Updated as often as I can manage

 



Tuesday, June 28, 2005  

I might be a bit late in reading Jon Dudlak's feature on cheaters, but it raises a solid issue: What the hell is wrong with these people?

I love how they immediately try to pass it off as only levelling the playing field. "It's not our fault we have lives! We don't play the game as much as everyone else so we get killed all the time!"

Such a theory is sadly lacking in many areas. Like, for instance, how they manage to find so many unorthodox glitches and cheats when they don't have "six to eight hours a day" to play. It also makes no sense for someone who is a poor player to "level the playing field" by cheating. By inflating your scores, you're only raising your ranking further... only to play against even tougher opponents. Meanwhile, because you're relying on cheats your own skill has not increased at all.

But it's silly to argue stupidity with logic, because that's just an excuse. It really pisses me off to see people stoop to that sort of level, since I'm in the same boat too. I usually get my XBL games a week later than everyone else while it's shipped from the US, and I don't have that much time to play anymore. So when I jump online, I'm totally green and I'm going to get wasted (and DO get wasted -- remember that 30-0 pasting I had in 2v2 Halo?). But that's OK, because that's how good -- or bad -- I am. And the only way to get better is to play, learn from the losses, and increase your skills.

Here's an example: I used to hate Colossus in Halo 2. I used to groan audibly every time it came up in Rumble Pit. After it came up for the third time in five games one night, I sank to my customary last place halfway through the round when a pattern suddenly emerged from all those deaths and I "got it". Shotgun. Take it, hold it, love it. Charge towards your enemy. Take the hit from whatever they're firing at you. 95% of the time (at the lower levels of Rumble Pit anyway) you'll survive long enough to close in to just before melee range. And then fire in the gut. One shot kill. Repeat ad naseum. I did this and rocketed from last to first by the end of the round. Seems like an obvious or weak strategy, right? Sure. But before that I was totally lost in Colossus. Now I have some basis for attack, some plan I can go to, and now that's one of my favourite stages.

Moral of the story? Stop complaining about how unfair it is, and either put in some practice or quit playing. There is a perfectly serviceable single player mode, I notice...

Posted at 5:47 AM



Tuesday, June 21, 2005  

Sometimes, you just kinda have to show off:



Yeah, so I picked up a 32" Samsung LCD HDTV. You could say I'm happy about this, but that would be a massive understatement. I'm thrilled to bits with it. Being a gadget freak of fair renown, it's fairly odd how I've always been stocked with gadgets and games and toys but always had a rubbish TV. So when my old set died -- and given the whole "I'm-making-money-so-let-me-go-wild-spending-it-on-stuff-I-don't-really-need" phase I'm going through (see two posts down) -- it was time to move up to LCD. And HDTV. Everything looks freaking glorious on this, I swear.

Now... what do I need to upgrade next? :-)

Posted at 3:21 AM



Sunday, June 19, 2005  

I just saw Batman Begins. Wow. You should too.

I'm no comic freak but I always liked the 1989 Batman movie, and I liked Michael Keaton as Batman. But Batman Begins makes it look like a cartoon and Christian Bale just owns the title role. Batman has always been my favourite comic superhero. Part of it was that Bruce Wayne was always cooler and less cringeworthy than Clark Kent the doofus, geeky Peter Parker or er, a bunch of freaky mutants. And part of it was that Batman is human, not someone with special powers. Batman Begins scores big on both accounts.

I know it'll sound odd, but what makes Batman Begins work is that it adds a dose of plausibility to the story. It gives it more strength by grounding the story in some semblance of reality. The Batcave is not a high-tech lair; it's actually a cave. There's no 24th Century high-speed tube that whisks Bruce Wayne from Manor to Cave; now it's an old-fashioned secret door and a service elevator to abandoned slave quarters. We see where the suit comes from, how Bruce Wayne learned to fight, and why he's so suited to flitting about dark places and disappearing suddenly. It's important because for the first time you really feel like Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person. There's no massive disconnect between the man in the business suit and the man in the rubber suit.

Batman naturally and logically dominates the film, but the rest of the characters are also fantastic. I love the film's villains, especially the unbelievably creepy Scarecrow. That guy didn't NEED to put on a mask, because Cillian Murphy's absurdly big and glassy eyes and bizarre complexion was creepy enough. I could go on and on, but special mention must be given to Gary Oldman's restrained version of (future Commissioner) Gordon. The cast is loaded with big names and they all put in very strong performances.

I really can't stop talking about this film. There is so much to like and so much that's just right about it (like the way it seems Batman never stands straight to talk to someone, he's always perched somewhere). Everyone needs to see this. Seriously, it stomps Spider-man into itty little bits. Watch it!

Posted at 5:07 AM



Thursday, June 16, 2005  

It's funny how things come around. I have an uncle who also likes games and gadgets. When he settled down here and got married about 15 years ago (when I was 10) I used to marvel at the number of high-tech toys he'd buy that he didn't need at all. Never mind super-expensive toys like the remote-control helicopter he had that never saw more than a handful of brief flights -- of more relevance to me at the time was the massive number of great games he'd buy and then totally ignore.

It was strange, being a game-crazy kid who bought EGMs every month and ate up every detail about games like Super Mario Kart... and then suddenly without fanfare it'd appear in his drawer, untouched and pristine. He had a Sega CD with just one game. He bought a PlayStation when it came out, played it to bits on launch day, then ignored it. And he went one better with the Xbox: He bought it on launch day and took it out of the box just once, when I asked to see it.

Of course, I never complained, since I was the chief beneficiary of all this. Because he never touched those games, I got to play his copy of Super Mario Kart in the month it took for me to get enough money to buy my own. He noticed that I was using his PlayStation more than he was and just gave it to me. And that Xbox? The next time it was opened was when I gotit as a Christmas present. But it always struck me as odd and wasteful: Why would you buy all that and not play with it? He said that he was too busy with work and life to play. How, I thought, could you bring yourself to spend money on something you know you're not going to have time for?

Now I know exactly how he feels.

Today I received Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and StarFox Assault, which I picked up on the cheap from Play-Asia. Thing is, I honestly don't know when I'm going to play them because I still have a massive list of games I have yet to touch (MGS3 headlines that list) and even more I have yet to finish (RE4, SC:CT, GTA:SA to name just three recent ones). This does not include the vast number of games I have which I've played once and never touched since (MVP Baseball I'm looking at you). And then there is the legion of gadgets I own that honestly don't get as much use as they should have, from my two PDAs, BlackBerry and smartphone to the $250 remote control that costs more than my TV (until, er, tomorrow... when my $2300 LCD HDTV arrives).

I just don't have time anymore. When I come home from work, as much as I'd like to leap straight into Jade Empire I also want to just sit around and DO NOTHING for a while. The funny thing is while video games are seen as a bit of an escape, now that I don't have all that much time to play them it seems even just BUYING games has that cathartic feeling of escape attached to it. I buy them for that idealistic notion that yes, someday I will have the time to sit down and play this right the way through, even though I fully realise I won't. And being a young man with little financial responsibility and a fairly hefty salary, you can afford to do it. I finally get it. It just feels good. That's it.

So now I'm in the exact situation my uncle was... while my little brother, 12 years my junior, looks on and wants to take what I'm not using!

Posted at 5:00 AM