What am I playing? Bioshock 2

I held off on this game until I could get a ‘good price’. A week or so ago it came up as an Amazon Gold Box special for $30 bucks and my brother owed me a bunch of money, so I had him order it for me.

I was so impressed with the opening for the first Bioshock. It was cool enough to the point that I actually showed it to Lauren and others so she could experience it. Hell, it was the game who’s demo blew me away to the point that I finally upgraded past my AMD 3200+ single core processor because it churned my loins so well.

After getting the sequel I was really interested in how cool the opening could be, since the game was supposed to take place about a decade after the first.

Pretty much, you can’t appreciate the opening for Bioshock 2 without having played the first game, so don’t even try. There is none of the splendor of descending down into Rapture for the first time. You just start there and shoot yourself in the head. Literally.

Sure, you get a few moments of a clean Rapture before the civil war in the opening cinematic, but it is so fleetingly brief. Then you’re just inserted into post Bioshock 1 Rapture without context or back story. Sadness.

I hope to play through the game this week, but damn if that opening wasn’t a let down..

Of course, the multiplayer could be the real blowaway part of this game for me as it is supposed to be the civil war in Rapture itself, so you get to see it before the true decay sets in.

Will have more assessment after getting into the game further, but just the opening is a good benchmark, I think.

What am I playing? The Pinball (Mac, iPhone)

Pinball, the ancient and mystical art! Some would say it requires a deep and innate relationship with the table to truly do well. After all, how else could a deaf, dumb, and blind kid play such a mean pinball?

I love pinball and have even when the skill involved was completely beyond my grasp, as well as the buttons. Hard for a little guy on a milk crate to reach both buttons! I have even made pilgrimages to what has to be the current pinball Mecca – The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.

It’s within that context that I can comfortably blame any dislike on my part towards ‘The Pinball’ to be related to the qualities inherent in the game and not any misunderstanding of the medium myself.

Gameprom has apparently made a name for themselves with three fully 3d, full physics pinball boards on the iPhone. I’ve seen countless rave reviews of these boards to the extent that I was convinced to purchase each of them even after I tried and was not impressed by the Wild West board. Sure, the physics are realistic, but the boards are uninteresting, provide no clear progression of game states, and boring flow.

Gameprom came up with a concept that really excited me at first. They released software for OSX that provided a full screen, full power rendition of their boards. That in itself, not so interesting, but the fact that the game was controlled by an iPod touch or iPhone.. That’s interesting!

While trying out the software I sadly was driven to ask myself ‘why am I doing this?’ I look down in my hands and I have this little interface that I’m mashing the hell out of to play some Wild West pinball, but all I could feel is that I wanted something else. I wanted to reach for the keyboard. I wanted to go to my Xbox to play some Williams Hall of Fame – arguably the best pinball simulator in existence. Instead I’m stuck with the requirement of using an external device for this pinball for a perfectly arbitrary reason.

It may stand to argue that they’re tying the experience through the iPhone app so that all of the board purchases can be handled through the pre-existing payment infrastructure. I can appreciate that. Kind of. But allow untethering after the board purchase!

It boils down to the boards. The free one – Wild West – remains uninteresting, even at higher resolutions. I know the others available aren't that hot either. In the end – try the free board out for the novelty, but don’t get sucked in. Too much hardware required for too little gameplay. Pinball can be magic, but this is almost as far from that as possible.

What am I playing? Zombie Driver

Oh, Zombies. Is there any situation you’re not good for?

Zombie Driver is an overhead drivearound, shoot-em-up game for the PC. Imagine the original Grand Theft Auto with 3d graphics and gore combined with Crazy Taxi and Night of the Living Dead.

Final verdict first? It’s a 10 dollar game, which sounds cheap, but not worth it. I picked it up at a promotional rate of 2.50 back when Steam was having their crazy sales in December.

The game is pretty for what it is – there is even some nice limb physics as zombies are mown down. There’s a nice progression of vehicles and a selection of weapons to choose from for taking out zombies. There’s some challenge in completing some of the secondary objectives.

However, the camera is just not all that great. It’s essentially a guess on how you actually get to your objectives. There’s no overhead map to help you or even any kind of gps system to show you good routes to take.

