Tag: Xbox

Monument to Consumerism

2012-08-23, 9:02 pm
Categories: Games, Stream of Consciousness

Took Little Nephew to the mall this evening so he wouldn't go stir-crazy. Cliché as it is, it's true -- by the end of the evening we were tired and he wasn't.

Made for a decent enough shopping trip, too. I found a copy of Crackdown for $3. And then I decided to check an Arizona souvenir shop for hot sauce -- my cousin invited me to breakfast this coming Sunday. It's the anniversary of her father's passing, and he loved to have people over for Sunday breakfast.

I saw a wasabi and habanero sauce and thought, yeah, that says Uncle Jim to me.

I miss the old fella.

Out with my nephew, thinking of my uncle. I guess that's the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' itself, down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands o' time until -- aww, look at me, I'm ramblin' again.

Xboxin', Part 3

2012-08-10, 10:31 pm
Categories: Games

Dragon Age: Origins: Another medieval fantasy RPG influenced by Game of Thrones. To the point that it's about a kingdom that needs to repel a zombie invasion but is too busy fighting amongst itself. Also it spells "sir" with an "e".

Pretty standard plot; you're recruited to an elite fighting force, something goes wrong and you have to pick up the pieces. It's a BioWare game, and the gameplay is like Knights of the Old Republic with Final Fantasy 12's combat support system.

I enjoyed the hell out of it (and the expansion, Awakening, was pretty good too) but never got around to playing the sequel, which I hear is a much different game and which got pretty mixed reviews.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game: As a game it's okay. As a Ghostbusters sequel, it's great. They managed to get basically everyone from the movies except Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis back together; it's funny and it makes for a great continuation from the movies.

Do not confuse it with Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime. I haven't played that one, but it doesn't have the actors from the movies in it, and from what I've read it's terrible.

Mega Man 9: Another downloadable game. It's a new Mega Man game in the NES style. Think of a game as complexly designed and bitch-ass hard as Mega Man 2 or 3; now think of it with 20 years' more of game design knowledge attached to it. (There's a Mega Man 10, too; it's neat but not as good as 9 and I never did get around to finishing it.)

Also, I've started Gears of War; I haven't gotten far but it seems like a damn decent cover-based third-person shooter. And I got it for under $5 used. I also enjoyed the demos I played of Fez (a puzzle platformer based around rotating a 3D world that you can only move through as a side-scroller) and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (which is a new Pac-Man game with different maze layouts, slightly different play mechanics, and a whole lot more ghosts -- another retro-style game with a really good modern design sensibility). The neat thing about all the downloadable games on Xbox Live is every single one of them has a demo you can download; given sufficient bandwidth and a hard drive you can try out a few levels of a new game or three every day and enjoy the hell out of just doing that.

Other games I haven't gotten around to playing but hear are good: Dead Rising, Bioshock, Skyrim, The Orange Box, Bayonetta.

I started a thread called Xbox 360 101 over at brontoforum.us; it's full of various recommendations.

So there ya go -- more games than you can shake a stick at and probably more than you can find time to play. That's like 5 years' worth of games for me, even though I just got my Xbox six weeks ago, since I played most of these on PC.

Xboxin', Part 2

2012-08-08, 8:32 pm
Categories: Games, Stream of Consciousness

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings -- My favorite game of 2011, though the Xbox version just came out a few months ago and is still pricey. (I saw it on sale for $30 recently; maybe you can find a deal.)

Now, the first game is PC-only, and in fact the whole thing is based on a series of Polish fantasy novels that were only recently published in English. But you don't really need to know all that stuff. Here are the important bits of the backstory:

It's a medieval fantasy setting, of the dystopian sort that's currently vogue. Think Game of Thrones, only even more bleak.

Witchers are mutants who fight monsters. They're all male, they have yellow eyes, age slowly, are immune to disease, can cast a few simple spells, and use various potions to enhance their senses.

Our Hero, Geralt of Rivia, is supposed to be dead, but for some reason he's not. He's got amnesia (and if you're playing an RPG cliché drinking game, drink up) and has recently been caught in the middle of a race war in the city of Vizima. A terrorist organization of elves and dwarves called the Scoia'tel invaded, a Knights Templar-like religious organization called the Order of the Flaming Rose seized control of the city, and ultimately the King of Vizima showed up and managed to regain control. The first game ends with Geralt foiling an assassination attempt on the King, only to discover that the would-be assassin has yellow eyes.

The PC version originally had a steep-ass learning curve (as Penny Arcade put it, "It's not that hard. You just have to use abilities they won't discuss and techniques they haven't entirely taught you via controls they never quite explain.") but I hear the Xbox version fixes that and has a tutorial section that doesn't just throw you in the deep end.

Sonic Generations: The first good Sonic game in a decade. There's a plot involving time travel that causes 2011 Sonic to team up with 1991 Sonic; you play through new versions of levels from previous games (Green Hill from Sonic 1, Chemical Plant from Sonic 2, etc.), and each is split into one 2D level you play as '91 Sonic and one 3D level you play as '11 Sonic. The conceit works really wonderfully; the levels are well-designed, full of nostalgia, and have some good remixes of the old music; there's not much to the plot but it's pretty funny (particularly when 1991 Robotnik meets his future self).

