vgXpo 2006
We’re HEEEEERRREEE!
After a hard night of gaming, we’re ready to hit the show floor today. Played a little of the Guitar Hero 2 demo disc. I think I need to get me that game.
We’re HEEEEERRREEE!
After a hard night of gaming, we’re ready to hit the show floor today. Played a little of the Guitar Hero 2 demo disc. I think I need to get me that game.
Rockstar’s Bully has shipped. It would appear that the game is precisely the opposite of what assholes like Jack Thompson want you to believe it is.
Not that they’ll ever know. That’s the beauty of being better than everyone else. You get to stand in judgement of their plebian lives without ever having to experience any of it. So, JT and his merry band of assnozzles will continue to bray about how videogames are destroying our culture without actually ever laying hands on one.
After all, they’ve made up their minds. Why bother confusing things with the truth?
That’s about how I’d sum up the single-player experience of Worms Open Warfare on the Nintendo DS. This game features the stupidest AI on planet Earth. There were smarter games on the Atari 2600 with it’s 128 bytes of RAM.
Other than that, and a few quibbles, it’s a fine game. Don’t get me wrong – I like it. Blowing up worms is always a satisfying way to pass the time. But don’t expect a real challenge from the single-player experience, as there isn’t one to be had.
On to the specifics. I’ll even try to make this look like a real review.
[Read more →]
Mini Review Time!
Tony Hawk’s American Sk8-land for Nintendo DS. Take away all that extra crap that they added to Tony Hawk’s Underground, and get back to the roots. That’s what this game does.
It actually combines THPS 2 and 3/4 in an interesting way. There’s a “Story” mode, in which you wander around THPS4 style, doing things for people in exchange for cash. You are using this cash to rebuild a skate park. That’s all I’m sayin’. No spoilers here.
There’s also “Classic” mode, which is like THPS 2. You have 2 minutes, and there are 10 goals on each level. Finish a certain number of goals, next level opens up. You also have the gaps to find and complete, and I think there’s extra “hidden” goals, but I’m not sure. I’ll get back to you on that.
The moves are right out of 3/4, with the revert, acid drop, and flatland tricks. They got rid of that idiotic “run off” thing from THUG.
They also added online and wireless multiplayer, which I haven’t used yet. I’ll get back to you on that too.
Things I like
The controls. Just like on the Dreamcast where I first played THPS2, and later the PS2 for THPS 3/4. Response time is good, and usually when I bail it’s on account of I suck.
The specials. There’s three (I’ve only unlocked 2, but it’s pretty obvious there’s room for a third) areas on the right side of the touch screen that can be mapped for context-sensitive auto-specials. Very useful for bustin’ out a MAJOR combo.
The graphics. Cel-shaded, which means higher frame rates. I don’t care about realism when I’m doing 4 tricks in the air. The game is fast and smooth. The bottom screen being a map is actually useful.
The stat-building. Unlike 2 (use money to buy stats), or 3/4 (get stat points at random intervals to build stats), you actually increase your stats by practicing! As you do a longer manual, your manual stat goes up. Hold that lip just a little longer? Lip balance goes up. Do more grab tricks in the air? Ollie better. You get the idea.
Things I don’t like
Nothing. Seriously. Well, maybe the size of the screen, but that’s hardly Activision’s fault. There’s not a whole lot of music either, but that’s a function of cart space, isn’t it?
This game is good. Real good. I don’t know why there’s so many copies of it used at my local GameStop, but it’s a keeper in my book.
Practice your putting. I’m getting incrementally better at it. Good approach is still better than an OK long putt. Getting out of the sand is a bit easier now that the recovery stats are up.
The menu system, nay the entire non-game-play user interface was designed by the sons of Torquemada. Going back to the main menu after losing a long-drive challenge (a 5 minute game) when you HAVE to know I’m going to try again is annoying in the extreme. 2005 at least had a “retry challenge” button.
The art people put a lot of effort into tits. Could you work on making the faces look a little more human please?
Club distance coming out of rough is still a pain in the ass. I’ve not yet figured out how it determines when a 70% lie is going to take 6 clubs distance away from me, or give me one extra. More often than not, it’s sensible. But every once in a while, I’ll be buried in the sand, go up one club, and the ball lands in the next time zone.
OK, having logged a few hours, I have more commentary on this game.
Annoyances:
I’m sure I’ll find more.
The putting is both liberating and infuriating. I don’t know how “realistic” it is, but it seems that the difference of a few milliseconds between 50% and 80% (and hence dropping the shot, or going 4 miles off the green) is a touch too sensitive. Then again, I could just be a loser, I don’t know. The grid is nice. I’ve gotten to the point where on a relatively sane green I don’t need to consult the camera. Some of these greens (Red Rock Creek anyone?) you need an advanced degree in trigonometry, a roll of duct tape, and minor explosives to get the ball to do anything useful. I found myself three-putting more often than not.
I don’t know how they figure club range, but when I have to use 2/3 boost to get to the distance that it indicates, with no wind, and on level ground, something’s just not quite right. Or are we back to the millisecond issue again?
Overall, decent. If they fix the annoyances above, and manage to not add new ones, I’ll be back for 2007.
“Whoa momma, stay up.”
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 – EA Sports – Playstation 2
First Impressions.
The major improvements touted for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 (TW2k6) over its predecessor were more precise control of how the ball is hit, and more precise control in putting. For those not in the know, with 2k5 you were limited in your ball striking to changing your stance (open, close, center) and putting spin on the ball once it was hit. The former is not nearly granular enough (especially for those of us who grew up with Jack Nicklaus and Links on the PC), and the latter is just plain bunk (influencing the ball after it’s in the air? Please.)
