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.               

What Will the Future Hold

Okay, so I know it’s been close to two months since I last posted and I have a very good reason.  I was working, playing video games, spending time with the family, enjoying the holidays, and enduring a minor case of writer’s block.  Okay, so the last one may not be entirely true.  I have been working on a blog and let me tell you it’s massively long.  It’s the Part IV continuation of “This Gaming Life”.  I’m rather tired of talking about games of the distant past and I’d like to talk about the games that I’m playing now.  Part IV is my way of letting the past stay where it is so I can move forward.

This current post is just a quick update for the three people who read this to know what’s going on with me.  I know it’s been a couple of months since my last post so I decided to take a break from the incredibly long blog I’m working on to tell you what’s been up.  So where do I begin?   Okay how about the part where I’m getting administratively discharged from the military because I cannot pass my physical training (PT) test.  I’m proud that I can honestly say that I did the best I could.  I went down fighting and in the end I only missed passing by two seconds on the 1.5 mile run.  The Air Force has recently changed their requirements for the PT test and I have problem with it.  First off, I only struggled once with the old standards and that was due to my own negligence.  The Air Force tests its members in four separate areas to determine whether or not they’re fit enough to sit at a desk for nine hours a day.  In order to pass you need to get a score of at least 75%.  On top of that, each category has a minimum requirement you must reach in order to pass.  You can do amazing in everything except sit ups and get a final score of 78, which is a passing score, but you still fail because you didn’t do the minimum amount of sit ups required.  How crazy is it that you can reach a passing overall score yet are still deemed unfit to serve your country?

The same concept works for passing all of the minimum requirements and still failing to get a 75%.  It just seems to me that it would make sense to have all the minimum requirements add up to 75 which would make the goals rather easy for people to reach.  I passed all stages of the test and still failed overall by like .6 or .8.  It was a bitter pill for me to swallow, but I had to suck it up and press on because in the end I had left everything out on that track and I couldn’t have asked for more.  You can ask the guy I had pacing me if you want verification.  I’m not going to give you any of his personal information though, but seriously, if he wasn’t there I would have bombed it.  He kept pushing me though.

“Dude, I can’t breathe, I’m going to die”

“You can die after the run!  Let’s go!”

Well I must have been on someone’s good graces because my commander asked me if I wanted to test again.  I said yes.  What else would I say in that situation?  I am on the verge of being deemed a big piece of shit because I suck at running.  It doesn’t matter that I’m a pretty good Airman as far as work goes, if you suck at PT, you’re a dirt bag.      

“Okay, we’ll have you signed up for next Monday.”

What?  That’s only three days between tests.  It’s mandated that you’re supposed to have at least 45 days in between tests for proper rest and rebuilding.  I wasn’t going to turn it down though because I only missed the test by two seconds.  Get me back out there that second day and everything was the same.  I even did two more sit ups for good measure.  When we were out there running, something felt different.  I was more energized and fueled with an abundance of adrenaline that I didn't understand why I failed the last test at all.  I was feeling good about this.  We were actually cruising so fast that had we finished at that pace, it would have been a twelve minute time, a minute and sixteen seconds faster than the last test.  I don’t know what happened though, we started out on the fourth lap and at the end of the first turn I felt myself plunging forward.  I landed on my knees and my face, but I didn’t feel any of it because my stomach sinking was the only thing I could feel.  I wound up finishing the test a whole minute slower than my last time.

Sure the lady running the test told me that I shouldn’t have been testing again so soon, but the commander can make me do whatever he wants me to.  Twice I was doing great and twice I came up short like a total noob.  Perhaps this whole situation is just a blessing in disguise.  If you know me personally, it’s no secret that I don’t really like being in the military.  I can’t stand it and I feel that it’s hindering everything I want to become.  I want to program video games and write novels and game scripts, not sit behind a desk all day copying medical records.  What kind of life is that?  My stripe was taken from me, the fifth test in a row went on my record, and to make matters worse, I was never able to find out whether or not I made my next rank. So now I go to work every day as a five year veteran wearing the same rank as people who have been in for 6 months.  Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.

So here is what I know.  I’m being discharged most likely within the month.  It’s quite hard to tell exactly when my final day will be because I have yet to be “officially” notified.  I was given a heads up on the final decision though so I’ve already began my preparation.  Months ago I applied for my GI Bill benefits and just recently I submitted my medical records to the VA so I can collect my benefits from them as well.  Everything seems to be falling into place, in a strange kind of way.  Our plan is to have me attend school full time for computer science all while being a stay at home dad.  I’ll have my bachelors near the end of 2012 so it’s not too far off in the future, assuming I’m able to attend school full time.  I should be able to though, there is nothing hindering me.  On top of it, I’ll get to spend more time with my children and work on my book!

I still can’t help but to be nervous though.  I attended a week long course called TAPS, which is designed to assist military members in crossing back over into civilian life.  I found it quite funny that when I signed the documents to join the military I was scared, confused, nervous, and excited all at the same time.  I was given training and everything turned out all right.  Now here I am experiencing all of those same feelings about becoming something I was just nearly six years ago.  A civilian.  It’s what I’ve wanted almost the entire time I’ve been in, but I’m scared.  I didn’t have a wife and two children when I first joined.  How am I supposed to support them now?  Sure my wife works, but I had a housing allowance, food allowance, and free medical care for my entire family while I was serving.  Now I won’t have any of that! 

The life lessons I’ve learned are tough and I hope that in the future I can show my children through the wisdom of these tough lessons, the smart way to tackle the tough road of life that lies ahead of them.  I just hope they’re not as stubborn as me and actually take the advice handed down to them by people who have experienced their own rough journey in this world.

So here we are, at the end of an era and I’d like to say a few things about the military.  Many of you who know me know that it would be unlike me if I weren’t bitching about being in the military.  I’m the first person to admit that I don’t like being controlled.  When you sign that dotted line, you sign your life away.  No longer do you go to work for your nine to five and then forget about work when you’re off.  In the military you’re on the clock night and day, including weekends and holiday vacations.  I was called into work at three in the morning one time just to pee in a cup.  I didn’t want to go into work with the rest of my squadron for a random drug test, but I did because I didn’t want to go to jail.  It’s the minor things like that, that just irritate the shit out of me.  I hate being tasked with twenty different things other than my primary duty and not getting paid more money for it.  I still get paid the same amount no matter how much work gets added onto my plate

I could go on for pages and pages about all the things I despise about the military, but here’s something you should know about me.  I’m a chronic whiny bitch.  I’ve bitched about every single job that I’ve ever had and not once have I really looked at the positive, not until I joined the military.  I may not like the military, but not because of the stupid petty reasons I could list off.  Instead, I don’t like the military because it’s a lifestyle that is not meant for people like me.  I’ve never adapted to the military way of life and it’s ironic to me that I didn’t because I grew up as a military brat!  My dad is retired military, so wouldn’t that mean it should be easy for me to adapt to the same lifestyle I had growing up?  I guess not.  I know people who were born and bred to serve in the military and they gladly place their life on the line for this country and their fellow Americans and wouldn’t dream of any other job.  I wish I could say I was one of those people, but I’m destined for other things. 

