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By N2H

 

Christmas Shopping 2008

Sep 07, 2008 in Random

(If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS/Atom feed. Thanks for visiting! - Michael)

It’s never too early to plan gifts, especially for yourself.

Since I live in Vietnam, the only time I really buy stuff is during Christmas, when I return to the US.

Here are some things I’ve been looking at:

  1. Lightsaber Construction Kit: these recently went on clearance, would be interested in in for around $40 (original $100+), but I hear there not quite the same super quality as normal Master Replicas. My feeling is I will not be getting one.
  2. Dark Knight DVD: well, of course.
  3. Mcfarlane Halo Master Chief Figure: just want one, probable end up getting Series 2 or 3, though I like 1 the best.
  4. X-Box 360: price cuts are imminent, and I hope rumors of a holiday pack-in are true. Like Halo 3.
  5. X-Box 360 HD DVD Addon: It’s possible to get a new one around $40 already, and I’m hoping it’ll go cheaper around December, hopefully just people/retailer finally clearing the stuff out, maybe even with cheap movie bundles. Especially with Black Friday.
  6. On HD DVD:
    1. Battlestar Galactica S1 (this is still pretty expensive)
    2. Harry Potter HD DVD Set or just: ($60 on Amazon, and less than $10 per title seperately)
      1. Order of the Phoenix
      2. Goblet of Fire
      3. Prisoner of Azkaban
    3. Transformers: not sure if I really want this. Like Kyle, I wasn’t a fan of the movie so much. If it’s $5, probably will do it since it’s supposed to be a great example of hi-def.
    4. The Game: this isn’t supposed to be so great on HD DVD, but it will be much better than the non-animorphic DVD
    5. The Matrix Collection
    6. Sopranos S6 Part 2 (less than $30 on DeepDiscountDVD, HBO series are always closer to $100)
    7. Batman Begins
    8. Bourne Ultimatum
    9. The Prestige: I loved this movie, already own it on DVD. This version would be an import, so price would be an issue here.

Pictures of the some of these things are below:

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The Godfather (Xbox) [Review]

Jul 24, 2008 in Reviews, Video Games

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In EA’s Godfather for the XBox, you can, should, and will:

  • Rob banks
  • Get “respect” from hookers
  • Hang out with the Corleone Family
  • Get vengeance for “the family”
  • Execute villains in more than 20 different ways
  • Pay off the fuzz (the cops)
  • Yell out “Toasty” when you douse some fools in a well thrown Molotov Cocktail
  • Bomb safes
  • Blow off kneecaps
  • Extort all of New York
  • Mostly enjoy the 20+ hours of wreaking havoc

Playing through Godfather, I have come to the following conclusion: shooting people in the head is a lot of fun.

Murder 1000 people in various ways:

  • Run over them
  • Throw them off bridges
  • Beat them into submission with your fists
  • Easy-bake them in pizzeria ovens
  • Choke them

(I hope no one quotes this blog in a study of video game violence.)

Godfather is what everyone will surely describe as Grand Theft Auto with a Godfather skin. This is fairly correct- if you can play GTA, you can pickup Godfather as well. However, these games are usually described more as “sandbox” games, games that you can basically mold your own experience. Incidentally, I never had a sandbox when I was a kid, so I’m not sure what that means for this review.

Godfather, to me, though, doesn’t feel like a true free-form sandbox experience. You have an open world, you can drive around, do anything at any time (you can do a story based mission, or you can try other side missions, like taking extorting a business, or becoming a murderer-for-hire), but the missions themselves are very linear. Often, you’ll have missions which may have two or three parts to them, but in each part, pretty much every player has to do the same thing- there really aren’t options for stealth or sniping or creative methods; instead, you just need to get in there up close and kill, with the only option being what weapon you want to use. Missions will have bonuses that tell you exactly what you need to do, so there’s no creativity in how you do it, and little reason to try to be.

I wouldn’t say this is such a negative, I enjoyed the game regardless.

