Haven't written one of these in pretty long. Been sort of busy with my classes, which just ended the other day. Still embarassed about my term paper in film...it was so badly written i didn't even want to turn it in. : \ I'm usually a perfectionist when it comes to that stuff, but this time i just got lazy and waiting till 10 hours before it was due to start, after receiving the assignment well over a month in advance : P. I definitely kicked the final exam's ass though.

Don't have to think about school for a whole month now, a whole month of barely anything to do. Well, one thing i have to do is catch up on Dexter by finishing season 3 + 4. Great show btw, anyone reading this should definitely check it out.

Then there's Christmas, which should be fun. Probably gonna go hang out with family, or whatever I'm going to be mad if the sun is out again on Christmas day. It might sound silly, but it just doesn't feel like christmas when the sun is out. I want it to rain, and be cold. Unfortunately, it doesn't snow here in San Francisco. :[

Also, again, to anyone reading, recommend me some upbeat movies. Lately, I keep picking out depressing movies to watch, like Dog Day Afternoon and The Proposition, which are great films, but they're bumming me out. Any suggestions? Maybe i'll just watch 'The Princess Bride' again, which just overflows with charm, cuteness and personality.

Sorry Bioware, you're game wasn't AS lame as i predicted...

Yeh, so I bought Dragon Age, and I was semi-right about it. It's fantasy design is super generic. The facial animations are awkward. The plot is pretty cliche. BUT, the characters and dialogue are actually pretty great. They make the game. I'm not gonna go into a whole lot of detail, but I loved all the characters and the ending i got made me kinda sad, didn't cry though, lets get that clear, k? >_> The gameplay is also a lot fun, was a nice change of pace, my trigger fingers have been getting tired lately. Ok, i'll admit...it's my favorite game of the year, even more so than Uncharted 2, which was a nonstop roller coaster ride of ass kickery. Well, actually i don't know which i liked better now that i describe Uncharted 2 that way...hmm.

Modern Warfare 2 Singeplayer Review

I'm going to keep this short, like the singleplayer. It had it's moments (like the part after the EMP bomb goes off and you're walking through the streets), but the actual gameplay started to feel super stale 2 hours (beat it in 4 and a half hours). PS - Why in Spec Ops mode can the AI see me from a mile away through the tree tops? I seriously see tracer rounds coming at me from across the map through trees. That's ****ing cheap.

Megaman 10

Trailer

Hell ****in yeh! Love that poster. It's epic.

That reminds me I still need to beat the frustratingly hard Megaman 9...before a certain Finn.

Dead Space 2

Got my brother's Game Informer issue in the mail, and Dead Space 2 was on the cover. The cover was like this awesome painting of Isaac Clarke (Main character from the first game) blowing some necromorph away. Immediatly got super pumped.

I really enjoyed the first game, despite it's faults. It had great atmosphere and a cool Alien-esque setting, gameplay felt a lot like RE4, another game i loved to death. Also, (oh, and warning ahead of time to those who have not played the game and plan on playing it eventually, there's a spoiler in the link i'm about to post) the final boss' introduction was sooo awesome! Here's the vid. Just everything about it, was so well put together, the sound design, the lighting, the camera movement, Isaac's movement. So good. Unfortunatly fighting the thing wasn't nearly as intense (cept for that part where it grabs you by the leg and stuff) but whatever.

For Dead Space 2 it seems they're going in the Aliens direction. Bringing the fight to the Necromorphs. They discuss in the article how your environment will play a bigger role in your survival. One of the examples they use is being able to break the airlock, thus everything in the room gets pulled out into space, which is really cool to me for some reason. Also it sounds like they're putting more variety into the environments you'll be visiting, compared to the first game. I'm excited for it. : P

Dante's Inferno

I'm not so sure about this one yet. I've never really been a big fan of action games like this before, they've always been good for 1 play through and then they collect dust in my room for the rest of eternity. The one exception to this rule is Ninja Gaiden (the first one, i'm not even going to get into how inferior the sequel is. To put it simply: It's a ****in' mess). Ninja Gaiden made me feel like a Ninja though. The combat was fluid and fun, while also being difficult to master, in part because the AI was so brutal. You could not mash buttons to win, unlike, well, God of War.

