Monday, April 18, 2005
I should be coding
Really, I should. My coding mojo is temporarily incapacitated, however, likely due to the massive hit of enchilada I had for lunch. Until it recovers, I'll talk about videogames, or rather one of them. I tried playing God of War this weekend, and for the first 20 minutes or so, it kicked so many different types of asses.
The first level alone blew me away. You start on a rickety, rather broken boat in the middle of a rainstorm, and it looks just terrific. Rain effects, water pooling on the deck, the smash and swell of the waves; all just unbelievable. Also, the game starts out and only treats you like a minimal simpleton. No tutorial levels here, only a quick heads-up on what each button does as you might use it. Everything else is up to you, which I find refreshing.
Then you meet the hydra head, and the game turns you on your ear and does a Clive-Owen-in-Sin-City-esque "Don't piss me off, or I'll mess you up." The first mini-boss--not a full boss, but a challenge only slightly higher than your average baddie--is cool enough to be almost a final boss of a level of another game. You face off with the hydra head in the interior of the boat, and it is SO COOL. The hydra has scales, looking all slick and black-green, and thrashes about all monster-like. Then you start beating the hell out of it and are introduced to just how kickass your character is. Within a minute or two of laying the smackdown, you start the mini-game and proceed to stick your rope-hook-blade things that you have into it's cheek and smash it back and forth into the walls of the corridor. When this happened I think I just sat back in my chair and exhaled in appreciation of how amazing the thing I just did was.
That's the mini-boss, mind you. The final boss of the first level was cool enough to be the boss of a game in it's own right: a multi-stage, long battle against THREE of these hydra heads, the end of which results in you shish-kabobbing the thing on the mast of the ship you're fighting on. Like I said, the first level of this game blew me right away, although when they say it's not for kiddies, they definitely mean it. The guy you play is badass, alright, but he's more than a little bit of an asshole.
I am so buying this title this weekend, since the rental didn't take and I must play more. When I say the rental didn't take, I speak of an increasingly-common occurance with my PS2. It's old, probably first generation, and I purchased it second-hand from the brother of a friend, and I'm pretty sure he bought it second-hand. So we're talking three, maybe four steps away from "new", and probably many years old as well, and it shows. I have to cross my fingers to get through a cutscene now, in the hopes that it doesn't lock up and die a stuttering, skipping death, getting hung up on a nigh-invisible flaw in the pristine surface of the disc. When I was playing Katamari Damacy, I had to cross my fingers on nearly EVERY LEVEL, or the audio would bork itself and I wouldn't be able to play anymore. On a new copy of the game, no less! Fortunately, KD is the exception to the rule. Most rental game skippages can be chalked up to minor nicks and scratches on the surface of the disc, and new games tend not to have those and play fine for the most part.
It's enough to anger me somewhat, and alas, I am left with but a few options. Ok, one, really, which is to buy a new PS2. My warranty being non-existent, I could possibly take it to a PS2 chop-shop and see if it could be fixed on the sly, but I have my doubts about that. Besides, it would probably cost almost as much as a new Ps2 anyways, the new slim representative of which is darn attractive. I would love to get me one of those DVD-case sized suckers, but I just bought my PSP and I just can't justify the purcase of a console I already own after getting Becca. Even with my money having no meaning to me, the number of dollar-bucks that would pass through my hands is enough to make me say "whoa there." Any suggestions on how to fix my game machine would be appreciated, but anything more than "shaking" or "percussive maintenance" is probably out of my reach in terms of electronics repair skills. Feel free though.
So. New mission: get new copy of God of War. Play game. Talk about how great it is. Also, not to forget why I avoid renting anything on an optical media.*
Sounds good to me.
--------------------------
* Why can't they make a rent-save DVD format? Why? Why can't it be like VHS? VHS was an amazing rental media. Perfectly suited to distribution for the masses! See, with CDs, I have less of a problem, since a) I usually use my computer to read them, and my PC is usually good enough to see past all the scratches and such to get to the rippable music, and then there's no more problem (apart from HD failure, but that's another story) and b) they aren't the basis for a big industry involving lending them out to lots and lots of people. DVDs are for movies though, and get rented often to people who could care less about how said DVD gets treated. The way I see it, DVDs are intended for owning, like CDs, and I think it's a shame that the market just surged forward to adopt them as standard fare. I see VHS tapes as being far more suitable to renting--they're built like tanks, or IBM monitors. You have to try to hurt a VHS tape; casual mistreatment won't do it alone. (They're kind of like vampires that way.) DVDs are the opposite, in that you need to make the effort to make sure they stay in good shape. I... I... I think I've kind of lost the punch of my argument. The written equivalent to just going on a tirade and now I'm stopping for breath. At any rate, I have my own solution to this: I just buy my DVDs rather than rent them. Costly, but it works. Also, it's less dorky than DVD caddies, which would have been my other solution. ¶ 1:27 p.m.
