  The story is somewhat predictable, but it is done very well with good storyboarding, voice acting, and animation.  The graphics themselves are very beautiful, if a little dark.  Overall I thought it was very nicely done.

I had something I was thinking about writing about, but then my mind just totally froze. Must be from the migraine I had earlier and then the nap I took after work. Naps usually don’t agree with me well.

Anyways, lemme think of something to write about….

More Guitar Hero. Man that game is fun. I love the page they have set up at www.guitarhero.com to track player profiles and scoreboards. I’ve been using that to try to increase my ranks and scores and also with competing with my brother. My name is Kuldin and my brother is shadesx. Still working on Lou, but I think I’m getting close to beating him. The “keep restarting til you get the whammy bar first and use on the string of green notes” method only seems to work on expert so I’m SoL for hard. I’ll get it eventually.

I dunno if I’m looking forward to the Guitar Hero Aerosmith addition or not. Yeah, it’ll be great to have a ton of new songs, but that much Aerosmith might be mind-numbing. Although I do love playing Dream On they released as a DLC. It’s the first song I’ve been able to FC (full-combo; completing the song without missing a single note or miss-strumming) on hard, and it’s a song I really like. For now I’d like to get it, but $60 is just too much for only Aerosmith songs. Perhaps if they add some other stuff in it’ll be worthwhile.

Ya ya ya, I know it’s been forever since my last post.  Honestly it just doesn’t interest me like it does for Jenn.  I just figured since the only thing that really DOES keep my interest is gaming, making a blog about gaming wouldn’t be that hard.  Well, it is.  Oh well.  I’m gonna keep dragging it out as long as I can for now.

Anyway, so what I’ve been up lately:  Guitar Hero 3.  Bunch of PS2 games.  Jenn just bought Xenogears (the old PS1 game) for me.

I was really psyched to finally beat Raining Blood on hard.  That song on that difficulty is considered the first real roadblock in the game.  Many people never get past it.  I kept at it for a while and finally got good enough to be able to beat the damn thing.  That was exciting :)  After that I was stuck on One on hard for a while, but I managed to get through that.  Now I just have the final boss Lou to beat hard mode.  My younger brother (he’s 19) has been playing a lot lately and he’s finally as good (if not better) than me.  I’m glad I finally have someone that I can actually compete with.

I’ve also gone back and played a couple of old PS2 games.  I went through Drakengard and Drakengard 2 and got 100% completions on both.  God that took an eternity to do.  They were fun games, but all that leveling weapons drove me nutsy.  Good storylines too, although I like the darker story of the first one even if it may be a little more confusing.  I was also disappointed that the 2nd one didn’t explain enough about the first one.  Now that I’ve finished those, I’m playing through Valkyrie Profile 2.  I’m not very far in it, only past the first 4 dungeons, but it doesn’t seem to have enough of a pull on me.  The story is kinda neat, but maybe a little dry, and the battles are refreshing but maybe a little repetitive.  Perhaps I just haven’t gotten far enough to get to the really fun stuff yet.

I might just skip on the rest of that and go back and play Xenogears now that I have a new copy of it.  This was one of my favorite RPGs of all time, so going back and playing it again will be a real treat.  I’m still hoping that they release a new version of it without the bulk of disc 2 cut out and the full explanations are put in.  It’s really too bad that Xenosaga wasn’t what I was hoping it would be.

Oh well, I think I’ll be off for now.  I think I’ll leave with another empty promise to update more often.

Ok, I’m gonna try to avoid any spoilers here (excepting the title) besides the one really obvious plot point you come across right at the beginning.

And actually, that is really one of the reasons why this game is so cool.  It’s not just a simple story, it’s a frame narrative; or rather a story-within-a-story.  That is really the main drive I had towards finishing the game, not so much what was going to happen to Altair but what was going to happen in the main story.  The fact that finishing the missions gave you a chance to catch up and find out what was going on in the main story made it all the more interesting.  In fact, more than anything else I think it’s the story that really made this game stand out to me, or at least with the way it was presented.

