BrodysDad46's Blog - 2old2play

CivRev Impressions

Holy crap is this game awesome. I downloaded the demo a couple of weeks ago and played it 20-30 times, but it got more and more frustrating when the pre-set ending date of 1250AD would hit, especially as I was one move away from storming a capital city of a rival civ. Well, with the release of the retail game, that issue is resolved. However, ironically, I still feel the same, though less intense, feeling upon ending a game. I played through a game on King difficulty and won a cultural victory, but I kind of hated to win as soon as I did. I was in the process of crushing a Spanish city with my wing of Bombers and I was just a smidge away from obtaining the next economic milestone. To me, it is a really good indication of how much I enjoy this game that, after completing a 3 and a half hour game (this isn't a typical game length, but I took my time and did some civlopedia research along the way) that I won, I didn't want it to end. Today is going to be a really long day at work because I am dying to get home and start up another campaign.

If you haven't tried the demo and you own a 360 or PS3, you owe it to yourself to download it and give it a try. I had played Civ IV on the PC and didn't like it because it was too much micromanaging. CivRev scales back the micromanagement significantly. It hits the sweet spot for me because it stripped some of the more tedious aspects of the game (managing each individual worker and having to have the right types of production for certain projects), but still leaves you feeling like you are in total control of your civ. If you have a God complex, it is a dream game. I almost didn't download the demo based on my preconceived notions of the Civ series, but Bevo convinced me that I needed to give it a try. I am glad he did (even though he still likes a terrible college football team). If you are a newb to the Civ series, you need to play on the Chieftan (lowest) difficulty, as that difficulty has an adviser pop up frequently to help explain the basics of the game. Actually, even if you are a Civ vet, it is probably easier to play through a bit of a game on this setting to get a grasp on the basics of the controls with a controller. The game is very well adapted to a controller, but I prefer having a nice on-screen avatar walk me through it rather than having to read about the controls in the manual (and, of course, the demo has no manual to read).

There is still so much that I haven't tried in the game (MP, scenarios, game of the week) that this isn't a review of the game, but I can already tell that this is my favorite game since Gears and it is a very nice change of pace from CoD4.

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New Signature

Gatsu Godhand made me the amazing signature below. I know that anyone in the AoW forum or that ever goes to the Gears forum will see it a ton, but I thought I would share it with the rest of you. The panther logo is from one of the decks of the skater Natas Kaupas (the original inspiration for my gamertag), but Gatsu was able to replace "Santa Monica Airlines" in the banner with "Art of War." Once again, thank you Gatsu.

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Trip Photos

I have been meaning to post a few photos of my trip to Atlanta since I got back, but just haven't gotten around to it. Most of the pictures that I took are really only meaningful to a lifelong Braves fan, but I thought that the following can give some insight into the trip.

This picture shows the amazing seats that my wife was able to get us to the Friday night game. It was incredible. The girl bending over facing the wrong direction was our section's waitress. The Braves won this game with Chipper Jones hitting two HRs.

These are the seats that we had for Saturday's day game. When we left for Atlanta, we only had tickets for Friday's game. We ended up taking a taxi to a restaurant to get something to eat on Thursday night and the cabbie was a big-time Braves fan. Anyway, we got to talking about the Braves and my wife told him that I had never been to Atlanta before and that going to see a game was the reason for our trip. The cabbie said that he has season tickets and that he had to work Saturday and offered us his tickets since I am such a big fan. Of course, we accepted. Then the cabbie wouldn't take any money for the tickets. Amazing. These seats are great for a day game. We were out of the sun through most of the game and the air circulates very well through this portion of the stadium. It almost felt air conditioned. Anyway, Braves won again and we had a blast.

Final picture. This was the wife and I after the Sunday game. She isn't a sports fan and will likely never wear that shirt again, but she may wear the visor while doing some yardwork. LOL. I, on the other hand, will completely wear out the gear that I bought on this trip.

Only downside to any of this is that we will have to take a trip to one of the wife's places next year (it will have to have great shopping since the unexpected Saturday tickets essentially eliminated her chance to do some serious Atlanta shopping). After that, all of our family trips will be focused around the kid (who stayed with his grandparents for anyone that is wondering).

