Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (film)

The first thing you should read in this post is the tag list at the bottom, because I normally just use them for categorization of the primary medium used in the thing I’m writing about, but for this movie, I felt it an injustice not to include the other tags; without those media this film would be a much lesser thing.

I first heard of Scott Pilgrim shortly after I finally read Watchmen and was looking around for more awesome comics to read. I put it in my mental list and tried other stuff for a while. Then a friend nagged me into reading it a couple or so years ago. It didn’t really impress me that much, mostly because of the absence of color for the majority of the run, and the very stylized manga-ish look of the characters. It also bored me a bit for some reason, can’t remember why. Maybe it was because I was actually one of the few kids of my generation denied video games until I could pay for them myself. Still, it had a lot of cool elements, like the slightly comedic “stats” boxes that would show up next to characters from time to time, and the surreal nature of their lives in this multimedia universe.

I can’t remember when I heard about a movie being made; it might have been after I finished the second-to-last volume, maybe in the middle somewhere. Anyway, I immediately realized that this was a completely awesome idea. It could work so much better as a movie with crazy CG special affects and whatnot; also the fact that Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) was directing was a huge plus. One of the biggest reasons though is the prevalence of music alongside the video game aspects of the comic; there are several moments where music is shown as being extremely powerful and impactful, and the only way that can be done in comics is with imagery, which is normally not how the power of music is realized. Bryan Lee O’Malley did a good job with it, but still I really wanted to hear what these characters were so awed by.

So now we get the movie itself. From the very first minute to the last, my head was stretched wide with grins. Everything that had been missing in the comic was present in the movie, along with every great aspect that showed up on those black and white pages. It’s an amalgam of all the media that have been molding my generation for the last 20-30 years in a very pleasantly surreal romantic action-comedy. Pretty much every character on the screen is exactly how I imagined them while reading the book, even the one-dimensional Evil Exes. The jokes are 5 times funnier, the onomatopoeia 3 times more effective even when entirely unnecessary in the presence of sound, and the chicks are way hotter with normal sized eyes. Michael Cera’s role is being lauded as a perfect representation, and while I don’t 100% agree with that, I think he did an excellent job that transcends his previous work.

As mentioned, the music is a very important part of the story, and pretty much every moment involving music is pure magic. Artists like Broken Social Scene, The Black Keys and Beck were brought on board to make the sounds described visually in the comic into a reality. While music is always subjective, I think with the combination of the visuals it could not have been done much better.

This is the kind of comic-book adaptation that I’m hoping The Walking Dead turns out to be. An improvement rather than an attempt at an homage.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (film)

This movie, if you’re somehow unaware, is based on a video game. A long-running series of games actually, most of them with the same title. There was one game with the same subtitle too, although I haven’t played that one so I can’t do a lot of comparison in this post. Anyway, since it is based on a video game, then the general expectation is that it will be a pile of horse-dung, as that’s been the precedent so far.

The story is basically about a Persian street-rat who becomes a prince and gets the girl using magic things (sound familiar?) to save the world. Jake Gyllenhaal plays prince Dastan, the highly acrobatic protagonist with the kind eyes, alongside Gemma Arterton as the princess and the legendary Sir Ben Kingsley (aka Gandhi) as Dastan’s adoptive uncle. Dastan’s two brothers of actual kingly descent become his enemies through some familiar Disney betrayal and he goes all fugitive-like and falls for the crazy-hot Gemma. The MacGuffin of course is the Dagger (of Time?) which allows the user to turn back time for a little bit and correct a crucial mistake. Apparently differing from the game, this dagger can only be used if you have enough sand in the hilt, which runs out rather quickly and is really hard to replace. Thusly it isn’t used much in the movie, but looks pretty awesome when it is. There’s a bigger thing related to the Dagger but that’s kind of important to the conclusion so I’ll leave it alone.

The trailers made this movie look like a lot of fun with a few dopey bits, and for once I think they did a good job of describing it well. It is a lot of fun. The action is really entertaining, Gemma is one hot piece of woman, the dialog is often funny (particularly one guy who is obsessed with avoiding taxes), and the characters as a whole are not all that unlikable. There are definitely dopey bits. The betrayal was a bit obvious and shouldn’t have made Dastan a fugitive so quickly. Dastan’s character seems a bit too awkward around Gemma than a Persian prince should be, and of course there doesn’t seem to be a single middle-eastern actor in the bunch, all of whom speak with English accents. I can overlook all that though since I honestly enjoyed the movie as a whole. There were times where I though I just wanted it to end, but eventually I just got very drawn into it and let it take its time.

