Clearing off some dust

It's been over a year since the last post here. The blog has been more or less abandoned, it seems. I don't know if I'm going to continue to update it, but I wanted to chime in on a few things from the past year. This may get a little long, but who knows if anyone is going to read this. :)

One of the biggest releases of 2008 was Grand Theft Auto IV. A game I got used a few months after it came out. I have yet to beat it. In fact, I haven't played it at all in 2009. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game. The online play can be fun, too, but only on the Free Mode. Yeah, the racing can be good, but I had the most fun in Free Mode. Somewhere along the lines I picked up the Zombie costume, which (at the time at least) was only awarded to those who killed a Rockstar employee in an online match. I have no idea who it was.

The mission I got stuck on was one where I had to go to this garage and blow up four or five vans containing drugs. I tried several times and never found a working strategy. The one that worked best, though, was to park my vehicle out front (I tried to make it an ambulance) and take the path to the roof. I remember I almost had it beaten, but I missed taking out one guy and he got me first. I would have kept playing the game to just play around in the sandbox world, but it just didn't seem as fun as previous GTAs. I guess because in previous games, most of my sandbox fun would come from Infinite Health and Infinite Ammo cheats (thanks to Codebreaker). GTA4 seems to have no such cheats. Sure, there are restore health, ammo, etc. cheats, but you have to pull out the phone to input them. Which isn't very useful when you're being shot at.

Changing direction here, another big release was Metal Gear Solid 4. As a Metal Gear Solid fan, it was awesome seeing the final chapter in Snake's story. Several moments made me quite emotional. Act 4 remains one of my favorite levels of any game. Going back to Shadow Moses, all run down and nothing more than a shell of its former self. The audio flashbacks in that level are so well done, and the atmosphere and emotion the level evokes, for fans of the series at least, is just amazing. It makes me wish that Kojima would remake the original MGS with MGS4 gameplay and graphics.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising, announced at E3 2009, makes me worry about the series future. It stars Raiden, but in his cyborg suit from MGS4. I have a hard time believing this will be a traditional stealth game, because Cyber-Raiden doesn't give the impression that he'd be sneaking around. He looks like the star of an action game, and I don't think he'd be taken seriously as a stealthy guy looking like that.

Also from last year came MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, an excellent racing game. Pacific Rift is a real blast to play, and it improves on the strategy element that the original MotorStorm featured. Not only do tracks have multiple paths, each one ideal for certain types of vehicles, but it also has two element types: water and fire. You get too close to lava and your engine heats up faster. Drive into water, and your engine cools down quicker. But water slows down smaller vehicles. Overall, it's a really fun game, and racing fans owning a PS3 should pick it up if you haven't already.

LittleBigPlanet is next up. I think most people know what that is, so I'll keep it short. The official levels are a blast to play. A select few of the user created levels are great. But it seems like the quality stuff is more difficult to find. The game is great fun, though. Especially online.

Prince of Persia, the current-gen re-envisioning of the Prince of Persia series, still has the great gameplay of the Sands of Time trilogy. The combat is radically different, and will probably be a sticking point for most people, but I feel it flowed well enough. The lack of enemy variety, however, makes battles rather tedious. The story is the most irritating aspect, however. After what should have been the ending, you have one more thing you have to do, in gameplay, no less, which results in undoing everything you worked for up till that point. Then, for another $10, you get to buy the Prince of Persia: Epilogue, which adds another hour of gameplay and gives you yet another non-ending.

Ubisoft, listen, placing Elika on the pedestal should have been the end of the game. The Prince undoing the seal should have been a cut-scene at the start of the sequel, and the "Epilogue" should have been the sequel's first chapter. I hate that you gave me a total bull**** ending for my first $60, and then got me to spend another $10 thinking I was going to get a real ending, only to be jerked around again. I understand you want to turn this into another series (a sequel to which hasn't been even announced yet, which worries me), but at least give me closure in the first game. Don't leave me hanging.

Next on this list that I just made up is Fallout 3. Granted, I haven't played much of the game, but it isn't that bad. I don't think I have enough experience with it to say definitively whether or not it's great.

A few months ago I resubscribed to Gamefly, so the next few games were rentals. I'll keep it brief. Resistance 2 was a pretty good game, as was Killzone 2. Two really good shooters for the PS3. Mirror's Edge was okay, but the first-person view really hampered gameplay. Parkour is great in games, but it really needs a third-person view. I know the idea is to bring the player into the head of the character, but a real person has peripheral vision, which a first-person video game cannot give.