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The Trip is Finally Here

Well, the time has finally come for me to take my trip to Atlanta to see the Braves play. I am very excited, but I am hoping that we can find some things to do on Saturday that will be fun for my wife. I will see you all when I get back.

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Life is Good

I sure am happy right now. I am a week and a couple of days away from seeing the Braves play a game in Turner Field for the first time ever (see blog entry about my gift). I will have gone two months without smoking on Thursday. I used the money I have saved from not smoking and bought a PSP yesterday. I am looking forward to picking up some games and movies (since I haven't owned any Sony product in years, there are a ton of old PSP games/franchises that will be new to me) for the PSP soon (any recommendations? Patapon is a definite and I am thinking about Hot Shots Golf also). I have Dark Sector at home on a rental from Gamefly and its "Gears light" vibe is getting me ever more excited for Gears 2 (to clarify, DS can't hold a candle to Gears, but the controls are so similar that it definitely plays like a broken version of Gears). And, on that note, I get up this morning to find a ton of info about Gears 2 from the upcoming Game Informer. To anyone that is interested, most of this latest info has been posted here: http://www.2old2play.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=43709.

However, even with all of the good things in my life right now, this was the way that my head looked through most of Monday Night Gears:

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My Latest and Greatest Achievement

I generally try to keep my blog focused on gaming, but today I want to brag on myself for something that is totally unrelated to gaming: I haven't had a cigarette in over a month. There is no bad reason to quit, but I had a particularly good reason to do so: my Dad died in his 50s from COPD that he got because of his smoking. He desperately wanted me to quit smoking throughout his life, but especially after he was diagnosed with the COPD. I tried, but could never do it. I have tried to quit a million times, but I have always used some sort of product that promised to make the quit more tolerable. In fact, I tried a new one this time. Initially, I used Chantix to help me get quit. I took that medicine for 10 days into my quit before I realized that the Chantix, as a nicotine receptor blocker, didn't really do anything unless I chose to smoke. Since I was committed to quitting and since I felt that I had gotten over the worst hurdle, I decided to proceed without the Chantix crutch (not to mention that that stuff is very expensive). I also got a lot of vital information and support from a cold turkey quit website called www.whyquit.com. Anyway, by now, all of the nicotine and all of the Chantix is out of my system. I still think about smoking every day, but the thoughts are becoming fewer and farther between. I know that I have to stay focused and not let my guard down, but that all I have to do to stay an ex-smoker is to never smoke another cigarette.

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Greatest Valentine's Day Gift EVER

Leading up to the big day, my wife had mentioned that she got me a V-Day present that will actually cover our anniversary and my birthday in the process. I tried to think of more expensive items that I had mentioned wanting and the only one I could really think of was the Tritton 5.1 surround sound headsets. Those are pricey, but not really three gift-giving occasions pricey. So, I thought she might have gotten me a PS3, but I don't know if I have shared my growing interest in getting a PS 3 with her other than maybe an off-handed mention. Also, my wife tends to know better than to get me any sort of electronics as a gift without getting the exact make and model number of what I want.

So, last night, she handed me my gift. It was too small to be a PS3. It was too light to be the Trittons. So I started opening it. Couple of Reese's PB Hearts (a Valentine favorite of mine), a pair of Atlanta Braves boxers, and a little container that looked like the containers that the McDonald's apple pies come in. I opened up this container and it was full of a bunch of folded up papers. Here is what the papers said though: April 18, 2008, I will be in Atlanta with my wife, sitting directly behind home plate (18th row up) watching the Braves play the Los Angles Dodgers.

Now, this may not seem like much of a big deal to some, but we live in Amarillo, Texas, so there is a damn expensive flight and hotel involved. Plus, I have been a die-hard Braves fan since 1982, yet I have never seen them play in Atlanta. In fact, I have never been to the state of Georgia. I frequently get asked how I became a Braves fan when I am not from Georgia and my answer is always the same: I have always loved baseball, was born and raised in Oklahoma (no professional team within 300 miles), but I had cable (so could follow the Braves on TBS). To give you an idea of my devotion, check out the following pics:

My desk in the one room of the house that I get to decorate.

The guest bed is in my room. The comforter is actually a Braves comforter, but we keep it covered so the dog doesn't get hair all over it.

My gaming set up.