I’d say go see it, but don’t expect anything revelatory. It’s just a pretty solid video game movie.

God of War II

The second game in the series (I think it’s just a trilogy, but you never know), this game picks up with Kratos as a sulky God of War after defeating Ares in the first one. He’s a bad boy so the gods decide he’s not worth keeping around anymore. After playing with part of his godly powers removed for the intro, the rest are drained and we’re back to square one. Once again there’s an escape from Hades (much shorter this time though) and then Kratos decides to kill Zeus, and the fun commences.

It’s a pretty cool story with a bit of a Star Wars twist near the end and something of a cliffhanger ending setting up the third installment. Getting to the end is a fun journey of game-play very reminiscent of the first game while fixing a lot of the big problems and being a little less frustrating. The worst part of the first game was a few brutally difficult puzzles and obstacles. There are one or two in this one, but they were much less frustrating, and took about a third as many tries to get through them. The combat seemed a little easier too on normal difficulty. The bosses are more plentiful and interesting, and there are several new game mechanics such as flying/gliding, blocking/returning ranged attacks, and multiple sub-weapons instead of just one. It was prettier most of the time as well.

I had a few gripes. Sometimes lining up to flip a switch in a puzzle can be a little difficult, which makes timed puzzles all that much more trying. I still hate quick-time events, and there were a lot of those. A few times a failed quick-time button makes you go through a somewhat lengthy series of events before you can attempt it again. Bleh.

Altogether though it was more fun. I enjoyed playing it. Now I’m pretty pumped to play part III with its sexy PS3 graphics and purportedly massive blood-baths. It might be a while though as I’m on a bit of a spending freeze at the moment. Sucks.

God of War

I recently bought a nice big TV to go with my PS3, so it’s about time to start getting some kickass games. The God of War series is one of the biggest titles around for the system, and there’s a new one that just came out a little while ago, although it shall be a while until I get to that one. Instead, I decided to start from the beginning with the new GoW Collection, which is the first two games ported from the PS2 to the PS3.

There haven’t been a lot of improvements from the PS2 versions, at least not that I’m aware of. I heard mention of higher resolution textures and stuff in one of the included docs for the first game, but of course all the 3D models still have the same polygon count. The biggest improvement is the move from standard definition to 720p. My system is 1080p capable though, so I can see a lot of jaggies in 720. It’s okay though.

Anyway on to the game itself. It’s a lot of fun interwoven with a few hair-pullingly frustrating puzzle/timed bits that almost had me walk away from the game a few times. Oddly though, it’s fun enough to bring me back after a couple hours, unlike some other games from which I often take weeks-long vacations. The fun is derived from a lot of button-mashing, bloody combat and pretty cool environments. The aspect of character improvement is always attractive to me, and that's present in the form of health/magic bar increases and unlockable weapons and skills with upgrade capabilities. Kratos is pretty badass at the start of the game, but by the end he’s a freakin’ blood factory. It’s so very satisfying to slam two massive blades on chains onto a cyclops from 20 feet in the air and see him turn into a swirling mass of glowing red sphere thingies.

There are a lot of quick-time events of which I’m not too fond. Also the camera is a total dick. I could very rarely see where I was going in difficult terrain because it would be pointing sideways or something. Some of the puzzles had me dying so many times that the game would offer me easy mode, but of course that has no effect on puzzle difficulty. I did succumb to it eventually though near the end during a fight with alternate-directional moving floors, big-ass grinder things, fire spouts, and about 100,000 harpies throwing fire bombs at me. Combat was quite a bit easier after that.

I’m not really a history/mythology nerd, so I wasn’t all that drawn in by the background, but it was still kinda neat. Kratos’ story is good’n tragic which makes for an intense plot, which is shown in a few quite nice cut scenes of good length and neat art style. I enjoyed it.

Now I have a bunch more extra video things to watch and another game to play.

Dragon Age: Origins

BioWare have made quite a few great games. I’ve only played a couple of them, namely Mass Effect and this one; but that’s good enough to make me respect the company. I purchased Dragon Age on the merit of Mass Effect and its critical reception. I knew it would be an engrossing, addictive venture, and it was.