What they’ve done in 2k6 is taken advantage of that second analog stick as something other than a duplicate of the first. You still swing with the left stick, but now you control where on the ball you hit with the right stick. It allows a much finer control of loft and curve than the previous methods of stance and swinging diagonally.
Putting is actually more than a mere guessing game. Instead of having your caddy just make up numbers for where you should aim (and usually be wrong about them), the grid is back. Now you can see the lay of the green and figure it out for yourself. There’s a simple “ideal path” aid, but you still need to control your putting power. No more “point and shoot” where 100% of a swing represents the ball going the distance you measured out (on a flat green, anyhow).
They’ve also tightened up the physics. You can’t pull out the driver on the fairway and expect to get anywhere. And if you try to get under the ball with a 3 wood, don’t expect much more than a clump of grass in your face. In other words, I don’t think I’ll be finishing up many rounds at Troon in the low 50s.
There are a few places where I’m not sure if it’s me, or th physics engine that’s on drugs. One is coming out of a hazard. Sometimes you’ll be on top of sand (it’ll show 80%), and you’ll come up 2 clubs short. Sometimes you’ll be buried in the sand, and you’ll go 50% beyond what the club would have done from a perfect lie. This bears further investigation for several reasons. First, my characters stats are very low, and the low recovery stat may have a large influence on this. Second, I don’t know how much influence varying levels of shot boost have on this. Given my penchant for finding bunkers at Reflection Bay, I should probably play a practice round there without using boost and see what results I get.
There’s a bunch of neat multi-player games available, and we’ve only started to play with those. Maybe I’ll post more after playing with them.
Overall, it’s not staggeringly different from 2k5. Looks about the same. The play is different, but only because of the refined response of the clubs. It did seem a bit ridiculous that I would be in first place in every tournament by the time I got to the 15th hole of the first round. That didn’t happen here. I didn’t make the cut thanks to Reflection Bay completely and totally owning me.
I could make suggestions, but I’ll hold off until I’ve played a bit more. If only I could play REAL golf this well.
Univerisyt of Missouri-Columbia study on video games is claimed to “goes some way towards demonstrating a causal link between computer games and violence”.
Of course, even the excerpts of the study do no such thing. The very first reference is testing people who have been playing games for years. And they measure the response to “violent images”. And they conclude that since the reaction to images of real-life violence don’t inspire revulsion, that the people have become “desensitized to violence”, and therefore are more violent themselves.
Except there is not one single statistic that bears this out. If video games were making people more violent, wouldn’t the incidence of violent crimes be up? Wouldn’t there be more shootings, more beatings, more robberies? I mean, if everyone was emulating Sonny in Grand Theft Auto, there ought to be dead prostitutes littering the streets, right?
But there aren’t.
What we have here is yet another in a long line of politically-motivated “studies” that are trying to prove a correlation between consumption of violent media and violent behaviour. And they then take any hint of correlation and immediately assign the causality that the video games must have made the person violent.
Of course, since these are all improperly controlled studies, they never manage to disprove the opposite causality, which is that perhaps violent people are drawn to violent media. And by carefully avoiding any real-world results, and instead relying upon brain scans, they can say that a person who has violent thoughts is ipso facto violent, even if that person never commits a violent act against another.
And so therefore, I call bullshit. If I feel so inclined, I’ll read the whole report that was produced, but I suspect I’ll be able to tear it apart in a matter of minutes. Although it might be fun to thoroughly fisk something like this – especially if it’s been peer-reviewed.
New regulation proposed to punish retailers for selling M-rated games to minors.
What the fucking fuck? Do you honestly think that Hillary would have the balls to do this to an industry whose members are actually liberals? Last I knew, there was no restriction on the sales of explicit CDs to minors. No jail time for Best Buy clerks that don’t get ID from the 14 year old trying to buy that unrated version of “American Pie 2″.
Talk about your double standards. Although it WAS a liberal that got the labels on music in the first place, the lefties never had the balls to push it any farther than labels. And the label became sort of a “Good Housekeeping seal-of-approval”, where you could be certain to get naughty words on discs with the little sticker on them.
So now these idiots in Congress, who don’t know a Playstation from a gas station, want to tell retailers “You’re gonna be in trouble if you sell these naughty games to kidlets”.
Well, if you want to do that, then let’s go all the way, eh? How about prison time for a parent that buys a game like this for their minor child. Let’s add an additional restriction – you can’t buy the game if there’s a minor child in the house! After all, if limiting exposure to the video game is the goal, then shouldn’t we make absolutely certain that these games aren’t present in houses where minors could access them? Oh, and video game storage safes. Can’t keep the kids TOO safe, right?
In fact, why don’t we go to every house in America, and if they have minors AND violent video games, then tell the parents that they can pick which one they want to give up!
Politicians. I have no use for them. Note to Donald Trump: Next time you’re in DC, could you stop by the Russell building and just do your whole schtick for each member of the Senate? Better yet, I’d pay real money if you’d do it while they were in session, right on the Senate floor. On C-SPAN 2. “You’re Fired!”
That would be great. And it might get these preening assholes to leave my games alone.
That’ll teach me to not read the compatibility chart.
Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection support website at www.nintendowifi.com has a router compatibility chart. The WRT54GC is listed as not compatible if you use WEP. Which would explain a great deal. I switched back to the old WRT54G, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.
Mario Kart DS is incredible. If I could only get the hole-shot…