My time in the military was far from wasteful and I’ll actually be walking away with a lot of new wisdom that I lacked six years ago.  I’m walking a lot taller than I ever have and I’m a lot more mature than I use to be.  It’s a great honor and privilege to have even served as a member of the world’s greatest military power.  I’ve learned how to be a leader, a follower, a listener, a speaker, a wingman, a father, a husband, and a contributing member of this society.  I’ll never regret the time I’ve spent serving my country and I’m very grateful to have served at all.  The only thing I do regret is the way I’m departing it.  I wish I could have prepared better and maybe allowed myself the chance to get out on my own terms.  But, nevertheless, farewell to the military.  I will not miss you, but I do thank you for the life lessons you have taught me.  Oh, actually, I will miss the free health care and the thirty days a year of paid vacation.  In the words of Mel Gibson and his completely made up character, William Wallace, “FREEDOM!” 

Blog From Anywhere

The is kind of weird.  I'm sitting on my couch and my computer is so far away, yet I felt like blogging.  My phone has an app for blogger and I'm totally able to write from it.  At the same time it sucks because it makes checking my spelling and grammar difficult as well monitoring the format.

Oh well, we'll make this short and sweet.  I'm a dumbass, this week sucks, and Halo Anniversary comes out soon!  Yay me for blogging on my phone.  Stay tuned for my up coming blog titled,  "My Copacetic Week."

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0

The Do's and Dont's of Game Night

A few friends of mine and I have decided to start a new gaming group. We’ve named it, “I Didn’t Survive.” We figured a zombie theme would be in our best interest because we all seem to have an unnatural obsession with them. That and we had just completed Denver’s Zombie Crawl last weekend so everything seems to fit. Last night we had our first “official” game night, and boy oh boy was it a nasty disaster, in my opinion anyway. I like to consider myself a LAN (local area network) expert and I’ve attended plenty of LAN parties to support this theory. I’ve decided since last night was a disaster, I would help everyone else, including my newly founded group, by explaining the do’s and don’ts of having a game night.


Don’t drink beer on game night if it makes you sleepy. I made this mistake last night and fell asleep during a boring match of Halo Reach’s Firefight mode. I think I got lucky that the other two guys didn’t play the old shaving cream in the face trick.

Do have drinks on hand that are caffeinated and/or hydration savvy to help you avoid my mistake.

Don’t rely on the host to provide everything. Our host tonight actually did provide a lot of extra equipment that we were missing, but this may not always be the case.

Do make it a point to make sure your equipment is working prior to heading over to someone else’s house, also make sure that you don’t forget anything that you’ll need.

Don’t all show up at one location and set up your equipment in separate rooms. This did happen last night and it caused a void in the group because we had no real bond. In addition to that, communication was virtually destroyed which killed any decent co-op progression. We couldn’t even manage to play a good match of Firefight on Halo ODST.

Do choose a location where up to sixteen people can comfortably play games in the same area. Garage spaces, large living rooms, etc all seem to work for this. Being able to talk and communicate without wearing a headset and actually seeing the person you’re talking to makes the gaming portion a lot more fun.

Don’t use the internet to connect to each other. You’ll most likely be distracted by your online friends who aren’t participating in game night. Besides, a group of people playing online together while being in the same house is lame. Seriously, I can play from the warmth of my own home while wearing nothing but my birthday suit if all I’m going to do is sign online. Why drive to someone else’s place for that experience? Last night we had three people in two separate rooms and our communication consisted of Xbox Live’s party chat system. Yikes.

Do set up a LAN the proper way. Everyone needs to connect to the same router which actually allows you to play offline. This is how we oldies did it, before online gaming was as popular as it is now. I’m sure the gamers before my time were in the same boat.

Don’t have a game night if only a few people are going to show, unless you’re game night consist of co-op only. Multiplayer LAN’s require at least eight people for a good time. Less than five is considered atrocious in my book.

Do plan ahead of time and get a solid group of friends that won’t back out at the last second. This will ensure you have a decent night of gaming.

Don’t gloat. Sure, some people are better than others, and some people cheat to have a better score than others (Zach). Gloating about it can potentially ruin the experience for those members who dislike this sort of behavior. The purpose of game night is to bond with your fellow gamers and have fun, not to degrade each other or make each other feel like shit because they’re not as good at something as others are. Some people may have a hard time not talking crap, but trust me, the experience is a lot better if that tension isn’t brought about.

Do have good sportsmanship. It’s vital to make everyone feel like they’re having a good time, because if not, they may not show up to the next LAN party.

Don’t pick a location that is a burden for people to drive to. I hate to poke fun at my buddy Zach, but the dude lives in freaking Kansas and it takes a good thirty plus minutes to drive out to his place. If more than one person is attending, the furthest location may not be ideal.

Do pick relatively convenient place for everyone to get to if it’s a reasonable request. Unfortunately this goes against the people who live farther away than everyone. The majority should rule in this area, so just because the person recommending the game night lives in Asia, as a group you should discuss the whereabouts the even should take place at.

Don’t bring every game you own just because everyone else owns it. You’ll most likely wind up just saying, “So, what do you guys want to play?” This choice should have been made prior to the event start time.

Do pick a theme for game night. Last night we had a disaster because we brought a bunch of games that we all owned, but in the end, we didn’t play half of them. Picking a theme narrows down the game choices and it puts the focus into action. Zombie night is hopefully on the way.

Don’t make the host pay for everything. The event may be taking place at their home and you spend the gas to get there, but remember that this is a group event and the team you should fund it.

Do have everyone pitch in. Each person should be held accountable for bringing something, beer, food, extra TV’s and Xboxes. We actually did great on this last night; our host provided plenty of food and an extra TV, while the two guests provided beer and soda on top of one million dollars in gas to drive to Egypt.

Don’t have a game night with three days notice. If you do this you’ll end up with a disaster bigger than we had last night.

Do plan ahead of time. This is probably the biggest thing that needs to be accomplished because overall it covers everything else I’ve already stated. A week or two in advance you should approach your group members and figure out a great date, time, and location for the event. Then you can see who can bring food, drinks, extra controllers, Xboxes, televisions, etc. If you’re the invited party, make sure you RSVP and if you have to back out, try to give a two day heads up. It’s pretty shady to back out at the last second, especially when you’ve had a two week notice to make up your mind.

To my, group, I hope we have a better game night next time, and to everyone else, I hope this helped, even if it’s just a little bit.

Late Night Random Man

It’s one in the morning and I’m plagued with restlessness that continually hinders my need for sleep. My mind is wandering, thinking of the most random of things. How long has that Windex bottle been sitting on the counter, half full with pale bubbles finding rest at the top of the dark blue liquid? Why does it even matter? It’s not like I use the Windex anyway, only my wife who is utterly motivated to keep things clean is the one who touches it. As I’m thinking this, I can’t help but to be annoyed by the soft, almost inaudible hum of my Xbox. It’s humming as if to say to me, “Dude, you haven’t used me since you finished watching, X-Men: First Class, and I’m just filling up with heat, can you please shut me off?” I could shut it off if I wanted to, but I’m too damn lazy to get off of the couch to find my controller to do so.


