Game Face 3

The past two years I've made lists of the holiday games I'm excited about. Second verse, same as the first.

This post has been a long time coming. Three of the games that were originally included have have been released since I first started jotting down titles (for those keeping track, Halo: Reach would have been on the "For Sure!" list, while both DeathSpank and Metroid would have been on the "I'm Listening..." list).

Once I was finished I noticed a few things different from previous years: There's a lot less high "For Sure!" list (one is a real game, one's a party game, and one's a glorified map pack). There are NO PS3 games. There are NO DS games. There are a lot of "I'm Listening..."

A lot of the lack of heavy hitters might be because this year was so strong already. With Battlefield Bad Company 2, Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, Starcraft 2, Alan Wake, Super Street Fighter, God of War III, Heavy Rain, Super Mario Galaxy 2 (and those are just the HUGE ones) already being released, I'm not surprised that there's not a ton of steam left.

Actually, looking at everything on all the lists, there' still a ton of stuff coming out.

Done Deals

• Metroid: Other M (Wii)
  
• Halo Reach (360)
  
• Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue (XBLA)
  

For Sure!

• Fable III (360)
  
• Rock Band 3
  
• Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam (360)
  

Probably...

• Medal of Honor (360)
  
• DJ Hero 2 (360)
  
• Dance Central (360)
  
• Costume Quest (360)
  
• World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm (PC)
  
• Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare (360)
  
• Pinball FX 2
• Vanquish (360)
  
• Dead Space Ignition (XBLA)
  

I'm Listening...

• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (360)
  
• Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
  
• Super Meat Boy (XBLA)
  
• Epic Mickey (Wii)
  
• Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (360)
  
• Enslaved (360)
  

The Underdogs

• Assassins Creed: Brotherhood (360)
  
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (360)
  
• Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom (360)
  
• Dead Rising 2 (360)
  

So that's that. I'm sure I missed some stuff, but whatever. I'm done with this list. But wait! Let's look at the amazing stuff that was mostly pushed back from this holiday season into early next year!

Bangers in Early-ish 2011

• Dead Space 2
  
• Portal 2
  
• Dragon Age 2
  
• Crysis 2
  
• Gears of War 3
  
• LBP 2
  
• Killzone 3
  
• Socom 4
  
• Marvel VS Capcom 3

DAAAAMN!

Back to school. For a couple days.

This weekend Lindsay and I had a 2 day InDesign class. It was from 9-4 on Saturday and Sunday, and covered the basics of the program. I haven't used InDesign since before CS came around, so it's been a while.

We have a project coming up where we're going to have to create some print layouts, so we figured we'd better brush up before that starts.

It was pretty fun, and I learned a lot, even thought a fair bit of the class was a bit too remedial considering Lindsay and I are pretty dang well versed in Adobe's other programs. But we got enough information to feel competent, and I think we'll probably take the more advanced class next semester.

It's kind of strange to be back in school, but at the same time I see how much more useful class can be when you're not a kid. I think I had an easier time comprehending a lot of the information, because I could directly apply it to a lot of real-life, work-day situations in the arts.

When I was in school learning illustrator, I might have had no idea how it would apply to my everyday life. It seemed kind of useless. Fast forward 10 years I use it daily and I love it...

So when the instructor is showing a new tool or explaining a concept, I have the context to see exactly how it's valuable and precisely how I could use it in my workflow.

I also made the decision to really get a handle on my fonts. Our teacher was a font aficionado, and his passion for typography was a little contagious. I've been really frustrated by the mess of a font library, so I asked him after class to help my come up with a list of fonts I should have active at all times, and then I'll group the others into categories I can toggle on and off as a project sees fit.

I'm sick of scrolling through 2-300 (crappy) fonts constantly. Most of them suck, there's too many crappy one-off display fonts that are mostly useless... It's just depressing, really. To me, at least.

