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I never got past the first part with the spikes

I haven't really felt like writing lately - I have, however, been reading way too many gaming news and analysis sites and been sucked into various games, including Bioshock, Everyday Shooter, Act Raiser, Dungeon Keeper 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Heroes of Might and Magic III, and probably others that I'm forgetting. I guess I'm at a schizophrenic point in my gaming.

Also, I stumbled upon JACT. It's an interesting and, as far as I can tell, legit service (I've screened it with every anti-malware tool I have, and have found nothing). Basically, you earn points for playing certain games (the list is about 300 titles), and then you can trade large numbers of those points in for games, accessories, &c. If any games you like are on its Supported list, you might want to give it a shot.

Internet Hype Machine, Part II

Originally, this was going to be on the end of my last post, but upon realizing how long my ruminations on Shadow of the Colossus were, I decided that putting them in a separate post might make it a wee bit more visible.


I finally beat the original Starcraft, sans cheats, and have to agree with Todd that despite a few fun missions, the Protoss campaign drags a bit more than the others. There's a weird transition in the middle: the first chunk of the campaign gives you access to Zealots and Dragoons while your enemies having 90% of their tech tree available, and then the last few missions rapidly unlock your higher-tier units and you just stomp them with Carriers. Satisfying in the end, but with a bit of drudge that I wasn't expecting. Now I'm on to Brood Wars, and looking forward to that. For a 10 year-old game, it's still very fun and playable. The only things that have aged less than gracefully are the graphics and, to a lesser extent, the control interface. Those have been far surpassed by more modern RTS games.

Suffice it to say that Starcraft II is increasingly on my mind as I play through the original. There haven't been many updates at the main site recently, but 1Up.com did a nice week-long series on the upcoming sequel which can add some more grist to the Internet Hype Machine. Mill-chine? In any case they have some nice new information and more recent impressions, plus the amusing fact that Blizzard's pre-alpha build of Starcraft II is more stable and balance than most games' open betas. With WoW as a funding base, though, who's surprised?

In any case, the play-throughs of Starcraft and now, the original Fallout continue. My eyes burn at the graphics, but they've been worth it so far! And now, without any further ado, Space Pirates! (courtesy of 1Up's Worst Video Game Box Covers Ever feature):

Internet Hype Machine

Some of you may remember my long-winded ruminations on Hellgate: London and how excited or disappointed I was at various times. Hellgate: London's biggest flaw was just how damned over-hyped it was - its other foibles and flaws pale in comparison to the damage the internet hype machine did. There's an interesting article over at The Escapist this week about it, if you care to peruse.

Hype is a two-edged Sword of Wounding +1 when it comes to games. Hellgate was hurt by it, but that doesn't have to be the way it is. I recently started playing Shadow of the Colossus, one of the several games that I bought even before Stella's old PS2 was even in the mail. All the hype that I can remember seeing (which for my experience is the only hype that matters) was word of mouth from friends and maybe one TV ad. In any case, I didn't really know what to expect, so I was actually able to be pleasantly surprised.

The plot is basic and can be summed up in a five-minute introductory cut scene. The story hasn't really evolved since I first gained control of Wander, the largely mute protagonist: he's traveled to a remote temple in order to bring a dead girl back to life, though you know pretty much nothing about the girl or why he wants to resurrect her. What you do know is that to do so, you have to defeat the sixteen titular titans and then maybe, maybe the Ominous Voice In the Ceiling that tells you all this will bring her back to life.

The gameplay hasn't revealed more of the story either. I've downed three so far, and after each victory dozens of shadowy tendrils erupt from the fallen colossus and impale Wander. You then wake up in the temple, the Voice gives an exceedingly cryptic hint about the next fight, and then you're on your way to the next colossus.

It doesn't sound like a lot to go on, but what it lacks in dialogue and direct narrative it more than makes up in atmosphere. The world is vast, and evokes a sense of place at least as well as World of Warcraft. It's actually had me hankering for WoW a little bit, but mostly from the sense that you're part of a contiguous world, uninterrupted by loading screens. So far I've ridden across desert, though a ravine and a forest, and swam through a lagoon to reach a gargantuan platform in the middle where the next fight awaited. The graphics back up this sense very well and the world is nearly seamless.

Furthering the sense of space is just how alone you feel: other than the colossi, I've seen exactly one animal in the entire game - the hawk from the intro cinematic occasionally flies by your vision. Besides that, it's just a boy and his horse. I found a small oasis where I dismounted to explore, and when I returned to Agro, he was grazing quietly and sipping from the pool. Agro's animations are beautiful, and when idle he actually does horse things - grazing, shaking off flies, wandering off a bit until you call him back. All of this conveys and odd sense of loneliness and sadness, which complements the fact that you're here by yourself for the sake of a dead girl.