God of War has always been, to me, an incredibly average game compared to NG. Yeh, maybe it has better storytelling and presentation...but you know what? I couldn't care less about story in my action games. I'll take deep combat over some dude who cries for 2 games straight over how he killed his OWN family. Story isn't even great, really. Also, the Blades of Chaos suck as weapons. They seriously lack any kind of impact. They feel all feathery, like they do zero damage to whoever is in the way, that is, unless it's a quick time event. If that's the case, they feel ten times as cool compared to regular combat. Like when you slam that hydras face into the wall.

Anyways, this is becoming a God of War rant, which is fitting i guess, since Dante's Inferno plays a lot like it, except the Scythe Dante weilds feels way better than those stupid blades. I didn't really find myself enjoying the demo that much though. It felt kind of boring to be honest, because, well, you mash buttons to win. This is just the impression i got from the demo though, which might have no been a good represenation of the game at all. Probably not going to bother with this one, maybe i'll play the demo a bit more and then decide. I'm kinda disappointed though. I liked the idea of fighting through the 9 cirlces of hell, and each location (judging from the trailers) looks really cool and unique.

Crysis 2



http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/crysis_2_announced

There isn't much known about this game yet, except that it's a sequel to Crysis, but today PC gamer announced that they're Feb 2010 is going to feature on article on it. Here's what caught my attention, "There's also an interview with the game's Executive Producer, Nathan Camarillo, which includes highlighted phrases like "far from tropical" and "increased verticality." I'm not a big fan of tropical environments, so this sounds great, also i'm really really interested to see how exactly this "increased verticality" is going to play out. I kinda hope they have co-op in the singleplayer, because that'd be some awesome coop considering the size of the levels.

I loved the original Crysis, which everyone should know by now based on how much i defend it on the forums (maybe i give it more praise than it deserves, but, i mean, what other game can i kill people with frying pans and chickens?). The game was a brilliant step forward for the FPS genre (which i have to admit, has been becoming VERY stale lately, aside from a few gems like STALKER and of course Crysis.) Seriously, can't wait for more info :]

Also, that cover art is badass.

Alan Wake


"Best possible roller coaster ride" of '10.

Red Dead Redemption

RDR Gameplay

Rockstar finally released some gameplay the other day, and it looks totally amazing. Seems like they've completely nailed the western atmosphere, and that they're giving you a reason to explore. I felt one of the problems with GTA was that there was nothing to do, and no reason to explore anywhere. So, i'm glad they're fixing that with RDR, it looks like it'll have plenty to do. Also, I love the idea of being able to take in bounties alive, and engage in some duels! Finally an open world game with my favorite setting. : ]

Final Fantasy XIII

Although i'm not the biggest fan of JRPG's, the lack of good ones this gen has kind of sucked. When i was a kid i strictly played JRPGs and thought WRPGs sucked. It's becoming more of the opposite now.

Lost Odyssey has been the only jrpg i've played this gen that'd i'd recommend. It really is one of the greatest RPGs ever to me. Yeh, design wise the game was very old school, but it brought
some new things to the table that added to the experience, like positioning your party members strategically on the field. Then again, i'm not sure if this originated in LO, but whatever. Soundtrack was top tier too, very very good, but what else would you expect from Nobuo Uematsu? I will admit, near the end it was beginning to feel like a chore to play, mainly due to the difficulty. :s Lost Odyssey 2 please.

I'm hoping FFXIII will follow in suit, being another amazing JRPG. And with the FFX team behind it, i have no doubt it will be. That might be an unpopular opinion though, since a lot of people don't like FFX. Yeh, Tidus was a little annoying, and Wakka was a very annoying, but other than that i didn't really have a problem with the characters. Overall i liked the story to, it had a lot of great moments. I think i should actually play that game again over my month of free time.

Anyways, back to FFXIII. Looking forward to March 9th 2010!

And i'll end this blog now. : p

Merry Christmas,
Alex