motivation

I want this dude to write some stuff for this blog. He looks capable, right? Come onnnnnn. Just look at his hat all backwards and motivated-like. It looks like he plays video games and has something to say about them. Maybe he can put it into words. On a blog perhaps. MAYBE THIS BLOG NICK.

-misclet

p.s. this website is still alive. AND DON'T YOU FORGET NICK. :P

the walrus is game of the year.

Pure feeling of musical history is the primary reason of why The Beatles: Rock Band is my game of 2009. With it's detailed touches of in-studio dialogue between load times to the photo library with small anecdotes, the love and hard work put into the game gives it that edge to become something more than just a track pack for Rock Band. For being together just a decade, the Beatles have changed many aspects of popular culture and fashion and the game's visuals properly reflect that aspect of the Beatles. Colors are monocrome through the beginning of the game signifying the world of music before the innovation of the Beatles and later explodes with color throughout the times of Sgt. Pepper and Rubber Soul. Along with the expressive colors of 60s, the Harmonix team put many references from the Beatles songs into their visual style, so any devoted Beatles fan can smile with glee when they spot out street signs pointing toward Tuesday in the introduction movie. Before The Beatles: Rock Band, I was already a huge Beatles fan, but with this release, I want nothing more than to know everything and hear everything about these four nice boys from Liverpool. The game is just another version of Rock Band, but the selection still feels as varied as Rock Band's setlist even though it's all Beatles songs. With the DLC, the game has given me a better appreciation for each Beatles album. By playing each track, I listen much more intently and realize how complex their songs were. A key mechanic added to the usual Rock Band system was the Beatles' awesome ability of harmonizing. Having three singers hit a triple fab sequence feels so satisfying and authentic compared to just striving for a high score. The Beatles: Rock Band is authentic fun.

energy crisis

Delivery. Feeling out a path like an expert navigator and arriving just on time to make the choice, salvation or destruction? With a shaky trigger finger and the instinct to climb every building I see, inFamous satisfies the urge to save someone, with precise recklessness.

Empire City is a dying playground. After a devastating catastrophe, the city becomes a wasteland, but one filled with gaps, poles, ladders, and epic skyscrapers made of trash that leave an urban explorer/messenger like Cole asking, "is that high enough?" Gripping onto ledges wide enough just for fingertips to hold onto and balancing on electrical lines like tight wires, Empire City is the jungle gym evolved. From point to point, Cole navigates the city like a veteran cab driver, which provides the fun, swift exploration on par with Assassin's Creed. Though building hopping is a treat that came from a disaster, the citizens of Empire City scour the ground looking up for a savior, or in fear of a menace.

With a bomb in hand, Cole is as sure as dead on arrival. The city leveled and many dead or dying, destruction has been delivered, along with superpowers. Cole is reborn as the electric enigma, the death or life of Empire City. Ridding the evils of streets feels as smooth as the PS3's finish. Sending electric shocks to a gang members while sliding on train rails and launching shock grenades is how superpowers should be used, but after cars have ceased their alarms and citizens come out from hiding, how gang members are still standing is baffling. Precise head shocks and megawatt hammers may provide a sweet death for the scum of Empire City, but helmets, armor, and mounted machine guns can put up an even bigger fight. All this commotion from just one delivery.

Empire City is what is truly inFamous, but in a good way. Its dark, ugly, and falling apart, but totally fits. Sure, superpowers can make the fun, but without the city, its just another bullet point. Gentle hums of generators and neon signs pulsing with electricity, the city is the life of the game.

A delivery caused an energy crisis. It also solved it. Explosively.

SYSTEM ERROR

I've been having some hard times with my Playstation. From marathons of inFamous and constant upscaling of streaming movies from my PC, my almost two-year-old console has prematurely lost it's life. Having been a victim of failing systems, I saw no stress in sending the out-of-warranty PS3 in for some official Sony "repairs". $161.21 and PS3 wiped is my price to pay for keeping PS2 backwards compatability. Worth it. Kind of.