The game takes place in the time of the first Godfather movie. You’re a new recruit to the Corleone gangster family, and you go through the game trying to prove your loyalty and capabilities. You’ll be able to name yourself (but you are always a man) and create a custom look among a myriad of fashion options, but no matter what you’ll probably always look stylish, like any respectable gangster would. The type of missions you’ll see are what you’d expect if you’ve watched any Mafia movie. You do what they do. Extort. Murder. Talk to cops. Beat up people. Hang out in casinos.

The biggest draw to the game for most people will be the tie-in to the movie universe. You not only meet the characters (excellent character models) and hear old (from the movie) and new recorded footage from the real actors (except for Al Pacino), you’ll also participate in many of the key story sequences from the movie. This is where Godfather really excels in comparison to other movie property games. The integration of the movie and the game world is very well done, the missions here make a lot of sense and seem realistic within that frame. That means that you could actually add the Godfather game to the movie storyline, and the plot would still work. This is rarely the situation with other movie games, which will add pointless sequences related to the movie’s story but would have never happened.

Godfather is a fairly lengthy game, but the central story missions run fairly short, with slightly over 20 missions. You can get through those in less than 7 hours, but the side missions, however, were much more engaging than I expected- taking over neighborhoods and taking more direct action to affect the other Mafia families is truly rewarding. If you want, you can end up taking all over New York, and basically collecting every property in the game Pokemon style- gotta catch em all!

There are some negatives however:

  • You’re primarily a one man show, which I thought disappointing, especially when you’ve feel like you earned some respect but still need to infiltrate a family compound and taken on 30 guys all by yourself.
  • Clumsy weapon selection system- I wish more games would pause when you’re selecting weapons. If you suddenly have 2-3 people coming after you when you don’t have a gun ready, you’re probably going to die. On the PC, you could probably press a number to unveil a weapon instantly; in Godfather you have to scroll through them with the directional pad.
  • There’s essentially one song in the whole game. Guess what that is…..
  • This is a game with a story, but there’s no character development. You have a role in the story, but you’re not really part of the story if that makes any sense.
  • All the fun is mainly on foot. Cars can be used to run over people and get you to different places, but there’s not much else otherwise that you can do.

Despite those issues, for those who enjoy the movie, Godfather is well worth picking up, and a good game that is improved by its connection to the movie universe and strong production values.

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Virtua Tennis 3 (PC) [Review]

Mar 09, 2008 in Reviews, Video Games

Back in the 90’s, EA Sports games would boot up with, “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game“, referring to anything that was in real life sports would show up in the video game version.

I don’t think they use that anymore, but it’s a good way to look at Virtua Tennis.

As in, does Rafael Nadal run over all over the place? Check.

Is Roger Federer insanely good? When I was played Federer to gain the #1 ranking in career mode the first time, he whooped me 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. Insane shots that made me think, F*ck you Roger Federer, you stupid insane cheating bastard!

So, it really was in the game. Except for Martina Hingis and her cocaine habit (but I believe you Martina!).

I was a huge fan of Virtua Tennis for the Dreamcast. Then I played it some more on the PC. When Virtua Tennis 2, came out, I didn’t play it that much, preferring the original. I was going to bring back my Dreamcast to Vietnam with me, only to leave it behind because I was over the weight limit for the flight. But when I noticed there was VT3 for the PC…..gold!

I’ve played Top Spin for the XBox, and although I liked it, I was never that big a fan of it. Maybe the controls were too difficult for my weak-sauce hands, but I never really got used to the risk shots, and I liked the hold-button-for-better-shot style in VT. Top Spin uses the XBox’s left and right triggers so you can govern the risk and skill in your shots.VT is geared towards getting in position, and holding a shot button down to govern how effective your shot is. VT is much easier in terms of unforced errors; it’s very difficult to hit errors, but this makes it easier for you to focus on just playing and locating your shots.

I once heard that Virtua Tennis described as Ping Pong with better graphics. The original Virtua Tennis stood out because of great graphics, (the Dreamcast was the first generation of video gaming in which someone glancing at the system might think they were watching a real game), easy to pick up gameplay (again, Pong), and addictive career mode.

