Balad of Gay Tony Downloaded

I got a short start on GTA4's Balad of Gay Tony today. My son also rented Borderlands which has him kinda hooked (actually it looks pretty cool), so it may be a bit before I can finish Gay Tony. I wanna finish Brütal Legend on brutal too. Hmmm, maybe I should just get back to the model ship.

Anyway, I've got a couple of trailers for Gay Tony here. The first is the original trailer for the game. The second is another (off colour) spoof TV show from the game. Enjoy.

Brütal Legend

After the brilliant Psychonauts, I had very high hopes for Tim Schafer's next outing, the recently released Brütal Legend. It's not like it's a bad game (I played the whole thing through, afterall, and plan on trying to complete it on the brutal difficulty setting), but after everything that was in Psychonauts, this one felt a little shallow.

You can still see it's a Schafer game. It's got his humour and quirky characters all over it. It also does the same thing as Psychonauts by disguising itself as one thing but delivering something else - I'm not sure how clever that is from the marketing perspective. Psychonauts appears a generic platformer that was actually a witting and engaging game. Brütal Legend disguises itself as a fairly mindless hack-and-slash that suddenly morphs itself into a real-time strategy game.

It's going to be interesting how this gets received. Fans attracted to a heavy metal themed hack-and-slash staring Jack Black may react rather negatively when they find themselves having to construct and organize siege weapons to attack the enemy stronghold. By the same token, RTS fans will likely be put off by the games shallow exterior, and depth of the RTS mode certainly doesn't compare to the more popular games out there in the genre anyway. There is a multiplayer mode that is just one-on-one RTS battles. I really can't see who will be playing this on-line a few months from now ... hard core Jack Black fans?

For myself, I'm not a hard core RTSer (the last RTS I played right through was StarCraft years ago) but I did enjoy the battles in this game. I certainly enjoyed it more than grinding through the repetitive side missions this game provides. That said, I know there isn't enough there to keep me interested for too long.

But perhaps I'm getting too down on it. It's fun, funny, and original - more than can be said for most games. The characters are well voiced and animated - even Ozzy Osborne as the "Guardian of Metal" whom you get to buy your upgrades from. The heavy metal themed world and creature design are certainly inspired, and there is enough depth in the RTS battles to keep me engaged without being overwhelmed. Overall, a fun time.

Blasts From The Past

A few weeks ago I posted my attempts to work around an error that was appearing on our XBox 360 - well, it was only temporary and a few days later I was forced to bite the bullet and send it in for repairs (though the thought of buying a new PS3 instead certainly crossed my mind). I gotta admit, the repair (sorry, replace) was done quickly and I had the machine back in a week. Though, I still have an issue with how fragile the dumb thing is in the first place.

Anyway, the week without the XBox got me digging out an older game to play. I dusted off the PS2 and plunked in Ratchet and Clank. I had so much fun that I thought I would make a post of some of my favourite games from the previous generation of systems.

Here they come. They're all great games, though I did order them from least to most favourite.

Resident Evil 4 - 2005 - GameCube

This game also came out for the Wii a year or so ago, and it is that version that I played most recently. I'm not a huge fan of the survival-horror genre (previous Resident Evil games left me a bit flat), but RE4 does separate itself in a number of ways.

It integrates the traditional clunky controls and limited inventory of a survival-horror game with a more fast paced shooter, and it works really well. You still can't run and shoot at the same time (which takes some getting used to) but that just adds to the tension - flight or fight, make a decision.

The level design is also varied with a variety of different game elements that combine together very well. If I have one gripe with the game, it's its overuse of quick-time elements during boss fights. I find these get very tedious, very fast. What I find particularly frustrating are bosses that can only be beaten by a particular, and obscure, pattern of button presses, usually requiring split second timing. In fact, one particular boss fight ended my experience with this game about 80% through. I just don't have anywhere near the patience for it.

