So, recently I was informed that a lithium battery pack slowly dies over time from use, especially if you leave it plugged in constantly.
Hey, I'm human, there are things I don't know. You think you're so smart?
How many leagues in a furlong??? Exactly. You don't know nothin, about anything.
I went out and bought a new battery pack for my xbox, and a new charge cable. So as it stands now I have..
2 packs that take actual batteries
2 white battery packs
1 black battery pack
1 charge cable
1 dual charge stand deal (the white thing that charges two batteries at once)
All to play a damn game. Here's my problem: The Xbox controllers, when they are about half-full of charge, start to do that damn swirly light crap on the controller. Bugs the hell out of me. The two white battery packs I've had for about 4 years now do that after about an hour of play. Apparently it's rare to have batteries last that long. So I fought with them for a while, until my stupidity was pointed out.
The new battery pack is like night and day. Better rumble, faster response, and it's charge lasts longer, even longer than the packs I had with batteries.
Great, you sellin me batteries or something? No, but I'm just sayin, maybe it's time to upgrade.
Just remember, if you upgrade, be sure to buy new. Chances are if they are used, they've been used and you won't get the same life out of them. True stories.
So now I'm on this "upgrade the batteries" roll, I plan on getting new chargers and packs for the wii, and the DS will be charged only after it's died. Then I get to the ps3.
You bastards. You just went ahead and made a complicated decision for me. On the xbox, if the batteries start to go, I switch to the pack that requires legit batteries, and use that until the battery pack charges or I buy even more double A's.
But Sony... you just.... didn't even give us that option. Sure the battery inside will also have a shelf life like the xbox, but you require that cable in many trades, and if not those cables are a dime a dozen. Not like the xbox charge cables that are super specific and the cheapest ones will still swing you about a $10 spot. Those mini-usb cables? I have like 5. I throw some of them away, I don't even use them. I'm probably going to make a hammock out of them. What I'm getting at is they are plentiful.
Long and short of all this? Sony is easily the best at battery/ controller management. If your controller starts to die, charge it. No switching of packs and waiting for one to charge. No searching for a cable to charge it, chances are one is near.
I don't know if people even realize this.... I need to go make sandwich boards declaring it or something....
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Black Ops: Multiplayer- Short Story, It's Worth the Hype
Alright, the last post was strictly Call of Duty: Black Ops campaign. Onto the multiplayer! I actually got this tactic from the Escapist Magazine, which also had things to say about bth the Campaign and Multiplayer. Remember how a month ago I hated the Multiplayer of Medal of Honor, but LOVED the Campaign? It’s a 180 for this game. I feel the game does such a freakin’ polar opposite from one mode to the other that I had to make two separate posts. Let’s get right to it. The Black Ops Multiplayer mode (BOM) is really, really balanced weapon wise. The MPk5 you start with is one of my favorite weapons, and even seasoned players at level 20+ were still using it. All face to face conflicts are resolved in a matter of 1-2 seconds instead of 15-20 (Looking at YOU Halo!), unlike over FPS, sniping isn’t the game winning strategy anymore. If I do say so myself, the maps in this game are very sniper unfriendly, which is something I can totally get behind. The perk system and the weapon unlock system is still here, but now you have to earn currency by playing the game to buy these weapons. The beauty to that is your player doesn’t just get to level 20 and they have a healthy plethora of weapons. Actually, I got to level 10 using only the starting SMG with a scope on it. It’s not even like it’s a bad weapon, but the game encourages you to find a weapon you like, mod it out anyway you like, and carry on. Coincidentally, the game also has a challenge system, which rewards you more money for trying out new weapons. Then there’s the killstreak system, which you also have to purchase to unlock. Does this mean you will be perpetually broke? Maybe, but not really, or at least not for very long. Due to the way the game rewards you for playing matches, such as usually giving 700-1000 credits just for winning a Domination match and 50-100 credits per kill, and the most expensive thing in the game I have seen is the Attack Dogs Killstreak, which is like 6000 credits, you are never too far away from getting that thing you want. Ah, and the items…there is a huge load of customization options to give your weapons, from color scheme, to skull reticules in the scope, to attaching a flame thrower, etc.
Basically, from what I have played (I made it to level 12 in 2 hours) it is really hard for me to hate this game. I do have complaints, though…What did you expect? It’s not a Stan post unless I bitched about something. So, the spawn system in this game is…. terrible. I thought MoH had it all wrong, but this game has spawned me in more reticules than I want to think about causing quick deaths without me moving more than a couple INCHES from my spawn point. The Attack Chopper, BTW, is overpowered on small to medium maps. Granted, you start the BOM career with the means to shoot this thing down, but good luck with that since it can shoot in the general spawn direction and kill you. Now, I get it that an 11-10 killstreak is hard to get and the player should be rewarded with the ability to fu** some people up, BUT COME ON! I have seen matches pretty match end once a player racks up an 10 killstreak with Hardline Pro on, then finish it off with an Attack Chopper, while playing the Nuketown map (it’s a REALLY small map).
Remember what I said about customization moments ago? Remember what I said about the single player one post ago, about how it drops the F-Bombs like it’s overstocked on them? Well, WHY CAN’T I CUSTOMIZE MY CLASS NAME TO ASSAULT! Yes, I just waned to change the name of one of my custom created classes to Assault, as in “This class has my custom Assault rifle in it, use it for Meduim to Long range engagements”. Well, apparently, Assault contains the word ASS in it, so Treyarch, in their INFINITE DAMN WISDOM, has decided that and FREAKING “M” RATED GAME shouldn’t have even that containment of curse words in the custom weapon names. Lemme make sure I got this right…I CAN’T CALL MY WEAPON LOADOUT ASSAULT BECAUSE IT HAS THE WORD “ASS”, AND YOU STORYLINE DROPS THE F-BOMB MORE TIMES THAN I RELOADED MY M-16!
I know it seems like a meaningless complaint, but I absolutely HATE having my free speech taken away from me in a video game, especially for something as dumb as this. Leaving on a high note, the game is actually great, multiplayer wise. I have friends that never even touched the campaign and just jumped right into BOM. To them I say, good move.
Basically, from what I have played (I made it to level 12 in 2 hours) it is really hard for me to hate this game. I do have complaints, though…What did you expect? It’s not a Stan post unless I bitched about something. So, the spawn system in this game is…. terrible. I thought MoH had it all wrong, but this game has spawned me in more reticules than I want to think about causing quick deaths without me moving more than a couple INCHES from my spawn point. The Attack Chopper, BTW, is overpowered on small to medium maps. Granted, you start the BOM career with the means to shoot this thing down, but good luck with that since it can shoot in the general spawn direction and kill you. Now, I get it that an 11-10 killstreak is hard to get and the player should be rewarded with the ability to fu** some people up, BUT COME ON! I have seen matches pretty match end once a player racks up an 10 killstreak with Hardline Pro on, then finish it off with an Attack Chopper, while playing the Nuketown map (it’s a REALLY small map).
Remember what I said about customization moments ago? Remember what I said about the single player one post ago, about how it drops the F-Bombs like it’s overstocked on them? Well, WHY CAN’T I CUSTOMIZE MY CLASS NAME TO ASSAULT! Yes, I just waned to change the name of one of my custom created classes to Assault, as in “This class has my custom Assault rifle in it, use it for Meduim to Long range engagements”. Well, apparently, Assault contains the word ASS in it, so Treyarch, in their INFINITE DAMN WISDOM, has decided that and FREAKING “M” RATED GAME shouldn’t have even that containment of curse words in the custom weapon names. Lemme make sure I got this right…I CAN’T CALL MY WEAPON LOADOUT ASSAULT BECAUSE IT HAS THE WORD “ASS”, AND YOU STORYLINE DROPS THE F-BOMB MORE TIMES THAN I RELOADED MY M-16!
I know it seems like a meaningless complaint, but I absolutely HATE having my free speech taken away from me in a video game, especially for something as dumb as this. Leaving on a high note, the game is actually great, multiplayer wise. I have friends that never even touched the campaign and just jumped right into BOM. To them I say, good move.
Black Ops: Campaign- Short Story, it sucks.
Yes, yes, we all knew it was coming. I am going to talk about Call Of Duty: Black Ops. As I am sure you are going to guess, I like this game. This is a fine first person shooter…multiplayer wise at least. Single player-wise, it’s a different story. Let me explain, whenever, and I do mean whenever, I get a shiny new FPS game, I play through the Campaign mode first on Normal Difficulty. Why Normal you ask? Because I hate begin frustrated and modes above NORMAL are meant to be frustrating, and sure you could argue that they are meant to “test your skills”, but really all modes above NORMAL are just enemies with ludicrous health, your health being severely reduced in the process, and the AI have super-human accuracy with any and all weapons. Besides, we all know everybody bought this game for the Multiplayer anyways, so I figured why suffer any more through the Campaign than I have to?
The key word to that last statement is “suffer”, and gives away how I think of the Campaign. It was, in many ways, kind of painful to play. Here you have a tied down Special Ops guy named Mason getting interrogated and you have no idea why. So, the game starts flashing at you and hitting you with random memory events here Mason goes into a violent linguistically rage dropping F-Bombs like he is overstocked with them (please make a note of this). The game starts telling you the story of why Mason is tied down, except it doesn’t. One moment you are in Cuba, the next you are in Russia, then, Vietnam, Then you’re playing as a different person in a different time frame, then Russia, then Nam’…you get to briefly make commands in an SR-71 Blackbird…very, very briefly, almost forgettable briefly…. And all this time you, the player, are still trying to figure out why Mason is being interrogated and why numbers keep flashing in his head. The story actually makes little to no sense. I was trying to stay with the story until at the very LAST MISSION, when it all, and I mean ALL, just gets explained and falls apart. By falls apart, I mean Treyarch (the developer, they also did World At War and some Spiderman games) obviously has a “hard on” for the convoluted storylines of the Metal Gear Solid series, because it becomes just as ridiculous.
You know, Doug will probably ridicule me for this, but at least the Modern Warfare stories made some DAMN SENSE! You are soldier; go kill third-world terrorists and their collaborators armed with WMDs to save to world, credits.
This game has a similar, and yet oh so difficult to explain version of this terrorist killing story. Its contrived and over-done, and sometimes I can get behind it because there is a definite enemy and I don’t mind killing the lot of them. Speaking of lot’s of them, the campaign does something I had hoped modern FPS games had sworn off, and it’s that this game has a TON of enemy spawn gates, you know the ones, the ones were you will be overwhelmed by enemies until you cross an invisible scripted barrier. Not only does Black Ops bring those back, it abuses the HELL out of them. Three-quarters of the campaign is built around scripted events, and after the third level I was basically playing the game just to beat it, aka, was not having fun anymore. This is not something to brag about, Treyarch. Lay off the scripted events a little, it is not as innovative as you may have believe, since EVERY CALL OF DUTY DOES THEM. There is a fine line between handholding a player through the game, and just letting them play the game. This game holds your hand, calmly hiding the story from you as you go. Then it’s over.
Please don’t buy this game for the Campaign (who really did?).
I mean, if you want an action-paced shooter, buy Vanquish. If you want an awesome story, play Fallout 3 or Half-Life, maybe even rent MOH just for its Campaign. This Campaign, though, feels like it was tacked on to it’s robust multiplayer.
The key word to that last statement is “suffer”, and gives away how I think of the Campaign. It was, in many ways, kind of painful to play. Here you have a tied down Special Ops guy named Mason getting interrogated and you have no idea why. So, the game starts flashing at you and hitting you with random memory events here Mason goes into a violent linguistically rage dropping F-Bombs like he is overstocked with them (please make a note of this). The game starts telling you the story of why Mason is tied down, except it doesn’t. One moment you are in Cuba, the next you are in Russia, then, Vietnam, Then you’re playing as a different person in a different time frame, then Russia, then Nam’…you get to briefly make commands in an SR-71 Blackbird…very, very briefly, almost forgettable briefly…. And all this time you, the player, are still trying to figure out why Mason is being interrogated and why numbers keep flashing in his head. The story actually makes little to no sense. I was trying to stay with the story until at the very LAST MISSION, when it all, and I mean ALL, just gets explained and falls apart. By falls apart, I mean Treyarch (the developer, they also did World At War and some Spiderman games) obviously has a “hard on” for the convoluted storylines of the Metal Gear Solid series, because it becomes just as ridiculous.
You know, Doug will probably ridicule me for this, but at least the Modern Warfare stories made some DAMN SENSE! You are soldier; go kill third-world terrorists and their collaborators armed with WMDs to save to world, credits.