The sadness is compounded by the battles, which make you feel like you're killing a part of the world. The colossi are the only things you fight, and the game is effectively sixteen boss battles with a break and some beautiful scenery in between. When you find the colossus you're hunting, you always see it wandering slowly through its habitat, almost waiting. I can't escape the fact that I'm the aggressor here, and the game does a very good job of making you oddly sympathetic towards the giant you've been sent to kill. I find their weak points with Wander's sun-sword and figure out how to use the environment and the very limited inventory (sword, bow, and the ability to climb) to reach these weak points and slay the colossus. It's pretty straight-forward gameplay, though the puzzle of each boss can be fairly tough. But when you find the weak points and plunge in your sword, my sense of accomplishment is tinged with sorrow as the colossus how and writhes in pain, trying to shake you off its back - and succeeding, if you don't have a good enough grip. Defeating one is always a muddled victory, partly due to the shadowy tendrils of impalement and mostly because you don't know quite how to feel about the means to your end.

The battles are paced so that you have to keep moving, but not so frantically that you can't enjoy the spectacle of the colossi themselves. The three I've seen so far have been absolutely majestic, each one very different and looking like a piece of scenery that stepped out of an Ansel Adams photograph. If I had to describe them succinctly I'd say that they look like Olmec Muppets, but somehow that doesn't detract from their massive grace. You can tell how much effort went into each of the colossi, and they still look fantastic, even three years after release.

So, if you have the patience for a somewhat slower-paced game with an emphasis on atmosphere and making the most out of simple gameplay elements, definitely give Shadow of the Colossus a try.

How I won a Big Hunk

Having returned from Illinois and a glorious concert-going weekend just in time to get my ass to work (only SLIGHTLY late), I now get to sit here in all my zonked-out, road-weary glory and reminisce about the wonders of nerd rock.

Hillary and I got to the DG in time for Battlestar, and enjoyed that along with some pizza. This was followed by Iron Man, which was surprisingly excellent. It avoided most of the superhero movie pitfalls, like a lack of characterization, excessive and egregious fight scenes, and frequent lame-ness. Not all of the recent bout of superhero movies have these, but many do, and Iron Man actually dodged them all. It's got some damn fine acting, excellent humor (with only a little slapstick), and a surprisingly tight storyline. And when they do break out the fight scenes, they do it quite well. Definitely worth a viewing, even if you don't know shit about Iron Man, pretty much like myself. And if that's not enough, you get to see Jeff Bridges being bald, intense, and evil. Which is pretty awesome after you remember that he was The Dude.

Saturday, after the ritual consumption of sushi, Hillary, Hans and I went downtown to see Jonathan Coulton. It was even better than I expected. The opening band, which opened with the song, "Opening Band", was Paul and Storm, a surprisingly energetic and versatile pair of weirdos who pandered brilliantly to the crowd with lolcat and pirate references, among others. They also tossed candy bars with suggestive names into the audience for random things, one of which I won for yelling out a pseudo-pun. It's hard to explain, but it got a laugh and I won a Big Hunk, which I just braved a Google image search for:


I actually haven't eaten the thing yet, and now that I've seen what it looks like, I may have to think twice about that. But, freaky snacks aside (at least I didn't get the Pink Snowballs), Paul and Storm were damn good and appropriately quirky in their own way. Which, as it turns out, shouldn't have been surprising: they were half of DaVinci's Notebook. They gave us the Enormous Penis song, and now they've given me a great opening act as well. And now that I've written that sentence, who knows what kind of spam comments this blog is going to get.

Jonathan Coulton himself was superb, and played everything from Shop Vac to Flickr to re: Your Brains, complete with an audience-participation zombie chorus. The rampant "Arrrr!"-ing of the audience, prompted by one of Paul and Storm's songs, continued and even caused him to lose his composure, such as it was, a couple times. The audience was really energetic and he played to us well, and it felt like a real show. Also, he Rick-rolled us. He had this weird mix/synth board for Mr. Fancy Pants, and, well, one of the buttons was linked to "Never Gonna Give You Up." Auditory shenanigans ensued.

Describing it, as with any concert or really most things that I'm trying to encapsulate into a blog post, is damn hard without the energy of actually being there (and 2nd row center, no less). Hillary got some video, which she may post at some point. In any case, this concert is my pick


of the week.