Dear Drake: A Letter from Lara

Dear Nathan:

Is it Nathan or Nate? Either way, hi. I guess we haven’t officially met, but my name’s Lara. Lara Croft. Maybe you’ve heard of me? Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I recently played through your Playstation 3 game Uncharted, and I thought it appropriate to drop you a note.

Thanks for totally biting my style. I MEEN I RAID TOMBS DOOD JEEZ. That’s my thing. Playing through your game was exactly like playing through one of my games. Shoot some dudes, navigate some catacombs, solve a thousand-year-old puzzle, shoot some more dudes. Rinse, admire the realistic water physics, repeat.

Wait, I should clarify, playing your Uncharted game was just like playing one of my Tomb Raider games, EXACTLY like playing one of my Tomb Raider games, except for one thing — YOUR GAME IS GOOD. My game hasn’t been good since Tomb Raider 2, and was it even good then? I mean, I had boobs, but when you look past that, does anything else stand out?

Insert a Quarter to Continue: DLC and Broken Storylines

Downloadable Content? I love it! It’s like printing free money! It’s a trick we learned from heroin dealers: give people a little bit, but not enough to tide them over, and then charge them exorbitant fees to continue with the taste of heroin that they’ve come to love. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go eat bacon-covered diamonds. Because I’m that fucking rich.

-Unnamed Microsoft Executive

The most obvious complaints against Downloadable Content, or DLC, have been made many times, so I’ll rehash them quickly before I get to my point. Basically, companies sell incomplete games, and then make you pay to complete them. Or, they charge too much for content that adds very little to the game. (“For only $10, you can get the Modern Warfare 2: Hat Editor! Change your character’s hat to a cowboy hat, fedora, or bowler! And if you like the Hat Editor, make sure to get the $5 Hat Editor expansion, which allows you to purchase a baseball hat in one of 4 awesome colors!”) Those are valid points, and reason enough to hate the policy of charging for DLC.

I’d like to add another problem with a lot of DLC: it breaks storylines.

Torchlight: A User’s Guide to this Bullshit.

Welcome to Torchlight. This User’s Guide will describe the basics of playing Torchlight, the dungeon crawler action game.

I. Setup.

Throw away your keyboard. Although it would be far easier to control your character with the keyboard, you can only use the mouse. A major advantage of playing games on a PC is that it is impossible for a developer to allow you to configure your own keys on the keyboard, so please use the mouse. There are two buttons on the mouse: Left Mouse Button and Right Mouse Button. By default, LMB is Attack 1, and RMB is Attack 2. If you wish, you can make LMB Attack 2, and RMB Attack 1. Again, you may not use the keyboard for this.

Those with carpal tunnel syndrome, or who dislike using solely a mouse for long periods of time, should not play this game.

II. Plot.

(Information not found).

Halo 3: ODST Review

Naming a game after a made-up acronym for a made-up soldier in a made-up war seems like a bad idea, but that’s exactly where we get the title Halo 3: ODST, which stands for Orbital Drop Something Trooper. I’m not saying that they should have called this Halo 4, because it’s clearly not, but initials don’t really make me want to play a game, ever. The fact that this conversation happened

Girlfriend: “What you playing?”
Me: “The new Halo.”
Girlfriend: “Oh, Halo: ODST?”

is not a testament to its stellar title, but more a warning that my girlfriend, bless her, is actually retaining the ridiculous game nonsense that I’m constantly spewing at her. So, if I could go back in time and suggest a better title? Halo 3: More Halo 3. Here’s my review.

Defense Grid: The Awakening. Tower Defense with Fancy Pretty Graphics

Defense Grid: The Awakening is a tower defense game. I’ve been playing a lot of tower defense games lately, because they require little time investment. I can start, play a level or two, and then go do something else. I was a huge fan of Rampart back in the day, and within the last year or so I’ve played a fair amount Desktop Tower Defense and Gemcraft. The idea is pretty simple: there’s a playing field, either with a pre-set maze or a canvas to be divided and sub-divided into a maze. Enemies come at you, and you keep building and upgrading towers to shoot them down. They are games of delegating. You do not shoot monsters. The towers shoot the monsters. Who built the towers? Well, you did, but you can not be blamed for the monsters’ deaths, can you? No, because they knew the towers were there. They knew the towers were there. Why did they still attack? It’s not my fault they’re all dead! I swear, I just built towers with guns, how was I to know they were being used to shoot at waves of monsters? HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW???

Where was I? Ah yes, washing my hands. But I digress.

Defense Grid follows the typical tower defense pattern to a T. It’s well designed, the mazes are fun, and there’s the usual variety of towers. The enemies, part of some weird alien race, attack your base to steal one of the 20 power cores it contains. Once an enemy grabs a power core, the alien carries it off, unless your towers manage to kill the alien. When you kill an alien holding a power core, your power core slowly floats back to your base, unless another enemy happens to grab it along the way. This adds an excellent twist to the usual “kill them before they make it to the other side” dynamic. Alien grabs core. You kill alien. Another, fresh alien grabs the core. Hopefully, you kill that one too, and your core floats safely back the base. Otherwise you watch as a series of weak aliens manage to relay your power core off the map. Lose all your power cores and you have to replay the level.

Gazing into the Future: Legos

The year is twenty-oh-ten, people. Welcome to the future.  Not so shabby is it? Well, no flying cars, but look on the bright side, there are still plenty of idiots who mention the lack of flying cars every time you bring up the future. That’s something, right?

