scratch Master 360

My 360 has decided it does not like discs. It demonstrates this by scratching the hell out of them. It chewed through COD4 and Mass Effect. I was able to buff COD4 back to life, but it was too late for Mass Effect. Fortunately it was still covered under the 30 day warranty at Futureshop and I was able to do a disc exchange. So now I am out a 360 until it gets repaired. Well I can play all the XBLA games I want or download some Xbox Classics, but I am not putting anything in the DVD tray. This will be 360 number two since 2005. I guess I should consider myself lucky this one lasted as long as it did.

Posted by Aonon @ 2:00 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Mountains and Courts

What am I doing today? Firstly I am going to go to court and be a witness in an assault case. Actually I am the victim also. I was attacked at a train station in Calgary about seven months ago. Two guys jumped me, there was no provocation. I wasn’t hurt to badly, seven stitches and a nasty bruise on my leg. I gave as good as I got though. The police caught the guys shortly after the attack. Partly due the trail of blood they left as they fled the scene. So it’s off to court for me. I have no idea what to expect. The good thing about today is I have a day off, and after the court appearance Jennifer and I are off to the mountains to spend two days relaxing at a hotel. Her company puts on a Christmas party there, all expenses paid. It should be a delightful -25c/-13f up there tonight. I had better bring my gloves.

Posted by Aonon @ 9:32 am EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

FPS burnout.

Finished Halo 3 and COD4, by finished I mean got through the solo campaigns. I am not too concerned about achievements or online ranks. Both took about a week of regular playing on there hardest difficulties. I miss games that took longer than a week to finish. Are games getting easier? shorter? or both? After 20years of gaming can I safely say I have seen it all?

Next week Mass Effect comes out. This makes me very happy. Last night after playing a little COD4 and feeling like I had seen it all, and looking at all my games and wondering why I am not excited about games right now*. I remembered that Mass Effect is less than a week away. That brought a smile to my face.  I need a game with some depth.

 

* Please note that me not being excited about games is like an axe murderer not being excited about a car full of co-eds lost on a lonely country road.

Posted by Aonon @ 11:46 am EDT | Permalink | 5 Comments

COD4 is not Halo3..?

 So I picked up COD4 last night and played it a fair amount. Enough to get the gist of it and it is a great game, but I am sad to report it is just not Halo3. For starters Halo3 is set in space. It is an epic battle between a cyborg space marine dude with armour, and shields and futuristic weapons. COD4 you are a spec ops dude fighting in a somewhat realistic conflict right out of next years headlines. You have basic guns and some Kevlar body armour, but that’s it. Halo3 is a game that uses a bright colourful palate; COD4 uses a darker muddier one with lots of greens and browns. Halo3 you fight funky space aliens called the Covenant. In COD4 you are fighting the boogiemen du jour; Arabs and Russians. Hey Ivan long time, no see. Ok so they are both FPS’s and they both have fun, albeit short single player modes. But they make up for that with deep multiplayer modes. I guess you could say that COD4 is striving for realism and Halo3 isn’t.  I guess you could say that they are different games with different styles of stories to tell and different features to set themselves apart.

You know actually, COD4 is a great game, but it is not Halo3. Halo3 is a different game. Its funny but I see so many people comparing Halo3 and COD4. I thought somehow they were related beyond being FPS’s, video games, and that they came out this year. But wow, so different.

What am I trying to say here, who the hell knows? I suppose I wish there was some sort of magical criteria upon which all discussion about games could be based on, without having to sit through the inevitable comparisons between this weeks and last weeks in thing. Is it possible to judge a game on its own merits? Do we do a game justice by judging it against another game? Is that other game qualified to be the barometer upon which we judge other games? Is there a game out there that is the quintessential single player or multiplayer experience? I am speaking here outside of personal opinion. Of course we have our own personal likes and dislikes. But is it possible to judge or critique a game solely on its own merits.

 

Posted by Aonon @ 12:30 pm EDT | Permalink | 5 Comments

Wants and Needs

  Maybe I am getting fickle in my old age. It’s hard to sort through what you want and what you need sometimes. In my head is a list of my needs game wise. And a list of my wants game wise. Right now what I want is a good (read Great) RPG. Thanks Mass Effect, you will most certainly fit the bill. But somewhere below that is this constant fight between Assassins Creed and COD4. Maybe I will wait until tomorrow and see what happens. Right now though there is a song in my head I just can’t get rid of.

Posted by Aonon @ 12:38 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments