This Gaming Life Part IV: Moving Forward (A-B)

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I've been working on a blog I plan on titling "My Copasetic Week", but I have video game fever and I feel that it's a good time that I continue my "This Gaming Life" segment. I typically write about the games I play and enjoy and their impact on me, but there are too many games that I've played and not enough time in the world to talk about them.  New games are coming out and I was thinking about testing my review skills (if I have any) and write out a review on a few new things I plan on playing.  So instead of taking the rest of my life to talk about games I've played in the past, I'm going to go down the alphabet and list every game I've played starting with the given letter to get them all out of the way.  I may forget some, or a lot, but I'm bored and I don't really care.  Seriously, if the game wasn't even good enough for me to remember, then it's not good enough for me to write about.  I think I'll go ahead and rate them too. I'll provide a key so you can see how my grading scale works. Do me a favor and try to remember that my ratings are based on my own personal opinion.  Don't get butt hurt if I say Barbie's Horse Adventures sucked ass because I'll hate you forever.  I'll also write a paragraph next to each one to create the illusion that this blog post actually took a lot of effort.  Since I’ve played so many games, this segment will be released in multiple different parts depending on the length.  Enjoy my obsessive compulsive disorder.

 
Key:       F=Favorite          G=Good               M=Meh                               S=Sucked
 
0-10

1 Vs 100  

It’s safe to say that I’m a fan of trivia games, but 1 Vs 100 raised the bar compared to any trivia game I’ve ever played.  It was online and I got to play against millions of people during a live show.  If a player was doing well he/she would have the opportunity to be picked to have their avatar showcased either as the One or as a member of the Mob (100).  I never got selected because I must not be as smart (or lucky) as I thought, but the game was a complete blast because I got to play along with the contenders anyway.  My grade for it is F.  The game only lasted two seasons though, RIP 1v 100.

A:
 
A Kingdom for Keflings
A World of Keflings  

Using my avatar, I run around as giant among a bunch of tiny people (the Keflings) and I help build their town for them.  The whole purpose is to build everything that you possibly can given the blueprints you’re provided.  Although some features were added or expanded on in the second game, it still didn’t make it thrilling enough to make me want to play it more than once.  However for the times I played through both of them, I had a lot of fun.  My rating for both is G.



 
Aegis Wing
 
No joke, I played this game once and it was for a whopping ten minutes.  I found it rather difficult and boring.  Why play this game when I can own n00bs at Halo?  Taking that into consideration along with the fact that I don’t even remember how this game is played, I give it an M.

 
Age of Empires (1 and 2)
 
 Real time strategy at its best.  Building empires and destroying your neighbor countries is such a blast.  With many different nations to choose from and a few different ways to win, these games can keep me occupied on a very boring weekend.  It’s been years since I’ve played them though so I say it’s time for an old school gaming night on my computer.  I sure do miss taking my priests around and converting all of my enemies and their buildings so that the entire map is dotted red (my team’s color).  I give them both an F.
 

Alan Wake
 
Alan Wake is an awesome anti-hero.  An author who’s plagued with writers block battles the darkness to find his wife who went missing during their vacation at the small town of Bright Falls.  Using a flashlight to dissipate the darkness surrounding his enemies and then spraying them with bullets is a very unique way to fight.  The game is creepy, dark, and riveting, which is just enough to make me fall in love with it.  The story itself is just icing on the cake, so I give this amazing psychological thriller an F and it’s easily one of my favorite games of all time.

 
Amped
Amped 2
Amped 3  
I haven’t really always been a huge fan of the skate around and do tricks to get a high score type of games (i.e. Tony Hawk), but Amped hooked me from the second I played it.  Featuring snowboarding rather than skateboarding, Amped provided a very neat environment that let me do more than just mediocre tricks to rack up a high score.  My favorite part had to be running over the shit talking snowmen.  Actually finding them required a little adventuring through the environments.  The third game almost ruins the series for me, though.  The metamorphosis was for the worst.  The game became a dull cartoon with a storyline which made it so lame that Tony Hawk actually seemed more enjoyable.  Amped 1 and 2 I give an F, Amped 3 I give an S.

