Wolfenstein

I got Wolfenstein: The New Order for Christmas. I don't know why I picked this one, but it just felt like the right time to play Wolfenstein again.

Like many people my age, the first FPS I ever played was Wolfenstein. I couldn't believe I was exploring this "3D" Nazi castle and fighting Meca-Hitler. I spent hours pressing the spacebar over and over again trying to find hidden passages. The only way I could truly describe my time with Wolfenstein was magical.

And this weekend, I found myself running through bunkers, and exploring Nazi castles with a huge smile on my face. B.J. Blazkowicz was given a voice and a story, and it fit the narrative I've always had in my mind.

I was overcome with joy, almost brought to tears at how well the game brought me back to my childhood. I collected Nazi gold and fired dual welding machine whilst laughing with delight.

This game had no right to be good. No right to be in multiple top 10 discussions. Bethesda pulled it off. I guess I should've expected it. Beside's Blizzard, no one has a better track record.

MarioKart 8

Over the weekend, I actually got my hands on a real life WiiU, in the wild.

My brother bought a WiiU a few weeks ago after getting a new job. He's always been a huge Zelda fan, so it was really only a matter of time. Well that time is now.

We played the new MarioKart and while it was fun, I did find myself missing older titles.

Some of the courses contorted and bent like a roller coaster, sending you in and out of water, really distorting what was happening. This was especially bad since we were playing with three players and had small screens.

I'm not saying MarioKart has always had courses built on the laws of nature, but at the very least, you could see how this track could exist. MarioKart 8 did not have this.

I also hadn't held a Wii-mote in nearly 3 years now. It felt foreign to me. I struggled to remember which hand to hold the nunchuk in. I couldn't remember any of the button names as my brother yelled out controls mid-race. After 4 or so races, I had a good enough grasp to hold first place in every race for the next hour.

The WiiU tablet thingy didn't feel right for me, but it seems to be a matter of preference. Those that were accustomed to DS or 3DS handhelds found it really comfortable.

We raced a good 20-25 races before calling it quits and as I left my brother's house, I couldn't help but think how much I would love to play the original MarioKart or Double Dash. (I never owned a N64, so there wasn't nostolgia for that version)

Something didn't sit right having extra characters show on the roster that are going to be DLC later on. Staring at Link and Tanooki Mario on the last row, knowing they would be paid DLC (and for a good price at that) felt so un-Nintendo. I'm used to Nintendo being that one company that releases their full game on one disk and that's what you get.

It's weird because on paper, this game is MarioKart. The tracks feel right, the carts feel right, most of the powerups feel right (except the sonic music thing, that felt like something from Vigilante 8) but somehow it didn't click.

Thoughts on Destiny

It's been a long time, but I've had some Destiny thoughts banging around my head.

The TL:DR is basically, if you have friends playing this game, or you really liked Halo, this is probably the game for you. I play this game, single player and multiplayer, with the game muted and listening to podcasts. 

The BETA of this made me feel like it was a Mass Effect world with Battlefield gameplay and Borderlands loot. I was incredibly excited about this.

I reached level 20 this weekend. I have maybe 3 story missions before I beat the game. I've played 10-15 competitive matches. So I've seen a lot of the content.

The story is built to be one of those, "Humans are on the brink of extinction and this elite group of warriors called Guardians are our only hope."

It's a very standard setup. Earth is a nuclear wasteland, our Mars base has been over-run by enemies, the moon wasn't viable to live on, and we never got fully established on Venus. We are basically living on this floating space station/planet thing called the Citadel.

The story never really develops past that. It's really boring. The missions consist of, "Oh, there's some bad guys over there, they probably want something important, let's go see what it is. Oh, it's [Enter random computer system, power crystal, powerful weapon here] we should stop them. 

It really never expands beyond that. And most the missions take place in very similar looking caves or space bases. 

There are no NPCs in the game other than the merchants. Literally none. I'd pay to have the stereotypical marine commander stranded somewhere that I save. But there is no one. It is you, the enemies, and some other random players running around. 