During the day we ate lunch at Pho Hoa on Saturday, and Jasmine Deli Sunday. We also had potstickers, dumplings and a noodle soup for dinner. Add that to my sushi binge last week, and I feel like I've eaten nothing but Asian food for a long while. Tonight Lindsay and I ran out for Punch after we cleaned the crap out of our house, so a Greek salad and some bad ass pizza really hit the spot.

I played some Battlefield with Ryan and Chris C tonight. It was really fun, and I'm still pretty good at that game, despite my brain occasionally slipping to the Halo control scheme.

I think I'm going to prepare a list of notable games that are coming out this holiday that I might be interested in. So ready yourself for that exciting shit.

Fine taste.

I have eaten Sushi from Fuji Ya for the last three days. And when not eating Sushi, I've eaten Dominos Pizza and Chris and Rob's Hot Dogs. I'm man of discerning tastes...

I got a new project from a new client this week. I finished it a few minutes ago and on Monday I'm going to get a second helping. It's not the most fun or glamorous work, but it pays really well and I really like my contact person.

I've been playing through Halo: Reach on Heroic bit by bit. It's tough. I've beat Halo 3 and ODST on Heroic by myself, Legendary in co-op, I have a feeling Reach is a bit harder than either of those games... In nearly every level there's a section or two where I hit a wall and think "is it time to drop it down to 'normal'? Maybe..." but then I push through.

I'm having a blast, though, and it's those humps that make it really fun. I think Halo does get better as the game gets harder. The enemies seem smarter (really they just stay alive longer and make more decisions, so it seems like they're genius), and you really have to assess the battlefield and plan accordingly. On Heroic or Legendary, it seems like a game of resources. Every situation seems to have a perfect weapon, but it's usually in short supply so it's up to some tactical improvisation after that.

But there's so many combination and approaches to take, even after trying again and again, I always find a semi-graceful solution. It's very different from a shooter like Call of Duty, that just becomes a game of twitch, speed and pattern memorization.

I picked up the new Deathspank game but I've yet to play it. I really liked the first Deathspank, but I probably had my fill by the time it was over. Releasing a sequel a mere two months later seems crazy by videogame standards, and I wonder how many people really are ready for more. I honestly don't think I am, but I will be eventually. Mainly, I like what Hothead is doing and I want to give them my dollas.

I also played the Enslaved demo I grabbed off PSN. I enjoyed but didn't love Ninja Theory's previous game Heavenly Sword. There was a lot I appreciated, but something about it didn't click. The combat wasn't tight enough, I guess. It felt more like a showpiece for PS3 and less like a game, maybe.

I didn't enjoy Enslaved much. The controls felt awful, the lip syncing was terrible (it reminded me of a youtube video where the video and sound fall 1/2 second out of sync) and it looked ok, but not even as good as I remember Heavenly Sword being. I said 'eh, too bad. looked like it might have been fun' and went on with my day.

Then I noticed the Enslaved demo on 360 a few days later, and downloaded it at the studio because it seemed like the animation and characters might be something Francesca would like to see. And for some reason, it was pretty awesome. The controls felt way better, animation felt smoother, the lip syncing was spot on. I went from being totally cold on the game to thinking I might actually pick it up. Weird.

Jade Excitement.

Blah blah blah. Damn these posts are boring sometimes. I realize day-to-day minutia is so tedious I don't know why I bother writing it down... So in the spirit of entertainment, here's a couple pcitures of Jade. She fell asleep in my lap as I was playing Frozen Synapse in bed!





Awwwww.

Wedding and Cleaning.

An old friend's wedding was on Saturday. I kind of hate weddings, and Lindsay really does, so it's not something we get terribly excited for.

That took up most of the day. It was very wedding-y. We danced a bunch, but we were the ONLY ones most of the time. It was fun but kind of awkward. We didn't know many people there, but we were lucky enough to sit next to someone I found enjoyable and interesting.

We took off around 10 and headed home to meet up with Adam. On the way home we stopped at Target to get cat litter and I saw a dude who was so tall it made me dizzy. I never have to look up to people, at the very least I'm about eye-level with them, but this dude was about 8 inches taller, if not more.

