If Halo Wars Was A Lady...

she'd be a very sexy one. I've had a craving for a good RTS game for a long time, since about March 31st, 1998. I've been so flooded with shooters, then RPGs that the genre change is very welcomed. Halo Wars satisfies that craving while at the same time doing a little something for my inner Halo fanboy. It's embarrassing to admit but I am totally gay for Halo. I had a roommate a few years ago who we made fun of for loving Final Fantasy VII enough to download Advent Children and watch it over and over. Well, the cut scenes in Halo Wars this weekend made me realize I would act the same way if they made a Halo CGI movie.

So here's why I think this game is so great:
The animations are beautiful. When elite honor guards are battling a squad of marines you watch as they toss them too the ground, jump on top and plunge their energy sword into the marines chest.
The units special attacks are true to the series. Grunts throw plasma grenades that stick to whatever they hit for a few moments before they burst. The banshee has a suicide ability that causes it to dive bomb it's target causing area damage right before it dies. Spartans can be upgraded to carry the spartan laser, and their special ability is to commandeer vehicles. Every time I'd get to a new perk level and read the descriptions I'd giggle with glee chuckle manly-ly at the awesomeness Ensemble managed to capture.
It's simple. There isn't 1,000 different units to build or tech trees you can decide to follow. There's a barracks, n airfield, and a vehicle factory for both races and in general they each build 3 different units. More chess less Warhammer 40K; Easy to learn, impossible to master.

Finally:
The controls were not terrible like they are on every other console RTS. There are hot buttons on the dpad for jumping to bases and groups of units. The bumpers allow you to select all units or local (on screen) units. Once you've got a group selected you can cycle through the unit types with the trigger to command the marines to grenade a building while the rest of your units continue to battle grunts, for example. In the end, scrolling around the screen with the joysticks is always going to be more clunky than a mouse, but Ensemble does it better than anyone has in the past.
For someone like me, a fan of halo and the RTS genre, this game succeeds at everything it attempts. After the demo I'm super excited for it...I know, I'm so gay for Halo it's sad.

I had so much fun with Halo Wars I almost put Halo 3 back in my disk tray but then Dingy (who's also an contributor here but has never written anything) invited me over and we got into another dated game, Rainbow Six Vegas 2. R6V2 reminded me of how much I dislike tactical shooters. I like games where it's relatively easy to identify the origin of bad guy bullets before you're dead. In tactical shooters I tend to die 5 or so times before I even locate the enemy. But I had fun with my buddy playing coop, which is the only way I could possibly play a tactical shooter for two reasons:
1) Co-op allows one player (read: me) to run and gun, my preferable technique in shooters. I just pulled out the shotgun and ran up and flanked dudes while my more conservative friend hung back in cover and picked them off with the sniper or assault rifle.
2) I don't like commanding a team. I insisted that Dingy host the game so that he was player 1 and had the command duties. If it were up to me, I'd just leave the two CPU teammates behind so I wouldn't have to screw around with getting them to listen to me.

So yeah, I bought it used for $25 and I'll be returning it in the 7 day window for a full refund. I hear very good things about farcry 2, maybe I'll see if they have a copy of that used.

And that's it.
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RPGs

Turns out I heart them. I used to think I hated them, or only had a mild passion for them. I was totally wrong. I definitely <3 them, I may even c=3 them.

I came to this realization playing Fable II the past week. I remember liking the first one but not the way I'm loving this lil' guy. It's so colorful and cheeky and just a pleasure to spend time with. The world Lionhead built for this game is gorgeous and magical. It truely draws me into it. It's one of those games where I'd pick it up planning to play for an hour and end up playing for 5.

Fallout was a statistical game. VATs tells you that you have a 32% chance of hitting enemy's head. Your lockpicking skill is at 76/100. Take a mentat to boost science 10 points so that you can hack the computer. Your right limb's damage is a few points away from being crippled. Drinking that water will give you some health, but at a +5 rads per second cost. Your combat shotgun is a few points away from breaking...

As an engineer I loved and appreciated all the numbers and math. But then there's Fable. Fable is refreshingly simple.

Oh, and turn based RPG's still suck in my book.

p>c

aesop.