Now into some more miscellaneous stuff. The Wii Virtual Console and Gamefly have helped me enjoy The Legend of Zelda. I think I may have talked about my dislike of the series in the past, but playing Ocarina of Time on the VC and Twilight Princess on the GameCube have showed me that 3D Zelda games can be good. Unlike Wind Waker. A few years ago, I played the Game Boy Advance version of A Link to the Past, and I enjoyed that. But Wind Waker gave me a poor impression of the 3D games. An impression I have since learned to look past. Twilight Princess was an amazing game, and while I have yet to finish Ocarina of Time, it too is excellent.

Games I plan to buy in the near future include Bomberman Ultra (PS3), Bomberman '94 (Wii VC/TG-16), Super Dodge Ball (Wii VC/NES), and Kirby's Dream Land 3 (Wii VC/SNES). I'm a big Bomberman fan, and already own Bomberman '93 on the Virtual Console. If they start putting the Super Bomberman games on there, I'll buy those, too. Bomberman Ultra on the PS3 has me wanting it because of the featured 8-player online play. I don't think I've ever played an 8-player Bomberman. I only hope you can play online with a spot reserved for a second local player. I'm also a fan of the Kirby series, but never played Dream Land 3. I plan to remedy that. Super Dodge Ball is by far one of my favorite NES games of all time. Probably the only game above it is also part of the Kunio-kun series, Crash 'N The Boys: Street Challenge. I can't wait for that to come to the VC.

I'm sure I'm missing many things from the past year of gaming, but I'm honestly drawing a blank at this point. So, until next time, whenever that may be.

I have a confession to make

I am a borderline completionist. In some games more than others, and especially those that offer a bonus for getting 100%.

Now, I will often cheat my way to 100%. Or at the very least, unlock all content, which usually includes a 100% rank. But if I can't, I do make an attempt to get 100% by myself.

I think the only game I got 100% in without cheating was Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. That's because no cheat device codes had been made for the game at the time. What was nice about that game was it allowed you to miss one Precursor Orb, and still get 100%. Which was like a godsend, because there was one timed mission that I just could not beat. But I didn't have to, as I got 100% by getting all other orbs. It gave me an overwhelming sense of satisfaction.

Now, this is the reason for my hate of Grand Theft Auto. Don't get me wrong, I love the games, and I really wish I could afford GTA4 when it comes out this week. I'm dying to get my hands on it. But my major complaints of GTA has been the optional side-quests. They rarely have anything to do with the story, and they're just there to give small bonuses or give you something to do on your way to 100% completion. The reason I hate them is they are annoying tasks like racing, or those atrocious RC Plane missions in San Andreas. All of which I routinely fail in spectacular fashion. (Though, I must say the San Andreas racing missions were a lot better than the games before it.)

That's why I hate those damn things in GTA. I want 100%, but I'm simply no good at those buggers, and for the life of me, I can't complete them. And they're the same bull crap in each GTA game. Plus, there's just so much of this crap that I can't keep it all straight.

Another game that's really bothering me is Super Smash Bros. Brawl. In SSB Melee, when I wanted all the trophies, I just used Action Replay. I can't do that in Brawl. I do have almost all the challenges complete, however. All that's left are the impossible "Beat Boss Battle mode on Hard/Very Hard/Intense," "Play for 50/100 hours," "Collect all Stickers/Songs," and Multi-Man Brawl challenges.

But that's not the bad thing. If I want all the trophies, I have to capture every single enemy type AND boss character with a Trophy Stand in the Subspace Emissary mode. Not only do I consider that an impossible feat (at least for me), but Nintendo decided to give the bare minimum of story in the SSE, and the only way to get the whole picture is to grab the enemy and boss trophies. Oh sure, the Smash Bros. Dojo website gave some back story, but they didn't explain the background of the SSE boss characters. Like why Petey Piranha was involved, or what Duon or Galleom are.

The problem is that there is no cheat device for the Wii. There is a Powersave device, but I've been told that downloading the SSBB Powersave gives you a new Brawl Friend Code. Not that I use that anymore (no one is ever on), but still...

I guess what I'm saying is that it annoys me when companies make the player jump through hoops just to get 100%. Because they know there are obsessives out there who desire 100% completion in every single game. I know people who even go as far as to want to acquire every single item in an RPG, no matter how useless it is. Like in Suikoden II, there are people who want to get every Recipe, every Sound Set, every Window Set, complete Clive's side quest (which involves getting to certain locations within a specific time limit, and the final area of the game in under 20 hours), along with every other side quest, all 108 characters, and get the best ending. Not to sound insulting, but that's just insane. That doesn't even include the very hidden color intro in Suikoden II (the sepia-toned intro can be full color if you fight approximately 100 battles on the cliff of the Unicorn Brigade camp at the very beginning).

