If getting nuked looks like that, I welcome it...again, and again.

Dusk/Dawnfang

Two swords in one. You're seeing Dawnfang, and it releases fire damage on your foes. Kill enough people/monsters and the sword will transform into Duskfang, spouting out ice damage. All the while, as you continue the cycle, the swords continue to grow in power.

If I get something this awesome within the first couple hours of Shivering Isles...

I tried. I succeeded. I failed. I tried some more. It’s a good game. But damn, if isn’t vastly overrated, I don’t know what is. Is it really deserving of its heaps of praise? Is it a game that ought to have the acclaim that it does? The millions of copies; the lavishly gushy reviews; the awards; the attention; what makes Gears so much better than everything else out there?

You don’t need a microscope, or even a pair of binoculars to spot what makes Gears appealing, but those tools are equally unnecessary to locate the flaws so blatantly displayed. You only need one eye open to see that it sports some of the best visuals seen in a game to date, and even on a standard-def television it’s brilliance shines through in its clean and anti-aliased-to-frickin-hell-and-back-again awesomeness. You can argue against the enormously thick characters that could eat Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer for breakfast being overly masculine, and horrendously generic. But you’d be fighting against of the of the games main strengths. You see, it’s not the "big dudes" that makes Gears so popular. It’s the fact that these guys look so damn convincing. And act it, too.

No, you’ll be hard pressed to find problems with Epic’s creation from an "ooh, that’s purty" point of view. And honestly, if you complain about the story you’re simply missing the point. They have, no doubt, created one of the best looking games out there, minor framerate hiccups, and odd animation glitches aside. Flesh tears to pieces and chainsaws scream, and blood gets stuck on your screen. That’s a pretty good selling point right there, and more than enough for a lot of people to be more than happy to take part. There’s something underneath that ripping simulation that people used to care about. Some called it gameplay, if I remember correctly. And for Gears, it’s just all screwy.

Let’s look at an example: you’re playing online, the people are pleasant, and your team is working together…scratch that. Start over. You’ve muted the bastards. No less, there’s a dude running at you with his chainsaw revving. You’ve learned, with experience, that you should shoot him and cause him to lower his chainsaw and become stunned for a second. That should give you time enough to position a nasty headshot and end his reign of terror until the next round. You shoot him in the face. The bullets hit the wall behind him, and you get cut in half. You curse into your mic for all the world to hear, making Xbox Live a better place all around.

Ok, so maybe it’s lag, maybe it’s the faulty hit-boxes; something went wrong and caused you to die. It won’t happen next time, now you’ve learned your lesson. There’s one slight problem, however. Gears has not been built to cater for players to gain in skill over time. The only way to GET BETTER is to know the little tricks and exploits in the system. Or, the more popular route, to get damned lucky. This holds mostly true for the single-player as well, although the cover system is actually used in a mostly logical fashion, as opposed to online’s use of getting stuck on walls at the most inopportune times, and having your body explode into several large still quite manly chunks.

The shotgun is the best example of Gears complete package of inconsistency, and its struggle to keep players on equal ground. There’s the fact that most shots don’t work, but that’s no big deal, right? And there’s that host shotgun issue—where whoever is hosting has a significant advantage in dealing damage to players, mostly resulting in one shot kills from longer-than-normal distances. But again, that’s not important. Go into any online match, and simply watch people fire their shotguns. If a player holds the L trigger to line up their shots, they should be quikcly be labeled a complete and utter noob. If a player fires all shots blindly, filled with the hope that one or two bullets will hit, Gears will answer your prayers more often than not, and reward that crappy shooting with a kill, or hell, maybe two or three in succession.

I’m going to call it the shotgun-spray philosophy, because it has seemingly carried over through the rest of the game. Once the people at Epic, and the testers, agreed that this design decision was good, they simply throught the rest of the game should feel the same. Cheap, and lacking any sort of momentum. Excuse me while I go back to playing Counter Strike, a game that I currently suck at, but have the chance of gaining skill in.

The single-player "storyline" has its share of quirks as well, but that’s just it. They’re mostly quirks and can be overlooked. The co-op is the way it’s meant to be played, for example. Gears by yourself feels unfinished and rough in more than a few ways. There’s no middle difficult, or adjustment for the friendly a.i. Your computer controlled teammates are going to be just as stupid on every difficulty, and your enemies will be harder to kill as you progress. But your comrades never lose their sense of humor, at least, as you walk, and walk, and walk some more through countless unskippable scenes where one liners that were funny the first time will make you angry at the game. It’s such a beautiful game, but I’ve never gotten angrier at such simply things as not being able to skip the dialog.

I’m barely even scratching the mountain of problems with these few examples. Honestly, Gears is a very flawed game. It’s also a very satisfying and angering game, however. It has a way of teasing you, almost like it has a mind of its own. Just when you’re readying to toss the 360 control through the window (wireless, baby), it will give you a couple kills, and make you happy. But the inevidible will come. The flaws will come out of hiding, usually minutes after that moment of rightness. It will cheat on you once again, never learning its lesson. Well, I can’t take it any more, honey. I’m leaving you.

Shivering Isles on March 27! I wasn't actually expecting this until summer...even though nothing had been said about the release date. Suddenly, my life is going to be lost for a good 50 hours again! Shweet.

I also hate cramming all of my studying for midterms into one day, reading over 300 pages of American history, and attempting to keep everything straight in my head. But that's just me. And it's totally my fault.

That is all.

