Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer, home of hostility

Last night, I took advantage of the free Gold access weekend for Xbox LIVE and played a single deathmatch round of Grand Theft Auto IV. It was a pretty terrible experience. Let me break it down for you.

First, I had to use the Internet to figure out how to start a multiplayer game. Evidently it’s via Niko’s cell phone. Makes sense now, but at the time I was just kind of boggled and running around his stupid apartment, dry-humping the fridge in hopes that it would take me where I needed to go. Kind of wish GTA IV had, um, a main menu screen or something.

Second, I decided to see what it was like to use the headset and chat with fellow gamers. Er, big mistake. While waiting for a game to load and get enough players, I listened to what might have been a beached whale moaning out in displeasure. Then someone kept calling someone else a Nazi. Lastly, this little kid just kept screaming, “COME ON! START! STAAAAAAAAAAAART! STARRRRRRRTF*CKERS I WANNA GO!”

Yeah, I remained silent the whole.

Third, the deathmatch itself. I had no idea what to expect…only to shoot other players as much as possible, die, respawn, and try again. And that’s mostly what I did. For 10 straight minutes. Sometimes I’d just die, respawn, die, respawn, die. Every now and then I’d get lucky and take someone out. I guess the goal was to kill as many enemy players and collect as much cash as possible. I didn’t win after 10 minutes, but I unlocked two Achievements and immediately turned the game off.

It was a very…empty experience. The level we were on was an airport (which I don’t think I’ve come across yet in the single-player mode), and you could run behind planes or hide behind boxes or desperately try and survive out on the open-as-all-gets runway. Listening to other players as they made unhuman noises and called them nasty words only made the deathmatch more not-fun. There seemed to be little skill involved the whole time; a lot factored on where and when you respawned, which ultimately would determine if you did or did not get the jump on other players. So you run around, you shoot things, you listen to people moan, and you do it all over again. Um…meh.

Don’t think I’ll try any of the team or racing multiplayer games after this, too. But I guess I’m in the rare here because there were a lot of gamers on last night, all ready to pew pew pew me in the head. To each their own, I suppose.

Rescue the Princess from the demons and die a lot

There’s a new review up over at The First Hour for Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, a game that still causes me to wake up in the dead of morning, sweating, certainly unsure of my safety, curious as to where my suit of armor went to. Anyways, newly minted First Hour writer Ian M. Bagley stabs and dagger-throws his way through as much as he can in sixty minutes, and it’s really no surprise that he was unable to beat the first level in said time.

I’ve only ever played the first level of Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Supposedly there’s eight levels total, but if you ask me, there’s one level to this game, and it is the first level you play. Even if you master this level, you will never really play another one. You might glimpse the next one, sure, maybe even make it a few feet inwards…but you will know only the haunted grasslands, the ever-so-cruel tidal waves, the never-ending march of zombies.

And Sir Arthur in his underwear. Be prepared to seem him in the near-nude as much as possible.

So, if the difficulty is so off-putting and frustrating, why would anyone play this? Well, to start, I’d like to believe that all videogamers inherently love a challenge. We don’t just want to tap A and win the prize. Now whether this challenge can be conquered or not in a feasible, expected manner is another thing, but if there’s a wall then there’s got to be a way over it as well. Surely. Practice makes perfect, blah blah blah, you know the drill. I also suspect its cult status has helped spike people’s interest in running, jumping, shooting, and dying. Also, there’s a wizard that will turn you into a seal just for giggles.

Either way, I’m never going back to it. Too many near-tears.

Magic: The Gathering and its hold on me still

I’m not just a videogame fanatic, but an extreme lover of all kinds of games. Board games, TCGs, CCGs, Solitaire, seeing how many pretzels one can fit in their mouth, and so on. In fact, I’d almost go the distance and say I love board games and card games more than console gaming except for one major hiccup: I rarely have anyone to play with. It’s usually just my fiancée and I playing a few rounds of Munchkin or the occasional grumble match known as Scrabble among family members. In the past I’ve dabbled in Killer Bunnies, Chez Geek, MagiNation (::shudders::), Settlers of Catan, Descent, and, most importantly, Magic: The Gathering.

