Crotch-Rockets and Katanas

I've never been one to hop into video game forums and debate/scream about this video game or that video game and which one is better and which on is worse. I'm perfectly content letting the rest of the Internet do that.

After re-watching some Saint's Row: The Third trailers, I found myself reading the comment section of this Kotaku post. There's nothing unusual here in the debating/screaming; however, the comments forced me to look back at my experience with GTA and dissect how I played those games.

Being first introduced to Grand Theft Auto through the revolutionary GTA3, I can't really speak to the earlier bird's-eye-view PlayStation versions. My neighbor and I went to a FuncoLand (do those even exist anymore?), traded in some crap games, forked over some cash, and had his mother give her permission for both M-rated purchases. This was, of course, done without my parents’ permission; they didn't like me spending money on games (period) let alone M-rated ones. We both walked out of that store as very happy kids, we played the opening sequence and the first couple of training missions together, and then split up with our copies for the who-can-beat-it-first competition.

With Grand Theft Auto 3 it was close, but I ended with the prize, only because I spent most of my time playing the missions instead of screwing around in the open world. To this day, GTA3 is the only GTA game in which I've reached that 100 percent achievement (before there were achievements). I'm not sure why I focused on the missions. It certainly wasn't the story. Maybe doing whatever-the-eff-I-wanted wasn't very appealing. I don't know. GTA3 was a mission-based crime-spree to me, not a sandbox.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City changed all that. It's hard to pin-point where exactly the paradigm shift occurred, but I remember seeing these screenshots:

And I thought: Rockstar is going to give me motorcycles and swords! Shit is going to get crazy.

Had the crotch-rockets and katanas been in GTA3, I may have played the game in a totally different way. But that was it, I had more fun doing crazy stuff with my motorcycle and doing killing sprees with my katana, so I never finished all the missions in GTA: Vice City. That's when it happened. GTA became a do-whatever-the-eff-I-want game with motorcycles and swords. And I loved it. Plus the eighties music, awesome!

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was released in fall of 2004, my freshman year of college. I completed just enough missions to unlock the San Fierro island, but not the Las Venturas island. I would swim to that island, get the five-star wanted level, and see how long I could survive. San Andreas also came with motorcycles and swords, plus four-wheelers, planes, jet-packs, chainsaws, and I could dress-up like a complete lunatic.

Screencap Credit: sebilden on Flickr

Eventually, I did have to complete the missions to unlock Las Venturas to play with some of this stuff. Seriously though, the most fun I've ever had with San Andreas was just doing the craziest shit in that sandbox of a game.

To be honest, I bought a PS3 for the sole purpose of playing Grand Theft Auto 4. I even have the silly lock-box (I'm a sucker for pre-order swag, remember), but I haven't completed all the missions as Niko. And I haven't touched the DLC (probably never will). I enjoyed the game, but it's probably my least favorite GTA to date. The portable titles don't count; I haven't played them. The humor and satire in GTA 4 was amazing and kept me coming back to the missions. The chaos and destruction I could cause kept me sandboxing. Plenty of motorcycle fun. But no katana.

For whatever reason, I came up with sound excuses to skip out on the Saint's Row series. When Saint's Row first arrived, my reaction was: "I'd rather play Grand Theft Auto. One crime-spree sandbox is enough for me. Thank you." When Saint's Row 2 arrived, I just didn't care. Maybe I missed some awesome gameplay (and if what I'm seeing with Saint's Row: The Third is a clue, I probably did), but I just wrote them off. Now that November 15th rolls in, I'm getting more and more excited about The Third. All their crazy trailers made me remember all the fun times I had in Vice City and San Andreas.

All I want from Saint's Row: The Third is what I grew to love in Vice City and San Andreas. Crotch-rockets and katanas, please. With a side of pedestrian cannon.

I can't find a screenshot with a sword. Does a hoverbike make up for the lack of swords?

Because I Can

My Favorite Video Game Villain

Destructoid had a community blog topic about villains and I missed the deadline. Damnit! Here's my two cents:

Too often these days, villainy is all relative. Fallout, inFamous, and the Fables. In every one of these, I'll always slide down to my more devilish side. Given the choice, I'll usually follow the "evil" path, grow the horns, and proudly wear the title "Agent of Chaos;" where do I get that belt buckle?

What I'm saying is that, lately, I haven't met a villain who has motivated me to be heroic and vow vengeance on his/her evil ass. So I'm gonna dig deep in the bargain-bin/ratty cardboard box in my closet filled with jewel cases and cartridges to find my favorite evil-doer.

My loyalties to various game series have tapered off over the years, but one series has remained constant: Resident Evil and that is solely because of one man, Albert Wesker. Most of the heroes and villians introduced outside of the original Resident Evil and its sequel, I hate. Most of the badies crawling around (besides zombies and hunters) piss me off. But as long as I can still stick it to that manipulative, back-stabbing, power-tripping sonovabitch, Wesker, I'll keep playing Resident Evil.

