I AM NUB!(Wow rant)

So... I've had this thing up for a while. Haven't done a WoW post yet. Amazing. I r did a good job. BUT NOT FOR LONG!

If there's anyone that I don't know that's reading this, I play a NE priest named Holynub on Dragonblight(US) server. And I die alot. That is all. But nawwww, I r good playar.

Anyway, a canadian eh dude I know started doing a pug Hyjal a couple weeks ago. I've got minimal experience doing Hyjal. Prior I've only gone up to Anatheron and wiped on him because retards don't know how to run to the tank when they have an infernal on them. ANYWAY, so I went yesterday to see all the hubbub was about. First time i've raided on my priest in a couple months already. And it got me to thinking. Boy I love my priest.

STFU L2P

There are lots of priest cry babies online. Check the forums and you'll find all of them. Wahhhh my healing sucks. Wahh druids are better at pvp than we are. Wahhh my DPS sucks. Wahhh I specced for lightwell. Jesus. Just because we're not OP, people turn into blubbering dumbasses. Me, I like playing my priest. I can DPS, I can heal, I can tank people. I don't mind some of the weaknesses, because there are still lots of strengths. Playing a priest, it make-a me feel gewd.

OH GOD! OH GOD! SHIYAT!! I GOT AGGRO!

That be my most common phrase I say when I go shadow. No, it's not because I do lots of damage. It's because I'm a retard and I start mah pew pew waaaaaayyyyy too early. Ask my brother Kek. He'll tell ya. You know what... I take that back. That's probably the only thing i say when I'm in a group. Now that I think about it... I pull a lot of aggro. YESSSSS. I don't know why. That makes me happy. Fade? What is this "fade" you speak of? Shush! It dosn't exist! I didn't train it! I didn't spec for it.


Holynub, the other other white meat

For anyone who has raided with me, you all know I die alot. Ohhh back in the day, back when Molten Core was serious business. That was where the Holy legacy was made. Those goddamn Lava Packs. Here's an exerpt of some of the vent conversations.

...
(Raid Leader): Lets pull the lava packs. Going.
(2 secs later)
(Me): Oh crap.
(Raid Warning): Holynub has died
(Me): Using Soul Stone, I'm up.
(3 secs later)
(Me): OH GOD THE FIRE!
(Raid Warning): Holynub has died
(Raid Leader): Holy's dead, get a battle rez him
(Me): Thanks (druid name)
(3 secs later)
(Me):WOOOHHHHH!!!!
(Raid Leader):Oh goddamnit.
(Raid Warning): Holynub has died
(Raid Leader):Battle rez him
(Me): Oh please no...
...

Man, that was back before they added rez timers. Those were dark times. And by dark, I mean expensive.

Games that are like other games but not... what?

Ever find yourself playing a game, and suddenly get this feeling of deja vu? I have. I'm sure you might have as well. There are just so many different games out there now, many of them begin to blend together. A professor of mine once told me "Good imitation is better than bad innovation." I'm going to have to agree. I'd rather play a game that is done well but done before, than play a crappy game that's "innovative." I'm not saying innovation is bad. Hell, most of the legendary games of our time all started as great innovations. It is their successors and mimics that reflect the strength of that innovation. Granted, some do the imitation better than others. I thought it would be nice to reflect on some of those games that were like this other game but not really.

"I'm the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude!" - Kirk Lazarus(Tropic Thunder)


Uncharted:Drake's Fortune(PS3) :: It's Tomb Raider... With a dude...



Yeah... That's pretty much what this game is. Blah blah shaddap. It's Tomb Raider, but you don't have a hawt busty woman to gawk at. You still raid tombs, solve puzzles, shoot guns, discover ancient civilization secrets that might DESTROY THE WORLD. Maybe they should have made the title "Tomb Raider for women." (sexist rant removed)


Mystic Heroes(Gamecube/PS2):: It's Dyanasty Warriors... For kids...