I’ve read reviewers say that VT3 is no different from VT 1 and 2. That’s true to an extent. The gameplay isn’t the exact same; the tactics and balance are different, but if you have the feel from VT1, VT3 replicates most of its great feel.

In terms of game modes, there are a few options. Multiplayer, Career Mode and Tournament Mode, and Exhibition Mode (quick-play) are menu options, everything you might expect normally. Career Mode is RPG Tennis Player, and could take a good 15-20 hours of your time. It’s damn fun and addicting. The Minigames that have been a core part of the VT experience are also in the game, and really are probably the most enjoyable part of the game, helping you learn how to play better as well as boosting your attributes when you succeed. Tournament Mode is straight tennis, but you can import your created player from Career Mode.

I really liked VT3’s graphics, playing in 1400 x 1050 resolution. The animation and courts are outstanding, and it runs fluidly (at least it did on my computer). I played with a XBox 360 controller that performed well and I think having analog control does make a difference, especially in serving.

Overall, VT3 is a really great game to always have around. You can definitely go too crazy with it in insane mini-game binges and tire of it, but you’ll always want to return to it later.

Here’s footage from the final match in the game (don’t worry, not really a spoiler), and yes, the image above is my created player, victorious. Also, gameplay is much faster than shown in the video. Video capture slowed the game a little because it’s CPU intensive.

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Geek Moments

Feb 02, 2008 in Tech, Video Games

I think being geeky is hard to classify. I think we all know what we would think is geeky, but your geeky is probably not the same as my geeky.

For example, I compare it to being a sports fan. If you’re a football fan, then almost all football fans can relate.

But if you’re a geek, that’s too general because there’s just too much geekiness to really classify.

For example, we’d probably admit it, but Jimmy, Mike, myself, and Emil are definitely all geeks. But we’re geeks about different things, so much so that Mike would easily tell me, “you are such a geek” yet he is as much or moreso a geek in his own right, in his geeky interest.

Jimmy could be a social bookmarking geek, Emil is a Linux geek, and Mike is a anime/manga geek. All things that even though we are somehow generally classified under geek, can still be completely independent of each other with our geekiness.

Here is my geeky moment:

(By the way, is it just me, or you also wondering about the word “geek” because you’ve repeated it so much in the last 4 paragraphs)

XBMC (XBox Media Center) + modded XBox + Last.FM +

Harman Kardon Soundsticks II +

LG 26″ LCD HDTV +

Windows Vista + Lenovo T61P

Samba (SMB) Share + 120GB Western Digital Passport USB Hard Drive +

My Room +

Hanoi, Vietnam

=

F’ing greatness. I know have my super streaming media box setup from Vista to my Xbox, and I just got the last component, which were the HK speakers. Now I can listen to music in high quality (because of the speakers), watch downloaded videos on the HDTV (w/upscaling!), and even look at my photos. Last.fm will even track the music I listen to. (look to the right)

Oh, and there’s of course basically my videogame history lesson packed in the XBox, which is full of complete collections of SNES, NES, Genesis, PC-Engine/TurboGrafix 16, Arcade, etc….games.

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More Buying Enjoyment (EBay)

