The Points Don't Matter

I was all geared up a while back to write a post about Xbox 360 Achievement Points. But then I see this post where he basically said everything I was going to. And it's more well written than I would have made it. So do yourself a favor and go read it. I can't say I disagree with anything in there.
For a while I was in competition with everyone on my friends list whether they knew it or not. I just had to catch their scores. Now I've passed everybody but my punk nephew. That's not even fair though since he's in high school and I have a full time job, a wife, and house that all require maintenance to keep them running smoothly (I love you honey...). I passed him for about a week early last summer. Long enough to point it out to him, at least. He then promptly went home and played a bunch. I haven't caught him since. I blame it on that whole "not having to go to school for 3 months" thing. Ya, we'll go with that.
I honestly don't know why we have the obsession with points. I spent most of my Saturday picking up some points in games that I haven't played in almost a year. I'm now a Worm and Moth hunter in Lost Planet, and a Silencer in the Dark Brotherhood of Oblivion. The wife was not impressed when I rattled off my new titles.
But the best idea I've heard lately to make them more meaningful is to tie certain achievements to gamer pictures or avatar clothes. If, for example, only the people that finished Halo 3 campaign got to put a Master Chief helmet on their avatar? Man, that would be some motivation.
I've been trying to figure out how to paste my gamercard in here as an continuously updating widget...thingy, but I can't get it to work. So just pretend it's there and be happy.
So I'll continue chasing these things even though the logical part of my brain says I shouldn't care. But the logical part of my brain also says I should be running on the treadmill to get ready for the next snowboard trip instead of playing games in the first place. Screw you, logical brain!

Not mentioned on DS Lunch: DS games

So Gears of War 2 didn't show up yet, so I got to thinking that this blog isn't all that appropriately titled lately. I don't think anyone really cares about my glorious, come-from-behind Mario Kart DS victory last week so I'll just talk a bit about other DS games that I've been spending some time with.
Like everybody else, I've been getting back into Chrono Trigger with the re-release. I remember playing through it on the SNES in college and trying to explain to my roommate that there was combat, but we "took turns" and used strategy. He just thought it was dumb. I'm actually surprised how much I've played of this one, but I think it helps that I played it long enough ago to kinda sorta remember characters and settings, but not really.
A great one that's been taking up a fair amount of time on the portable is Soul Bubbles. I think a lot of people missed this one. In fact, I heard about it from some "best games you missed in 2008" list. (And I think I found that via Mitch over at Insult Swordfighting) This is a great mix of puzzles, playfulness, and zen.
I tried out some Spiderman: Web of Shadows and was really impressed with the way you move around, but got bored with the thin story and sort of dull combat. I think I'm probably through with this one.
I really wanted to like Neopets Puzzle Adventure (from the Puzzle Quest developers) just to have something to hold me over until Galactrix comes out, but I just couldn't do it. Literally. I suck at Othello. Plus it seemed like it was missing all the great RPG elements of Puzzle Quest.
So that's it for portable games. I throw in some Mario Kart whenever I get to play with someone else. Really, that little cartridge has gotten the most use of any I've ever bought. Quite the value.

Mirror's Edge final thoughts

Wallrunning is really tough in this game. I don't ever remember having this much trouble in Prince of Persia where there's a third person perspective. But I don't think that relied on it quite as much, either. There was one section midway through chapter eight that nearly made me give up the game entirely. You have to wallrun off a very short platform and make it quite a ways. The problem is, you've never had to do a jump quite like this. I felt like there were a few times that the game asked you to expand on your maneuvers in subtle ways that weren't very apparent. The tutorial at the beginning doesn't do enough to prepare you for stuff like this. Even after looking at a video of someone doing the exact jump, I still had to try it a few times before getting it. Overall I attempted it probably 20 times. And the checkpoint is set up a bit before this, so I did that one section A LOT.
But I eventually made it and got to the end. The final sequence seems to fit for the rest of the game, but once I was done thought about how I didn't really fight a boss like I do in most other games. There was just a couple of simple jumps and then the animation takes over and credits roll.
Next up, Gears of War 2...

Looking in the mirror's...edge

See More Mirror's Edge Screenshot at IGN.com

This game is beautiful. There are times when I want to stop and look around a bit but there's always a sense of "hurry up! get to the next place!" I guess that comes from the story mostly, but some of the time you're getting shot at. So that can motivate you too.
The game does a good job of letting you know how it wants you to play it. Lots of games empower you by starting out helpless and giving you powerups and tutorials a bit at a time. Mirror's Edge gives you all your most powerful tools right away: your feet and hands. You quickly get the idea that you can't take on all the "Blues" (cops) that are after you so you need to run and use the environment to your advantage. Your character can "see" the way out by looking for bright red features in the environment.
My wife was really excited about this one. But she played for a few minutes and couldn't hack the dual analog stick, first person controls. She complained about this in Mass Effect too. I guess it's just an essential life skill I've picked up along the way that she's missed. To be fair, I never learned how to...uh...know when to wear black versus brown? One thing she pointed out that I wouldn't have noticed is that the first person perspective hampers you more than just knowing when to jump off the platform you're running on. It would be really neat to see a replay of the cool wallrun/jump/dive that you just did from a third person perspective.
Well, I'm about halfway through the game, so I'll post more if I have any more impressions of it.