I'll admit that one of my many mistakes in life was playing Resident Evil 2 before playing Resident Evil. I was young and didn't know any better; still, I managed to get through RE2 without learning too much about the "mansion incident," which means nothing in RE2 spoiled RE1 for me. Even though I searched his desk for bullets and saw S.T.A.R.S. group photo behind that desk, I didn't meet Albert Wesker until popping the dual shock version of Resident Evil in my Playstation.

And this is what I saw: Albert "Iceman" Wesker wearing his sunglasses at night. How badass is that? Anyway, the fearless leader and commander soon turned into someone I completely despised. My motivation to play and my interest in RE's story altogether grew from my general loathing for this character. Hell, I even read the S. D. Perry books to find out more about him. Then I went back to playing the games. Resident Evil 3 was a fun game, but I was disappointed by the lack of Albert Wesker. Nemesis was no Wesker, but the goofy recurring boss battles just turned into: Nice try Nemmy, maybe next time. I'm sure there will be one. Between Code Veronica and Wesker's Report, I decided that my real nemesis had his evil little fingers pulling strings in both RE2 and RE3. He wasn't there, but he was.

I can't say much about Resident Evil Code Veronica. It's my least favorite game of the series; I played it and beat it on the Sega Dreamcast and I never touched it again. It was awesome to finally confront Wesker as Chris, but in the back of my mind, I kinda knew things weren't resolved. Then the remakes came out and my hatred for Albert was rekindled. When Resident Evil 4 hit shelves, I was salivating for more story, more character development, and more zombies. Therefore, RE4 was a disappointment for me, but (and this is a big but) it was still fun to play. Like RE2 and RE3, Wesker was there, but he wasn't (And I'm not talking about the mercenaries, arg). The string-pulling was even more apparent with Ada flitting about in her pink dress and machine gun.

To wrap things up (probably not) Capcom sent Chris and Wesker to Africa in Resident Evil 5. That was way back in 2009, so yeah, by then I was ready for another rematch. I should have seen the ending coming, because what happened to Wesker happened to the entire rogues gallery (William Birkin, James Marcus, Lisa Trevor, Jack Krauser, Osmund Saddler, Ricardo Irving, Excella Gionne); he mutates into some crazy-ass monstrosity right before you kill him. And just when I'm settling into my couch, Wesker jumps up, grabs the helicopter, and I have to mash a button or two to kill him again. The end. If you're keeping track, Wesker dies once and comes back, he dies a second time and comes back. This is his third death and lava or no lava; I'm guessing he'll come back for another rematch.

In fact, I'm counting on it. This maniacal, yet cool and composed, super villain is the best thing about Resident Evil, especially since they ditched the zombies.

To Make A Meme

Random question: is there a prinny meme out there?

I feel like prinnies are funny enough and random enough that they would fit the bill for a meme. After spending about fifteen minutes on the meme generator, I could photoslop something together.

I'm thinking something simple, like: "Dood! Yeah, dood!" This first one is positive, paired with a happy/excited prinny. The second one is negative: "Dood. No, dood." Pair this with an angry/horrified prinny.

The meme generator was helpful, but mostly a distraction. The socially awkward penguin stood out as a possible template. However, I'm seeing this as a corner-comment in a larger image of Barack Obama or Scarlet Johansson. Maybe that's too much work.

One of my favorites is the Philip J. Fry (or Futurama Fry) meme and it comes with an image and a formula: "Not sure if X" at the top followed by "or just Y" at the bottom of the image. The formula for a stand-alone prinny meme is the complicated part. Maybe it's not so complicated: "Dood! (something awesome)" at the top followed by "Yeah, dood!" at the bottom. Let's try it out.

EXAMPLE: Dood! ScarJo pics are real. Yeah, dood!

OR: Dood! My office power is out. Going home early. Yeah, dood!"

Yeah, Dood! I like it. I threw it into quickmeme. We'll see how it does.

Everything is Better with Dinosaurs

Sometimes I go out into the wilderness of the internet specifically looking for something. Hunting, if you will. Sometimes I head out there just to see what I can see; this is the 'just a walk in the park' mentality. In either case, one thing will always stop me. Dinosaurs.

Lately, all the hype associated with dinosaurs has been surrounding the new sci-fi television gambit Terra Nova. However, I don't watch that much television. But I do play los videojuegos. And video games with dinosaurs will stop me in my internet-surfing tracks.

It all started with this article about the blu-ray trilogy release of Jurassic Park and the girl who played Lex in the amazing film (and it's craptastic sequel). She and Timmy were the best parts of the movie, besides the dinosaurs, that is. Anyway, allow me to map out this discovery in a series of links:

Jurassic Park Blu-ray Trilogy Article (includes video of grown-up Lex)
Famous Kitchen Scene on YouTube
Trailer for Telltale's new Jurassic Park Game
Spinosaurus Boss Fight from Jurassic: The Hunted
New Spino vs. T-Rex Video - What is this?
It's called Primal Carnage. It has dinosaurs.
    Hrm. Looks pretty, but what is Primal Carnage?
Holy Crap! You can play as a Tyrannosaur and eat people!
Awesome. Raptors. Team Dinosaur vs. Team Human.
    Who would play as a human? We're so lame.
Going to the real website now...
Play as a raptor, in the jungle.
    I want to attack, not from the front, but from the sides.
What is Primal Carnage really about?