This game has a similar, and yet oh so difficult to explain version of this terrorist killing story. Its contrived and over-done, and sometimes I can get behind it because there is a definite enemy and I don’t mind killing the lot of them. Speaking of lot’s of them, the campaign does something I had hoped modern FPS games had sworn off, and it’s that this game has a TON of enemy spawn gates, you know the ones, the ones were you will be overwhelmed by enemies until you cross an invisible scripted barrier. Not only does Black Ops bring those back, it abuses the HELL out of them. Three-quarters of the campaign is built around scripted events, and after the third level I was basically playing the game just to beat it, aka, was not having fun anymore. This is not something to brag about, Treyarch. Lay off the scripted events a little, it is not as innovative as you may have believe, since EVERY CALL OF DUTY DOES THEM. There is a fine line between handholding a player through the game, and just letting them play the game. This game holds your hand, calmly hiding the story from you as you go. Then it’s over.
Please don’t buy this game for the Campaign (who really did?).
I mean, if you want an action-paced shooter, buy Vanquish. If you want an awesome story, play Fallout 3 or Half-Life, maybe even rent MOH just for its Campaign. This Campaign, though, feels like it was tacked on to it’s robust multiplayer.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Costume Quest - how did we miss this one? Double fine whaa?
Okay so I was really annoyed when three days after Halloween I see this game Costume Quest on the XBla marketplace. I think the cover art looks cute, so I read the description and see that it's a game developed by none other than Double Fine studios. Double Fine put out a game and there wasn't a bigger hubub about it? Well here's the hubub I'm making because I'm annoyed I didn't find out about this sooner!
What a freaking fun and cute game to get you in the spirit of Halloween (a few days too late but still)! You start the game watching a scene with two fraternal siblings Reynold and Wren, bickering about trick or treating. At this point you are momentarily placed in the body of their Mom, whom you use to place one of the siblings in charge for the night, which is how you choose your character. The other sibling then is placed in a lame Halloween costume as a piece of candy corn, you adorn your Robot costume, and you're on your way. Shortly thereafter, a monster who mistakes your sibling as a tasty treat, and hauls them away. So, since you were placed in charge of them, you make it your mission to get them back (mostly so your parents don't kill you and ruin Halloween!)
The game is an RPG in one of it's purest forms. When you square off against the monsters, you turn into this imagination driven larger than life version of the costume you are wearing. The robot costume you start with is rather unassuming (cardboard box, dials, etc...) but in battle you look more like something out of the Gundam universe with flying and rockets and oh man cool. The battles are something a bit new to me, as your ability to do and take damage has less to do with your level as it does your actual reaction time. All the fights are build on a quick-time event system, where you hit an input button (ABXY) at a precise moment to block more damage or deal more damage. I get the feeling the novelty of this may wear off at some point, but I played the thing for like 6 hours so far and I think the animations keep it from getting too stale.
This game makes you feel like a kid in the best sense of the term. And look, I keep feeling silly for doing these reviews of games like this that have a demo that YOU CAN GO AND PLAY YOURSELF, I KNOW! But still, I didn't hear anything as far as buzz about this game, and I feel as though it is a disservice, since the game is fun, made by a studio reputable for making great games; let's face it, who doesn't love Halloween? Maybe that sentence doesn't make sense, but I don't care! Buy the game and love it! BOOSH!
p.s. I know it's also weird that I never write about games that are bad, and that's because I constantly play demos of these games to decide which to buy, because I'm frugal and don't want to have a plethora of XBla games that I don't like. Perhaps I will make a list of games to just skip over and don't even waste your time playing, but I'll save it for another post...
What a freaking fun and cute game to get you in the spirit of Halloween (a few days too late but still)! You start the game watching a scene with two fraternal siblings Reynold and Wren, bickering about trick or treating. At this point you are momentarily placed in the body of their Mom, whom you use to place one of the siblings in charge for the night, which is how you choose your character. The other sibling then is placed in a lame Halloween costume as a piece of candy corn, you adorn your Robot costume, and you're on your way. Shortly thereafter, a monster who mistakes your sibling as a tasty treat, and hauls them away. So, since you were placed in charge of them, you make it your mission to get them back (mostly so your parents don't kill you and ruin Halloween!)