Another hidden gem: The Darkness

I got The Darkness (360) in the mail a few days ago and have been playing it pretty much non-stop. I didn't really know much about it going in, and that was probably a good thing. I never would have taken a chance on a game based on a comic book about a Trent Reznor-looking mafia guy that gets evil powers and goes on a rampage in NYC. The odd thing about the mafia/occult mix is that it actually works. There's a good mix of Soprano's style dialogue and horror movie imagery. Before you get bored of one, there's some more of the other. And the first time I "died" and had to maneuver around in the underworld I felt like I was playing a whole new game. So, ya, I'm liking it.
There's also a good mix of weaponry. You earn powers at a nice rate to where you get to choose how you want to play the game. I started out with the dual pistols and trying to run and gun everywhere. As soon as I got to an open area, I saw how it wasn't going to work. That's when I figured out that you can send out this crazy vicious fast moving worm...thing to do your killing while you wait safely in the shadows. The controls in this mode feel a bit off since you slither along the ground and can climb up walls, but it ends up being a lot of fun. The achievements for this title are my favorite kind too. The "kill X amount of enemies using Y weapon" are great since they force you to try out a style of play that may not be the most comfortable for you.
Oh wait, I hadn't even mentioned the summoning Darklings ability. You get this early on and it seems a lot like Overlord. You call up some wise-cracking demons from pits in the ground and direct them where to go do your bidding. The game would stand up just fine without them and they seem a bit out of place, but it's still a neat little addition.
Up next, I'll finish this and start on Mirror's Edge.

Rock Band 2 brings families together!

Well, at least my wife and I.

Story time: For Christmas, I only received a computer chair. It was a nice one, but that was my only gift. The day after Christmas, my wife tells me I should buy RockBand 2 for the Wii. I didn't have to be told twice.

I did check online reviews before I got it, and they were all glowing and stated that this was a full fledged game, pending the activation of the music store.

Fun times have been had! My wife loves the game! During vacation, it would be midnight or so, and SHE was the one saying "One more song!" after each song.

This game blows Guitar Hero 3 out of the water. (The only other similar game I own.) Take a look at my band!

GameFly, the US Post Office, and the relentless drive for efficiency

I spent this weekend without a new game to play. Since I have the 2 game out at a time subscription from GameFly you wouldn't think this would happen all that often. Well it wouldn't if I didn't spend so much time playing the waiting game. The waiting game has many levels but most of them suck. I think the main problem is GameFly not having a shipping center close to KC, but the post office's inconsistency comes into play too. It got a little better since they opened up a center in TX but I'm still seeing turn around times of about a week from when I drop a game in the mail to when a new one arrives.
Their Fast Return system is a great idea, but I'm not sure whether to blame it's inconsistency on GF or the USPS. The idea is that the USPS scans the package when I ship it out and that somehow immediately notifies GF through the use of electrons and black magic. They then realize that they should send a new game to me and do so. Great! When they use it. Which seems like it's not very often. Maybe the USPS was busy that day or the "scanning machine" wasn't working. I don't know, but it frustrates my OCD-like love of efficiency. It makes it even worse when I know the system can work very well if it wanted to. Netflix, for instance has a shipping center in KC. You drop a disc in the mail and have a new one back the next day most of the time. Or there's the one miracle weekend where I dropped off a game on Fri. afternoon and had a new one waiting for me on Mon. Which really screwed up my plans to get Halo 3 the day it came out.
But anyway, it frustrates me and my wife just rolls her eyes when I complain about, so I thought I'd send off a stream of complaints into the ether.

Why I quit playing Silent Hill: Homecoming

I got really frustrated with it this afternoon when all the things I disliked about it came together at once. It's really hard to see anything in the game. Light is scarce and your pathetic excuse for a flashlight doesn't work consistently. While I love the handwritten notes that appear on your map as you walk around, I got to a spot where the map must have been wrong since I couldn't get to where it looked like I should be going. The combat is basically rhythm-based and all about blocking and pushing the buttons at the right time. Other games have already pointed out my complete lack of rhythm. I didn't need this one reminding me too. I had even read that the best way to survive the game was to run away from as many enemies as possible. Are you kidding? That's the complete opposite of the way I like to play games. When I'm traversing screens in Zelda, I'm compelled to kill every enemy before moving on to the next screen. When I play a shooter I'd prefer to pick off enemies one by one until they're gone and I can walk through the area unmolested. In Silent Hill, I always seemed to run into enemies where I couldn't safely just ignore 'em. They'd corner me in a dead end or attack me while I'm trying to figure out some environmental puzzle that the game throws at you.
So I made it to the sewers where it's dark (big surprise), there are lots of dead ends, and lots of annoying enemies. So I quit.
I did find a few things to like about the game. It's certainly spooky and atmospheric but that's not enough. The story, what I saw of it anyway, is kinda dumb. I had a feeling I would be chasing after that dumb kid the whole time the first time he ran away from me at the beginning of the game. And if the town is so messed up and nobody knows why, don't you think it would be on the news or something? How has this guy not heard that his hometown has gotten so effed while he was away. Whatever.
So sorry, sister-in-law. I know how you love your Silent Hill, but I just don't want to play anymore.
-Dave