Wow, isn’t that lazy? I would most likely spend more time looking for the controller to shut the Xbox off when I could simply set my laptop to my side, lean forward off the tip of the couch, and gently touch the power button on my gaming device. Isn’t that how most of us American’s are nowadays? If we couldn’t find the remote to our television, we would rather spend hours looking for the damn thing rather than walking five steps to manually change the channel or volume straight from the buttons on the TV. Heck, for me it would be more about finding what was lost rather than changing the channel because there would be a little tick in the back of my brain all day (or night) about where the hell the damn thing could have gone. Why is it missing? It should be in the living room because that’s where it resides, but I can’t find it in there. I’d flip the cushions off the couch, dig beneath the fabric to debunk the possibility of it falling all the way to the bottom. I’d move the couches completely just to check under them. Without success, I’d move to the baskets that hide on the bottom shelve of my TV stand to see if it’s down there, I’d check my daughter’s toy box to see if she was messing with it. Half an hour would go by and I’d wind up thirsty. Now I have to take a break from searching for the remote, having already missed that re-run of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” only to find the damn remote sitting on the counter next to the fridge, the same place I left it when I went to concoct a late night meal. If a person was truly lazy, they’d bypass that entire search and change the channel on the TV, that or they’d be stuck watching Barney because moving from the couch is too much of a hassle.

My mind begins to float elsewhere. Have you ever walked down a hallway or sidewalk by yourself and realized that you were approaching another person who was walking in your direction? Depending on my mood, that situation could potentially be excruciatingly annoying. If I’m in a good mood, I’ll probably make eye contact and greet the person for the brief half second we cross paths. If I’m in a grumpy mood I’ll start debating with myself on whether or not I’m going to even look at this person. Do I look at them and say hi, even though another person’s voice could send me off to the deep end? What if I just stare at the ground, blatantly ignoring the fact that they’re even in my presence? I’ve seen people do it where they just stare straight ahead while I make eye contact. They’re looking, even though their eyes are gazing straight ahead, looking at you through their peripherals just to see if you, the person they don’t care to see or speak to, is looking at their display of social rejection. It makes me wonder, if you don’t care to look at or speak with this person, then why worry if they’re looking at your attempt to ignore them? Perhaps it’s to see if your gimmick will pay off. More likely than not, that other person is blocking you out as well, so mission accomplished for both parties.

What happens when we do make eye contact? We say, “Hi, how are you?” Are you kidding me? You don’t give two squirts of dehydrated piss about how that person is doing, yet we feel obligated, the same way we feel obligated to even look at them, to ask. Most people won’t see this as a significant annoyance, but I do. Typically you’re going to answer back with, “Good, how are you?” We utter this phrase knowing damn well that their answer is going to be a thing of the very distant pass just moments after the answer is given. We honestly don’t care how other people are doing, so why the hell do we ask? Can’t we just say hi, or good morning? Has anyone ever given a negative answer to this question from a random stranger?

“Hey, how are you?”

“I’m terrible and I’m contemplating suicide.”

Yeah, really don’t care, good luck with that. What are we suppose to do if something like that pops out of a person’s mouth? Stop them and tell them that they need Jesus? Sure, that would be the right thing to do, but most of us wouldn’t because their self inflicted death wouldn’t be enough to force a tear down our cheeks. Not once has that happened to me and not once have I ever stopped and talked with a stranger about how good we were doing. The only time I’ve talk to random people on the streets is when I’m telling the hobo that I won’t give him money because he’ll probably use it to support his habit that placed him in the predicament he’s in. Are you hungry? Do you want a sandwich? No? Well then fuck off; I don’t pay for other people to get drunk. That reminds me of when my wife and I were walking around downtown Honolulu and we passed this guy that was collecting money to give to the unfortunate people who live on the streets in beautiful sunny Hawaii. We walked right on by, tossing the piece of paper he gave us into the nearest trash can. He could’ve been a con artist for all I knew, why should I fork over that thirty cents I have left over from lunch at Senor Frogs? Not even two blocks down the road, a balding chunky man with a bright and shiny black eye approached us.

“Hey you guys look like you’re military, I can tell.”

“Okay, thanks?”

“Yeah man, I served in Vietnam. Could you help spare a few bucks so I could get something to eat?”

“Can you get on your knees and work for it?”

I didn’t say that last part, but it would have been hilarious if I did right? You might think I’m overly mean to the homeless, but I find it hard that civilizations in the past were able to survive without any of the modern things we have that make our lives fulfilled and easy, yet we have people in America who choose to be lazy and not get jobs. If an illegal immigrant can cross our borders and find work, then why the hell can’t you? This man was chunky so I knew he wasn’t that hungry. Also, the thing that really curbed my pity was the fact that ten steps before he reached us, I could smell vodka and stale beer. If he was so hungry, why did he get plowed instead of nourishing his body? Don’t care, just annoys me.

As a country, we’ve progressively gotten lazier, thanks to the internet and television. Why go to the movie theater when we can load up Netflix on our Xbox and watch movies from there? They may not be brand new, but I don’t feel like spending ten bucks a person on a movie that may or may not suck. Besides, I’d have to grab a shower and get dressed, peel my fat ass away from the couch, get blinded by the sun I haven’t seen in weeks, and drive ALL the way there. Driving makes us lazy too! Holy cow, we live two blocks away from the store, but we’ll take the car anyway. Oh, then what do you do when you get to that store? You drive around the parking lot for half an hour trying to get a spot that isn’t so far away. Lord forbid you have to walk an extra two minutes to make it into Wal-Mart where all you’ll do for the next hour is WALK around looking at insignificant garbage.

Speaking of going to Wal-Mart, don’t you hate it that the extremely obese get to have handicap parking places? I think that if these people are going to get their own spaces to park in, their spots should be located as far from the store as possible. Work off that chunk and you won’t be so out of shape that you have to park twenty feet from the store where you’ll just go up and hop into one of those electric carts that you can drive around because you’re too heavy to even walk. If you can’t get one, you just grab a regular cart and throw your gut over it to hold your weight. I’ve seen you people, so don’t deny it.

Not that I even go to the store anymore. What’s the point when you can buy most of the crap online anyway? Amazon.com is the best, not only are they cheap and tax free, but they bring it to your front door. The same can be said for grocery shopping, hell we even just order the fattiest foods we can get and have them delivered to our home, only to ensure that we put on weight. Video stores are going out of business too, now we can just sit at home and watch instant Netflix, or just have Netflix mail our movies out to us, same with Gamefly for games. To epitomize our laziness, the Xbox will take the cake. Here’s a machine that I can control completely from my fingertips. Turn on, turn off, play games, watch movies, ESPN, Hulu Plus. Man that thing has everything, if it could only collect my games and place them in the disk tray for me, then I’d purchase a couch that comes with a built in toilet and refrigerator and I could stay in one spot for months at a time, increasing my chance of heart failure of course.

You know what else bothers me, that stupid saying, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” At first it pissed me off because I took it literally. Who in their right mind would get themselves a piece of cake and not be able to eat it? That’s like telling me that I can’t have my truck and drive it too. I decided to do some research on who the hell came up with this terrible phrase so that I could find them and kick them for being stupid, only to realize that the saying really means that you can’t eat your cake and expect to have it as well. So if that’s the case, tell me why the saying doesn’t go, “You can’t eat your cake and have it too.” Whatever, it’s not important, just like all the stuff I’ve written about in this overwhelmingly long and random post.

I momentarily debated on whether or not I wanted to end this with witty fashion, but my restlessness has faded and I’m being consumed by fatigue and extreme lack of sleep. It’s kind of funny to see that I overcome with pessimism tonight, but you have to admit, a lot of the things I wrote about are things that cross your mind as well. Although I wrote this at one in the morning, it won’t be posted until later when I get the chance to read what is most likely a rough draft plagued by spelling and grammar errors and to make sure I don’t sound like a douche. But hey, you can’t have your blog and read it too. Goodnight.

