I've been relatively busy lately. I plan to finish that Ants comic pretty soon. In the mean time, I've got a quick run down of what I've been up to.
E-bay: Addictive
Snake Eater Figure: Oh man
Metal Gear Solid 4: Okay
Metal Gear Online: Awesome
Playstation 3: Not bad
Blu-Ray: Fucking sweet
Get Smart: Hilarious
Wall-E: Pretty good
Izzo's: Tastey
Arby's: Tastier
Pepto-Bismol: Thank god
Migraines: Not awesome
Stress: Also, not awesome
Work: Super not awesome
Programming: Ugh
Grad School: Fuck yes
Mustaches: Dapper
That is all.
~Ben
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Monday, June 30, 2008
The Run Down
Monday, June 16, 2008
Metal Gear Solid 4
Ever since my friend, Thomas, got me involved with Metal Gear Solid all those years ago, I've been a huge fan. My interest in MGS borders on obsession. With that in mind, I think it's an understatement to say that I've been excited about the release of Metal Gear Solid 4. I took two days off of work in anticipation of its release. I bought the $600 limited edition PS3 bundle straight from Konami. And I've been playing the game, more or less, nonstop since I first plugged the machine into my TV on Thursday afternoon.
I don't plan on talking about the plot much, but there will probably be some spoilers that come in the following paragraphs. You've been warned.
My official opinion: It's pretty okay.
The first time I played through it, my final time was around 21 hours. Less than about half of that was spent actually playing the game. That means that over half of the game was cut-scenes. Beautiful cut-scenes, they may be, but there gets to a point that enough is enough. I like to play my games.
When you do get to play, though... The gameplay is interesting. The button layout is altered drastically in favor of a more standard FPS layout... Should buttons = triggers... Left stick = move... Right stick = move camera. Once you get used to it, it works out pretty well. I also enjoy additions to Snake's moves. He can now jump sideways, crawl super slowly like an inch worm, roll onto his back, couch-walk, and preform a plethora of CQC moves. They introduced CQC in MGS3, so good old Solid Snake never had that kind of physical prowess. It's pretty fun.
The Octocamo is pretty neat. You can just blend in with the environment. You still have a camo index (ala MGS3), but they don't really talk much about how the radar was improved (which they really should have... when I found out that it showed the radius that Snake is visible from... It blew my mind). You don't get any special powers from the camo, though. And you can only collect a few of the patterns for later use. Supposedly you'll be able to download new patterns, but I can't see it making much of a difference. It seems that instead of collecting camo patterns, there's more a focus on collecting weapons. Which brings me to my next point.
One aspect of the game that seemed to be a double edged sword is Drebin and his shop. You get points for collecting duplicate guns from your enemies. You can then use these points to purchase new weapons and ammo. This is kind of cool because there are a few really fun weapons (my favorite: the shotgun). Also, you never run out of ammo. This is important because you do a lot of battling.
Unfortunately, there's too much battling. MGS has always been about stealth and cunning. MGS4 downplays the stealth in favor of giving you big guns that you can use to tear up the battlefield. And when I say "battlefield" I mean "battlefield". You're not really on a sneaking mission. You're on a battlefield trying to get from point A to point B while avoiding and/or killing the two opposing factions. The play areas are huge and difficult to sneak across. It's almost too sweeping.
Another thing that bothered me was the codec. There were only 2 codec stations. One of my favorite parts of MGS3 was the ridiculous radio chatter. It's a shame that with all those returning characters, they couldn't squeeze in more codec chats. They could have cut back on the cut scenes and increased the number of optional codec chats. I guess it was just easier to advance the story this way.
Speaking of which... the story was pretty good. It tied up all the loose ends and explained everything that needed explaining. It was a fantastic conclusion to a fantastic series. That being said... I did find some of the plot a little far fetched. Even for MGS. It seems to me that it suffered from the same thing that X3 suffered from: They tried to press too much story into to small a space. Even with 12 hours of cut scenes, it felt rushed.
Also, I'm not a fan of the whole nanomachine thing. That's their explanation for everything these days. Nanomachines did this. Nanomachines did that. It just gets old for me. In MGS4, everyone is a clone or part clone or a science experiement or enhanced by nanomachines. All the bosses were child soldiers with nanomachines and robot suits (or something... just go with it).
I think the main reason I liked MGS3 better is because Naked Snake / Big Boss is just a man. A super awesome man, but a man non-the-less. The same goes for all the other characters. They're all just men (except for The Boss, who is a woman, and Volgin, who was part lightning bolt).
Anyway... With all that said, I still really enjoyed the game. It was fun. So fun, I played it twice (and just started on a 3rd go). As said before, however, the cut-scene-to-play-time ratio is just really poor. That's where Metal Gear Online comes in.
I'm willing to excuse the lack of game play because the story needed to be told. Thankfully, Metal Gear Online was included in the pack. Metal Gear Online is essentially the MGS4 game mechanics (typically minus the octo camo) in an online multiplayer environment.
When you sign up, initially, you get to create your own character. You can customize your face, clothing, voice, and special skills. You can then take your character into deathmatches and team battles and capture the flag. Instead of the immortal Solid Snake, you get to play as a regular guy ( Naked Snake? ) put in a battle field situation with no story and no cutscenes. Just game play.
It's really a lot like a combination of Halo and Counter-Strike as far as match making goes. But when you get into the match, you've go all of Snake's bad-ass moves and MGS4-style gameplay. Other than the lack of interesting codec conversations about shit-tanks, it's my perfect game.
So, to sum up:
Metal Gear Solid 4 is pretty okay. It's a fantastic conclusion and wraps up all the loose ends. Personally, I prefer Metal Gear Solid 3, mainly because it's got a more human feel to it. In no way do I regret my purchase because even though MGS4 may not have a ton of replay value... MGO will keep me occupied for quite some time.
At least... It'll keep me occupied until I get fed up with douchebags with no lives who use cheap moves to destroy casual gamers like myself. (When I typed "man, I really suck lol!", some asshat actually told me all I needed was practice. This game hasn't been out for a week yet and this tool thinks he's the shit because he's been doing nothing all weekend but learning all the cheap tricks required to pwn noobs who played through the single player game first. Fuck you, asshole.)
Until next time,
~Ben
PS: Snake's mustache is fireproof. I like to think it's the awesomeness and not the nanomachiens that make it so.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
I Love Music: Hey Driver
Okay... I'm in the middle of the first new Poonheads strip in forever and what do I do? I take a break from updating to bring you this latest earworm.
I've never heard of these guys before and actually didn't even know their name until this evening. I heard this song on Pandora today (on my Andrew WK station... what's up with that?) and it's been stuck in my head all day. It's really catchy with a nice hardcore aesthetic and a poppy hook that, together, create something rather pleasing to my ears.
I present to you, Hey Driver by Lucky Boys Confusion.
BTW: I'm still working on the comic. Just in case you were wondering. Though it may get put off for some time if I don't finish it before MGS4 comes out.
~~Ben
Resources:
LBC on Amazon:
(http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link%5Fcode=qs&field-keywords=Lucky%20Boys%20Confusion&sourceid=Mozilla-search)
LBC on Wikipedia:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Boys_Confusion)