Ok, this one is pretty goddamn obvious. The both games are made by Koei, WTF do you expect? Seems like that's the only game they're capable of creating. You fight off massive amounts of enemies, do special kill thingamajiggers that aren't musou powers. You run, you hack, you slash, you kill, you repeat. And this leads us too...


Ninety Nine Nights(360):: It's like Dynasty Warriors... Minus the China...

Oh come on Microsoft. I know this was one of your launch titles. But naw, you totally ripped off the Dynasty Warriors franchise. Did you really have to release this game? I mean, they did make Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires and Dynasty Warriors 6 for your system. Why you gotta be lika dat?


Splinter Cell series(Cross Platform):: It's like Metal Gear... Minus the Japanese.


Ohh Tom Clancy. You sneaky sneaky man. Look at these games. Before any of you start saying "Goddamnit holy, they are totally different." I ask you. What is in common with these two games? What is the primary reason you play these two games? You sneak. And do stuff. Then you sneak some more. And then you do stuff. You silently kill people. Then do stuff. Wait wait, there's a convoluted storyline that has more twists and turns than my lower intestine. Yeah... They're the same.


Snood(PC/DS):: It's like Bust-A-Move... For retards.


What is this? WHAT IS THIS?! I thought, you can't rip off a puzzle game. Because it's blatantly fucking obvious that you're playing the same goddamn thing! But this game... Yeah, they did it.


Heavenly Sword(PS3):: It's like God of War... But with a chick.


You know. Some games actually do it right. You have to admit, Heavenly Sword was a nice looking God of War ripoff game. Played pretty well. Excellent graphics. And, as long as you turn off the dumbass sixaxis control, it's playable. Well met.(insert golf clap here)


Ghost Rider(PS2):: It's like God of War... But with more Nicholas Cage.


Now, as far as movie games go, this one isn't THAT bad. I mean, if you're going to rip off a game's play style to help sell a movie game, you might as well rip off a good one. Though the game almost totally deviated from the movie minus the whole Nicholas Cage. Actually... If the movie had the story of the game, I think it would've been better. But not really.


Puzzle Quest(Cross Platform):: It's like Bejeweled... Smashed together with Dungeons & Dragons.


Now this is how you rip off a puzzle game. These guys at Infinite Interactive, so clever. They
took two games, from different polarities, and smashed them together. What's even better, they did it well. It's BRILLIANT! They simultaneously hit two different genre demographics at the SAME TIME. Man, whoever was smoking pot while thinking this one up, needs more weed.


Scarface(PS2/Xbox):: It's like Grand Theft Auto:Vice City... But with more Tony Montana meng.


Hokay meng, you wanna play some game? We play some game. But nawwwww, this game is just like GTA:Vice City. Except you play as Tony Montana. Who didn't die from being shot a billion times. It wasn't bad. Just... Wasn't much different.


Mercenaries(PS2/Xbox):: It's like Grand Theft Auto... North Korea.


Lets go through the check list. Open environment. Check. Mission based system. Check. Run people over with vehicles you stole from them. Check. Lack of morals. Check. Same game. Half check. This game clearly builds upon a lot of what the GTA series is known for, but it adds it's own little... Something. Rather than be punished for destroying public property, it rewards you with monies! Which you use to destroy more property. And so on. Probably one of my favorite game clones.


That is about all I can think of right now. There's probably more games out there. But I can't remember them right now. So You might see me post more of these.

REVIEW: Operation Darkness

Alrighty then. What to post. what to post. Might as well put something "of content" in here already. OH! I'll do my specialty, games nobody really knows or cares about maybe because it either sucks/got bad reviews/or wasn't really advertised. Ho hooo. Here's a gem. Yup... Alright, how do those review sites do it now. Where's that easy "condescending voice" button? Guess they didn't make that. Oh well.

Ahh Dubya dubya too (That's WW2 for those that didn't get it). How many games have been made about you. Granted about 80% of them are FPSs of variable quality. Then there's the handful of RTSs which have often been pretty good. Now we got this... game...

Published by Atlus, the whole Japanese anime lawl art theme shouldn't surprised you very much. This being my first review, I'll try to break things down so you can skip to the part that you give a crap about first.