Football Pool Week One

*This article is copyrighted by the IMHT for the private use of his excruciatingly small audience. Any other use of this article or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the author’s thoughts without his consent, is probably going to go unnoticed.*

Like Oh Em Gee! It’s football season! I can smell it in the air, and by smell I don’t mean that putrid funk of sweat, ass, and Icy Hot that is emitting from the nearest locker room. It’s not even the smell of fresh dew in the morning or the cooling fall air. Nope, it’s the smell of broken hearts and dreams as the teams we love don’t perform as well as we hoped, unless you’re a Patriots fan.

Let’s hop right to it! Welcome to the football pool everyone. Most of you reading this may be my regular blog readers (all three of you), but you new comers are most likely coming from our pigskin pickem league over at ESPN. Don’t let that discourage you from reading my regular blog posts though, they’re amazing and will forever change your life. I’m just kidding, or am I? In the past I’ve written weekly articles for the football pool at my previous base, however, none of those people are participating in the league this year so it’s nice to have a new crowd (also a good excuse to reuse jokes). I’d introduce myself but then I’d feel like Facebook is a waste of time. Oh wait, it is. My name is Cody and I’m Eric’s dashingly handsome nephew who is crazy talented (until you catch all my spelling and grammar errors). My name in the league this year is Kibbles and Vicks and my other alias is HaloTitan. Now you know my name(s), please leave a comment with yours so we can all get to know who we’re whooping up on this year.

Memorable Week One Moments for Titan (that’s me):  <== unintentional yet awesome sad face.

• Tom Brady threw for 511 yards on the season opener against the Miami Dolphins while Wes Welker had an amazing 99 yard touchdown run as a part of it. Why does this matter to me, well because these two helped me dominate Eric in our fantasy football league. You got owned dude, maybe now you could tell me how Jodi Foster felt in The Accused.

• Cam Newton threw for over 400 yards on his season opening game. Was that fluke? Probably not considering they were playing Arizona, but his real test is week 2 when they face off against the Packers.

• Kyle Orton still sucks, argue with me if you want, but dropping the ball without being hit first was the sorriest thing I’ve seen since Jay Cutler a few years ago against the Chargers. Don’t blame the rain either buddy, that’s just a loser’s way out.

• The Denver Broncos quarterback drama has been more thrilling to watch than terrible Teen Mom show (little whores). So some radical diehard fans of Tim Tebow wanted to put up billboards in downtown Denver as a plea to John Fox to bench our starting QB for his underling. Tim Tebow replied to their ideas of the billboards and stated that the ten thousand dollars would be better spent going towards his charity and that he trusts his coach to make the right decision. What a humble guy. Orton on the other hand stated that he doesn’t care what the fans think, only what his fellow players and coaches think. Although that may be an accurate way to look at it, but keep in mind that it is the fans (the ones you don’t care about) that help keep those millions in your pocket.

• The Raiders suck.

• Did anyone get a chance to look at Big Ben this last weekend? I swear that guy looks like the Big Foot from Harry and the Henderson’s. On top of that, his beard is getting out of control, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if he had baby birds living in there (Family Guy reference).

• Finally, how about the Jets coming back to beat the Cowboys? In my opinion that was the best game of the week. What could be better to watch than the so called “America’s Team” cocking their shotgun and blasting that enormous foot of theirs. You’d probably be able to tune into the NFL network to catch a replay. Since I don’t have cable anymore, I was able to enjoy it from the comfort of my computer screen. That still didn’t beat watching a live stream of Monday Night Football on my cell phone, my neck still hurts.

I’d like to congratulate oneoutdoors for his win in week one. It was no doubt tough having to watch the Patriots and Dolphins face off and hoping you had guessed a better score than the other three people you were tied with. Celebrate while you can though; because I’m coming to get you buddy! I’d like to win more than one week this year.

That’s all the juice I have because I procrastinated on this article. None the less I do hope you enjoyed it and by all means please send me an email, reply on this post, or reply in the football pool and tell me things that you’d like me to write about. I’d like to keep it about football if we can because that’s what this is all about right? Please allow me to encourage you to read the other stuff I’ve written as well, it’s so amazing you’d think I’d be famous. Also, please feel free to click the “join this site” button (upper left hand corner under my picture) to become a member of my blog and to help support my awesomeness. See you all next week when I’m writing about my victory over you mwahaha.

Um, Red Pill Please

One foot after the other, I make my way towards the break room so that I may consume my mediocre microwavable meal in the company of people I don’t like. Feeling in a particularly good and goofy mood, I raise the spoon in my left hand up to eye level and stare at it intently. “There is no spoon” I muttered eagerly, half hoping one of the idiots I work with heard me and will provide a chuckle for my satisfaction. The only laughter returned my way was when the doorway forcibly told me to watch where the hell I’m walking, jabbing itself into my shoulder.


Pfff, freaking door doesn’t even exist. Nothing does. Nothing but my mind and the people around me exist. Therefore, this pain in my shoulder caused by the fabricated door is a fabrication itself, a lie that my mind has made real. You see, years ago we created artificial intelligence called SkyNet, funded by Cyberdyne Systems. Unfortunately, SkyNet became self aware and attacked humanity because it viewed us as a threat. We torched the skies to kill their energy source, but in turn they just captured all of us, striped us naked, and placed us in see through bathtubs filled with pink goo. All the tubing protruding from our bodies keeps us well nourished while at the same time plugging us into a false reality to keep our minds busy. We didn’t know, not until I just told you, that we’re actually being harvested as battery power for the evil machines that turned on us. This is why my shoulder pain isn’t real, and neither is the spoon.

Of all things that were fascinating to me in the true story of “The Matrix”, the scene with the bald, I’m going kill myself to live on a comet, looking children was the best to me. The kid was bending a spoon using only his brain (compensating I bet), and Neo, the talentless noob (portrayed by a talentless actor) who fills the role of the protagonist, is astonished at how the child is able to perform such an act.

“You cannot bend the spoon, that is impossible, instead, only try to realize the truth.”

“What truth?”

“There is no spoon”

I’m just kidding, that part was boring as hell. The best part of the movie was when Neo and Trinity killed everyone to death at the security desk of that building. Totally awesome.

How true was that kid’s statement though? There is no spoon, just like there is no job, money, homes, and movies. It’s all just a made up story placed in my head by the machines that control me. What a weird relationship we have with these guys. Seriously though, none of us can really complain. I mean, we need each other to survive. We nuked our own planet and rendered it pretty much useless while at the same time stealing the energy source (the sun if you didn’t catch it the first time) the machines use to survive. Well someone had to take action for the greater good, or else the whole world would’ve been dead. The machines use us to keep themselves alive, and in return, we get to live a normal life, who cares if it’s in our head? I mean sure we’re not really eating that juicy steak, and instead we’re having something put into our system to keep up alive, but at least we’re not awake to taste it. That would be like being awake while the doctor gives you a vasectomy.

*What? They do keep you awake for that?*

You know, on second thought, what a crappy existence, you imprison me to this tub, surrounded by millions of other people chilling in their own tubs, hook my brain up to a network and feed me fallacious horse shit and call it reality? Why would I want to go back and live the same old boring life that I had before the rise of the machines? I don’t enjoy doing the same routine every day. Hell if you want to use me for energy, then how about allowing my mind to live in paradise while you use my body as the energizer bunny? Set me on an island, erase natural disasters and death, and let the people I love be there too. Oh, and bring lots of video games, that would be nice. Only issue would be that we’d get bored right? Well every year or so, switch up the scenery. One year a tropical get away, the next the snow capped mountains of the Rockies. Why can’t I have that option? This really makes me feel like a prisoner and I don’t appreciate that. Oh, and I actually have to pay for my games still? Ridiculous.

