Red Dead Redemption

Just in case you were worried about me blogging about something up to date and cool todays blog post will be a review of a game about one year old that I only just got around to finishing.So let me take you back a couple of months. When it came to doing the obligatory "Best of" list for 2010 many a respected gaming publication placed Red Dead Redemption somewhere dangerously close to the top. Now as many of my more avid readers, stalkers and close friends will know my favourite game of 2010 was (by a fucking lot) Bayonetta, which many "respected gaming publications" put on the lower end of said list. In fact as far as I saw the only gaming media to give the GOTY to Bayonetta was the Australian gaming magazine Hyper, which instantly reminded me why I opt to still buy magazine's when the internet is so convenient and cheap. So kudos to you Hyper, because Red Dead Redemption is most certainly not better than Bayonetta.

Let me get one thing clear from the outset. I liked Red Dead Redemption. Just keep this knowledge nestled safely in the deep recesses of your mind as I go forth and tell you exactly what Rockstar did wrong, because despite the massive list of flaws I found in the game the overall experience was a positive one. So let's assume you are extremely out of touch with mainstream gaming and want to know what Red Dead Redemption, one of the most popular titles of 2010, is about. Well then my cave dwelling friend, RDR is best described as a cowboy game in which you, John Marston, must track down and kill all your old lawbreaking buddies in exchange for your families safe return. That's essentially the entirety of the games plot, which is nice and simple with a clear goal but somehow the game managed to make me forget this along the way. There was a point in the game where John was in Mexico working for both the rebels and the oppressive government at the same time and I had completely forgotten why I was doing any of this stuff. The sincerity of your motivations get blurred and muddled somewhat along the way in this story. In cutscenes John is often seen strongly resisting morally dubious missions and questioning the reliablity and integrity of the people who he sides with but at the end of the day he'd just follow orders like an old sheep, completely shedding all doubts and emotion he'd just expressed. It ironically inhibits the feeling of freedom the game is so desperate to give you through the mutiverse of crappy side games you can partake in like blackjack or wild horse taming. This is because you, as the player, are forced to sit back and watch as your character does something you know is incredibly stupid as you remain powerless to help. This is a character you are supposed to have control of, that's why you're called "the player!"

I felt the story itself, although overall pretty good, was told in completely the wrong order. At the start of the game you're more or less dropped into the middle of some mission and it's not for another hour or so that you start to understand just who the fuck you are and what the fuck you're doing. On the other end of the specra, the last couple of hours of the game drag themselves out unneccessarily long in order to hastily develope some of the main characters before the big climax. This might sound reasonable if your were to look at it purely from the storytelling point of view but this affects gameplay too. Essentially it means that having just spent the majority of the game in epic gunfights you are now forced to play through a rather lengthy sequence of cattle round ups and fetch quests which play out exactly the fucking same as the tedious tutorial missions from the start of the game.

This somewhat roughly brings me to my next topic, the gameplay. At best the gameplay is adequet; you aim your gun at things you want to kill and hide behind things when you don't feel like being shot anymore. At worst the gameplay is somewhat sticky and imprecise. Character movement in general is in desperate need of a complete overhaul. Trying to run between cover or indeed run to a ladder and briskly climb it is almost guaranteed to frustrate you. This is because John's reactions feel quite delayed and navigating him into the exact position in which the game will allow him to climb a ladder or take cover can be incredibly frustrating. This aspect of the gameplay is pretty hard to express with words, but if you've played Grand Theft Auto IV you should know exactly what I mean because RDR plays in exactly the same way. What isn't so hard to explain is the day and night mechanic. You see as you play RDR the time actually passes in the game world as well, albeit considerably faster. During the day the world is your oyster for you to skip gayley through shooting outlaws and looting their bodies. But come nightfall the shops shut and most of the missions become unavailable due to plot important characters being asleep. Fair enough you might think, that's certainly more realistic. But what this means is that the game forces you to find something to do while you wait for the next piece of the story to become available. Yeah that's right, while you kill time playing this game your character kills time waiting for the next job. It's totally meta...in a completely retarded sort of way. Granted, you can skip ahead 6 hours or so if you're in a fairly specific location and the game's in a good mood but sometimes getting to these spots puts you considerably out of your way. It's this stupid situation in which I have to make a big journey out of my way just so I can set up camp, skip ahead to daylight hours and go back to where I was in the first place so I can progress in the story. I suppose this is the games way of encouraging me to participate in all the card games and flower picking I had been ignoring all this time. Which brings me to my final, overall criticism of Red Dead Redemption.