Although it was supposed to be an in-and-out trip for cat litter, I left with some shirts and a copy of Metroid: Other M. I'm not too into Nintendo franchises, and while I appreciate that Super Metroid is a great game, I played it 15 years too late to make any impact on me. But something about Other M... I don't know. I had to play it.

We met Adam at our place, and played a bunch of RockBand. We made a character that looks nothing like him. Lindsay and my characters are instantly recognizable, and Chris C's and Becky's are pretty spot-on, but Adam just didn't have anything to grab onto to make it identifiable. It could be just any blond dude.

On Sunday we went to the Square with Chris and Jessie. We stayed a long time, just chillin'. Chillin' at the Square. After that we pretty much spent the day cleaning. We decided to do some deep-down cleaning and seriously assess how we use our space... just like we do every week or month or whatever. But we made some progress, so that's cool.

At night I've been playing some Reach and Metroid. Reach is still pretty hard, and now I refuse to turn down the difficulty, so I bash my head against the Elites for a while, then cleanse my palette with Other M before bed. I'm actually totally loving bother games.

Ryan's gone now.

I have been bad at updating, but this past week was a little crazy.

On Tuesday we made a last-minute decision to see Wicked at the Orpheum. We had been meaning to see it, but it's was ending on Sunday so the pressure was on. Thanks to school/wedding/best friends leaving town, the only day free was that very night. So we went and it was great.

We got home pretty late and Halo: Reach was waiting for me. I popped it in and played a for a bit. I started right off by playing on Heroic, and it's tough. But a lot of fun. I played a couple of multiplayer matches and held my own. There's a lot of variety to the game-types, so I played a race and a zombie-mode game in addition to a straight-up deathmatch.

Wednesday I hung out with Ryan. He had plans, but they were cut short so he came over. I was at the studio, so we got some Falafel King and played Reach and Scott Pilgrim.

I took off when Lindsay was out of class, but on Thursday Ryan came over during the day. We were really busy and had two freelancers/interns in the studio, so it was more distracting than anything, so I gave him a controller and made him play Halo until I got through the stuff that had to be finished ASAP. Lindsay picked up Francesca from the airport so she could say goodbye to Ryan before he left forever.

We sat around and talked for a while, and then left without much fanfare. It was a sad last few moments. Lindsay and I went to get sushi and just reflected on dumb Ryan leaving.

Friday was a normal workday, but after work we met up with Atom. We tried to go to Fuji Ya, but it was too full to seat us, so we went to Tiger Sushi something instead. It was so awesome food, yo.

So long, sucka.

On Friday I spent the day doing dumb crap. Lindsay was at class, so I was covering for her clients. And anything that could go wrong, did, so I spent the whole day redoing files, sending emails and trying not to look incompetent, since I was unfamiliar with every project I was dealing with.

After Lindsay got back we got some sushi at Fuji Ya. It was the first time I sat at the sushi bar after all these years. It was good fun. Afterward we went home and we baked a giant cookie for Ryan... I went to Domino's and got an empty box, and we decorated the cookie to look like a pizza. Because Ryan loves hanging and eating Domino's (he only likes the one a couple blocks from our house).

It was a risk, a big deviation from our normal Hamburger Cake, but it was a success.









Ryan's party was on Friday. It started at 2, but before that I had to clean, mow the lawn, get the grill and patio furniture ready... I did all that and was getting out of the shower when the first people showed up. It was a smaller bbq, but fun. We made a gift bag of Ryan-y things to give everyone, and we ate a ton of hamburgers and hot dogs. For the early BBQ action it was just Ryan, Chris C, Jessie, Lindsay, Adam and myself, but that was nice.







We broke out the massive cookie and everyone got sick to their tummies from sweetness overload. (all these pictures are roughly the same, but whatever. I just want to see Ryan's beautiful face one last time.)

























Once everyone's sugar coma was in full effect, we moved inside. Chris Crammer ran back to his place to grab some controllers, so Ryan and I had a mini Street Fighter Tournament in the meantime, for old times sake. He won. Good riddance.