Here is what I want to have happen; I’d like to be set free by an ugly black man and his crew of pale white skin, dark clothed Goth freaks. Hell I sit in a cubicle, shoot me a fed ex brother and let me answer that phone. John Connor isn’t going to get me out of here; he’s too busy running from Arnold. Don’t worry John he’ll grow tired of chasing you and wind up cheating on his wife, you should have enough time to escape when that happens. Seriously though, get me out of here so I can learn that crazy shit you guys know how to do. You know, Kung Fu, expert marksmen, hurdling sky scrapers, making a satisfying dish of Crème Brulee. You know, that stuff.

But Cody, it’s not possible to learn things the way they did in that movie. Um, yes it is. That movie was a true story. But, Cody, would you really have fun leaping from skyscraper to skyscraper? Yup, I shoot aliens in the face all the time on my Xbox and those games are just as real as the air I’m breathing. Wait…what am I breathing? If this reality is nonexistent then I’d like to have some fun with it. Sleeping in a nice and comfortable bed and being able to eat heartedly at breakfast beats sleeping on a metal cot and getting runny snot to eat in the morning (and lunch and dinner). I’d only leave this place when stuff got out of hand, like the one time they tried to make a woman the President. How’s that going to work, if you’re running the world, who’s going to make my sandwich? Oh sexist jokes are funny because they’re not true. I am pretty hungry though.

I’d choose this fake world over reality any day. Living off of snot, floating around the underground tunnels, and living in an underground city close to the Earth’s core? Yeah, I’d rather live on a street corner next to McDonalds holding a sign that says, “Hunger Attack, get this man a Big Mac, beer money would be much appreciated.” I just want Morpheus to take me out of this long enough to gain some skills and knowledge so I can reinstate myself with the knowledge of how to be amazing. I could become famous, rich, and did I mention famous? I would be known as “that guy from Colorado”, the man who can leap over skyscrapers, whoop your butt with some kung fu, shoot the balls off a nat from a mile away, fly a helicopter, read a book in two seconds, bend a freaking spoon…..using…..his…..

“Cody! Wake up! You’ve been in here sleeping for over an hour; get your ass back to work!”

“Dude hold on a sec. I have a very important question. Is the Matrix real?”

“You’re an idiot.”

I pick my spoon back up and stare it as I make my way back to my desk. Now my other shoulder hurts and the spoon has yet to move. Reality is boring.

This Gaming Life Part III: The Underrated

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Be sure to read Part I and II before continuing on this epic journey!

*Side note* I realized I rushed the ending of part II a little bit, so I wanted to give you the opportunity to let me know if you wanted to know more about what I disliked about Halo ODST or my thoughts on Halo Reach. Also, I failed to mention Halo Wars, an RTS game that was put out for Halo, and also the clan Bryan and I started, JPH (Jocks Playing Halo). If you’d like to see a post on any of these things, please send me an email or just simply comment on today’s post.*/side note*

Have you ever wondered if there is more to life than the seemingly bland existence we tolerate on a daily basis? I often do, and perhaps that is because I am one of those people who thinks his existence is rather bleak and dreary. Waking up every single day and heading into a dead end job that is full of hypocrisy and borderline tyranny is enough to send me spiraling into an emotional vortex. I believe that everyone should be happy with the lives that they have, no matter what their career options are. If you’re working a job that turns you into a depressed Emo child that has an insatiable urge to cut himself, perhaps it’s time to look for a new career. I hate Emo kids and I would certainly never cut myself, but I feel it would be beneficial for me to begin a career in something that I enjoy doing. Work is never really “fun”, but people should enjoy what they do in order to maintain emotional stability. Work is exactly what it sounds like, work. In my case, I love the military because of the awesome benefits that accompany it, but on the darker side of the moon, I don’t enjoy for one second what I do. With recent events that have occurred in my life that may or may not have an effect on my career (I don’t feel like telling you because I’m secretly Emo and sad), I’ve decided I need to focus more on what is really important, my family and our future. Aside from trying to complete a degree or three, I’ll be working on the short story I’ve started and developing video games.

Ah yes, developing games, that brings us to the topic of this edition of “This Gaming Life.” I know it’s been about two months or so since I’ve last updated this segment and now it’s time to press on. Hopefully you’ve read Part I and II so you’ll know where we left off. Now as I introduced this topic I spoke a tad about wanting to move on in life with my writing and game developing, but the question for myself is how to get started. I’ve started writing that short story I spoke about, but I didn’t get very far because I hit an obstacle. Midway through the first chapter I realized that my readers have no idea who the main character is, where the setting takes place, or why they should care. Instead, I forced the reader to enter the story via the first person narration of this no named character’s lonely and demented life and forced them to read every little detail about his insignificant surroundings and people. There has to be a more creative way to introduce a character, especially when I’m telling the story in the first person perspective. I took some time to do some research and found that a lot of successful writers are telling other aspiring writers to read a lot of fiction and to practice. By reading other author’s literature, I can learn different styles of writing. While I’m doing that, I’m also learning how these other authors seem to build their characters and what avenues they use to make me care about their fictional creations. The more I delve into that to find which style of writing will be my own unique method, I realize that becoming a writer first is going to further help me develop games and write video game scripts. Well sheesh, how do video games stories pay into this? Using the “read other fiction” method to help find a technique for writing, I’ve decided to apply the same thing with playing other games. This is simple enough because I’ve played many games and I plan on playing many more. I’m a gamer; it’s only in my nature. What better way to take my fun and thrilling, yet often lazy, habit and turn it into something constructive. That’s right other companies who’ve made games I love to play; you’re going to be a very significant help in molding me into a successful developer mwahaha.

Seriously though, game stories are written with so many avenues left open to help strengthen or continue the main plot. That or they’re in place to provide numerous side stories that don’t necessarily tie up its loose ends, which in turns becomes a novel that sells millions *cough* Halo *cough*. Mass Effect is one game that I can admire for its unique ability to stretch its universe into depths of imagination that takes place in a different galaxy (literally) than the main plot. There are dozens of different planets that a gamer can explore in the Mass Effect universe, but upon reaching these places, there are side stories and quests that stand on their own with zero support from the main objectives. As a gamer, I feel as if I am a part of this enormous and dramatic universe where galactic issues never seem to cease. The fact that the writers of Mass Effect took the time to write out a detailed history for each planet, even if the planet has no significance to the game what so ever, makes me realize that writing a game will be a much more imaginative and well thought out process than just writing a book.

In Part II of this gaming life I reminisced about my complete (almost) experience with the Halo universe and how it introduced me to the many things that games can offer. I know I made it look like all we ever played was Halo, but that’s a fallacy. There are many games out there and I’ve played quite a few of them. There are few games I would actually consider to be “major” titles and I base my judgment on that by how popular the game is and by how much I like it. Not every game is going to be a colossal success in that sense. I’ve played a plethora of games and it’s easy to note that a vast majority of the games are smaller titles than the games I really like, some of which are extremely underrated, in my opinion of course. I’m betting that most people know the titles I’m going to talk about in this segment and if you’re a gamer there is no doubt in my mind that you may have even played them. I’d like to talk about some of my favorite games that are popular, yet underrated on that same note. They haven’t reached the level that Halo, Gears of War, or even Call of Duty have, but they’re certainly part of the backbone that has helped shape the way game stories and game play is viewed today.

