No comment: LA Noire

I'm not reviewing this game. But I will talk about it. First of all I bought it used with the add on voucher still valid. In other words Rockstar didn't get money from me. At first I felt bad but the feeling didn't last long.

LA Noire has been hyped up to rediciulous proportions to the point people think they are playing the greatest game ever. Before this game was a hit Rockstar branded it as a franchise. This is annoying because there is a lot about this game that is not good. The plot is... there... but the execution is just as repetitive as Assassins Creed which got a lot of hate for it being repetitive as all hell

Every case is pretty much crime scene, search for clues, talk to witness, collect more clues at a new location, talk to new people, chase or shoot out followed by interrogate and then case closed. The random street crimes trend to all be "go here and subdue suspect"

The graphics are very well done however because they are so life like, the facial transitions can look awkward and robotic. Sometimes the heads look copied and pasted on. Every once and a while the motion captured animations make the controls feel clunky. For instance running up a fire escape. It's not obvious unless you release the controls but Cole will ascend every flight of stairs on his own when the animation begins which means you are locked into his direction of travel.

The in between bits where you are allowed to free roam look good but the city is not as full of life outside of street crimes so you are pretty much a tourist when driving around.

I don't know if LA Noir is supposed to be cinematic adventure like Heavy Rain or cinematic action like metal gear solid but either way it can't decide. They could just as well shoehorned this game into a CSI premise  and it would have made sense.

Once I play through to completion I might review it but for now any review from me would just be troll fodder

JG

Jaded Gaming Classic

MOST RECENT UPDATES AT THE TOP

11:17pm – I’m still thinking of getting episode 5 online because I have most of the footage I need for it.  Episode 6 is going to take about a week longer (maybe) because I haven’t been making the best use of my time since I found out that a good friend died.  I just can’t believe it. 

8:08pm – The past 7 hours have been real interesting. I played a bunch of Fallout New Vegas.  Honest Hearts is a decent expansion.  I still like Brink.  I was literally about to go to the store, get some soda, come back and film content and reviews but I got a phone call that one of my co-workers has died.  So I’m thrown for a loop. Give me some time to wrap my mind around this.

12:43pm – I can’t do it.  I just can’t do it. I can only ram so much L.A Noir down my gullet before I just start automatically rejecting it.  I guess It’s time to film and edit stuff.

SUNDAY – 11:00am – My Alarm goes off… and the first question I have is… When did I fall asleep? The second I have is… Why I don’t I sleep in my bed? Coffee!!! I NEED COFFEE!!!

11:35 – My Duke Ending reaction

11:28 – After frequent breaks to trudge my way through Duke. I’ve finally made my way through it.  If I died twice in a row, I took a break. Hell, Two loading screens in a row IS a break.

8:12 – After a lengthy break and some food, Duke Nukem Forever will be a notch on the ol gaming belt.

5:31 – Approaching the final hours of Duke Nukem

4:20 – Break, for no apparent reason.

SATURDAY - 12:30pm - Just woke up. Duke is loaded. Washing up then getting to it.

5:06am - Uploaded video

4:50 – Beat Alice: Madness Returns.  . Vid incoming.

3:52 – Lies.  Second wind.

3:39am – My eyes are burning. Gonna handle the finale of Alice tomorrow morning.

1:20am – Alice in the asylum

1:00am – Quick break.  Making great time with Alice.

11:00pm – Alice is loaded and I’m bouncing down the rabbit hole to victory… I hope.

10:30pm - Ok folks. This is the first of probably many “Jaded Gaming Cassics” brought to you by free time and getting ish done.

The goal: To complete not only 3 video games (2 of which came out this past tuesday) but to release two episodes of The Jaded Gamer’s show back to back Sunday night/Monday morning.  So with this thing set to kick off at 11pm tonight. (June 17th) I have to go do my starting prep… like… NOW

So keep checking the actual blog (www.TheJadedGamer.tk) because there will be videos/screenshots that may not get imported if you’re viewing it through imported RSS pages like Facebook/Fan group pages.

Hopefully there will be enough updates over the next 48 hours for you to sink your teeth into as well as videos you can ONLY view from this page/entry. 

Thank you and wish me luck.

JG

Not a review: Brink

I wrote a lot for this Blog entry about Brink, mostly defending this game.  But I realize.. it doesn’t need any defence. Any reviewer or critic that hated this game… hates teamwork and innovation and would prefer every game be about Kill/Death ratios and kill streaks.  Hey… if that floats your boat… cool.  If being the greatest individual in a teamwork scenario is what you’re about… you will hate Brink. Brink will eat your face the moment you think you can go solo on ANYTHING!

