Gaming Duration

If I’m not convinced a video game will give me at least 24 hours of playtime I won’t buy it. That’s why I’ve given up on Call of Duty. I’m not spending $64 dollars on a game with a formulaic campaign I will beat in five hours. That’s like $12 an hour! Screw that! I’d much rather play a game with a nonlinear story that I can beat in my own time, have plenty of side quests and collectables, incentive to explore the map, and actually have a different experience every time I replay. So I play games like Assassin’s Creed and anything by Bethesda and Rock Star. They actually care about bringing new things to the table and have the thought to make stories that are more complex than “blast every enemy away from point A to point B in order to save the world in five hours.” The only thing I have more than that formula is the reason why many studios that shall remain nameless adhere to it: why innovate when you can fart out the same shit every year and its guaranteed you’ll make millions?

Of course many gamers feel the exact opposite of me. To them they like being done with a game relatively quickly, and view long RPGs and open worlders as just big long errand quests. They have a different mindset. They feel games are something to be beaten, whereas I prefer games that are about the journey and not the destination. Besides, the whole appeal of the types of games I like is that you can spend as much OR as little time as you want. You don’t have to do everything there is to do, though I do try to.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/upturned-noses/

Nothing to Do, Nothing to Write About

Yes, I’m alive (at the time this was posted). No, I haven’t forgotten you guys. Ever since I got back from Tanzania I’ve been really tired and even more bored as there is really nothing to do other than playing video games and watching TV. You know, less than ideal blogging material. The only other thing that’s been going on with me as of current is that last week I turned in all my enrollment conifirmations and payment validation necessary to begin the next school year. I’m paying for school using my dad’s Post 9/11 G.I. Bill, and in the past all I had to do was fill out a form on the school website and submit that. Now they decided to add some complicated ass extra step, which involves filling out a form that will penalize a single typographical error by forcing you start over again. Army bueracrats are always looking for ways to further ensnare people in red tape.

Move back into campus on the 24th, and classes start the following day. I can’t wait to go back. Trust me, I will have plenty to blog about then.

Unsavvy Giftgiving

Back in my ’90s childhood there was nothing I wanted more than a Nintendo 64. All of my friends had them and the only way I would play was by going to their houses and we’d playing until their moms told us to go outside. Finally in Christmas of 2000, I got one. It came with Donkey Kong 64. After all those years (which are much longer when you’re six) I had my wish granted. Since I had very little skill at the time I was busy with DK 64 for about a year, then I wanted something else to play. What my parents didn’t realize was that the console was finally only $150 for a good reason, because gaming consoles go through a generational cycle of about seven years when there are replaced by the next generation of newer, more technologically advanced, consoles. My parents just didn’t get why N64 games were so hard to find; it was because it was at the end of the transitional phase. I was able to get one other game, Kirby and The Crystal Shards.

Several years later my sister spotted Pokémon Snap at a garage sale for seven bucks and got it. Those were the three games we had until we got our 360, thankfully we got that one right at the time when that generation was just beginning but there were a substantial selection of games that weren’t $60. Nonetheless, the Nintendo 64 has a special place in my nostalgia as being a largely a gap in my otherwise complete Generation Y childhood.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/going-obsolete/

Situation Recreation

When I still lived with my family playing video games was my preferred way of unwinding after a long day of classes. Now that I don’t have my console with me in my dorm room, I generally just relax by walking around the dorms and seeing what everyone is up to. If someone has their door wide open, I’ll talk with them and move on. Whenever I see a group hanging out I will often join them for a while. I know, exciting right? The other thing I like to do for fun now is sleep. Hey, you gotta make do with what you got.

Blogging is my way of briefly relaxing between classes.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/have-you-never-been-mellow/

I wish I read more

My plan for this Summer was to spend most of it reading. When I was younger I read quite a bit but I fell out of habit for several years and I just largely stopped reading for fun. I grew up without cable (so it was a huge deal when I got to watch Spongebob at a friends’ house), and when my family finally got a satellite I started watching TV and not reading as much. When I got a 360 was the final nail, especially since I had about two or three years of games to catch up on.

So it was for the next few years. When I started junior college I began to read a ton, much more than I ever had before. However all that was for school, and then I certainly had no time to read. When I took my creative writing class in my last quarter I had decided that this Summer I would be reading a lot. Well, it didn’t happen. My Summer turned out to be to busy for that, as I went to Disneyland, Montana and Yellowstone, in addition to my overnight campus orientation. When I wasn’t doing any of that I was pretty much either blogging or watching Breaking Bad; which incidently started showing right when I first got satellite but I didn’t start watching until this June when AMC began to replay the entire series to prepare for the Final Episodes.

“I’ll just read some other time!” Was a common thought.

However, when I start university I will finally be reading fiction again. I signed up for a Russian Literature class and a Theological Literature (I’m going to a Benedictine school)one. Both of those have like seven books apiece, so this semester I will more than compensate for my lack of reading this Summer. I have never had any desire to read Anna Karenina, but I will have to. Needless to say I won’t be able to choose what books I will be reading.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/daily-prompt-time/

Sorry Microsoft, Sony still won

If your a gamer you know about all the rediculous crap that Microsoft wanted to pull for the XBox One (unless you’ve been hiding in a Vault, but if you’re reading this I doubt that’s the case). Suffice to say these policies caused a huge uproar on the internet, with only die hard fanboys defending them, no doubt because they don’t want to give up playing new Halo installments. Well I have just read that MS has listened to consumer’s complaints and have gotten rid of the once a day sign in rule and playing used games will be no different than it is now.

All that is great, but one problem: I still won’t be able to play anything. They confirmed that there will still be a one time connection needed, and sadly even that is too much for me. I live in an area where you can’t get on LIVE because there isn’t any internet that is good enough, so I don’t think I’ll even be able to do that. It’s bad enough that I have to miss out on DLC for any new game because they don’t have it for physical purchase like they used to. Even if I found a way to, I’m still turned off by the whole next-gen Kinect needing to be on business. It’s just creepy. Besides I just don’t care for the console taking over the living room. If I want to watch TV I have no problem turning off my console and grabbing the TV remote, the fact some people apparently consider that an inconveniance says much about the times. So for these reasons I’m still going with PS4. I always liked XBox over Play Station but Sony won this time around. 360’s achievements are much better than PS3’s trophies, but that’s not enough to keep me from getting a PS4. Now PS has much better exclusive titles, I was never a huge Halo fan and Gears of War and Fable are really good but not must haves.

I’m not excited about the next generation by any means, I just don’t want to spend a couple hundred when I feel that the current gen systems haven’t quite reached full potentional. Most of the upcoming games I’m looking forward to (AC: Black Flag, GTA V, couple others) are for current gen, so I plan to hold off getting a PS4 until most everything is next gen.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/19/xbox-one-drm-used-games-reversal/