Nov 12, 2007 in Basketball, Books, Clothes, Vietnam

  1. Fables 9 TPB Lot (Read, Excellent Condition), $63 Shipped:

    1. Vol 1 Legends in Exile

    2. Vol 2 Animal Farm

    3. Vol 3 Story Book Love

    4. Vol 4 March of the Wooden Soldiers

    5. Vol 5 The Mean Season

    6. Vol 6 Homelands

    7. Vol 7 Arabian Nights

    8. Vol 8 Wolves

    9. Jack of Fables

    10. c403_1

  2. The Punisher 13 TPB Lot (Read, Excellent Condition), $63 Shipped:
    1. Punisher/Wolverine Crossover
    2. Punisher vs Daredevil
    3. Punisher vs Bullseye
    4. Very Special Holidays
    5. Punisher presents Barracuda
    6. Punisher Max Series
      1. Vol 1 In The Beginning
      2. Vol 2 Kitchen Irish
      3. Vol 3 Mother Russia
      4. Vol 4 Up Is Down Black Is White
      5. Vol 5 The Slayers
      6. Vol 6 Barracuda
      7. Vol 7 Man Of Stone
      8. Vol 8 Widowmaker
  3. McFarlane Reggie Miller Figure, $13.40 Shipped
    1. 1189024402.5255
  4. McFarlane Baron Davis (Loose): $6.98 Shipped
    1. 86be_2
  5. Nike Kobe Bryant Air Zoom Tee, $18.50 Shipped
    1. 97d6_12
  6. Nike Lebron James Tees (2, Used), $12.50 Shipped
    1. 5550_1
  7. Nike Air Classic Tee, $16.99 Shipped
    1. DSCF0300
  8. Halo 3 Tee, $45.07 Shipped
    1. 5205_1

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Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (XBox)

Oct 03, 2007 in Reviews, Video Games

A lot of gaming-related posts recently, wow.

Finished Shaolin Monks over the weekend (watch out for the oh-so-aggravating final boss sequence). The best way to think about the game is to take MK 1 and 2, put them in a 3D world, and add extreme combo happiness. Ah yes, and the game is good.

Shaolin Monks is a quality 3D beat-em-up (with sub-standard platforming/adventure and puzzle elements) in which you take control of Liu Kang or Kung Lao, two….Shaolin Monks. If you’re not familiar with MK mythology, you really don’t need me to get into it. The story is actually pretty reasonable, but it fits the standard template of outer world forces want to take over Earth and there are only a few people who can stop them. MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAAT (queue music)!

(Ah yes, as an aside for people who don’t know Mortal Kombat, find out more: Link!)

As for our monks, both have different move sets, but you’re going to take control of only one them to battle throughout the game, kicking major ass, spilling major blood, and doing all sorts of fatalities (which are still fun 10+ years after they were invented). Bloody carnage is still invigorating as an adult, who knew?

The ability to play co-op with a friend is nice, but for me, like in a lot of these types of games, I’d rather play by myself because I get confused on-screen all the time so I can’t really concentrate on playing well. Also, I have no friends to play with, but that’s another story.

Gameplay in Shaolin Monks is violent but positively so. Kicking people into chunks of body parts in wonderful, and as you travel through the levels you’ll find lots of interactive points of violence. Spiked ceiling? Man-eating Trees? Jaws o’ Death? TOASTY!

As you travel to different regions, you will encounter Scorpion, Shang Tsung, Johnny Cage, Kitana, Jax, Sonya Blade- all of the MK staples.The different locales will remind you of the other games, and there’s a lot of stuff that just makes you feel like it’s MK 1 and 2 all over again, but more fully fleshed out into the world. The graphics are pretty good, but what impressed me most is the art direction rather than fantastic animation or super hi-res textures- the design is fantastic. There are plenty of unlockable content and references to the mythology, though I was never a big fan of promoting replay through unlockable content.

For those who don’t really care about MK anymore, I’m in the same boat. Still, I enjoyed Shaolin Monks, and I think most people would like it too. It’s easy to get into, satisfying to kick major ass in, and short enough so you don’t get too annoyed with it (maybe 6-8 hrs).

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Halo 2 (XBox)

Sep 28, 2007 in Reviews, Video Games

I finished Halo 2 a couple of a weeks ago, first time I’d gone through it since it first came out in 2004. I remember before that I had thought the graphics weren’t that good (higher level of graphic detail “pops” in, you can really see this during cut-scenes) compared to the original and that the game was short. On the first point, Halo 2 does look better than Halo 1. It was pretty obvious to me since I had finished playing Halo 1 right before starting 2. Also, the single player campaign for H2 isn’t really that short- it just isn’t that fun. Thinking about both games makes me wonder though, if my initial impressions of both sway my opinion too much on the replays. For example, when I played Halo 1, I thought it was the best thing ever. I still do, but in all my repeat plays, I don’t really pay attention to the story line and other details of why it was so good, I just play and get through stuff, almost like I’m trying to remind myself of 2001 rather than playing it truly fresh and seeing if stacks up the way it used to.