This is the first truly traditional RPG I’ve ever played. RPGs are normally in fantasy setting; everything I’ve done up to this point has been more in the sci-fi direction. This one is unquestionably an orthodox fantasy game. You’ve got your warriors, mages, and rogues, a looming evil, dungeons, armies, and epic battles. There’s even the opportunity to have relationships (romantic or otherwise) with pretty much anybody in your party. In that aspect it’s even closer to the books from which this genre gets its material.

The story is pretty cool, if not very original. It’s hard to write an original fantasy story. There is some arch-demon thing leading an army of nasty orcish dudes to destroy everything, and you end up being one of the few people that can kill it. There’s political betrayal, demonic possession, ancient technological evils, and lots of other fun happenings to keep it a little non-linear. Your decisions made in dialogue sequences often affect the story, although usually they have more effect on your party members’ allegiances to you.

Technically speaking, the game is pretty impressive. The character models are very nice to look at, and the animations are very well done. Blood is an integral part of the game in more ways than one; it’s pretty much everywhere. Thus, bloody graphics are given special attention. The environments are varied and anything but flat. There is plenty of opportunity to revisit different locations when quests are completed, often necessary in order to get items that were unattainable before. One thing I quite like is the doing-away of “farming.” There are no respawns of enemies, ever. Once you clear out an area it’s clear, unless the plot necessitates a new batch of baddies. This makes it a little harder to advance your characters but it keeps things from getting dull.

The coolest bit though is the combat system. Since you have a party of up to four, things can get pretty complicated in the issuing of commands and whatnot. The solution is pausing, kind of similar to that in Resident Evil 4; while the game is paused, you can look at the battlefield from any angle, figure out some strategy, and issue commands to anyone in your party. Ignoring this feature is very unwise.

I do have a couple technical gripes. After a few hour of play, the game often got pretty sluggish and used increasingly more RAM. Restarting the game seemed to fix it. Also, near the end of the game I started getting one-hit kills on all base-level enemies. I’m not sure if it’s a bug or a feature though, since I was playing on Easy mode and there were an awful lot of baddies. It just seems kind of cheap.

I played as something of an asshole mage on my first run in order to unlock a specialization for my next playthrough, in which I will be a goody-two shoes. Should be fun!

Batman: Arkham Asylum

I played the PC demo for this game a while ago, and it was pretty cool. I'd been following the new on the game's development and whatnot for a while, and it had me excited. The demo didn't show much though, concentrating almost exclusively on the combat, which really doesn't paint a full picture.

So for this reason among others, I took advantage of the new PS3 pricing and got a Slim. I needed something to play on it, so I nabbed Arkham Asylum. The next few days outside of work were quite filled with the wonderful world of gaming through the eyes of the Dark Knight.

This game is great. I haven't played many Batman games; I think the only other one was Batman Returns on a Sega Nomad, which was pretty fun at the time, but I didn't play the whole thing. From what I've read every Batman game before Arkham has been pretty crappy. This time around, some major effort was put into adhering to and using the complex histories of the Batman universe, and making it a fun and beautiful experience. It's really quite amazing how much attention was given to even relatively minor characters, even if they don't technically appear in the game.

There are a number of different aspects of play to this game; combat (brawling or stealth), exploration, secret finding, riddle solving, skill leveling, and salivating over visuals and awesome voice acting. One thing that really helps the exploration and secrets bit is the complexity of the level design. Many locations within the main maps are inaccessible until certain skills are unlocked, which can be gotten through combat experience, riddle solving, or simple plot advancement. For this reason there is little need for a huge linear path like that of the Half Life games or whatever; you are really in Arkham Asylum. You can see where you want to go, but you can't go there yet! It really makes it a great feeling when you can finally break that wall.

As mentioned, the voice acting is spectacular, especially the talent brought by Mark Hamill, also known as Luke Skywalker. He voiced the clown prince on the animated TV series from the 90s, and he did a great job. Also brought in from that show are the voices of Batman and Harley Quinn, who are also great. Whoever did Edward Nigma's voice was good too.

The combat is really fun, especially the stealth stuff. I love hanging from ledges and roping up baddies upside-down. Brawling is cool too, with a combo system pretty simple in concept, but difficult to really execute perfectly without a lot of practice. There are unlockable challenge modes that help with this, although I didn't start those until I finished the storyline.

One technical issue I had with both the PC and PS3 versions is the visual quality. It's really quite pixelly, with pretty low anti-aliasing. I'm hopefully going to get a chance to play the full PC version very soon. Maybe they'll have added graphical controls to the settings (probably not).