The combat is cool in theory, but only theory. In order to pick people up you need to kill all the zombies in a certain radius around the building they’re in. Sadly the combat boils down to accelerating through the crowd of zombies, then deciding if you’re just going to back through the crowd again or turn around to get up more speed. No real sense of skill adding to the possibilities.

17 missions gives the game some legs, but the ending is pretty throwaway. No conclusion to the ‘story’ and you forgot how horrid the opening art of the game was because you don’t see it again until the end. What I was really looking forward to was going back to the earlier missions with my souped up cars and seeing how much better I could do at them, but beating the game RESETS ALL OF YOUR PROGRESS. Failure..

Raiden IV

Everything that I've read about Raiden IV online has boiled down to essentially hemming and hawing about paying $40 for a Raiden game when Raiden Fighter Aces is two games for $20.



None of them has acknowledged the awesomeness of Dual mode in Raiden IV, though. One controller, both ships. One stick for each, triggers and bumpers to control main fire and bombs. I almost wet myself playing, it was that stimulating.



Of course, it's BS that they're charging for the two additional ships you can get when they obviously should have been included with the entry price. Oh well. I'm a big boy. I'll stomach getting nickel and dimed for now. I just hope it sells well enough that they come out with some more marquee shooters like this.

Update - Guess I hadn't paid attention properly to Raiden Fighter Aces - it's actually 3 games.  

Williams Pinball Wii

I love me some pinball. I was exposed to arcades from a young age and I was always mesmerized by a good pinball player. It took me years to get a good feel for playing, but I stand a pretty good chance these days of scoring enough for some free credits. When I was going to school at UIC and UIUC one of the things I loved the most was the bowling alleys at each and the complement of pinball games they kept around. If I could have gotten course credit for playing pinball, I would have had a much more padded transcript than I already do.

Long story short – I’ve played a lot of pinball.

I’ve tried a lot of video pinball. Pinball for the Genesis, Saturn, Playstation, PC, etc. It has all sucked. ALL of it.

Williams Pinball Hall of Fame for the Wii does not suck. It is very much lacking in suck. It ventures very deeply into the realms of awesome.

The games? Ten boards dating from the 70s to the early 90s. I tend to pass up some of the older machines when I’ve got a chance to drop my coins into a newer machine, but all of these are great. They are extremely faithfully reproduced and the physics engine is quite great. There have only been 2 or 3 times when the ball has done something that doesn’t look quite right, but that’s probably less often than I’ve had that feeling in real life. The flippers are extremely responsive and the cameras are very smart and easy to switch.

This game is so good that I am convinced I would buy multiple other collections on the same engine if I could have home versions of some newer games I sadly do not have nearby. Simpsons Pinball Party on the Wii? Sold. Addams Family? Sign me up. Monopoly? Gimme.

I think that literally the only thing I would fault on this game is that there is no free roam examination of the different boards possible. I am used to being able to eyeball an idle machine from every angle to be able to see the nuances or read the smaller text that may be relevant to the game. That’s it. That’s my problem with it.

If you have twenty dollars, buy this game.

Civilization Revolution:DS

Just couldn't get the feel for this game.. It felt like I was looking at it through a cardboard tube. I was always struggling to figure out how to run the controls. Yeah, I could move guys around and attack and everything.. I just couldn't get a sense for what was going on with my cities or what I *wanted* to have going on. I could get the hang of it with a lot more play, but I'm going to just let it go for now. I have every Civ game and expansion for my computer anyway.. Maybe if that wasn't the case I'd give this more of a chance.

Christmas 2.0

You are invited to participate in a bold new concept in Christmas giving. It is the result of years of painstaking research and field testing. Now the beta process for what we're conservatively calling "Christmas 2.0" is open for a public beta.

The Christmas 2.0 concept allows users to leverage their own interests into a gesture of good will towards fellow man. Christmas 2.0 user groups will exist to allow an individual to purchase an item and locate other users who desire that same item. The user group will create what is called a 'giving circle' and match each 'giver' with a recipient. Once each user has purchased the item, they are given the name of another user and their name will be passed to another user. Each of these users has symbolically 'given' a gift to another user in the group but at a net savings due to removing the cost of wrapping and shipping the item. Overall, it's estimated that each user reduces their carbon footprint for the season significantly, while also getting each participant what they really wanted.