Really, I should. My coding mojo is temporarily incapacitated, however, likely due to the massive hit of enchilada I had for lunch. Until it recovers, I'll talk about videogames, or rather one of them. I tried playing God of War this weekend, and for the first 20 minutes or so, it kicked so many different types of asses.
The first level alone blew me away. You start on a rickety, rather broken boat in the middle of a rainstorm, and it looks just terrific. Rain effects, water pooling on the deck, the smash and swell of the waves; all just unbelievable. Also, the game starts out and only treats you like a minimal simpleton. No tutorial levels here, only a quick heads-up on what each button does as you might use it. Everything else is up to you, which I find refreshing.
Then you meet the hydra head, and the game turns you on your ear and does a Clive-Owen-in-Sin-City-esque "Don't piss me off, or I'll mess you up." The first mini-boss--not a full boss, but a challenge only slightly higher than your average baddie--is cool enough to be almost a final boss of a level of another game. You face off with the hydra head in the interior of the boat, and it is SO COOL. The hydra has scales, looking all slick and black-green, and thrashes about all monster-like. Then you start beating the hell out of it and are introduced to just how kickass your character is. Within a minute or two of laying the smackdown, you start the mini-game and proceed to stick your rope-hook-blade things that you have into it's cheek and smash it back and forth into the walls of the corridor. When this happened I think I just sat back in my chair and exhaled in appreciation of how amazing the thing I just did was.
That's the mini-boss, mind you. The final boss of the first level was cool enough to be the boss of a game in it's own right: a multi-stage, long battle against THREE of these hydra heads, the end of which results in you shish-kabobbing the thing on the mast of the ship you're fighting on. Like I said, the first level of this game blew me right away, although when they say it's not for kiddies, they definitely mean it. The guy you play is badass, alright, but he's more than a little bit of an asshole.
I am so buying this title this weekend, since the rental didn't take and I must play more. When I say the rental didn't take, I speak of an increasingly-common occurance with my PS2. It's old, probably first generation, and I purchased it second-hand from the brother of a friend, and I'm pretty sure he bought it second-hand. So we're talking three, maybe four steps away from "new", and probably many years old as well, and it shows. I have to cross my fingers to get through a cutscene now, in the hopes that it doesn't lock up and die a stuttering, skipping death, getting hung up on a nigh-invisible flaw in the pristine surface of the disc. When I was playing Katamari Damacy, I had to cross my fingers on nearly EVERY LEVEL, or the audio would bork itself and I wouldn't be able to play anymore. On a new copy of the game, no less! Fortunately, KD is the exception to the rule. Most rental game skippages can be chalked up to minor nicks and scratches on the surface of the disc, and new games tend not to have those and play fine for the most part.
It's enough to anger me somewhat, and alas, I am left with but a few options. Ok, one, really, which is to buy a new PS2. My warranty being non-existent, I could possibly take it to a PS2 chop-shop and see if it could be fixed on the sly, but I have my doubts about that. Besides, it would probably cost almost as much as a new Ps2 anyways, the new slim representative of which is darn attractive. I would love to get me one of those DVD-case sized suckers, but I just bought my PSP and I just can't justify the purcase of a console I already own after getting Becca. Even with my money having no meaning to me, the number of dollar-bucks that would pass through my hands is enough to make me say "whoa there." Any suggestions on how to fix my game machine would be appreciated, but anything more than "shaking" or "percussive maintenance" is probably out of my reach in terms of electronics repair skills. Feel free though.
So. New mission: get new copy of God of War. Play game. Talk about how great it is. Also, not to forget why I avoid renting anything on an optical media.*
Sounds good to me.
--------------------------
* Why can't they make a rent-save DVD format? Why? Why can't it be like VHS? VHS was an amazing rental media. Perfectly suited to distribution for the masses! See, with CDs, I have less of a problem, since a) I usually use my computer to read them, and my PC is usually good enough to see past all the scratches and such to get to the rippable music, and then there's no more problem (apart from HD failure, but that's another story) and b) they aren't the basis for a big industry involving lending them out to lots and lots of people. DVDs are for movies though, and get rented often to people who could care less about how said DVD gets treated. The way I see it, DVDs are intended for owning, like CDs, and I think it's a shame that the market just surged forward to adopt them as standard fare. I see VHS tapes as being far more suitable to renting--they're built like tanks, or IBM monitors. You have to try to hurt a VHS tape; casual mistreatment won't do it alone. (They're kind of like vampires that way.) DVDs are the opposite, in that you need to make the effort to make sure they stay in good shape. I... I... I think I've kind of lost the punch of my argument. The written equivalent to just going on a tirade and now I'm stopping for breath. At any rate, I have my own solution to this: I just buy my DVDs rather than rent them. Costly, but it works. Also, it's less dorky than DVD caddies, which would have been my other solution. ¶ 1:27 p.m.