We played some 4 player Bomberman when Crammer got back. I love Bomberman. It was in college, I would play Bomberman a lot. But you need at least 3 or 4 people to have a good time, which means it rarely happens these days. But after that night, I think I'll try to make it happen more.

Then we moved on to Boom Blox, another criminally overlooked, totally awesome multiplayer game. Even better than Bomberman, in fact, because the girls got wat into it too. By this time Mary and Sara had joined us. Jared showed up soon after, as well.

We moved onto Rockband and played for a long, long time. Even longer than usual, I think, although I only got to play a handful of times because I had started the grill back up and was cooking up round 2 of meaty treats.















Everyone trickled out, until around 3 am and it was just me, Lindsay and Ryan. We kind of sat around talking about nothing. I could tell no one really wanted to say goodbye, but finally Ryan took off for the night. There was a sad, long hug, even though we'll see Ryan again on Thursday, right before he leaves for good.



What a bastard.

Frozen Synapse.

I finished up Splinter Cell Conviction. Similar to how I felt about Shank, it's a short game, but also too long. It was probably 5 hours long, maybe 6 or 7, I'm not sure. But by the time it was over (speaking strictly about the single player), I was totally done with it.

The main reason I was interested was just to continue to get familiar with the controls and methods of navigating the environment, and to unlock all the weapons. What I'm really interested in are the Deniable Ops and Co-Op missions (which the unlocks carry over to). The non-story driven modes are really where the game shines, and at the price you can find Conviction (25 on Amazon, last I checked) it's a pretty easy recommendation.

But even more exciting that co-op spy action is Frozen Synapse. I've given it some more hands on time, and I'm officially smitten with it. It's amazing.

The "play by mail' mode I described in my last post works wonderfully. Tonight I signed up, and played with the other people on line. I would send a challenge and make my first move, only to receive another challenge from someone else. I constantly had 3 or 4 games going. I'd jump from game to game, taking a turn here and getting a notice just as the other player completed their turn. It's a blast.

I can see the community being a problem, however. The game isn't released yet and the beta's been going for months now (I remember first hearing about the game a long time ago and barely understanding what it was), so maybe it's not the hype train or anything, but it seems like there's usually no more than 10 people on, and usually there's only 4 or 5. I'm not sure if that's representative of the entire community, or it just picks a few to show you... but I would be surprised if that's it.

Which is a shame, because this seems to be a great multiplayer experience that doesn't require any effort or socialization. It CAN require effort and it CAN accommodate socialization, but it's only if you want it.

So maybe I should evangelize Frozen Synapse amongst my friends, but I know for a fact it's probably too slow and abstract to even get their attention. It's a shame.

Also, there's auto-publish to Youtube button. Which is not that useful, I guess, but a lot of fun. Here's a match I started out doing well, but ended up losing.

I think I could have zoomed in a bit, but I'm kind of unfamiliar with the process so far.

Frozen.

Lindsay's parents were in town this week, from Tuesday until the end of today. They kind of came up to help build a new fence around our property, but they only got as far as measuring the perimeter... I'm really not sure what they were up to the rest of the time.

While they were her we went out to Bad Waitress and Yum!, but otherwise I didn't see much of them. Whatever they did, it seems like the 6-7 hour drive to get here was probably not worth it.

I've been feeling a little sick all week. I don't know if I'm sick, or just tired. There's been some long nights this week, Lindsay's been begging me to stay up late, and Oliver has been being a real jerk at night.

And maybe forgetting that Monday was Labor Day and just moseying into the office and working all day gave us bad vibes for the rest of the week.

On Tuesday I hung out with Chris C while Lindsay and Jessie went to a Tea Ceremony. I introduced him to Splinter Cell Conviction. We played some local co-op Hunter missions. After a bit Ryan came online. He has the game as well, so Chris C and I traded off playing with him. Which is probably better, because even with a huge TV split screen is still kind of painful.