Now, I’m not going into my full MtG history just yet. That’s a long and winding road, but I can say that the last time I played against a real life opponent was well over six or seven years ago. Yet my interest in the game has never waned. To fill this void, there’s Magic: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers, which is decent enough, but certainly lacks the fun and creative outlet of deck customization. Still, every day, I continue to check spoilers of new, upcoming sets and read detailed, in-depth articles about the functionality of specific cards and draft formats and so on. I can’t get away from it…despite being nowhere near any of it.

Anyways, it’s cards like Khalni Hydra, a newly revealed beastie from the upcoming Rise of the Eldrazi set, that really gets me yearning:

Yeah, that’s an 8/8 trampler…for free. Any easy peasy task for any green-loving planeswalker, no doubt. Something I’ve always been at heart. Plus, hydras rock. Already, deck ideas are bouncing around in my head on how to abuse this hydra to no end. Drop two or three into an elf deck or saproling and you’re good to go. I just wonder if the developers learned their lesson after Urza’s Saga and the affinity for artifacts keyword from Mirrodin when it comes to giving stuff away for free. Time will tell for this one.

Want more spoilers for Rise of the Eldrazi? Make with the clicky right here.

So, even though I’ve stayed away from social MtG gaming, I’d like to think I know a decent amount about the game and its evolution over the past few years. Alas, I know I don’t. Looking at spoiler lists and reading strategy guides do nothing for a game like MtG. It has to be played–experienced firsthand–to be understood. While I grok the rules of landfall, I have no idea how it plays.

Every time a prerelease event looms near, I always think, “Man, that’d be fun. Getting back into Magic.” But then it never happens. Time, money, severe anxiety–they all play a part. And so I just keep on reading, reading, and yearning, in that order.

Size matters, but not to me

For Fallout 3, there’s a varied choice of weaponry: you can go unarmed, you can wield melee weapons like the über awesome Deathclaw Glove, you can toss and set explosives, you can use an array of small guns,you can zap enemies into piles of ash and green goo thanks to energy weapons like the Plasma Rifle, and you can totally demolish just about anything with big guns. Seriously, a Raider is not going to get up after you set a mini nuke off on his/her head.

But get ready for a humdinger.

Of those weapon types just listed and after a collective total of 120 hours spent scouring the Wasteland, I’ve never used a big gun. Not even once. Both my good karma and evil karma characters have instantly attached themselves to smaller weaponry, Chinese Assault Rifle and energy weapons, respectively, and any time I come across a big gun in the wild or off a bullet-infested Super Mutant, I either leave it where it is or sell it as soon as possible. Even missiles, which do not take up inventory space, get sold because I know that, no matter the what and when of the situation, I will never launch them.

I wonder what Sigmund Freud would have to say about this pic.

For one to roleplay Fallout 3 using only big guns…well, that’s a bit challenge at the start. They are hard to come by, weigh a lot, and are often usually in bad condition upon first looting. There’s only a couple of perks to help you on your way to mastering them as well. When you leave Vault 101, you will most likely have a pistol, a police baton, and your jumpsuit. From there, finding or purchasing a good one will take time and a lot of effort. But ammo is scarce, they are not the best weapons in close quarters or when being sneaky is vital, and they even have a greater chance of injuring the Lone Wanderer.

One might assume that some of the tougher enemies like Deathclaws and Super Mutant Behemoths can only be killed via big guns. Those folks are wrong. I’ve dropped a ‘Claw or two thanks to a well-placed bottlecap mine and some undetected shots to the head with Lincoln’s Repeater.

I appreciate that big guns are there in the world and love taking down those that wield gatling guns and such, but I don’t ever really expect to use them. They don’t fit my playing style, now or ever really. After all, Paul means small. And yes, I know I just set myself up there. Go on, try me.

SEGA Superstars Tennis is a great videogame to play when you don’t want to play a videogame

Hmm…longest blog post title yet for Grinding Down?

Well, let me explain a bit.

Lately, I’ve been playing a good number of what I refer to as “heavy” games. These are the often emotionally draining experiences that take hours upon hours to complete, let alone get into. Examples include BioShock, Dragon Age: Origins, and Fallout 3. In fact, I actually stopped playing BioShock for about a month because I couldn’t handle the pressure of not knowing where every enemy was and when it would attack me and omg what made that sound. Eventually I got over this, but still, it was a game I had to really be in the mood for, except at the end when I just rushed through to kill that horribly done final boss. However, sometimes I just want to mindlessly play a videogame; y’know, tap buttons until it is time to go to bed.