I’m getting better and better at being a “Solo Op” meaning like Bond… I do my best work alone.  High risk/High Reward.  With me on your team you wont need to send a team off to hack a command post or shut down a shortcut, I can do that by myself.  But that  behaviour constantly screws my team over. If I’m not there for a Comms hack (reveals ALL enemy positions on your map) or highlighting enemies (so everybody on my team can see that one enemy even through a wall) … So because of my Solo skills I HAVE to succeed in my solo ops 99.9% of the time because I’m screwing my team over every time.  Teamwork always pays off more than a solo effort… 

The rapport I have with the Engineer class is amazing.  After leveling up a bit.. I can hack enemy turrets and turn them against their masters… but… I level up a little more and I can use the Turret like it’s a mounted gun… BUT REMOTELY… so now I can watch over two points of entry.  I’m still a “one-man” special ops team most of the time but I need my team to pull it off. 

But does my team need me? I hope so.  Without me the hack based objectives would be very difficult.  I’ve got my hack technique down pretty good.  I’m in… caltrops get dropped at the hackbox and now I’m hiding close by hacking the thing remotely.  A lot slower with distance so.. PROTIP: I’m hiding REALLY close by.  Now the enemy has to either find me or deal with the caltrops I dropped that cut them as they try to deactivate my hackbox.  Then even assuming they find me to do me in… I can blow myself up after you incapacitate me. So I’m a threat even in death.  Remove me from your team and you are already at a disadvantage. And I’m just one guy (9 times out of 10 I’m one of two operatives on my team) And chances are the other Operative does not play the same style that I do.

You’ll see my actual real review in a week or so. . but for now, look at videos of the game and read all the mixed to positive reviews. And if you still want to play it… rent it first.  It’s a good game.  Is it perfect? Not even close! But it’s the best attempt I’ve seen since Counterstrike and Team Fortress CLASSIC to try to move team-based/Objective based multiplayer forward.  And for that it should be commended!  I’m so bored by every DOOM/Quake/Unreal clone.  It’s boring to me. 

So if you can still feel good about spending 60 dollars on roughly the same multiplayer modes you’ve been playing for the past 5 – 10 years Brink is just gonna piss you off because it’s not the same game everything else is.  So if you want the same boring stale shit you’re used to… go out and get Call of Duty or something. 

Episode 4!

1 Rant/8 Reviews

It’s been a long time. I shouldn’t have left you without a dope show to rep you.

Ahhh Nintendo.. I know you hate me

People seem to think I hate Nintendo. I really don't. We as gamers owe a lot of current gen innovation to them. They are a great company that does great things. And with the exception of the stupid Game Cube and it's playskool controller, I've been excited over every announcement they make.

My beef with them is that they are pretty sadistic and their fans have to be masochistic.

In my experience this all started during the gameboy era. Nintendo rules handhelds and always have. I mean the Game Gear was ok but it had too many problems.  Lynx was garbage so you would be better off with those Tiger games.

From gameboy to gameboy pocket... A more portable version of a portable system... Ok.. Sure.. Why not? The gameboy was pretty bulky... Gameboy color... Wait .. What? Ok anything beats cream broccoli colour.. Fine.. Even though the so called "color" mechanic was pretty crappy.. I can deal. Gameboy advance... 32-bit in the palm of my hand!!! AWESOME!! No 3D processing... FAIL!.. But they made the most of it and some pretty great games did come out for it.  Gameboy Advance SP.. This was the beginning of the end for me. I jumped ship to PSX because I wanted to play some next gen and the 64/GBA wasn't cutting it. Mainly because nintendo started pulling a sega by forcing peripherals on me. The graphics pak with the 64 and the headphone jack addon you need for the GBA SP.

So I hopped on Sony's bandwagon and for 10 years they took care of me. Wow a life span of 10 years... How old school nintendo! Naturally you'd think I would move on to ps2.. Nope... Original Xbox.. It was the Tim Taylor of consoles. MORE POWER! But it want selling as well as the ps2 so even though it angered me to see them leapfrog Sony, I didnt get too angry. But the ps2 was still being supported.  I guess it made sense because the ps2 was once again on it's way to selling 100 million ... Again.

Back to nintendo.  When the Wii bust out of the gate selling like hot cakes, I was impressed. I thought.. "Nice. They took an inferior system and marketed it so well." But I saw the pedobear come out of nintendo almost instantly. Over priced EVERYTHING on a system full of shovelware. But people ate It up for whatever reason.  Skip ahead.. Wii is out selling everything. It has zero reason to release a new system and almost 80 million reasons to support the current one.  But why would they when they know their fans are going to buy plastic peripherals, headphone jacks and classic controllers to make their repurposed games payable. And going out to buy a new controller to make your console backwards compatible. .. So weird you guys.

