Sunday, November 21, 2004  

I (FINALLY) got Halo 2 on Saturday, and I've spent the last two days virtually living on Xbox Live playing Halo with Haneal, Muk and a whole bunch of other people. Things I think about it:

- I love using the Sword to go on a rampage: In one game my stats read "0 Shots Fired, 0 Shots Hit, 0% Accuracy, 9 kills".

- Matchmaking both sucks and rules: I like that my opponents keep rotating -- there really are some annoying people online -- but I hate how hard it is to keep people I like playing with, I hate how long the whole Matchmaking process takes, and I hate not having control of what type of game I want to play. Though the variety it throws up is also rather welcome.

- Killed Muk in a totally Face/Off way: We were on top of a rocky arch, there was a rocket launcher between us, we both jumped towards each other, but before we collided in mid-air I pulled out my shotgun and blasted him in the face.

- There are some awfully good players online: We were totally and utterly outclassed by this amazing team. They just destroyed us. Every angle we turned to, everywhere we went, everything we did, they stomped us. Somehow we managed a score against them with the flag (I think they lost track of me, or something).

- There are some awfully annoying kids online: These four preteens totally destroyed us despite spending the entire time telling everyone REALLY LOUDLY how cool it was that their dad bought Halo 2 for them at midnight.

- We're actually not bad: We make a pretty decent team for 1 Flag CTF though. Most maps we hold our own, and most of the time we can win. But we are absolutely freaking awesome on Zanzibar -- we have never lost and only ever conceded 2 flags in five games at Zanzibar.

- Fun times on Zanzibar: 1) Sneaking up to steal the flag from the base, then listening to them bitch about how I obviously exploited lag to warp in and out with the flag when in reality the one dude standing guard was looking the other way; 2) Grabbing the flag and then beating two people to death with it on the way out, including the guy on the turret; 3) Single-handedly stopping a flag score by blasting three goons from behind with three point-blank shotgun blasts.

- Gametypes I despise: Territories on Midship, Oddball in the Colossus.

- Some great names on Xbox Live: My favourites are WookieMaster and WookieMistress, who played together. We never managed to ask WookieMistress if she was hot, but the consensus was no.

- People need to learn the controls: We quickly realised that you need to hold down the white button to ONLY talk to your teammates (instead of to anyone within listening range). Other people never quite realised that. My favourite were the dudes in Beaver Creek who'd get to the top of our base and announce "Hey, I'm on top of their base and about to go inside!". Yeah, little tip? WE CAN HEAR YOU.

It's just stupid fun. I can't wait to play more tonight!

Posted at 3:06 AM

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Wednesday, November 03, 2004  

Given the gimpy arm I never did get a chance to go over this, but I will now: If the DS Launch Lineup sucks, so does the PSP's. Of the 21 games set for launch in Japan, half of them are puzzle or board games. Of the rest, none scream BUY ME BUY ME, and if none of the DS games really show off the system's qualities... well, the PSP's lineup hardly shows off the magnificent hardware.

And yes, I have heard the PSP defence. It goes something like this:

- "What did you expect? We knew the lineup would suck."

Yeah, we pretty much knew GT4 or other killer apps would miss launch. Still doesn't change the suckiness of the current lineup.

- "Besides, the PSone and PS2 lineups sucked too!"

Yes and no, at least from the Japanese launch perspective. I'd argue that the PSone lineup was pretty good. I do remember genuine excitement for games like Ridge Racer and Toshinden (the "Virtua Fighter killer" -- snicker). With the PS2, things were definitely worse. PSP has more big names in the mix, though from a personal perspective, I don't want any of them (and hey, this is my blog, so my opinion counts).

- "Have fun playing Ridge Racer with a stylus!"

Shut up Patrick.

- "Who cares, people are going to buy it anyway."

Guilty as charged.

Sadly, when I saw the lineup, it was less "alright, is there anything here that will make me buy a PSP at launch?" and more "Damnit I need something for my launch PSP!". I am definitely buying one. I just need to weed a game out from the chaff to play on it.

And that's why I'm so annoyed with the lineup. I don't want to blow $250 on a PSP for... Tiger Woods. Or Need For Speed. And I'm definitely not getting Metal Gear Card Game (I hate card games, and that this is a MGS one only adds insult to injury). Minna no Golf is a slight possibility, but Ridge Racers is the most likely pick. This also annoys me because as fun as the basic Ridge Racer formula is, I get the feeling that we've moved on from that and I don't know whether Namco has. When you've got racing games like Burnout 3, Project Gotham 2 and GT3/4 around, does Ridge Racer still cut it? The formula was wearing thin by RRV (only the "OH MY GOD PS2 POWAAAAAA" thing really kept it at bay), so I really really hope they can take things in a new direction with Ridge Racers.

Going back to the DS comparison... the PSP has more games that really show off the hardware in Ridge Racers and Metal Gear Card Game, but on the flipside I'm probably more interested in the DS's lineup. I was thinking that it was funny how that worked out, but really it's not because that's how it always is. Even at E3 I remember the general sentiment being: DS has neat games, but gee whiz isn't that PSP hardware something? It was probably the same thing with the PS2 as well, but that sure delivered.

Basically: I whine too much, and I need to rid myself of the burning desire to have every gadget right away, I reckon, before I attain true happiness. Though if you ask me about my state of well-being on the 12th of December I'll probably say I'm the happiest person on Earth or something.

Posted at 6:35 AM

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Tuesday, November 02, 2004  

Since so many have asked, here's the deal on my elbow. I tripped over a little chain barrier on my way to grab some sushi at work, got my right foot caught, and sent my entire weight crashing on to my left elbow. It didn't really hurt at the time (the priority then was more "get up quick and pretend you're OK!"), but when I realised I couldn't lift my left arm up to the keyboard I figured I should see a doctor. 24 hours and two dodgy X-Rays later (look, the arm is all sore and swollen, I'm not being difficult when I say I can't physically lay it flat for the X-Ray), they told me that they suspected a fractured elbow. Helpfully they also said that in a week I'll either be in immense pain or perfectly fine.

The prognosis is that I have my arm in a sling until I'm physically able to move it around, which should be a few weeks since they don't think it's too serious. On the flipside, I cannot type properly (all this is coming from one hand) and I can't play games. Can't in theory anyway -- I can hold and use a controller but it hurts like hell and makes it worse the next day. Which isn't good.

So in response to that... I'm getting really good at driving wuth one hand in GTA: San Andreas!

Posted at 5:03 AM

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