Of course, the game itself was rather fun to play as well.  All the things you’d want in a top-notch super-awesome game are here:  it’s got the killer next-gen graphics.  Some of the details are downright amazing, and the animations are fluid and extremely lifelike. Playing in high-def is definitely an improvement over old gaming.  It’s got the catchy, edge-of-your-seat story which I’ve already mentioned.  It’s got the ‘hook’ each good game needs to garner attention.  In this case, it’s the whole crowd-interaction thing where people will pay attention to what you’re doing and can greatly impact how you approach certain obstacles and react to events.  It’s not just a gimmick, it actually works pretty well.  The controls are pretty well thought out too.  Although I’ve heard many complaints that there is only one attack button so the combat is very limited, I find that combat isn’t really the true purpose of the game.  Yes you can go into a group of guards and start hacking them up, but it’s not the point of the game.  For the main stealthy parts of the game, the control scheme works perfectly.  Oh! speaking of which: I LOVE the free run.  It seriously got my adrenaline flowing when I’d have a group of guards chasing me and I’d be able to run, jump up the side of a building, jump over some crates and leap over to a balcony without having to think about each separate action.  It does a very good job of keeping you in the heat of the moment without having to say to yourself ‘ok, I need to jump here to get to that window, and hit the X button to climb, then hit O to lift over the ledge, then hit X again to jump these crates’ etc etc.  The only annoyance I found was with the delay that seems to occur when you’re trying to climb up and you’re hanging on a ledge.  Seemed to take too long to me, but I suppose it’s a really minor gripe.

Best of all, unlike where many other games with great ideas seem to fall flat, Assassin’s Creed manages to put all of these awesome things together in a single package that runs smoothly from beginning to end.  That is where a really good game truly shines.

Of course, the game does have it’s downsides.  For one, the intermediate quest/mission segments between assassinations are entirely too repetitive.  It’s always the same thing:  find a tower to scale to synchronize with, go down and rescue a citizen, pickpocket/interrogate/eavesdrop/locate informant for mission information.  Rinse and repeat.  Some of those informant missions really got on my nerves until I figured out you could stealth assassinate from the rooftops as long as you weren’t seen at all.  The one good thing, however, was that I felt every assassination was fresh and new.  They give you the option to approach each assassination however you choose, and I used a different method for every one.  I especially like how sometimes the mission wouldn’t go exactly as planned from your acquired information and you’d have to come up with a new plan on the fly.  Very invigorating.

The only other real downfall I see this game having is its replayability.  Other than the flag collecting (which has no reward), there really isn’t any reason to pick the controller up and go back and play after you’ve beaten it.  Some rewards for the flags at least would have been nice.

Oh, and the other complaint a lot of people have is about the ending.  I’m not gonna talk about that one here, but like many others I’m EXTREMELY eagerly awaiting the sequel.  From what I’ve heard, this game was planned as a trilogy.

Overall, a very satisfying game from start to finish.  I’d recommend this one hands down to anyone with a 360 or PS3.

Sometime last year, the Guitar Hero franchise was acquired from the original developer Harmonix. This was sometime after the release of Guitar Hero II and its more-than-favorable reception. Sales were booming, and Activision provided a way to take the franchise on to further heights. Harmonix finished up on its follow-up to GH2 with the release of Rock the 80’s and parted ways with its baby. The developers went on to start another project (Rock Band) while Activision gave the development of Guitar Hero III to the developers at Neversoft.

So at this point things are looking pretty good. Not only is Guitar Hero in good hands, but the masterminds behind it are working on a spinoff of their own creation. Everyone’s coming out a winner on this one.