The game is an RPG in one of it's purest forms. When you square off against the monsters, you turn into this imagination driven larger than life version of the costume you are wearing. The robot costume you start with is rather unassuming (cardboard box, dials, etc...) but in battle you look more like something out of the Gundam universe with flying and rockets and oh man cool. The battles are something a bit new to me, as your ability to do and take damage has less to do with your level as it does your actual reaction time. All the fights are build on a quick-time event system, where you hit an input button (ABXY) at a precise moment to block more damage or deal more damage. I get the feeling the novelty of this may wear off at some point, but I played the thing for like 6 hours so far and I think the animations keep it from getting too stale.
This game makes you feel like a kid in the best sense of the term. And look, I keep feeling silly for doing these reviews of games like this that have a demo that YOU CAN GO AND PLAY YOURSELF, I KNOW! But still, I didn't hear anything as far as buzz about this game, and I feel as though it is a disservice, since the game is fun, made by a studio reputable for making great games; let's face it, who doesn't love Halloween? Maybe that sentence doesn't make sense, but I don't care! Buy the game and love it! BOOSH!
p.s. I know it's also weird that I never write about games that are bad, and that's because I constantly play demos of these games to decide which to buy, because I'm frugal and don't want to have a plethora of XBla games that I don't like. Perhaps I will make a list of games to just skip over and don't even waste your time playing, but I'll save it for another post...
Bond, Blood Stone and Brightness
A week goes by, and all I did was game.
The new Xbox dashboard sucks, thanks a lot Kinect adaptability.
Know what doesn't suck? The new Bond game. Yeah, you heard me right, the new James Bond game.
Let's review what other Bond games have been released recently (I'm not counting Goldeneye Wii since it also just came out). Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale. Both obvious movie tie-ins, both were released to mixed reviews. Everything or Nothing, a poor attempt at a combination of games with an original Bond storyline. Of course this game came out around the time the Gamecube was ruling the world and not much made sense. From Russia With Love? A decent, albeit aged ps2 game.
There's a fine line that anyone attempting to make a 007 game has to straddle. On the one hand Goldeneye made it that much harder to make a successful 007 game. They came out with Tomorrow Never Dies which was your standard 3rd person action/shooter. Don't remember it? Most people don't.
Then they came out with The World is Not Enough for the N64. It went back to the shooter days, and felt like Goldeneye in some ways, in others it just felt too linear. Was Goldeneye the first 007 game? Oh my no. There were quite a few released on the older systems as well.
The Wikipedia Link of James Bond Games
History lessons aside, most Bond games released were movie tie-ins. (I still actually own the James Bond 007 gameboy game, it's strange but really fun, almost MGS-like)
The games that weren't movie tie-ins were usually huge flops, well hell, for that matter the movie games were flops too. People tend to forget all of this when they simply think of Goldeneye.
The original storyline games were inventive to say the least, Agent Under Fire and Nightfire (both original stories), were strong on gameplay, had an amazingly diverse set of equipment and gadgets, strong shooter elements, and a decent story. Blood Stone, the most recent original 007 game, stays true to this concept. Original Story- Check. Strong Shooter Elements- Check. Gadgets- Check.
It plays somewhat like Gears of War mixed with Mafia and Splinter Cell: Conviction. The focus aim element of Blood Stone is an exact rip from Conviction, but I doubt anyone will mind. Shoot from cover, press A to move from cover, slide to cover: it's all gravy baby.
Is anyone even listening? Nah. Will anyone play this game? Probably not. With Fallout and Fable already out, and Black-ops soon to come, this game will just slide under the radar. Fine by me. It's games like this that make me a gamer. Mafia 2 is another example. Will these games stay on my shelf forever? Ok probably, but will they stay on the shelf of the average gamer forever? Doubtful. But, for the time it's there it will be extremely enjoyable. They don't do anything too flashy, or too strange. There are driving elements, but good thing the people who made the game have heavy experience in making racing games, so it never feels strange ("From Russia With Love", I'm looking at you....). A good solid game that is worth a rental at least.
So that's it? A huge gamer fan and a huge 007 fan has that much to say about the newest game? Well, yes and no. You see, as I was playing my only complaint (yes, my ONLY complaint, I complain often, but this game was just so enjoyable and simple that I didn't have any real problems with it except...) the screen was so damn dark.
