Monday, May 30, 2011

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

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

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.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

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.

Monday, July 20, 2009

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

Monday, May 25, 2009

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.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Rants on COD4

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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

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Next up: BULLY

...because "kick me" signs never work in real life.

Monday, April 6, 2009

in the heart of darkness... with infinite ammo

Survival horror. Action horror. Just action actually. The recent exploits of Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar is an explosive, skull-punching, and relatively not very shocking journey through the various terrain of Africa. The weirdest aspect of Resident Evil 5 is how unphased the characters are to the utterly jaw dropping creatures they are faced with. So some beautiful women just transformed into a boat-sized behemoth and all Chris can focus on is how much he loves cliches. Taking a page from fellow Capcom comrade, Devil May Cry, the dialogue here is, ahem, a hell of a time. Chris is one of those characters who say things that sound so cheesy, but when we're waiting for him to crack a smile like Dante or Nero, he just keeps the bad dialogue rollin'. Playing the game, though very methodical, felt like a conundrum wrapped in frustration. Taking your time through an action game is like oil and water. You need to aim your shots accordingly, whilst a mutant praying mantis and his soldier buddies rush toward you from all sides. Also, Sheva, though competent when in attack mode, can go too aggro and get herself killed, wasting all the ammo and ending the game for both of you. And here's where co-op shines. I played the first 3 chapters of the game with a friend of the Playstation Network and was extremely satisfied. Not only is my partner now aware of his/her surroundings, someone can now hear my comments on the ridiculousness of each situation we get thrown into. From shanty towns to volcanoes, Resident Evil 5 provides the variety in environment like no other game in the series. The best part of this game is what I thought was the best part of Resident Evil 4, upgrading your weapons. Maxing out the firepower in any of the guns and plowing through what ever is thrown at you makes the game worthwhile. While mowing down enemies with a Magnum with infinite ammo, you can't help but how good the environments look. Lots of evening sunlight and the feeling of the sweltering African savannah kept the game from looking generic, but that didn't keep up throughout the game. Dull textures and boring environments like freighters or oil factory took away from the stunning caverns and marshlands of the rest of the game. Overall, Resident Evil 5 has tied up some loose ends in the Resident Evil universe, but has hit a wall in the gameplay aspect. For an entry in the series, there was so much potential for true terror and horror, but the earlier titles can easily beat this game out of the running. Don't you quit on me Resident Evil! /endcliche. Oh yeah, RACISM.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

taking things nuclear

a dark sky has never been so blinding. the first moments outside of vault 101 proved to be the most striking parts of Fallout 3, but also, a more familiar feel. 2 years since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda have seemed to improve upon the "single hope of mankind" formula with Fallout 3, but the aging similarities get in the way of innovation. V.A.T.S., the weapons, and the setting were all great contributions to the action RPG world, but adding those aspects to muddy textures (and yes, i know its a wasteland), dated animations, and stiff conversations doesn't help bring out those features. nevertheless, my time with Fallout 3 was not as dystopian as the landscape. the setting of Fallout was by far the best part of this journey. over every hill or valley was something untraversed and mysterious that i just had to take a minute (or hour) to explore and know all the in's and out's of every fort, power plant, or house. its sense of abandonment gives such a thirst for more knowledge on what happened, who was here, and how much more can i carry? Oblivion had the whole exploration aspect as well, but Fallout has the pull and the sense of mystery that Oblivion did not convey as much. as dilapidated as the landscape is, i can't help but to want to know more... and loot it. though there are many titles to be played, exploration of the wasteland will not be hindered.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Weekly Top 5

Hello all im starting a new weekly post called Weekly Top 5 where I will run down a top 5 list of video game topics. This weeks topic is top 5 video games of 2008.