Splinter CellGenre: StealthPoint of View: Third person (over the shoulder)Titles: Splinter Cell (2002), Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (2004), Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005), Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2006), Splinter Cell: Conviction (2010) Splinter Cell 6 (TBA)

You are a mercenary hired by the bad guy to protect some top secret stuff and you’re out walking a beat on the same dark path without a flashlight, smoking a no named brand of cigarette and listening to the ambient sounds of nature. You continue to walk in the exact same pattern, lazily vigilant of the shadows, or the soft sound of rustling leaves nearby. The continuous sound of a distant waterfall splashing to the pond below it and the monotone groans of wind are just a couple of the many noises causing a distraction to your ability to hear the subtlest of things, like an approaching intruder. You walk up to the edge of a cliff and begin to urinate over the side. Just as you finish you find yourself swiftly succumbing to a headlock while your right arm is involuntarily outstretched as far as it will go by the intruder, whose thumb is pressing hard on the pressure point beneath your palm. Congratulations, you’ve just met Sam Fisher, the stoic badass protagonist from the Splinter Cell series.

What’s going to happen now? Sam is either going to kill you and pitch you off the cliff in the same direction you just relieved yourself, or he’ll just knock you out and drag you a thousand feet away so your buddies don’t get suspicious when they come across your unconscious body. Your demise will most likely be the conclusion of a torturous interrogation that you easily gave into because Sam made you cry like a little girl.
Welcome to Splinter Cell, a gritty stealth game that straps the shoes of Sam Fisher into your control and sends you on nail biting missions to prevent terrorism. Sam is a behind the scenes operative that technically doesn’t exist and is often sent on secret spy missions to end a person’s life before they have the chance to wreak havoc. Leading up to this climactic event, Sam typically spends his time infiltrating heavily guarded facilities to steal information that may or may not be related to the current threat. The first four games are relatively slow and quiet which emphasizes the fact that the games are stealth based. On top of that, Sam is given a unique set of gear that allows him to remain in the shadows to avoid enemies, or to help him put the oblivious baddies in his way to sleep. It’s extremely gratifying to sneak around a whole map undetected while still accomplishing the mission; however it takes a person with an abundance of patience to be able to pull it off. On the other hand, going through a map and silently killing every moving thing in sight is gratifying as well, in a demented sort of way.

I already vaguely touched on the story and unfortunately it’s a rather similar pattern for all five games, leaving little flavor in the imaginative spirit. The games are still rather fun to play through though, so please don’t let that discourage you. My only issue is that stories follow the same sort of path that something bad is going to happen and it’s up to you to stop it before it does (no, it’s not Call of Duty). The fifth game in the series, Splinter Cell: Conviction, is the game that all Splinter Cells should have been game play and story wise. Following the tiny portion of Sam’s personal life that is slowly revealed throughout the series, Conviction takes on a more personal tone than the rest. In the first few games, the player is made aware that Sam is a single dad to a girl named Sarah. In the opening credits of Double Agent we find out that Sarah is hit and killed by a drunk driver. On a quick side note, Double Agent sucks. Back to Conviction, Sam has since left the agency and is now being hunted by the same people he use to work for and they seem to have some secret information about his daughter’s death. In his journey he finds out some crazy things, like the new boss at his former job is a terrorist who’s in cahoots with the Vice President, and another small detail about his daughter and how she *spoiler, play the damn game if you want to know…*

I love Sam Fisher as a character because he’s extremely stoic and moderately dark. In Conviction he comes across as a sad and broken man with nothing to lose, hell bent on finding out what really happened with his daughter, all the while stopping, yet again, bad stuff from happening. Conviction is also the game that changed the way Splinter Cell defined stealth. No more spending hours quietly moving around people, or suffering the consequences of setting off the alarm. Instead, Sam moves a lot faster and unleashes death onto all who stand in his way by viciously killing them all. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…or Sam…in this case.

Max PayneGenre: Third Person Shooter, Film Noir
Titles: Max Payne (2001), Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003), Max Payne 3 (2012...hopefully)

“They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point.”

Max Payne is a dark man with nothing to lose and he will stop at nothing to make the people responsible for his melancholy life pay for their sins. His life wasn’t always grim, in fact he use to be a happy man. A New York City detective with a beautiful wife and newborn child, Max was on the verge of living the “American Dream.” He comes home from work one day in the middle of what seems to be a robbery. Three junkies had broken in and murdered Max’s newborn child and wife. Naturally Max kills the intruders to death (haha) and then collapses over the body of his wife, doused with the “payne” of the sudden loss of his family.

Naturally Max continues on with life, yet not the way one would expect. He takes up a job with the DEA to try and find those behind the distribution of valkyr, the drug that the junkies who killed his family were on. Max’s story really begins when an undercover mission goes wrong and his friend Alex gets murdered by an unknown assassin. Being the only witness to the murder, Max winds up being blamed for it and has avoid his own people all while chasing down the mobsters behind valkyr. As the mystery unfolds Max finds that there is more the murder of his family than some random junkies breaking into his home for theft reasons. Max battles his inner demons, the police, and those responsible for his family’s untimely demise. Throughout the game, the snow storm that is blanketing New York City seems to be mimicking the darkness that is blanketing Max Payne himself.

For some reason, and I don’t know why, but I love dark and gloomy characters. Perhaps it’s the way that tragedy changes them from the happy go lucky people they are into ruthless killing machines with nothing to lose. Maybe it’s the fact that many characters are portrayed as the invulnerable super hero badasses that seem nearly untouchable, making them hard to relate to. It’s easy to relate to a character that still has that bad assery about him yet still reveals his character flaws. Having feelings isn’t typically something a game character possesses, but real people do. Relating to the pain of death is another avenue to make that connection with a being that doesn’t even exist.

Max Payne, to me, is the epitome of what a broken hero is and his story hits home much more because the game is narrated in the first person format, making it so Max himself is expressing his own “payne”. Max is an inspiration for some of the characters I hope to create, although I may not go too heavy on the similes and metaphors like Max does.

“Snow fell like ash from post-apocalyptic skies”

“It was colder than the devil's heart, raining ice pitchforks as if the heavens were ready to fall.”

“The bullet holes were rubies on her chest”

If you can get past the mediocre graphics and sound effects, Max Payne is actually an extremely fun game to play, especially with their “bullet time” slow motion action sequences that made it simple to blast numerous enemies while diving for cover. Too bad this feature didn’t really make an appearance in the disappointing 2008 feature film starring Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne.

“I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.”

 

Unreal ChampionshipGenre: First Person Shooter/Third Person Shooter
Titles: Unreal Championship (2002), Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (2005)

I’m moving so fast that my brain is barely registering the images that are blanketing my eyes. My head is dizzy and I’m starting to feel nauseous because of it, yet I’m too relentless to quit. The action on the screen seems to pop out at me as if I were flipping through the pages of a children’s popup book. Eventually I stop, grab some medicine out of the cupboard and swallow it dry without any water, and then lay down to collect myself.

Welcome to Unreal Championship, an Epic Games creation that carved its way into the gaming world behind the genius Cliff Bleszinski. I honestly don’t remember the first time I swam in the uncharted waters of the Unreal universe, but I can remember that Unreal Championship introduced me to the untapped potential that was buried deep beneath the foundation of Xbox Live. Unreal Championship is solely a multiplayer game to begin with and even the single player story is crafted around the multiplayer aspect. There is an “instant action” option as well that places you into a multiplayer match against computer generated bots that can be extremely easy or difficult depending on the difficulty level you set them at. I wouldn’t recommend the “godlike” difficulty if you’re green to this game.

