video game post! prepare to be bored.

i made out as quite the cheap ass gamer today... i used a $35 gift card towards 'Assassin's Creed' for the PS3 today, as it was on sale for $38... so that's 3 bucks... BUT i'm pretty sure Hasting's will offer me $35 for it in trade in. so the plan is to blow through it, and flip it.

ALSO... i found a copy of Tony Hawk's Proving Ground Limited Edition for the 360 at target for $14.xx, a great deal in itself... but i already own the old edition. SO... i sold the old version to Hastings for $25.xx... i upgraded, and got a free ten bucks. if anyone wants to do the same, they have a couple copies at the Target on Paseo and I-25. it's ten bucks free basically.

AND... when i was at hastings, i saw that they had a bin of clearance games. my dad was waiting in the car, so i just took a quick look and found Tron 2.0, a game I've been wanting for over a year now, for $4.99... that's about what it runs before shipping on amazon, and if it doesnt work, i'll take it back to hastings and get it new on amazon for 8 bucks.

IN ADDITION... i go up to pay for Tron and the guy tells me that the games in there are 'buy one get one free', though there are no signs indicating as such. so i took a two second look and found some game called 'Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon'. its got an awful name, but it looks a lot like 'indigo Prophecy' (one of my favorite games ever) and i found indigo prophecy in much the same fashion. didnt know anything about it, it looked cool, was cheap used, i jumped and it blew my mind (for the first couple hours before the story went to pot)... so i'm hoping for the same. it got good reviews! so i'm even more surprised that i've never heard of it.

i was talking to the guy at hastings and i said 'yeah it looked like indigo prophecy so i thought i'd give it a shot' and hes like 'YES! thats one of my favorite games (IP i mean)!' so yeah... he's the first IP fan outside of Albedo i've ever met... though i'm sure david would be if he ever tried it! josh borrowed my copy, his brother took it from him and beat it, and josh gave it back having never played it. so yeah. josh lost.

the hastings guy told me that 'Pariah' was a really good game... so i just ordered it online.

Those are the kind of games i really really love. maybe the gameplay isnt 100% spectacular, but the story and mood keep you going. Indigo Prophecy had me glued to my seat just based on the intro video.

on the other side of the coin, i couldnt care less about the story of Tomb Raider, but freaking Legend had such fantastic gameplay that i couldnt put that down. i know it gets knocked a lot, but i LOVED it. maybe i loved it even more than i should have because i didnt expect to like it at all.

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ASS CRED. i played assassin's creed for a few hours today. you know how the reviews are freaking mixed as hell... thats perfect. my experience was mixed as hell.

here's two points to prove that statement:

1. i fell asleep while playing. literally. i woke up and the game was paused and the controller was about 4 inches past my hands, though my hands were cradled as if i were holding the controller. very weird. but there you go. its gotdamned BORING... fairly often too.

2. the controls are so good i literally laughed at loud at one point because i climbed up and over a building just by moving towards it. i mean... its super natural. some of the best controls i've ever seen ever... though some aspects of the controls are a little dumb, and really make you think, the movements and stuff just WORK.

so yeah... it really is a beautiful mess. its easily EASILY one of the best looking games i've ever played. the dude runs around wonderfully and it just always looks fantastic. but i'm so bored by everything thats going on. even when i finally did get to kill someone, i was trying to be all sneaky and HE WALKED AWAY. boring. i finally just had to sword fight his ass in front of everyone. no thanks.

still... its really pretty... i'm going to keep it up for a little longer... see if it gets better. i really wish the plot had not been spoiled for me before hand. there is a massive twist in the first two seconds of the game. so much so that even fotini was like 'WTF?;... but i already knew about it. i think it really would have knocked me down if it were a surprise.

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in other gaming news...

did i mention how gotdamned ugly 'Mass Effect' is? why has NO ONE mentioned this? i just assumed it would look great because i had not heard otherwise, but this is some Halo 2 junks right here. halo 2 looked great 4 years ago on a last gen system... this is a BANNER title, and its hideous. even the smoking man from Half LIfe has more going on than this game. some of the faces and environments are ok, but the shading is horrible. they had both film grain and speed blur effects turned on... constantly. it was really distracting so i turned both of them off, but now i know why they're there.... to smooth the edges.

the shadows on everyones faces look like big pixel pyramids... ugh... what happened?

also... its KOTOR. Mass Effect is to KOTOR as apples are to apples. subtract lightsabers and add in glowing forearms. its the same damn thing with a new (poor) coat of paint.

that said, its also pretty fun, the dialog is great, good story so far, and the action isnt bad. i actually kinda care about whats going on.

its glitchy as hell... as per BioWare's MO. i've had to reload twice just because i was stuck to the floor.

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Viva la bedtime!