Well, another FPS in the bag. I must say the last boss wasn’t as hard as the first Uber Soldat to defeat. Mostly because you were out in the open and he didn’t have one of those lightening guns. I just unloaded 900 bullets from my Venom gun and he imploded deliciously.

Overall, a great FPS; not too long or complex and a nice balance of very difficult parts with easier, more satisfying blood baths. I must say I was really impressed the first time a nazi climbed up a ladder to come after me. That was a first for me. One time he even popped his head up, saw me waiting with a flame thrower, and hid again. After I moved or switched weapons, he’d come up to get me. Very nice. Now if they can fix the classic “the guy next to me died and yelled out in pain, but I didn’t hear anything because his killer used a silencer” AI problem, we’ll be in business.

In other news, I’ve made it a mission of mine to seek out and complete rare, cult adventure games. I’ve recently purchased The Feeble Files for Mac and am securing a copy of The Neverhood from a guy in France. Jess and I beat it back in ‘96, but the game was given to Jess’ Uncle never to be seen again (it now sells on eBay for $100 sometimes!) Will this quest go so far that I buy a used PC to run a Dos based Windows on? We shall see… If any of you have great adventure games to lend me, I’d appreciate it. I have some to lend as well if anyone’s interested (and if Jeff ever finishes them…)

It’s not make-up, I’m just really, really evil…

I’ve had it. I can’t play with the computer any longer. My best guess is that as a result of budget cuts at EA, the programmers of Battlefield: Vietnam were forced to use the artificial intelligence engine from Pac Man. The enemy in this game will stand right in front of you with this blank expression like “Do you know where the nearest ATM is?” At first, I suspected that the enemy was putting up extremely realistic dummies with explosives rigged to their wallets. Nope, they’re just plain stupid. And while I welcome the uninterrupted helicopter practice, it’s getting pretty damned boring. Ballgame, do you copy?

I’ve fought my way through countless Uber Soldat to the dig site underneath Castle Wolfenstein. Great, more zombies. More brown trousers. Oh well, this is the last level so I might as well suck it up and splat some undead. Hopefully I’ll meet more of the hot and deadly elite forces. They’re not as dangerous as the ones in Half-Life, but they’re a whole lot sexier!

Rock on baby, rock on…

“What I did on my vacation” by Chris L.

This past holiday, I took a lovely vacation through Europe on a special “Call to Duty” travel package. The trip started rough, as there were some technical difficulties at the airport. The ground crew got us underway eventually though, and I landed in France just in time to catch some celebratory fireworks. Some rowdy friends of mine wanted to join in the fun, so we let off a few of our own.

We left France and headed for Russia by car (my buddy Jeff slept most of the way). It turns out Stalingrad took a page out of Boston’s tour guide, so we all took a Duck tour over the Volga where we were boarded by cheerleading pirates! We took care of them, though. Afer seeing the sights we bid the Russians “dos vidanya”

Leaving Russia for Germany, we chanced upon some hungry Germans. We fed them an American dish called “bomb.” It was tasty. Sleeping accomodations in Germany left something to be desired, so I ended up staying with my buddy Will. After seeing lovely Germany, I caught a flight home.

And that’s how I spent my vacation.

Sure fire entertainment for you and yours.

http://meph.eu.org

How about most overrated game of the year? Jess and I finished this one today and it failed to redeem itself as a fun game. There was maybe 1 interesting puzzle involving making a special cocktail, other than that the game was nothing but nice graphics and tedious gameplay.

To make things worse, there is a soap opera sub-plot that unfolds throughout the game via Kate’s cell phone. Her boss, Mom, best friend, and fiance peroidically call to whine and/or yell at her about how long she’s been away. I started skipping these conversations but got burned by one puzzle that involved something Kate’s Mom told her so I had to listen to all of them. I understand the need to develop Kate’s character and explain her motivations for the eventual decisions she makes, but these sub-plot characters are really melodramatic, one dimensional, and over-acted.

I really don’t understand the accolades this game has gotten, especially from justadventure.com. I’m convinced that justadventure is getting kickbacks from Adventure Company Games to praise Syberia. Considering the banner ads and pop-ups that ACG have on the site, it seems very plausible. No one really thinks about payola with regards to the gaming industry, but would anyone be surprised if it existed?

