UNO, fun for all

I already talked about my lackluster experience of online gaming with Grand Theft Auto IV, and now I’m here to balance the act. I loaded up UNO, donned my headset and quickly joined a game of four. That’s three other players, all of them real. None of this ORANGE PLAYER killjoy. Anyways, for the first round, I was the only one talking. Yup, to myself. Just making happy/sad noises as the game went on, and eventually two others turned on their headsets, leading to topics about frustration, how they should add new colors like purple, and why Kanye West was not chatting with us (his avatar certainly looked the part). It made for a calm, relaxing game…even as we were throwing draw 4s on each other!

It’s also more fun to shout “UNO!” to faraway people than the dustballs under my kitchen table. I’m just sayin’.

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.

Free Xbox Live Gold for Silver Members this weekend

Attention fellow poor Xbox LIVE Silver accounts! Microsoft will be allowing us free “Gold access” from noon ET April 1, 2010 until noon ET April 5, 2010. This means you can try out Facebook, Twitter, last.fm, Netflix, online gaming and so forth.

What it means to me is the chance to nab some online-only Achievements.

Alas, as it always seems to happen, these free weekends pop up when I am traveling and can’t console game as much as I’d like. But I’m still going to make an attempt because I’m never going to be rich enough (or social enough) to pay for a Gold account and well, deep down inside, I like playing games to completion (or as far as a completion can go) and that means Achievements, too. So let’s take a look at my collection and what I might try to go after…

UNO: UNO Shark Win ten 4-player games of UNO, in any mode, on Xbox Live.

SEGA Superstars Tennis: There’s seven online-only Achievements, none of which sound very hard to unlock skill-wise. The major hiccup is if anyone else will be playing the game too.

Grand Theft Auto IV: There’s a slew for this game, but I’m really bad at driving and even worse at shooting things. The controls, they are not solid. Hence the reason I’ve not gotten very far in the single player mode. Might dip into an online game once to see how it plays, but I seriously doubt trying to get any of these in the long run. A lot sound really tough to get.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts: Will probably have the same problem with SEGA Superstars Tennis. No one around to play this anymore.

Fable II: The Dollcatcher Collect all the Hero dolls, or see another Hero collect them. Please, someone, anyone…just send them to me!

That’s actually it from my Xbox 360 collection for online-only Achievements. Wish me luck and/or help me out if you feel pity for me. I’m okay with pity help.

Episode #5 of The First Hour podcast, now with more Paul

Good job, Brock. Where’s it at specifically?

Oh, right. The First Hour. Head on over to listen to episode #5 (don’t ask where #4 went; I think a demon ate it) of their podcast and you can then hear me talk about Pokemon HeartGold, what it’s like to be a n00b to the series, and just how many steps I take roughly on a workday. It’s not a lot. Also, at one point I couldn’t remember the word “collar” when talking about clipping the Pokewalker to one’s cat…oh well. It was still fun all around, and I’d love to be back on the show in the future!

Just, y’know, maybe not talking about Pocket Monsters again…

Happy anniversary for Grinding Down!

That’s right, my silent and stalky readers. Grinding Down is now celebrating its one-year anniversary. Woo-hoo!

::confetti and Daft Punk tunes::

Back in March 2009, I decided I wanted to take another stab at videogame journalism, but at a much more relaxed pace. Well, maybe too relaxed in the beginning. See, I posted a few times in March 2009 and then quickly forgot about the blog until the summer hit, wherein I found myself with a lot of topics to muse about online. And since then, I’ve been pretty good at keeping this thing lively (just not on the weekends, which is fine by me). There’s some reviews here and there, but it’s more of a home for randomness, reflecting on older games, and having a bit of fun with pictures and words. That really doesn’t plan to change much.

But yeah, a whole year of grinding. Bow-chicka bow-wow! Er, forget I just wrote that. There’s cake and punch in the back.

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.

Making it last with Pokémon

According to my save data for Pokémon HeartGold, I’ve now invested over 15 hours into the game. The amazing part? I’ve only made a really small dent. My Pokédex says I’ve seen about 75 Pokémon, of which I’ve caught around 30 or so. I just earned my third gym badge, now finally moving past Goldenrod City to the National Park and the Pokéthlon for some Pokélympic games (side-note: that was way too many pokés for one sentence). A good portion of this time has been spent on grinding my team towards a better balance, as well as just meandering about the world.

But still. Fifteen hours and only a little bit through. For some games, that’s their entire length…or not even. I’m looking directly at you, MySims Agents.

It’s just nice to know that HeartGold is in it for the long haul. And so am I. And so is Abigail:

Scott Pilgrim the Videogame looks (and sounds) just like it should

First came the news out of PAX East that chiptune rockstars Anamanaguchi are doing the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim the Videogame. Then we got some delicious screenshots showing off the fantastic sprite work from Paul Robertson, the creator of the Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 animation. And the third thing that happened was…my heart. See, it exploded from too much joy!

Ka-blooie!

Seriously, just go check out all the screenshots over at Attract Mode.

But yeah, ever since seeing this, the back cover of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, volume two of the books (and the title of the upcoming movie), I’ve been jonesing for a 2D videogame adaption:

Now I’m not sure what I’m more excited about. The movie, the final book in July, or the game? Hmm. Either way, it looks like this one is getting the right kind of treatment. No systems announced yet, but man oh man would this be perfect for the Nintendo DS.

Guess who is the Ultimate Dragon Warrior?

The following is unexplainable. No, really. I can’t explain it.

I popped Kung Fu Panda back into my Xbox 360 last night and played for a little bit. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY.

Okay, okay. I have a suspicion why, and it has to do with Achievements. Curiously, the last time I played was on 5/11/2009, and while perusing my list of Achievements I noticed that there were some that sounded like they were pretty easy and I wondered why I hadn’t unlocked them before. I mean, the majority left are completing levels on 100% on the Dragon Warrior difficulty, which is not a true challenge. Just a time waster, which is probably why I didn’t go after them initially. Anyways, after thirty minutes or so, I popped the following cherries:

Level 11 100% Completion! (20G): Completed level “The Palace” 100%.

Ultimate Dragon Warrior (30G): All Upgrades have been purchased.

Easy peasy. Might go for a few more just because most of the other console games I’m playing currently really require a lot free headspace, of which I’m running low on.

Also, some things never change: the camera is still horrible and the faux Jack Black voice confuses me every time.

I might be on a podcast, yo

So, last night, I spent about twenty to thirty minutes chatting with Paul Eastwood from The First Hour for the next episode of their podcast. It was my first ever involvement with a podcast, as well as a lot of fun. We chatted about videogames in general, and more specifically about Pokemon HeartGold and my take on it as a Pocket Monster n00b. I hope I didn’t sound too silly, and I managed to actually go the entire time without trying to say some of the crazy Pokemon names. Honestly, I have no idea how to safely pronounce Quilava or Buizel or Girafarig. There were a couple of topics that I thought about discussing only after the fact–such as how I’ve grown attached to the first few ‘mons I’ve caught and have no idea who is good to use and who is a waste of time–but that’s okay.

Hopefully our chat makes the cut! I think the episode is planning to go live…next week. Not sure on that, but stay tuned to find out.

Really silly, alternative title for this post that I still might use down the line: Gotta podcatch ’em all!