LITTLEBIGPLANET: One Man’s Confusing Stumble Through an Array of Shapes
LittleBigPlanet is a game for Sony Playstation 3 computer entertainment system. I am not sure how I feel about it. Within the writings and thoughts presented in this essay, I hope to conclude why I am not cascaded by feelings of enlightenment with rainbows shooting out of every orifice and vomiting pure liquid epiphanies from my mouth when I play it. I also hope the results will be less graphic than the previously listed results, and something much more calm and scientific without projectile emotions will be the result.
After two years of anticipation, and weeks of chattered excitement amongst my friends, LittleBigPlanet, along with at least (Rough estimate, relatively accurate)3 million and 8 other games, was unleashed on the world. I myself managed to obtain the game two days before it’s official retail release, perhaps due to some divine intervention on the part of some celestial force such as angels, or perhaps just confused Gamestop employees(One and the SAME?). I ran home and popped it in and had quite a delightful time discovering the wonderful world of these small Sackboy creatures, playing through the environments and listening to the clever witty instructions from British funny man Stephen Fry. The game being out a few days early, the servers were not quite online, so other people’s creations were not quite yet available to me, so I played through a good deal of the story mode, messed around with multiplayer with my friends, briefly tried the creator mode on a whim but decided to leave it alone for a while, placing it gently back on the shelf like a smile child who discovered something shiny and fragile on the shelf at an antique store and eagerly grasped it with both hands only to find several small parts clinking loose from it and crashing to the ground leaving the original product in disheveled shambles. I returned it back to it’s place on the shelf hoping no one would ever notice or be aware of my eager frivolity with the beautiful toy, only to destroy the very thing I coveted.
To cut a long adventure short, a few days later the servers came online,
I played a lot of fun creative levels, I played a lot of not fun, crappy levels quite resembling the misguided classic children’s toy and less popular relative of hoop and stick known as rock, stick, an old shoe sole and a bag of grass. After understanding the game a little further, I dared to brave the tidal wave of tutorials required to perform the tasks critical to creating a LittleBigPlanet level. I found all of the information a tad overwhelming and was unable to memorize all of the contents. Creating my first two levels was mostly a series of trial and error along the lines of: “oh this does that, so if I put this on this, maybe it won’t fall down this time! …Oh damn, rewind…NO, PAUSE!! PAUSE!! Oh fuck this.” I grew to admire the other users whom had already published their own levels and had received rave reviews from myself and other players. A lot of sacrifices, such as time, food and physical/social contact are simply vital to reach creative nirvana in this world. I made a short fast level with limited success, and then a longer much more fleshed out world that many people enjoyed, hearted and played which was quite a rewarding experience. It took about four to five hours to construct the whole thing. After I had done this, I found the only experience I had whenever I turned on LittleBigPlanet was playing my own level I had created over and over, meanwhile waiting for OTHER people to play my level so my play or heart count would get high enough for me to receive the related trophies. I couldn’t get up the energy to create another level or find enough creative spark to have an interesting idea worth devoting 5 hours or so to the process, or perhaps more, now that I had a greater understanding of some of the basic pulleys and levers, and would perhaps explore the remaining plethora of gizmos presented to me. I will admit that originally I was intimidated by the level of creative freedom presented to the player before purchasing the game but once I had screwed around with it enough I found creating to be a fun experience, but exhausting by hour two or three. At this point I had grown tired of the story mode, one thing led to another and at this point in my life, I will sign in, look at the first two pages of cool levels, maybe play my level, and turn the game off.
The thing that bothers me about this is that I don’t feel as though I’ve been handed down the Ten Commandments from on high whenever I pop in the game, which is pretty much, although admittedly an exaggeration, what everyone or at least myself expected from this easy to use game creation side scrolling extravaganza of a game. This is by no means a bad game, its beautiful, well put together, extensive and endlessly creative. It’s just not very much fun after a few days. I have run out of fun things to do with it. Today instead of popping it in, I revisited Bioshock briefly on a higher difficulty(Which was ridiculously difficult) and as I descended back into Rapture and heard the old 50’s music and the voice crackle over the radio: “I AM ANDREW RYAN.” I smiled and quietly chuckled to myself. It was like visiting an old friend. And curiously enough a thought occurred: Why is it THIS is still fun and yet I have quickly grown tired of LittleBigPlanet? I realize it has nothing to do with the two games formally, because they are two very different games, it’s purely a personal situational issue, but perhaps with a deeper more universal theme. I don’t know that the content presented has enough substance for me personally. It’s a bit like comparing the game with a pile of Legos, the difference being, the Legos could last me for years. (And very well did in reality.) Perhaps, on a very basic level, it’s simply that the Legos are more intuitive and are never bigger than the basket presented: you stack them, connect them, and a larger concept is created. With little big planet, how big the blocks are is your choice, how they function is up to, and there are 50 or more options to that end and each has it’s own unique way of working, so that is to say it’s a bit like if there were 50 unique and different ways to connect Lego blocks, and the Legos came with a large colorful manual to explain in a clever extensive way how to use them, rather than simply, the parts(which anyone can understand by simply blindly bumping them together for a few minutes until they connect. A properly trained Otter could perform the task, assuming he didn’t try to consume the blocks.) and a manual with a larger concept to jump right into. I believe that if you have the time to really devote to memorizing, learning the ins and out of, and down-right living the different pieces of LittleBigPlanet you will have a worthwhile experience on your hands; but if you don’t have the energy or attention span to really get to know and understand each of the different properties each object presents you with you will come out thinking, “well that was clever and held my attention for a moment.” Much like a very shiny high end special effect drenched buddy comedy. At the very least, after messing with it you can run back through the story or play some of the better creator levels and have a basic understanding of what went into it and think to yourself: “Wow…it’s amazing to think that these people will never know what the touch of another human feels like!”