Am I the only gamer who instantly turns up the brightness on a game? Am I just getting old? I know in todays games they show you a little picture and have you turn up the brightness to match it, but then I turn the thing up like 3 more places. I mean, I understand wanting the game to have a creepiness to it, but I felt the same thing when I was playing Fallout:New Vegas. It's dark for the ambience, but almost too dark when you're faced with someone. I guess this would be the line between realism in a game and a game. Still, I dunno. I like being able to see. Sure it washes out some of the game textures, but it makes the damn thing easier to play.
And what's all this about the internet nowadays? Haha. I'm gonna go back to being screamed at by 12yr olds. I mean playing Black Ops. Same diff.
The new Xbox dashboard sucks, thanks a lot Kinect adaptability.
Know what doesn't suck? The new Bond game. Yeah, you heard me right, the new James Bond game.
Let's review what other Bond games have been released recently (I'm not counting Goldeneye Wii since it also just came out). Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale. Both obvious movie tie-ins, both were released to mixed reviews. Everything or Nothing, a poor attempt at a combination of games with an original Bond storyline. Of course this game came out around the time the Gamecube was ruling the world and not much made sense. From Russia With Love? A decent, albeit aged ps2 game.
There's a fine line that anyone attempting to make a 007 game has to straddle. On the one hand Goldeneye made it that much harder to make a successful 007 game. They came out with Tomorrow Never Dies which was your standard 3rd person action/shooter. Don't remember it? Most people don't.
Then they came out with The World is Not Enough for the N64. It went back to the shooter days, and felt like Goldeneye in some ways, in others it just felt too linear. Was Goldeneye the first 007 game? Oh my no. There were quite a few released on the older systems as well.
The Wikipedia Link of James Bond Games
History lessons aside, most Bond games released were movie tie-ins. (I still actually own the James Bond 007 gameboy game, it's strange but really fun, almost MGS-like)
The games that weren't movie tie-ins were usually huge flops, well hell, for that matter the movie games were flops too. People tend to forget all of this when they simply think of Goldeneye.
The original storyline games were inventive to say the least, Agent Under Fire and Nightfire (both original stories), were strong on gameplay, had an amazingly diverse set of equipment and gadgets, strong shooter elements, and a decent story. Blood Stone, the most recent original 007 game, stays true to this concept. Original Story- Check. Strong Shooter Elements- Check. Gadgets- Check.
It plays somewhat like Gears of War mixed with Mafia and Splinter Cell: Conviction. The focus aim element of Blood Stone is an exact rip from Conviction, but I doubt anyone will mind. Shoot from cover, press A to move from cover, slide to cover: it's all gravy baby.
Is anyone even listening? Nah. Will anyone play this game? Probably not. With Fallout and Fable already out, and Black-ops soon to come, this game will just slide under the radar. Fine by me. It's games like this that make me a gamer. Mafia 2 is another example. Will these games stay on my shelf forever? Ok probably, but will they stay on the shelf of the average gamer forever? Doubtful. But, for the time it's there it will be extremely enjoyable. They don't do anything too flashy, or too strange. There are driving elements, but good thing the people who made the game have heavy experience in making racing games, so it never feels strange ("From Russia With Love", I'm looking at you....). A good solid game that is worth a rental at least.
So that's it? A huge gamer fan and a huge 007 fan has that much to say about the newest game? Well, yes and no. You see, as I was playing my only complaint (yes, my ONLY complaint, I complain often, but this game was just so enjoyable and simple that I didn't have any real problems with it except...) the screen was so damn dark.
Am I the only gamer who instantly turns up the brightness on a game? Am I just getting old? I know in todays games they show you a little picture and have you turn up the brightness to match it, but then I turn the thing up like 3 more places. I mean, I understand wanting the game to have a creepiness to it, but I felt the same thing when I was playing Fallout:New Vegas. It's dark for the ambience, but almost too dark when you're faced with someone. I guess this would be the line between realism in a game and a game. Still, I dunno. I like being able to see. Sure it washes out some of the game textures, but it makes the damn thing easier to play.
And what's all this about the internet nowadays? Haha. I'm gonna go back to being screamed at by 12yr olds. I mean playing Black Ops. Same diff.
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