So I have a few of these cuts that I keep on the side to play when I need a mental breather. I’ll talk about the others later on, but for now enter…SEGA Superstars Tennis. I bought this game used for $4.99, and it’s everything I thought it would be. You play as Sonic (or select from a range of other SEGA-owned characters) and you play tennis. You can also select to not play tennis and enter a world of odd yet highly varied mini-games that will unlock music tracks and bonus levels. This is where I’ve been spending most of my time.

The mini-games all use the tennis court layout, but their objectives are all different. On the House of the Dead court, you’ll play a Space Invaders-like game, hitting zombie targets as they draw closer to you; the Jet Set Radio court puts you to the task of “tagging” graffiti; Super Monkey Ball is all about hitting balls into hoops for points, and the Puyo Puyo court involves you saving tiny critters by getting them into rockets via moving arrows. Just to name a few.

The nature of these mini-games are why SEGA Superstars Tennis is a solid videogame to play when you don’t want to play a videogame. For most of them, you barely have to do much other than hit A and steer the ball in the right direction. Get a grade of an “A” or higher and you unlock the next mission, stage, music track, and so on. It is constantly rewarding you for playing, which is effective. And some (not all) of the music tracks are really great. I’d constantly find myself trying to keep a volley session going between myself and Ulala (from Space Channel 5) just to hear the whole tune.

But yeah, for around five bucks, it’s an excellent filler between those heavy gaming sessions, one that I welcome every time. Alas, I’m almost done with every mission. Gotta look for another cheapy title to fill the void eventually.

This is difficult to write about, or Dragon Age: Origins is hard

Recently, with Dragon Age: Origins, I found myself doing something I can’t recall ever doing with another videogame. I changed the difficulty…from Normal to Casual.

This decision stemmed from playing the same scenario over and over again to no success; it was not the first Ogre fight as depicted above, but rather a small fight while on the quest for the urn of Andraste’s ashes, where two mages and a group of soldiers slaughtered my team each and every time. I even tried switching up combat tactics, but to no avail. I found myself unable to move forward in the game, and I couldn’t pinpoint why. Did I lack the skills? Is Dragon Age: Origins grossly unbalanced? Is it a mix of both questions?

It was not something I wanted to do, trust me. I want to play games as they are intended to be played. In my mind, this is how it works: Casual is a setting for those that can’t cut it, Normal is how the developers expect you to experience their creation, and Hard is for masochists. Rarely do I go up or down, always comfortable in the middle. I even maintained the same difficulty setting through Mass Effect and BioShock, eventually learning to save often and get better.

But the combat tactics are hard to manage and mostly unreliable, with Alistair constantly charging straight to his death no matter what I try, and the difficulty spikes in Dragon Age: Origins are about as predictable as picking the next set of winning lottery numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42). I’d end up using every last healing potion on one fight, and then have to desperately crawl my way on a wing and a prayer through the remainder. It made for tough, frustrating times, and was all around just not a lot of fun.

And I wanted to have fun, see more Ferelden. Thanks to Casual, I have. But I wish it didn’t to have to come to such drastic measures.

Watch me flout the Spirit Flute

I’ve progressed further with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, now ready to tackle the Sand Temple, but man oh man…it’s been a struggle. A struggle to not throw my Nintendo DS across the room out of frustration, that is. See, a lot of reviews have complained about how boring riding the train is versus the shippy freedom of The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass and that traveling between towns and temples is such a chore. It is. But here’s the biggest problem with Link’s latest outing:

Yup, music.

Actually, the music in Spirit Tracks is pretty good. It’s bouncy and bubbly when it needs to be, dark and alarming when enemies show up, and soft and ethereal during Zelda’s many musing moments. The trouble is with the Spirit Flute. This device is used in two ways. The first is to play tiny little riffs that will do a variety of things in-game: awaken statues, call birds, heal yourself, shine a beam of light, and find treasure. The other use is to open up hidden tracks by playing a duet with a Lokomo, which are minions of Satan. Er, not really. They are on our side, I think, but sure make Link work hard for their help.

Anyways, each time you meet a Lokomo, the songs get harder and more complex. You can practice all you want, but there’s no thumbs up/thumbs down to let you know you’re even close to playing it correctly. Do I hold this note longer than the previous one? Is it okay to accidentally hit another colored note? When should I start playing, when the notes light up or after the Lokomo stops? It’s a guessing game in the end.

