Sunday, November 21, 2010

Resident Evil 5

Alright, I've thrown in the towel on this one. The game is just going too slow, I cant force myself to finish it right now. My biggest problem with this game is the things that kill you in one shot and end your game. There is a part where you are walking through some Marsh in Chapter 3, and Alligators come after you, and if one gets you it's game over. Annoying... they don't even let you fight with it. So the game is killing me, I'm giving it a 2 out of 5 on the Brawlking game scale, and moving on.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Resident Evil 5 and things going on...

Well... I was working on Resident Evil 5 to throw up a review, but some work has been thrown my way and I haven't been home in 7 days to even touch the game. So, I haven't stopped, just on hold until I get back home and have some free time.

On a non-gaming related note there are a few things that I would like to talk about.

Today, I was at the Four Seasons in DC and we were setting up for a show (I work for a company that does "event based communication", multimedia stuff, hard to explain) we were checking the size of a freight elevator when I leaned down to measure, and my phone slid out of my pocket, hit the floor and fell apart, the back plate fell down in the crack between the elevator and the floor. I was standing there watching my battery teetering on the edge, but I grabbed it. So I asked if there was any way someone could get it out for me... I told them not to bother calling the elevator company just for the back plate, but it seems they did anyway and they fished my back plate out from under the elevator. Now THAT is customer service, I can't believe they went that far just to get a piece of a cell phone back. I could've kissed that girl, and I definitely would've, not only was she getting things done, she was very pretty. Where can I find a girl like that?

So after that debacle the day continued and more problems came our way. We were setting up a secondary display for this conference room and we couldnt get a signal down to the other end of the room for the display. Every time we plugged in both displays the secondary would only show a rainbow colored staticy grid. So we finally got that fixed about 2 minutes before it needed to be ready, I didn't fix it, it was Bill and some A/V techs to the rescue on that one, I'm just the computer guy. So we got that all done, and the show continued. We had a little session with some CEOs from large companies - I wont specify - in which the members in the room discussed ways to improve the public's opinion of big companies. I got the idea that the CEOs in the room think that the public in general has no idea what it takes to run a big company the way it needs to be run to make company. The specific words were that they wanted to "give the public an ecenomics course". I found that to be fairly condescending. On the flip side one of the members - this one I will specify, the CEO of Snap-on Tools -  suggested that one way to regain public trust would be to "stop worrying about what share holders want, and focus on customer needs". This is something that we as normal people want to hear. Most of the other suggestions weren't so simple, and were things that would take time to implement and to see the effects, but were some good things that I thought would actually work. Something I thought was interesting was that they mentioned trying to make the public see the value in moving certain jobs to other countries, and how it actually benefits the typical middle class person. There was some math behind it, a McKinsey report that actually showed how this business practice helps the middle class in general. Maybe it's true, but those people that got screwed out of a job are still screwed no matter how much cheaper that new TV they want is.

Over all, this week I beleive I've worked harder than I ever have in my entire life, but I'm making some good money and I really do enjoy this job. Oh, except when I've got 5 people asking me to do 8 different things at the same time and one of them gets mouthy with me about me not fulfilling their request first when I had asked someone else completely capable of doing it to help, so I could get one of the other 8 things done. But whatever, everything got done, and I was only slightly agitated at the situation.

After an 18 hour day, I am ready to sleep, and ready for the huge check I'll be getting in 2 weeks. Good night internet!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (SWTFU2)

If at any point during this post I need to actually say the name of the game, it will be abbreviated as SWTFU2, because the name is just too damn long to type out.

That being said, I really enjoyed this game, even though on my computer I had to use "low" graphics settings in order for it to perform well (Yes, I played this on PC, I'm not a big console gamer). Other than that, and one other REALLY annoying graphical glitch, as I said I really enjoyed the game. The glitch I'm referring to is that during some of the ingame cut scenes Darth Vader's cloak, or the dangly part between the legs of my Jedi outfit would FREAK OUT. Darth's cloak would look like a huge puffy filly collar around his neck, and it would bug the sound so everything sounded like it was being said in a hollow metal tunnel with a tinny echo. I'm sure there is a patch for it, maybe I should have downloaded it, but I didn't.