Well, except for one thing: Because of this rift, the first 3 Guitar Hero games are in limbo. I know that I’m not the only one who has bought GH1 and GH2 and enjoyed playing all of the songs. In fact, now with my GH3 and wonderful little PS3, I’d love to continue playing them. But no, it doesn’t quite work that way. Since the first games were Harmonix games, Activision refuses to allow them to be playable with the GH3 controller, even though the PS3 does have backwards compatibility to play the games. Because Harmonix no longer has the rights to GH (not to mention they have their own game now), they won’t be able to do anything to support the previous Guitar Heroes either. There’s a kindofalmostfix out there by way of a PS2 to USB adapter to hook up the old guitar controllers, but there’s lots of issues with those as well which lead to the game being almost unplayable at higher difficulties.

And this is where I’m at now. I have 2 great games that I loved playing, and an interest in buying the third one, but I no longer have the PS2 since I’ve upgraded to the PS3. Activision won’t support the games, and Harmonix won’t support the games, so I’m unable to play any of ‘em. Pretty lousy if you ask me. Personally, I believe the best fix would be for Activision to release a PS3/XBox360 version of Guitar Hero I/II/Rock the 80s that would be compatible with the GH3 and pay whatever royalties that Harmonix might have a part in. I’m sure that they would sell more than enough copies of it to make up for any royalty fees they might lose out on. And of course, there’s nothing better to build brand loyalty. Quadrupling the PS3 Guitar Hero song library would give it quite an edge over Rock Band.

So please, developers… publishers… why can’t we all just get along and take care of who really matters: the gamers!

So my brother got Rock Band today. I’ve been a fan of the Guitar Hero series since Christmas ‘06 when Jenn got Guitar Hero II for me. Within a week we went and got GH1, and since then I’ve played the crap outta them. Got GH3 shortly after it was released, and I’ve been having a ton of fun with that as well. I love how every time I boot it up, I’m at least slightly better than the last time I played. Makes for some great satisfaction when you can see that kind of progress. Of course, I’m getting stuck at the end of Hard mode, but at least it’s still progress

Didn’t bother with Rock the 80’s since we sold my PS2 to my brothers-in-law and the compatibility issues with the PS3 (which is another post entirely which I think I’ll work on next). But between my copy and playing with my brothers I’ve been getting a good bit of practice in.

And today he got Rock Band, so right after work I headed straight to his house to get started on it. Startup went fine, had to download a small update then booted the game right up without any delay. We went in to start a multiplayer World Tour when we stumbled across our first problem. The Rock Band kit came with the game, guitar controller, drum set, and microphone. The only thing missing was the bass guitar, which from what I read before could be obtained by using the controller from GH3. We tried loading everything up… and no dice. Played around with it for a good 10 minutes before I searched around a bit and found an answer online. Ooops! The GH3 controllers are compatible with Rock Band… EXCEPT for the PS3 version. Nice one developers! Apparently since the Harmonix split with Guitar Hero, there’s been some issues with licensing rights for the games and peripherals. And lucky us, the gamers, have to pay for it.

So we were stuck without a bass guitar. Kinda threw a wrench in the works, since we were planning to have my one brother on lead, myself on bass, and other brother on drums. None of us really wanted to do any of the vocals, but without much of an alternative, we each gave it a shot and failed miserably. My one brother did end up doing a passable job on easy mode, although it wasn’t very pretty. Gave us a lot of laughs though. So with him on vocals and myself on lead guitar, we went ahead and spent a few hours playing.

Other than a lot of repetitiveness from the songs you need to play to unlock new venues and locations, the game was pretty fun. And I guess in the end playing a song over and over again just makes you get better at it. Especially for the vocals. Unless you already know the words, you’re pretty screwed. We had a bit of fun before I had to wrap things up and head back home. Even then, my brother managed to squeeze a few more songs out of me before I left. As a fan of the GH series, I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys the genre and has an extra $200 burning a hole in their pocket. Be warned not to go into it expecting 4 player functionality out of the box.

