It's been kind of an uneventful week as far as gaming goes. I ended up beating "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2" through the Pro-Registration campaign earlier in the week. And after thinking about this game, I am a little disappointed. While the story was really interesting, both campaigns played almost the same. the only thing different was the middle third of the game. The first third was the story leading up to having you choose which side to play as during the middle third of the game. And the last third of the game had to do with the two sides setting aside their differences to defeat a common threat. I did like how the middle part of each campaign weaved together with the other storyline. Maybe I just had my expectations too high for this game. I will admit that I haven't had the chance to try playing this over Xbox Live with anyone so that might add something to the game. I really hope any DLC they add is kick ass, and not just an additional character or two. One other thing I did notice comparing the two "MUA" games is that the first one, while not based on a particular comic storyline, had a much longer game storyline. "MUA 2" was a lot shorter from start to finish then I hoped it would be. Maybe they will add some extra stuff to the single player campign down the road.
So once I got done beating "MUA 2", I played a little "Call of Duty 4" and advanced a few levels. After playing that for a while, I was looking at my games, and decided to fire up "Madden 09" after not playing it for a while. Once I played a few practice games, I loaded up my San Francisco 49er franchise to see where I was in my current season. It was a good thing I played a few practice game. Once I loaded up my save, I was happy to remember I just finished a 16-0 regular season and was on my first playoff game, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That game went well for playing my first game that mattered in a while. I won 23-10 and advanced to the NFC title game against the hated Dallas Cowboys. That game went pretty well as well, with a 28-13 win. That is when I got the bad news and found out who my new opponent was. I was matched up with the 15-1 New England Patriots. I was dreading playing these guys, and was anticipating a shootout, with the last person with the ball having a chance to win. Boy was I wrong. I ended up winning my second straight Super Bowl, winning 13-7. After advancing through the off-season, doing free agency and the draft I started my next season and picked up on a good note, beating the New Orleans Saints 44-24. Next up on the schedule is the Denver Broncos.
And no, before you ask, I don't play on the All-Madden difficulty level. I'm not that good at the game in my opinion. In this version of "Madden", they have what is called the My Skill skill level. Basically what it does, is it adjusts itself to how you play, and adjusts the skill level accordingly, either for the better or the worse. That seems to work well for me, and just about every game is fun and competitive.
I do know that the next day off I have, I will be starting up "Mass Effect". I want to be able to get a good start into the game, so I am saving it for a day off. Hopefully that day off isn't too far away.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Which side will you choose?
I have really been enjoying "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2" lately. I played through the game once already, picking Anti-Registration the first time through and thought the storyline was great. The end boss was kinda strange, but the overall experience was a lot of fun. Once I beat the game the first time, then I started the Pro-Registration storyline. They did a great job incorporating the 2 different storylines into the game and weaving them together like they have. It's been a lot of fun seeing some of the battles between various heroes such as Captain America fighting Iron Man among others, stuff you would think you would never get to see.
They really did improve on just about every aspect of the first game. I am finding it hard to find something from the first game that they carried over to the sequel and didn't improve upon it. Granted, the game isn't even a week old yet, and we have yet to see any sort of DLC, but I really doubt they can screw that up.
One thing I have given some thought to is to try and find all the comic book issues pertaining to the "Civil War" storyline. Like I said, I've really enjoyed the game to this point, but since I haven't read the entire story, I'm not completely sure how much of this game is pulled right from the story and what they have added for the game. The thing that will be really interesting to see is if they make a third game, what storyline will be used. Will it be a story written for the game like the first one, or pulled directly from the pages of the comics like they did for the second game. I can tell you about one thing I hope they keep in any other "MUA" games: the cameo appearance by Stan Lee was genius.
They really did improve on just about every aspect of the first game. I am finding it hard to find something from the first game that they carried over to the sequel and didn't improve upon it. Granted, the game isn't even a week old yet, and we have yet to see any sort of DLC, but I really doubt they can screw that up.
One thing I have given some thought to is to try and find all the comic book issues pertaining to the "Civil War" storyline. Like I said, I've really enjoyed the game to this point, but since I haven't read the entire story, I'm not completely sure how much of this game is pulled right from the story and what they have added for the game. The thing that will be really interesting to see is if they make a third game, what storyline will be used. Will it be a story written for the game like the first one, or pulled directly from the pages of the comics like they did for the second game. I can tell you about one thing I hope they keep in any other "MUA" games: the cameo appearance by Stan Lee was genius.
Friday, September 18, 2009
So it's been a month......