Sonic CD: And speaking of 1990's-vintage Sonic games, they've ported this one to the Xbox as a downloadable title. (BTW, a friend of mine advised me never to buy Microsoft Points directly from Microsoft; they store your credit card online, tie it to a Windows Live/Hotmail/Whatever account, and if one of their affiliate sites gets broken into there goes your credit card information. You're better off buying a Microsoft Points card at GameStop or wherever and then entering it into your Xbox.) A few tweaks here: the game works in 16:9, they've changed the spin-dash to work the way it does in Sonic 2 instead of the original clunky version, you can choose either the Japanese or American version of the soundtrack, and after you beat the game you can replay as Tails.

(I think they've got a bunch of other old Genesis Sonic games for download, but they haven't been updated in any way.)

Xboxin', Part 1

2012-08-07, 9:49 pm
Categories: Games, Stream of Consciousness

Welp, couldn't think of an entry to write this evening, and I got to thinking -- my brother just got an Xbox (rather like I did), and I was meaning to recommend some games to him. So hey, howzabout a blog post about my favorite Xbox games.

(Actually, I've mostly played the PC versions of these. Because, again -- just got the Xbox.)

Mass Effect -- I haven't played 3 yet, but the first two games are, straight up, my favorite games of the current hardware generation. It's the guys who made Knights of the Old Republic, but it's a new science fiction setting they've cooked up. Humans have begun exploring space and are treated as second-class citizens by the Galactic Council; your character is the first human to be selected for an elite special-ops position. Of course, as these things go, you uncover a threat to all of galactic civilization.

The first game's a not-quite-perfect hybrid of third-person shooter and RPG; it's got a wonky inventory system but is pretty great aside from that. The second game streamlines out all the crap and is more of a pure shooter; on the whole I'd say it's a better game but the first has the better story. I haven't played the third yet; from what I've read it's pretty good but the ending is so bad the company actually released a new ending at fans' insistence.

Batman: Arkham Asylum -- When this game came out it got the Guinness Record for the best-reviewed game of all time. It's easy to see why. It's got a script by Paul Dini and stars Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill. The gameplay is just perfect, and the enemy AI is a great touch; a lot of the fighting is focused on the idea of sneaking around and slowly picking off thugs one-by-one. (You can even hang upside-down from a gargoyle, wait until a guy walks underneath you, and drop down and tie him up.) As you take thugs out the remaining ones get more and more agitated and have different reactions; some start firing randomly into the air, others start traveling in pairs -- the AI's not exactly brilliant but it's a really nice touch. And that's before the game even starts messing with your expectations, playing with what you expect out of the world of Batman and even the mechanics of the game itself.

The sequel, Arkham City, is supposed to be pretty fantastic too, but I haven't gotten around to that one yet.

Guess that'll do for a start. Other stuff for later: Dragon Age, The Witcher 2, Sonic Generations, Sonic CD. And, hell, Ghostbusters. Because it may be mediocre as a game, but as a Ghostbusters sequel, it's pretty great.

Not My Batman

2012-06-23, 8:39 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Comics, Games

I've been talking about fanboys and entitlement. It's kind of amazing the extent to which fans can be territorial and proprietary about characters they don't actually own or control.

To wit: you've probably heard the phrase "That's not my Batman."

The wonderful thing about Batman is that he is, quite possibly, the most versatile superhero in all of comics. (The most versatile supervillain, on the other hand, is Dr. Doom, and Chris Sims did a great job of laying out the reasons why in a recent column.) He's been around for close on 75 years and has, in that time, appeared in virtually every kind of story. You've probably got a "your Batman", the one you consider definitive and canonical -- and it's probably the one from when you were a kid. I'm no exception -- more on that in a moment.

I saw an Amazon review of the Arkham Asylum game that gave us this great bit of That's Not My Batman:

No, this is not the BAM, WHAM, KA-POW batman you saw David West in and it's not the weird new batman from Batman the Brave and the Bold cartoon and that is such a relief !!
This is the TRUE Batman, the one Bob Kane had in his mind even in the late 30's[.]

Yes, who could forget the famous Batman TV series starring David West? It was a huge departure from the TRUE Batman who Bob Kane had in his mind in the late 1930's -- you know, the one who wore a red costume, wings, and a domino mask, and was called Bird-Man, because that was Bob Kane's pitch until Bill Finger suggested some changes. (There's more on the origins of Batman at Dial B for Blog, and I strongly recommend the book Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones.)

Of course, the funny thing is that the guy who wrote the script to Batman: Arkham Asylum, Paul Dini, also gave us the following exchange (on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the one with "that weird new Batman" -- specifically, in the episode Legends of the Dark Mite):

I always felt Batman was best-suited in the role of gritty urban crime detective, but now you guys have him up against SANTAS? And EASTER BUNNIES? I'm sorry -- but that's not my Batman!
Batman's rich history allows him to be interpreted in a multitude of ways. To be sure, this is a lighter incarnation, but it's certainly no less valid and true to the character's roots as the tortured avenger crying out for Mommy and Daddy.

