Wii Fail

It's been quite a while since my roommate purchased a Wii and I can honestly say we've played it about twice. It sounded like fun at first, using the Wiimote, playing some Metroid, goofing off on Wii sports but looking back, it's a waste of time and money and a failed experiment in my eyes.

When purchasing the Wii, $250 bucks sounds great. Until we got to the store and realized there was a ton of shit that you have to pile on if you actually want to have fun with it. On top of the base price there are extra Wiimotes (I hate the name, and I'll gripe more about these in a minute) at the oh so fantastic price of about $50 bucks for the main controller and nun-chuck attachment. Wired adapter if you don't have wireless interwebs (we do thankfully). A SNES style controller if you want to download old SNES and NES games and of course the games themselves. Of the games purchased the only one where the Wiimote functioned well (not great mind you) was House of the Dead: Overkill. Trying to play Metroid, No More Heroes, Red Steel, and even some of the Wii sports was an exercise in frustration trying to get the system to do what you told it you wanted to do. It's more expensive than meets the eye.

The graphics and controls are god awful. The controller may have gone through some changes over the years with the additions of buttons and better ergonomics but the basic idea has remained the same, and for one reason, it works. While the Wii has been a commercial success the controls make playing the games for it even harder and more frustrating. I had the same problem when playing the DS and forced to use the stylus even though the control pad would have been easier (it would have been nice to have the option). Motion sensing technology is neat and all, and Natal was great from a technology standpoint but I never feel more immersed in a game using a Wiimote and it never responds as well as they should.

Our Wii is currently collecting dust and I don't see that ever changing.

Too much stuff

I haven't gamed in a while. What is even worse is that I haven't gamed with any of my good friends in a while. I can't wait for the weather outside to cool off and hopefully have less things going on so I can sit back and rock some nubs like we used to. I'll get started on that soon, but in the meantime I'll be posting an article on my new hobby (with pics).

Its time to get back into gaming shape ;)

PC gaming, here I come

I finally built a computer that can play games. Gone are the days of having to use an outdated Gateway or Dell to try to play the latest games in their lowest settings. Having built my first computer out of school I no longer need a homework PC. This thing is built for gaming and that is exactly what I've been doing.

Recently, I've grown tired of playing on the console. With nothing but an influx of sequel after sequel I have a feeling of been there done that with every game I play. I want something new. It kind of sucks to be a gamer like me right now because of the current game selection but I understand from a business standpoint why the console is suffereing from this. FPS titles are huge right now, they sell, and as long as they do nothing much will change because console gameers will continue to be fed the same thing. Its the same reason we keep getting Final Fantasy sequels up to double digits (and other cliche crap games from Japan). People keep buying them. Maybe they want the same thing, maybe they're fanboys, maybe they think the next one will be different enough from the previous game. I can longer stand to play games from Japanese developers. Don't get me wrong, its nothing against them personally, and they have created some great game but currently they produce the same cliche broken games. The RPG genre is one that has slowly drifted to the west. With games like KOTOR, Mass Effect, Fallout, Oblivion and the likes that take a new approach to the style its refreshing. I can't tell you how frustrating it is that you can almost point to any JRPG and it will contain femenine looking male leads with cutesy sidekicks, a quiet ahole like side character, a bad guy that wears too much makeup, cliche "chosen one" story lines of saving the planet from "great evils".

Another reason for my emphasis on PC gaming at the moment is the complete customization. I can make the controls whatever I want, I can get patches when I want, I can download user generated content, extra missions, maps, and a variety of other enhancements. As a lefty handed gamer I have to play a little differently on the console. If I play a shooter I must have the left stick as look and the right stick as move, thats just how my brain interprets it. I've seen trolls who attack lefty and legacy players saying they should learn how to play default but there is a huge problem with that. First, we shouldn't have to learn anything. Next time you play a game you probably don't even think about what your hands are doing, its instictual. If I had to think about what stick does what I'm going to get frustrated and its not as fun. Secondly, our brains are wired differetnly. Try writing with your offhand. In fact, copy a newspaper article and see how much you have to really think about what you're doing and how slow and frustrating it is. Now switch to your dominant hand and notice how fluid and easy it is. That is what its like when we don't have the option. All PC games have either in game or backdoor ways of altering the control schemes to allow everyone to play to their comfort level.

The game selection on the PC is currently fresher to me at the moment. I feel like I have a variety with different types of games rather than different takes on the FPS genre. So until we start to get some more innovative or different console games I'll be lurking in the PC game section of my local Best Buy.

*Console argument not valid for Fallout 3 which is an amazing game (we just happen to have it for the Xbox).

Horde Domination

I can't believe after 8 hours we did it. Out of roughly 1,085,000 people we're ranked 15-19 on the horde leaderboards for Gears of War 2 on Jacinto. It was long, sometimes frustrating, but we made it. It'll be a while before we do another run but it was fun, and even cooler to have our names so high up on the boards.

The Spirit

I saw The Spirit last night and I have to say I was entertained. The Spirit was directed by Frank Miller and you probably could have guessed that with the Sin City like effects and appearance and stars Gabriel Macht as the Spirit and Samuel L. Jackson as the Octopus, the spirits arch enemy. The film carries with it a very twisted and dark humor that never lets it get too serious. My favorite part of the movie is probably how it feels like you're watching a comic book. I know that may sound weird but there are instances where the Spirit has a monologue over showing him running around the city and in those instances it looks like you're seeing pages straight out of a comic book projected on screen with motion and you can almost picture the yellow boxes for the inner monologues right on screen.

Its defineatley a fun film to watch and some good entertainment but for most I'd probably recommend it as a rental.

It Came From the Interwebs!!!

While chatting with Soapy and Jake the other night over Skype I was telling the guys how hungry I was but not in the mood to cook. Jake being the Google lover he is asked me my address and starting naming off restaurants and such near me. I said pizza sounded good but wasn't really feeling like ordering one to save some cash.

The next 30 minutes or so were spent joking, talking, and just having some fun. Little did I know the nightmare that was coming my way. Around 11:30 EST my doorbell rang. Who could that be this late at night I wondered. Like a gift from heaven it was the pizza delivery guy and man was I excited, free pizza! Couldn't wait to get inside and eat and tell Jake what a great friend he is.

I sat down, told the guys I had received a pizza and began to dig in.

Then it hit!

Like a bullet I was struck by the nasty mix of pineapple, bacon, and anchovy. My first reaction was to gag, then the smell hit me. It had gotten on my hands. But I was hungry, maybe I could salvage this pizza, maybe I could scrape everything off and eat it. No. The anchovy smell had leaked through the whole thing making the pizza, my apartment, my hands, and everything else this abomination had come in contact with smell like a wharf.

I did manage to finish one piece. As you can see by my face, I didn't enjoy it.

Never trust pizza that comes from the interwebs.

Dead Space Review

So I just picked up Dead Space the new 3rd person horror shooter from EA. I returned it to Blockbuster 5 minutes later. Aside from the terrible voice acting, lack of emotion and reaction to a catastrophic crash, the game is missing on really important thing, lefty controls.

Guess I'll go play DOOM...