EDIT: I just started playing the PC version, and they did everything right (well, almost). They hosted the free download on Steam for starters, which is great. The game launcher allows for full graphical control, even allowing for use of NVIDIA's PhysX technology. Since I now have high-end card (GTX 295) I was able to run everything on pretty much the highest setting, and it's absolutely beautiful. So much better than what I got out of the PS3. The only thing that I don't think is completely awesome is the use of Windows Live for achievements instead of Steam's, but it's not a big deal.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

A few years ago a friend of mine introduced me to The Curse of Monkey Island, the third game in the Monkey Island series of adventure games by LucasArts. It looked really fun, so I got a hold of the game and  have since played through it several times. A bit later I played the first game, The Secret of Monkey Island. It was very dated, as it was one of the first games LucasArts developed using their SCUMM engine; lots of chunky pixels and minimal sound. It was still quite fun, if maybe a little more difficult than number three.

Now, 19 years after the release of the cornerstone of this popular series, the classic has been given a new face. It’s still very much the same game, although the size in bytes has increased by a few factors of 10; new crisp artwork and sound overlays the original animation code to keep the feel of the game while making it seem much more current. The voices are the same as those in The Curse, which I’m pretty happy about.

The only difference in gameplay is the omission of the actions and inventory screens from normal play. In the original, they were always present, making interacting with the puzzles pretty easy, barring somewhat confusing pixels. Now you have to hit keys to bring up the two panes, although the actions can be accessed individually using keystrokes. Still, there is at least one point in the game that switching to the old interface (an awesome thing to be able to do) is pretty much necessary in order to solve a puzzle, since the new inventory screen always closes whenever you use an action on an item, no matter what. It’s a little annoying, but it makes room for the beautiful new art.

Even after playing it before, I still had to consult a walkthrough once in a while to get through it. Some of the solutions are just too clever for my feeble mind to conjure. Anyway, massive props to LucasArts for refreshing this classic. Go pick it up on the Steam platform  for a mere 10 smackers.

Trine

Trine is a beautiful side-scrolling physics-based fantasy platformer puzzle game. Yeah, that’s a lot of adjectives, but that’s what it is. It feels a lot like Little Big Planet, although I can’t be sure since I’ve never played it. Being physics-based it has a lot of the same elements. Lots of see-saws and water-wheels all over the place. Another big part of the game is the significance of “Tri” in the name, which of course means three. You switch through three characters throughout the game, each with a separate and necessary skill-set. The one I used the most was the Thief, whose grappling hook helps a lot in getting around, and whose bow can eventually become a very powerful weapon. The next most useful character is the Wizard, who can move a lot of objects around with telekinesis and can also conjure up three different kinds of objects for getting around or kicking skeleton-ass. Finally, the Knight is your basic tank, although he dies pretty easily.

There are of course a variety of magical items scattered throughout the maps, and there is a rudimentary leveling system too. The game is pretty short so you don’t level that much, but each advance in levels brings some pretty cool new abilities and improvements. Getting to the items is often the most fun part of the game, as that’s where the trickiest puzzles come into play. You often need to use the Thief and the Wizard equally to solve them.

The only part I didn’t really enjoy was the finale, as it was one of those nasty rising-lava bits. Not a fan. Lots of dying. Still, it was a very fun and engrossing game over all. Thumbs up.

Mass Effect

I don’t think I’ve ever played a real RPG, and this is about as close as I’ve ever gotten. Bioshock is probably the next closest thing. However, just from this experience, I have confirmed my suspicions that a MMORPG or its ilk would completely destroy my life.

Mass Effect is mostly boring. There is lots of lame dialog exposing the seemingly massive collection of lore the studio dreamed up, and quite a bit of time is spent just getting from point A to point B, although I guess that can be fun sometimes. However, the RPG elements of self-improvement and decisions affecting your development seem to drag me in like a freakin’ Sarlaac. It could have something to do with the promise of hot blue alien sex, which was actually pretty disappointing.

I chose the Sentinel class, which turned out to be kinda lame; the only gun you can use with any accuracy is the pistol, and relying on “biotics” for all your combat doesn’t really work. I still managed to kick a lot of ass though. I seem to enjoy inventory management.

I had a few technical problems with the game; at one point a boss threw me off the map, and I just started floating around, unable to even access the save/load dialog. Also a few times throughout the game my gun would overheat and not cool down, forcing a save and reload, which can only be done in non-combat situations, requiring retreats. It even happened on the final boss, with no option of retreat. Thankfully I was able to avoid the overheating by waiting around a while before shooting. It still sucked though. These problems might have been fixed in a patch; I didn’t have any patches.