Now on to what I enjoyed about the game, keep in mind that I didn't play the first game so if I list something that was also in the first game then that's cool too. The ability to change your lightsaber's color was really nice, and the effects that they added were cool as well, such as the Wisdom (white) saber granting extra Force power from kills. Or the Healing (dark green) saber, I bet you can't guess what that one does! Those were the 2 I used most often, kept one main hand and one secondary. I liked the interactivity in some of the ingame cut scenes, and the actual cut scenes were well voice acted. I enjoyed the special types of boss fights, having to use certain force powers to take a boss down, and all the cool force powers and light saber tricks you can use in the game. I also LOVED getting to toss Stormtroopers over the side of tall buildings or hanging walkways, just launching them into an abyss was very amusing. As well as using Force Lightning on the Jetpack Troopers, and watching them fly around randomly like a bottle rocket out of control, oh that gave me some lols. Overall, glitches aside, I liked the game a lot. Part of the story line got kind of hokey, near the end before you fight Darth Vader, you're wandering through the cloning labs and you hear him breathing... Yeah, that was so B movie.

I enjoyed the game, some bugs made parts pretty bad, but I was able to get through, and parts of the story being cheesey were what brought this title down to 4/5 on the Brawlking game scale.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Fallout: New Vegas... I wouldn't quite say complete...

If I thought Fallout 3 was going to take a long time to finish, then Fallout: New Vegas was going to take years. The exorbitant amount of side quests, and optional objectives give this game tons of play time outside of the main story. I am going to have to go back through and actually take some time to do all the side missions, and get the cool extra stuff when I have time, but right now... I just dont.


So, take everything that you loved about Fallout 3, wrap it in a new, larger desert, with a lot more groups to fight with, a faction system, more crafting, and what you get is a lot more fun and play time in the form of Fallout: New Vegas. Sitting here, trying to rush my way through the main story, I was awe struck by the amount of quest... ok, I keep calling them "quests", but the game calls them "Objectives", its the RPG player in me. Anyway, the side objectives take you to so many places, with so many different things to do, it's just amazing to me. 


Dislikes... There weren't many, my biggest complaint was the game freezing up, it did it probably 9 times over 3 days of playing, and usually right after I used the instant transport to some place I had already been. The running speed was still too slow for me, but there was a perk you could get to help with that a little bit. One part of the main story I did find to be pretty confusing. The part of the story where you go into the Gomorrah and run around the place doing things for the Cachinco guy. That place got a little confusing, and one of the doors in particular was easily missed, even with the arrow guiding you, since there are 3 floors to the place, it got bad for me. Maybe others didnt have trouble, but man I ran around that place for an hour trying to remember where Troike, and Claden were.


Likes... All the same stuff as the original plus... There are more plot twists in this one than a head full of dreadlocks. There are so many points in the story where you can choose to go one way or another, and it affects the final out come of the game. I chose to help Mr. House this time around, I managed to save my game right before a lot of the important story decision parts so I could go back and see where each path went, so some day I'll go back and follow each path to its completion, but damn it would take forever to get them all done through... One of the new weapons I really enjoyed were the Gauss Rifle, and I really liked the idea of being able to disguise myself to sneak into enemy camps, I wore Brotherhood Power Armor in the first one so I would fit in, the whole noble paladin thing, it just fits me.


Just wanted to share this... at one point I was so annoyed with the Legion guys that I decided to sneak into their camp and just kill everyone. I took my sweet time, slinking around, sniping everyone I could see in the head, and even climbing up or down rocky hills and cliffs to keep myself hidden and snipe from far away. It was tons of fun...


Over all this game gets a 4.9/5 on the Brawlking game scale. Only reason I didnt give it a 5 was because of the bugs. Oh, I played on "Hard" difficulty, dont think I'm gonna bother going above that, I'm a huge noob :P