I'm killing time before my next class starts, and I'm getting anxiety regarding my final exams this week (I have two this weekend, and one next Tuesday. If I manage to make it through those, I get a whole 2 1/2 weeks before I start to worry about my next semester in January. I'll make a proper post sometime next week regarding what's been happening in my life, but right now, I'm mentally and emotionally drained right now.
Moviewise, I'm getting geeked up for the release of Universal's release of The Wolf Man. What really surprised me was that the studio has decided to release the movie with an R-rating. I thought they were going the PG-13 route, but appaerntly, it has the rating for "Bloody horror, violence, and gore." Who've thunk it? I hope it does well, because it'll be great to see the otherold-school Universal Monsters get an update.
That's it for now. I'll see you on the boards.
Before leaving H heads over to the field service people's office and talks to them to get a status update, since the online case monitor for support cases is close to worthless, but from the wrong side of the scale. He comes back and tells me and Supervisor (S) the field service people have been told the replacement hard drive will arrive late afternoon, and though they would love to help him (they like us) they have no spare drives they can give him.
S frowns and says, "No. We can't have another day like yesterday." I nod fervently in agreement. "Thank you!"
S then tells H that he will not get the day off after all, since we can't have only one Tech Support agent taking calls, and heads over to the Department Manager(DM)'s desk. We see them have a brief conversation, and then DM reaches for the phone. Twenty minutes later our favorite field service tech shows up with a replacement hard drive, and a very amused expression on his face. Apparently DM called the people providing spare parts and, ahem, "upgraded" the priority and emergency level of H's case. So the tech was handed a replacement drive and told to drop everything else and fix this computer right now, before more displeased senior managers called and complained.
The tech of course thought this was hilarious.
But as an adult, well, there aren't really any major game releases. My favorite sports aren't going on. I don't have three months of vacation. Also, I don't live on a beach with half naked women parading around me constantly. Even if I did, the sensation would be kind of like going to a buffet without being allowed to grab any of the food. As a married man, all I would be able to do is look and salivate.
Thank god though that we have the continued degeneration and devolution of the Republican right into complete and utter insanity. From "Death Panels", "Tea Party succession talk", "You Lie" to "Birthers" to "Deathers", it has been a non-stop, awe-inspiring summer of "can you top this?" among the Republicans in this country for nuttiness. It's been entertaining, if more than a little depressing. But then, I think Newt Gingrich just won the gold medal today.
Straight from the "you can't make this **** up" archive...
Former Republican Majority Leader Newt Gingrich has awarded Allison Vivas of pron studio "Visual Pink" his "Entrepreneur of the Year" award.
Link to article
Link to Actual Letter
Er...."Money Quote"
| Allison Vivas wrote: |
| "I'm honored, and more than a little surprised, to receive this prestigious award. Rest assured, I'll take the opportunity to inform Mr. Gingrich of some of the major challenges facing the adult entertainment industry in the current market ... from obscenity prosecutions to content piracy. I'll make sure he walks away from that dinner educated about the realities of the online porn market." |
I think my favorite part of the letter itself is the part where it invites her to an "intimate event" with Newt!
Obviously a case where Gingrich's 527 group got a little too eager to sucker in potential big money donors by giving out awards and didn't do enough research, but still funny as all hell.
So you're probably aware of Gamespot's All Time Greatest hero competition. I think it's a neat concept although I'm really disappointed by the hero selection made by Gamespot. But that's a different issue that could have me rambling for pages about my favorite characters (how could April Ryan not be included?). What I'd like to discuss is actually one thing that has been somewhat bothering me about the community's reaction to this competition, and that is what people define as a hero or great character.
Perhaps Gamespot made a mistake in naming this the "Greatest Hero" competition. "Greatest Protagonist" or "Greatest Character" would've been more appropriate. But this is where I want to discuss the community's reaction. I'll break it into several points to make it easier to read.
- People's definition of hero.
I remember reading a comment in the forums saying that characters like Niko Bellic didn't deserve to be in the competition because they weren't true heroes. True to an extent and again I believe that this is mostly due to the somewhat in appropriate naming of the competition. However the nature of those comments makes me think that some people almost find it offensive that anti-heroes are involved. It's like they'll only root for a goody two shoes hero. Really? I mean is there no room for badasses in gaming? I don't know but personally I'd find it very boring if every single protagonist in gaming was a perfect role model. I find it refreshing when a game features protagonists that don't mind breaking the rules or whose motivations aren't entirely pure. But hey, to each their own.
- Are these heroes really characters?