To conclude: I think personally what I really like out a game, in order for it to truly be great for me personally, is a wonderfully crafted story, a vivid creative appealing environment with a fleshed out cast of characters. Basically, I need an idea and a story, or an interesting mythos to surround something. I need meat on the bone. At the end of the day, a game has to be fun to bring you back, and LittleBigPlanet is fun, but the gameplay it self is a tad shallow, and the downloadable content based on what I’m seeing now leaves something to be desired. I’m sure down the road there will be fun new stickers and pieces and music, etc, but at this point it’s something like signing on for a few moments, enjoying the new hat you’ve downloaded, then you turn it back off. There’s nothing surrounding the world to bring me back. I don’t want there to be a clever tome of ancient tongues and scribes chronicling how the Sackboys came to emerge from the primordial ooze and a hand descended from the very heavens themselves and delivered an ancient message from on high that had been waiting since the very dawn of time scribed in the very mind of god to be delivered to
the first holy deserving ear that ventured a listen and so the message was pronounced from the heavens: “And lo thou shall be, and thou shalt stack and glue and publish to thy yon community with thy threaded stubs and let it be done until the very hills themselves perish into the sea, amen.” and thus the Sackboys purpose was delivered, and so he carried out his duty until the end of his days, etc, etc. because I feel that would be forcing something on the game that it doesn’t need and pushing the bounds of believability. (God? What an absolutely rollicking joke! Ha ha! Guffaw, etc.) I just feel like I need a little more motivation to keep coming back other than feeling downtrodden at seeing more and more amazing levels created by people on a plateau of ingenuity that I myself will never reach? Completing the lackluster story mode? (If you can even call it a story mode. It’s something along the lines of: One of the shapes, the BAD shape, took some of the other shapes and it’s up to your shape to shape things back into shape. Those rascally shapes, always stealing the other shapes.) I think by now I have made peace with the fact that LittleBigPlanet will never be the revelation that I truly wanted to be, and nothing more than a briefly fun diversion. Perhaps one day I will return to it’s quarters to venture another throw of the coin into the well of level creation, or perhaps to check up on the cool levels page, but I believe I will quickly grow tired of it again and put it away for something a tad more immersive. I do not have any suggestions for whatever depth that the game is lacking needs to be replaced with to satisfy my hunger, I will leave that suggestion or choice up to the reader. The only thing I could come up with was that the game caused the Play Station to dispense fruit-flavored candies from it’s disc drive whenever the game is fired up, but we all know that in this current-gen, this is not physically possible unless you have a friend stand behind your set and throw starburst at you while you play LittleBigPlanet and I would never suggest such a ridiculous idea to a friend in fear of losing said friend out of fear. (ALTHOUGH A TRUE FRIEND…nevermind…)
I believe that LittleBigPlanet is a little TOO big. It almost feels empty despite it almost bursting to the seams with options out of the box. Unfortunately, I do not enjoy watching random players fall to their doom and the camera falling after them as I desperately try to complete a level while they goof off, or being yelled at by other random players as I plummet to my doom, not on purpose, but out of pure lack of skill on my part. I am also not the biggest fan of the three-level system, although I understand it’s purpose it can be a tad frustrating when Sackboy decides on a whim he wants to be closer to the viewers at home and plummets fifty feet into a pile of green gas, flames and general doom. LittleBigPlanet delivers on options, but not so much on how to use them. I believe the easiest, fastest, and most beneficial way to fix the issue it has would be to slowly bring you through the level creator, gently presenting a few concepts at a time, then using all of those concepts to build a small contraption, level, etc. Then introducing a few more concepts, perhaps bringing back a few old ones for the next review, etc etc. I know this sounds a bit like homework, but for the few of us that didn’t get enough out of the main tutorials which were brief and less than informative occasionally or interesting to keep you listening to the instructions, it might be beneficial, and leave the user with a far more retained knowledge of the parts presented. You have to understand, there is a lot going on in this game, maybe other people grasped it more naturally but I could benefit from a slow, or perhaps personally passed procession through the process of creating using and utilizing the objects and tools, because the one issue I continuously had was coming upon an object a didn’t recognize how to utilize or thinking “I wish I could do that, I wonder if there’s an easy way to make that happen?” and if I had been presented with a much more intuitive way to put things together, I might have remembered a tool that could bring my idea to life with more ease. It’s the same as learning a subject in school such as math, when you’re first piecing it together it can be a little overwhelming but when you can put it together on your own in can be incredibly rewarding, it’s all in how it’s presented to you, and while I loved Stephen Fry’s LOVELY witty commentary, I really felt like I needed something much more comprehensively along the lines of “Now if you use the grab switch on a sponge, you’ve created a thing for your character to latch onto that will activate a chain to pull you up to a higher surface! Make sure your object has supports so it won’t fall down!” etc etc. The reason I stress this is because at the end of the day, the largest part of LittleBigPlanet is creating the levels once you’ve run through the story, because it’s only so much fun to play other people’s levels. If you don’t understand how to do it, you’re going to find yourself either very bored, or very frustrated, or having to revisit the tutorials constantly and make notes, or giving up altogether.
