Nick's Rant for 10-07-2010

Gaming status: Piracy, piracy everywhere. So many rendang vidyas to try out. More primarily, I'm slowly working though Splinter Cell 1 (I intend to finish the other 3 I've not played too, then review them collectively here, expect that sometime next year), Bioshock 1 (with a view to 2), MW2 and Modern Warfare 2.
UPDATE: BIG SWINGING DICKS. I'm near the end of Modern Warfare 2 and it crashes every time it tries to load the next section. I'm forced to look at the Wikipedia plot synopsis and imagine how epic playing it out would have been. For the record, despite the multiplayer quarrels (basically the same game, PC features retarded) the singleplayer campaign is awesome, possibly better than the first, with lots of twists. There's also some good rendang singleplayer challenge mission things. And it still has great mechanics. wawisgood.jpg

Sex status: This is well-distinct from conventional "gaming status". Gladwrap your immediate surroundings (slightly more specifically, your whole suburb) and prepare to expel a prolonged, veritable fountain of warm, gooey love from your loins:

Visceral descriptions of ejaculation aren't gay

Through the haze of the rogue-nerd-discrete-vidya-cam-massive-faggot-headintheway viewpoint, the graphics seem solid, and the environment of the city and nightclub seem sexy and filled with heaps of NPCs with their own characters and opinions to share, which was so good about the first two games. Jensen is a madcore badass like JC, and although I like Alex too, Jensen seems to have a better voice and more conviction than Alex. Both JC and Alex I thought were often quite neutral in some ways - Jensen's responses, whatever they are chosen to be, really go at it. This is probably a good thing, and the voice-acting seems good, but this is something that has been really over-marketed in the last 5 years or so (Oblivion FFFUUUUUUUU-). It doesn't add THAT much, as long as the breadth of starters and responses is there, even if they are just in text (Morrowind FUCK YE).

It looks like you enter codes manually - small thing but good thing, which hopefully shows that more subtle but awesome things from the original will be maintained. Grid system of inventory is also confirmed (God-tier inventory system, Zeus-tier if weight is also a separate consideration). Moving of corpses looks good, I really wanted to see it dragged into the vent shaft though. I hope they spontaneously ignite upon contact with a fire source. Deus Ex 2 bonfires with a whole cleared-out zone of corpses are among my dearest [strikethrough]gaming memories[/strikethrough] lifetime memories. Some possibly bad things being criticised by HK fans on the forums are:

• Third-person views. I think this ability to look around corners and also see your delicious, manly cyber-punk character is excellent. This is seen in part 1 of the leaked vidya, followed by the main thing in dispute which is:
  
• the "press A to win in third-person" combat implementation. I'm not a fan. I don't see how it can be implemented without being OP and - in combination with regenerating health - destroying the brilliant use-your-limited-selection-of-weapons-and-gadgets/SHIT-I-ONLY-HAVE-ONE-LIMB-LEFT-LOL combat and stealth. But we shall see. Hopefully if it sucks, this will be an OP gameplay implementation which is easier to ignore and not use than Oblivion's fast-travel (FFFUUUUUUU-). For those not in-the-know, the original had INDIVIDUAL LIMB/HEAD(isthatalimb?)/TORSO DAMAGE AND DESTRUCTION. I cum every time I remember that fact. Please don't talk to me about Deus Ex in the company of family, acquaintances or strangers - shit gets weird.

Cutscenes, cover-based combat and true weapon scopes are controversial additions to the series but I think they have potential to be good as long as they don't dominate.

There are also claims of ME2 clone elements in DX3. Pic hopefully not too related.

Nick's List - 16th June

I have decided to create "Nick's List" - a periodic post by me which contains a list of upcoming vidyas of interest to myself and therefore The Council. Why?

• So that I, Nicholas, can post on the blog about something semi-meaningful
• Because it is genuinely difficult to keep track of all the good upcoming games sometimes
• It acts as a forum of discussion (comments on my updated lists) about the vidyas, coherently between all Council members
  

The list will be sorted into tiers which indicate the potential for gaming excellence - as judged by myself, with welcome influence from others - for each vidya on the list. The tiers will be like so:

Zeus Tier (Z) > God Tier (G) > Demi-god Tier (D) > Messiah Tier (M)

Each tier will have a tier-leader title for the top ranked vidya in that tier, respectively:

Zeus > Athena > Hercules > Jesus
(I am aware that Jesus cannot technically coexist with the ancient Greek gods by the strictest principles of theism, but too bad.
>implying that any of them exist anyway, except for Hercules)

Be prepared for these titles and associated tier-leader titles to progressively change should I find them inadequate during the ranking process. In addition, I will attempt to rank the vidyas within each tier. The number of entries in each tier will not be set-in-stone, because, particularly in times of vidya drought, I might feel it unjust to promote relatively mediocre vidyas into the higher tiers, purely because of a lack of truly deserving ones.

Every time I play a vidya on the list after it's release, I will remove it from the list and then write a brief summary about it - less of a review than just a general flavour as to whether or not it fulfilled it's great expectations, in the minds of myself and the wider Council.

Finally, it might be hip to have other official Council lists, such as Greatest Vidyas of All Time and Greatest Films of All Time, as voted by the most members. I won't make them though. Someone else should be in charge of them, if indeed there exists anyone else who has enough time and also the desire to overcategorize such things into pretentious lists. Comment if you think I'm a dickhead and shouldn't do this list at all, but please state the reason for which you are mad though.

Sans your disapproval, expect the virginal list within a week of this post date.

Pic related