Ok, to get off that tangent and back to my original rant. It annoys me that if I want 100%, I have to go through an enormous amount of other work beyond the main quest/story. With some games, like the Elder Scrolls series, I don't bother, because I'm not interested in the other quests. I just don't do them. Those games are all about being one with your character, anyway.

In conclusion, I suppose I come off like I'm whining about not being "good enough" to get 100% in games like Grand Theft Auto. But, personally, I hate games that have you collect X number of objects hidden in obscure places, or perform Y number of actions in specified locations. Grand Theft Auto has been known for the crap hidden around the place, and San Andreas was the worst offender of the bunch. I just wish games didn't add so much "extra" content just for the sake of making the game longer for those wanting 100%. Yes, some think that it "extends" gameplay, but if a game is good, I'm going to replay it regardless. I don't need 30 hours of side-quests to keep myself playing the game. If it's good, I'll keep playing. I can't even count how many hours I spent in the three PS2 GTA games just goofing around the city, not even doing anything of any importance. That's just how fun it is. I fail to see how the lure of "more content" is more entertaining than running around a GTA sandbox like an idiot with a death wish.

Genre-defining games

In the history of games, there have been many genres. But with each genre, there is bound to be a game that creates it, and a game that perfects it. Those two aren't always the same.

Let's take the Platformer genre, for instance. To the best of my knowledge, Pitfall for the Atari 2600 is the first Platformer. But Super Mario Bros. was the first game to define the genre. In fact, the Mario series has been the leader in Platforming innovation. Super Mario Bros. introduced the concept of a scrolling screen to the genre. Only a handful of games used scrolling screens; Defender comes to mind right away. But no other Platformer had used a scrolling screen. Future games, such as Castlevania and Mega Man, borrowed elements from Super Mario Bros., but didn't do a lot to innovate the genre. Super Mario 64 didn't exactly create a 3D platformer (Jumping Flash! on the original PlayStation was a 3D platformer, but it used a first-person view), but it defined it in a way that very few games have yet to replicate. However, I tend to fault Mario 64 for having too few levels, and making players repeat those levels several times each.

The "Open World/Sandbox" genre, created and defined by Grand Theft Auto, is possibly the most popular genre for game developers. In fact, many have taken the "open world" concept from this genre, and attempted to apply it to all kinds of games, with mixed results. As Grand Theft Auto IV, coming later this month, attempts to redefine the genre yet again, one has to wonder if anyone else can perfect this genre like GTA has.

Of course there is the Console FPS genre, which is arguably defined by Halo. This is both a good thing, and a bad thing. The good is that Halo is a pretty good game. Certainly not the "perfect" and epic game that rabid Halo fans and mainstream game reviewers portray it, but a good game. The bad is that companies are trying too hard to be like Halo. Since the success of Halo, it seems like the imagination of FPS developers has deflated. Suddenly every FPS protagonist is a space-faring military soldier on an alien planet. Even Turok, who had some originality in being a time-traveling Native American, has been reborn as a generic soldier on an alien planet populated by Earth-like dinosaurs. So now the FPS genre is divided into three categories: Historic FPS, Alternate History FPS, and Generic Halo Rip-off FPS. That isn't to say that all "space marine" games are bad. Just unoriginal. I know Halo didn't start the "space marine" thing, but it sure did popularize it.

Finally we have the RPG genre. This is an interesting genre in that it seems virtually impossible to define. Every game and/or series has its own different take on gameplay to the point where little seems to be shared. To further confuse things, Japanese-made RPGs and American-made RPGs are based on two completely different concepts. Japanese RPGs seem to be defined by the first of its kind (as far as I know), that being the original Final Fantasy. Turn-based battles, magic, inventory, chatty villagers, and the like were all created by Final Fantasy. Those seem to be some of the few common characteristics.

Almost all American RPGs, on the other hand, are based on Dungeons & Dragons, a tabletop Role Playing Game. I can't say that D&D "originated" or "defined" the genre, as it isn't a video game. But it has provided the inspiration for almost the entire American RPG market. Even if ARPGs don't use the D&D races, skills, etc., they likely use one of the D&D rule sets. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, for example, used a d20 rule set from D&D Third Edition.

I hope you enjoyed this look into a few of the many game genres out there.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is probably one of the best games I've played in a long time. I'm a big Smash Bros. fan, and Brawl more than met expectations.