Story-

Basically... You're in WW2. It all takes place in the European theater of war. Far away from Japan. Where this game was made. So you know this is gonna get weird. You play as "Edward"(Default main char name), a front line british soldier in the African campaign. You get wounded, but get a blood transfusion from this captain and you get super powers. SO you join his squad and go and fight the germans with this elite squad that is comprised of unique soldiers with unique abilities that's all unique with a unique bathroom and unique shower curtains. You get the idea. BUT WAIT! What if I told you this squad captain was a werewolf! And you got a blood transfusion from him so you're now part werewolf! No, it's not a spoiler. This happens SUPER EARLY in the game. I was like. WTF. I'm a part werewolf british soldier. Riiight. BUT WAIT! The germans have vampires! And Hitler has some kind of weird devil power crap thing! ZOMFG! Werewolves!? Vampires!? BRITISH!? Yes... It's a bit crazy.


- Gameplay

Ohh gameplay. Let ME tell YOU about the gameplay. For anyone who has ever played a top down tactics type game, this game is one of those. BUT! as with all games, "it's different because... "



Lets start with the BAD things. Ohh everyone loves to look at all the BAD things the game has. First off, the one thing. THE ONLY THING. That you will notice... About the gameplay... IS THE CAMERA SUCKS. Now, here here. We've all played lots of games. And EVERYONE and their mother will ALWAYS bring up issues about "Ohhh this camera sucks, it's blah blah blah I need to take my insulin." I'm usually pretty tolerant about these kinds of things. I've played through many a game with sub-par cameras, i understand how sometimes it can be frustrating. But this game. Takes dumbass cameras to a new level. Number one, the camera is always in rotation around the cursor. Which means, you can zoom all the way in and look all around you character, assuming the character isn't next to any kind of object. In which it will zoom right in and you can count the nose hairs if the model had any. Letter B, there is no camera preset view that lets you get a good top/far distance view of the battlefield. Instead, you have to flick around the right joystick and try to get the damn thing to position way high up and even then it's not a very good view. The best means of determining the distance of enemies is by actually taking the cursor and moving it all the way across the map and seeing what's over there. then you kinda sorta have an idea of maybe how far away the enemy is.



Ok, lets put the whole "camera" thing aside for now. Lets just focus on other aspects that make up this... game. Actual gameplay, that's the "title" of this section right. yeah it is. ALright, so lets pretend you're not struggling with the camera. The game plays like a traditional top down RPG tactics game. Turns are based on individual speed of each unit. So basically, fast guys go first. the go. they run. they shoot. they stand. next person. And that's the majority of the game. targeting in the game is basically choose attack and target enemy. Which is kind of nice that they make the right and left triggers cycle through enemy targets. The problem with attacks is that you are never sure what the range is on your character. Sure the gun information gives you the range. But when the range goes from 3-41 squares. It's kinda friggen hard to determine just how far things are. You tend to just kind of position where it FEELS about right. Then try to shoot them. Of course the farther away they are the lower chance to hit. Granted, you need some brain power to figure out you can't shoot people through obstacles, but if you lack brain power, you shouldn't be playing these kinds of games in the first place.


Now then, lets get into the units of the game. Because these are what makes up the interesting factor. I will admit, tactics games are pretty boring, unless you got some kick ass units. SO, we're in WW2. You got main characters and you got recruited soldiers. There are also male and female units. Females tend to have a higher Hit rate and make better snipers. Your main character sniper is actually this Irish chick with a huge freakin rack. Guess she rests her gun on them. Which makes them a gun rack, OH! I went there. And while i'm at it! (Removed sexist rant about women and concentration). Anyways, main characters also get special abilities while the recruits are basically fodder for missions where you need more units than there are main characters. Also let it be known that if any of the characters dies. HE DEAD. Unless you got the sole main character that has the ability to revive units. BUT WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN HE'S DEAD!? Yeah, you can have main characters die. Usually the defeat conditions are always "If so and so dies you FAIL." Which sucks if they get nuked down without you even getting a chance to defend.

