They Don't Make Em Like They Used To

As planned, my 24 hour gaming marathon for charity was the perfect opportunity to start Icewind Dale. This game is enormous, and I really didn't put much of a dent in it even after 24 hours. Ah...they don't make 'em like they used to.

People say that all the time, but it's absolutely true. You will never come across a game nowadays that's going to easily take 100+ hours. It just doesn't happen. The only recent game that even comes close is Skyrim. I spent 70 some hours playing that, but that game's the exception rather than the rule. 30 hours is pretty standard fare nowadays or if you're playing a shooter, 10 hours since they just want the ability to check that "Single-Player Campaign" feature box. (I know, I know. FPS enthusiasts are in it for the multiplayer. Moving right along...)

Second thing, your party are utter wusses to start out with. If you Leroy Jenkins into danger, someone's dying. Guaranteed. Your 6 measly hit points are no match for...anything. After I lost a party member to a wolf who found its way into a house and later participated in death by goblins, I then remembered why I developed the habit saving my game compulsively, and also, why I used to come at mobs with more trepidation. Games used to be hard, teaching by letting the user fall on their face. People learn quickly that way, like a kid learning that touching hot things fucking hurts.

The era of the tutorial crept in while I was unawares. Starting a game where you're going to get your ass handed to you right away might cause users to give up on the game. The first experience of the game will be a nice stroll where you learn some UI stuff, some controls stuff, and no matter how inept you are, you're probably going to survive because you're practically invincible in Tutorial Land. Give the user that boost of self-confidence to keep soldiering onward because you're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like you. The change to this methodology has been gradual, so I didn't really notice, but fuck that noise. I'd like to compare this to the weak practice of giving out trophies to kids merely for participating in sports. You didn't earn that, and it cheapens the reward for those who did earn it. There's got to be a bit of a challenge or the progression won't feel like an accomplishment. We're not talking "Demon Souls" caliber or that awful first section in "Driver" type of challenge but at least give me a taste of things to come.

Respect your audience enough to let them discover some things on their own and feel secure in the fact that if they encounter some trials and tribulations that they're not going to rage quit within the first 20 minutes. Quit holding my hand. I promise I won't go play in the street.

Progress

I'm not feeling real wordy today, but there has been progress made in this massive gaming venture. I beat Saints Row 3 this past weekend. ACHIEVEMENT! I thoroughly enjoyed that game, and if you've been thinking about picking it up, frickin' do it already. :)

To indicate this success, I'll need to update my "List of a Bajillion Hours". Also, I have dug myself in a deeper hole with a recent sale on GOG.com that I couldn't resist. I'll be adding Arcanum, Caesar III, King's Quest 1-8, Quest for Glory 1-5, and The Zork Anthology to the list.

I may have a chance to dig out at little though. This weekend, I'm going to be participating in the Extra Life 24-hour charity gaming marathon. First up, I'll be going into the GOG vault and playing Icewind Dale. Back in the day, my computer kept chugging trying to play this, so it's finally going to get its moment in the sun. There's no way I'll even put a dent in it with merely 24 hours, but it's a start.

Glorious Stats

I love stats. I wish I had stats tallied for my daily life. Why it says here that I've watched "Kill Bill" 57 times. Fascinating... Such a thing would require either me keeping a ridiculous amount of notes about my activities or having someone follow me around for all eternity, documenting the minutia of my life. Both of these options sound like a lot of work and are beyond creepy. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with my Saints Row 3 stats.

I thought I was nearing the end, and the numbers corroborate this theory. Here's my progress in stat form. I'm being productive at being unproductive! Yay?

86% - Overall
36 of 47 - Missions Completed
56 of 56 - Activities Completed
18 of 18 - Neighborhoods Explored
11 of 17 - Neighborhoods Controlled
27 of 32 - Gang Operations Completed
64 of 64 - Stores Owned
17 of 20 - Drug Packages Found
20 of 20 - Money Pallets Found
20 of 20 - Sex Dolls Found
20 of 20 - Photo Ops Found
34 of 36 - Hitman Targets Eliminated
22 of 30 - Chop Shop Vehicles Delivered
15 of 34 - Homies Acquired
6 of 6 - Escorts: Completed
6 of 6 - Trafficking: Completed
2 of 2 - Guardian Angel: Completed
6 of 6 - Heli Assault: Completed
6 of 6 - Insurance Fraud: Completed
6 of 6 - Mayhem: Completed
6 of 6 - Prof. Genki: Completed
6 of 6 - Snatch: Completed
6 of 6 - Tank Mayhem: Completed
6 of 6 - Trail Blazing: Completed

Why Hello, Giant Screen

Steam has recently come out with a feature called "Big Picture". It's currently in beta, but it allows you to plug your computer into your television and use a controller to play Steam games. It combines access to my growing Steam library with the joy of sitting on my ass in front of my television! Wowee!

I hooked up my Alienware m15x laptop up with a DisplayPort to HDMI cable I bought just because "Big Picture" exists, and I used some MotionJoy program to get my PS3 controller to work with my PC. I don't know how I got it to work at all. MotionJoy is not super intuitive, and I felt like a monkey, screaming and banging on stuff hoping something would happen, but eventually it worked.

Big Picture's interface is pretty smooth. You can get around easily enough, but the trouble is, the majority of my games are not really controller friendly. Even games that you would think should be, like Bit Trip Beat, said they had "Partial Controller Support". I don't know where that partial support was because when I got in-game, my controller didn't do jack.

The Playstation controller wasn't really listed as a supported device though. I may be suffering from some pains of not using one that syncs up all nice, with little goading.