Then again, can anyone truly start fresh when you’re replaying a game? But it does make me wonder, do I not like Halo 2 because of the reasons I think (which will be listed below) or did my first play bias my opinion beyond recovery?

So anyway, Halo 2 does look a bit sharper than Halo 1. The framerate is solid, the visual design is still there, though I think the sense of mood is not created as well as it was Halo 1 in terms of the landscapes and level design. In terms of the music, I wasn’t a big a fan of the Breaking Benjamin/Incubus/rock-inspired stuff in the game, though everything else is fine. When you look at the gameplay, this is where the big difference for me comes. Halo 2 feels a lot faster than Halo 1- while I felt Halo 1 was more about patience, waiting for your turn to strike, and seizing opportunities, it doesn’t feel quite this way for the sequel. In the original, it felt like you were part of a bigger landscape, just 1 dude on this huge planet roaming around, and I think the scale is greatly reduced in Halo 2. Maybe I can describe this as a sense of openness in the game world. In Halo 2, I feel much more pushed on a focused path, smaller levels, whether this is actually true or not, I don’t know. Gunplay is much faster in the sequel, bullets come out a lot faster, and to me, I feel like this set up the gameplay to be more aggressive, less about taking your time and seeing what was going on.

The Flood are around (sorry, doesn’t seem like a big spoiler to me) again, but I just never cared about them (they seem like plot filler to me), while in Halo 1, I felt like I was in the movie Aliens trying to fight them off, running scared all the time whenever you’d hear that big pop, and then a bunch of other pops- popcorn of death. There are new races, characters, and creatures, and you actually don’t play as Master Chief the whole way through the game, but I don’t think that any of these additions are that noteworthy.

Shooting control feels solid, but the gameplay mechanics between gun/melee attack/grenade, it all doesn’t work quite the same way. It doesn’t have the same sense of balance and power and timing. I know this could sound like me basically wanting Halo 1 to be exactly like Halo 2, and in a sense you would be right. I do think Halo 1 is the best game of all time after all. Dual wielding is available in the sequel, but it was never something I really enjoyed in single player or back when I used to play multiplayer with Kyle years ago. Dual wielding is something I had to do to stay competitive or be effective. This lack of comfort comes from not having the same smooth feel of control when I was dual wielding compared to 1 gun. With 2 guns, I always felt I was guessing on the controls, but with 1, I knew I could be the bad ass I thought I was- I always knew exactly what I was doing, and the controller was an extension of my mind.

Story can be a nice motivator to any game, although I get the feeling I really don’t remember the details of any story in any game I play. Still, I think when I play, I can tell when I’m interested in what’s going on, and I think the difference between Halo 1 and 2 if I were to sum up everything is that Halo 2 is like the best version of all the other FPS games you’ve played. It looks pretty good, controls pretty well, there’s nothing so much wrong with it. The story and the pacing of the game can easily match that of every other FPS out there. Halo 1, however, is more than a FPS, it’s a different time of gaming experience. It’s a movie in which your point of view comes from the FPS mechanic rather than a FPS game that is trying to make you feel like you’re playing a movie. Normally, I’d say the former is bad, so I think I just don’t have the words to describe it.

This is noteworthy though; a lot of the story in Halo 2 is told through cutscenes. In Halo 1, rarely were there cutscenes; instead, you played the story out in gameplay. This is an example of what I mean above. For every other FPS, Halo 2 is just like them. Halo 1 is a different thing entirely.

That probably doesn’t make any sense, but maybe if you’re also someone who sees the big differences between the original and sequel, maybe you feel the same.