My wife and I went to Disneyworld for our honeymoon. That isn't unusual, but what makes it relevant here is that we scheduled our wedding so that we could see the Braves play a spring training game while we were on our honeymoon (the Braves spring training facility is in the Wide World of Sports portion of Disneyworld).

Anyway, without belaboring the point further, I could not be more happy about my Valentine's Day present. w00t.

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DMC 4 Demo

I have been an XBox guy for as long as the brand has existed. I briefly owned a PS2, but I never played any of the Devil May Cry games. So, I was pretty excited to finally get to see what all the fuss was about when the demo was released on XBL late last week. I was even more excited since DMC is a Capcom game and I absolutely loved Dead Rising.

The first thing that I noticed about the demo is that the game is very pretty. It is very Japanese in style, but the graphics are amazing for what Capcom is going for. But the gameplay seemed extremely weak to me. It felt like I was playing a beautiful version of Castlevania. The demo leaves the impression that it is just a button masher. It may get deeper as the game progresses, but, if so, the demo didn't do it any favors. I also hated the targeting system. It would auto target the enemy that was closest to me and I couldn't see any way to override this auto targeting. Most of the time, you will want to target the nearest enemy, but there are times when you want to finish one before moving on to the next to reduce the number of enemies that can attack you. I won't hold that against the game too much because there is likely some way to change the target and I didn't spend a ton of time playing around with this. However, the biggest complaint that I have with the demo is the camera. Why is it that the camera can't go through a freaking door with me? If you walk up to and through a door, the camera immediately switches to the other side of the door essentially making the controls a mirror image of what they were before you walked through the doorway. Thus, you have to change the direction that you are pressing on the L stick as soon as you go through the doorway or you will wind up walking right back through the doorway that you just walked through. That is freaking insane and very 90s for a AAA title released in 2008. I am sure that you would get used to this switching camera, but that just begs the question of should I have to. This ridiculous solution to a real camera problem on previous generations of consoles was probably the best that could be done at the time (the early Resident Evil games - also Capcom - did the same thing), but why is it still employed in 2008 with consoles that can seemlessly follow you through the doorway? I don't know if this system is included as nostalgia for the long-time DMC fans, but it was irritating to me. Another issue that I had with the camera is that it isn't adjustable during the platforming parts of the game. Having an off-center side view when trying to leap from one ledge to another makes the timing more difficult than it should be.

In the end, since DMC 4 is a single player only game, I was likely only going to rent it before I played the demo. That hasn't changed now, although the demo has convinced me to drop DMC 4 a few spots in my Gamefly Que. What did you guys think of the demo?

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The New Old Spice Challenge

I remember Tank blogging when this thing was announced and again when it started, but I am not sure if everyone here realized what it was. What it is is a competition between a group of people that can be chosen by the person that sets up the challenge (the Administrator) to see who can get the largest gamerscore increase during the duration of the challenge. Old Spice has provided a number of prizes for the winner of the challenges and they are really pretty nice prizes, especially since the only thing that you have to do to participate is to register at www.360voice.com (the challenge is only available to residents of the US though). The prizes range from a $20 Amazon/Best Buy gift card to an HD DVD add on or 12 month subscription to GameFly. By having the administrator only allow 2o2p people to compete, we can keep the rewards within our own little online community. It is really a nice deal considering that it affords an opportunity to win some cool stuff for doing nothing more than most of us would do anyway (play games). My clan has started one (it will officially kick off in the morning) and one of us is going to win 8,000 MS Points (that is $100 worth of points). Anyway, the challenges have to be completed by 3/14/08 to be eligible for the prizes.

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Brief AC Wrapup

I finished the game over the weekend. The ending was confusing to me, but I got the gist. Anyone that finishes the game should go to the AC forum on this site and read the Ending Explained thread. I sure as heck would not have taken the time to have done that much research into what everything meant, but it was a very interesting read. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't go into my thoughts, but I really enjoyed this game and am looking forward to AC2.

