Btw, last.fm on XBox Live ROCKS!

If you're a gold member and haven't downloaded the last.fm app you're totally missing out. I'm writing this with last.fm going in the background and it's amazing! So, what are you waiting for? Go get it already! You'll be hitting kicking youself in the ass yelling why you didn't do it earlier~!

Halo ODST

Oh, Halo, how the mighty have fallen...

Halo O.D.S.T. might have had a nice live action ad on the television but it's at best a "Meh" in my book. I mean, making me run back and forth in the same map as different characters just so I can unlock the next part of some "I've heard it before" storyline? Not cool. Not cool at all.

The fighting is the same ol'Halo we've all grown to love and maybe that's the problem. We're in the "Modern Warfare" era now and being unable to run just seems so odd to me. And I kept holding down the left trigger to look down the sight making myself loose grenades for no reason. Then there's the whole "Brutes fire then sidestep" A.I. which makes fighting pretty predictable to the point of being, well..., boring.

I guess there were some "improvements", like the combat view or whatever it's called. The thing about this view is that it makes everything look like its cartoon shaded with lines all around it and I don't necessarily want to see the Halo world in this way. If I wanted to play a cartoon shaded game then I'll go find a cartoon shaded game. Then there's the fact that the combat view is basically useless during "daytime" making everything blow out. So you get used to being able to see the enemy outlined, then all of a sudden you can't. Why? Because some asshole game designer said so. Oh, yeah, I'll definitely mention more about asshole game designers in the future. My theory is there is always at least one asshole game designer at each game company who thinks their mission is to torment the player because they have nothing else that gives their life meaning otherwise. I'll definitely be pointing these out in future reviews.

Anyway, I normally stop playing a game because games make me mad but in the case of Halo O.D.S.T., I just got bored of it and, at the end of one of the story segments, I just put it down and didn't feel the need to pick it up again. And since I didn't pick it up again and is about to return it to Gamefly, I won't even get to try the multiplayer. This to me is indeed very sad since I stayed up all night to play Halo 2, and used to own 2 Xboxes and six controller just so I can have an extra machine to play Halo on when my friends and I used to get together for LAN parties. Sorry, Bungie. It's not quite a "Oh, hell no!" but a no it is. Ahhh, how times have changed...

Wolfenstein

As you may have read in the previous post about why I started this blog, Wolfenstein... has problems.

First off, it's very muddy. Yes, muddy like it looks muddy, there is very little contrast in the lighting. Everything is like a shade of brown, some reddish, some yelloish, all ugly. It all looks the same. In a word, boring.

And the game handles very sluggishly. Now, I've shot my share of MP40s in videogames and I gotta tell ya, this was the slowest most sluggish MP40s I've ever shot. The Kar98s were down right unusable. Perhaps it's more "realistic" that way but really? I'm going to be shooting supernatural Nazi zombies or whatever and you're worried about making the gun more realistic? I'm sorry but not on my time.

And the enemy AI is dumb as F***. The same goes for friendly AI too. Oh, yeah, let me just charge right up in to enemy fire and die on you. The friendly AI which was supposed to "lead" me to the truck to get to the next level died half way there. Now, that's story telling there for ya. Realistic~. Again, sorry, not on my time.

Then the game expects you to sneak around and take guys out quietly. So I crouch and sneak up on a guy and press melee. What does B.J. Blazkowicz do? In stead of taking the Nazi out all cool Splinter Cell style, he pistol whips the Nazi on the butt and kills him. REALLY? ON THE BUTT? Sorry, again, not on my time.

This is all on top of grenades that bounce around like they're made of rubber and the constant swaying from left to right because, again, it's more "realistic" for your view to sway left and right like that. After all, you do that when you run for real. Really? You wanna know what's real? The lunch I just barfed up on my carpet because of your "real" sway is real, not the arbitrary way you're making your view sway left and right.

So, yeah. Literally thirty minutes was long enough for me. "Wolfenstein" gets a definite "Oh, hell no!" from me. Try at your own risk.

Why start reviewing videogames?

I was just playing the latest, as of the end of 2009, "Wolfenstein". I take it that it is a game running on one's ID's engines, Doom 3 perhaps?, and just couldn't help myself but compare it to another game running on one of ID's engines, "Modern Warfare 2". Now, I own "Modern Warfare 2", and after playing through maybe 30 minutes of "Wolfenstein", I couldn't help myself but see why I own "Modern Warfare 2" but rented "Wolfenstein" from Gamefly, a service I much adore and after, especially after a game like "Wolfenstein", is much thankful for.

Then it occurred to me, there are games I play straight through the night and there are games I play for thirty minutes. Why? Because the games that I only play for thirty minutes makes me mad and more stressed out where as games I play straight through the night relieves my stress even after I lost out on a night of sleep. This fact is very important for me because playing games, in my opinion, should be about relieving stress, not causing more. And that's why Gamefly is so great. Let me explain.

Gamefly is great because it lets me weed out the chaff from the wheat of videogames letting me only reward those game developers who crafted wonderful gaming experiences which relieves my stress by then paying full price to buy their games which I always do while leaving those who obviously wasted my time by making a game which only added to my stress with what ever tiny fee Gamefly pays them. Hey, I personally don't think they don't even deserve that but a deal is a deal, right?

So, go get Gamefly. And while you're at it, let me help you out while helping myself by venting. Let me share what games relieved my stress and what games added to it so you'll have one more thing between you and your wallet being emptied of your hard earned money and you left more stressed then you were before you played some game.

Enjoy! I know I will, some of the time. :p