The soundtrack is fantastic. There are some songs that I don't like. The first Ground Theme from Super Mario Bros. is an abomination. I love the original song, but that first arrangement is a travesty. Ground Theme 2, on the other hand, is absolute gold. Not only does it capture the original theme well, but it also mixes in a bit of the Underground Theme, the Game Over theme, and the Flagpole theme.

Also of note are the Kirby songs. Meta Knight's Revenge, Gourmet Race, and King Dedede's Theme are wonderful songs. King Dedede's Theme is one of my favorite songs ever, and to hear this arrangement makes me so happy. Not all the Kirby songs are that great, but they don't all have to be good.

The Famicom Melody, for one of the hidden stages, is great for fans of the NES. It's fun to listen to the song and try and guess each game by the short sound byte.

As for the actual gameplay, it's almost identical to Melee. Which is far from a bad thing. Melee was such pure fun, that there wasn't anything needing changed. The Subspace Emissary mode, on the other hand, is a bit spotty in its performance. Some enemies are pushovers, while others can kill you in two or three hits. Some areas are a breeze to go through, while others are death traps. And the mode made me play as some of my most hated characters, like Yoshi, Olimar, and Lucas, to name a few. It's not entirely bad, and it does its job, but I would rather a more consistent difficulty level throughout.

The Target Smash mode is back, but I'm disappointed with it. Instead of being unique for each character, there are five generic maps, with varying difficulty, that all characters use. To me, it takes the fun out of the mode, as it used to be a showcase of the skills of that particular character, instead of a generic map that doesn't really make use of the characters skills.

The Virtual Console Trials are useless. Not only are they too short, but the game has to go through a long load time to get back to the main game after you're done playing one of the trials.

As for other modes, the Coin Launcher is a fun gimmick to win trophies. The online mode is functional, and it's fun playing against real people who aren't in your room. The new Assist Trophies are neat. The Final Smashes are pretty cool, though some are a bit confusing (like Wario's final smash).

Overall, the game is amazing. There are some faults, but it's just so good, regardless.

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels

The year was 1986. The Famicom had been on the market in Japan for three years, but its overseas counterpart, the NES, had only been available for one year in North America. Nintendo is busy readying a sequel to Super Mario Bros., which will be released that year. However, that version would never see the light of day outside of Japan, at least not in its original form, until its release on the Wii Virtual Console in 2007.

Nintendo of Japan deemed the game "too difficult" for American audiences. So they decided to take a game called Doki Doki Panic, give it a fresh coat of paint, and release that as Super Mario Bros. 2 in North America and Europe. What happened to the original Super Mario Bros. 2? It was later referred to as "The Lost Levels." A remake of this game appeared in Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES, and was included as an added quest in the Game Boy Color game Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. But the original Famicom version was finally released in 2007, thanks to the Virtual Console.

The Lost Levels, as it is more commonly referred outside of Japan, looks a lot like the original Super Mario Bros. But it has some changes. First, there is no two-player mode. The player can choose to be Mario or Luigi, but this time they each have different abilities. Mario plays the same as he did in the original, while Luigi can jump higher, but has more difficulty in stopping.

Other changes included wind gusts that could help or hinder long jumps, reverse warp zones that would send you back to earlier levels, poison mushrooms, fake Bowsers, a secret World 9, and an even more secret set of worlds A through D, just to mention a few. To reach World 9, you have to complete all 8 worlds without using Warp Zones. To reach World A, you need to beat the game eight times (not necessarily in one sitting, the game saves how many times you beat it), and then complete World 8 or 9 (depending on whether or not you used warp zones).

Fake Bowsers would appear in World 8-4, 9-3, and D-4. The fake Bowser would appear roughly halfway through the stage. He would be colored differently, and not be positioned on a bridge. Also, during water levels, some land enemies (such as Goombas and Koopa Troopas) will show up. You cannot kill them by landing on them.

I recently purchased this game via the Virtual Console, and it is quite difficult. The game has a Continue system, with unlimited Continues, which kind of renders the Lives system useless, beyond the fact that a continue puts you back at the beginning of the current world (like if you continue on World 4-3, you'll go back to 4-1). I'm currently attempting to get past World 5.

The difficulty is definitely higher than the original, but that's the fun of it. Though, it does get frustrating. I highly recommend it to anyone who was a fan of the original Super Mario Bros., but craves a much more difficult version. This will keep you playing for a long time.

The story of Twisted Metal

This will contain spoilers for the Twisted Metal series, but nothing that fans of the series don't already know by now. Plus, it's nothing very significant for Twisted Metal: Head-On, as what I'll mention is in the biography of the characters involved.