Lindsay and I have been getting ready for Ryan's Farewell BBQ. We bought a ton of stuff to make treat bags for everyone. I'll post the contents here once the party is over.

After we bought all that crap for the BBQ, Lindsay gave me a slick new haircut. My hair grows really fast, so it's always kind of time for a new haircut but I'm lazy. So I really needed one bad.

Last night I preordered Frozen Synapse. When you preorder, you get 2 copies; one for yourself and one for a friend. You also get 2 passes for immediate access to the long running beta.



Frozen Synapse is a simultaneous turn-based tactics game with super precise control over a squad. It reminds me a little of the very cool Flotilla except it's presentation is slicker and it's more complex.

But despite the super in-depth micro-managing, the abstract presentation and the hilarious 'one tiny mistake and your dead' gameplay, it's not actually that hard to pick up and play. I ran through the tutorial and was able to start winning skirmishes against the computer right off the bat.

But most people consider it a multiplayer game, and it's easy to see why. You can play an online opponent in real time, but since it's turn-based you can also play in a'Play By Mail' mode. Each player takes a turn, the results play out, and an email goes out telling each player to make the next move.

You can have multiple games going at once, and play at your leisure, so you could phesably wake up, take all your turns in the morning before work and be playing a game with a student who is playing everyday at midnight.

It's seems really cool, so I'll give it a try.

2 Arcade games.

I'm not feeling super great today. That's OK, at least sitting in the studio is better than sitting in an office when you're sick, for whatever reason.

I beat Shank the other night. It's a pretty good side scrolling beat-em-up. It's pretty short and by the end I'd had enough, which might be saying more about the genre than the game. Overall it was pretty enjoyable, the combat has a lot of variety even if the enemies don't. But it left a bad taste in my mouth because the last boss was really frustrating. I had a hard time beating him, and even when I was doing fine, it just took forever. Then I'd die in the last moments and have to start ALL over again. Blah. Maybe I was doing it wrong or something...



Overall, it was a cool game with showy animation that occasionally gets in the way of game play. If I had to recommend it, I probably wouldn't at it's current 15 dollar price tag. 10 bucks seems more reasonable.

But a game I CAN recommended is Dead Rising: Case 0. I wrapped it up completely yesterday and I totally loved it. At 5 bucks, it's a gimme for anyone who's ever thought that maybe they should give Dead Rising a try.



It's the way Dead Rising should be: 2 hours long. Which isn't the amount of gameplay the game offers, it's just the length of the story.

Allow me to explain: the Dead Rising series whole "thing" is that you're on a strict time limit. You've got certain objectives (in this case: build a motorcycle to escape before the military shows up, save your daughter from becoming a zombie, save a bunch of survivors, etc) to complete before the clock counts down to zero.

The survivors are optional, for the most part, and you are always gaining XP (or PP, since it's a Capcom game) and money. When you die, fail your objectives, or just feel like giving up in the middle of the game, you reset the story but not your stats and money. So it's almost a rouge-like.

On your first go at the story, you probably won't build the motorcycle, which means you can't really 'beat' the game. But after playing a couple times, you'll start to know where to go, who to help, and how to get things accomplished.

That trial-and-error BS doesn't fly when it's a 8-10 hour game, but when it's a 1 1/2-2 hour game it actually works wonderfully.

I had a blast and got every achievement in the game, which for me is a rare occurrence.

Here's the weird thing: Case 0 is marketing. It's a slice of the Dead Rising gameplay, introducing you to it's main character, it's weapon-creating mechanics, and it's (quite honestly) bizarre narrative structure. The 5 dollar price tag, and ability to carry over your leveled up character to the main game is obviously a way to introduce people to the full-retail priced Dead Rising 2 (available at the end of the month).

While some people were skeptical of Case 0 being a glorified paid demo, it's actually a well-rounded, full-featured, bite-sized game, worthy of standing alone. It's got a complete story (taking place 2 years after Dead Rising and 3 years before Dead Rising 2) with several endings, a unique environment (as opposed to recycling from one of the full priced games), it's own achievements, voice acting, etc.