So now we get deeper into what I want to discuss. Take a look at the heroes involved in the competition. How many of them would you actually qualify as great characters? Mario? A guy in red overalls who rarely speaks and has been saving the same damn princess for over two decades? Pac-man? Bo-Jackson (are you kidding me...)? A lot of the heroes involved in the competition are just mascots or simply happened to be the playable characters in their respective games but have never really developed a compelling character. I recently posted a comment in fellow Gamespot user ClayMeow's blog, explaining the reasons why I wouldn't even consider Gordon Freeman a great character, even if I love the Half Life series, which brings me to my next point.
People are judging based on the games they like, not on the characters themselves.
This one is understandable in a way. Many gamers grew with these characters so even if they're not particularly great or well developed, their affection for them is somewhat logical. But recently I read a post saying that Chell should've been included in the list. Who the hell is Chell you ask? The playable character in Portal. Portal is a game that pretty much everyone loved and without a doubt the game's antagonist (GLADOS) would qualify as a great character. But Chell? What do we know about her? Nothing. I'm inclined to believe that the person who named her was simply thinking about how much he/she enjoyed Portal and therefore thinks highly of the character because it reminds him/her of the game. Other comments go along the way that "X" character saved the world in this game and did it all by himself/herself. If we go by this definition, virtually every character in every generic shooter could qualify as a candidate for the title of greatest hero of all time. And finally...
Some people are taking the contest way too seriously.
Once again I'll bring ClayMeow's post as a reference. He posted a link to his blog (which was based on why he thinks Freeman is the greatest game hero) in the forums and one of the first responses he got was that Freeman couldn't be the greatest hero because his story wasn't finished yet and we didn't know if he was triumphant or not. I raised my eyebrow at that response but the next one was the one that called for a moment of silence. I'll even quote it (without naming the user though):
"No, If gordon ends up dead he CAN be called a hero, his story will be over. If he ends up molesting an 8 year old boy and then beating Alex with his crowbar, not so much."
Are you kidding me? The sheer idea that Valve would take that direction is ludicrous, but really, who the hell even comes up with that idea? No offense to the user who posted that comment, but seriously, take a chill pill.
[EDIT]: Now that I've thought about it, I'm fully aware that this blog kind of falls victim to this point...
____________________________________
Having exposed those points I'd like to state what I define as a great gaming protagonist or character in general (or gaming hero... *sighs*), and that could easily be summarized in three words, personality, uniqueness, charm.
- Personality: You gotta have a personality in order to be recognized. Pushovers, cardboard cut characters, or those who never speak completely fail here. Characters need traits that define them and let us know who they are. We gotta get an idea of their motivations as well as what they stand for. Otherwise the character won't be defined by their personality but by whatever surrounds them.
- Uniqueness: Having a personality is necessary but if the character is a generic one then it's all for nod. A character could display many likable traits but if all that's done is copy/paste the traits of other characters, then the character goes down the drain. A character has to stand out from the rest in order to be great. This point can also encompass any larger than life qualities a character may have. Superhuman strengh, magic powers, etc., those are also qualities that can make a character stand out from the rest.
- Charm: This what it all boils down to. Is the character likable or not? Going back to what I said in my first point, this isn't about whether the character is good or evil. It's about how much they win you over with their personality. GLADOS from Portal is a great example of a likable villain. Niko Bellic from GTA IV and April Ryan from The Longest Journey are polar opposites as far as personality, values, and motivations are concerned, yet they are both likable characters.
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So that's it for my pointless rambling. I'll end this post with something more productive and some shameless promotion by linking you to my latest set of reviews, most of them for older console (!) games. Lots of high scores I know but hey, I enjoyed the hell out of all of them...
http://steamcommunity.com/id/viiral/
http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/viiral/
http://www.animevice.com/profile/viiral/
http://profile.mygamercard.net/zoulpain
(I only play live games for windows until i get a new xbox)
A great penny arcade about getting a copy of puzzle quest warlords.
Click image for full view
It's your old pal Monco here with a quick little nugget of information worth it's weight in gold. Or, since an internet article doesn't weigh much, worth considerably more.
As avid gamers, we've all seen our fair share of ignorant hate and bigotry aimed towards our beloved pastime. It seems like not a day goes by when someone isn't advocating banning video games or comparing them to Satan's splooge. Most of us try to rise above it, hoping to show the world that no, we are not all cannibalistic serial killers. Yet still, there is no shortage of condemnation and ridicule towards us and our sick little fantasy worlds.
So the next time you get in an argument with someone advocating the ban of video games, direct them to this delightful article I stumbled upon over at Destructoid.
Though by no means scientific, I found it to be not only entertaining and amusing but a very solid defense against all these encroaching nasties armed with their almighty ban-hammers.
Fortunately, we can always find additional solace in the knowledge that gaming is receiving such negative attention only because it is the new kid on the block in this city of entertainment we call Terra Firma (you do call it that, right?). Just like rock music, movies, porn and countless other forms of (by now well established) entertainment before, video games too shall one day be accepted and celebrated. In fact, we are nearing that day slowly even at this very moment and by the time today's gamers enter tomorrow's positions of government and religion, all this shall be naught but an unpleasant footnote in the grand history of gaming.