•  BioShock not in June, but August instead.
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two delayed until end of 07
• More Dreamfall coming, but ... when?

What next?

The PS3 Song.

Exaggeration? Check.

Mild enjoyment? Check.

Reading korubi's latest post inspired me to rant and rave about my own gripe with online gaming. So what's the problem, you ask? The problem is hit boxes. More imperatively, though, is how the hit boxes are so friggen' inconsistent in the majority of modern online games (shooters, in other words). Connection problems and framerate hiccups aside, you'll find a surprising amount of inconsistency in the hit boxes for shooters released over the past few years. Counter Strike Source, the purty version of one of the most popular online games ever created, is a great example of this. The game has been out for over two years now, initially released with Half-Life 2. The game has been updated, on Valve's Steam gaming service, more times than one would find comfort in counting. And still manages to have problems with its hit boxes. You can shoot people and they will die, or be wounded, most of the time. But other times, you can, quite literally, shoot people who are not moving and find them unharmed. It's a glaring flaw for any game, but a shameful sin for an online shooter. What is more important, in a game about shooting the enemy, than your shots being properly registered and accounted for? If you have a good answer to that question, other than the obvious "NOTHING", give me a call...I'd like to punch you.

I can't let CSS soak up all the spotlight, though, can I? After all, Gears of War, Halo 2, Battlefield (all of them), and countless others are guilty of this very same sin. The greater proportion of these games, especially the successful and popular ones, are very graphically advanced, interestingly enough. And I can't help but wonder if that has any sort of effect in getting them all into the same category for missing (no pun intended) their mark when it comes to the all important hit boxes. Gears of War hardly has its focus on tactical shooting, don't get me wrong. But when you come up behind an enemy sniper, pull out your shotgun, and witness as the bullets PASS THROUGH him without any resulting damage, I start to wonder how much luck is involved (I've always been unlucky, so it sucks for me). Or maybe, if the game isn't working.

Shooters messing up their hit boxes is like:

An RPG failing to account for your characters progression in skills and experience.  

Or like a flight simulator featuring wingless planes.

It just shouldn't exist. It needs to stop. And I'm getting pissed off.

16 inches of snow today. We already had 3 inches on the ground. We're expected to get about 6 more over the course of tomorrow. And it's still snowing right now. I live about five minutes from Purdue University, and they've cancelled classes for tomorrow, making it the first snow induced cancellation since 1994. Still, when compared to the 141 inches in Mexico, New York...my situation seems pretty modest.

Instead of getting caught up on my homework today...I played games all day. I got a couple more achievements for Gears of War. Over 500 G for that game now. I also played a good amount hours of Twilight Princess, for my second play through. This game is darn-near-perfect--I can't get over it.

Wii is a mainstream success. I think enough time has passed to deem that statement true. Its distinctive method of playing games and its universally juvenile name has created immense demand for a system that many had counted out, long before its launch. Nintendo insisted, for quite some time, that Wii wasn't meant to compete in the same market as their previous competitors, Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo, one by one, revealed "their doom"; first with the crazy motion control remote, next with their not next-gen graphics, and followed up by a humiliatingly immature name. Sony entertainment president Ken Kutaragi was quoted saying "We don't care", when asked about both the 360 and Wii, just two months prior to Wii’s sellout launch. Looking at the numbers, the demand, and the games, it seems that Sony should care.

Wii has definitely tapped into a more mainstream audience, but without sacrificing its core base of fans. Whether this new found mainstream popularity will last is an obviously key factor is how well Wii will continue to do. At this point in time, Nintendo is, no doubt, feeling very confident. They may still hold by their words of Wii not competing in the same market. But Sony and Microsoft and feeling Wii's (...) impact. And the makers of this (too)popular video found on youtube, among other sites, is actually a surprisingly accurate way of summing up the current competition between the two newest consoles.

Even with Wii's current success, and the numbers spelling misfortune for Sony's big black exhale, it's a fair assumption that the PS3 will govern in the long run. Ask an analyst, or a critic, or even most game players, and the world dominating PS2 will stick out in their minds, and give them cause to believe the PS3 will be no different. All of this bad press, units staying on shelves for extended periods of time, currently sad library of games, and continued bad decisions is like a minor flesh wound for Sony. But there are more than a few people out there wondering if Sony really could be taken down a notch by the competitors they "don't care" about". Microsoft is the king of online gaming in the console arena, and Wii is making a great argument for being the party machine a choice, along with Nintendo's nostalgic franchises getting new life. Where does this leave Sony? Besides the higher price tag, and supposedly more powerful innards (when compared to the 360), what makes the PS3 a serious threat? The brand name? To an extent, absolutely. But I can't help but wonder if Sony's reign is nearing its end. Nintendo was once king and their empire was toppled. Is Sony next?

Sony has held the trophy since Nintendo's N64 blunder. The Big N’s lack of 3rd party support and stubbornness to come into the disk format lead Sony to an early lead. Nintendo has since, never caught up. Microsoft entered the fray last generation, and with their focus turning towards the online gauntlet earlier than their competitors, they too got a head start of their own. Nintendo had to change, and Wii has successfully convinced people that the change was for the better.

So far.

Sony's current struggle may be meaningless in a few months time. The tide may have, by that time, turned back to the champion. If anyone would have predicted the Wii to out perform Sony's mammoth machine in such dramatic ways as we're now seeing, most would have simply used logic to see through that argument. "Sony is king". But now we're asking ourselves, for how much longer?