“Cock-a-doodle-dooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Battlefield: Vietnam is the flavor of the week and what a ride it has been. The helicopter flight is a game in itself and makes you feel like the kid in high school who had a car before anyone else. Being one of the last people in my class to get a car, I’m really just guessing on that one. And best of all, it’s given me a use for my fancy joystick which has until now been collecting dust next to my desk. Once other players realize that you can actually fly the thing, everybody’s your best friend asking for a ride to a reasonably safe LZ or to their girlfriend’s house. Nobody ever offers to pay for gas.

So you load up your chopper with soldiers and everyone hangs out the sides firing bullets into small towns. It’s a real hoot.

I can see my house from here.

But you can’t have all the fun and sometimes you have to just mind the store. The online community for this game is, for the most part, good at working as a team and that’s a welcome change from the usual crowd you get with an online first-person shooter. Hope we can all play together some time so I can show you the new Alpine stereo I installed in my chopper.

“Get out of the fucking pool, fatty!”

As I mentioned before, my wife and I are currently playing the adventure game Syberia. It’s gotten rave reviews and adventure game of the year awards, but so far it’s very mediocre. Good story, great graphics and sound, terrible gameplay. The designers were so enamored of their beautiful scenery that they make you walk through 5 scenery screens to get to a screen with something to interact with. They never give you an overhead map so you can jump from place to place; you always have to take the long way.

Most of the puzzles are inane and/or annoying. For example, I needed to get an oar out of a docked boat but Kate didn’t want to wade out and get it so I had to get a piece of wood to knock it out of the boat. Then Kate refused to touch the oar because it was slimy so I had to talk this retarded kid (literally) into picking it up for me. Good times!

I should preface this by telling you I’ve never been a fan of adventure games where you get most of your information from reading books and having long winded conversations. If I wanted to read a book, I’d read a book; I play adventure games when I want to solve puzzles and watch cut scenes. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by genuinely great adventure games like Grim Fandango, The Curse of Monkey Island, and Sam and Max. Maybe I just can’t understand the subtleties of these murky European adventure games. Or maybe the pool of new adventure titles is so shallow that clunky, boring games like this get accolades.

Perhaps this one will get better. I’ll let you know if it does. I just want to finish it so I can give Beyond Good and Evil a go…

So this is more of a question. Does anyone remember a game that made the rounds on the web about 4 years ago, where you had a team of 3 little child-munchkins dressed in blue, and the objective was to toss snowballs at another team of child-munchkins in green? When they beat your sorry ass, they’d laugh in this cute way that let you know they spent their free time sharpening knives.

Anyway, does anyone know where to find this now? Apparently my mad web skillz aren’t enough.

Hey everybody! Now that my album is finished and soon to be mastered and sell millions worldwide, I’ve had some time to eat bomb. My current dishes are Myth 2, Syberia, Warcraft 2 expansion, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Let’s talk about that last one. First of all, the graphics are so smooth that it actually makes me nauseous. Secondly, this game requires a bed pan (I got a Belkin bed pan on Ebay for cheap). I was happy killing Nazis left and right and stealing their stolen relics. Then all of a sudden I’m in a tomb and zombies are busting out of the walls and throwing fire at me. I was never a fan of haunted houses or fun houses or houses with things that jump out at you. So I find myself crippled and walking around like Mr. Burns after playing this game because it freaks me out. The upside is that I’m more regular.

Right now I’m outside the tomb thankfully. I’ve just self destructed the rocket that was meant to deploy chemical weapons to London and am on my way through the air base. But I’ve got a feeling I’ll be underground again soon. So it’s plenty of cheese for me and $40 an hour for my nurse.

BTW - does anyone know if you can take snaps in this game? I haven’t found a way yet.

Hey everyone, I found this great new game I’ve been playing. It’s from this company called Adobe. The game’s name is Photoshop. It’s wondrous. Every time you get to a new “level”, you get a progress bar for about 3 or 4 minutes. There’s this really hard level where you’re given an enormous, hairy, moley woman and are instructed to slim her up and remove her wrinkles. Supposedly there’s another cool game like it called “Word”. I can hardly wait.

I’m starting to become convinced that scheduled gaming time is the only way to go. Are you with me people?