 
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed 2
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations  
 You’ll see me utter this phrase many times in this blog, I love sandbox style games.  Assassin’s Creed places me in the shoes of Desmond Miles, a modern day assassin who is kidnapped by his rivals, the Templars.  Using a special machine dubbed the Animus, the Templars view history through Desmond’s bloodline in search of a missing artifact that has amazing power.  Mixing in a loosely accurate vision of the Third Crusade and ancient Italy, we follow the lives of Altair and Ezio at the times in their lives leading up to and after their encounter with the artifact.  Jumping across rooftops and assassinating the bad guys as discreetly as possible is just one of the many things that make Assassin’s Creed one of my favorite games.  I could go on about this game for pages and pages galore so I’ll leave it at this.  I will say that the games make me want to learn more about the history of the cities and people involved and it’s the first time a video game had that effect on me.  My rating for all four games is F.

 
B:

 
Battlefield 2
Battlefield Bad Company

 

I played Battlefield 2 quite a bit back on the old Xbox and although I don’t really remember the story I did enjoy the fighting.  I was able to fast travel to any ally on the map and take control of their person.  It really opened up a lot of strategy when attacking certain points and it helped make flanking the enemy much easier.  That and knowing that if I died I could just play as someone else made the game pretty simple.  Bad Company is a great game as well; however, I played it during a time where I was using gamefly.  The problem with playing it during that time is that I only cared about getting the achievements for the games as fast as possible so I could get my money’s worth.  Bad Company was my breaking point because I was enjoying the game’s story and action, but I was too hell bent on getting the achievements earlier rather than later.  I sent the game back without finishing it and cancelled my subscription right away.  The game was very fun though and the story was pretty compelling (for me anyway), so I’ll have to pick it up in the future.  I rate both of these games a G.

 
Baluder's Gate
 
It’s unfair for me to even attempt to rate this game.  It was given to me as a gift over ten years ago and I can’t remember it to save my life.  The only reason I put it on this list is because my Uncle was the person who gave it to me and he’d probably ask me why it wasn’t on here.  Sorry Eric, I don’t remember anything about this game.

 
Bejeweled  

Puzzle games are good for when I’m bored and can’t find a game I want to play.  They’re even fun to do when you’re playing them on your palm pilot in history class.  I use to pretend I was taking notes on it but was getting murdered at Bejeweled instead.  Bejeweled is one of the better puzzle games I’ve played and I can’t help but wonder if this game founded the, match these colors to get rid of them, type of puzzle.  I give it a G even though I suck at it.

 
Bioshock
Bioshock 2
 
I’ve never been a huge multiplayer person outside of Gears of War and Halo, so I’m pretty appreciative of games like Bioshock that don’t include multiplayer at all.  Why?  I like it because all efforts are focused on the story.  The stories in games are the reason I even play at all. Beneath the center of the ocean lies a fractured community living in the city of Rapture.  This city was created to allow creatively gifted people who don’t like being constrained by the morals of society a place to live and create freely.  Unfortunately a civil war broke out and ravaged the entire underwater utopia, ironically because of some of the freely created products.  Our character finds himself roaming around the city after surviving a plane crash and being guided down via a submarine located in the conveniently placed lighthouse in the middle of the ocean.  This was the first game that I ever played that allowed me to utilize crazy powers from my left hand such as ice, fire, and bees, while at the same time I shot faces with the gun in my right.  Both games really creeped me out and the stories were truly dark, twisted, and epic, however, the second game had a disgraceful multiplayer added to it.  It wasn’t completely crappy, but at the same time I'd get bored with it after thirty minutes and in the end I felt the single player story suffered quite a bit.  Bioshock 1 gets an F; Bioshock 2 gets a G, only because they added a multiplayer to it.  Here is a nice little quote I enjoyed from the creator of Rapture, Andrew Ryan.

"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question.  Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.'  I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible.  I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small!  And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."

Blazing Angels  
I’m not a huge fan of flying games or World War games, but I do have to give props to Blazing Angels for making a game that didn’t really suck.  I know one reader of this blog would disagree, but that’s okay.  I enjoyed the game despite the fact that it made me dizzy and often nauseous because of the upside down flying while chasing an enemy who likes going in circles.  I only played this game once and that’s honestly all its worth.  The story wasn’t really compelling at all and after playing through the entire game, I was tired of flying all together.  It’s a good game, but not a favorite, I give it a G.