The thought that occurs to me is I’d spent three days and many hours trying to recreate my favorite game in recent memory, Bioshock, within the confines of the level creator as accurately and respectably as possible, and today I realized: “You know, instead of struggling and failing to find another way to recreate the game I love, which has been fun and all but is wearing thin, I could just PLAY it again. It wouldn’t hurt.” And that’s what I did. It was difficult, and I got an adrenaline rush from fighting the Splicers, and I recited Andrew Ryan’s opening monologue, and I understood things I hadn’t previously grasped before due to not having beaten the game, and I jumped when the monsters jumped out at me, and I said “GOD DAMNED SPLICERS” along with Atlas, and I ran around picking up other people’s junk they’d left lying around, and guess what: and I loved every minute of it.
…But that’s just me.
Friday, November 14, 2008
OLD POST: My Thoughts on Last Night's Political Escapades
This was written on November 5th.
Whether you like it or not, kids are smart and will find things out for themselves one way or another, and fact number two is, if you make something "bad" or "taboo" they find it out FASTER. Sex, drugs, music with unfortunately derogatory lyrics("ima whack it up all ones in this beeze what what for heazity"? what does that even MEAN?), Rude language, things like this only survive in the underlaying psyches of our youth because adults give them a negative cloud around them that appeals to the repressed, rejected, rebelling angst-ridden teens of today. Granted, I understand that regardless of how we treat it, someone will ALWAYS want to listen to 50 cent, god knows why, and I'm sure somewhere in the world someone will always want to drugs. Treating these issues like the family dog or the aunt no one really likes but we have her around anyway because she's family doesn't resolve or make any of these issues go away, but I really believe it makes them less appealing because personally for myself, I've never really had any information taken away from me or made taboo, and have been able to make my own sound choices as to MY opinion(Isn't that marvelous?) about things like music with raunchy lyrics, alcohol, drugs, etc, and I've pretty much always been able to see what was good and what was bad from my standpoint and not feel blindly pressured to become absorbed in something that wasn't good for my health or disturbingly inappropriate for the purpose of potentially attracting skanky mates by purchasing a rather large car that bounces up and down and blasts the music deafening passers by on the street and blowing them into store windows with the sheer force of volume.
Small children get ahold of knowledge regardless, and whether or not you repress something, and especially if you do, they'll find out about it. Little kids that are in my show that are 10-12 years old swear occasionally. It's rather ironic because all of the older kids have been conditioned not to swear around them, or the adults, unless in appropriate individual situations. (Mind you, that is not to say that 5 or 6 of us go off in a corner for 45 seconds and rattle off all of the swear words we know, then return to working. Although, isn't that a FUN idea?? I can see it now...) My point is, it's not fair to use teaching in schools and children to defending a horrendously archaic concept when children are just going to find out about it anyway, and making it taboo only makes it more so. And then kids have to look at you differently for not bringing something like that into your own household and being honest and free about it, and decide whether to take your side and further add to the disgusting mob of beings roaming our great planet being adverse to things because they're different or to have negative thoughts towards you regarding your beliefs and choices.
And regarding religion, I don't really think there's anything in the bible regarding gay marriage particularly. I don't believe it negatively affects your religion anyway, unless you were to stop a mid-sermon because you spot a gay couple in the back and have to go off into a little room and get your bearings back. I know the concept of change and evolution can be a difficult thing to grasp, but bear with me... Even if there is something in the bible that could even by slightly construed as homophobic, perhaps it's a typo. It IS quite an old book. There's a new version of the Catcher in the Rye every other week or Mr. Martin's yearly movie guide. Perhaps it's time for a revision? Perhaps a 3000th anniversary edition with fun little pop outs of Jesus and friends? I might even buy it! I'm quite liberal and we're very attracted to bright colors.