And the other random players running around can ruin the experience sometimes. When I was trying to level up a bit to play some of the harder missions, I'd find a squad of enemies, engage them, then some dickhole that was 5 levels ahead of me would show up, kill everyone with one grenade and move on. Meanwhile, I miss out on a bunch of XP. (Also, because of the persistent universe, I can't pause the game. I hate when I can't do that.)

Most of the background of the world require you to log into Bungies' website on a computer and look at these "cards" you earn. It would work so much better if there was a Mass Effect like Codec. 

The loot system is a stripped down Borderlands system. As you level up, you find more powerful guns. Most guns will have one special thing like, "burns enemies." 

Now, they also want you to level up your gun. As you use the gun, you unlock extra abilities. The issue is, you will find a more powerful gun before you level up the gun your using. I'm thinking now that i'm level 20, that might level out a bit. 

You also can't get a lot of the really cool gear without playing a ton of the competitive multiplayer, which I will get to shortly. 

The best part of this game so far are strike missions. Basically, you and two other people play a really hard mission with tons of bosses and enemies. This is especially fun when you have a friend with you, which I do. 

You can play any of the story missions with friends as well. Once you hit level 20 (which is the artificial level cap) you can replay those missions on basically "Strike" difficulty and earn other gear and XP. 

There are also community events which are fun. You're running around on the planet, having a good time, and then a huge tank will drop in. Anyone in the vicinity can help take him out. It's a really fun and difficult battle.

The sound is just bad. The voice acting is really boring and uninspired. The guns sound just like guns in Halo, but they might have brought the pitch up or sped it up. There's this one gun that really sounds like a Needler. The music is pretty good, but since the other things annoy me, I mute the sound and listen to other things. 

So the competitive multiplayer is disappointing. Any levels beyond 20 can only be earned by playing these matches. It basically takes 10-20 matches to actual get the new level.

I hate Halo. I've never liked it much. The very first one was interesting to play split screen on a console. Beyond that, no Halo game has ever been fun. I've tried so many times to get into it. I've played every Halo except the one that came out last year. They just don't do it for me.

Multiplayer plays exactly like Halo. People bunny hop all around the map to keep you from shooting at them. They just launch grenades and spray machine guns into rooms with capture points, not aiming at anything, just hoping to get some kills. And the maps might as well all be "Blood Gulch" with a new skin on them. 

You can't even really play the multiplayer until you're at least level 15. I jumped in at level 7, was put on a team with a bunch of people level 5-13. We played a team of people level 18-20. We were dominated. 

Now, they supposedly even out the damage your weapons give, but at level 20 you have access to a bunch of better rocket launches, sniper rifles, special abilities, armor, etc. Basically, they are coming into matches where I have a knife and they have a sword. Technically they do the same damage, but the sword is still going to win that fight. 

Now that I'm level 20, I can at least survive a bit, but because everyone is bunny hopping around, there's not a ton of skill involved. You basically just have to spray machine guns and hope you hit. 

And matches where there are capture points are usually my favorite match type. However, the maps are small enough that when the other team sees you are capturing a point, they can get to that point before you capture it and just spam grenades. So it's a race to see who can get two points first, because you're probably going to keep them. 

If I had to give it a number, I'd say Destiny is a 5/10. I've had incredibly fun times playing with buddies co-op. But the story is boring, the competitive multiplayer is not my sort of game, and the story is not fleshed out enough for me to care. 

There's the framework for a really awesome and rewarding experience and I tend to think that 1) This was probably a Halo game at some point and 2) this was Bungie working out their MMO network code and figuring out what people would like the most. My guess is Destiny 2 will be a good 8/10.

Editorial: The Things Resident Evil Got Wrong

Resident Evil has a storied history of making people scratch their heads at decisions made. Most of their legacy is seen in the positive, but of course there is the insane fall from grace with Resident Evil 6. Here are some of Resident Evil's questionable decisions.

1. Resident Evil 2 - The Moth
   You've fought your way through the police station, slugged knee deep through poopy-water, and battled William Birkin away multiple times. There's a giant metal blast door staring you down. You ready your customized shotgun, not knowing what creature awaits you. And.... moth. Giant, fluttering moth. In a way it was somewhat creepy and I have to applaud that someone had to design and program the moth for this one room. But once you do research, you find out that unless you are a giant flower, this moth is mostly harmless.
   