Also, Twisted Metal 3 and 4 do not factor into this. It has already been stated that 3 and 4 have been completely erased from the official continuity.

With that said, let us begin. Twisted Metal may not seem like it has an overarching story. Especially not one that ties the "normal" series with Black. But I have a theory that is hinted at throughout the games, but never really tied together.

In Twisted Metal 2, when you win the contest as Roadkill, it is revealed that the competition took place within the coma-induced dreams of Roadkill's driver, Marcus Kane. The idea being that Marcus, along with all the other contestants, were involved in a major car accident. (It should probably be noted that Grasshopper's driver, Krista Sparks, who is also Calypso's daughter, was killed in a car accident. Which may or may not be related.)

In Twisted Metal: Black, when you play as Minion, the loading screens will have "encoded" messages. Basically a "number equals letter" encryption. Nothing too complicated. But these messages reveal that Black takes place within the mind of Sweet Tooth's driver, Needles Kane.

Twisted Metal: Head-On reveals that Needles Kane is actually Marcus Kane's split personality. In fact, Marcus is said to have nightmares about competing in Twisted Metal, but it's implied that the nightmare is when Needles takes over and actually competes. Marcus comes to terms with his dark side, and he and Needles sort of join forces, in a sense. I would say they fuse together, but they're always shown as separate entities, despite being split personalities within the same mind.

My theory is as such. The "normal" Twisted Metal competitions take place in Marcus's mind, while the twisted and demented competitions take place in Needles's mind, while Head-On sees a fusion of the two. It's not entirely noticeable in Head-On, until you take note of Calypso. In Marcus's mind, Calypso has long, red hair and handsome looks. In Needles's mind, Calypso is bald, has a deformed left eye, and looks like a psychopathic murderer. In their combined mind (Head-On), Calypso has long, gray hair in a circle around his head, while the top is completely bald. His face looks much like he does in Marcus's mind, but his left eye is deformed like the Calypso in Needles's mind. It's basically a fusion of the two Calypsos.

In Roadkill's ending in Head-On, Marcus claims that the contest is yet another one of his nightmares, and he wants it to end. Which is essentially the same request as in Twisted Metal 2. Calypso grants his wish, and Marcus wakes up in his bed. Which implies that Head-On was also in his head, although that's not for certain.

So that's really my theory how Twisted Metal 1, 2, and Head-On are related to Black. They all take place in the mind of Marcus Kane, only Needles took over and perverted the contest in Black.

Personally, I'm very interested to see how the story evolves in the first Twisted Metal for the PS3. The hidden message in Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition confirms that it's in development. Now that Marcus and Needles have become one, what will happen?

Artificial Intelligence

I'm going to stretch beyond the realm of gaming, and talk about Artificial Intelligence. Not gaming intelligence, but general intelligence.

Computer scientists claim that one day, possibly in 20 years, AI will be as smart or smarter than humans. I say that's pure science fiction, and will always remain as such.

Now, AI is nothing but computer code. That's it. The limits of a programming language limit how intelligent the AI can be. Yes, there are procedural algorithms that can help a program "learn" more natural behavior, but I don't think that's really going to help AI become as intelligent as humans.

Another road block, which is probably the most significant, is voice recognition. Spoken words, to computers, are nothing more than noise. A series of bits generated by an audio wave. The computer can look at that data as much as it wants, and it can't interpret it. The way voice recognition works is it compares this data pattern from your voice, and compares it to a large database of words. It then decides that the closest matching pattern is what you said. One problem comes in if the person has a speech impediment, or a thick accent. Their deviations from common speech patterns in the program's database can yield vastly different results.

Yet more problems in voice recognition come from the fact that, since the computer has no earthly idea what exactly you said (beyond matching voice patterns), it also has no grasp on the rules of language. Since it doesn't know what you said, this doesn't really matter. But, this becomes an issue due to the large amount of homophones in the English language. The computer can't tell the difference between your and you're, or to, two, and too.

Without the ability of language, it can't be as intelligent as humans.

One last hurdle is that we still don't know how the human brain works. I mean, how it truly works. We can't simulate what we don't know. People have these theories of Artificial Intelligence taking over the world. AI is only as smart as we make it. AI is only computer code. It is limited by both the hardware, the programming language, and the person programming it. Right now, AI is very advanced, but also very focused on a specific purpose. To make a true human analogue, it has to be advanced in every way. And I just don't see this happening anytime soon. As for AI that will take over the world, that would require AI with a sense of self, a need for self preservation, and a conscious desire to dominate over humans. I don't think that will ever be possible.