Random thoughts on video games

I picked up the God of War Collection for the PS3 on sale the other day. GoW never really interested me, but since it was $20 for what amounts to two games, that was a pretty sweet deal. Side note - I also picked up Split/Second, which I'll get into later.

The first thing I noticed (and I'm sure millions of others have ranted about since the games '05 release) is that it is pretty much a Devil May Cry clone but with Quick Time Events (QTE) thrown in. I have no problem with this, since the first DMC is one of my favorite games. However, like its source material, GoW suffers some of the same major problems of the DMC series. One of which is awful camera choices. I don't mind it when a developer makes a static camera for the sake of artistic freedom, but once that static camera is jammed in an awkward side view angle of an underwater deathtrap where any movement is guaranteed death, that kind of pisses me off. And this isn't the only example of this happening in GoW. It happens a number of times mid-jump, and the controls switch based on the camera, so that means pressing forward during a camera shift will send you flying in an unintended direction, usually off a cliff or into a vat of red liquid.
Some of the puzzles are brutal the first time through in that you will die a dozen times (or however many times it takes to get a 'do you want to switch to an easier difficult, which doesn't affect combat so it doesn't really help you out right now' screen).

Split/Second seems like it is what Burnout would've become had they taken out driving into traffic instead of making an open world suckfest. I know some gamers like Paradise (at least, game sites claim people do), but I enjoyed the ability to check my opponents into oncoming traffic a lot more than driving around like an ass looking for someone to race.

It's odd to be writing about a 5 year old game, I admit. But I was originally going to rant about how stupid water levels are in most games, including some Mario levels, and that they only usually serve to piss off the players to the point where they want to put there fist through their TV like some maladjusted WoW player whose girlfriend just deleted his precious characters.

Why I've Grown To Hate Spider-Man 2

Now, this is borderline blasphemy in the circles I run with (or wished I ran with, anyway), but I don't much care for Spider-Man 2. It's a film that many of my ilk describe as "the best superhero movie EVER!!!!1!" I, however, reserve that spot as a two-way tie between Dark Knight and Iron Man (for completely different reasons).

As I have gotten into a mini-debate with Marvel scribe Dan Slott over Twitter about the cinemagraphic merits of the previous SM trilogy, I thought I'd share why I've come to loathe the second part (the third still sucks, too).

There were always parts of Spider-Man 2 that bothered me. Toby Maguire, for one. And Kirsten Dunst. I didn't mind her in the first one, but I think that's just because they kept putting her in a tank top and getting her wet. But, beyond the acting, there were story and cinematography choices that I found devestating to the films overall enjoyability.

Item the first: There were several instances of where a person (in this case women) ran screaming into the camera. Who makes a movie that way? A B-level horror film director. That's who.

Second: Spider-Man has the proportional strength of a spider. To give a real life example, he could bench press my car. If he hits Doc Ock (a normal guy who, yeah, has metal arms grafted to his abdomen, but those can't really enhance his endurance), then the ol' Roy Orbison (look it up, they used to make the reference in the comics...a lot) look alike is going down. Sure, it looks neat to have them punching and stuff as they're falling, but from a story standpoint, that doesn't make sense.

Third: Spider-Man loses his powers...because he was having a bad day! I'd hate to see what would've happened had something really bad happened to Pete...like stubbing his toe! Not only that, but then he consciously blocks out his spider powers after some out of body meeting with his dead Uncle Ben. Sure, the argument could be made that it is a psychological thing, but that wouldn't explain why his physique detiorated or that his eyesight worsened.

Fourth: The villain wasn't responsible for his actions. Because of that stupid, and hackneyed, plot device of the AI controller, Doc Ock was no longer as potent a villain as he had been in the comics. He was no longer that bad of a guy, since it was the mechanical arms he fried to his torso that were making him do all those bad things. Really? Was that necessary? And was it also necessary to stick in that awful bit of exposition about the AI control through that journalist who knew just enough to know to ask that question?

So when people lay blame to Spider-Man 3 as the downfall of the series, I say nay. Sure, it was an awful film, but there was nothing there that you couldn't have seen comin' due to SM2. Except, y'know, that they rewrote the beginning of the first film to give Spidey an emotional hook to the villain (Sandman being his Uncle's shooter was an awful decision on Raimi's part). And the jazz dance scene. No one could've seen that coming. Blame the studio heads all you want for making Raimi shoehorn Venom into the film, but it was Raimi's fault for having an already bloated script.

I intended to use this blog to convey my lofty, grandiose, life-altering musings, but since every time I think of a good idea, I forget it before I can set pen to paper (or, in this case, fingers to keys), or that I can't convey effectively the point I'm trying to make (or I just sound like a total d-bag)...

As was the case here. I started writing an entry, saved it, and then totally forgot what the hell I was writing about. So now I do sound like a total d-bag. Also, if you spot any spelling errors in my blog, I'm saying it upfront, I'm typing this from a laptop and it doesn't have that great of a keyboard.

So...going forward, have fun reading my wacky thoughts (I like the word wacky, but I hate using it to describe myself. I actually hate most words that are used to describe myself, but that's because they all sound so forced) and try not to hate me too much.

A Brand New Me!

Well, no. Not really. I suppose I should explain the title, but that takes time. And effort. So I'll try to keep this part short.

I've had a blog before. Probably more than one. I honestly can't remember. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. So I've had a blog before. But that was me back when I was younger, and angrier, and broodier (is that a word? If it isn't, it should be), and I pretty much used the interwebs to bitch about ex-girlfriends and ex-friends and do really bad reviews of music, video games, movies, whatever piece of media I happened to be really excited about at the time.
And then I let the blog lapse. Shortly after that, the site decided it was going to start charging people to use its service. Can you guess what happened then? Well, if you guessed that it shut down because nobody was using that blogging service anymore, you're right.

See, it goes to show, that if you are charging for a service that others offer for free, and those others are easier to use, more popular and are, once again, free, then nobody is going to pay you to use said service.

More or less, this post is a really bad introduction to me. Who am I? A teacher (sometimes), a wannabe writer, an avid video game player, and a fantastic lover. Okay, I threw that last one in just to see if anyone bothered reading past the first paragraph. If you did, well, congratulations. You've read through one more fairly useless (read = awesome) blog by someone who is either t0 as, or is more, awesome as you.

And yes, Lou Ferrigno owes me money.