On a more positive, less frustratingly-angry-at-the
My mother,who was in Borders bookstore doing some christmas shopping, had sent me a few blocks downtown to go grab my brother a sandwich for dinner before we had to go pick him up from his guitar lesson, so I walked down to Taxi's(Which is now called Ralph's or Abbey's or Johan's or something now. I feel sorry for the original owner. His(Her? It?) name was Taxi, I suppose, which is a rather unfortunate name and yet they managed to make it pretty big with a nice respectable food chain. What will he do now, I suppose? He can't drive a Taxi, conversations with the passenger would be too confusing and he'd be ridiculed by his taxi driving peers. Perhaps he'll have to work his way back up the big business ladder and become an executive of some sort. I'm rambling.) and on the way I could see people in the other restaurants glued to the television or dancing around, and one woman ran past me at top speed obviously trying to reach another person somewhere in town. I finally reached my destination and walked inside to find everyone smiling and staring at the tv, making phone calls or talking happily. I turned around and looked up at the large flat-screen which declared "Obama Declared President" and it took me a minute to register what it said (Especially because it was tuned to Fox News, and I couldn't believe they would admit something so early.) before I ran like a shot down the street back to borders. I could hear car horns beeping in the distance and people cheering and celebrating, all televisions in the store windows were tuned to the same thing and everyone was glued to their sets or texting friends in celebration or defeat as I pounded down the middle of the road towards my mom in the crosswalk. I told her what I had seen and we walked quickly back to Taxi's to discover relatively the same scene as I had encountered before. My mom turned around as I ahd before to stare at the TV in happy disbelief. She then ordered Adrian's food which I had completely forgotten about and chatted happily with the cashier about how MUCH he had won by. I stole a pen from my mother's purse and grabbed the only piece of paper I had in my pocket, a receipt from Unamas mexican food and wrote that "Today I voted for Barack Obama and six hours later I watched him become elected president of the united states in the Taxi's in downtown Palo Alto. 11.4.08.". I'm going to tape that to a notebook or my wall or something. It was a very powerful thing to ride home happily knowing I had been a part of this. Democracy can be very moving. I was so happy that I had voted, and that I felt like I had been a part of it. I had so much more invested in the election now that I had actually thrown my own chips on the table, so to speak. My family raced home to watch our new president speak to the people on TV, and we felt the adrenaline buzz for the whole rest of the evening.
It was one of the greatest days/moments/events of my life, and one I don't believe I will ever forget.
I didn't think about the fact that I had just purchased John Mayer's live album seconds before, and had been listening to him sing Waiting On the World to Change on repeat in the car and before I fell asleep last night. The tone and content of the song really fits this mood and situation, and pretty much all of last night. Millions of people, huddled around sets or listening to their radios waiting for word of what the final results were, and as a nation holding our breath united as one for a long overdue change.
Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We feel just like we don't have the means
To rise about and beat it
So we keep waiting, waiting on the world to change
It changed last night, and I think the change will be pretty strong over the next few years, and I look forward to a very bold, bright and better future as an adult and member of society. I feel very grown up today. I think I'm ready to be a part of all this. Let's do this, bitches.
(OLD POST) A List of Several Games I Intend to Procure
NOTE: This post is quite old, considering I have actually obtained several of the games within, I just wanted it to be on this site along with my other posts. So...Deal with it.
GUITAR HERO: World Tour:
I think I'm probably one of less than 48 people more interested in this than rock band. Not because I have more guitar hero guitars and therefore would have to spend less on it(I am a drummer, and I NEED the drum set.) and not because I didn't have rock band. I had rock band, and I didn't like it. I LOVED guitar hero 3. a lot of people didn't because it was too difficult or something, but I rather enjoyed the difficulty curve and the song list. Rock Band 2's song list has an almost unfairly weighted ratio of songs I don't care about to the 5 I do. Also, it looks exactly the same as the first Rock Band. Sorry guys, even Gears 2 looks and seems different from Gears 1, a genuine concern that I had with that company, and they managed to IMPROVE Gears. This is even more impressive considering I don't own an xbox, but I was definitely struck by the changes I saw on the surface level.
Little Big Planet:
I have very conflicting mixed emotions towards this game. 70% of my psyche is pervertedly turned on by the sheer amount of content at play here. Not only is there a full single player game, but they give you all of the stuff from that and more to fuck around with ON YOUR OWN. Then you can share it with people. The other 30% of my brain is paralyzingly daunted by the level of content and possibility presented here. I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to do with myself, and I would be too crippled with embarrassment to present my creations to the greater Playstation community purely because of the (very very high) chance that whatever I created would illustrate not so much what Gauguin would paint with an expert eye and a clean canvas, but more what a ferret dipped in paint and given a toxic amount of sugar would do to your living room.
Naruto: Storm:
Have you PLAYED the demo? I am very biased I suppose by the fact that occasionally, I do ENJOY Naruto, and as a youth, I REALLY enjoyed Naruto, but at it's bare bones this is a really fun fighting game! Throw in some colorful characters, ridiculously well rendered graphics and some over the top special moves, and you have what will probably be the next big game with me and my friends. Granted, we haven't really all had a chance to all sit down and play SCIV (Which has enraptured the collective rest of my brain that isn't being used to write this note.)
But I imagine it will have a similar effect. Consider the following: We had a get together and played the demo, which contains two characters and one course, for the better part of an hour and a half. Impressive, by my standards.
Mirror's Edge:
I don't know what to say here really. It's pretty. it looks like Portal.
Shiny+Portal=Something that should probably be considered an illegal drug in my case. Mafia deals will probably be largely at play here. Twisted deals and thugery. (That's right, Thugery.) It's entirely possibly that by the time I own this game I may also don a large clock against my chest and have my very own collection of "Bitches and Hos". The police will search, but they will never, ever catch me.
(Side note: I'd definitely want a jewel-encrusted cane too. Ballin'.)
Sonic Unleashed:
Sonic and I have a strange relationship. Much like that of a gorilla and a kitten, no one really understands WHY but the gorilla really LIKES that kitten. Lets also pretend the kitten killed a nun, and the general populace really LIKED that nun, and they really liked the kitten before the kitten killed the nun. The gorilla though, is not very attached to the nun, nor ever was, and wishes everyone would just leave it and the kitten alone. This is a very apt and not long-winded metaphor for my relationship with Sonic.