(You can see the clip on YouTube, too, but the uploader prevents embedding.)

Because Dini doesn't just understand that there's more than one "valid" interpretation of Batman, he excels at jumping between them. He's a true chameleon like few Batman scribes in the character's history -- Grant Morrison springs to mind, as does Bill Finger himself, who wrote everything from Batman's earliest appearances and origin story to a two-part episode of that "BAM, WHAM, KA-POW" TV series with Adam "My Name is Not Even Remotely Similar to David" West.

And the funny thing is, playing Arkham Asylum, I've realized something: this isn't my Batman.

He sounds exactly like my Batman. And the Joker sounds exactly like my Joker. And the writing sure sounds a lot like my Batman too.

But it's meaner. It's more violent. An asylum littered with the bodies of murdered security guards. Batman himself sticks to the "no killing" rule in this version (unlike, say, the Burton movies), but he's brutal. The game features fetishistic slow-motion beatdowns that look like something out of the Watchmen movie; Batman may not kill, but he snaps bones and smothers perps until they lose consciousness.

Don't get me wrong -- I like the game. It plays fantastically; it's expertly designed, fun as hell, and it fits Batman -- at least, a version of Batman.

I guess that's what this comes down to: I can recognize a Batman as Not My Batman and still enjoy and appreciate it.

PC Gamer's Dilemma

2012-06-22, 10:08 pm
Categories: Games, Status Updates, Stream of Consciousness

Well, I finally got me an Xbox 360.

It was free. My fiancée got a new computer with one of those student "comes with a free Xbox" deals.

Here's the thing: I've got a pretty solid gaming rig. And another pretty solid media rig. So I haven't felt much need for Xboxin' up to this point.

The advantages and drawbacks of PC gaming are pretty well-documented. A PC can support crazy high-end hardware, but while the games are cheaper the gear is more expensive and fiddly and there's a whole lot that can go wrong.

Me, I'm something like a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche -- I run Linux on a Mac Pro as my primary OS and keep Windows around for gaming.

This is pretty cool when it works. But here's the thing: even a good Apple makes for a pretty crummy gaming system.

Last year I bought a pretty high-end Nvidia card. ATI has better Mac support, but I've had nothing but headaches trying to get ATI cards working with Linux. Nvidia's always run smoother for me -- galling considering their total lack of cooperation with Linux and the open-source community, but true.

But it's not an officially-supported card. It works under OSX (as of 10.7.3) but it's not entirely reliable under Windows -- when it gets taxed too heavily, I get a bluescreen.

It happened a few times when I played through Witcher 2, but, perversely, it's given me more trouble on Mass Effect 2 -- a game I had no trouble playing through with all the settings maxed out on a lower-end (but officially-Apple-supported) ATI card.

I thought it might be a heating problem but it occurs, consistently, even when I crank up all my system fans with third-party software.

The game worked fine up until Omega, and then started BSoDing randomly. I managed to recruit Garrus in-between crashes, but by the time it came around to Mordin's quest I couldn't get past loading the corridor.

I could just try some other missions, but seriously, you want me to put off getting Mordin? Hell no.

I've found, from searching, that this appears to be a fairly common problem with ME2, even among people not running eccentric hardware configurations such as mine. And I've found a few suggested fixes, but none have worked for me.

I've tried running the game under WINE on both OSX and Ubuntu. Under OSX it plods (I suspect my helper card may be to blame; maybe I'll try disabling it to make sure my higher-end card is the only one the system's putting a load on); under Ubuntu it runs fine up until the menu screen but then doesn't respond to mouse clicks or keystrokes (other than system stuff like Alt-Tab or Alt-F4). I haven't turned up any other reports of this same problem, so I can't find a fix -- maybe one of these days I'll try a full clean install and see if it still does it. Nuke my WINE settings too if I have to. (Or maybe I could set it up on my fiancée's new computer...)

Needless to say, I haven't tried Mass Effect 3 yet.

And that's before we get into all the DRM bullshit plaguing the PC platform.

Never played Batman: Arkham Asylum, largely because of the SecuROM/GFWL/Steamworks Katamari of Sucktitude. Similarly, I gave Dragon Age 2 a miss once I heard reports of people unable to authenticate their legally-purchased games because they'd been banned from BioWare's forums for saying mean things about EA. (Which obviously totally disproves that EA deserves to be called names.)

It's a great damn time to be a PC gamer for a lot of reasons -- a huge indie scene supported by the likes of Steam and the Humble Indie Bundle, with both pushing more gaming on OSX and even Linux -- but it's a lousy time for other reasons.

Anyway. Now I've got an Xbox. All else being equal, I still prefer to play games on the PC, but for cases where the Xbox has less restrictive DRM (like Arkham Asylum) or titles that aren't available on PC (like Red Dead Redemption) or just shit I can get for under five bucks (like a used copy of Gears of War I just picked up), well, it's kinda cool to have one.

Playing: Batman: Arkham Asylum.