1.Fallout 3
2.Little Big Planet
3.Metal Gear Solid 4
4.Mirrors Edge
5.Burnout Paradise

Runners up: Resistance 2, Madden 09, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead

Thursday, January 15, 2009

what i've been doing (other than posting)

2009 so far has been a rough year. from the get go, the tragic news of EGM's closure and the 1UP layoffs set the tone of how things are going to go, but though tragic, it is also inspiring. ex-1UP and ex-EGM staff have shown while they are down, they are definitely not out. RebelFM proves to be the hand bursting out of the rubble. talkingorange's plans proves to be the inspirational rise from a damaging fall. though i say EGM forever, the future can be even brighter for those affected by the layoffs. That hope and optimism shown by those groups of people have inspired me to write in order to support the cause of game journalism. game journalism seems like one of the best jobs, but it should be all about the passion. the layoffs are rough, but the passion for games still stands. and i'll stand by it.

through the filth and the fury caused by winter break, i managed to get though my pile of shame with great vengance. here's the list:
-resistance 2
-mirror's edge
-fallout 3
-prince of persia
-littlebigplanet
-yakuza
-persona 4
-and a shitstorm of movies (randomized game thoughts, but who cares?)

so i'll write. we'll write. and stay writing. forever.

-misclet

Monday, December 15, 2008

Review Time

I know, I was supposed to post on this site too but this years massive amounts of games has been occupying most of my time. Well the wait is over, it is time for some of my reviews. Now these reviews will be shorter then I will normally write but since I'm reviewing multiple games I'm going to keep it short...this time. One last note theses reviews will span from games that came out earlier this year to the present.

1. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Now I have to be honest, I never played a Metal Gear game before this one so this review is only on my MGS experience from this game only. Now that being said this game made me wish I had played every single Metal Gear game leading up to this one. I don't think I have ever played a game with such a deep story line i mean what other game has to have a data base come out just so you can understand whats going on it the games universe? And MGS4 alone has one of the best stories I've seen and that's without knowing the lead up from the other games. and not only is the story good but the game play is amazing as well, from the stealth to the shooting it all leaves you feeling very satisfied. The graphics in this game are some of the best I've seen, the vast use of textures to the harsh environments make you feel like you are playing through a cinematic movie. The characters in MGS4 are also movie star like, from the heros to the villains they all make you want to learn more about them. as for my complaints I really don't have any i mean this game is not perfect but its damn close I guess if I had to name one thing that bothered me it would be what a lot of people said, that the cut scenes are to long, but that by no means takes anything away from this must play game.

MY SCORE: 9.8/10
A

2.Fallout 3
This game made me question what would really happen if the world became a wasteland as a result of nuclear war, I wonder why that is, OH YEA! because that's exactly what this game is about! Your quest begins in a vault as usual right? come on people, arn't we all in a vault? locked up in a safe little bubble? till our dad mysteriously runs out on us? then we go out into this strange new world? no? OK well this game is exactly like that you play as a lone wanderer out on a mission to find your father who has left out of nowhere and on this quest you come across many many other challenges and quests you must face (or not face). Now the game play showed me a new way to shoot someone in almost a strategic way by targeting limbs, genius right? no! this system although cool gets very old through out the game and eventually gets very routine and bland. The characters you meet through fallout 3 are a wide range of people streaming from punk rock like raiders to butch like hookers and an occasional mutant from here to there but they all add to the very wide world you explore. Did i mention there's a half tree half man in the game?? One thing i really do like about this game is the choices you get to make eventually making you evil and good and later effect the way the story turns out and ends. BUT there are many flaws in this game, like the glitches and the lack of trophies on the ps3. And the main story is very straight forward no twists or anything but the side quests make this game worth buying and playing (for along time).

MY SCORE: 9.1/10
A-

3.Resistance 2
Nathan hales final missions doesn't lack any size. This game is BIG from start to finish, what do I mean by BIG? I mean that from the bosses to the overall size of Nathans mission is well....very large. in this game you learn more about the soldier Nathan hale and his struggle to fight the Chimera on the battle field and within himself. This game is also a lot bigger then the first resistance as well, from bigger boss battles to more weapons and a vastly deeper multi player it completely blows the original fall of man right out of the chimeran battle ship. And the graphics in this game are greatly improved too. The united states looks much better then that of its former possessor England in fall of man, but then again doesn't it always?? come on people USA! USA! ok enough of that, where was I? Oh yes the graphics, not only do the Chimera look better but so do their ships looming over the ruined lands of America. The story in resistance 2 does focus more on Nathan hale but it seems that's all it focuses on, you don't get the story of whats happening around you only whats happening to you. Though this game is bigger I feel it doesn't deliver as much as the original which had a better story thus making it a better game, BUT this game is still a must play for any resistance fan or fps fan.