Blitz the league
 
I hate this game.  Thanks to EA games buying the rights to be the only company to make an NFL games, NFL Blitz took a blow and instead Midway put this piece of garbage out.  None of the NFL teams are featured in the game (thanks E.A.), a storyline was added, and the violence on the field was blatantly over the top, and not in the cool way the series is known for.  The game was much better when it was over the top goofy and fast paced.  Don’t buy or play this game, ever, you’ll wish you got your time and money back.  Obviously I give this game an S.

Bloodwake  
Bloodwake is a very unique game.  It’s the only game I’ve ever played that features a gunboat as the main battle technique.  It was very hard though and I was never able to complete the game.  Perhaps the reason I never finished the game is because I played it when I was young and impatient.  I did spend a considerable amount of time playing the multiplayer though because I just drove around in a large body of water shooting down all the other boats in my view.  It’s a great game for some mindless fun, but the difficulty (in my case) could have been debatable.  I give it a G.

Borderlands                
For the longest time, it was hard for me to break away from my gaming roots, first person shooters.  Fortunately I began to explore role playing games (RPG) and it’s a fortunate thing I did because I could have missed out on a game that became such a favorite.  The first thing that intrigued me was that the game featured first person shooter elements with RPG elements.  Borderlands placed me on the desolate planet of Pandora as one of four playable fortune seekers hoping to get inside the legendary unopened vault.  Throughout the duration of the game I got to meet several memorable characters including the claptrap, a comedic robot that kept the dialogue entertaining.  In fact, the entire game is very comical with a side of seriousness (but mostly funny).  Granted the story wasn’t the best I’ve seen in video games, especially in an RPG, but going around and killing everything and gathering all the loot my heart can desire made the game fun.  Also, leveling up my character as well as all my weapon classes and my pet bird (I named him Charlie) has made the game a must play again, and again, and again.  It’s one of my favorite games ever, so that’s the rating it get’s, F.

Bourne Conspiracy, The  
Robert Ludlum is a genius.  He wrote the original Bourne trilogy and they became some of my favorite books ever.  Granted his writing style is rather slow and full of detail, which probably puts a lot of people off, but the stories are great.  The movies they were turned into were great as well; even though the plots went in a different direction than the books that inspired them.  The game itself is based off the movies and it was actually a lot more fun that I thought it would have been.  Third person format shooting and melee combat really made this game unique and true to the movies.  I already knew the ending of the game before I even played it, but strolling through and kicking ass using krav maga really made my day.  The game is extremely scripted and probably only good for a onetime play through, but I do recommend it highly and please, for the love of God, don’t take the driving sequence for granted, it was my favorite sequence in the game.  I rate this game G.

Bulletstorm  
I’m almost certain you’ve never played a game quite like Bulletstorm.  Developed by the Epic owned “People Can Fly”, this over the top shooter writes a new chapter in the FPS saga.  There are many different types of shooters and they all mostly focus on the mission at hand as well as              spraying bullets and grenades in everyone’s face that isn’t an ally.  Well, Bulletstorm has the gamer adding skill to their kills, and even rewarding them points for their creativity.  That’s right, instead of running into a room and dominating it with relentless gunfire, I walk into a room and observe the environment.  Why?  Well if I kick that dude into the cactus I could get quite a few points, or if I use my leash to lasso that guy into the air and then shoot his head off with my flare gun, then I’ll be rewarded handsomely.  I could just kick the guy in the balls and then curb stop his head.  Yeah, this sounds over the top and it’s because it is.  Bulletstorm’s over the top game play accompanied by raunchy dialogue really made me wonder if a group of adolescent rejects made the game, but I digress.  If you’re looking for something new, I recommend trying this game.  I’ve beat it at least three times and I’m still not bored of it yet, I rate it F.  The video I’m posting will contain a lot of foul language and possible spoilers; proceed with caution. 

Burnout Revenge

Burnout is a classic and beautiful racing game.  That's all that really needs to be said. Revenge I found to be pretty difficult, but that was like five years ago when I played it last.  Now that I'm older and wiser, I think I'd be able to go back, beat the game, and then go through it again with the awesome fast cars that I unlocked in my first play through.  Genius!  Perhaps the most fun              I've had with the game was with the wreck mode.  Basically, you drive as fast as you can through a certain traffic scenario and try your best to cause the biggest accident possible.  In order to get all the stars for it you must rack up a certain number of dollars in damage.  So getting creative with auto destruction is disturbingly fun. I give this game a G.

Stay tuned for more in the continuation of Part IV.