So, this game is really addicting despite the lame story and often boring mechanics. I stayed up until 7:30 AM last night playing this crap, and then spent most of today finishing it off. I will never play WoW.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

This post will cover the movie and the game, because I watched/played them very close together, and I think the comparison will make interesting writing, if not reading.

So yeah. I saw the movie a few days ago. Before the reviews starting coming in I had had relatively high hopes for it because it seemed that it would be at least partially based on the Wolverine: Origin one-shot comic book. I did hear some troubling rumors about some Deadpool raping which didn't sound very nice. Almost every review I came across was quite negative; but I still held out a little hope that it might not suck total balls.

Too bad.

Okay, it wasn't X-Men 3. It was often entertaining. However, it was quite poorly constructed. There wasn't much plot, the CG was horrible, and they didn't do Deadpool right, dammit. I've recently become quite a fan of the guy and wanted to see some of his crazy antics on screen. We got maybe two lines from the lame-ass actor that might be construed as funny. There was supposedly an extra scene at the end that remedied it a little but I didn't feel like sticking around past the credits. Anyway, the CG really was bad. The claws almost didn't even look raytraced. Xavier looked completely plastic in his 2-second scene. Also, adamantium bullets? What the hell, man? I guess they make a little sense, but seriously. The Origin comic tie-ins were pathetic. Instead of making me all emotional they simply prompted laughter. Jackman did an okay job for the most part though.

It really should have been an R-film. Then it might have been more like the game, which was hella fun. SO MUCH BLOOD. You jump on fricken' helicopters and pull the dudes out and stick their heads in the rotor blades. METAL. Deadpool was even lamer than in the movie, but I forgive them I guess. It was just so much fun leaping all over the place and cutting dudes into pieces. Overall it was a pretty easy game. Heck, I beat it in on normal in about 2 days. The finale with Deadpool was a bit trying. The guy shouldn't have laser eyes. It's cheap.

The game almost came up with a better reason for Wolverine's memory loss, but then decided to screw that and do the same thing the movie did. Lame sauce.

So, now that I've finished the game I think I'm going to install Windows 7 RC1 to fix my crappy computer and its annoying shared memory freeze-ups. Whoop-dee-doo. This has been a highly un-professional seat-of-the-pants "review" of the current Wolverine franchise, thank you for reading, you bastards.

Dead Space

I got this a while ago, started it, and gave up when my computer crashed. I've since discovered that the constant crashing was most likely due to a faulty stick of RAM which has been replaced; so I started back up on this game and it went just swimmingly, aside from the jarring atmosphere.

That's what this game is all about; screwing with your head until you're jumping in your seat every 5 minutes. It's a combination of sound, light (dark), and a lot of grisly imagery that makes it the scariest game I've ever played. Granted I haven't played many scary games. I started Doom 3 a little before this one and gave up because I didn't seem to like it much; the graphics were a little dated already. Dang I'm loving these semicolons. I haven't touched Silent Hill. I've only played the demo for F.E.A.R. 2, and I don't think I went all the way through. That was an experience though... I think it might rival Dead Space in the jolting aspect. Bioshock was a little creepy, but nothing like this.

There are a bunch of documentaries on youtube and other places about what the designers came up with for the fear aspect. A couple things they stressed were the lighting being similar to dentist lights, and the sound being emitted by baddies in a "fear radius." I think that's pretty cool. A lot of the sounds are timed to hit you at just the right moment to make you jump, and it usually succeeded with me.

As for the story, it was pretty neat. There was a bunch of religious and political background written up and given to you in doses to make the situations make sense. It kind of reminds me of Dune in respect to the religious-political stuff, how it's all connected. The end was a bit predictable though.

The gameplay was okay. Movement is a little stiff; I guess it makes sense since you're in some sort of armored suit the whole time. The weapons were cool. I really liked the first gun, the plasma something-or-other that allows you to switch between vertical and horizontal slicing for more convenient amputation of enemy limbs. The stasis and kinesis modules also made for some interesting situations, although I think I underused the stasis module.

I went through the game in a constant mixed state of dread and anticipation; I think the dread made it a little less enjoyable, but more of a real experience.

