TechnocratTechnocrat’s Random Thoughts

I took the last three weeks off sort of. I tried to put off working on all my project just to try and relax a bit. I am getting really frayed. Trying to do to much to quickly. During that time I played a couple of different games.

First up was Call of Duty 4. This game is probably one of the best games of the year. The action and story are perfectly synced. It’’s one of the few times where I actually enjoyed the storyline of a game and didn”t hit escape insensately trying get get pass the cut screens as fast as possible.

One of the best features is the ability to shot through objects and walls. It makes the game more realistic and enjoyable. When you know a bad guy is behind a wall just unload into it.

Plus the plane level was an enjoyable diversion from run and gun. Nothing like dropping death from above.

My complaints are that some levels can be crazily difficult with the amount of baddies and lack of proper cover. Sure it makes the game last longer in some respects, but it can get frustrating. My biggest complaint is the lack of the ability to load out. I don”t know why the hell you need a pistol on most levels. It’’s useless in most situations. I always picked up someone else’’s gun as soon as possible.

Next up was WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008 for the Wii. I usually enjoy wrestling games (no not because it’’s homo erotic fuck you). But this game was a big step backwards. They took out many of the best match types, like TLC, ladder, Hell in the matha fucking cell!! Why??

The single player career was horrible. You constantly had to get a massage (with happy ending?) to get you health up after almost every match. You constantly had to wrestle the same people even when your career type was way above theirs. I had the US belt and still had to wrestle the jobber that was my first match in career mode???

The controls in the game were another issue. Many times the controls would be unresponsive or incorrect. You would wave the remote up and it would do the left side move. I was starting to think something was wrong with my sensor bar.

I started to learn the best thing was to boost your punching power and then just shake the remote constantly causing strikes until they are in the red then finish them off. Sure sometimes they would reverse it but not often enough. This was also a killer strategy against another human player. Why? Because it’’s hard to reverse it? Yes. But mostly because for what ever reason your enemy will get knocked 180 so their back is towards you making it impossible for them to do something. Nice job!!

This game is a big step in the wrong direction and the developers should be ashamed. As someone that has played almost all the WWE games since the N64 and PS1 days till today this is by far the worst one yet.

The final one was the steamy piece of shit call Soldier of Fortune Payback. Let me start with the two positive aspects of the game. First it does have some fun violent aspects. Blowing someone’’s arm off and watching them wonder around for a few seconds is pretty cool at first. But it’’s not really new and the first SoF game had it too. But it is funny…until you get sick of it.

The next positive thing was the ability to load out and customize your weapons. Though not new by any means it was helpful. But there was no reason to take some of the weapons. The shotgun and the sub machine guns are worthless until the brothel level as most of your enemies are two far away to really use them. Even then that is the only level to use them. Silencers do nothing. One you shoot enemies will rush you no matter what. Maybe the multi-player is a different story but there is no way I was going to try it with all the other issues this game has already.

Now the bad. Just about everything else. This game is so linear it’’s sad. There is no way usually to flank anyone. Some times there are side rooms to go into, but it feels like the developer played the game at some point and said hey maybe we should add these to make the game seem not so linear. They have no point and almost always have no guns or ammo.

The voice acting and story are totally shitty.

With one minor exception the best strategy for beating a boss is to run up to them…Oh this reminds me when you run you can”t turn. You can only run in strait line. What!! Are you retarded?? Anyways run up to them and keep stabbing them with your knife until they die. Yep that will do it. When you stab them stumble and can”t do anything for a second which is long enough for you stab them again. Easy as pie.

I keep going as this game has so many issues. Like the first time I tried to play it and it crashed. Looks like they never tried it on Vista and had to issue a patch for it right after the release. But I think that’’s enough.

*sigh* back to work!

I got a Nintendo Wii a couple of weeks ago. I choose that because I figured more people would want to play it, including my wife, who feels a bit left out sometimes as she isn”t really good with out systems. I am pretty happy with it for the most part. Though some games didn”t seem to really think out the control system too well. >:XX

During Thanksgiving it was a big hit. Even my father inlaw was playing it. Someone that almost never uses a computer and generally is afraid of technology. It was amazing to see how easy it was for people to pick up and play. Nintendo did a great job.