Escape to Vice City

Well I found myself tired of my current game selection and I didn’t want to start a new game yet, so I thought about the games that I had the most fun playing. The games that came to me were of course GTA3 and GTA Vice City, 2 well put together games from Rockstar available for a variety of consoles. the above picture shows our charecter "Tommy Vercetti" voiced by Ray Liotta, running with an assult rifle through the streets of Little Havana, Vice City, the picture came from GameSpot.com. The Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series of games is no stranger to controversy and speculation, in fact if Rockstar even hints at a new GTA game the media goes nuts about violence in the game. Now the controversy started with a game called GTA3 available at first for the Playstation 2 and then later for the Xbox. The big issue I remember hearing about just after the games release was on talk radio one morning as I was pulled from school to help my dad with his work was about the use of hookers in the game. The game gives the ability to increase your characters health by pulling up to a woman on the street and driving with her to a dark secluded area, like a parking lot or ally, and then the car bounces up and down for a while as your health starts to increase. Upon receiving the max health available the car will stop bouncing and the female will exit after taking a bit of your money for “the Job.” The radio program also mentioned how you can afterwards kill the women and take back your money plus whatever money she had on her. I think its bull $#!+ that the designers get flagged for a little bit of sexual content and basically a slap on the wrist if there is a massive amount of blood and gore. All these complaints about kids playing these games are bogus, why are these kids playing a Rated-M game, because stupid parents didn’t check the rating before purchasing the game for their child. I think that parents need to stop relying on Video Games, TV, and movies as a watcher for kids and take some initiative and blame for their own mistakes.

Paradise City, Were the Grass is Green and the Girls are Preaty

This week i will be descusing my encounters with a game for the Xbox 360 called Burnout Paradise. The Above image came from Gamespot.com and shows one of my favorite cars in the game, i call it The Beast. Now for those of you who dont know about the burnout serease, this is one of many games in the serease spaning differant consoles from hand held to next Generation. the games basis is to award drivers for insain crazy stunts, crashes, and as in any racing game winning the race. the city you inhabit is called Paridise city, and it is large, and the graphics engin doesnt need to load mor scenery, all that you see you can drive to. i picked up this game being a virgin to the burnout serease, i had never played a burnout game before this, but i found myself unable to put this game down. the best idea for a racing game, is not to make you have to pay for a car but to let you choose a car of choice and Paradise city does this well. with several junk yards scatered around the city just drive to one and swap cars no charge. now i know what your thinking why would you want a car from the junk yard, well that is the only place to get a car in paradise city. and thet theoreticly in the city other racers race and crash and then their cars end up at the junk yard for you to have. the vast selection of cars would cling to every type of car enthusiest from the exotic lover, to the muscle maniac, and to the street tuner. now no midifitactions need be made to these cars they come pre modified all you need to do is keep them running by driving through the auto repair shop every now and then, free of course. in this game money is non existant everything can be won by completing stunt chalenges and races. as you complete the challenges you move up in rank from a class D driver to class C and so on. now this game does have an Xbox multiplayer feture but i havent played online but once and i dont have much to add about it accept know your cars and dont hesitate to switch before another race. well i will be closing this post i hope you write me your Paradise City responses.

Blogging is back!

I noticed that this quarter I’m working harder as a full time 23 yr old student at OSU, with no job and no girlfriend. A while back I stopped writing in Myspace to focus more on my school work and life, rather then to meet girls online. And so I had not wrote a blog for about a year until this past quarter English assignments about blogging.

I found the experience enlightening and fun; we were able to blog at our own will once a week and comment on whom we wanted to once a week. This assignment began as just that homework and so I staggered on it for a while but eventually it awakened my blogging self and now I am still blogging once a week and the class is over.

I feel that blogging is an outlet for me to discuss my feelings with whoever wants to know without compromising my identity if I so choose. Being that I’m such a huge gamer, I made my homework blog topic video games for the sole reason that It’s a topic that I know and love. It turned from homework assignment to a fun little entry every week about the latest game I have played or herd about.

After blogging and commenting I felt better that I was interacting with people outside my normal group, even though it was only with the other people in my class. Upon writing the blogs I got many responses from other students commenting on my post, I became happy. It became a joy to know people are actually listening to some of the things I have to say. I think in the end blogging helps me it’s a form of journaling and I like the technology aspect of blogs.

Do Blogs Have a Purpose?

Blogging is a very creative form of self expression that can be read and commented on by others. College students, young adults, and people around the world like to blog: blogging gives people a place to talk and rant about personal interactions they have had. In some way each of us as humans needs to rant, or get stuff off our chests every now and then, and in some cases there just isn’t anyone around who wants to listen. Internet sites devoted to blogging like Myspace, Technorati, and Blogger are needed now more than before, when all we wrote our thoughts in was journals. Many people keep a journal or diary of their interactions for sharing and discussion, but no one is there to read or comment on them. For me specifically I feel good knowing I have spread word about a game I played and I also enjoy hearing back about others exploits with that game. I believe that blogging is a simplified form of gossip, if you want to talk or hear about certain topics just use the search function, it’s that simple.