Our initial user group will be focused upon the game Call of Duty 4. To enhance the ecologial upside of reducing resource consumption, it is advised that all users purchase said item on Steam. To keep with the spirit of the season, please do not forget to send a note of thanks to your assigned giver for the generous gift. Once the giving circle is closed to new users, a regular group gaming session can be scheduled.

Thank you for participating in this bold new step forward in the field of gift giving!

THE FUTURE IS NOW!

(translation - who all wants to buy call of duty 4 for themselves and claim somebody got it for them?)

Wii Zapper

Picked up the Wii Zapper with Link's Crossbow Training a couple weeks ago. Definitely worth 20 bucks. This isn't necessarily because the Zapper is a perfect thing, but as a package with the game it's a must buy. The all in one design with the nunchuk attached isn't comfortable to hold for a long time. I would much prefer a pistol style, especially for games like Ghost Squad that don't really require the nunchuk. Link's Crossbow Training, on the other hand, is a tight shooting game. Each level is divided into three segments changing the method of getting around the state. Sometimes all targets appear within the frame, others allow you to rotate in place to find targets, while the third mode lets you roam with the nunchuk to clear a level of enemies. The key is in stringing together consecutive hits to get high multipliers for gold and platinum level performances. Quite good.

The other game I picked up at the same time was a pretty good deal for $30 - Ghost Squad. I recall playing this in the arcades before. You wouldn't think that there would be much replayability, as the three levels only take about half an hour to complete. However, every time you complete a level successfully, you unlock a more difficult runthrough of that level. In addition you unlock many different weapons with different spread fires or penetration abilities. Combined, we get a game that my non-gamer wife will actually play through in co-op with me. She says she prefers this one to Link because when you're playing co-op it doesn't matter if you're playing well, so long as you have another person playing. Link, on the other hand will let you know that your score isn't quite up to snuff, as you need to get a medal in order to unlock the next level and combo runs are the only way to do that.

Overall, I really enjoy the zapper games and feel that the odds of my buying more co-op shooting games in the future are very very good. I may even snag a single player one for myself.

Baby's got a media bomb.

Transformers - Could have been much worse. If they had worked on the script as much as the effects you might have had something. Turn your brain off at the door and you'll be better off.

Simpsons Movie - If you like the Simpsons, you like the Simpsons. This is written by a cast of dozens but tied together by the hands down best Simpsons writer - David Silverman(if i'm thinking of the right guy..). It's essentially a long episode. It's got some good laughs, there are very noticeable uses of the Futurama style 3-D rendering, and I ultimately felt like I spent my money well. If you make a drinking game out of taking a drink every time a different/new Springfield resident comes on screen you will die.

A Night at the Museum - Nice movie, good casting, should be top of the list if you've got kids and you're looking for a movie night.

The Unit - Not actually a movie, but I watched the first disc on Saturday. The first episode is what they would be showing on Lifetime if the network was actually for special forces personnel with a dash of desperate housewives on the homefront. It improved immeasurably by episode 4 - not sure if it's just me getting used to the style and characters, but I'll definitely watch another disc of it.

Twinkle Star Sprites - Also not a movie, but actually the deepest 1v1 puzzle shooting game out there. I think we played this for about 2 hours Friday. If you don't have Gametap, check it out.

Mmm.. Addictive flash game.

I'd have to say Desktop Tower Defense is a pretty quality way to burn some time.

Note that I normally loathe flash games.

GameznFlix

Cancelled my GamezNFlix subscription last night. I had one free month and one paid month from the service.

I have to say I was really dissatisfied with the service. It was 4 or 5 bucks cheaper than the other online rental places for 3 movies but it had the theoretical advantage of offering games as well. After having multiple evenings go down the drain from movies dying in the middle due to read errors I just wasn't going to take that crap anymore. Add to that the slow and unhelpful website and the 4 day turnaround time for getting new movies and they're fired. The games aspect of the service ended up as a bit of a wash because I just don't spend that much time playing games anymore. :-/

There's a reason the company's stock trades for $.0008 per share.