After getting the PS3 back from Texas, I was sure that everything should be repaired. Sony support was nice enough on the phone that my faith in them was surely high. Polished and dust-free, I was ready to keep up my gaming summer. For a bit. Fans as loud as leaf blowers didn't help my focus on the gaming at hand, or lack thereof. So, second repair in warranty. No big deal.

Pixels blinded the Capital Wasteland, the WWII Pacific Theater, Brooklyn, and the streets of New San Vanelona until there was just a frozen image of what was. Third PS3. Fully loaded with peeling serial number sticker, pixel pop-in, and constant freezing. "Repaired". Customer support was much more aware this time after exclaiming, "So, third time in a month? That's quite unheard of." Transferred to "Special Support Team" to emphasize the seriousness. After a long, and quite technical talk with A-Team, another repair is in progress. Third time's a char...yeah.
But, when I could stand wind tunnel fans or pixel junk, I did play and beat some games.

inFamous=done.
Uncharted (again)=done.
Persona 4=undone, but fun.
BF1943=BF1942.
Trash Panic=the solution is fire.
GUN=done, but not fun.

Practice makes perfec... whatever. I need more practice writing if I'm going to get a hang of this Journalism major, so impressions, reviews, and stuff will be more frequent. Errors aside, there's much ado on the blog front. Now, to get nicker to start writing...

-misclet

ambiguity

Canis Canem Edit

Dog eat dog. The high school life knows no less than deception, corruption, and detention. Well, the Bully high school life thrives on those things. Considering that my high school life was as normal as teenage TV shows try not to be, Bully became so liberating. Becoming Jimmy Hopkins is the reason why people should play video games, to do what they can't do (or could've done) in real life. I have always wished "kick me" signs worked. I have always wanted to stuff kids in trash cans. I have always wanted to pull off the epic prank that would have been the stuff of legends. Well, I did it all and it was worth it. Kids struggling out of lockers, kicked with tremendous force in the behind, slipping on marbles. Bullworth Academy's finest moments. Bully isn't all about the antics of a mischievous high schooler, its all about frienemies. At one moment, you can be fighting along side the greasers taking on the jocks. Then in an instant, you can be pelted by stones and eggs just because you kissed a greaser's girl. High school romance through and through. Students are believeable and memorable, even if they're based off teenage stereotypes. That's what keeps Bully entertaining. It embraces the feeling of nostalgia instead of giving you generic student #4. Rockstar really put its heart in Bully, and it shows through its detail of dialogue and overall atmosphere of Bullworth. Bully is what this generation of video games should be doing, keeping it fresh and charming. Bully is education at its best.

Rants on COD4

I know that Call Of Duty 4 has been out for a while now and most people are waiting for CODMW2 but a lot of people still play this classic, too bad most of them are noobs. Now, don't get me wrong there are still very skillful players out there playing the game with well....skill, but, and I mean a very big BUT, there seems to be a overwhelming amount of people playing using what I like to call "noob cannons", which are ALL of the light machine guns and shotguns. And not only are they using these weapons that require no aiming or skill, they wait in corners and pick you off by spraying there thousands of rounds of bullets into you while you sit there helpless. Now I know that theses guns are put into the game to expand the catalog of weapons but I think personally the could of done without them. I mean I hate snipers but at least they require a certain amount of skill to aim and shoot accurately while still trying to remain hidden and let's not forget the skill it takes to kill someone with a sniper in point blank range, but with the light machine guns and shotguns, all you have to do is press down on the trigger and you have a 80% chance of killing the other person. SO as you may have noticed the word I used a lot in this post is "skill", which is something these guns take away for the game and hopefully they won't be put into the next game, which they probably will cause I hate them, and the makers of Call of Duty know that and want to ruin my life.

Thanks for reading,
Nick Asmar