Category: Games

GTA IV Review

My initial reactions:

  1. What was i thinking when I bought a game without trying a demo first?
  2. My x1950 Pro was never a speed demon but I can barely play it on low levels?
  3. ATI drivers are still a pain to upgrade.
  4. So MUCH potential and yet such poor results.
  5. Updated ATI drivers makes things MUCH worse?!

Do I really regret buying it?  Not really.  The multiplayer was cool and its a good story line.  However, I updated my drivers and now it’s virtually unplayable and I dont’ want to upgrade my video card until next year.

Besides the obvious launch problems there is still a few things that should be changed.  The first item and the most annoying thing is console companies not changing their menus to be PC friendly.  They are still console menu based!  UT4 I never bought for this simple purpose.  Actually, there were many people who didn’t buy it because of that.

Secondly, when accessing multiplayer you have to go into the single player version, pull out your phone and THEN you can access multiplayer.  This makes zero sense to me.  It actually took me about 15 minutes of searching to figure out how to get into tthe mulitplayer portion.  One other gripe about mulitplayer.  I am against the many different version of multiplayer.  I believe it fragments the market for that game and makes it difficult to create a core user base.  Once you have that core user base you can introduce mods or different gameplay types.  Right now, I’m afraid the multiplayer will die a quick death.

GTA IV box art
GTA IV box art

Walk My Plank – A web based game

I should have written about this months ago.  Well I guess I will just do a quick rundown.  It is a web based game that doesn’t require any downloads and is FREE to play.  The basic premise of it is to increase in levels by attacking other pirates and NPCs which are Brittish and Spanish ships.  The higher your level the more stats you accumulate which makes you stronger.  There are a few other aspects to the game.

  • Fishing – You can go fishing and have to figure out the proper bait, rod and hook to use to catch certain kinds of fish.

Exploring – There are ‘ports’ you explore.  this is how you find dubloons (along with gold is the currency of the game) and other ships to fight.

It is a free game like I had mentioned but there is also a pay aspect to it.  Spending real cash can get you many different types of things whether it is treasure chests to hold your loot or special days that give you faster regeneration and such.

I should go more in depth but hopefully this has perked your interest to check it out.

Left 4 Dead Demo Quick Reactions

Left 4 Dead is an exciting zombie game

Left 4 Dead is a new game that will be released on November 18th.  It is a zombie game created by Valve.  The same people who brought us Portal, Team Fortress 2 and the Half Life series.  If you have ever seen the movie, 28 Days Later, you will feel like you are in the movie.

Much like Spore, I am going to try and not rehash what has already been written over a thousand times.  However, I do want to give my insight as an online first person gamer.  Warning: I have only tried the single player and have only played as the survivors.

What you do in this game is you and three other ‘survivors’ whether they are played by the computer or other players, must make it from 1 point on a map to another by avoiding the zombies.  The zombies are all crazy and just lunge at you straight out of the movies.  There are a few special zombies but all in all the horde is quite daunting.  You can also play as the zombies but i have not tried that yet.

I love the fast pace of the game, the sounds and really spooky ambiance of the maps.  Another favorite of mine is the gore.  I get to shoot and kill non stop.  The computer AI does a great job of making the hordes very random and coming at you at different ways every time you play.

What concerns me is the possibility that this will get stale.  I prefer to log a minimum of 40 hours online and 4 hours in a single player game.  The key for me is the online portion and I am still not convinced that this game will give me that longevity.  I’m afraid I will get bored with it. The reason for this is the only thing that can change each map (besides the placement of the zombies) is the map itself.  Couple this with the lack of variables (only a few weapons, only 4 in a group, always going from point a to point b.)

I only have a few hours logged and will wait a few weeks to try it again.  I will definitely try it again unlike Spore.

Quick update 11/21/2008: Can’t even get the demo to work now in steam for the past few days.  It says it is pre-loaded and will only allow me to purchase the full game.  Quite disappointing.

DRM, Spore and a quick review

Currently, the two games i am playing are Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and Spore.  However, right now I am going to talk some about Spore.

Once again, there are plenty of reviews out there for the game.  I don’t know if most of these reviews are biased because it’s a Will Wright game but from my point of view it is extremely boring.  It’s basically a bunch of little games put together.  I am only on stage 2 right now but I think I am just going to quit.  You go around either making friends or eating other species.  The ultimate goal would be to get to the next stage.  It’s just not deep enough for me.  I LOVE Simcity but never liked the Sims.  Got bored with it.

Another problem with Spore is because of their parent company Electronic Arts.  Check out Amazon’s ratings and reviews for the game.  Many negative reviews.  It’s backlash for the bad DRM they have in the game.   DRM is short for digital rights management.  It’s also the reason why legally paying customers get frustrated and the pirates pirate games because they can strip the DRM out.

In this particular case, Spore only allows three installs before it stops working.  So you better hope that a. no computer crashes and b. it installs perfectly the first time.  Once you have reached your three installs you would have to call EA and there is no guarantee they will help you out.

Part two of this fiasco is EA is limiting families to only having one online account.  An online account wll allow you to share your creatures with others.  Lets say Mom and Dad has two kids.  They are looking for a family oriented game instead of all the blood and guts games.  This leads them to Spore which they purchase.  Well, supposedly the manual was even printed wrong.  Kid A can’t have his own online account.  Only one account for the whole family.  Why anger your core demograhic?  It boggles my mind.