   
2. Resident Evil 0 - Opera Singing Leech Doctor
   
   Leeches creep me out. So it should have been one hell of a scary edition. Unfortunately, from the moment I saw Dr. Marcus singing opera on a mountain top to call the leeches, I realized this is when the series was going to lose some of it's luster. And it did.
3. Resident Evil Survivor
   
   Underneath all the terrible design decisions, Resident Evil Survivor has a pretty OK story. There's no way to save, you couldn't use a light gun in the North American version, and when you died, there were no checkpoints. The rage I felt when I died during the last tyrant battle and saw the title scream cannot be described. New curse words would need to be invented.
   
4. Call of Duty: Resident Evil 6
   
   There were several issues with Resident Evil 6. The couch co-op is great. My wife and I really loved playing through Resident Evil 5 together. Issue with 6, on the PS3... well that second player couldn't sign into their PSN profile or upgrade any weapons or upgrade anything. That made an already death filled game harder. The inventory system was terrible, there was no way to pause the game, and I still don't really understand how herbs work. On top of that, Chris' campaign might as well have been the new Call of Duty. Run and gun through eastern European towns with the arm-swollen Chris.
5. The Resident Evil Magazines
   
   The Resident Evil Magazines were comic books that came out in 1998. The first two comics were actually pretty great, covering the events of the first two games. But beyond that, they suffered from lazy writing. Essentially, "Ummm... an Umbrella facility has an accident... in South America... and here's Barry."
6. Resident Evil 5 Boss Battles
   
   Part of the tension of the Resident Evil series was the battle between your character and the bosses. They were chess matches of firing a few shots and running like hell. In Resident Evil 5, most the boss battles involved you jumping on a mounted machine gun and firing away.
   
   The height of the RE5 boss battles was the first one, the executioner. And you know why? Because it felt like an old Resident Evil boss battle. I didn't get a quick time event every 45 seconds so that a giant didn't punch the jeep I was holed up in.
   
   

Peripherals: The Dex Drive

I think I focus on the Playstation 1 so much because that was the era when I was making decent money babysitting, but I wasn't old enough to drive or have a real job.

Basically, my $40 a week would turn into a massive PS1 shopping spree once a month.

Saying that, I also had one of those high capacity, off brand memory cards for the PS1 that had the tendency to corrupt saves ever few months.

The summer of 1999 was particularly brutal. I spent most days in front of the PS1 while my parents were at work. One day, I tried to load my Metal Gear Solid save and the PS1 kept saying it couldnt' find it. When I went into the memory card utility, there was nothing there. Empty. Much like my heart.

I lost some incredibly important files.

• Resident Evil save that had Hunk and Tofu unlocked. 
• Resident Evil 3 play through that had the costumes and epilogues unlocked.
• Armored Core save on the last mission that I never beat. 
• Metal Gear Solid clear game with the tuxedo and bandanna unlocked. 
• And probably the most important, my 35 hour's of Legend of Legaia. 

There's no more depressing (yet oddly liberating) feeling of knowing hours of your summer just vanished because of corrupt memory blocks.

Enter, the DexDrive. The DexDrive could connect to your computer so you could backup saves. I bought one, sold my high capacity memory card, and just used one standard 128 KB card.

I just swapped files on and off of my PC, since my incredibly large 40 GB hard drive could essentially hold unlimited amounts of PS1 saves.

I was already in full support of the DexDrive until I also realized that I could download other people's saves from the internet. I spent hours scouring message boards and GameFAQs trying to find save files that most resembled the ones I lost. There were even some hacked saves, unlocking items that never made it to the final game and levels never meant to see.

I was able to mostly restore my lost saves with a little perseverance and Yahoo! searches. And thus, the DexDrive saved my summer.

Editorial: Doom's 20th Anniversary

Doom turned 20 this week. TWENTY!!! (Oh GOD I'M GETTING SO OLD)

I actually liked Doom 2 a bit better than the original Doom, but the original Doom was the first time, father and son sat down, and said, "Wow, there might be something more to this gaming thing."

