The Trouble With Being God

Writing vs. Videogames

Posted by Bill under Videogames, book

My original plan for tonight was to play some games, then finally start writing my next book.  Well, thanks to Amazon’s e-mail today with my coupon for a free download of Fable 2 Pub Games (because of my pre-order for Fable 2), it started and ended with the playing games.

The good news: I got 20 gamer points.

The bad news: I’m massively in debt (in the game).

And the saddest news of all is that I actually paid for Braid, and meant to play it, but got way too sucked into those damn pub games.  The card one (Fortune’s Tower?) is by far the best.

I would be a horrible gambler.  Casinos would love me though!

Lost: Via Domus (XBox 360)

Posted by Bill under Videogames, book

The LOST fans that Hope and I are, we pretty much had to get the new LOST videogame for the XBox 360.  The reviews weren’t all that great, but it’s LOST so that sealed the deal right there.

Anyway, we’ve spent a few hours since Wednesday playing the game, and I think I’ve played enough to give some of my opinions.  This is not going to be a real review, since I don’t feel like writing a whole review.  I do feel like posting something on the blog now though, and I figure this is as good a topic as any.

The gameplay in Via Domus is pretty basic adventure fare, and unfortunately suffers from a lot of tedious missions and gameplay dynamics.  Basically, find coconuts, trade for torches, try to find your way through a cave and not fall into a pit.  There’s also the minigame type things where you have to put fuses into place on a circuit board.  It’s quite similar to the hacking system in BioShock, except it’s not fun at all.

The voices for the most part are also not the original voices, except for Ben, Desmond and a few others.  Locke and Sawyer are pretty horrendous, but Kate and Jack are passable.  It really pulls you out of the game when the voices don’t match the faces… but the strangest part is that the sound that is played when the LOST logo is displayed on the screen at the beginning of each episode isn’t the same one as on the TV.  I find it hard to believe they couldn’t get rights to that sound from the show, but I also find it hard to believe they would have gone through the work of creating a new, but similar sound for the game.  Just doesn’t make sense at all.

The flashbacks are also an interesting addition, and essential to really making a LOST game.  Unfortunately the best way to pass these seems to be to take pictures of random areas of the room until you get a signal that you’re at least in the right area.

The main character’s backstory is barely interesting so far… except it does seem to have the potential to tie in to the LOST story arc if it keeps going in the direction it appears to (we’re currently about 2/3 of the way through the game).  We’ll see.

At any rate, the game is a really easy way to earn achievements, and it’s something that Hope and I can play together… and we’re going to get our $60 out of it, dammit.

On a completely different note, our new laser printer should be coming today.  I’ve been wanting to reprint what I have written so far in the book (currently about 170 pages) so that I can re-read parts to refresh myself as to what is all going on.  Yes, I know I wrote it - but some of it was written like 8 years ago, so I can’t recall all the details.  I definitely know the story and it’s main events, as well as the general path to the eventual ending (the ending has always been the same).  Regardless, it will be good to remember the little things too so that everything ends up tying together the way it was meant to.  It will also help me get back into that world so the words come more quickly.

Media Room / Game Setup

Posted by Bill under Videogames

As I’ve mentioned several times recently, I have a plethora of game systems hooked up in my ever-improving media room.  Below are several photos of the setup.  Game consoles currently connected consist of: Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Nintendo Wii, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega Dreamcast, Atari 2600, Atari Jaguar, Intellivision, Playstation 2 and Playstation 3.  I ran out of inputs for the Atari 400 and Atari 5200 (actually, the inputs weren’t the biggest issue - the biggest issue was that I ran out of places to put them without making the area look ilke crap.

More photos are available in my Flickr photostream.  It might take a bit to find them if you click over… I’ll try to put them into their own set when I get more time.

So I Got a Playstation 3…

Posted by Bill under Videogames

Well, Hope and I were looking for a way to save money on our monthly cable bills - and one plan was to cancel cable, keep cable Internet, then buy a PS3 for Blu Ray (so we can still get our HD Movie-watching on) and also get a Windows Media Center PC so we can record 24 while we watch Heroes.

Long story short, we ended up not canceling anything, but going ahead and picking up a PS3.  Since this was last night, I haven’t had much time to monkey around with it, but so far it’s fairly decent.  The Blu Ray definitely looks great.  I don’t know if it’s the HDMI output or the Blu Ray format itself, but it seems to me that the picture quality looks better than my XBox 360 HD-DVD does (that’s running through the VGA, since the 360 doesn’t support HDMI).

As for the game part… I’m not impressed so far.  Granted, I’ve only watched the opening cinematic and played the first few seconds of Resistance: Fall of Man, but Gears of War on the 360 definitely looks better.  As far as gameplay goes, I still can’t comment.  However, seeing as how there’s no force feedback in the controller, I can’t see myself becoming as engrossed as I would otherwise.

Basically what I’m saying is that I really don’t see any reason for someone to go out and buy a PS3 other than the Blu Ray player at this point.  At $600 it’s a steal compared to the minimum $1000 you’d have to play for a standalone player.  So I’m happy with that part of the purchase.  I do highly doubt I’ll use it too much for games, although it will be nice to have around for when some of the exclusives hit it like the new Metal Gear Solid.

Here’s my advice:

If you’re a gamer, get a 360.  It has by far a better online system (XBox Live) and really seems to be on par with the PS3 as far as graphic technology goes… but the 360 definitely has better games at this point, a better controller, and just a better all around experience.

If you’re really not into games, get yourself a Wii.  My best way to describe the Wii is that it’s good at doing a lot of things at a mediocre level.  The Wii control system is definitely cool, and I love having my Wii as a secondary system so I can experience things like Wii Sports… but there really isn’t anything else out there that really takes advantage of the possibilities inherent in the Wii Remote. Maybe there really aren’t any; I guess we’ll have to wait and see.  Either way, mini-game collections like Wario Ware, Rayman Raving Rabbids and Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz really don’t excite me after I’ve played them for five minutes.

Then again, the Virtual Console is great, even though I already own half the games I’m downloading.  I just really like being able to play them with a wireless controller and having them display through a component video output vs. the older crappier video options that were on the original systems.

As for the PS3, I’ll have to spend more time with it.  I am pretty sure, however, that Hope is going to be very excited to learn that we can play one of her all-time favorite games on it: Lemmings.

The Pigxie is an Affront to Nature

Posted by Bill under General News, Videogames

So yesterday we finally cross-bred a Swanana and a Rashberry to create a Pigxie.  There’s a reason that cross-species breeding is frowned upon, and the Pigxie is ample proof of this.  What a horrid creature!  I feel sad for it, while at the same time disgusted.  A retarded flying pig with wings is not something that we should be creating.

Perhaps this is Rare’s social commentary on how man should be careful with genetic cross-breeding.  Either way, I am frightened to get them to mate… I am not sure I want to see the romance dance.  In fact, I found it quite interesting that they do not show the Romance dance between the Swanana and the Rashberry, probably because it is a disgusting sight.

I am looking forward to feeding this bastardization of nature to a Sour Mallowolf.  Some good will come of my playing God, I swear it.