In short, this game is way too big. It's not the healthy, physically fit kind of big that makes ladies weak at the knees. It's a flabby, wheezing kind of big that stands behind you in the line at McDonalds breathing heavily and moistly down your neck whilst you try to ignore it and avoid eye contact. My initial statement still stands, I had fun with Red Dead Redemption but the fun is burried and hidden amoungst the over-reaching ambition to create a game with massive scope. I know a lot of people have trouble understanding why a game giving you more stuff to do is a bad thing so let me put it like this. If I were to stuff an entire box of fine Belgian chocolates into my mouth I wouldn't be enjoying it more than if I'd had just the one. This is because I'd be choking, and the negetive feeling of danger coupled with impending death far outweighs the good feelings of tasting something yummy. For me the fun in Red Dead Redemption was there, but it was definately stuggling to breathe.

P.S. welcome to exam time bitches! I daresay posts will be scarce for the next month or so as I desperately try to get all my course work done. I know you guys will be patient. You'd have to be to stick with this shit regularly.

Some Pictures of Things

Gosh darn it I'm running out of blog titles it would seem. Well good ones anyway. But moving hastily away from that completely dry heading I have some pictures I'd like to share with you and discuss. I took these photo's so that I could share some humour with you and hopefully bring some cheer into your joyless lives. There's no time quite like the present so let's just jump right in.

In my line of work (gosh I'm a wanker) I am exposed to a wide variety of products. This first picture is of a product I find particularly fascinating. Not because I love knitting or shawls or anything else that makes me sound like a geriatric homosexual. No I'm fascinated by the unorthodox advertising strategy in place here. Just look at this woman. Does she look happy with her shawl? Does she look happy with her life? Does this glittery, hand knitted gift make her feel anything even a notch above suicidal? The answer to all is "no". I haven't a clue what is going on with this picture. Was this really the best the marketing group could do? My best guess is that this lady owed someone a massive favour and was forced to pose in an outfit she deemed hideous but failed to muster up any enthusiasm for the photoshoot. Either that or she literally has a gun to her head. It's the brutal honesty of this advertising that fascinates me most of all. It's like everyone at the company is well aware the old ladies are going to be using these patterns to humiliate their grandchildren and decided to just run with the "spreading misery" angle.

This last picture depicts a shopping list I found in a carpark after work one night. I was strangely drawn to it's rustic look. The overly cursive writing and yellowed paper again put me in mind of a knick-knack filled grandparents home. As sad as it is to admit this, I actually picked this up and immediately said to myself "if I put this on my blog then I'll be like a real blogger." Then something else slightly amusing caught my eye. Written in urgent, block letters accross the top are the words "COFFEE" and "CIGARETTES" apparently written by the resident addict during a stage of desperate withdrawal. It's funny to imagine this washed out middle-aged man sharing a house with his nan who kindly hands him an ugly, hand-knitted jumper to wear. Suppressing frustrations the man then storms out of the room to look for coffee and finds only a wide selection of jams in the cupboard. Massaging his brow and exhaling loadly the man then goes for his cigarettes and, upon finding only an empty box, grabs the shopping list and aggressively adds his required items; screaming out "COFFEE! CIGARETTES!" through his clenched teeth as he does so. Although the list also has vintage cheese in capitols, so maybe I'm just full of shit?

