So 3 million people played Dead Space? Let's add one more...

So if any of you pay attention to the games I've been playing, I recently picked up Dead Space in a spur of the moment purchase. I was with 2 of my friends and GS had a buy 2 get 1 free, so we all pitched in. It had to be a used copy so I didn't add to the 1.5 million sales, unfortunately.

I don't really know why. I hate being scared and this game seemed pretty scary. It was just calling me though.

So as I'm playing it, I just get sucked in. This is one of those games where you can just go on and on. The atmosphere is better then RE4's which this game liberally borrows from (I can easily come up with over 10 exact similarities) but makes it better.

Almost every game design from RE4 is in here BUT the stupidity of non mobile shooting but it does it so well that who cares if it it's the same?

I can't pinpoint one good thing about this game because everything in here is damn near perfect. I was seriously sitting down, trying to think of a flaw and I couldn't.

Shooting? The game's guns are beyond awesome. Totally satisfying and all have their places.
Atmosphere? Off the charts. 2nd to none. Having no HUD is great and the lone survivors are effing crazy. It's all adds up.
Graphics? Probably the best mutiplat.
Scares? Great. All but a couple were unexpected and beautifully executed. I actually loved them...
Enemies? Effed up. That wall dude that spits out demon babies? Awesome!
Story? Starts off simple than so much gets revealed and you are like "Holy crap!"

Even when you die it looks amazing. This game does what almost no other game does by making it look AWESOME when you die. My enemies die and it looks awesome, why can't it be the same for me? You will get decapitated and ripped apart. It's drool worthy.

This is just a game where so much care and so many good design choices went into it. I can just imagine the devs sitting down over every minute of gameplay and analyzing it to make it the best they can.
Dead Space, Bioshock, & InFamous all had great design decisions, almost perfect for all of them, and the end product is amazing.

Ok... I have to say it. This game craps all over RE5, a game with the most stupid design decisions and crappy atmosphere, half butt "scares" (ooh wow! One corpse fell down the hall! Yawn...) and overly frustrating action. This game is putting tremendous pressure on RE6 to be awesome.

Thank you Redwood Shores for a incredibly awesome game. You deserve it. A little ironic considering I bought it used.
Too bad your next game, Dante's Inferno, is gonna be ripped to damn pieces by God Of War 3. Coming out within a month of 2 of the game you are ripping off? I'd be crapping my pants. I don't think it will have that same magic of Dead Space, more or less, ripping off RE4 and making it better.

Thoughts?

So I picked up InFamous today. In short, it's great (evil all the way! ).

But what about you?

To start out, I really want to play Uncharted 2. Like a lot.
When I get the game, I want to be fresh and amazed.

Which is why I'm giving away my Uncharted 2 beta key to one of you lucky people.
BUT to win you need to A) not be buying InFamous within the next month and B) be able to use it.

So whoever wants, leave it in the comments!

PS: Dammit Sheva... uh... so... damn... stupid... still...

Remember my last blog?
Remember this quote about RE5? "I enjoyed it and co-op was a blast to play. That might change though as I am gonna play by myself soon but..."

So I was hoping it wouldn't change for the worse but guess what? It did.

Sheva's AI (along with the brief encounter with Josh) is horrendous. We (and by "we" I mean "She effed up for both of us.") died so many times. "HEY LET'S GO RUN INTO THE CHAINSAW GUY WITH THE STUN ROD!"

Uh... no? How about keep a safe distance and use, I don't know... a FREAKIN' GUN?!?

I felt like I was grounding a little kid and scolding her by taking away her stun rod. She always had it equipped and would run at enemies, which is so stupid. This sounds more stupid (if possible) when I gave her (at the same time as the stun rod):
A good pistol
A great shotgun
A powerful machine gun

Then I saw that you can put her in "Attack" mode rather than "Cover" which is what she was in most of the time.

The thing is she's TOO aggressive, charging into a group of 10 zombies with a shotgun and not staying by me, who likes to keep distance and be strategic.
She is WAY better in "Attack" mode but she's still too stupid to be reliant on.

For the boss fights? Don't even get me started... too late.

For the first one, basically you have to have one of you flip the switch to trap it in a furnace. She doesn't have the brain to do it herself so you have to run over and command it. So I did as I lured it in. Problem is, it grabbed me right before she pushed it. Kinda-maybe-sorta my fault but she could have saved me.
This is worse. I pressed the switch and she ran in RIGHT after and she ran in circles in the furnace.

I was speechless. Well not really, as I was screaming and swearing at the top of my lungs. Dammit that's frustrating...

There's plenty of examples but I got the big ones out of the way. My point is: If you are gonna make a co-op game, make the other character smart. It's simple. I feel RE5 took such a hit in quality over RE4 because of this, along with other things.
RE5 is still fun solo but it gets me on how much more good it could have been.

I was even talking to my friend and he was telling me of even worse stories, which didn't help at all.

Oh well, off of that, how's everyone? I'm good. I'm gonna be graduating high school in a week, which is weird... I don't know how I'll take it, not seeing some people I really care about for long periods of time. It's super sad...

As for games, I plan on picking up for the summer:
Battlefield Bad Company ($15? Hell yes!)
Fallout 3 (price drop? or wait until ultimate pack in October?)
InFamous
Wolverine (demo floored me... price drop needed though)
Dead Space

Yeah so I'm set! How about you? What's gonna keep you busy this summer?