What also separates RE4 is its quirky sense of humour. From the nonsensical merchants who appear out of nowhere to buy and sell stuff, to the hysterically atrocious dialogue, this game has its share of laughs.

Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal - 2004 - PS2

When playing this game most recently, I was amazed at how many elements from it have made their way into modern games. Destructible cover - check, crazy gravity ala Mario Galaxy - check, skill point awards ala XBox360/PS3 - check.

I think Ratchet & Clank suffers a bit from looking so kid friendly that it isn't taken seriously by the more hardcore crowd, but the game is tight, fast, fun, and demanding - certainly more so than most of today's M-Rated shooters. The characters are memorable and funny, the voice acting solid as well as the animations. In addition, the game play, quite frankly, kicks ass. If you enjoy blowing the hell out of stuff, you really can't go wrong here.

Besides, how can you no enjoy a game that lets you turn your enemies into flaming ducks (yes, ducks on fire) that lay bouncing egg grenades? You heard me right!

Psychonauts - 2005 - XBox

I'm not sure you can find a game more original than Tim Schafer's Psychonauts. On the surface a kid friend adventure-platformer, it doesn't take long before you realize this is a darkly funny, high concept little game that can be devilishly challenging at times.

Let me set the scene. You play Raz, a ten year old who breaks into a summer camp for psychically gifted children that is, in reality, a military training facility for the next generation of super soldiers - the psychonauts. The majority of levels in this game take place in the psychic landscape that represent particular characters' minds, and considering that many of the characters are bat-s**t crazy, some of these levels are bizarre to say the least.

For example, in one level you enter the mind of a paranoid milkman whose true personality has been pushed back thanks to the efforts of the game's villain. Here a quiet suburban neighbourhood is twisted into a gravity defying pretzel where every hint that may lead you to the true milkman is guarded by barely disguised government agents whose superiors are a troup of girl scouts (cookies - milk - get it?).

In another level, a giant mutated fish is being controlled by another villain. Here the fish's mind is an urban metropolis populated (quite amusingly) by fish - Fishopolis. Raz becomes a giant, Godzilla like, interloper that must thrash his way through the city to confront the similarly sized villain in a building destroying show down. How the hell can that not be fun?

And it keeps going like this. I don't want to give too much away but the game truly blows me away when the minds of Raz and the chief villain mix together and the two must team up to defeat their own perceptions of their fathers. Man, Freud would have a field day!

Shadow of the Colossus - 2005 - PS2

As mentioned, I've saved the best for last. Shadow of the Colossus is easily one of my favourite games of all time. First of all, in my opinion, it is the most, drop dead, gorgeous game I have ever seen, and that includes high pixel count games of the 360 and PS3. I'm talking about more than resolution here. I'm talking about composition, texture, and colour. There is nothing that compares. Just the way the camera moves is stunning. It doesn't just simply hold the avatar in the center, but lets it drift left-right, up-down, and in-out as if somehow it knows what would compose a great shot. When I first saw video of the game play, I found it hard to believe I wasn't watching a humanly constructed cut scene. It's absolutely astounding to me as to how this was pulled off.

Of course, I wouldn't love the game just because it's beautiful. The game play is truly unique too. The game is one, big, pastoral world that you ride through facing barely an enemy. There is no level grinding or items to collect, but there are sixteen colossi hiding out there that you can locate with a magic sword that you happen to have stolen (the lead character is very much morally grey). Yes, that is all there is to the game, sixteen boss fights, but before you dismiss it as being too simplistic, just give it a try. The fights are epic, varied, and challenging. Each boss is its only little puzzle to solve. By the time I got to the end, I was still hungry for more, something I don't get from most games.

Grand Theft Auto 4

I'm a late comer to the GTA series. Despite the enormous popularity of GTA3 - San Andreas and Vice City, I didn't bring them into the house because I thought my kids were too young to be playing these games. With GTA4 I found out what I was missing.

