My week in review

My week has been pretty eventful. The majority of it was spent playing Spartan: Total Warrior - a game I recently received in the mail. I'll be reviewing it in a day or so.


If you didn't already notice, I achieved my first Onyxia kill on Friday. It's something I'm very proud of. The battle seemed very basic overall due to Onyxia's limited AI. Don't get me wrong, the battle was still challenging - she hits very hard. You try playing as a priest and keeping your group healed along with the main tank. =D

The battle did remind me of fighting the dragon boss from Phantasy Star Online. In either case, it was damn cool. I can't wait to go to Onyxia's Lair again.

While I was out shopping earlier this week, I got the chance to try out the Black demo from EA. Hmm... I suppose I should choose my words carefully from here on. Let's put it this way. Based on what I played, Black seems like an average FPS. The only differences I saw were an AI system that is seemingly loosely based on AI found in Halo and that hiding behind objects is now out of the question as bullets now destroy windows, walls, cars, barrels, etc. Of course, while I did find it neat that games like Black now have more realistic bullets and physics, I should point out that Black seemingly does not do anything else to push the envelope of the FPS gameplay style to make them interesting again. We'll have to wait to see if Black offers anything more than just faster paced gameplay. I personally wouldn't hold my breath - but then again I'm not a big fan of FPS games.

I'd also like to point out to everyone that it was proven that shooting cars won't cause them to explode (as proven by the Mythbusters). I'm sure this is true for barrels as well.

Back to Black for a moment, I'd like to point out that while playing I found myself struggling with the PS2's controls to keep up with where I wanted to move and aim. It could be that the movement speed just needs adjusting or the controls are not yet tuned to perfection yet. Of course, those are developer's reasons (if they were to respond to my comments). The real reason is that the controller just doesn't feel right for the FPS genre. I'm sure there are some that will disagree with me, but those people are Halo fans and thus their stupid opinions don't count. Console FPS games should give the user the option to use a mouse and keyboard - the only way to play a FPS (unless the Nintendo Revolution can do better).

I also found it awkward to have the crouch button placed on the L2 button. In my opinion it should be placed on one of the face buttons where it can be accessed easier. Customizable controls will fix that problem.

Also, at the same store where I played the Black demo a customer was chatting with the salesclerk about the Xbox 360. Naturally, I listened in on their conversation for a while. Basically, the customer was non stop praising the Xbox 360. He even boasted that once the Xbox 360s are more available, he'll buy a new one and sell his old one so that he'll have a system that doesn't have any hardware problems. He never really mentioned how great the games for the Xbox 360 are - he only mentioned the graphics. Beautiful graphics. Is that all the system has to offer? He didn't mention any game titles. The closest he came to mentioning a game was when he said "that football game." In any case, this type of "gamer" pisses me off the most. Games shouldn't be played for their visual appeal. To me, gameplay rules above all.

I also found it funny that he's going to buy Burnout Revenge for the Xbox 360 even though he has it already for the Xbox. Not that I think he played it all that much though - he said that there's only one track in Burnout Revenge and commented that Burnout 3 had a lot more tracks. But whatever, I just think that if you're going to praise a game you should at least play more than the basic unlocked levels.


Moving off the subject of video games, I'd like to complain about DVDs. More specifically, DVD releases from anime publishers. I once complained about how many different DVD releases Neon Genesis Evangelion was getting. There was first the standard edition (8 discs), then the compilation package (all 8 in one package), then the director's cut DVDs, then the platinum edition (7 discs), and finally the platinum compilation package. There might be a remastered eidtion in there somewhere... I don't remember though. I thought it couldn't get worse than this. I was wrong. The Robotech series is now the king of re-releases. It first had the standard releases, roughly 4 episodes per disc (85 episodes total, Robotech audio tracks only). Then three compilation packages, one package for each "generation" in the Robotech series. Then came the Macross/Southern Cross/Mospeada editions that have both the Robotech audio track and the original Japanese audio tracks. Then came the Remastered editions, followed by the Protoculture Collection package (Robotech audio tracks only). And now finally, the most recent release with the original Japanese audio track and a new English track.

I don't care much for the new English audio track - it just doesn't sound right since I'm so used to the Robotech audio track. What I'm most pissed off about is why they have to release so many god damn versions of Robotech. I can understand the reason for the Macross releases - Robotech is basically a huge cut and paste of the Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada shows. I don't know about the rest of you, but it pisses me off to buy a series on DVD only to find out that the studios are going to release a (usually) better version of the same series you just bought. Maybe it's just me...

(If you're curious, I own the non compilation Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum Edition DVDs and the Robotech Protoculture Collection. I'm really interested in seeing the original Macross story though - I hear it's quite different from the Robotech story.)