Blogging is a great tool that can be mastered by anyone willing to just sit down and type. My reasons for blogging are mostly to explain to others what I think about certain issues, or facts. Instead of verbally discussing the topic, witch in my case causes people to wander away or tune out; with the search function of blogging people can choose to skip my blog post. In a way blogging keeps me from wasting my friend’s time with useless chatter that they don’t care about. Blogging also helps to reduce the amount of uncomfortable interactions with people who just do not know what I’m talking about or do not understand. Most of the people I hang out with do listen to what I say; there are just a lot of subjects they don’t care to hear about. By displaying my topic of discussion as games with the blog post, using the search function people who do not want to talk about games will not see my page.

Blogging, as I described to “my mom” the other day, is a form of self expression and discussion of topics over various aspects of our lives. I also told her, imagine if she had a journal of her thoughts that she wanted to get some advice on them but still keep her secrets secret. Well with blogging instead of verbally telling people and having to explain oneself afterwards, bloggers can be anonymous to the general public. I took a break from blogging on MySpace a while back and now that I am back, it feels good to know some people out there care. Blogging for me has picked up in the past quarter at OSU; due to the assignments in my English class I started blogging weekly. Just as I was beginning to hate having the extra assignment I felt a need to discuss more after hearing others positive interest in my blog. Though I use blogging to rant about video games, its primary use for me is to alert others of exciting news or services the video game community has to discuss.

Blogging just like most of what people find on the internet depends on the search term. People like me would be looking at video game, and movie blogs for information on upcoming movie and game releases. My blog on Blogger is like a journal of video games and current information that I see fit to disperse among the public. And it makes me feel good to hear others appreciate my knowledge. I like to hang out with my friends; unfortunately they are not geeks like me so I refrain from talking about geeky subjects, such as video games and Star Wars. Just recently I was struck with the idea that I had to comment on the movie trailer I had just seen at that time. Though my assignment was to blog about video games I chose to blog about the upcoming movie Iron Man. So I guess what I’m getting at is that I blog because some times I just feel like sharing what I think about new and what’s exciting to me news, and blogging helps.

Myspace-www.myspace.com
Blogger-www.blogger.com
Technorati-www.technorati.com
Gamefaqs-www.gamefaqs.com

Loads More "BS"

I was logging in to my email yesterday and I noticed a news post on AOL news titled Eight “Racist” Games; I had to stop and read it. After reading the short post asking you what you think about these games it displays a slideshow of screen shots from the raciest games. Upon seeing the screen shots, I was not surprised to see Grand Theft Auto-Vice City by Rockstar on this list. the above picture depicts our charecter Tommy Verceti with a shotgun next to a croup of Cubans, perfactly harmless because Tommy is helping them at the presant time.

Of course this game franchise is no stranger to controversy with the antics of the main character in the GTA games. The post pokes fun at the fact that in the game your character is given a mission to kill all the Haitian gang members. The post apparently raised some questions in New York with the Haitian Centers Council and Haitian Americans for Human Rights group. Ill bet, out there is a news article complaining about a mission in the game to kill all the Cuban gang members. The game even has an all white biker gang and of course it’s your mission to kill them, but you don’t hear about the biker gang being offended.

I must say I am not for racism, I do admit that I’m a little racist but most of you people out there are a little racist. I find this to be an outrage considering the makers of the game the Rockstar Company responded that the game is based in a time when those gangs existed and were known to brawl with each other on a regular basis much like in the game. Seeing as how the music, clothes, cars and cityscapes all have the design and feel of that time period, this argument should have died along time ago.

My opinion is that bureaucratic politicians haven’t noticed anything in the news about games in a while so they started something. It’s possible that some one was offended. Let us think about the game Medal of Honor: European Assault, do we have to apologize to the Nazi’s for in the game, killing them to save Germany as U.S. Army Lieutenant William Holt. Personally I think not but hay it’s your choice. I didn’t think so, and yes I noticed the characters’ name too when I first played the game.

The picture provided by gameSpot.com

Assasins Creed Revisited

Today I will be revisiting my older post titled Silent Assassin, based on the video game Assassins Creed for the Xbox 360. A screen shot taken from the game shows our character Altair sitting atop a castle over looking the landscape. As seen in the picture above, Assassins Creed has a crystal clear look produced by a new and improved graphics engine which leaves me wondering why they didn’t improve the story. Upon playing the game we soon realize the true story that has remained unclear until the game came out.

Gamers have been lead to believe that they will be playing a game based in Europe during the time of knights and wizards. This reality as we can quickly tell is only part of the actual story your character Desmond/ Altair inhabits. The worlds were Altair, the silent assassin roams are merely a 3D interaction with people and things from the past as if you were in your ancestors foot steps. Consider the memories that Desmond gets to replay but they are not his memories but his long since dead ancestors’ memories.