Playing online for the first time felt like it was the same as playing against the bots offline. However, I was quickly able to decipher subtle movements in the enemies that showed me they were being controlled by a human player. It was when I could hear other people talking that the reality kicked in, I was literally playing a multiplayer game against other people across the world. Well, at that point, most likely in the United States, but still, it was people I’ve never met in person and could’ve lived a thousand miles away. It was when they opened their mouths that I realized that people are assholes when they’re hiding behind the protection of their televisions screens. It’s rather pathetic to see how many people spew racism and hatred towards each other for no reason at all other than the fact that they’re able to do it with no serious repercussions. It didn’t get that bad in Unreal Championship, but when Halo 2 came out and made its online appearance, people showed off their true colors. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time playing Unreal Championship online, not until the second game came out anyway.

Fully loaded with the quirkiest weapons and blazing fast game play are two of the things that carried over from the first game. Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict contained an outstanding cast, newly added melee combat, coup de graw, and much more. I couldn’t keep my hands off of this game. The story wasn’t really that attractive, but it’s kind of hard to add a story to a multiplayer based game. However, watching Anubis try to win over the Ascension right over his former fiancé, Selket, and her reigning champ boyfriend, Apophis, did actually make it rather interesting. Not enough for me to put it in the record books though. The icing on the cake for this series is most definitely the multiplayer portion. The only thing I really took away from the storyline is one of the last things Anubis says. “Fuck your tournament.” Pretty childish, I know, but I remember it so well because it was one of the first games I ever played that featured the “f” bomb in it. The only other game up to this point that had swearing in it was Max Payne 2, and holy cow did the one character in that game drop a lot of “f” bombs! Of course that seems to be pretty routine with the more modern games we play *cough* Grand Theft Auto IV *cough*.



Well I hope you made it to the end of this extremely long edition of “This Gaming Life”, but in the end I hope it was worth the read. For me it’s important to remember these games and what I like about them because one day I’ll be able to draw inspiration from them when I’m making my own game. From this point on, “This Gaming Life” will typically feature one game at a time that has made an impact on me. Whether it’s old or new, I’ll talk about it, so please expect this segment to stick around. I may take a tad break from it so you can read something else besides video game stuff, but stayed tuned regardless for Part IV where I’ll be talking about Gears of War, the games.

The Story Beyond

“What a bunch of loveable meatheads.”

This is the thought and phrase I’ll typically use to define the protagonists of the Gears of War Series. Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, August (Cole Train) Cole, and Damon Baird are the brick shithouse characters, bearing tree trunk sized arms and chainsaw guns, that roam the world of Sera, ridding it of the genocidist Locust who’ve emerged from the underworld to destroy the ground walkers. Perhaps playing this game for the first time you may have had the same thoughts I did. Sure it’s an intriguing story, and these dudes are the most bad ass gears for the job. But there isn’t any real character development or back story in the original Gears of War game so it’s really left at that. I know who Marcus Fenix is; he’s the guy that likes to say “aww shit” and curb stop the locust scum.

Great games like Gears of War have a tendency to leave me wanting much, much more. In fact, this is a crazy story telling fetish I’ve had since Halo Combat Evolved. I want to know more of the story, why is Marcus so emotionless, why was he left in prison to die on this yet unexplored planet? How did Marcus and Dom become such great friends? Do Marcus and Anya have a secret relationship that isn’t typically allowed in the military (officer dating enlisted)? What is Hoffman’s major beef with Marcus? What is thrashball and how did a famous “thrashball” player like Cole Train transition into the gears army. What did the Fenix mansion look like in the glory days? Why don’t the members of Delta wear headgear while all the other Gears do? Who the hell is this chick that momentarily narrates portions of the story and sounds like she wants the humans dead? If she is against the humans, why does she sound human? Who is Adam Fenix in relation to Marcus? Oh yeah, and why is Baird such a sarcastic prick? That’s a lot of questions huh? That’s only a fraction of questions stored away in a top secret safe hidden in my brain. It’s not even the only game story that I have questions for. I possess questions to other AAA titles such as Bioshock, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, Halo, Alan Wake, etc. How can I possibly get my fix on these stories outside of the game?

It’s simple really. You see, game developers and publishers came across a unique way to keep us nerds busy while the next installment in the series is (or isn’t) being made. They began expanding their games story by writing them into novels. Halo: The Fall of Reach was the first video game book adaptation that I came across one day whilst roaming through a Barnes & Noble. I adore this book and often compare other game adaptations to it. What was so special about it though? Well, one, it wasn’t about the game itself, two it contained amazing character development and back ground stories to my favorite protagonist, Master Chief. It also introduced dozens of other memorable characters and expanded this once tiny fragment of story into a universe full of mysteries and origin. There’s nothing I enjoy more than reading about the past life of a fictional character that comes across as an unstoppable and relentless hero.

Wow, I sure do take a long time to get to what I planned on talking about. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s my style I guess. Maybe it’s because I have an unquenchable need to spell out every single detail of whatever it is I’m talking about. Okay well anyway. I’ve gotten myself into reading a lot more than I normally use to because I feel it will help me find my style of writing. I’ve read that by reading a lot of fiction written by multiple different authors is a great way to see what I like and don’t like. It will help inspire me to adopt some of the style from this person and maybe mix it with a little bit of that person’s style. Could you imagine if I mixed Quentin Terantino with Stephen King? That’d be one fucked up nightmare. As of late I have 12 books on my shelf that I purchased ages ago and haven’t read yet (the number was higher). I’ve read many of my previously untouched books in order to explore a different person’s fantasy world and for the most part have like what I’ve read. I can tell you what I don’t like right off the bat, and since most of the books I own are game adaptations, I hate when the book retells the same story I already played in the game. Perhaps that’s what helps define a good game novel, substance that has yet to be explored outside of the original tale. Sure I know the main plot, but maybe I want to know how these characters came to be, or what will happen to them since the games stopped being developed.

About a month ago I finished reading the first Gears of War novel, “Gears of War: Aspho Fields.” I can honestly say that it was the first game story I’ve completely fell in love with since The Fall of Reach. On top of that I found respect for a new author I never knew existed. Karen Traviss. I had read a tiny biography on her when I skimmed over the “About the Author” section of the first Gears of War book and learned that she did a whole series based off the game “Star Wars: Republic Commando.” I’m not a huge Star Wars buff and I quite frankly found it a tad insulting that a dorky nerd like this would write a book about one of my favorite games. What could she possibly know about this when she’s spent a large portion of her writing career making Star Wars geeks happy? How petty of me to think such ignorant thoughts, not realizing that Star Wars in a much older version of what I love about the stories that make me nerdy. It started out as a movie (I think), but expanded into this enormous universe that is literally adored by millions of people. The same thing has happened with Halo, Gears of War, and other popular video games. These stories have evolved beyond the limitations of the game and allow for endless expansion. Karen Traviss is just one of many tools that etch these stories into existence and I’ve come to realize that she’s kind of a universe expanding whore. Playing her role in the Star Wars universe came first, and then came her Gears of War stories, and now I see that she’s working on expanding the Halo series. Wow, this chick loves science fiction as much as I do (minus Star Wars, that’s too nerdy for me).