Side note: This is also the last first person shooter my dad could play. Once things went to 3D, it was game over.

Doom was the first game that I can remember sitting in my windowless basement office, on a gorgeous Saturday, and just playing for 8 hours straight with my buddy Spencer.

I started typing this on Tuesday and have had to just leave and come back and try to figure out where I wanted to focus the post. This game just means so much to my childhood.

1. Wolfenstein 3D was impressive and great in it's own right, but Doom hit the culture so hard, it was the first computer game I remember talking about on the playground. Mario, Sonic, and if you were a hardcore gamer, Doom, were subjects of, "Oh I found this secret in level 1-3" or had that one kid claiming to have an uncle that worked at ID. That's how you knew the game was good, everyone's uncle somehow worked at ID after they left their gig at Nintendo.
2. This was the first time I remember hearing someone refer to "hardcore gamers." 
3. Any FPS that came after this had to set their weapon number toggles the same way as Doom. If the number 3 did not give me a shotgun or their equivalent of a shotgun, I just didn't understand. 4 was always going to be a machine gun. And 5 through the end was always the rocket launches, plasma guns, and explosives. 
4. Doom was the first time I realized that I loved horror games. I didn't know that's why I liked Doom so much until I played Resident Evil a few years later, but nowadays a game in the horror genre gets my money about 90% of the time.  
5. Doom is also the first time I started thinking about level design. To this day, when I boot up Doom, I can remember things about each map. "Oh, this one has that huge outdoor space." Or "Damn, this is the one with the dark area where the Imps will keep jumping out." 
6. And damn the enemy design. So creative. Most of those enemies were inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, but it was Doom that made most of those architects standard in any Sci-Fi/Horror game. 
7. Doom was the first time I bought a game on multiple platforms and didn't feel dirty about it. I had it on floppy, CD, and Playstation as a kid. And now I own it on CD, Steam, and Android. 

20 years later, Doom is still a mainstay in my collection. I generally play through the first three Resident Evils, Super Mario World, and Doom every year. 

IGN probably did the coolest thing for the Doom anniversary, Ryan McCaffery played Episode 1 with John "Make You His Bitch" Romero. The 90 minute video is worth every minute.

Also, if you love Doom, you should read "Masters of Doom" which tells the history of ID Games up until the early 2000s. This book makes you realize how much genius got together to create Doom.

Grand Theft Auto

I started playing Grand Theft Auto 5, and although its impressive, I always think back to the top down versions I played as a kid. 

When I was in 8th grade, someone sneaked a demo copy of Grand Theft Auto in and installed it on all of the computer lab machines. (Along with Commandos) We took advantage of the aloof keyboarding teacher, who would plan keyboarding lessons to last an hour, when most of us could complete them in 15 minutes.

The 10 minute demo of GTA was some of the best fun I remember having at school. I wanted to bring this fun home with me. I couldn't figure out how to transport the demo on a floppy disk like I did with Scorched Earth, so when I went home, I started what would become a regular occurance in my adulthood.

I waited for everyone to go to bed, booted up the ole Hewlett Packard, fired up Netscape, and began searching for Grand Theft Auto. 

After several hours, I found a site that would give you Grand Theft Auto in 10 Zip files as long as you clicked on a certain amount of advertisements from their site. 

I did it, signing my Yahoo address up for a butt-ton of spam in the process, but I had Grand Theft Auto, the full version, for free. 

I never got far in the game, because of a tradition of side tracking and exploration that carries forth in current Grand Theft Auto games. Inevitably, I would do 5 or so missions and then see how much chaos I could create. 

When Grand Theft Auto 3 launched, I was impressed, but the 3D version of Liberty City just didn't hold me like the top down. I could watch someone play the game for hours and be perfectly happy. But when I had the controller in my hand, I just didn't get sucked in.

The same holds true for the current ones. But I persist and finish them as some sort of gaming flog I force upon myself. After all, Grant Theft Auto will be the talk of the gaming town for months after release and in 10 years, I'm sure some misty eyed middle-aged friend of mine will stare off into space and want to remember our time in GTA IV's party mode fondly as we smoke pipes and get our shoes shined.