Sorry to sound so pompous, but I just loves my vidjamagames.
So I'm thinking I need some new buddies to play with online,
My PS3 name is Dichotomy,
my 360 name is also Dichotomy but that thing is collecting dust. I might sell it before Xmas.
The games I'm playing now are:
Little Big Planet
Street Fighter 2 HD remix
1942
Burnout
GTA4
Eye of Judgement
CIV Rev
eden
poker
Unreal 3
Tekken DR
Yell at me if you want to play a few. I'm a nice guy, just let me know your from Gamespot.
Enter the Matrix was a horrible game. "Yea... we knew that," you're probably thinking. Unfortunately I didn't back when I bought the miserable assault on human decency on the day it was released. And yet, amidst its veritable onslaught of tedium and glaringly untapped potential, I managed to find one thing, and one thing only, that almost made me think that the money I had spent was perhapse just maybe well spent; a mini-game.
I've always been fascinated by DOS. "Wait, DOS? You're supposed to be discussing some silly mini-game!" I'm getting there. Whenever I saw DOS in a window I was mesmerized by its strange abbreviations. The tiny flashing underscore seemed filled with unlimited potential. If only I knew its secret codes I could command it to do anything I wished. It was like stealing a forbidden glance at the first page of a wizard's spell book and thinking if only you understood its secret language.
The reason I mentioned the DOS thing was because Enter the Matrix managed to tap into that intermingled since of wonder and ignorance for me with a simple mini-game designed to make you think you were hacking into the Matrix through DOS. When you first loaded the game a main menu popped up like most games, but this one let you choose between the main game or an entirely separate hacker mini-game. That mini-game had me utterly hooked for hours. Constantly I was learning new code I could type in to gain secret access into new computers and networks in order to seal new information needed to continue hacking. The entire experience was freeform, and the story was only a thin varnish of bread crumbs for the persistent and observant. The game almost never told you anything explicitly; this was your experience to discover, interpret, and imagine on you own. The fact that in the end the only thing gained was some broken godmode-esq code for the main game that could have been found in about five seconds on-line hardly detracted from my since of accomplishment. The experience had been reward enough.
"Great, so you want us to go find a copy of Enter the Matrix. He's lost it. Someone go find a way to contact his next of kin; they'll want to know what hospital he's in." NO, No, no! The last thing I would ever tell you to do is buy, rent, or even waist your time to steal a copy of this turd. No, I told you that so that I could tell you this. I've rediscovered that experience I had with Enter the Matrix in grand sty-le
Ladies and gents, I introduce Uplink.
Uplink is a simulation (though I doubt a very accurate one) of what it is like to be a computer hacker (minus the 1337 and 12 year old wannabes) in the near future. It takes place entirely in a simulated Uplink OS where you can do everything from routing your IP address to bounce off of countless networks to befuddle trackers, to running password breaking programs, to reading and sending emails. The game even goes so far as to play along with the farce that YOU, yes YOU, are a rookie hacker who is using their computer (that would be the one you're reading this on) to access a secret gateway computer from which you can launch all of your nefarious activities. This farce means that when you get caught and loose the game the FEDs only find your gateway but not YOU. The game has very little story, leaving you to create your own persona and story in you head. Instead you're free to take whatever missions you want, hack any computer you like, and do anything you wish with the 'proceeds.'
I must say, that this game has been one of the most ridiculously addicting I've played in a long time. What little social life I have has suffered for it. Every mission follows the same basic routine; locate your target, bounce you IP address of as many networks as you can (preferably those you have admin access to), determine its defenses, find a way to crack those defenses and accomplish your goal before the warning timer on your little trace-tracker runs out (i.e. game over), find a weak link in the chain of computer you bounced off of to delete you logs from before your victim can use them, to track you down after the fact, and finally report your success to collect your fee. Rinse and repeat. If you're an addictive personality like myself you'll love this thing (or hate it depending on your perspective)!
The only down side is it's not free. You'll either have to buy it from the developer's web page for 10 Pounds UK (approx. $20 US) or download it through GameTap. Either way I'd say it's worth it.
Get out there and try that game! To make up for the $20 and countless hours I just cost you and your significant others next week I'll be bringing you another free-be. Have fun!
-Fade2Gray
P.S. For those of you who missed it, please give my last Addicting Games a perusal. It kind of got lost in the shuffle last week during my triple post extravaganza. It's about a game that no one should miss.
Just letting you all know i will be switching to my new profile and everybody is welcome to re-add me.
http://www.gamespot.com/users/viiral/
See you all on the other side!.. you all better re-add me :> , lolz