Let me explain: I REALLY liked Sonic Adventure. I really enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2. I didn't care for Sonic Heroes (Which was like the kitten trying to make a wooden nun to replace the nun it killed, but because I didn't like the nun in the first place, it didn't really make any difference for me, and the general public knew it wasn't the same as the OLD nun..OK I'm done with the kitten and the nun!) But everyone seems to be moaning and groaning about how Sonic Adventure "Destroyed the Sonic we all knew and loved" and that sort of thing. I have a very backwards view of sonic because I didn't really care about the old genesis sonic games. I mean don't get me wrong, I enjoyed them, much in the way I enjoy Indiana Jones movies, they're fun and enjoyable but they don't stick with my like Star Wars does. There's just nothing memorable enough for me.
Sonic Adventure had a lame story, granted, but for some reason I liked it, I liked the characters, I liked the game play. I LOVED running around the cities as Sonic and friends. it was just fun. It managed to please a very picky 11 year old me for quite a while. And this NEW sonic looks SO DAMN PRETTY is the thing, and I'm really okay with whatever Sonic Team does to Sonic. I never played the NEW sonic the hedgehog for the Xbox and PS3 but that was mostly because any friends I had that played it perished upon insertion of the disc into a billion tiny microforms of darkness. This New one looks fun though.
Prince of Persia:
I didn't play Two Thrones, purely because of how much I HATED Warrior Within, and I hated THAT purely because of how much it utterly obliterated the concept presented in Sands of Time. I know the combat was clunky and boring, but it was so god-damned fun! (baww!!! I'm done now.) This new one gives me hope though. It's pretty, I don't really like having another person following me around though. The girl's A.I. better be good or I will not be happy. Ico is the only game where I really was able to get over that, but well, that was ICO. ICO was damned amazing. Now I'm thinking about Shadow of the Colossus. Now I'm thinking about how it needs a sequel. Now I'm distracted.
FF Vs. XIII:
If you know me, you know I'm a sucker for pretty, awesome, well designed anime-looking things. Also, Kingdom Hearts. FF Vs. XIII is pretty, awesome, well-designed and very anime looking. Also it's being created by Tesuya Nomura who created Kingdom Hearts. We have a winner.
Darksiders:
Boy, THIS came out of left field. Have you SEEN the trailer? Go look at it! Right now! I can wait. Go! You're on the internet, no excuses!
...
Did you see it? Good. My work here is done then. Maybe we can compare buckets of foam that emanated from our mouths upon viewing the trailer later. Or foam from the second time. I guess I'm the only one that collects foam. Oh well, your loss.
God of War III:
IT'S F#*%ING GOD OF WAR!!!1!. JESUS!!!!1!
FFXIII
Yeah I know. The other one's on the list too. I'm gonna buy it anyway...I like pretty anime things. Sue me. (Please don't actually sue me, as I do not have the means to defend myself in court and would probably end up foaming on someone. Very embarrassing and might lead to further legal action, which I would be even LESS prepared to defend myself during, leading to a vicious endless cycle of lawsuits and foam-covered lawyers. Would you expect to be covered in foam if you were attending jury duty? No. Jury duty is unpleasant enough as it is. Let's prevent any foam-related incidents.)
Bleach: Dark Souls DS:
I never actually bought the second DS Bleach game in japanese. I did with the first one, found it largely playable and is to this day one of my favorite DS games/Fighting games. (I still pop it in occasionally on trips and car rides. Not while I'm driving of course. That would be an embarrassing way to die. Unless you were murdered by a kitten. That would be worse. I could go on, but I won't.) My patience combined with forgetfulness and just a dash of stinginess (Imports are expensive, douche bags...) has resulted in the second game being translated into our native american tongue. (English, FYI)
Wario Land: Shake It!:
I really really like hand drawn graphics. I think they're VERY pretty and this game actually looks REALLY GOOD! It's unfortunate though that there's far more to nintendo's catalogue for the rest of this year and beyond that I'm avoiding rather than looking forward too. My PS3 collection will be getting very fat, while my Wii will probably be covered in dust in a year or so. (I'll give you and your friends a moment to make any dust covered penis or lack of action and therefore leading to your penis being covered in dust jokes you need to get out of your systems. Done? Good.) Honestly nintendo's upcoming schedule looks less appealing and more like a lot of ads you'd see in nickelodeon magazine. High School Musical, Bratz, Poniez, Dolphinz, Beelzabubz, etc... It's a tad messy looking.
Animal Crossing: Wild World:
Yes, I'll be picking it up. No, I will not be happy about it. It looks the same as the god-damned last one, the logo looks photoshopped, and now your dumbass friends can yell at you while you're trying to figure out why the *%&$ing owl that runs the museum isn't taking his meds anymore. Delightful.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World:
This is the longest game I have ever finished. I believe it took me...80 hours or so to actually finish the damned thing. I'm looking forward to another one, christ knows why.
Spore:
I'll be picking this one up at some point. Not the day it comes out mind you, not because I don't care, but because I know what it will do to my life outside, Which is to say, effectively destroy it.
Kirby Super Star Ultra DS:
Recently I've become addicted to this little pink testicle's side-scrolling adventures. This game seems to be chock-full of the little crack-filled side-scrollers. (I'll stop using dashes now.)