PS: I beat Metal Gear Solid 4 for a second time on Saturday (not 1 sitting mind you ) and damn... this game still floors me in every single way...
It's just one of those games... awesome is too weak of a word. Play it. Now.

What's that? The size in dollars of my first paycheck!
Yeah I'm in the working force, which can explain some of my absences here, not like you noticed!

It's the usual fast food joint either, which is kind of cool I guess. I work for the local Single A baseball team as the bat boy, which means getting all their crap cleaned up and put away.

So what's the money going to? Hm... I've given this some thought...
32 gig iPod Touch
Rock Band drums ($30 sounds good to me)
Mirror's Edge ($25 at Gamestop?!? Everyone take advantage of this!!!)
InFamous

Obviously, that's not all one paycheck but I plan to spread it out and, with me graduating from high school at the last day of May, that money will help too.

I can't wait for my iPod Touch!!! Does anyone else have one? What do you think of it?

Anyway, enough of that crap.
I finished RE5 yesterday, played solely local co-op.

I'm split on this game. The first 4 chapters were pretty awesome because, ya know, shooting zombies is pretty fun. One of my complaints is that you are doing the EXACT SAME THINGS AS RE4 and some of the scenarios are ripped directly from RE4.

Find the key. Key found. Zombies activate.
Find the 3 stone tablet keys. Zombies activate.
Walk past seemingly dead or nonactive zombie. Grab key to go back and it woke up.
Zombie animations are the same also, which were amazing in RE4 but feeling recycled in 5. Now these scenarios are good but come the hell on. They couldn't think of anything really new?

Now you might recall I said the first 4 chapters were good... you know what that means for the last 2.
Ugh... it was like playing a crappy version of Gears of War. The cover system is terrible in this game and get this...
ZOMBIES WITH GUNS IN A GAME LIKE THIS IS NOT FUN IN THE SLIGHTEST.

If the controls were savvy to actually deal with this, then whatever, but don't make me shoot these guys with a control scheme designed for slower moving melee zombies.

While I didn't hate it, the story is so questionable that me and my friend were making jokes at every cutscene.

This game needed to evolve with the times, making a control suited for this day in age. It would have been ok to be old school but they tried to be a bit survival horror but got caught shoehorning a shooter in there and it didn't work for parts of that game.

There are some enemies in there that show this especially well, including the creatures (not zombies) that move too quickly for you to get out of the way fast enough.

In spite of all my poo pooing on this game, I enjoyed it and co-op was a blast to play. That might change though as I am gonna play by myself soon but all in all, I recommend to you guys, it's a great game.

What did you think of RE5? Comments in general?

Thanks and bye!

Well Ubisoft, here's your chance.
I got my Gameinformer on Thursday with Assassin's Creed 2 on the cover. (Side Note: Gameinformer is so awesome! They have broken news on so many games it is amazing! Uncharted 2, God Of War 3, AC2, & Bioshock 2 in this year alone! )

Now, as you should know, Assassin's Creed disappointed me to no end. Some things were awesome but most of it was so stupid. I still liked it, but it was so frustrating at times, but enough of that as I am beating a dead horse.

So seeing AC2 should have made me say, "Not buying that! I'm not up for another disappointment." I should have said that. Everything was in place to say that.

BUT it had an inverse effect on me.

This. Game. Looks. Amazing.
I am incredibly stoked, especially since some of my biggest flaws are being addressed.

One being repetitiveness. There are now at least 16 different types and they can be linked, like GTA. Now it won't feel like I've played the same hour chunk 9 times over. Hopefully.

The other, which is FAR more frustrating, is the way to decrease your infamy. In case you didn't know, in AC1's 3 act or so, every little thing you did would set a whole battalion after, infuriating me to no end and taking forever to go to objectives. This one has it too, but you can take extra missions, like assassinating witnesses and taking down posters, to set you back to an anonymous state.

HELL YES!

Another great addition is how good this game looks. Maybe the PS3 version was washed out (of AC1), because, while it looked pretty good, it always seemed really dry looking (does that make sense?).
I saw screens of AC2 and my jaw dropped. I don't know whether it was the lighting or what by I was completely amazed. Day and night cycles have also been added and maybe that factors in but damn... this game is a looker. Not Killzone 2 by any stretch, but damn good.

You can also swim which is good for many reasons. One (once again, another frustration of AC1) is if a crazy hobo pushes you into the ocean, you don't immediately die. The other is just another way to execute assassinations which was a BIG strength and the sole reason to ever play AC1.

There are also a bunch of small improvements such as more hiding places and better ways to kill. All of which hopefully translate to a way better experience.

Oh yeah and one more HUGE thing. You have 2 (two!!!!!!!!) hidden blades, one on each hand.
That's too ridiculously awesome. That alone makes me excited!

So what am I getting at here? Is it good to get this excited again? Or am I just setting myself up for another colossal disappointment? Will AC2 achieve what AC1 should have?

Thoughts on AC2 and my thoughts would be appreciated. (only getting about 5 comments a blog is a bit annoying, especially since I make an effort comment on all of your blogs...)

Peace and happy easter! (getting RE5 tomorrow! )