I gathered from this story is that the game is based in the near future and Desmond is an ex-con being used as a test subject for this experimental machinery known as the Animus. I have started the game, but as far as I have already gotten I haven’t even scratched the surface of the immense landscapes the game offers. So far when my character is not inside the Animus he inhabits a locked one room apartment next to the lab.

Desmond is not alone, when working with the Animus he is accompanied by 1 or 2 characters that become closer to him in different ways. One person, an attractive young female is sympathetic to Desmond’s needs and the other is a lab coat wearing old man. It becomes apparent that the young lady will play a major role in the story as each time you awake from the Animus to see her, and sometimes the old man. After playing the game you soon realize a repetition in the story that gets old quick. Though the game has stunning visuals and an awesome character movement design, the creators could have done away with the ancestor memories thing and made it a story based in the crusades.

My advice is to rent this game before you buy it, that is if you can find an available copy at Blockbuster. It beats the money you may wast on buying the game only to realise you hate it. Now dont get me wrong i like a "killing" story line in my video games as much as the next person but i dont like the whole animus and ancestors memories thing. So feel free to check the prices and buy the game at 60 bucks depending on the console but you may be suprised, and not in a good way, more like the way most people were after the recent movie Cloverfield.

In the blog post “The MASS EFFECT of the Writer’s Strike” the author Pastor James Harleman talks about the effect the Writer’s Guild strike had on him, and his wife. Harleman does not like to watch reruns, but does enjoy a sci-fi action game here and there. Pastor James wrote that he and his wife played the video games Resident Evil 4 and Mass Effect, passing the controller between each other during play. The Writer’s strike forced him to stop watching television and turn to video games for entertainment. I agree with Harleman’s love of adaptive story lines, and action science fantasy video games. After reading this blog post I am now more enthusiastic about playing Mass Effect.

James Harleman wrote about what effects the Writer’s Guild strike would have on current movies and sitcoms, which caused him to search for entertainment elsewhere. I was unaware of a strike formed by the Writer’s Guild at the time I read this post, but was enlightened to read the description and storyline of the video game Mass Effect. Pastor James wrote about how the strike will make television shows worse because they will be running out of material or ideas. Harleman and his wife retreat to the world of Mass Effect for some science fantasy action as the story adapts to the choices the player makes. I have been very interested in Mass Effect since its commercial debut and after reading this post I like the realistic aspects of the game. Just like Harleman I too like the adaptive story in the campaign mode of an action game. After reading Pastor James’s post a few times I came to the conclusion that his title and story don’t match topics. In the post Harleman talks mostly about the video game Mass Effect and very briefly about the Writers Guild strike.

Harleman stated that TV shows like Lost and late night talk shows would exhaust their scripts, forcing a change in the story or improvisations. The author does not consider himself to be a huge “gamer,” he does not own any modern game console or games, but he does enjoy a good story line. Pastor James has friends who are “gamers” and they let him and his wife play a few games with their “Game Cube.” They were good at different aspects of the story line and therefore it became fun for the both of them playing Resident Evil 4 on the “Game Cube”. Shortly after Resident Evil 4, Haleman began to get bored with TV from the effects of the strike, so he barrowed a copy of Mass Effect from a friend and began the campaign. As Harleman played he learned of the adaptive story line and science fantasy rich environment the game brings. It becomes apparent that Pastor James loves this game as he relates the visuals to computer animated films like Shrek and The Incredibles. In short, I can tell that Harleman is thrilled with the adaptive, science fantasy story filled with action and suspense.

At first glance the post looks like it will be a rant from a protest about the strike, but much to my surprise most of the blog post has to do with a game called Mass Effect. Pastor James wrote the first two paragraphs talking a little bit about the strike, and then started writing about Resident Evil 4 and Mass Effect. I like that this post was most likely created as Harleman and his wife enjoyed Mass Effect. I’m guessing that with this post they feel they must share the game, making the focus of his blog post the game. As in the post, the focus is not solely on the game but the writer widened the focus to the strike that lead to him playing the game. The writer does a good job of “showing and telling” in his writing when he made a comparison between cartoon animated movies and the animation in the game. Harleman does a great job explaining the “voice-overs” of the game done by known movie stars and the main character.

Pastor James Harleman wrote a closing statement relating briefly to the focus of the post, this also included a range of the ages and genders of current “gamers” out in society. I think Pastor James should describe more about the Writer’s Guild strike in the closing of the post to make if fit in to the story more. The author did do a good job explaining the game so that others would get a feel for how the game plays and what to expect. The overall effect of this post was to make the reader, hopefully a “gamer,” want to play this game called Mass Effect. The next time I have some free time I will pick up this game and compare it to the descriptions I got from Harleman.