I guess the good news is that with Halo 3, what I’ve been reading is that it’s much closer to Halo 1 than Halo 2. Just reading the gaming news this week, it’s all Halo 3. Excellent reviews have been making me think about a XBox 360, despite the high investment I’d have to put in. I guess it’d be no different for me as with the original XBox. I lined up for launch and bought the XBox just for Halo, no other reason. If there were no Halo, I would not have an XBox.

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Hi Mom!

Sep 06, 2007 in Videos

Made a new video to show off my room, got some of the things I brought back from the US framed, like:

  • Drawing my mom made for me
  • And1 Tour Poster
  • And1 Autographs from E3 2005
  • TMNT-skinned XBox
  • Various Sports Memorabilia, like my McFarlane J-Rich figure and Upper Deck Bobblehead. Also, got a gameday program from this year’s Warriors’ playoff run.

[brightcove 1164580855]

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Why (Again) Halo is the Best Game Ever

Sep 02, 2007 in Video Games

I started re-playing Halo maybe 10 days ago on Heroic, and just finished it on Saturday. Kind of skipped a lot (using shortcuts I remembered and always avoiding fights when possible), some parts were tougher than I remember, but still, not too hard for me. Finishing it and thinking about the game’s plot made me realize I don’t remember much about what goes on, especially the end, so I went on GameFaqs to find a story summary. There’s this one, which is a transcript of all the dialog, and an edited summary at Rampancy.net. I’ll read them through over the weekend.

I wanted to read back my review for the PC version of Halo to get some notes for this post, plus I reread parts of the Halo 2 review on Gamespot.

Wired had a recent article about Bioshock and how games can scare the hell out of you, perhaps much more so than any movie since you’re the one who’s interacting with the world. I agree, at the same time, I’m not so into the traditional “scary” games like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. Those are the horror genre of video games. Instead, I think scary is when your adrenaline is flowing and you feel like you’re panicking and just trying to survive. The scariest games for me are when you feel like you have total control over a situation (such as a first person shooter that has great control) and yet, you’re about to get your ass kicked. You have the ability to stop the ass-kicking but at the moment, you were not good enough, and now the pain is coming. Scary.

The scariest moment I ever had playing a game was with Aliens vs Predator (forgot if 1 or 2) for the PC. Face huggers were crawling around (and this was only in the first few levels), they had gotten me a few times, and they were very freaky creatures. AvP is a really dark game, so you’re running around (it’s a first person shooter) just trying to move sense of what’s going on, and face hugger can just grab on to you out of nowhere. I was in a level, being super cautious, walking trying to notice everything so I wouldn’t be caught by surprise. Already on edge, very fearful of what was around me. ARRRRRGH! Face-hugged! Dead!

My heart literally (or in my mind) stopped for 2 seconds to process the face-hugger on top of me. I was so shook up, I quit the game and swore I’d never play it again. And I kept my word.

So I went off-topic as normal, back to why Halo is so fantastically great. Halo is great because running is always a good option. Halo’s tagline is “Combat Evolved” and while I’m not sure if other people would agree with me, I think running away is a big part of that. In a real life situation, if you can run away from a battle to survive instead of trying to kill everyone, this is a good idea. In video games, however, you get deducted with mission incomplete or you just can’t progress. With Halo, this isn’t a problem. Running away can help you avoid large battles that might be takes extra hours to get through. Running helps you find secret shortcuts that help you get through the game faster.

It’s another reason why I’ve always felt like Halo truly makes you feel like a space warrior inside realistic conditions within its game world. You have a sense of freedom of not being restricted or being urged to follow conventions that only apply to video games (X kills, Y headshots, etc.). Halo doesn’t make you break out of the make-believe-spell it casts on you. You are allowed to believe it’s real.

I’ve started playing Halo 2, and it just sucks. There’s a reason why I’ve played completely through the original Halo 5+ times (on Normal to Legendary), yet only played Halo 2 once. I played a lot of multiplayer Halo 2 when I still worked at my old company, and then more at Mike’s house, but single player is barely a memory to me. So when I started again yesterday, I realized why: it sucks. The control just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t quite have the same cinematic feeling of playing inside the scene of an epic movie. I started playing on Heroic, but I might switch back to Normal just to get through it faster. I don’t really find the challenge fun this time around. I don’t care much so far for the setting or plot, and I remember not caring much about playing on the Covenant side back then too.