Friday, Rebecca Black and the Internet

Happy Nailed to Wood Day readers! I hope we all went out today and played a small part in the death of somebody's deity. So yes it's Easter Friday over here in Australia and I thought it presented a golden opportunity to talk about Rebecca Black, her song "Friday" and why the internet is balls. I guess this post could've easily been done on any Friday but fuck it, if the whole "dying for our sins" story isn't going to even bother making any sense at all then I don't see why I can't make a teensy weensy stretch every now and then.

So anyway as I'm sure all you computer savvy types are aware Rebecca Black is some underage American girl who managed to do the impossible and record a song that has more dislikes on Youtube than Justin Bieber. For anyone who isn't familiar with the song here's the link. Now you have no excuses.

Now because my family are an ironic bunch we actually have a Friday morning ritual where we gather 'round a computer and share the awful hilarity that is this song. Now that is not to say we actually like this song. We just find it hilariously bad. But there's also something sweet and endearing about it's complete lack of quality and inspiration. I actually think Rebecca Black is a bit adorable in a completely non-creepy kind of way. The way she sings her garbage song with a big smile on her face and sways around enthusiastically without even a hint of exploiting her womanly wares is so endearing. Rebecca Black looks like she's purely in it for the fun, fun, fun, fun; which is actually refreshing in todays cynical, marketing fueled, bleak existence we find ourselves in.

But the internet can be a harsh place. On the internet every single person is on a soapbox and decided to projectile vomit instead of giving a speech. The annonymitty the internet allows us has also allowed for the growth of giant, errect dicks on everyones heads. Everyone developes a sort of twisted messiah complex, which I guess makes this post relevant to Easter after all. I mention this because Rebecca Black, who is 14 or some shit, is getting absolutely flamed by every man and his dog and some of it gets quite nasty. In an interview a reporter tactlessly asks Rebecca "have any of these comments made you cry?" Rebecca attempted to brush the question aside but luckily the reporter was there to remind her of some of the worst ones she's read. "I hope you develope and eating disorder and become attractive" the trashy journo quotes. Rebecca chokes up slightly but manages to brave through it all with more than just a hint of that youthful enthusiasm seen in her video. Rebecca even made a rather humorous video that claimed various bullshit metaphores and subtexts were present in the song, making it much deeper than most people were aware. And that's why I like her I guess. She was way too young to be exposing her crappy pop song to the festering swamps of the internet but at least she is able to shrug it off and have a laugh about it.

So I guess my point here is this. Don't be such a fucking awful jerk. I know it's the internet and you like to shock people with your references to Hitler and suicide. There's a thousand differences between being clever or cynical and just being a plain old cunt. I realise I'm literally powerless to stop such behaviour but I tell you what. If I have at least one crazed fan out there who hospitalizes someone who actually wished death or rape on Rebecca Black then my blog will have been worth it.

The Homework Project

I literally haven't got a clue how many people actually read this blog of mine but for those of you who do so regularly I have an exciting opportunity for you. I have decided to start up a new element to my blog. It's called "I.P ate My Homework" and basically I want my readers to submit to me their homework and I will do my best to do it in a humorous way. This won't, I repeat won't, be a serious attempt and is not intended for you to submit to your teacher. It's just a fun little mockery of how shit the education system is. My only rule is that it not be homework of a higher education level than high school, so no Topology assignments please. You may also feel free to set challenging parameters of your own in place. For example you might ask me that as a part of the essay I must include this topless picture of your mum as an additional text. I honestly don't know how this will play out but I thought it might be a neat little experiment and if it takes off I might attempt to make it a regular thing.