Even though the controller thing didn't work out as well as I'd like, I am still digging simply using my television as a beastly monitor. I played Saint's Row 3 for three hours in all its ginormous glory last night. No...I didn't need "Big Picture" to do that... No, my cable wasn't long enough that I could sit on the couch while doing so. Yes...that beats down with a stick the entire reason why I was excited about "Big Picture". Back off, it was still fun. I just need to figure out the right combination of peripherals.

First Up...Saints Row: The Third

The most recent game I've been obsessed with is "Saints Row: The Third". No one's more surprised than me at how much I am enjoying this game. I didn't even consider giving it a chance until I saw the "Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'" episode about the "Best Games of 2011". (If you've never watched HAWP, you should. Clicka da link. You'll thank me later.)

I think what I like most about this game is the absolute absurdity of it all. You're immediately in these ridiculous situations. like having a shootout whilst plummeting out of a plane, driving a pissed off tiger around town, and having your crib infiltrated by assassins, which involves the realization that "These hoes ain't hoes!"

I never played the first two Saints Row games, but I may give them a shot now. However, I hear that the third game in this series has gotten quite a bit more over the top than the previous two, which has been negatively viewed by many long-time fans. I seem to be one of the people these fans are pissed at since the ridiculousness of it all is what I enjoy most about this game.

Gameplay wise, it's inevitable that one make comparisons between Saints Row and the Grand Theft Auto series, but it's been a while since I've played a GTA game at length, so my information is likely outdated.

Right out of the gate, I approve of the fact that I can create my own character in Saints Row. Maybe I don't want to be Tommy Vercetti, or Carl Johnson, or Nikolai Bellic. I will always be more attached to a character that I have customized, and the fact that I can make a female character in Saints Row 3 is fantastic. I value the ability to make my character look like me. Deal with it.

The cellphone menu system is well integrated. It doesn't feel like a menu. You get missions by getting calls from people. The city map is available on your phone, and you can set waypoints to navigate to. Driving to the locations you set utilizes directional arrows that pop up where you're supposed to make your turns, which means you don't need to keep too close an eye on the mini-map. That makes the driving experience hassle-free and enjoyable.

The missions themselves are fun and often dive into the ludicrous. The dialogue frequently makes me laugh out loud. The only quibble I have with the game is that the story is at times difficult to follow. During the pre or post mission cut scenes, there were a couple of times where I was like, "Wait? What just happened?" or "Wait, who are we pissed at now?" Then I think...doesn't matter. I get to shoot a rocket launcher out of a helicopter while playing classical music. This is magical.

In general, I am a completist, a side quest junkie. However, I generally don't feel compelled to find all the collectibles found in games. For example, in Arkham City, I picked up any of the Riddler Trophies I happened upon, but didn't delay completing the game to search for them. This isn't the case for Saints Row, and I'm not completely sure why. Perhaps it's because everything in this game has a # of # count associated. I don't want to leave any Gang Operation left standing or Photo Op unfound.

I don't think I have that many main story missions left. I've been dicking around finding all the collectable items, doing assassination and vehicle theft missions, and getting 100% ownage in all parts of the city. I'll probably continue down that road and start the sprint toward the finish pretty soon.

The List

I’m no HTML scientist, so I probably made this way more difficult than it needed to be, but I felt it was necessary to start out with a checklist to get a baseline of what we’re dealing with here. Plus, this looks better than any shit HTML code I could probably muster anyhow. The checklists on the "List of a Bajillion Hours" page show the games that I currently own. I tried to be thorough, but I know there are many games lurking in boxes back home which I forgot to add. No biggie. Updates and all that.

If you look at these lists, there are numerous key games missing, and there are some things that I own but haven't played which are secret shames of mine. For example, if people knew I hadn't played Half-Life, they'd probably take away my gamer card. Anyway, there are reasons for these gaps. I can explain! I grew up with and am still primarily a Mac user. I only bought a PC for gaming purposes like a year ago. Cut me some slack. Also, I love console games and have been playing them from the NES era on, but I was never the proud owner of any of these consoles as a child. My Dad said video games would rot your brain, but I'm pretty sure he just didn't want me monopolizing the TV. No problem, I just went to my cousins' houses and played the shit out of their games. I'm trying to collect all the badass games I ever played throughout the years and fill those gaps, but as you can see, I've got a heap of games to play already that deserve some attention. So...let's dive in shall we?

Gameplan

I am a habitual procrastinator.

In, school, I always waited until the last moment to do homework; I've been known to furiously pack for a trip right up to the point where we're heading out the door, and I've been sitting on a quarterly performance self-eval at work for a couple months now. My theory is that if I can put it off long enough, we'll be into that next quarter, and it'll reset the time clock, right?

Anyway, this behavior isn't just reserved for the boring stuff. It has seeped into my fun times as well, and that's not something I intended. Therefore, I shall throat punch procrastination until it blacks out and lies twitching on the floor. I'm not really talking about buckling down, taking control of my life, or anything serious as all that. Pfft! I'm talking about the backlog of video games that I've accumulated since I was introduced to my brother's Apple IIGS at age three.

Mac games, PC games, Nintendo and Playstation games throughout numerous console generations, etc... I gotta get a handle on this shit. And the more years that pass by, the more Steam sales that occur, and the unplayed game list grows ever on and on.

Therefore, I'm intending on running headlong into this wall of games and will be figuring out this blog shit as I go. Perhaps something humorous will be uttered, or perhaps you'll be bored out of your skull... Hard to know how this'll go. Vanna hasn't turned over enough letters yet. Point is, Imma play so many games.