Maybes:
Lego Batman?
I need to look at this one a little more. I'm definitely interested, I really liked lego star wars, but I'm not sure if there's enough of a game here for me. Lego star wars 2 was a little too complicated for me. (Which is weird, because I LOVE unlocking things, especially characters.)
Force Unleashed?
I dunno about this. I don't trust star wars games. I've been burned a few times. Battlefront lured me back in though. Let's hope they don't screw it up again. (I'm looking at you, jedi council.)
Brutal Legend?
I know, I know. It's by the Psychonauts guys, therefore I should be positively ecstatic to revel in whatever cup of spit Tim Schaffer hands to the general public like it's melted gold. (I WORSHIP double fine. I LOVED psychonauts. It's in my top ten. 'Nuff said.) I just need to make sure I enjoy the concept enough. It doesn't strike me as being quite as interesting as the plot for psychonauts. Plus it's M. I'm worried...Tim Schaffer's team made some pretty messed up stuff in Psychonauts. (The meat level at the end gave me nightmares...SOOO scary.) I'm concerned what they could do with an M rating would open new levels of dark thoughts for myself, which is a pretty difficult achievement, but highly applaudable nonetheless. Also, I need to make sure the thing won't take seventeen god-damned years to load every time I walk through a *&%#ing door. (The only reason Psychonauts wasn't good, in my opnion. It's one very very tiny over-lookable flaw that was not quite game breaking. God, I loved Psychonauts. Don't get the wrong impression. I'm done now.)
In conclusion I will be very poor before the year is over. You could probably discern from this collection of thoughts and rambling is what I truly yearn for is a very immersive well-designed single player experience. I love mulitplayer stuff too, but what generally makes up the majority of my christmas haul is things like god of war, luigi's mansion, shadow of the colossus, etc. Darksiders looks ridiculously fun, and it's definitely the dark horse of my upcoming list. I didn't see it coming, and happened to find it randomly and fell in love with the choices the team had made. Little Big Planet is next I believe on my shopping list, and I'm really excited, if not a bit daunted by that one. (The level of options is downright scary for me.) I'm looking forward to a pretty good year. In addition to this list there's a couple of things I didn't write down that I might check out just because of the level of interest generated around them, and also I got kind of into shooters in the last year or so, thanks to my PS3 and the Orange Box. Fallout 3 has a lot of excitement generated around it, and I've always thought Bioshock looked REALLY interesting and terrifying. Looks like a good year for the big black box that could.
I think I'm probably one of less than 48 people more interested in this than rock band. Not because I have more guitar hero guitars and therefore would have to spend less on it(I am a drummer, and I NEED the drum set.) and not because I didn't have rock band. I had rock band, and I didn't like it. I LOVED guitar hero 3. a lot of people didn't because it was too difficult or something, but I rather enjoyed the difficulty curve and the song list. Rock Band 2's song list has an almost unfairly weighted ratio of songs I don't care about to the 5 I do. Also, it looks exactly the same as the first Rock Band. Sorry guys, even Gears 2 looks and seems different from Gears 1, a genuine concern that I had with that company, and they managed to IMPROVE Gears. This is even more impressive considering I don't own an xbox, but I was definitely struck by the changes I saw on the surface level.
Little Big Planet:
I have very conflicting mixed emotions towards this game. 70% of my psyche is pervertedly turned on by the sheer amount of content at play here. Not only is there a full single player game, but they give you all of the stuff from that and more to fuck around with ON YOUR OWN. Then you can share it with people. The other 30% of my brain is paralyzingly daunted by the level of content and possibility presented here. I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to do with myself, and I would be too crippled with embarrassment to present my creations to the greater Playstation community purely because of the (very very high) chance that whatever I created would illustrate not so much what Gauguin would paint with an expert eye and a clean canvas, but more what a ferret dipped in paint and given a toxic amount of sugar would do to your living room.
Naruto: Storm:
Have you PLAYED the demo? I am very biased I suppose by the fact that occasionally, I do ENJOY Naruto, and as a youth, I REALLY enjoyed Naruto, but at it's bare bones this is a really fun fighting game! Throw in some colorful characters, ridiculously well rendered graphics and some over the top special moves, and you have what will probably be the next big game with me and my friends. Granted, we haven't really all had a chance to all sit down and play SCIV (Which has enraptured the collective rest of my brain that isn't being used to write this note.)
But I imagine it will have a similar effect. Consider the following: We had a get together and played the demo, which contains two characters and one course, for the better part of an hour and a half. Impressive, by my standards.
Mirror's Edge:
I don't know what to say here really. It's pretty. it looks like Portal.
Shiny+Portal=Something that should probably be considered an illegal drug in my case. Mafia deals will probably be largely at play here. Twisted deals and thugery. (That's right, Thugery.) It's entirely possibly that by the time I own this game I may also don a large clock against my chest and have my very own collection of "Bitches and Hos". The police will search, but they will never, ever catch me.
(Side note: I'd definitely want a jewel-encrusted cane too. Ballin'.)
Sonic Unleashed:
Sonic and I have a strange relationship. Much like that of a gorilla and a kitten, no one really understands WHY but the gorilla really LIKES that kitten. Lets also pretend the kitten killed a nun, and the general populace really LIKED that nun, and they really liked the kitten before the kitten killed the nun. The gorilla though, is not very attached to the nun, nor ever was, and wishes everyone would just leave it and the kitten alone. This is a very apt and not long-winded metaphor for my relationship with Sonic.
