Football and Video Games

First person shooters are definitely one of my favorite video game genres. I don’t know if it’s number one, though, because I haven’t thought about it enough. And really, there are so many variables to each genre, including my mood, how much time I have to commit, and whether I’m interested in the games currently out. Oddly, video game genres is one of only a few things I’ve NOT had the desire to do a top 5 or 10 list for. Very odd.

I was going to do a review for Medal of Honor, which I bought only recently because of the price drop, but instead decided to do something a little different. There are a lot of people who don’t buy every first person shooter out there and pour hundreds of hours into multiplayer for each, but who also don’t mind popping in a game and relieve some stress by shooting some enemy soldiers in the face. I would guess there are, including some of the members on the forums, and I would further hazard a guess to say that those same people don’t give a damn about leaderboard rankings, spinning killshots or whether you can play with all 255 of your closest friends at once. So instead I humbly present to you a quick and dirty guide to the current crop of shooters out there for those of you who are not this guy.
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Anyway, my experience went like this: Wednesday I hop online to play Homefront multiplayer (and I still can't decide if it's as bad as I originally said it was or that after you ignore the ridiculous dialogue and stereotyping, it's not all that bad) and I couldn't log in. I've recently moved, so I'm not completely sure I'm set up as I should be. After a couple of attempts, I ended up cleaning up the single-player trophies and going to bed. When I realized on Thursday that I kept getting that crazy error code, I jumped online to get some info. Sho' 'nuff, everyone was experiencing the same thing. And Anonymous was being blamed. Anonymous just chuckled and said, '"hey, not us!" Unless it's an individual or splinter group working outside the group/organization. Which made me wonder how Anonymous is structured. Is it a pure democracy where you bring forward your hacking plans and everyone votes? Or is there a leader? A charter? My guess is that they're organized in cells and no one really has any idea what any of the "members" or "member groups" are doing unless they ask. Which makes me think that the "unless it's splinter group" would then be a good defense for anything. But I digress.
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Have you ever played final fantasy 1 or 2? To me costume quest plays homage to these classics. Granted I played FF2 many years after it came out, due to it being a Japan only release. Anyways it starts out and you choose between Wren and Reynold, siblings going to trick or treat, the sibling you choose is the sibling in charge of the trip.

The story backdrop is that goblins are stealing all the Halloween candy from the neighborhood on Halloween night. You and your sister (or brother, depending on your choice) are trick or treating and they stumble across a Goblin stealing candy from a house.

Because of your siblings choice of costume (dressed as candy) they are abducted by the goblins and your quest begins to get your sister back, or mom and dad will be mad. After all you are in charge.

The first setting is your neighborhood and along the way of finding your sister you trick or treat. Some houses give you candy, others have a goblin you catch in the act of looting and the battle begins. It is turn based FF style, so strategy plays a role into it. Your powers are based upon which costume you are wearing. You start off with the robot costume. Each costume has a regular attack and a special attack that is activated every 3rd turn.
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It's March! Which means it's time to look back on 2010 in video games! What? I think we're still earlier than last year. Anyway, given our antiquated voting methods and even more antiquated admin, I'm sometimes surprised we get this done at all.

Regardless, I am pleased to announce that BSB's GOTY Award for 2010 goes to Heavy Rain. It's not surprising that with a group of gamers as eclectic as our members, one of the more innovative games of the year gets the award. Yeah, the quicktime events were kind of a pain, but it kept the story moving and really did make you feel as if split section decisions affected where the story was going. Looking back, some of the situations were probably less important in the grand scheme of things as they felt when they were occuring. But that's kind of the point. IRL, who knows what making a left instead of a right will lead to? Though the story is not a typical day-at-the-office kind of story, most stories aren't. That would suck. Yet the normal, routine occurences within the game are the ones that twists your soul into emotional wreckage. Personally, I can't recall a more visceral experience in a video game than chasing Ethan's son through the mall towards the beginning of the game. It was gut-wrenching, the first of many to follow.
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