Nintendo 3DS (plus some first impressions of games)

So the Nintendo 3DS has launched in Australia and I have been one of the people lucky enough to have played one. That's not to say I actually own one. But my brother got one launch day and I've done my fair share of dicking around with it. And dicking around is something the 3DS caters for quite nicely, with a whole bunch of pre-installed software that are actually quite reminiscent of the kind of things that Apple bundle with their Macbooks. There's some light-hearted sound sampling and photo taking apps as well as an actually quite fun game, the name of which currently eludes me, in which you can take photo's of people and turn them into enemies you can shoot. It's actually kind of fun and clevey in that it utilizes the camera's in the gameplay and manages to recreate your friends as 3D disembodied heads. Mind you it looks kinda crappy when the heads rip holes in the "real world" revealing void of some sorts. I'm sure it'd be impossible to explain what I mean to anyone who hadn't actually played this game so you'll just have to trust me, it looks like a messy arse.

Speaking of messy I've found it pretty hard to find a nice flat surface in my room to play the Augmented Reality games due to my desk being littered with uni work and miscellaneous crap. But I guess I can't really blame Nintendo for that. What I can blame them for is the tutorial, which failed attrociously to explain if and how I'm supposed to use the other character cards for the AR games. I probably need to explain this. You see the 3DS comes with a small collection of cards (like trading cards) with the idea that you can use the AR software and the 3DS camera to inject 3D models into your room or wherever you happen to have set down the card. It actually works really well and manages to quite convincingly manipulate the top of my desk. However the tutorial was pretty skimpy with letting me know what the other cards did. There's one with Link, one with Mario, one with Kirby, etc. and the game sort of hints that they can be used so that you can take photos that look like Link is running around your kitchen or Samus is pole dancing in the palm of your hand but I can't for the life of me figure it out based on the tutorial alone. I suppose I could read the instruction manual but quite frankly I haven't had to read one of those for a game in well over a decade and I don't much feel like breaking that streak just so I can take pictures of Kirby picking lint out of my bellybutton.

So anyway, on to the games. The real games. The ones that you have to buy separate and are designed to have lasting appeal. And after seeing the current launch titles available for the 3DS you could be forgiven for thinking there really aren't any real games at all. There are several renditions of Nintendogs, which only differ significantly from their DS predecessors in that they now have cats too. Mostly it's a bunch of stuff I don't give a crap about. My brother got two games for 3DS; Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and the even more absurdly titled Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars 3D. Shadow Wars 3D actually reminded me a lot of the Advance Wars game in that it's a sort of turn based RTS mixed genre  type thing and I actually saw quite a lot of potential in there from the opening mission I played. SSF IV 3D was also pretty cool and featured some interesting new fighting angles to take advantage of the whole 3D thing and some neat touch screen stuff that will help balance out the slightly fiddley controls. The story for SSF IV 3D is fairly typical of the series. There's some very evil organisation that wants to do something evil to the world but nobody quite knows what and they figure the best way to achieve this evil goal is to hold a fighting tournament. I know not a single sane person on the planet plays Street Fighter games for their gripping narrative but I don't really understand why there needs to be such a complex shambles of a story just to set up a series of situations in which people bitch slap each other for 2 minutes or so.

In closing I see a lot of potential in the 3DS and I'd say that the console is largely selling off of that. The 3D effect works extremely well and, as Nintendo seemed quite keen to bang on about, you don't need to wear any glasses for it. There are quite a number of interesting games for the 3DS on the horizon, although I can't for the life of me figure out why they haven't got at least one of them ready for launch? I also find it amusing that so many of the titles of the games announced for the 3DS have the word 3D in them. It's kind of like we've come full circle from over a decade ago when people would put the word 3D in the title because it had a 3D model in it or because you could rotate your character 360 degrees. I mean that infamous SNES game Noah's Ark 3D was boasting 3D in it's title and that game looks like a garbage pancake. It makes me feel kind of old as I scoff at the absurdity of it all. But when The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D finally comes out my snorts of smug superiority will no doubt be silenced somewhat as I suck Nintendo's dick.