Let me explain: I REALLY liked Sonic Adventure. I really enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2. I didn't care for Sonic Heroes (Which was like the kitten trying to make a wooden nun to replace the nun it killed, but because I didn't like the nun in the first place, it didn't really make any difference for me, and the general public knew it wasn't the same as the OLD nun..OK I'm done with the kitten and the nun!) But everyone seems to be moaning and groaning about how Sonic Adventure "Destroyed the Sonic we all knew and loved" and that sort of thing. I have a very backwards view of sonic because I didn't really care about the old genesis sonic games. I mean don't get me wrong, I enjoyed them, much in the way I enjoy Indiana Jones movies, they're fun and enjoyable but they don't stick with my like Star Wars does. There's just nothing memorable enough for me.
Sonic Adventure had a lame story, granted, but for some reason I liked it, I liked the characters, I liked the game play. I LOVED running around the cities as Sonic and friends. it was just fun. It managed to please a very picky 11 year old me for quite a while. And this NEW sonic looks SO DAMN PRETTY is the thing, and I'm really okay with whatever Sonic Team does to Sonic. I never played the NEW sonic the hedgehog for the Xbox and PS3 but that was mostly because any friends I had that played it perished upon insertion of the disc into a billion tiny microforms of darkness. This New one looks fun though.
Prince of Persia:
I didn't play Two Thrones, purely because of how much I HATED Warrior Within, and I hated THAT purely because of how much it utterly obliterated the concept presented in Sands of Time. I know the combat was clunky and boring, but it was so god-damned fun! (baww!!! I'm done now.) This new one gives me hope though. It's pretty, I don't really like having another person following me around though. The girl's A.I. better be good or I will not be happy. Ico is the only game where I really was able to get over that, but well, that was ICO. ICO was damned amazing. Now I'm thinking about Shadow of the Colossus. Now I'm thinking about how it needs a sequel. Now I'm distracted.
FF Vs. XIII:
If you know me, you know I'm a sucker for pretty, awesome, well designed anime-looking things. Also, Kingdom Hearts. FF Vs. XIII is pretty, awesome, well-designed and very anime looking. Also it's being created by Tesuya Nomura who created Kingdom Hearts. We have a winner.
Darksiders:
Boy, THIS came out of left field. Have you SEEN the trailer? Go look at it! Right now! I can wait. Go! You're on the internet, no excuses!
...
Did you see it? Good. My work here is done then. Maybe we can compare buckets of foam that emanated from our mouths upon viewing the trailer later. Or foam from the second time. I guess I'm the only one that collects foam. Oh well, your loss.
God of War III:
IT'S F#*%ING GOD OF WAR!!!1!. JESUS!!!!1!
FFXIII
Yeah I know. The other one's on the list too. I'm gonna buy it anyway...I like pretty anime things. Sue me. (Please don't actually sue me, as I do not have the means to defend myself in court and would probably end up foaming on someone. Very embarrassing and might lead to further legal action, which I would be even LESS prepared to defend myself during, leading to a vicious endless cycle of lawsuits and foam-covered lawyers. Would you expect to be covered in foam if you were attending jury duty? No. Jury duty is unpleasant enough as it is. Let's prevent any foam-related incidents.)
Bleach: Dark Souls DS:
I never actually bought the second DS Bleach game in japanese. I did with the first one, found it largely playable and is to this day one of my favorite DS games/Fighting games. (I still pop it in occasionally on trips and car rides. Not while I'm driving of course. That would be an embarrassing way to die. Unless you were murdered by a kitten. That would be worse. I could go on, but I won't.) My patience combined with forgetfulness and just a dash of stinginess (Imports are expensive, douche bags...) has resulted in the second game being translated into our native american tongue. (English, FYI)
Wario Land: Shake It!:
I really really like hand drawn graphics. I think they're VERY pretty and this game actually looks REALLY GOOD! It's unfortunate though that there's far more to nintendo's catalogue for the rest of this year and beyond that I'm avoiding rather than looking forward too. My PS3 collection will be getting very fat, while my Wii will probably be covered in dust in a year or so. (I'll give you and your friends a moment to make any dust covered penis or lack of action and therefore leading to your penis being covered in dust jokes you need to get out of your systems. Done? Good.) Honestly nintendo's upcoming schedule looks less appealing and more like a lot of ads you'd see in nickelodeon magazine. High School Musical, Bratz, Poniez, Dolphinz, Beelzabubz, etc... It's a tad messy looking.
Animal Crossing: Wild World:
Yes, I'll be picking it up. No, I will not be happy about it. It looks the same as the god-damned last one, the logo looks photoshopped, and now your dumbass friends can yell at you while you're trying to figure out why the *%&$ing owl that runs the museum isn't taking his meds anymore. Delightful.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World:
This is the longest game I have ever finished. I believe it took me...80 hours or so to actually finish the damned thing. I'm looking forward to another one, christ knows why.
Spore:
I'll be picking this one up at some point. Not the day it comes out mind you, not because I don't care, but because I know what it will do to my life outside, Which is to say, effectively destroy it.
