samutzCom

So I’m going to write a bit about games.

So today I packed up my Wii and PS2 in to their original boxes, not because I’m moving, not because I’m shipping them, and not because I’m selling them, but because I just don’t play them anymore.

While I still like the PS2, and still have a ton of PS2 ISOs I could be playing, I don’t have anything that makes me say “ooo, I need to play that” and instead have been playing old and new games for the 360. Plus I’ve been reluctant to do any DVD burning if I don’t have to. I love how many games now and days can be installed and played without the need to swap out discs constantly, with the exception of the 360, but even then there’s great XBL Arcade games to be downloaded. Maybe if there was some solution that allowed me to play my PS2 games directly from a harddrive without having to burn every single game to a disc, then I would be willing to play the PS2 more (HDLoader doesn’t work on a PS2 Slim).

The Wii on the other hand has just lost it’s charm. I’ve stuck by Nintendo because I love the classic series(-es?) such as Zelda, Mario, and Metroid. But so far there’s been 2 good Mario games (Galaxy and Kart), no new Zelda (TP doesn’t count, I already beat it twice on GC), one decent Metroid game (I didn’t like it much), and one Super Smash Bros that I didn’t find much better than the GC prequel. I have tried 3rd party hits, such as No More Heroes and Mad World, but still ended up not liking them as much as every one else, partly because of the stupid gimmicky controls. There’s just too much focus on family-oriented games now.

So as a friend suggested, I packed them away so they’d stop collecting dust.

I hadn’t played my DS much either until Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars was released. It’s by far the best handheld GTA. While it’s not totally 3D in the the way the console games are, it does finally ditch the fixed top-down view camera from GTA 1, 2, and Advance in favor of an isometric-like camera that rotates 360 degrees. This alone makes the game infinitely better than 1, 2, and Advance.

I gave Fallout 3 another shot last month. The first time I tried to play it (when it was barely released and recieving perfect reviews that made me want it) I botched my character stats and ended up not understanding what I should be putting my points in to. So by the time I decided to give it another try, there had been many character builds written up. I finished the game (and all side-quests) as a good-karma, stealthy, unnamed character. Now I’m playing again a little at time as a bad-karma, stealthy sniper, which is proving to be more difficult as I have to keep ammo stocked and rely on VATS quite a bit. As the unarmed character I only had to sneak up on an enemy and punch them (usually only once) without using VATS to kill them.

I bought Saint’s Row 2 for PC via Steam, but it’s extremely buggy. Like while driving, if the game hadn’t finished laod the area ahead that I was driving to, my car would stop and the game wouldn’t let me do anything until the area finished loading, all while anything chasing me (cops, enemies, etc) could still ram my car (though it didn’t move) and shoot at me. I liked it enough though to buy it for the 360 instead after learning that the 360 version didn’t suffer the same bugs. I finished it and loved it. So I bough Saint’s Row, however, I’m finding that I don’t like it as much as I thought it would. It’s obviously a downgrade from SR2, but at this point I’m only playing it for the story. I just don’t understand how the reviews for SR1 I read scored better than the reviews for SR2.

Playing SR1, SR2, and GTA CW got me thinking about GTA IV and so I start a new game on it today and am enjoying as much as I did the first time I played it.

I started playing Guitar Hero World Tour again. Just as the first time I tried it, I find that I get sick of it after a few songs and just have a craving to play Rock Band 2. Also, my best guitar’s blue fret button has stopped working. That’s the 3rd guitar now. It’s gotta be some kind of fucking scam. If you try to get Red Octane to repair it, they want you to pay to ship it to them. It’s cheaper to by a new guitar.

After the guitar pissed me off, I decided to try singing in GHWT. I enjoyed it in RB2, so I figured it should be the same in GHWT. Also my friends (a family) has GHWT for the Wii, however on their SDTV, it’s impossible to read the lyrics. I wanted to see if this was the same on my SDTV, but with the 360 version. Mine seems to have a different, easy-to-read font. However, the mic is way too sensitive and made me fail too much. I couldn’t find any options to change the sensitivity like in RB2, then got pissed off and decided to sing in RB2 instead. I did a set of 20 songs and was out of breath by the time I was done. I love to sing, just not in front of anyone.

Like with Fallout 3, I’ve been playing a 2nd character in Fable II a little at a time. I’ve got the Knothole Island DLC, and the shop there that has you trade rare items for new rare items keeps taking up my time. But I still can’t find the stuff I need to get Hal’s Rifle (the Halo 3 gun). So I get tired of going from shop to shop looking for the stuff I need and then give up and quit playing.

I’m downloading the Call of Duty 4 demo for PC. I rented the 360 version and didn’t like it. But lately I’ve been wanting to play a good shooter for the PC so I decided to give it one more chance.

I got rid of 10 games. Sold 6 of them to a friend. Traded in the 4 remaining to Amazon. Looking at what I have left, I need to go back and try some of the again. Bully (had stupid glitch that kept me from getting new missions, have to start over), Lost Odyssey (got stuck on a boss, been so long that I forgot story anyway), Lego Batman (got tired of it after finishing good-guy stories, it’s been long enough now), Marvel Ultimate Alliance (uh… I liked it, just never finished it for some reason).

As for what I got rid of: Halo 3 (only got it to play with friends, and we only did once or twice), Forza Motorsport 2 (don’t like racing games much, it came with 360), Gears of War (overrated mediocrity), Mirror’s Edge (frustrated the hell out of me), Rock Band (have RB2 with all the RB1 songs imported, RB1 disc is useless to me), Soul Calibur IV (got sick of it), Dead Rising (controls and tiny text pissed me off), Lego Star Wars (I beat it to 100% on PS2 then again on 360 (1000GS), I never want to see it again), The Orange Box (much better on PC, only got it on 360 to help me get used to 360 shooter controls), Beautiful Katamari (got stuck, not as good as PS2 predecessors).

Ah now that I’ve spent a good hour or so writing all this crap, I actually feel sleepy.