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Assassin's Creed Thoughts - Not Repetitive to Me

I rented Assassin's Creed from Gamefly and have been playing it quite a bit over the last week or so (I got more time with it because of the XBL outages). I wasn't eagerly anticipating this game pre-launch. While it certainly looked impressive, it was just released too close to CoD4, which I was eagerly anticipating. I read about 7-10 reviews about the game in the weeks following its launch and the one consistent theme was that the game had the ability to grab ahold of you early, but that it became very repetitive by the last half to quarter of the game. So, when I received my copy in the mail (finally - it was #1 on my Que since its launch), I went into the game with tempered expectations.

I haven't quite finished the game yet, I am about to hit the 7th assassination target of the 9 and I have really enjoyed the game so far. Part of that is due to lower expectations based on the reviews. But, the biggest part is that I anticipated that the game would become repetitive and have varied my approach to the game almost level to level and, as a result, I haven't found it any more repetitive than most other games that I play. What I mean by varying my approach is that I have accomplished assassinations by being stealthy, by fighting off all of the guards, or by simply charging in to hit the target before the guards can react. I have done most of the investigations tied to a particular assassination and I have done the minimum. The complaints about the repetitiveness of this game remind me of those same complaints being made about Crackdown. A few reviews for Crackdown complained that it was repetitive in that you could simply use the same strategy on every boss and it would work every time. This is generally true of any sandbox type game. Easy solution to this "problem" is to vary your approach, challenge yourself to accomplish the goal in a different way, and the game won't become repetitive. I also do a lot of stupid crap that I enjoy doing, even though it isn't within the concept envisioned by Ubisoft (I get a tremendous satisfaction from assassinating beggars and those jackasses that hit for you no apparent reason, but one of my favorite aspects of the game is the chases). The game's setting is absolutely gorgeous, I like that after you initially travel to each city that you can subsequently skip from Massayf directly to the desired city without having to go through the Kingdom (which would have been tedious as hell), and I LOVE the Leap of Faith.

The only real knock that I have on the game right now is that the combat is too easy. However, that has a lot to do with the fact that I won't vary my combat approach (the counter attack is SO effective), so, consistent with my analysis above, that is a knock on me as a gamer more than a knock on the game itself.

So, if you haven't played Assassin's Creed yet, you probably haven't put unreasonable expectations on the game. If you commit to varying your approach as you play, I think that you will have a lot of fun with this title.

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Gears 2

I don't blog very regularly. Generally, I blog when I am bored and have something game-related to talk about. But there are times when I have no choice but to blog. This is one of those times.

GEARS OF WAR 2 - release date: November 15, 2008

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=177789

Here is the referenced ad, straight from Amazon.com:

Gears of War 2 by Microsoft (Nov 15, 2008) (Xbox 360)
Buy new: $59.99
Available for Pre-order
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping.
ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
Video Games: See all 12 items

I realize that neither Epic nor MS have even announced that there will be a Gears 2, but we all know that there will be. I have had my doubts that Epic could put Gears 2 together in time for a holiday 2008 release, but this post certainly gets my hopes up that it may happen.

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My Public Apology to Bungie

To start out (for those that haven't read my archives), I hate Halo 3's MP. I have ripped it for many reasons, but one of the biggest is because it is really just Halo 2's MP with new maps. Granted, Bungie added tons of bells and whistles to the MP portion of the game, but none of this affected the actual MP gameplay (ex., theater, customs). There are few new weapons. The only in-game customization is based entirely on what armor you can wear and is purely asthetic. There are a number of new maps, but that is about the only thing that is significantly new in the MP game. Considering the lack of innovations in gameplay and that I didn't like Halo 2's MP, it really isn't a shock that I don't enjoy H3's MP. However, I also realize that there are a TON of people out there that absolutely loved Halo 2's MP. After thinking this through more thoroughly and applying the logic to my personal all-time favorite game, I think that Bungie should be applauded for its decision to stay true to its MP formula rather than criticized for doing so.