Tuesdays, Pens and Cornettos

It struck me recently just how little my blog actually resembles the classic blog model. I don't indulge you with what I ate for breakfast (cereal). I've never opened up to the blogosphere and poured my heart out like a whiney teenager (I don't have a heart). And I flat out refuse to run crying back to my blog to bog myself down in self reflection and pseudo philosophical bullshit everytime I misinterpret a social neuance like I'm trying to mirror the life of a character from Sex and the City. But having said that the whole point for starting this blog in the first place, I mean appart from Lucy telling me I should, was that I had found myself stuck in a rut and thought that a blog might get my creative wanking muscles nice and strong again. But after doing this thing for a few years now it's become increasingly apparent that I'm slipping into a new rut. A rut consisting of me swearing and telling you how much I love/hate some movie/game. So after experiencing a rather strange day I decided I'd share with you some of the anecdotes and musings I went through in what will hopefully be an entertaining manner more resembling the blogs of my peers.

So it was a Tuesday. And Christ what a dick of a day Tuesday is. As my inevitable second day in a row getting about 5 or less hours of sleep, I find that getting up at 9am to drag my unenthused arse to a dimly lit lecture room to watch a powerpoint slide predominantly featuring long and samey reaction mechanisms warrents a hard earned nap afterwards. Except I never quite get around to napping. I have a 2 hour gap between the time I get home and my afternoon chemistry workshop which is exactly enough time to strip down, dim the lights, get under the covers, try to sleep, fail, get back up and put all your clothes back on just in time to do it all over again.

Now this brings me nicely to the first of my little anecdots. Whilst waiting for my workshop up at the campus cafe I discovered to my absolute horror that I lacked any and all writing utensils, having gotten them out at home in an ill-conceived attempt at study. I didn't much fancy the idea of sitting in an intimate classroom with 5 other students and my lecturer whilst they busily scribbled out answers to the worksheet and I was stuck trying to look like I'm in a deep state of engagement and understanding with  molecular symmetry. I was also hungry and so concluded that the best option for the slaughtering of these two birds would be to visit the campus newsagent. So I grabbed a pen and a Cornetto (more on that later) and paid some rediculous price that made me curse my horrible scatter brain and left to attend the workshop. I arrived a good 10 minutes early and so I killed some time playing Pokemon. Some of my lecturers from other classes popped in and out of the room to grab textbooks, all the while trying not to look like my unexplained presence in the room was making them feel uneasy. So I waited. And waited. I checked the time and it soon became apparent that the workshop wasn't on and I was the only one who hadn't gotten the menu. The first thought that came to mind was "Fuck! I just bought a pen too." My second thought was how pathetic my first thought was. So I packed my stuff and left the room and I have to tell you there is nothing like the feeling of embarrasment you get as you shamefully slip out of an classroom you have been seen loitering in for a good 15 mins by people who have the power to fail you.

Now back to my Cornetto tale. Just let me qualify by saying "I fucking love Cornetto's". After many years of indiscriminantly eating icecreams of all sorts it's one of few left standing that I can still get excited about. It's the chocolate, the cone, the nuts, the complete lack of any boring bits the whole way down. Or so I thought. Street's have long claimed that Cornetto's have "no boring bits" because the chocolate and nuts are not just toppings but also make up a sort of confectionary spine that runs the whole way down the cone. But I have managed to isolate a sizable area in the icecream that I think qualifies as boring and it occurs between the aforementioned spine and the topping layer above the surface. It's not much, but it's there and it consists of about a mouthful of just the icecream. This area has been noticably present on the past three occassions in which I've dinned on a Cornetto. But who gives a fuck? I personally I still love Cornetto's and only really mention this as it is the sort of casual, brown-cardigan-wearing rubbish that my fellow "bloggers" tend to dribble on about as they try desperately to make a real human connection across this bleak void of ones and zeros. The rest of my day consisted of dinner and procrastination. So there we have it. That was my attempt at a "real blog". Don't complain, it's not like you pay me for this shit anyway. Besides we all know that in a weeks time I'll be back with a movie I hate and a short list of words I can substitute for "shit."