One month ago tonight, I logged off of "Final Fantasy XI" for the last time. And I have to be honest, for the most part, I really don't miss it. There are parts of it I miss. For example, Thursday nights had been Nyzul Isle nights for the last year, and we were gonna be starting up regular assault runs by now, to try and get us all Captain rank. Nyzul nights were one of the only things left in-game that I really looked forward to, and was probably one of the main reasons I hadn't decided to quit sooner. I miss hanging out with my linkshells, especially the DuskWalkers crew. I met a lot of amazing people in my time playing "FFXI", and had many a laugh with a lot of them. I miss the experience point grind as well, the first clue being the 11 jobs I had capped to 75. Had it not been for the pride I took in making sure my jobs were geared well, I might have had more jobs leveled. Hell, I even kinda miss the eventing grind.
That said, I don't miss it enough to come back. It really did get to the point that playing "FFXI" almost begn feeling like a second job. I had forgotten for the most part how fun it was being able to play and enjoy other games. And aside from a few events I enjoyed doing, a lot of nights, logging into "FFXI" became a chore. Maybe in the back of my mind, I had come to the decision to walk away from "FFXI" a while ago, I really am not sure. The thing I am sure about is that I walked away at the right time.
A very well known and popular thing to say about people that have walked away from playing "FFXI" is that "they always come back". After a month away from the game, and really enjoying that month, I gotta be honest: no, they don't.
That said, I don't miss it enough to come back. It really did get to the point that playing "FFXI" almost begn feeling like a second job. I had forgotten for the most part how fun it was being able to play and enjoy other games. And aside from a few events I enjoyed doing, a lot of nights, logging into "FFXI" became a chore. Maybe in the back of my mind, I had come to the decision to walk away from "FFXI" a while ago, I really am not sure. The thing I am sure about is that I walked away at the right time.
A very well known and popular thing to say about people that have walked away from playing "FFXI" is that "they always come back". After a month away from the game, and really enjoying that month, I gotta be honest: no, they don't.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Game day
Work has been beating my ass as of late, so I haven't got to play as much as I would like, but when I did get a chance to play, I made up for lost time. Sunday was a "Shadow Complex" marathon for me, and eventually late Sunday night, I beat the game. I really enjoyed that game, and have the opinion that that is the best game available from Live Arcade. I will say that I haven't played games like "Castle Crashers" or "Braid" which have also gotten rave reviews from critics and players alike, but I really liked "Complex". The backtracking got a little tedious at times, but you had to do a lot of the same in "Metroid" and "Castlevania" as well so I was expecting some of it going in. The way they did it though in "Complex" made it not seem so bad. For a Live Arcade game, I thought they did a really good job with the graphics, even though it is just a 2-D side scroller. None of the mini-boss or main boss fights were too terrible, but I wasn't playing on the highest difficulty so I guess that was to be expected. I will definitely be playing through this again, on a higher difficulty, and try and knock out some of the leftover achievements I missed out on. That and the game is just plain fun. And games like these always play through faster after the first time.
As I stated before, I was a huge fan of the first "Marvel Ultimate Alliance", so it shouldn't be a surprise that I picked "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2" last night, on the day of release. Now granted, I didn't get a lot of time to play last night, but my initial impressions is "wow". They took what worked in the first one, improved upon it and gave it a serious graphic overhaul. It looks amazing up to this point. I am really looking forward to jumping into this game a lot more over the next days and weeks to come. One thing that will be interesting is what kind of DLC they will release for this game. For the first game, they released some hero and villain playable character packs, and I imagine they will do the same thing for this one.
The movie scene has been pretty slow as of late, but the previews I have been seeing for "Pandorum" look pretty interesting. It looks like a cross between "Event Horizon" and "The Decent". And if it is half as good as either of those, I can't wait.
As I stated before, I was a huge fan of the first "Marvel Ultimate Alliance", so it shouldn't be a surprise that I picked "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2" last night, on the day of release. Now granted, I didn't get a lot of time to play last night, but my initial impressions is "wow". They took what worked in the first one, improved upon it and gave it a serious graphic overhaul. It looks amazing up to this point. I am really looking forward to jumping into this game a lot more over the next days and weeks to come. One thing that will be interesting is what kind of DLC they will release for this game. For the first game, they released some hero and villain playable character packs, and I imagine they will do the same thing for this one.
The movie scene has been pretty slow as of late, but the previews I have been seeing for "Pandorum" look pretty interesting. It looks like a cross between "Event Horizon" and "The Decent". And if it is half as good as either of those, I can't wait.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Everyone should have this "Complex"
So last night I was playing some "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" and I ended up getting my next rank up in the Prestige ranks that they have. For each Prestige rank, and if I remember correctly, there are 8 of them, you have to level up to 55, unlocking different perks and weapons along the way. Once you cap your experience points for that particular rank at 55, you get the option to stay at that rank, or move up a rank. Now the kicker is, if you choose to move up to the next rank, you are, for the most part, demoted. You get reset to level 1, so you have to go through that next rank, unlocking everything again on your way to 55. I think I only have 5 more ranks to go......