Bioshock

This game is great. I'm not sure it rivals Half Life, but it gets darn close if it doesn't. It might if I had read anything by Ayn Rand and had an appreciation for objectivism, a concept of which I still don't have a complete grasp. Apparently much of the game is based on it. Anyway; it's a fantastic take on a first-person-shooter with an actual message and moral issues. Amazing graphics, especially the water effects and stylized character models.

It's a spooky sort of game. It made me jump in my seat a few times when corpses decided that they were actually alive and wanted to kill me for my bodily fluids. Very dark and dirty. I guess you might call it an RPG in a sense, as it had several elements of the genre. You are playing the role of a specific character whose story is quite interesting, and there is a sort of leveling system via various vending machines that allow you to improve yourself and your weapons. That part was one of the most fun bits.

I got the PC version of course, seeing as I don't own any consoles. I just built a new computer and it handles it pretty great. I ordered a new cooler for the graphics card because it keeps freezing the system randomly, I assume due to overheating. I was disappointed to discover that the achievement system was left out of the PC version; something to do with it not having Windows Live. I don't see why that would matter.

I went through the first round mostly rescuing the little sisters. This route aligns with the human rights aspect of objectivism. Next round I'm doing hard mode and I plan on harvesting them all; the pursuit of selfish happiness.

UPDATE: Finished my second run last night. The ending was pretty badass; instead of a happy life with the little sisters, you become a warmongering evil and unleash the splicers on the landlubbers. There is apparently a third ending that doesn't differ much from this one except for the tone of the voiceover. I won't be going through it again for a while, but I'll probably try for that one when I do. There will be a PS3 release later this year with possibly improved graphics; hopefully some of those improvements will be available for the PC version as well.

There have been rumors that Bioshock II will be a prequel accounting the times before the downfall of Rapture. This makes a lot of sense since there really isn't much that could be done past the ending of the first one. It will probably be a 2009 release; I'm looking forward to it wholeheartedly.

Welcome to Procrastination Theater!

Well, it's that time again. Projects loom and the spirit withers, and yet I continue to distract myself instead of facing the problem. So. Enjoy my brief summaries.

I finished up Half-Life: Source the other day, it didn't take me long. Pretty fun. Dated, but fun. Definitely not up to the standards of HL2 and its episodic content, but it was a stepping stone whose success allowed for greater things.

I'm listening to Stolen Babies - There Be Squabbles Ahead right now. It's excellent. Very much in the same vein as Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, but perhaps slightly less insane, not quite as dismal. It features a female vocalist prominently, who unlike that of SGM performs some screaming vocals. I think I will be enjoying this album for quite some time. Have a look at the video:


I also grabbed a self-titled album by the oddly named The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza today. Pretty much a less-varied Dillinger Escape Plan. Enjoyable but not particularly remarkable.

On recommendation from a soon-to-be relative, I looked into Buckethead again. I have previously enjoyed his collaborative effort with Serj Tankian of System of a Down, Buckethead & Friends - Enter The Chicken, a great mix of genres and vocalists coupled with excellent quirky musicianship. I was later turned off by Population Override, a sort of neo-jazz album that I found rather boring. This last foray into his work got me The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell and Kaleidoscalp. The former is mainly a metal album. I like it a lot; the bucket-man has created a wonderful thing here. Kaleidoscalp is also great but a bit less accessible perhaps. It shall require more listens.

This has been a ploy to prolong my own suffering. Thank you for listening.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2

Well. That took long enough.

Most people finish this game in about 3 days or so, some in less than a day. It took me a few months. Granted, most of that time was spent gearing up for yet another failure in the finale. It was HARD. I finally reduced the difficulty from Normal to Easy and killed the last two walkers without much ado.

Frustration just isn't my thing.

Anyway, it was a great game. I wish my system were a bit higher-end so I could appreciate it to its fullest, but even with what I have it was quite an experience (what I can remember). The sand-lion caves were very cool.

Here's to Episode 3.

Oh, and Happy Jingle-Day.

Half-Life 2

I know I'm way behind the times here, but I just finished one of the best games ever created, Half-Life 2. I only played a little of the first one a few years ago; I got frustrated at one point and gave up. Its successor, however, was much too engrossing to cast aside. I won't go into much detail as this game has been analyzed to hell already, I'm pretty sure. Suffice to say that almost everything about it was completely awesome.

I just went through the Lost Coast level too, which was quite cool. The developer commentary was interesting, and I even understood most of the stuff about HDR and other lighting effects, as I've taken classes for that kind of stuff.

Next it's on to Episodes 1 and 2, which I'm sure will be quite a treat indeed.