Just finished:

Why did I wait so long to play this game? Half-Life 2 Episode 2 was my ultimate single-player experience. It held the title for about a year. Shame on me for not playing COD4 sooner. The game does a good job of giving you an incredible amount of variety. I was always doing something new. Whether it be carrying a wounded pilot back to my chopper amid a hale of enemy gunfire, pinpoint bombing human targets from a mile up in a AC-130 Spectre gunship, or crawling between enemy infantry and armor while camouflaged in a sniper ghillie suit, the tasks never seemed repetitive or dull.

The story does not disappoint either. The game jumps between campaigns with the British SAS and United States Marines. The two stories converged fairly quickly and towards the endgame joint operations area carried out between the two forces. You play with the same assortment of troops and the game does a fair job of making me care about the characters I battled alongside. Your comrades are invincible, they can't die from enemy fire (or friendly fire). For me at least, it didn't make them any less my comrade. I still hustled to help any of them out when they called for aid. I honestly teared up twice during the course of playing. That has never happened to me before in a game.

COD4 was a blast to play from start to finish. I never once felt like the game was padded or that I was doing anything that would constitute 'filler'. I completed the game quickly, between 6-7 hours of playtime. Some people might gripe about that, but I would rather be entertained like this for a shorter time than having to drudge through more levels created soley to increase playtime (I'm looking at you Timeshift and Prey). An excellent effort by the developer who has managed to (in my eyes at least) raise the bar on what a single-player FPS experience can be.

I'll be sending this one back to Goozex for trading now, while the point value is still high. However, I have every intention of picking it up again once it comes down in value. This game will have a permanent place in my collection.

p.s. BTW, for those who may be curious about my thoughts on multiplayer...I've heard it's a great online shooter. I just don't have room in my life for another online FPS. Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike Source occupy enough of my gaming hours without adding another to the mix. While I type this, I'm looking at the copy of Quake Wars I bought at launch and never played.


Van out.

And now for something completely different

I made the decision to change the focus of my blog. I had intended for this to be a place for me to blog about my forays into game design. I have been rather uninspired to do much level design or construction lately. Like most other hobbies throughout my life, I tend to be cyclical with what I am doing at any given time. I have no doubt that game design will swing back into my current interests, I just have no intention to force the issue right now.

As you can see by looking to your right, I am currently enamored with playing games instead of making them. Call of Duty 4 is taking up most of my PC gaming time. It has the distinction of being the only game to ever bring me to a point where I actually 'teared up' (read: almost cried). I won't spoil the plot, just suffice that COD4 is the bar by which I will judge future FPS experiences.

I'm enjoying Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga for my handheld kicks. AW has been a long time coming to completion, I played through a large portion of the game earlier in the year and am just now coming back to it. I've been a fan of turn based strategy starting with Final Fantasy Tactics on the Playstation. AW goes a long way towards scratching that itch. The game is obviously written with the younger crowd in mind, but the gameplay is solid. I just started SS last night before bed, so I don't have much of an opinion at this point. It plays very similar to Mario RPG on the SNES. That's a good thing.

I spent a good portion of this evening jumping into the Resident Evil remake on Gamecube. The RE series is one which I have struggled to like for a long time. The archaic save system, the limited inventory, all adds up to a lot of frustration for this gamer. Last year I made it a significant distance into the original Playstation RE only to reach a point where I didn't have enough first aid/ammo to make it any further. The GC remakes are much easier on the eyes and have a few changes in place that make it an easier affair to navigate. If only I didn't have to navigate like a tank. So far so good though. If this attempt ends up going bad though, this will be my last effort to play through the series. I'll just jump straight to the better control scheme of RE4 and wash my hands of RE1-3.

Ok, I have a little boy in need of a bath.

V out.

Psychonauts and Goozex

Finally finished it off today. It was an enjoyable game all around. I wish more games had the sense of humor Psychonauts has. Good production values, I really dig the art style. Imaginative gameplay, the game does an excellent job of mixing it up and keeping it fresh. The endgame gets a bit stale gameplay-wise, but that's only because at that point you have learned all of your special moves and tend to stick to what works best for you. The last level was one of those levels that makes you glad when the game is done, a bit too long for my taste. All in all, it's a shame this one didn't do well at retail, I would love to buy a sequel.