I know what you may be thinking, 5 years between consoles is not unusual. It's not. . when your console is in 2nd or 3rd place and you are competing for market space. Our even when your console is dying (which is why the DS despite it's iterations gets excused) but the wii should be in it's prime. Why cut the head off a popular system when you can easily extend it's life? ANSWER: Your fans are casual gamers that dont know any better. Nintendo relies on brand loyalty which is fine.

I like nintendo.. I admire the way they advance and innovate the industry but I'm not exactly sure they want me to like games. But thats a whole other entry.

(keep in mind I prefer the original xbox over the ps2) Sony has the best idea.. Support your console till it's dead... And beyond.. (pspgo says hi) The way the original nintendo did and the way microsoft is doing now.

in fact, kudos to Microsoft. The 360 is an inferior machine from a tech pov when compared to the ps3 but they manage to do extremely well.

With all that being said.. I'm looking forward to nintendo's new system. It sounds awesome... In fact, it sounds like what I want in a console. A ton of innovation seems to be placed in it.  But is the wii going to die needlessly because of it? Do I have to buy peripherals to make it backwards compatible? Am I going to have to buy another console at the apex of the new system's popularity? Will there be less shovelware?

I would love to jump back on their bandwagon but if the console is going to get killed a year or two after I get it... Why bother?

Psn... and hackers

Look Sony.. One or two days for your network being down is fine. Shit happens. But lets face it, you should have back-ups in place.  Furthermore, you should have way more transparency on the matter instead of these stupid cryptic messages us users have to take decoder rings to just to understand what the hell is going on.

For the past two generations  Sony has been ruling it. But from 2006 till now you guys have made the weirdest decisions ever.  Starting with the $699 price tag (this shit better last 10 years) to the pspgo being more expensive despite having less functionality. Lets not forget the psp's price drop then price hike. My heart pours out to the psn+ users out there. They are getting screwed. And if you want more proof that DRM on consoles is a bad idea, check out bionic commando rearmed 2 that is unplayable till psn comes back online.

Every single time I take nintendo to task for their treatment of (real?) Gamers, I pray they dont realize Sony has been punishing me for supporting them. As a ps3 user I get DLC for cross-platform games after 360. I get games after 360...and still do. 360 exclusives tend to be better... And get this... 360 games even look better sometimes. Ghostbusters is a sony pictures product (isnt it?) And it looked better on 360.  And get this awesome revolutionary concept! When I put a game into my 360... I'm playing it almost instantly. Same game on a ps3 is almost guaranteed to be a 2-5 gig install.

I would trade disc swapping for all that crap any day.  .

But this psn outage is the cherry on top. 3 major releases in one week that depend on psn are useless. I'm gonna say it. I dont care about portal 2's co-op anymore and I'm buying Brink on 360.. In fact I might get EVERY multiplayer game I want on the 360. The network is superior (better be. I'm paying for it)

I'm kidding. If it weren't for IPs like Heavy Rain, Metal Gear Solid and Yakuza, i'd switch. But seriously Sony... Get psn back up.

Next... Anonymous. Maybe you brought down psn, maybe you didnt. I saw something on facebook where you took credit and then denied it on your homepage. Whatever. Normally when I hear of your exploits.. I think you have a point. But taking credit for this attack could land you in jail so why would you take credit? Furthermore... To deny involvement firmly places you within the ranks of terrorists.

Even if you agree with GeoHotz breaking the law (Like it or not, he did. Read the EULA) Threatening Sony for wanting to protect their intellectual property as well as the intellectual property of others is bad form. If you want to develop homebrew for the ps3... Tough. Buy the SDK. I would even say go ahead and hack your console but keep it offline and dont boast about it. You wouldn't rob a bank and then post how you broke the law on your twitter. This stinks of teenagers throwing a fit because their parents told them to be in before dark.

I respect your skills. I really do. But attacking somebody or ruining lives because of something so petty makes you no different than the scientologists you rage against.  Your power and influence exist on the internet and id be silly to challenge it. I dont want to bring you down. Anonymous is a great counter-balance to government control but I now wonder if you have just become drunk with power... Much like the machine you rage against.

EA games is 24 hour flu watery shit

Ok. Whenever you hear me say anything about EA... I'm talking about the publisher and probably not one of their developers.

As most people know i'm a big fan of the Fight Night franchise. I'm not really competitive with it anymore. I think I've peaked and fallen off. I'm past my prime and it's all downhill.

Anyways... EA has a history of making you pay for things usually included in the game for free (like cheats) and they ship unfinished games (game mode sold separately) and all I'm saying is we gamers need to send them a message.  I know it's easy to say "just don't buy it." But the bigger problem is my everlasting fight to save gamers from themselves. You see... If you still it, the will come.  There really needs to be a grass roots movement rallying against EAs style of monetization.

Can you imagine if you had to pay $2.99 to use the konami code?