Pokemon Black and White

With as much time passing between posts as this I find it quite hard to get the ball rolling again. A lot of stuff has happened in the past 2 months, both personal and impersonal, and with each passing day it feels like I'm going to have to do a better and better post in order to grab the spotlight once again. Speaking of grabbing the spotlight again it has been mere days since the release of Pokemon Black and White versions and the consequential dawning of the inevitable 5th generation of pokemon. So now that I've drawn your attention away from my neglectful blogging I think it's high time I reviewed the new Pokemon games.

It's actually hard to know where to begin when reviewing a Pokemon game. It seems somewhat rediculous to try and introduce and explain Pokemon in any way to give context to the review because in this day and age it feels a little bit like being tasked with explaining the internet. Most people already know at least something about it to a certain extent and those that don't will be so disinterested that they are certainly not going to be reading this blog post ever. So lets cut that bullshit right out and skip straight to Black and White.

If you have ever played Pokemon Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, LeafGreen, FireRed, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, SoulSilver, Heartgold or any combination of the above then basically everything I'm about to tell you will sound as familiar as your own name. You start up the game as a youthful boy or girl who lives in a small town consisting of your mum, a family who live next door with an only child of roughly the same age, a few nameless randoms who wander around outdoors a lot and a world renowned Pokemon Professor who shares a name with a species of tree. You're character is still a mute gimp who gets praised as a hero when really all they ever do is get dragged into any shit that happens to be going on nearby. Before too long you and your peer are given a choice between a water, grass or fire pokemon, given a pokedex and pushed out of your nest so that you may topple the plans of an evil organization, battle a legendary pokemon and become the pokemon champion for the region. Speaking of legendary pokemon we have now reached the point where 47 pokemon are officially considered legendary, which somewhat undermines the feeling of awe you might've once felt for them. I'd also like to point out how silly it is that there are so many pokemon legends and stories being passed around these different towns and regions and that not a single one of them turns out to be wrong. It's akin to all the worlds religions becoming completely validated all within a few decades.

Anyway so back to the story arc. Pokemon Black and White sticks pretty faithfully to the previous generation's story arcs but I must say it does step it up the tiniest bit by making a morally ambiguous antagonist called N. N is something of a rogue member of the aforementioned evil corporation but his motivations are actually sympathetic and even admirable. I wouldn't want to "spoil" things for you but let me just say that even though for the most part the story of pokemon black and white differs from previous stories only in names and character models there are one or two moments that will feel different and interesting, even if they game doesn't take things far enough.

But you know what? Fuck the story! Nobody's playing pokemon for it's gripping and epic narrative (however welcome I think it would be to the series). All anyone really cares about is new moves and new pokemon and while I'm not really an obsessive enough loser to comment on the new moves I certainly can comment about the new pokemon. Initially I, like many many others, thought that the new pokemon looked generally uninspired and dull. While this certainly is the case for a few of them many of the new ones have actually grown on me a lot. There is one that is literally a bag of rubbish with a face whilst there's another one that is modelled like a giant ice cream cone. It's a mixed bag that I'm generally happy with and there are quite a few new and unique type combinations for all you fellow strategy nerds out there. But it's a personal thing of course and whether or not you think the current generation are balls or not really comes down to personal taste and how you value your pokemon.

Mechanics wise things have been tweaked here and there and various small features have been stuck about the place that will appeal to varying extents but really there really isn't anything new here. Pokemon Black and White play more like expansions to the generation 4 pokemon games than proper sequels. Despite a few bells and whistles it's clear that the pokemon series is stagnating but how much that bothers you is another question entirely. Whilst I'm totally aware that the series is in dire need of a dramatic shake up I also can't honestly say I'm not enjoying the new games. So what can you really do about it? It's a winning formula that is currently guarenteed to make Gamefreak and Nintendo millions of dollars. Perhaps the 3DS will inspire the developers to shake things up a bit?