Now onto the game I refer to in the title of this post, and that game is "Shadow Complex". It is only available on the Xbox Live Arcade, but at some point it might get released on PC. This game was partially created witht he help of Cliff Blewzinski (I hope I spelled his name right), or better known as Cliffy B. (I know I spelled that right). He is the guy responsible for the "Gears of War" games, so I had a good feeling about this game before it even came out. Then I saw some gameplay during the coverage of E3 over the summer and I was hooked.
But probably the thing that got me the most excited was the style of gameplay. What they did was go back to the good old days of the 2-D side scroller, bringing back fond memories of the original "Metroid" and "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night". They used quite a bit of the old school side scrolling gameplay, and added 2009 graphics and that combo definitely works. Hell, I didn't even start the main game until earlier tonight. I spent a good 6 hours or so last night just working on what they call the Training Grounds, if I remember the name correctly. Basically what that is, is a bunch of short, and in some cases, timed and scored mini-games. And I gotta say, some of them are really hard. I finally had to shut it off last night and go to sleep, because it ended up getting pretty frustrating. I did end up beating what challenges I had left, not even worrying about my rank on them, just hoping I would be able to finish them.
Once I did finally finish all of the challenges, I dove into the main campaign, and it is a lot of fun so far. They did a really good job bringing a 2-D side scroller into this day and age of gaming. They deserve a ton of credit for making such a high quality game, and releasing it on Xbox Live. Most companies would be after the big bucks and releasing a game like this to mass retail, so kudos to them. The only bad part about that though, is if you don't have a 360, you're kinda hosed. But if you do have a 360, I really recommend picking up this little gem off of Arcade.
Now onto the game I refer to in the title of this post, and that game is "Shadow Complex". It is only available on the Xbox Live Arcade, but at some point it might get released on PC. This game was partially created witht he help of Cliff Blewzinski (I hope I spelled his name right), or better known as Cliffy B. (I know I spelled that right). He is the guy responsible for the "Gears of War" games, so I had a good feeling about this game before it even came out. Then I saw some gameplay during the coverage of E3 over the summer and I was hooked.
But probably the thing that got me the most excited was the style of gameplay. What they did was go back to the good old days of the 2-D side scroller, bringing back fond memories of the original "Metroid" and "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night". They used quite a bit of the old school side scrolling gameplay, and added 2009 graphics and that combo definitely works. Hell, I didn't even start the main game until earlier tonight. I spent a good 6 hours or so last night just working on what they call the Training Grounds, if I remember the name correctly. Basically what that is, is a bunch of short, and in some cases, timed and scored mini-games. And I gotta say, some of them are really hard. I finally had to shut it off last night and go to sleep, because it ended up getting pretty frustrating. I did end up beating what challenges I had left, not even worrying about my rank on them, just hoping I would be able to finish them.
Once I did finally finish all of the challenges, I dove into the main campaign, and it is a lot of fun so far. They did a really good job bringing a 2-D side scroller into this day and age of gaming. They deserve a ton of credit for making such a high quality game, and releasing it on Xbox Live. Most companies would be after the big bucks and releasing a game like this to mass retail, so kudos to them. The only bad part about that though, is if you don't have a 360, you're kinda hosed. But if you do have a 360, I really recommend picking up this little gem off of Arcade.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Attack of the Real Life
First I want to apologize about the lull in updates lately. Had a busy holiday weekend and wasn't home much, so there wasn't really anything to post about. The only game playing I did over the weekend was a little on Facebook. However, once the busyness of the weekend died down, I did get a chance to fire up "Oblivion" again. I've been plugging away on that the last few days, and a couple hours ago, I finally beat the main quest line, and in doing so, got my first Xbox game with all the achievements finished. I must quantify that statement by saying that as long as you do the main quest, and all the side quest lines, you will finish the achievements off. I wish more games were set up that way, because some games have such ridiculous achievements. I will say this about "Oblivion": that game is HUGE. I'll go into that more in a later post though.
Once I got done playing "Oblivion" earlier, I decided to fire up "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare". I hadn't played that in a long time, so it was kinda nice to get back into that for a while. I'll admit I am not the best at that game, partly because I get some ugly lag in some matches. If I can get on a game with a good host though, I do OK. Plus it's a lot of fun.
I know I said I was gonna pick up "Mass Effect" but I might have to put that on the back burner for a while. One of the games I have been really excited about is coming out next week, that game being "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2". The first game was really a lot of fun, and once I heard they were making a sequel, I have been looking forward to it ever since. Hopefully work cooperates and I have next Tuesday off.....
