Early Game Impressions

Right, some sad twat on this site might have followed my series of random rants without me actually forcing them or reading it to them when they ask me what I’m writing and because of this; you are probably aware that I like the write… Duh! But being able to write brings up a whole bunch of opportunities, as you could inspire, consternate and pretty much fuck people up with a few well placed words and doing that is a big kick for me. I guess I always was a sadistic little pervert, but watching people wail in despair and sharp, pointy words flying around on the World Wide leaves me with an orgasmic inner calm. I love it. Love it! Though I’m going to spare you that today, I’ll be gentle.

So, therefore I decided completely on my own to actually make something more than just writing rants about whatever pisses me off, and do something creative! Uhm… Yeah, right! No, it was actually requested by the big cheese himself and in the presence of God – I mean, the boss, I was rather intrigued at his unintentional aid to my evil schemes. So, considering all this that I wrote for absolutely no reason other than to lick my own ego for the jolly amusement of all, I’m actually going to be confined within topics in these little rants of sort. It’ll all be creative writing, as in stating my honest opinion without making a big no-no; and to that extent actually talking about interesting stuff and not what teens incline to shove up their ass these days. Even though that is extremely fascinating, don’t you think?

Right, so what am I going to talk about? Well, after a spin on the wheel of fortune I discovered that the topic today is… upcoming games. Yeah, I’m eventually going to review all the fuckers that I’ll give you my impression on, hopefully having the budget for it but if not then I’m just going to have to ask for donations, aren’t I? Sink me if people weren’t so cheap that they wouldn’t spare a dime!

First, let’s address Star Wars: Force Unleashed, the bastard child of George Lucas dying ambition and the weed he’s been smoking. Don’t get me wrong, Star Wars is by no means bad but after the initial trilogy and the comics with gorgeous art direction, Star Wars took a giant slope to mediocrity. The later trilogy – Episode one through Episode three – is only so good that I would watch them once or possibly at request from relatives and friends. And with poor acting on certain parts and inevitable “Huh?!” moments, Star Wars was at its definite prime in 1980, with the screening of Yoda.

Now, regarding the line of games, however, is a fairly interesting story. The Force wielding warriors have always reminded my of some northern mythology God and playing a Star Wars game always induced a great, if rather linear, sense of freedom and divinity. Even though they constantly missed the point about their games, as titles such as Psi-Ops got the whole metaphysical part much better, there’s just an untold greatness about them, even if you did want to burn the CD in anger over bad controls or the like.

Their latest addition to the series however, Force Unleashed, seems to have dealt with all of this and finally got the force powers right. The whole ability to lift people into the air, hover them around to toy with their fear and the send them crashing into a wall – as you would in, say, Psi-Ops? – is finally present! And while Psi-Ops has a great telekinesis engine, Force Unleashed seems to have put it on some serious steroids because what you have at the tip of your fingers is quite possibly the most destructive capabilities in the history of video games. Forget about war games, or even Mercenaries which I played to toy with the lines of Air strike options to annihilate entire cities, Force Unleashed is crazy. Judging from videos, if they are to be trusted as Media can really fuck with your head, you are able to pretty much crush your environment and everything that house it. Denting metal, shattering glass and breaking structures of wood that splinter and scatter across the ground. It all looks so real that it gives me goose bumps. Seeing a storm trooper accidentally slam into a beam of metal and seeing how the structure dents and bends by the force is simply amazing.

I’m not much of a tech guy; if a game plays well, it might as well be Tetris for all I care, but the physics engines of Force Unleashed on their own are awesome. Kudos to George’s monkeys!

Now, staying on the topic of destruction and chaos, there’s a new game coming out soon that has a world renowned name for this sort of action. It was one of the first games where you were the bad guy, fighting the good guys in your quest to be even more of an ass in a huge American metropolis with an arsenal of firepower. If you can’t guess it then stop reading my article, granddad!