MY SCORE: 8.9/10
B+ (not counting multi player)

So there you go, some reviews for you to read and react to. Yes I know they are very vague and lack what a normal review must have but like I said, these reviews are not how I will normally review a game, I will go more in depth with my next reviews. These are more to reinsure you on buying or not buying a game or give you a brief overview of what I think of a game. So I look forward to writing more reviews in the very near future and I hope you continue to read them.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

what's up, MASSIVE AMOUNT OF GAMES?

Since the golden time of releases is upon us, I have many games to play and I'm kind of selective on what to buy, so the reviews/impressions coming down the pipeline will be for the hyped games of this fall/winter season. I've put in tons of hours into Fallout 3 so there is much to talk about, and since I'm such a hater on Silent Hill: Homecoming, I've decided to play through it in order to cement my arguments on how it is the worst Silent Hill in the series and should have not been made. Jeez... harsh. I'll be getting Mirror's Edge today and I was impressed by the demo and the gorgeous visuals of the art style. I also went to Insomniac Games's first community day out in Burbank and was amazed on how awesome it would be to work there and work with that team, so impressions on that and Resistance 2 shall be coming as well. And last, but not least, I need to set up a collaborative post with nicker to give our impressions on Little Big Planet. There are tons of games to get to (I wish I had an Xbox so I can play Gears 2) so we need to get cookin'. So, to quote A Tribe Called Quest, "stir it up!".

-misclet

p.s.
we will start a podcast soon enough.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Futurism: Crossing Lines



Minimum space. We get the point. Simple enough. Less is more. Can we apply this to modern games? Hopefully, we can. I'm not asking for more art games (though it couldn't hurt), but a bigger emphasis on originality in art design of games. Sure, games like Everyday Shooter, PixelJunk Eden, Echochrome, and of course Wipeout HD have pushed the role of art design in games to a new height, but its the triple A games we need to focus on. I have high hopes for games like MadWorld, but the style is always related to something else, like Sin City. I want games to have no comparisons in terms of art style. Almost three years into this generation of consoles, and yet there is hardly a title out there that has that "sly grinning" factor on par with a game like Parappa The Rapper, Vib Ribbon, or ICO. Let futurism take its role.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Style vs. Substance



I'm a big fan of Silent Hill 4: The Room and I am very proud to say that, but it does prove the statement style over substance. Its intense surrealist art style broke even further away from what the original Silent Hill games have established, but the gameplay was more streamlined which made the game feel just like any other survival horror game. Sure, gameplay is an important aspect of video games, but if the style and execution are not fresh and original, we'll just be stuck with generic gray and browns. Art is hard, yes, but we can at least try.

-misclet

Monday, September 15, 2008

The Blog Unleashed: A New Post

Gaming is fun, yes. But talking about it is something I can't get enough of. Welcome to the gaming blog, son. As blogging has proved in the years it has been created, noobs can become masters of the craft in no time. Hopefully, I can walk among the vast amount of video game blogs all complaining about the same thing. Our mission is to, hopefully, become something different among the consensus, contribute to the gaming culture, analyzing the shit out of what is going on with gaming culture, and trying not to be too serious about it. I think that about sums up what I want from this blog. As some might notice, I said "our". This blog isn't just about my views. I've got nicker to later post in order to get some variety and beards up on this blog. And finally, to relate to the title of this post, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has just...unleashed upon the gaming public and we'll have some views on the force grip, force push, and all the other forces soon. Until then, have fun.

-misclet