Yes, I am still alive. Yes, I do still have a working computer. As I’ve told Jenn many a time, I just don’t have the type of personality to keep a regular blog going. It’s hard for me to come up with content on my own… I have it much easier responding to questions or discussions.

Anyway, at her insistence, I’m going to try to get back into making regular posts. First thing is to try to get rid of some of those spam comments that I can’t stand. I’ll have to look around and find some kind of material. If anyone has any ideas/questions/whatever, I can be emailed at dmforeacre@gmail.com

I think that the one thing that mostly ruins a game for me are the number crunchers. Especially in multiplayer online games, these are the people who twist the game around, searching for the exact code and formulas that determine how everything in the game works, and then manipulating it to maximize their character as much as possible.

While in theory this sounds like a great thing to try to do, in practice it usually results in a group of people that are very elitist and tend to look down on anyone that doesn’t try to manipulate the system as much as they have. I tend to find it very tiring to hear how ‘broken’ or ‘gimped’ I am because I haven’t spent an obscene amount of time (as if I don’t spend too much time on it already) getting X item-of-doom that will add another 1/2% to my damage. If you don’t play the game to maximize your stats to the utmost, then you’re not playing the game correctly according to these guys. Which really goes against the idea of these games in the first place– to try to play and enjoy the game however you want to.

What really gets me about the number crunchers though, is how generally mean and condescending they get to people who don’t want to play the same game they do. I’ve had people outright refuse to even <i>allow me to help them</i> because I wasn’t ‘uber’ enough for them. I’ve also had people refuse invites to parties because we weren’t maximized for the most exp/hour. This seems outright stupid to me.

I’m fine with people wanting to play the game that way if they want, to make the most out of stats and stuff, but no one should ever try to enforce this type of thinking onto everyone else.

For Now!!!

Anyway, yes I know I haven’t updated this thing in a while. I just really don’t have the kind of interest in it like my darling wifeykins does. Me opening up this page and writing a blog post is just like her grabbing a controller and trying to slay a troll or something. Not very natural.

Oh well, on to more interesting things.

Looks like some real fun stuff coming up soon for us PS3 fans. I’ve been having fun with the Playstation Store downloading demos and movies of things. I got really excited when I logged on the other day and saw a new video up for Metal Gear Solid 4. THAT is going to be one hell of a game. In fact, I was so excited about it that I called up my brother (who is a huge MGS fan) to let him know that the new video was out. That kind of stuff is fun. It’s also a great idea to try out the demos of games before you decided to sink the money into buying one. Especially when the games are $60 a pop, it’s important to know if you actually want that game before you buy it. My brothers learned that lesson the hard way when they bought that online Star Wars game (battalion? not sure) for the PS2.

So, MGS4 has me excited. Each video they release is blissfully teasing. Lair has me excited. At least that one is coming out real soon. Grand Theft Auto IV has me excited. Resident Evil 5 has me really excited, but that one’s still too far away. At least it looks like it follows the gameplay style of 4. I really liked that one. I also downloaded the trailer for the new Resident Evil movie coming out (in full HD of course) to check it out. Really neat stuff going on soon.

If anyone’s interested about the stuff I’m talking about here, it’s all on the Playstation Store for free through your PS3. It’s fun to browse around every few days and see what new stuff they added.

Boy have I been busy lately. Mostly with work over the past 2 weeks or so. Hardly even had time to relax much. Got a 4 day weekend here now, so I’m going to enjoy it and use the time to try to catch up on things.

So wifeykins bought me my PS3 last monday. God, I think I’m in love. Been downloading some movie trailers and game demos. Can’t wait for some of these games to be coming out. Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resident Evil 5 are on the top of my list. Lair looks neat and is coming out soon, and of course I’m going to have to get Guitar Hero 3. For now I’m occupying myself by playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I borrowed God of War II from my brother, and I’m gonna try installing FFXI on the PS3 so I can play it on there. I’ll think of some more to write later.