I’m off course talking about Grand Theft Auto, the godfather of open world games and mafia-style action. To be honest, part from the early versions – that including the first and second games in the franchise – I’ve never liked it that much. It’s fun to just run around with an ass full of cheats and a pocket full of weapons since the protagonist obviously has Stanley Ipkiss as a tailor, being able to pull out a Bazooka with 50 rockets from his back pocket, or quite possibly his ass! However when it came to the actual game, I never liked the story, the missions are dull and repetitive and basically all include going from point A to point B or kill target X and get to a safe house, and this loops all throughout the game. I don’t get how people complained about Assassin’s Creed being repetitive; GTA is just the same or worse!

Well, it seems that a new GTA game is making its way out of Rockstar’s ass soon enough, and while I’m positively indifferent about this title, this one actually house potential with its fabled touch for detail. Though since Rockstar has been extremely anal about releasing any sort of information about their anal waste, we are at most forced to actually read previews to find out anything about it. Kind of like you’re doing now, so do I sense a spot of irony?

Well, the biggest changes are quite mandatory for third person shooters these days and I’m of course talking about a duck and cover gunplay-system, complete with a Resident Evil 4, over the shoulder camera view.

Some new parts about that is that you can actually slide into the cover and you will perform basic actions in shear GTA style and seeing as though the protagonist has a bit more style than Hawaii shirt or Ghetto street colours as the last games have been, I no longer feel sorry for the characters. Besides, Russian accents are freaking awesome.

Another change is that you have to hotwire stationary cars, and Rockstar released information that this involves a skill system, so it could mean that they took the appearance influence that they scrapped from San Andreas and used it to focus on character skill growth which is welcomed in my eyes. It’s just not that fancy to be forced to flee from a gunfight because you need a burger, as you had to frequently in San Andreas. Positive note on that? Well, you got to watch CJ throw up from being a gluttonous pig! =D

But let’s be honest for a second here, I have to give props to two things that Rockstar managed to cock up pretty nicely, or so it seems. First of all, the fabled variety in missions which is well welcomed but more so, the graphics! Grand Theft Auto is gorgeous!

Another game that falls to my eyes is Army of Two, and I will be EXTREMELY brief in this impression. The game lets you shoot people, it is co-op, and you can punch your partner in the head, calling him an idiot. I’m in love.

Now, last but not least – Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Being a hardcore fan of the series and having owned both games and actually achieved close to everything on both systems, you’ll understand that my words will be slightly biased… To the degree that if you as much as utter a negative word about the game, I will pull out your esophagus through your anus! If that’s not graphical enough for you then you’re sick and deserve a dollar in early retirement fee. :iiro1:

Continuing the genius of letting their best franchises beat the snot out of each other, Super Smash Bros is God! To be honest, if the new game had nothing new except better graphics, I would be dancing and crying in joy, I’m serious. Everything else, the new content, new gameplay mechanics and other features are simply a bonus, and a pretty hefty one at that! New characters, new interactive stages, new items, new music, new modes; I’m in heaven. I’ve played over a few hundred hours on Melee and I still play, brushing up on my advanced skills with my main character Marth, though also playing as Link and Sheik who happens to be the coolest character, even though almost impossible to control professionally. So damn fast! This is a good thing; the extensive variety! No two characters are the same… Okay that’s a bit of a stretch, well I’ll say it this way; no two characters play the same. The clone characters are pretty identical even though most play vastly different, when speaking in a more advanced league.

Super Smash is probably the best multiplayer fighting game ever designed, and though I haven’t played everyone, I have never played a more entertaining fighting game. The control is wondrous, the music is satisfying, the gameplay is skill based and yet accessible for newcomers. The stages are situational, meaning that you have to adapt your strategy which is awesome, and the shear amount of content even in early games was mind blowing! All in all, the game is as close to heaven we can come and I don’t know if the new game will continue this tradition of shear genius but so far I see no evidence to the opposite. Super Smash Bros is great and if you don’t think so you must be a God forsaken retard!