Kirby Super Star Ultra DS:
Recently I've become addicted to this little pink testicle's side-scrolling adventures. This game seems to be chock-full of the little crack-filled side-scrollers. (I'll stop using dashes now.)
Maybes:
Lego Batman?
I need to look at this one a little more. I'm definitely interested, I really liked lego star wars, but I'm not sure if there's enough of a game here for me. Lego star wars 2 was a little too complicated for me. (Which is weird, because I LOVE unlocking things, especially characters.)
Force Unleashed?
I dunno about this. I don't trust star wars games. I've been burned a few times. Battlefront lured me back in though. Let's hope they don't screw it up again. (I'm looking at you, jedi council.)
Brutal Legend?
I know, I know. It's by the Psychonauts guys, therefore I should be positively ecstatic to revel in whatever cup of spit Tim Schaffer hands to the general public like it's melted gold. (I WORSHIP double fine. I LOVED psychonauts. It's in my top ten. 'Nuff said.) I just need to make sure I enjoy the concept enough. It doesn't strike me as being quite as interesting as the plot for psychonauts. Plus it's M. I'm worried...Tim Schaffer's team made some pretty messed up stuff in Psychonauts. (The meat level at the end gave me nightmares...SOOO scary.) I'm concerned what they could do with an M rating would open new levels of dark thoughts for myself, which is a pretty difficult achievement, but highly applaudable nonetheless. Also, I need to make sure the thing won't take seventeen god-damned years to load every time I walk through a *&%#ing door. (The only reason Psychonauts wasn't good, in my opnion. It's one very very tiny over-lookable flaw that was not quite game breaking. God, I loved Psychonauts. Don't get the wrong impression. I'm done now.)
In conclusion I will be very poor before the year is over. You could probably discern from this collection of thoughts and rambling is what I truly yearn for is a very immersive well-designed single player experience. I love mulitplayer stuff too, but what generally makes up the majority of my christmas haul is things like god of war, luigi's mansion, shadow of the colossus, etc. Darksiders looks ridiculously fun, and it's definitely the dark horse of my upcoming list. I didn't see it coming, and happened to find it randomly and fell in love with the choices the team had made. Little Big Planet is next I believe on my shopping list, and I'm really excited, if not a bit daunted by that one. (The level of options is downright scary for me.) I'm looking forward to a pretty good year. In addition to this list there's a couple of things I didn't write down that I might check out just because of the level of interest generated around them, and also I got kind of into shooters in the last year or so, thanks to my PS3 and the Orange Box. Fallout 3 has a lot of excitement generated around it, and I've always thought Bioshock looked REALLY interesting and terrifying. Looks like a good year for the big black box that could.
A Very Mumbled and Unenthusiastic Hello to You"
Greetings, readers. (I can only assume by your presence here/progress through this blog that you fit into this category.) I will be filling up this space with random assorted thoughts and musings, mostly related to things that interest me, such as games, film, music, politics and pop culture. However, if I feel it necessary to mix things up a little and talk about a peculiar looking leaf I encountered outside of my home, I will do so accordingly. Prepare yourself for such instances. (Or skip them I suppose. Pansy.)
I feel a little as though I'm some sort of Miss America contestant at this point, and I should be answering questions of some variety as an illustration of my character and intentions with my new-found tool. Presuming that the shiny new dragon implemented into World of Warcraft's login menu does not distract me too much, I shall attempt to do so, perhaps in a Question/Answer format. (As apposed to a Question/Question format: What year did Columbus discover America? Answer: Why should I care? Or alternatively, Shouldn't you know, since you're the teacher? Are you really qualified to be teaching me this material?)
Well, here goes:
Name: Paul Rudd
Age: Paul Rudd's Age.
Favorite Games:
Ocarina of Time
Sands of Time
Portal (of Time?)
Bioshock of Time
Psychonauts of Time
Kingdom Hearts of Time
Favorite Movies:
About a Boy
Nightmare Before Christmas
Judd Apatow films
Garden State
Paprika
Beverly Hills Chihuahua of Time
No more interest in filling this out
Favorite TV:
Scrubs
MST3K
Arrested Development
Friends
Avatar
Lost(Except it's not right now because I haven't been watching it.)
Heroes(Except not because it's not very good but I watch it anyway.)
Extras
The Daily Show/Colbert
What do you like to do in your spare time?:
This. I take everything else very seriously, and hardly counts as spare time. Like, crazy person seriously. With time cards. And rules. And Flags. And red cards.
How many mailboxes have you ever smashed with a baseball bat?:
I do not currently own a baseball bat.
Count to 100:
Done.
What do you like on your sandwich?:
Nothing. I like it in my mouth, sans topside passengers. Note to readers, please do not place objects or animals on top of my sandwiches, when avoidable.
Are you having trouble coming up with questions?:
Yes!
Would you like the readers to submit questions for you to answer?:
Perhaps!
Would you consider marrying a bear?:
Does the bear have a massive inheritance coming it's way?
Anyway, I will post a few older things I've written to give you something to read besides this greeting over and over again, and I hope you enjoy them/other nonsensical ramblings I post here and if you don't, then I will mail you a complimentary refund package compiled by myself. If you are indifferent to my posts, I humbly thank you for sort of liking what you've read. Please recycle whatever of this post you don't use in the proper receptacle.
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