I received Call of Duty 4 from Goozex this week. I signed up for the service a long time ago, but only recently had I rediscovered it. For those of you who don't know: all games have a point value, people trade you points for your games you trade those points for games you want...very simple and a good system in place to keep all parties happy. Anyway, I have a lot of old PS2/Gamecube/Xbox/PC/GBA games I don't play anymore (or never opened to begin with). I am looking to start consolidating my collection, only retaining those games which I know for certain I will pick up and play again. Pretty good so far, and I am currently 6th in line to pick up Dead Space for PC, so I'm pretty excited about getting a very new title with my very old games. Not to mention I will save lots of money. This paragraph just reminded me, sometime soon I need to put up pictures of my game collection.

Back to COD4 though, the game is amazing. I likely will avoid the multiplayer (CSS & TF2 are quite enough for my tastes thank you, no room for another at this point), but the single player plays like a dream. I haven't had this much fun with an FPS since Half-Life 2. Very well done storyline and excellent gameplay combine for a great single player experience. Best of all, as soon as I am done with it, I'll drop this bad boy back on Goozex and pick up points while it's still a hot game. I'll probably come back later when the demand and point value has come down since this definetley a game I want in my permanent collection.

What are you playing now?

V out.

Portal

Went on another run through Portal today. Before jumping into the new mod mentioned in my previous blog post, I thought it would help to bone up on my Portal skills. Amazing how much faster I was able to complete it. Played off and on today and finished it in about 2 hours total playtime.

I really love the whole Portal experience. I wish there were more games that delivered so much in such a small package. As I said previously, if you haven't played, go buy it NOW. Also, check out Peggle Deluxe. Picked it up today on Steam for $4.99. Can't beat the price!

Portal Prelude mod sees release!

Been following this one for a little while. It's an unofficial prequel to Portal. I'll be downloading it tomorrow and giving it a try soon. What's that you say? Haven't played Portal? Go buy it NOW. The best 6 hours of gaming you'll have this year.

And then download the free mod. http://www.portalprelude.com/

In today's mail...

Read the first chapter. Looks to be a really good reference for basic stuff. Also includes plenty of goodies on a CD-ROM as well. Picked this up on Amazon "used" for $4.50! "Used" my ass, this book is brand-new! Really looking forward to digging in and checking out the included trial version of Photoshop. I have Photoshop Elements and am anxious to see what differences there are with this version.

By the way, I hate the picture on the cover. You would think the author would have better taste. Ah well, I guess I shouldn't judge a book...well, you know.

Could this be the one?

I've always been curious about World of Warcraft. Lord of the Rings Online made me look a little harder. Age of Conan made me consider. Warhammer Online is one cool trailer away from pulling me in. This may finally be the one though. I have avoided MMO's with subscription fees for a long time.

Yeah, you can forget all those games I mentioned before...


October 21st. I am prepared to be blown away, please don't disappoint.

Arena map!

I have temporarily shelved the payload map project I have been working on for the contest. I decided to put some work in on an arena map I sketched out a few weeks ago. My thought process is that the arena map will take much less time while providing me with valuable insight before approaching my payload map. It's loosely based on the alpine lumberyard theme for now. Here is the sketch:


I have the basic layout already blocked out (sorry no pics yet), and have already learned a lot just from that. For one thing, I have a tendency to make things waaaaay too big. My sense of scale definitely needs work. It turns out, the arena map was very forgiving in this regard. Resizing the whole map did not take long at all. I shudder to imagine resizing a huge 4 point payload map.

In football news, both of my fantasy teams look like they should lose, but with a victory for the Vols, the Dolphins (go Pennington!), and the Titans it's been a great football weekend.

C&C3 Tiberium Wars: Defeated!

This makes the very first RTS game I have ever completed a single-player campaign for. I finished up the GDI campaign just prior to posting this blog. I have played many RTS games over the years, but for whatever reason, never finished one until now. I played mostly multiplayer since I purchased C&C3, clocking in about 60 hours between it and the campaign portion.

Next up: a break from RTS' and then I plan to dive into the NOD campaign.