Or, perhaps: "Shut up and sign me up for the beta!"

Wow, that's all I have to say. Just wow. I've loved dinosaurs since I was a kid. Little Foot and the Land Before Time. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. Turok. Trespasser. Dino Crisis. This is all in-addition-to Michael Crichton's amazing books and the movies spawned from them.

Bring on the Primal Carnage! I can't wait to play as the raptor.

On Dragons

Welp, the two week hiatus is up. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm not yet in the post-game of Disgaea 4. Have I failed as a Disgaea fan? Maybe, but I'll keep chugging along. My army of gunners and skulls is not going anywhere. I do admire those of you who have obliterated the game already; kind of wish I had that kind of time on my hands.

Unfortunately, I don't. And I won't have that time until the end of September. Then I can really game it up. It's terribly disappointing that the folks at Nippon Ichi Software didn't have the BYOL (levels) feature enabled right out of the box. Still pissed that I couldn't build right away.

Remember the pre-order goodies?

In crazier news, I played in my first official MTG tournament with surprising success. An ultimate victory it wasn't, but three rounds of defeating my opponents in two games (we played best two out of three) can't mean I'm horrible. I made a fatal mistake in the first game of the fourth round; suffering from blood-rage, I swung at my adolescent advisory with all my creatures, leaving none behind to block. Dumb-da-dumb-dumb.

The tournament was a variation that I hadn't heard about or seen before, but I'm fairly new to competitive MTG. It was always goofy friends doing goofy things with fantasy cards; we didn't try to kill each other like in Monopoly.

Everyone in the tournament started with a booster pack and three of each colored mana. Without looking at our booster packs, we opened the booster and shuffled in the mana. That was your thirty card deck. You played round one without knowing what was lurking in your deck as well as your opponent's. If you won your round, you were given another booster pack and had to construct a forty card deck. The more rounds you won, the more booster packs you were rewarded. But you couldn't go over the forty-card limit.

I'd like to take a moment and give special thanks to my partner in a three-round winning streak: the Volcanic Dragon. He was, by far, the best card I unwrapped out of all three booster packs.

All my rares sucked; plus, this dragon reared his hot little head and helped me win four out of the six games I won.

Getting Back To It

Puzzles. I like puzzles, especially the complex ones that challenge me to understand the how and why something works. If it’s extremely complicated, I love sifting through instructions with detailed explanations. Anything from simple Lego instructions or cooking recipes to how-to hacking guides or circuit schematics (which still look like weird little maps to me).

The challenge has always been the draw for me. Can I do it?

Under normal circumstances, the answer is yes, but with a little help. I'm ok with that, which is why I love sites like gamefaqs. Their all-text guides and forums are usually my go-to-place for videogames that have me stumped. Similarly, instructables is a great place for DITY guides and advice; I turn there for ideas on how to do anything and everything.

The puzzles that have confounded me the most as of late have been the hacking of current and recent game consoles. The long gone, but not forgotten, Sega Dreamcast was my first successful excursion into the world of console modding. Not sure why I held onto that old girl, but I never traded in my Dreamcast nor my three favorite games: Code Veronica, Jet Grind Radio, and SW: Demolition. After finding a boot disc iso and the right burner program, my library of DC games went from 3 to whatever the internet has to offer.

High off the fumes of success, I turned my sore little fingers (from hours of button mashing through Marvel Vs. Capcom 2) to my phat PSP. Hacking that little bugger was much more difficult, even with the guides. After two weeks of step-by-step trial and error, I finally bricked my PSP-1000. Eighty bucks down the drain. I did buy it used, but I was still pissed. Eighty bucks is big money to me.

Failure is part of life. I still have that bricked PSP as a friendly reminder.

The next target was and still is the Xbox (the first one, the old one). Why the Xbox? Well, I was initially going for the XBMC set-top box. That was the goal when I started. Now, the ultimate achievement is XBMC with retro gaming functionality. I’m talking emulators and roms from NES to N64, maybe some PS1 (if that’s even possible).

Using the Splinter Cell and Action Replay dongle softmod trick I installed/accessed the replacement dashboard Evolution or Evox. Success, right? And I stopped right there, not wanting to screw something up.

Therein lies the greatest barrier: I had to be willing to fail and completely destroy my Xbox. At the time, coming off the PSP disaster, I wasn't ready to brick another perfectly functional console. Frozen and afraid to try. Afraid to continue. It's basically the same as failing. So, time to get back to work; I found a good place to help pick up where I left off.

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.

~Michael Jordan