Wired has an article about Halo 3, and Bungie realizing Halo 2 single player just wasn’t that good and what they’ve been doing to stop it. That, coupled with a new assortment of screenshots released on the Internet has me really wanting to play Halo 3 for the XBox 360. I’m hoping it’s going to be like Halo (1) again. Now if only I could get a raise at work….I’m not sure how I can afford to get it + the X360 + Guitar Hero/Rock Band (either one), that’s a $500 price tag, and I barely make that each month working in Vietnam.

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The Matrix: Path of Neo (XBox)

Aug 12, 2007 in Reviews, Video Games

My original thoughts about Path of Neo from last week essentially stand, but I did finish the game over the week.

Like Enter The Matrix, PON is really inconsistent graphically. The games use a lot of canned animation (sequences that can’t break, so they can look good at times, but can also result in unrealistic motion- imagine if you had an animation of me drop-kicking someone, and then imagine if that animation was being shown even though I was being kicked in the face by someone behind me; long canned animation can’t react to the other things around you). It can look good at times when you get into the fighting and seeing all the crazy combos and moves you can do, but it can result in awkward stuff as well.

Models and environments follow a similar inconsistency. Sometimes, they can look quite good, sometimes they look like utter trash.

PON is only 480P with no widescreen option, so it didn’t look that sharp. ETM went up to 1080i, and I’m actually a bit tempted to go replay it to check out the HD (I played it originally in 2003).

During cutscenes, PON will often use in-engine stuff but use a filter to make it look like it’s prerendered. Or maybe it is prendered but looks like it’s from the engine? I’m not sure but it looks crappy. Other cutscenes are taken from snippets of the Matrix movies, and there are a couple of new prerendered CG scenes towards the end of the game as well.

Ah, I forgot to discuss what the game is actually about. You are Neo. From the beginning when he’s trying to scale the MetaCortex building all the way into the final with Agent Smith. Combine that with gameplay/sound/graphics to Enter the Matrix, and that’s a good impression of the game. Fight and kick ass throughout.

The game is written by the Wachowski brothers, although I don’t think I would have really noticed anything special if I hadn’t know this beforehand. They do show up at the end of the game to do a little comedy bit and tell you they’ve decided to change the end sequence of the game, however. I think the writing is unique in that the brothers do add in some video game self-realization (early on Neo will say something like “hiding pickups in crates, how original”) and other funny moments throughout the games.

Like the storyline and settings for most movie-based games, you’re better off thinking that PON is a fantasy addition to the universe rather than an official expansion. Even though the brothers wrote it, some of the things don’t really make sense, but I think the brothers wanted it that way.

In terms of control and gameplay, PON does hand to hand combat fairly well, but gunplay poorly. This was the same as with ETM. When you’re trying to shoot someone, the camera and aiming system just do not work well. For example, if you kill someone, the targeting system won’t switch to the next person automatically. When it comes to fighting, you can do a lot of moves, some I still don’t know how to do correctly (a true practice/sparring mode would have been nice), but there are all sorts of in-your-face moments that you can create pretty easily, even through button mashing.

You can do a lot more, in terms of your abilities, compared to Ghost and Niobe from ETM, but it still sometimes feels like Neo is not that powerful, he can just take a lot of hits (and bullets). This makes more sense before you’re the One, but after the timeline of the first movie, they are still plenty of long and tough sequences with random thugs. I just didn’t really feel like I was the One. This is a problem with any type of superhero game though, how to make you feel as super powerful as you’re supposed to be, yet make the game challenging.

It’s weird that I have ETM an 8/10 4 years ago, but I wasn’t in denial about its flaws, then or now, and the same thing applies to Path of Neo. PON is fun, but I think if you’re not really into the Matrix thing in terms of it being “in the mood” for more Matrix, then you probably won’t care to finish it.

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