So, after the eighteenth time of unsuccessfully jamming along with Rael, I had to put Spirit Tracks down and look up a video on YouTube, something I hate to do. Evidently, based on this vid, I was playing the song too well. You need to mess up a bit to get it right, not hold every note, just sputter a bit here, miss a beat there. Ugh.

I really pray that this was the last duet song of the game. My mind and lungs just can’t take any more…

Trouble in the SimCity

Last night, I gave SimCity DS a second chance. I bought it a long, long time ago while on a vacation and itching for something new, and I remember disliking it instantly. It’s based on SimCity 3000, but I really wish it had aimed more for the SNES version because, to me, that game exemplified quality city-building simulation. Sure, graphically, it was pretty bland, and the same can be said about the music, but SimCity for the SNES nailed the formula. It was not too fast-paced or chaotic, and it allowed the player to learn from their mistakes over time instead of constantly punishing them.

However, thirty minutes with SimCity DS just hit home the fact that this game is not made for a portable system, especially one with a tiny screen and stylus controls (though those are optional). Controls are iffy, mostly unreliable, and it seems like a disaster struck my city every few minutes. Besides that, there’s lagging and loading screens and 937 menu screens to sift through.

All in all, not what I wanted.

Anyways, I’m finishing up writing the review for The First Hour. Will let the entire Internet know when it goes live. Unless someone orders a tornado or alien invasion on me, that is…

Not a videogame-heavy weekend

As usual, my weekends are pretty booked up. I rarely spend them in my apartment, meaning I can only travel with my Nintendo DS if there is time to game it up. Alas, most often, there isn’t. Like this past weekend. The fiancée and I went out to visit some family, as well as register more for our wedding in October. Busy, busy, busy.

The most gaming we did together was played some more levels in Amazing Adventures: The Forgotten Ruins, a hidden items game borrowed from my mother’s collection:

It’s pretty straightforward. You have a list, you find the items hidden in the picture, you play a mini-game, you skip the superfluous plot-only text, and you search the new locale. But it’s not the worst thing in the world, and it’s a  fun way to kill thirty minutes.

Then, upon my return to my apartment, I popped in Dragon Age: Origins to…not play it. The server was down? Um, okay. That was odd. I’ve never been locked out of a videogame I purchased for a system I own on a TV I own and so on. Restarted the Xbox 360, and got in just fine the second time around. Weird.

Anyways, I wasn’t actually having much luck combat-wise with the mage so I tried out a new character, completing the Human Noble origin with a dual-wielding rogue. She was fiesty, but still not what I was looking for. So I decided to go for another origin opening, this time with a Dwarf Noble. He specializes in sword and shield attacks and has a cool beard. I’m liking him–and his intro story–very much.

However, I might go and do the origins for everyone else left (Dalish Elf, City Elf, and Dwarf Commoner) and then pick who’d I really like to play the full game with from there. I thought the mage would’ve been great, but all my other teammates rush to their deaths too quickly and he’s just then left in the corner casting Cone of Cold like a goof-head.

However, before any of that, I want to work on whatever my next review for The First Hour will be. XIII? SimCity DS? I really don’t know yet. Hmm…

Top 10 Worst Silent Lead Characters

Silent protagonists, from a design perspective, are a device used to get the player to empathize more with other characters. Draw them in, make them feel like they’re right there with everyone, making decisions and demands. It’s also a rather tiring aspect of many RPGs, especially JRPGs, but they do occasionally pop up in other genres. They can mostly be broken down into the following:

Mutes: They are characters that do no speak at all. No text, no voice acting…nothing. They are mimes in a dark, dark room. They are empty husks you move with the directional pad and never grow to care for.

Reactive: These are characters that often don’t get speaking roles, but exist for other NPCs to bounce ideas off of and/or look to for assurance/disapproval. Sometimes get involved non-verbally.

The Roleplayer: Silent only in voice, this leading character is one that the player builds through dialogue options, morale choices, clothing and weapons, stats, and so on. They “speak” pre-determined lines, but only if you choose so.

Some silent protagonists are better than others. Click the “keep reading” link below to see my take on the Top 10 Worst Silent Lead Characters.