Gears, Games and Life in 2009

Hello faithful readers,

I haven't written anything in a month. I know you must all be very disappointed but let me explain. I was busy. But hey, I'm back now. And thank god right? So it's a new year, we have a new president, Wii Fit is GotY (according to Amazon), Wii Sports is the best selling game of all time, nintendo invented god, and a ton of other shit that I won't mention in the below paragraphs. So how bout you just follow along and listen to me ramble about stuff that actually matters and isn't just about the stupid wii.

"What you've been playing" is the most overused feature on all gaming sites/blogs/podcasts. Here's a far more original version for our one-of-a-kind blog:
What I Haven't Been Playing
Anything other than Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead
I will assume there is no reason to explain why as they are unquestionably the two most awesome games available.

On to other news and ramblings...

Gears of War 2 patch is out today. I read through the list of stuff they fixed/balanced and couldn't find "made matchmaking happen quickly" or "eliminated lag" so that sucks...but anyway here are the
Top 5 Awesome Things They Did Change
(in descending order of awesomeness)

1. Punish players for quitting
I fucking hate those kids who care so god damn much about their fucking rank that they quit as soon as their team is down by 2 rounds. Do you know how difficult it is to quit out of gears? You have to bring up the center button menu and return to the dashboard and then restart the game and navigate through all the menus again. It probably takes 5 minutes. Then you need to find another multiplayer match, which can take another 10 minutes if you're unlucky. Meanwhile I'm sitting there in the game watching my teammates drop out like flies and all of a sudden it's me versus a team of 5 that's been kicking our ass even as a full team. Thanks quitting assholes, that really added to the fun.

2. Improved client side hit detection with the shotgun
As long as there is gonna be lag, at least my shotgun will still work. It's the worst when you've put 5 shots in someone pointblank and they don't pop then they spin around and get 1 in you and boom you're dead.

3. Added achievement progression to the war journal
What can I say? I C=3 Cheevos. They are addicting...and this is TAJ.

4. Got rid of the shield and a shotgun glitch
This glitch was utter bullshit. I never noticed the dude with the shield had his shotgun out until I was gibbed all over the floor.

5. Spawn protection
Gives you 5 seconds of invincibility after a respawn so that you don't immediately explode from some asshole's frag while you’re leaving the spawn room.

There are a number of games I feel are worth playing but not buying. So what are my choices? Rent or borrow? Well, borrowing is pretty unlikely (I don’t have many hardcore gaming friends) so renting is the only option left. Now do I rent from blockbuster or get a service like Gamefly? Living in Boston means that the blockbusters around me a run by a bunch of shitheads who let their store go to shambles so that you can't find anything. But I don't like the commitment of Gamefly. Currently I have Netflix and sometimes I'll let a movie just sit in my living room for 2 months...which is a dumb waste of money. Anyway, here's the list of games that I believe are probably worth playing and then getting rid of after you beat:
Fable II
Prince of Persia
Mirror's Edge
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Viva Piñata 2
Far Cry 2
World of Goo

No More Hero's for Wii used to be on that list but I was buying something on Amazon and I needed to spend $25 for the free super savers shipping...No More Hero's was only $20...it was a no brainer. Other than that the only one on that list that I think I'd buy is Fable II. I had a ton of fun with the first version of the game. It's just so colorful and cheeky.

Finally, I want to make one non-gaming comment about our new president. I've always been relatively indifferent about politics. I find myself to be a bleeding heart or hardcore democrat on some issues like go green and save the world and technology and science should be put before all else while at the same time cutthroat and uncaring about other stuff like homeless people are just catching the shit end of the natural selection stick...it's Darwin baby. So for this reason I've always kind of banked on the fact that the president can't do too much on his own cuz all his shit still needs to pass through a ton of other people so...ignore it. So I was at lunch during the inauguration speech yesterday and it was awesome. He is a great speaker. So much so that it made me care (just a little, but still...). Then for one reason or another I found myself on Whitehouse.gov, which had just received a huge update. Anyway, I read some of the stuff on there and Obama rules. He will be blogging all through his presidency. He is posting all his proclamations and executive orders out there for everyone to read. Also he plans on putting all non-emergency legislation on the site for 5 days to allow people to review and comment on it before he makes any final decisions. I thought that was awesome. He's embracing technology, he cares what the public thinks and he is making himself and his office as accountable as possible my making them as transparent as possible. He's certainly a refreshing change from Dubya.

And that's all.
p>c. AD.