Once I got done playing "Oblivion" earlier, I decided to fire up "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare". I hadn't played that in a long time, so it was kinda nice to get back into that for a while. I'll admit I am not the best at that game, partly because I get some ugly lag in some matches. If I can get on a game with a good host though, I do OK. Plus it's a lot of fun.
I know I said I was gonna pick up "Mass Effect" but I might have to put that on the back burner for a while. One of the games I have been really excited about is coming out next week, that game being "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2". The first game was really a lot of fun, and once I heard they were making a sequel, I have been looking forward to it ever since. Hopefully work cooperates and I have next Tuesday off.....
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Two out of three ain't bad
Two "Oblivion" DLC down, one main quest line to go. I finished off "Shivering Isles" earlier. It had some interesting moments and some funny dialogue. The last boss was kind of a pain, posing a bit of a challenge before ultimately meeting his demise. I finished the other "Oblivion" DLC, "Knights of the Nine" a while ago, so now all that is left for me in Cyrodil is the main quest line, and it's been so long that I have no clue how much of that story I have left. I haven't really given some thought to what I will play next, but I really should start playing "Mass Effect" soon. There are quite a few games coming out that I have given some thought to possibly getting, and unfortunately "Mass Effect" keeps getting pushed to the side. One of these days I will pick "Mass Effect" back up. No, really I will......
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Watch it spin round to a beautiful "Oblivion"
Before I jump into talking about some games, I forgot to mention one thing about "Halloween 2". Any movie that has "Weird" Al Yankovic in a cameo appearance is made of complete and total win. 'Nuff said.
So anyway, last night I ended up finally beating "Fallout 3". I think when the kid was talking about bad endings he was referring to "Fallout 3" instead of "Halloween 2". The first ending, the one you get with the original game wasn't the best, but at least it gave you closure. Once you buy the DLC "Broken Steel" though, you pick up after that ending to try and destroy the Enclave once and for all. Once you play through the DLC and make your choice of what to do, the main storyline pretty much just stops there. No ending movie, credits don't roll, nothing. It was pretty disappointing and left me sitting there thinking "Was that it?". I actually had to go online and read to see if I missed something, which I didn't. On the bright side though, it does leave you with 2 new repeatable quests to keep doing, and it also lets you just able to go out and explore, kill stuff and maybe finish up any side quests you didn't get a chance to do beforehand. I do plan on starting a new game of "Fallout 3" at some point though, so this time I can play through as an evil character. There are also a few Xbox Live Achievements I missed out on this first play through that I would like to get as well, especially the Bobblehead achievement.
After loading up "Fallout 3" tonight and doing some housecleaning of my inventory and getting back to my house in Megaton, I was trying to decide what to play next. I decided to pick up another epic game that I hadn't gotten around to finishing off yet, that game being "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion". It was kinda nice to pick up "Oblivion" again. I was definitely a little rusty at first, but after a few fights, I got back into the swing of things. I did forget to repair my armor a lot longer then I would have liked though and did almost die at one point. So I will be playing that until I beat both the "Shivering Isles" DLC quest and the main quest line, along with possibly some of the side quests I might have missed. I imagine there might even be a waffle thrown in there at some point just for good measure.
So anyway, last night I ended up finally beating "Fallout 3". I think when the kid was talking about bad endings he was referring to "Fallout 3" instead of "Halloween 2". The first ending, the one you get with the original game wasn't the best, but at least it gave you closure. Once you buy the DLC "Broken Steel" though, you pick up after that ending to try and destroy the Enclave once and for all. Once you play through the DLC and make your choice of what to do, the main storyline pretty much just stops there. No ending movie, credits don't roll, nothing. It was pretty disappointing and left me sitting there thinking "Was that it?". I actually had to go online and read to see if I missed something, which I didn't. On the bright side though, it does leave you with 2 new repeatable quests to keep doing, and it also lets you just able to go out and explore, kill stuff and maybe finish up any side quests you didn't get a chance to do beforehand. I do plan on starting a new game of "Fallout 3" at some point though, so this time I can play through as an evil character. There are also a few Xbox Live Achievements I missed out on this first play through that I would like to get as well, especially the Bobblehead achievement.
After loading up "Fallout 3" tonight and doing some housecleaning of my inventory and getting back to my house in Megaton, I was trying to decide what to play next. I decided to pick up another epic game that I hadn't gotten around to finishing off yet, that game being "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion". It was kinda nice to pick up "Oblivion" again. I was definitely a little rusty at first, but after a few fights, I got back into the swing of things. I did forget to repair my armor a lot longer then I would have liked though and did almost die at one point. So I will be playing that until I beat both the "Shivering Isles" DLC quest and the main quest line, along with possibly some of the side quests I might have missed. I imagine there might even be a waffle thrown in there at some point just for good measure.
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