Okay, I need you to look farther than today and farther than tomorrow, I need you to stare deep into a likely future where I have a child. Do you see it? Now I want you to imagine a slightly less likely future where I actually know that I have a child. Got it? Now I need you to imagine the least likely of futures, a future where my child’s mother allows me to name our first born son Cthulu Dorsey. Are you there? Good. And action:

Adam: Hey, Cthulu!
Cthulu: Hey, Dad!
Adam: I have a present for you!
Cthulu: What is it, Dad?!
Adam: Legos!
Cthulu: YAY! Let me turn on my xbox 1440!

Achieving Something Better

Last night I stayed up playing X-Box Live Uno until 2am. I needed to get the last achievement in the game, an achievement requiring 40 wins.  I mean, I NEEDED TO. On Friday, I had decided that I would get the achievement by the end of the weekend. With 30 wins under my belt, it seemed like a reasonable goal.  I played it a lot over the weekend, as much as a grown-ass-man can justify playing virtual cards with strangers, but to no avail. Last night, I was still 8 wins away from the 40, and my reasonable goal had turned into an impossible one.

I lay in bed reading with my girlfriend, feeling the next morning fast approaching. I found myself not paying attention to the words on the page.  My mind was somewhere else.

“I think I’m going to get up and play some Uno,” I said to her, the relationship-equivalent of slamming down a green reverse card.

“Okay,” she said, smiling. Behind that smile, I guessed she was holding a blue skip, just waiting for the right time to use it on me.

Dragon Age: Origins. Pretty [Now Loading.........] Great.

The Blood Dragon. Look, we all know what "The Blood Dragon" is a euphemism for, right? If not, ask your Aunt Flo. She knows all about it.

BioWare described Dragon Age: Origins as an “epic tale of violence, lust, and betrayal,” which makes it sound like it’s a game about the Bible. I hereby offer a better description of Dragon Age: Origins: it is a tale of blood and loading screens.

From the first second of the game, BioWare lets you know that they’re not fucking around. A sword cuts some invisible sap, letting blood spew forth. The blood turns into a dragon, which then falls onto a piece of paper. The splash of blood makes a big dragon-shaped bloody mess. You have already seen 3 pints of the Mountain Dew of Vampires spilled, and you haven’t even started the game. That was the intro.

Before we talk too much about blood, however, let’s talk about being born. You start DA:O in the usual Sim-like way, designing a character’s face, body type, et cetera. Then you pick his or her race (human, elf, dwarf), background (noble, commoner), and class (warrior, rogue, mage). I created an Elven mage who is a dead ringer for Spock. Why limit your nerdiness to the nerdiness provided? You shouldn’t. That’s how I keep it real. Who is to say this universe isn’t also the universe of Star Trek, thousands of years before? No one. I can be Spock in any game I want.

Letters by a Border Patrol Guard from the game Homeland Defense: National Security Patrol

The following excerpts are from letters written by border patrol guard Jonathon Yankee, from the game Homeland Defense: National Security Patrol. The game is available for $20 from Best Buy. Do not buy it.

Every member of NSP has to place his giant hand against the computer screen and say the sacred oath: "I solemnly swear to uphold the sanctity of our borders and to modulate the volume of my voice depending on the current threat level."

Day 1:

Well Mom, I made it. I have successfully completed all the training necessary to be a Border Patrol Guard for the National Security Patrol! As a member of the NSP, we’ve got all sorts of duties, but basically we’re the first line of defense against all of the illegal immigrants trying to steal our free air by breathing it.

Not much to say for today. We’re basically just waiting to find out what our orders are going to be. Until we know where we’re stationed, we’ve been practicing standing still and not noticing things happening directly in front of us. It’s tough. Any way, it’s been a long day. I better say good night.

Gratuitous Space Battles: I’m Sorry Dave, I Can’t Give You That Information.

Would you like to play a game?

Curtis: All right, Gratuitous Space Battles. I like spaceships, and you’re a game about spaceships fighting each other. Let’s play, shall we?

GSB: Excellent, Curtis. Would you like to play a brief tutorial first?

Curtis: Sure, that would be great. Tutor me!

GSB: Click on ships to place them in the battlefield. When ships are placed in the battlefield, you can give them orders to determine their behavior. Press “Start” to begin the battle.

Curtis: All right, I’ve got some ships set up. Let’s start!

GSB: Battle commencing.

Curtis: Can I control my ships?

GSB: …

Curtis: Uhmmm…I guess not? Well, my big ships are making mincemeat of the smaller enemy ships. I think they’re almost done taking down that big enemy ship. Is that enemy ship almost dead?

GSB: …

Curtis: Can you tell me how many hit points that ship has?

GSB: …

Curtis: Can you show me at least vaguely how much damage the enemy ship has taken?

GSB: …

Curtis: Okay,well it’s dead now. There’s only two more big ships, and a bunch of tiny little fighters. If my big ships just gang up on the enemy big ships–

GSB: …

Curtis: WHY ARE MY BIG SHIPS FOCUSING ON THE TINY FIGHTERS??? THEY SHOULD BE ATTACKING THE BIG ENEMY SHIPS THAT ARE ATTACKING THEM!!!

GSB: No need to get emotional, Curtis. You should set your priorities differently before battle. You can choose specific behaviors for your ships.

Curtis: Okay, let’s do that. So let’s start over, and set up the ships better.