The sandbox genre was basically defined with the GTA3 games, and the newest installment shows why Rockstar is still king of this mountain. First off, the world of Liberty City is huge! So huge the game provides you with a road map, including the subway routes and you actually will likely use the thing. We've seen huge sandbox worlds before, but never packed with the level of detail that we have here.

Second, story and character are fantastic. Great voice acting and character animation combine with a strong script to create characters and scenes that are memorable. When you care about the characters, you care about what happens to them, and this game makes you care.

Third, I love the dark, satirical, mood of the game. One major component of this is the radio, television and Internet media that are created just for the game (yes, you can watch TV and serf the Web in the game if you like). The radio programs and ads are particularly biting, and often drop dead hysterical. The abundant, and interconnected, media also serves to add to the depth of the world, making the whole experience more immersive. For example, you'll see a billboard for a play, later hear a commercial for the play, then, while listening to the news, hear an interview with one of the performers in the play. This all happens seamlessly and naturally.

But the best part of GTA 4 is the gameplay. Cover based combat seems all the rage in shooters right now, and I think GTA4 provides the best working model for it yet, creating a fast and exciting shooting experience. But beyond that, GTA4 provides so many different elements that listing them all would be a chore. There's the obvious gun fights and car chases, but it also varies from bowling, to racing, to dating, to just going drinking with your buddies (but then whistle for a cab to take you home). For goodness sakes, the game provides you a button to flip from high to low beams on your headlights. As far as variety in the missions (including the optional ones) little beats this game.

The downloadable content is even worth talking about. The Lost and Damned expansion gives about an additional 10 to 15 hours of game play that is of as high quality as the original, creating a story that weaves in and out of the story and characters of the original. And out today is the second expansion, The Balad of Gay Tony, which also looks amazing.

GTA4 provides a package that can't be beat and is easily one of my favourite games that I've played in the last year.

Battlefield 1943

The first plus on the side of this game is that it is only 1200 Microsoft points (about $17) on Xbox Arcade. For that you get a well balanced WWII, multi-player, shooter. The game is set in the Pacific. You play either the US or Japan in a battle to control the islands. There are only three maps, but the maps are huge and sprawling. Although there is only one game type (well two, if you count the dog-fight game) the gameplay is varied giving you lots to do while trying to take control of several strategic points on the map.

The variety is accomplished in a number of ways. There are three classes that play differently, a number of drivable vehicles(jeeps, tanks, boats, and fighter planes), anti-aircraft guns, machine gun nests, and the ability to control bombing runs. There are up to a dozen people on a side, giving players the opportunity to support their team's efforts in a variety of different ways depending upon their own style and preferences. Gameplay is fast and fairly quick to pick up with no need to memorize "power spots" on the maps as the only weapons you get are the ones provided with your class (which you are free to change mid game). There are no hidden power weapons.

Graphics are adequate and the sound design is great (the sound of fighters screaming overhead will make you duck in your living room). This certainly doesn't have all the game play in a full-priced game, but what it does provide is slick and fun.

Red Faction: Guerilla

A few months back I made a post celebrating cracking 10000 achievement points on the X-box 360. In that document I reviewed the top eleven games that contributed to my point score. I had a such fun with it, that I thought I might put in reviews of any games in which I achieved at least half of the achievement points for. At least you'll know they held my interest.

In the time since the cracking 10000 post, I've played three games in which I earned at least half the achievement points: Red Faction: Guerilla, Battlefield 1943, and Grand Theft Auto 4. I got some catching up to do, so here is the first one.

Red Faction: Guerilla

Red Faction is a third person, sandbox, shooter where you play Alec Mason, a miner in the future who joins his brother on Mars. Things go bad pretty quick as Mars is run by corrupt conglomerates (are there any other kind) and the military who descend upon the brothers suspecting them of being in the Free Mars rebel group. Well, needless to say the brother gets killed and Alec is left with the motivation necessary to take it to the Mars overlords.

