Tony Hawk Tuesday

It’s #TonyHawkTuesday, and I had to share my excitement.

Training for Modern Warfare 2

Prince of Persia

I really liked Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. When it came out, I paid full price for a copy on the x-box, and did not regret the purchase. I remember thinking at the time: Hey, this is like Tomb Raider, if Tomb Raider was fun.  Then the sequel came out, and for some reason they had replaced a soundtrack that made sense with a soundtrack made up of Godsmack. I was not pleased. I didn’t purchase it until it dropped to $20, and I never played it all the way through.

I couldn’t understand why they had to make the Prince… hardcore.  My eleven-year-old nephew disagreed with me at the time. “It’s better now,” he told me, “he’s not all gay like before.”

I said, “No, he wasn’t gay, he was just acting like a prince! That’s how princes act!”

“No, I don’t mean gay like gay, I mean gay like lame.”

“I told you not to use that word that way.”

“You’re not my real dad.”  And my nephew won another argument.

I was excited when I heard that they were rebooting the franchise. No more heavy metal prince.  I hoped it would be like The Sands of Time, you know, Tomb Raider gameplay, but fun. Then the reviews came out, and the complaints stacked up against it. Everyone said it was too easy. Too repetitive.  Too… cel-shaded.  So I threw it towards the bottom of my Gamefly queue and figured I probably would never get to it.

Last week Gamefly sent me a copy of Prince of Persia: No Subtitle, and let me tell you, all of those reviews? They were wrong.

Brutal Legend – Demo Impressions

I’m a big Tim Schafer fan, really, I am. It’s just, well, I’ve never actually played any of his games, not really. I played the first hour of Full Throttle on a friend’s Mac back in the day. I still intend on buying the Monkey Island remake at some point, but you know, I just haven’t gotten around to it. Grim Fandango looks cool.  I always wanted to get Psychonauts, I did, and if an xbox 360 hard drive didn’t cost more than getting a toe by 3pm, I would have the hard drive space to buy it and play it right now.  As it is, though, I’m a huge Tim Schafer fan from a distance. I like the idea of Tim Schafer. I love his thoughts on the future of gaming, particularly on the phenomenon of the half-tuck. But again, I hadn’t ever really experienced Tim Schafer hands-on, not really.

But today, I played the Brutal Legend demo, and it blew my mind, people. Mostly? Because it met my expectations of how badass Tim Schafer is.  I had followed the game pretty closely, read the previews and interviews, and if we are to judge just this demo? Tim Schafer has achieved everything he set out to do.  And everything he told us would be there? It’s there and it’s glorious.  Well, for a demo.

50 Cent: Blood on the AWESOME

I didn’t play the first 50 Cent game (Bulletproof), not because of it’s quality (or lack there of), but because I simply wasn’t picking up what it was putting down. A rap star who had been pitched as the streetest thug since Pac, 50 Cent wound up just rhyming about scoring with models and taking trips to candy shops. He was not the gangsta I was looking for, and so the idea of playing a game where I pretended to be a gangsta who was pretending to be a gangsta didn’t really appeal to me.

But then this game came out called 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and that changed everything. The story is brilliant, stupid, and brilliant, and here is a rundown: 50 Cent and the G Unit crew are playing the last show of their world tour, in some unnamed middle eastern country. The promoter stiffs them the $50 million they were promised (for one show? I have to write five blog posts to get that), and when Fiddy has to choke a bitch, the promoter gives them a diamond encrusted skull instead of the $50 million. Fiddy says sure.

(What exactly would a rap star do with a diamond encrusted skull? I don’t ask. I assume that it is the modern day equivalent to Michael Jackson wanting the elephant man’s bones.)

Braid.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
-Søren Kierkegaard

I have bad luck with Steam’s Weekend sales. If I buy a game, that game will inevitably go one sale for $10 to $20 off the next weekend.