The funny part is, despite the fact that I beat the crap out of it, played through it about 3 or 4 times to see everything and I loved every minute, it made me pretty sure I don't want Dead Rising 2.

Case 0 was kind of exactly what I wanted. Although it's supposed to wet my appetite for Dead Rising 2, instead it gave me a fix just big enough to make Dead Rising 2 obsolete...

What I'd prefer is Case 1, 2 and 3. More small, bite sized Dead Rising experiences. The game is about experimentation and retrying things, and on a large scale that doesn't sound appealing.

Maybe I'll give Dead Rising 2 a try just based on how much I enjoyed Case 0. It just might not be for a while.

State Fair.

We hung out with Ryan last Thursday. Lindsay was kind of sick so she napped at the studio after work for a bit while I played Dead Rising: Case 0. Once we finally got going, Ryan came over and we ate some pizza and just hung out for a while. It's sad that he's leaving, but I sang him a touching ballad in Rockband, so he knows how I feel.



On Friday we went out to Pho Hoa with Adam. Then we went to Altered Esthetics (that's how it's spelled) to see Chris S's art in the new show. Isara, Mary, Chris C and Jessie were there, so we ended up hanging around for a couple hours.

On Saturday we went to the State Fair with Chris and Jessie. It was OK. We took the free bus there, so that was cool. Parking and driving in that area really sucks, so taking the bus makes things way better.



The Fair was packed. Super packed. Super-duper packed. Panic-inducingly packed.





We went straight to the animal area. I tried to take some pictures, but it was so crowded I eventually gave up. But here's a few.







After the animals, we started to look for food. Lindsay and I aren't exactly into the whole fair food culture. We shared a Pronto Pup, which I am told is different than a Corn Dog but damned if I could tell.

Then we got some cookies. They were kind of small, but we each ate 4 or 5. Then I felt sick.

Jessie goes to the Fair multiple times a year, and ate the crap out of lots of stuff. By this point I wanted some fruit or vegetables, because I hadn't eaten anything before we went and my stomach felt pretty crappy.

Amazingly, I did find the one place that had some Pineapple. I'm not even sure it was for sale (they were coring pineapples to make novetly cups for piña coladas). But it was amazing.

After the fair, we hung out at Chris C's house for a while. Then we headed to Ikea to get some office furniture. And the mall after that... just because, I guess. Lindsay wanted some clothes. Or shoes. Or something.

When we got home I was exauseted and just went to bed. it was only midnight, but couldn't stand being awake anymore.

Iceland is up.

I finally finished sorting, editing and uploading and blogging all the pictures from Iceland.

You can see all the pictures in the flickr set.

If you like things like 'context' you can read all about it in the following links. You could just scroll down, I guess, but if you like things in chronological order the links might be more helpful.

Iceland Day 1
Iceland Day 2
Iceland Day 3
Iceland Day 4
Iceland Day 5
Iceland Day 6
Iceland Day 7
Iceland Day 8

To be honest, putting all of this together was a HUGE pain in the ass. I spent a long, long time working on it. It's taken up a big chunk of my life since we got back. And I'm glad to be done.

I think it's great to have since I tire of repeating the same stories ad nauseum, but at the same time, when I was stealing every minute I could just to sort through a couple more photos or write another blog post I couldn't help but think, "why am I doing this? is it even worth it?"

It's a bit less of a huge burden when I at least have my computer with me. That way I can at type out the blogs at the end of each day, instead of taking rough notes and then trying to piece back together what happened. And maybe import some photos and decide which are best to use.

Part of the pain also is thanks to Icelandic not being easy to read or write, so every name, location, and term I used I had to Google and figure out if it existed, how to spell it, and what weird characters to use. Just to make sure I wasn't writing gibberish and nonsense.

I guess it's a full circle kind of thing. Lindsay does all of the planning, and once the vacation is over her work is done, but mine is just beginning.

Whatevs. Now to play Dead Rising 2: Case Zero!