Like I was saying, I read this first book and was in utter shock at how much I enjoyed it. Karen really taught me a lesson within the proverbial phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” In this case I didn’t judge the cover of the book; instead I judged the cover of the author. Sure I bought the book because it expands the story one of my favorite games, but I never cared to sit down and open it. Here came the second book, then the third. Years later and I still didn’t read them and it took me wanting to become a better writer to finally open them. I shouldn’t have judged Traviss by the previous works she’s partook in, but instead, as a reader and writer, taken in her point of view regardless of the outcome.

Here is what Karen did so well in the Gears of War book that it has me contemplating on purchasing every work of fictions she’s ever done. The Gears of War and Halo books she puts out are easy shoe ins, but I do plan on buying her six part book series that I’m assuming is a complete set of work that originated from her own influence. Traviss took the undefined macho men and women from Gears of War, wrapped them in reality, and smacked me in the face with them. Playing through a game of Gears of War is an experience that can make the weakest, most self conscience people, feel totally bad ass. Rarely do we as gamers think of the human struggles that these protagonists are going through. Why should we? They’re not real and I’m not partaking in this fantasy battle royal to be drowned out by feelings and other such nonsense. Or so I thought. After playing with these characters through the first game you begin to care about them, and in my case, I began to ask questions (as stated earlier). In Aspho fields, Traviss does a fantastic job with her character build up and relationships with each other. Slowly she started to answer many of my questions as well as opening avenues for new ones. She tells two stories together, one in present time (of the story arc), and the other as a flashback. The way she did this made the book a prequel/sequel to the first Gears of War game. In the present portion of the story we follow Delta after their victorious (or was it?) adventures from the game through the points of view of Dominic Santiago, Hoffman, and Bernie (a new character that we have yet to see in game). In the flashback portion of the story, we witness the childhood of Dominic and Carlos Santiago and their newly found friend, Marcus Fenix. The events span throughout years that leads up to the battle of Aspho Fields. We witness the flashbacks through the eyes of Dom, Carlos, Bernie (sometimes), and Hoffman.

This back and forth method between the stories could possibly be frustrating and annoying to some readers, but not me. My favorite part was the back story and learning why Marcus was had such a tight lid on his emotions. Marcus is such a stoic character and his lack of emotion (other than what he says with his eyes) is much more riveting to read about than to watch. This dude shows no fear, guilt, sadness, happiness, love, or anything. Traviss does a great job of describing his tormented life at home with his famous, yet distant, parents. It describes loving brotherhood that is developed between Marcus, Carlos, and Dom throughout their younger years. Often, Traviss portrays their bonds to each other in such amazing detail that you might feel jealous of this kind of camaraderie. The Santiago family takes Marcus in as if he were the third brother they always wanted and treat him better than his own family.

I’d love to go into great detail about the story, but I’d rather have you read it for yourself and tell me what you thought of it. This is the only way you can get the full experience rather than me paraphrasing it to you. I can say though, that at one point of the story, I was literally on the verge of tears whilst charging my way through page after page of mystery, friendship, love, death, and war. This feeling of almost crying (I didn’t because I’m a man), made me stop and ponder how Traviss was able to bring physical emotion to me through characters who are as real as the tooth fairy. My conclusion has been that she developed the backgrounds of these characters very well, allowing the reader to see what kind of life they lived before all hell broke loose, and too see the struggles that burden them every day of their fictional lives as tragedy re-shapes them. Playing the game I see a bunch of meatheads battling for survival, but I’m not convinced that they comprehend reason, yet the novel reached out to me and told me that these people aren’t just the superhero muscle men I’ve come to know and love. They’re people with real emotions and heartache and they don’t just mindlessly kill the bad guys and feel nothing whatsoever. Instead they kill with purpose, typically revenge for their family and friends long lost, and for the planet that has been torn down along side humanity. Holy cow, talk about bringing them down to earth. Dom suffers greatly with the death of his kids and his missing wife whom he can’t find. Cole Train writes his mother a letter every day, even though she’ll never get to read them because she perished along with most of the planet. Baird’s typical asshole comments and sarcasm is revealed to be his coping mechanism, and Marcus, well let me just say that that I’m unsure what it is that really bothers him because the man keeps a tight lock on his emotions that even his closest of friends have a hard time reading him.

I highly recommend this book, but I just wanted to point out one more thing before I end this catastrophe of a blog. Don’t read reviews from regular Joe Schmoe, because you may find them to be rather disappointing. People dislike things over the smallest grains of annoyance. Each person is granted their opinion; I just typically think they’re stupid. This one person wrote why he hated this book so much and it really pissed me off because I felt like he didn’t have any valid reason other than he’s a massive tool who’s had all of his creative thinking striped from him and had it replaced with ignorant thoughts that keep him entertained. He disliked this book because:

“My biggest pet peeve with this book is the author. It is obvious the woman is British, and it pissed me off that she constantly used British slang as one of the character’s dialogue. They are on a different planet; I seriously doubt they have an England there too. Not to mention the fact that the person who always uses this slang is supposed to be modeled after a Samoan, not a Brit. The worst thing about this book is the way the author basically puts herself into the novel. Yeah, that’s right; there is an old middle aged women gear. And the way she writes the character, it is so obvious it is supposed to be her, and all girl power and that nonsense.”

I’ll end his silly quote right there. This person showed us the epitome of what a stupid opinion is. So I’ve decided since there is no way for me to reply to his god awful post that contained a terrible mixture of past and present tense as well as a plethora of spelling errors (that I fixed up for him in), that I would post one here, just to get it off of my chest.

Dear moron,
I find the fact that your biggest pet peeve with this novel being that the British author portrays a British character in her book that may or may not be modeled after herself is a ridiculous pet peeve to have. Your argument is that it’s a different planet, is there supposed to be an England there too? Perhaps not, but this is the wonder of fiction. One, it’s not unnatural for an author to write themselves into their stories, I mean heck, why not? Is there one personality that we know and comprehend better than our own? Can we always look at someone else and determine what that person would do in this situation or that? Hasn’t Stephen King written parts of his own personality into his stories? How about J.K Rowling? Tom Clancy? David Wong? Your distaste for her possible inclusion of herself into her own novel is rather petty in my opinion.

On to the fact that you don’t like British people. Perhaps you didn’t say that, but your arrogance was certainly screaming it. I wonder if people who read any of the Halo novels hated them because Master Chief was written by an American author and totally made him sound American. Obviously he wasn’t born on Earth and instead on a different planet far away. I seriously doubt there is an America there too. Not once did I see you complain about how this fictional world portrayed other things the we see on a daily basis such as cars, phones, coffee shops, books, music, television, dogs, cats, and even human beings! OMG! How did earth wind up on that fictional planet? Perhaps it’s human nature to include the worldly things in our society into that of our fiction. Maybe Traviss isn’t imaginative enough (doubt it) to create things that are unreal. Who knows, but the fact that the way a character spoke in this book resembles that of the British person who created her annoys you, makes you look like the unfortunate stereotypical American idiot who has a very dense and all too literal view on things.

Phew, now that I got that out of the way. I’d like to encourage you guys to read more! It’s an unbelievable world out there and there is so much knowledge we can learn from reading as well as building up our own imagination. Take your eyes of that dreary television and let your mind do the talking. One book in particular that I’d like to recommend, Gears of War: Aspho Fields, especially if you’re a Gears fan.

Stay tuned, I plan on releasing Part III to This Gaming Life, sometime this week (hopefully). Until then, here is a neat Cole Train song to show you what Gears of War looks like in case you don't know.