Here is how this should work:

I purchase Braid for $15. I play it, and enjoy it quite a bit.
But then I notice that Braid has gone on sale for $5.
I hold down the Shift key, and my life reverses. Effect precedes cause, the universe contracts slightly, and when a week has flown by in reverse, time’s arrow flips around again into its natural position. Now armed with knowledge of Steam’s Weekend sale to come, I hold off purchasing Braid. (I also bet heavily on sports.)
Once a week has passed, the sale starts. Braid is now on sale for $5. I purchase it, saving $10.

Hackers – Bioshocked

Hackers is pretty much the greatest movie ever made. Only problem is, the “hacking” special effects don’t really stand the test of time. That’s why I’ve gone ahead and fixed them and made them look like how we visualize hacking today.

Resident Evil 5: What You May Have Heard

Today, I received my thick Gamefly envelope in the mailbox, and instead of seeing a bright shiny copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum shimmering out at me like a batarang shimmers in that crisp Gotham moonlight, within the dusty confines of this particular Gamefly package I only found a dirty, scratchy, remnant of the woes of gaming past. It was labeled Resident Evil 5.

Now don’t get me wrong, Resident Evil 5 was on my queue, but it was a few spaces down, you know, with other games that I wanted to play shoved way out in front of it. I had stacked a barricade of quality games between me and Chris Redfield’s ‘roid muscles, I promise you this. Batman: Arkham Asylum, for instance, it was there in the number one spot.  And Prototype, it was stabbing folks with its little anti-hero-claw-hand-things there at number two.  Even Wolverine: Origins was ahead of Resident Evil 5, both of which I only have a morbid curiosity about, but the former of which has Wolverine, so it naturally gets priority. But for some reason, today, Gamefly said no, let’s not send him something he wants to play, let’s send him Resident Evil 5.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

You guys, I just decided what I want to be when I grow up. No, not a giraffe (although that would be super sweet too!) But no, after playing through the first three levels of Tomb Raider: Underworld, I totally want to be an archeologist!  I mean, seriously, you guys, did you know that archeologists get to carry around guns?  It’s true. There was a part where I pulled out my two gats and shot a shark in the face, UNDERWATER (!) I KNOW, RIGHT? Then I was whisked away to some other exotic locale, where I proceeded to FUCK UP some dead guy’s ancient burial place. I mean, seriously, there was a part there where I took out my shotgun and just blasted into the wall for like five minutes. It was awesome. Plus, if you break open these priceless vases that are scattered around, you can pull out these little artifacts, put them in your backpack, and I don’t know, get some gamerscore or something. IT’S FUCKIN’ MY NEW CAREER, DUDE.

Wait, let me start over. What I meant to say was: I played some Tomb Raider: Underworld, and I did not have a good time.  But hold on, I liked Tomb Raider when I was 14, right? Well, it turns out that  the reasons I liked Tomb Raider when I was 14, they don’t really transfer over to me liking Tomb Raider now. Part of that has to do with just how far we’ve come in gaming, that the same gameplay mechanics that used to wow us, now they just barely get us by.

Part of it has to do with boobs.

An Open Letter to a Call of Duty 4 Player

Dear fellow Call of Duty 4 player,

We were in a multiplayer match recently, and you disconnected from me before I could offer a fair rebuttal to your accusations, and so I wanted to take this opportunity, in a public forum, to express my dismay.

First off, I am not homosexual. Despite my gameplay shortcomings, and the way my xbox live headset ups the effeminate nature of my voice, I assure you that I have been attracted to women for as long as I can remember. I love the company of the opposite gender, both as friends and as sexual partners. In fact, I have been with my current girlfriend for ten months now, and things are going very well, thank you. I guess all I mean is, when I shoot you, or you shoot me, or whatever gameplay occurs, if you could refrain from incorrectly calling me “fag,” “faggot,” or implying that you just “butt-fucked” me with that last sniper kill, that would be much appreciated.

Also, if I may go off on a bit of a tangent, I would like to state, matter-of-factly, that there is a huge difference between getting “butt-fucked” and shot with a sniper rifle.  They are different in many respects, for example, one involves a sniper rifle, while the other is primarily governed by the forceful insertion of… I should get back to the point at hand.