Earlier, I was reading Gatsu's blog in which he asked what is your concept of the ideal game that hasn't been made yet. I left him a comment about how, for me, that game will be Gears of War 2. Since then, I have been thinking about his question a lot, especially in terms of GoW's MP. Even though I will be the first to acknowledge a couple of minor glitches, I can't conceive of a MP game that I could like more than the MP in GoW. I love the dodgeball-like race to the more powerful weapons that are generally housed in the middle of the maps and the absolute killing fields that they create. I love the viseral feel of the game. I love that you can't respawn during the game, thus providing a major disincentive to the "fools rush in" tactics that are used in a lot of other games with the same sort of race to the weapon style. So, it finally dawned on me that I don't want there to be any major changes to the MP in GoW 2. Boatloads of new maps, a kill cam option, allowing MP achievements to be earned in player matches rather than only through ranked matches (like the DLC did), maybe one or two new weapons to take the place of the couple that are rarely ever used (ex., hammerburst), and fixes for some of the more glaring glitches (ex., being able to go off the map on Bullet Marsh) are about all I want to see in GoW 2's MP. Trying to innovate with a proven formula in entertainment media generally leads to alienation of the fan base without attracting a lot of new fans that weren't fans before.

So, after finally putting this all together in my mind and applying it to "my" game, I would like to publicly apologize to Bungie for my disparaging "Halo 2.5" comments. I should have been heaping praises on Halo 3's MP precisely because it is "Halo 2.5." I beg Epic to take a long hard look at what Bungie DIDN'T do when it comes time to work on GoW 2's MP.

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I may be converted

I was thinking about my figurative GOY vote again today and I think that right now I would throw my vote to CoD4. I previously posted that I was leaning toward BioShock as my choice, but, as amazing as that game is, its lack of MP hurts it in a comparison with a game that has an amazing MP, like CoD4. My GOY from last year was GoW (and would be again if I could do so) and one of the main reasons was because I was (and still am) playing it long after its release. Replayability should definitely factor into GOY. I played through BioShock and quickly traded it in while I could still maximize its value. I won't be trading in CoD4 because I can see myself still playing this a year from now. While I would give the nod to BioShock if I were comparing only the SP portions of the games, it isn't like CoD4's SP was lame. It is short, but it is truly amazing graphically and it plays relatively bug-free. A lot of critics have said that it can't win because the campaign is so short, but the campaign on vet difficulty is going to wind up taking more time for me to complete than BioShock did. So, right now, I have decided that CoD4 has supplanted BioShock as GOY in my mind.

However, I have to qualify my vote by noting that I haven't played Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect yet. Gamefly has sent me Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed is at the top of my Que. However, since neither of these games has MP, they will have to be so amazing and so likely to hold my interest for an extended period that I will feel compelled to click the "Keep It" tab before I could seriously consider either.

Has CoD4 caused any of you to rethink your GOY votes?

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Guitar Hero - I don't get it

Prior to the release of GH III, I had never played any of the Guitar Hero games. I was always curious whether this would be something that I would enjoy, but I wasn't real sure. I knew that the people that liked these games swore by them. I inquired of a few clanmates regarding whether I would enjoy this title enough to drop $100 on it since I am not really into music, have little to no rhythm, and, due to my lack of rhythm, generally don't like rhythm games. Overwhelmingly, the answer was that these games are tremendously fun, that GH will make me like rhythm based games, and that I will not regret the purchase. So, I ran out and bought a copy with the cool Les Paul guitar on release day. I rushed home and played for a couple of hours. I can't say that I had a lot of fun playing the game, but it did give me a bit of vertigo. After playing for a couple of hours, anything that I looked at would move slightly downward in my vision (like the notes move down the fretboard in the game). I don't get motion sick playing video games, but this game did disorient me for a while. Regardless, I decided to give it another try the next day and was able to get through the campaign on easy. However, I again had that movement in my vision when I quit playing and, again, I didn't really enjoy it. It just seemed like a lot of work without any real payoff (not that other games that I play give me a lot of "payoff," but they are actually fun to play). I really couldn't get the motivation to play again for about a week, but I didn't want to have to admit that I just threw $100 down the tubes. When I did play again, I tried to bump up to medium, thinking that it may be more fun if more difficult. I quickly realized that I was going to have to practice to be able to play any of the songs on medium. It absolutely sucked to have a game repeatedly tell me that I suck so badly that it won't even let me play anymore. That was the last time that I played this game. I do not want to have to practice to play a game. WTF? I play games to have fun.

Well, I guess some things work out by not working out. Today, a co-worker of mine asked if I knew where he could find a copy of GHIII with the guitar because he wanted to get that for his son for Christmas but couldn't find it. I quickly told him that I can get him a very slightly used one for a discount price.

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