Lock and Load!!!!!

Ahh…. the weapons room; a video game mainstay. Be it Max Payne with metal crates full of bullets and grenades, or Zelda, where clay pots contain hearts and bottles of potion, one thing is for sure when you encounter these rooms; there’s big trouble ahead so you better lock and load and save your game because death awaits you on the other side of that ominous looking door.

I killed everyone on board the ship and collected enough hardware to take out Russia’s answer to the Three Stooges. Could this be the Trio I keep hearing about? Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!

Despite some mad gaming, I did have time yesterday to go to my first game at Fenway Park. It was a great time and ended up being a good pitcher’s duel between Kim and Zambrano with the Red Sox winning 4-0. It was good to see the sun again.

This one’s for you, Jeff.

Yeah, I was supposed to be stealthy, but it was just too easy to lure the guy with the uzi into the room and smack him on the head with my bat. I had just enough ammo in each gun these guys coughed up to kill the next in line and take his gun.

I’d be interested to find out what percentage of shooters contain some sort of capture where you’re stripped of all your weapons and either have to be stealthy to find them all or use your fists to kill someone who has a gun. I’d say about 75% of the ones I’ve played have had that scenario.

Max Payne has a pretty amazing dream sequence where you’re re-living the moment when you found your family dead. You control Max through the dream which contains some great sound design and visual effects. Unfortunately, there’s a weird maze that involves jumping from narrow platform to narrow platform and even though it’s a dream, you die if you fall; which you do often because it’s hard. It’s one of those annoying “quick save after every successful jump” levels where the game comes to a screeching halt and it’s Super Mario time.

Bam!

Why do I feel like Wilt Chamberlin playing his 100 point game? Where is everybody? Come on people, it’s raining!

Today’s waste of time is Max Payne, the film noir TPS. So far so good. The combat takes getting used to, but the slo-mo is definitely fun. The best part of the game is the graphic novel cinematics which boast some damn fine voice acting and sound design. I feel like taking up smoking.

Half full of Orange-Aid and ready to kill!

In other news, Jeff, Ryan, and I had our first official game design meeting. Despite the usual off topic, off color tangents, it was very productive and promising. Perhaps Jeff can set-up a page here for us to display our progress and get feedback from the fine QA team here at EMB. Pro bono QA anyone?

Cross another game off my Spring Games 2004 list!

What a great game. It had everything: racing, fighting, stealth, adventuring, picture taking, great graphics, great sound, great story, and a very satisfying ending. This had the best big boss since Half-Life. This one’s definitely worth finishing Jeff, so stick it in your Xbox and keep it there.

As a bonus there are two arcade games hidden in the game. One can be accessed when you collect all the pearls. It’s a very interesting game where you have to control two rolling pearls simultaneously through two rolling mazes. It gets very tricky. The other is an air hockey type game that can only be accessed by entering your save game code at beyondgoodevil.com and completing a flash mission that’s a bit like a hardcore game of hangman. If you win, they give you a code for a kiosk in the bar that has the hockey game on it.

Three things would have made this game a classic: better camera control, the ability to view and share your photos, and access to the race levels after you beat the game so you can replay them and shoot for a better time.

What to play next…. hmm…. I guess I’ll tackle Max Payne now that my graphics card supports T&L.

BTW - since I’ve been having trouble taking DirectX snaps I did a google search to see if there were any online pics of my current game position. I didn’t find any, but I did notice a few different outfits for Jade that I’m guessing were for different regional markets. Her face and chest size are different also. Interesting…

Now I have a spaceship. If only it had a screenshot function so I could take lovely pictures of the Hillys countryside. I have a camera, I take hundreds of pictures, but sadly I can’t share them with my friends.

Sadly…

The best part of this spaceship is that it takes a page from the cartoon M.A.S.K. Remember the boat that opened up and shot a motorcycle out of it? Well, this is similar only with a hovercraft instead. You can link your hovercraft up to your spaceship, fly across Hillys and then dump your hovercraft in the water. I need to find 6 more pearls before I can buy a better engine and fly this puppy to the moon. What awaits me on the moon? More taking pictures, more stealth, more green gases, more colorfully deadly laser beams perhaps? We shall see…

If only I could temp the Rastafarian Rhinos at Mamago’s Garage with some Hillian Hybrid Hash. Maybe they’d be willing to lower the price of that engine…

BTW - anyone know af a REAL freeware DirectX screenshot program?

So Monday is Piggie’s Birthday. I am just posting this because Jeff said he likes to see updates on Eat My Bomb as often as possible. I would also like everyone to know that his one request for a birthday gift was my sister with her top off.
So there you have it.
The lines are now open.

So I’ve been pondering the wisdom of getting involved in an MMORPG as I have a juiced machine and a cable modem collecting dust. Normally I avoid such games as they tend to a) require recurring membership fees, and b) be populated by chumps and ‘foons. Anybody here play one and have any recommendations?