All units are essentially identical. I didn't say they were ABSOLUTELY identical, there are differences. But basically, for almost all of them, you give them gun. They go bang bang. You win. There's a couple weird ones that like those swords and stuff. Units are able to equip almost any weapon you find in the game. Exceptions being things like women can't use bazookas. (removed sexist rant about men shooting big loads)Weapons are all taken from any WW2 weapons library. British sten sub-machine guns, german mauser rifles, Lugers, the works. each char can hold a max of 5(? not sure forgot might be 6) different weapons. Along with the weapons, they also have 5(? or maybe 6, it's the same number as the guns) items. Items are mostly restorative items, also pretty standard WW2 medic supplies(Pain killers, med kits, morphine, bandages). Items are also comprised of ammunition. Ammunition is only used after the first clip in the gun is used up. Ammunition is split into different stacks. As you progress through the game you'll get larger stacks, meaning you don't have to waste healing item space for ammo. Rockets tend to run out the fastest(hell, you only get one shot before reload). All items and equipment add weight to the character. Weight basically restricts movement on the battlefield. This is so you don't give every character a bazooka, Machinegun, sniper rifle, sub-machinegun, and sword all at the same time. I mean... You COULD. But it just won't be practical. Because they wouldn't move anywhere quickly. Yeah.... THINK.


Lastly, units are able to equip 5 different abilities. These abilities level up with the characters in set intervals. They are basically buffs that help you grow the character in the direction you want. For example, if I want a bazooka joe, I'm not going to give him something that helps his sword skills. I can give him abilities like, increased hit chance or chance for double damage. BOOM! Buwahahhaha. Anyways, you get the idea. However, some abilities are absolutely essential to surviving the game. You'd find it near impossible to play the game without these skills. Main case and point, auto-heal. Basically, if your char is gonna die or hits about 5% health, they use any healing item available to heal themselves out of the damage. Problem is, if a character gets picked on, they can be focus fired down and they burn all their healing items and die. Explosives are also massively OP, causing many a one shot to both your characters and enemy characters alike. So basically when you go up against tanks and other explosive wielding enemies, you're gonna see that auto-heal go off constantly.

One gameplay mechanic that I find amusing is the item acquisition mechanics. You do not acquire items after the map is over, nor do you find them lying randomly on the field. Items are mainly procured by LOOTING THE DEAD CORPSES OF YOUR ENEMIES. I dunno, I always thought it was bad luck to take the gun of a dead guy. Cuz I mean, come on. He's dead for a reason. Maybe that gun isn't so lucky... Or functional. But anyway, majority of your weapons and items will be found on dead bodies. Those crazy germans and their top of the line weaponry. Most of the quality weapons are found on the bodies. Also some cheap explosives are here too. You'll sometimes find Panzerfausts which are 1 shot bazookas. Those are great, they're portable and you don't have to worry about their weight. They have healing items and ammo. All sorts of phat lewts. There is a supply depot you gain access to, outside of battles. Combat points are accrued during battles and act as currency in the depot. You can buy british made weapons that are OK at best. Only things worth noting is you can buy a bazooka and the rockets for reloading them. That's about it. Oh you can also buy healing items and ammo. However, you can procure most of those in battle from looting corpses.

Alright, that's enough for gameplay. That's about all the major points I needed to cover.

Graphics and Sound-


Nothing special here. NOTHING. In battle graphics are... Bland. Some ambient effects every now and then. But really, there's nothing that'll hit you over the head and say "BOY THAT LOOKS AWESOME." No no, nothing like that here. I need to note that the busty women models in the game get the DOA boob physics action. It's not noticeable at first. But once you do notice it, you'll always notice it. Heh hehhhh bawwwwww.......


The "cut scene" graphics are anime drawings of the characters in different facial expressions. The drawings are nice. Some women have their proportions designed for different kinds of people. From big jubblies to iron board, they look nice. The characters are voice acted decently. So that way you don't have to read just text. Although at times, I'd rather read the text only. The actors do generic accents depending on where their character is from. Whoop de fricken doo.