The hook of Red Faction is that it lets you run amoke with the ability to completely flatten almost every structure in the game and, quite frankly, that turns out to be a hell of a lot of fun. The down side is that the price of having fully destructable environments is that those same environments are pretty drab and uninspired. There's nothing of that feeling of being sucked in and wowed by the world that you get from a game like Farcry 2 or Grand Theft Auto IV (review pending). Similarly, the story and characters also lack any spark of life that might actually make you care about them.

That all said, the gameplay is a hoot. Besides blowing stuff up but good (you are provided with a heady arsenal of goodies for this), the combat is fast paced, varied, and satisfying. As is typical of a sandbox game, you are provided with numerous missions that you get to choose from and there is enough variety and challenge in those missions to keep the game fun right through to the end. Because of my lack of investment in the story, getting to that end is less satisfying than it otherwise would be, but the ride is a fun one.

The surprise for me in this game was its multiplayer, something I normally am not that attracted to, but here ended up eating a significant amount of my time. There is a great collection of different game types, taking full advantage of the destructable environments, and there is a wonderfull variety in the maps, ranging from close and personal to large and sprawling. Besides the sheer variety of weapons, things are spiced up even further with backpacks that bestow abilities upon the wearer: jetpacks, cloaking, damage boost, speed, etc. The end result is a face paced, multiplayer, package in which I find a heck of a lot more play value than games like Gears of War or Halo.

Fixing The X-box

Microsoft's engineering prowess (or lack there of) caught up with us last night and the X-box 360 shut down with blinking red lights of doom and a cryptic E-73 error. The machine is about three years old (no longer under warranty) and to get it fixed, we need to send it into Microsoft and they will send us another machine - cost: about $130. Really makes one wish one bought a PS3, a far better built piece of hardware (and they're only $299 now!).

Anyway, rather than rush to send it in, I did a little sleuthing to try and find what what this E-73 error is all about. I found that the most common source of the error is a solder joint that has come lose, usually involving the ethernet port. It's interesting to note that with ANY other machine, if something like the ethernet port goes, the rest of the machine will work fine. It doesn't just give up.

What's weird is that there exists a bizarre, temporary, fix for the problem.

>Take a couple of small sticks (like Q-tips or toothpicks) and use them to prevent the two fans at the back from turning.
>Turn on your X-box and wait for it to overheat (takes about 10 minutes, which is pretty sad)
>The machine will shut itself down now. Disconnect it for half an hour or so to wait for it to cool off.
>After half an hour, turn the machine back on and it should boot up normally.

It should be emphasised that forcing a machine to overheat is not generally a good idea and the only reason I did this is because the warranty had expired anyway. What's weird is that this works at all. How does overheating the machine fix a solder joint? Obviously, it doesn't, but I suspect that somehow the error state gets reset through this process allowing the machine to boot normally. The fact that it runs normally now begs the question, is there really anything physically wrong with it at all or does some stupid piece of software just thinks something's wrong?

Ah, Microsoft. Why do we all keep you in business?

Grand Theft Auto IV - The Balad of Gay Tony

I've been playing this Grand Theft Auto a lot of late. There is a new expansion coming out for it later this month and this is one of a number of promotional trailers. I do enjoy the game's satiric/dark humour, though it is for a mature audience.

Needless to say, I'm eagerly looking forward to this.

Model Ship Update: Fortopgallant Sail

I got in a little more work and finished the next sail. Next comes the three matching sails on the mainmast and the sails are done. That will be followed by some additional rigging (braces, course sheets, and maybe tacks), then the finishing details: pennants, flags, anchors, etc..

I've got to get down to the hobby store and buy more line and cleats. I could see that the kit didn't supply enough line (I ran out with the standing rigging too). Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a reasonable match. Also, last time I was there, they were out of cleats. I may have to get them to order some for me.



Mike