Maps are nice and big. But they are forgetable, Cuz you're not paying attention to that. Aside from the, can i shoot him from here factor. The maps might be designed nicely, if it wasn't for the goddamn camera which i said I wasn't going to talk about ever again goddamnit I lose.

Holy Factor-

Alright, this is my first review so nobody knows WTF this is. The Holy factor is basically my personal preference on the game/genre/stuff. This sometimes determines if I like the game or not. It's SUPER RANDOM. I might like the dumbest game for no apparent reason. I might not like the greatest game for whatever dumbass reason.

This game. BIG Holy factor. I have often thought to myself, while fighting with the camera on this game, WHY AM I PLAYING THIS!? Clearly, the game is sub-par. But I keep on playing. I think it is because I haven't played a tactics RPG style game on a console in a while. Might be just a refreshing change of pace from regular RPGs or Shootan gaems or World of "god stop me from playing this damn game" Warcraft. Perhaps the game is actually good and I'm just missing the good points. Or maybe, JUST MAYBE, I'm going insane.

Results -

The game. It's got many glaring bad points. But there's something about it that keeps me playing it. Ass backwards camera, so-so graphics, flat voice acting. But I'm still playing it. Don't ask me why. Perhaps there's some hypnotic message built into the game that makes you keep playing it. Whatever the reason, I think i like it.
RATING: 2/5 (With Holy factor 4/5)

EDIT: Added shnazzy pikuchars

More testing

Alright, ima nub. Hell, it's in my name. So i'm goign to fool around witih this and try to add some kewl stuffs. maybe if i post something useful, it'll look cool.

what does this button do... Ohhh snap. It just added a picture. Heh heh. Ahh... yes. Failure.

And what does this one do...

oh sweet. it adds videos. HmmMMMmMmMMMMMmmm. NAH. won't do that to people. I gotta play with this thing more. Make some kewl posts and what not.

Testing? Is this thing on?

Check. Check. Check 1 2. Check. Sybballys. How the hell do you spell that? Whatevers. This thing on? *poke poke*

Alright, if anyone's actually reading this. Go outside. Go mow the lawn or play catch with yourself or whatever kids these days do. Cuz if you're reading this, you have too much free time.

What? Still there? Gawd. Fine, you know what this is? It's a blog. But seriously, it's just a random collection of thoughts and/or/maybe/ihavent'decidedyetwhattodo/ reviews on... stuff.... That is what a blog is right? I am hoping/praying/meditating/interpretive dancing/ that this dosn't get big and consume my life and I'll be one of THOSE guys. You know, THOSE GUYS, the ones that gotta update thier blog every freakin waking moment of their lives. Well, here's hoping.

What is this? An interview? Me? Who me? WHO YOU! seeing as you're still around I guess i'll throw some things out there, that way if you're still listening, you'll know WTF this is about, and where I'm coming from. I'm hoping to keep this primarily one of them fancy shmancy video game blogs or what not. What kind of games you say? Many games. And perhapse my ideas and thoughts and whatnot on the state of the industry and other things that most people dont' care about but it keeps me awake at night while the ninjas on the front lawn try to take my barbell off the front rack of the dvd player in my pants. Cocaine's a hellve a drug. But srsly, It's just a gaming blog. No more, and... yeah.. just no more. If somehow it gets all not-gaming philosophical BS, just ignore it, it'll prolly be just a dumbass phase. People tend to do that. Just read some old material and remember the good ole days. Which at the current moment is now...

You play games? no kiddin. Welcome to the club of "majority of the population." Yes, games are main-stream, DUH. And with this internet contraption it's making people with opinions about games more vocal and yadda yadda. So this is my 2 cents/2.4yen/1023790347031pesos/.1 euros. I think some of those conversions are accurate. i think. So if you like my opinions on this game or you enjoy my attempts at comedic writing please read on. If you don't, then stop reading. It's like hitting yourself in the gonads with a hammer. If you don't like it, STOP. If you cant' stop, then you might want to see a doctor for that. Hope i don't catch that.

"And now, On with the show." - that dude from Kara that starts the Opera House Event