Back from the Dead: The Rule of Four

Like an alcoholic who can't stay on the wagon, I keep falling on and off the wagon when it comes to my Rule of Four. Lately, I've started making a concerted effort to get back on it. The current loadout is:

1. Red Dead Redemption
2. Alan Wake
3. Dragon Age Origins
4. Cameron's Avatar (the clean-up holdover)

+1 Record of Agarest War

I think part of the hopping on and off the wagon is because I've been wishy-washy on what counts as completed enough to take the game out of the four. Every achievement? Finishing the campaign? Either / or? I think I'm going have to decide on a game by game basis what "completed" means for that game.

This is the easiest time of the year to keep on the wagon, as the summer months are traditionally the thinnest in terms of quality. I'm not planning on purchasing any games in June, and if not for Crackdown 2, I wouldn't be buying anything new in July either. So, I have an abundance a month to see how much I can accomplish with this set of four before Crackdown 2 pushes itself into the mix. Then, even with Crackdown 2, I'm going to be seeing how much I can accomplish before the fall rush starts sometime in August.

In the on-deck circle, Divinity II will replace Dragon Age when that's done, and Prince of Persia will replace either Alan Wake or Avatar. I don't want to make myself a queue that is any more than two titles deep, as my mood is likely to change before I get to the point where I'd be playing them.

I'm a little behind pace for Silver in my completion challenge, and would need to step it up to catch back up... which isn't likely to happen with the current line-up. What I'll probably end up doing is see where I'm at during the post-PAX segment of my vacation, and go on an easy completion binge if I have no other plans. I may also use the month of September as "catch-up" month in general, where, aside from Halo Reach, I do nothing but rent and whore out easy games. I'm just going to hope by then I'm not too far behind to get close to reaching Silver (24 completions) which is my true goal for the year. Anything above that is a bonus.

Besides gaming, I've been making an effort to do some more reading (which is something people don't be enough of any more). I made a killing on Barnes and Noble deals, picking up some gread books at insanely low prices:

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Allies -- $14 ($27 list price)
Confessor {Sword of Truth Series #12) -- $5 ($30 list price for Hard Cover)
Duma Key {Stephen King} -- $7 ($28 list price for Hard Cover)
Frank Herbert's Dune -- $4 ($8 regular)

Mmmm... $93 list price for $30... I like! (Then again, I've never paid list price for a hard cover book. It's way too easy to find a deal on them to do that.)

I always try to get the hard cover versions when I can, because they last longer. Paperbacks tend to start falling apart after a second reading. Even at the higher price hard covers charge, books maintain a better entertainment-value-per-hour ratio in most instances. What's a better bang for your buck; a $10 book that takes 30 hours to read, or a $60 game that takes 12 hours to beat? I know it's kind of comparing apples and oranges, but if I ever had to chose between not buying games and not buying books, I'd give up games first. Those low-low prices you see listed above were because the books were either clearanced out Hardcovers (with nothing wrong with them except that I had to peel off some bargain stickers), or were part of a summer Sci-Fi sale, plus my 10% discount. I'll be in books for a while.

That'll do me for this time.

06/04/10

The Rule of Four

SCAVENGER HUNT: You have hound the first post in which I reference my on-again, off again Rule of Four. The second prize number is 4.

CLUE #3: You can find the third number in a post I wrote without any prior plan as to what I'd be writing about before I started.

I consider myself a "casual" completionist. I want to get all the points in every game I play, but I won't cry myself to sleep or avoid a game if there's one of two achievements that just seem like too much trouble. DLC add-on points can sometimes annoy me, but right now I'm really not concerned about them and their effect on my completion percentage. I certainly don't care about ever hitting 100% (or even 90+%) completion. A global 75% or better is what I'm striving for.

My problem has been I can't keep my attention on a game long enough to get all the way through it, most of the time (I mean all points, not necessarily the whole campaign). Some people can pick up one game and see it through to the end without problems. Unfortunately, I just can't. Even with the best AAA games, my attention will eventually begin to flag before I get to 1k. I need to keep bouncing between several titles if I'm going to have any success getting through and completing all of them (and even getting to the ending of some longer games).

So, once again, I'm trying to think of a method that will give me the variety I need, yet keep me focused enough to actually complete things. I swear I've tried this so many times, and nothing has worked, but I think this idea will fare a little better. If this doesn't work though, I'm probably uncurable, and should just stop caring about completions =)

The Rule of Four ...(plus one)

My backlog is extensive enough that it's not hard to be simultaneously working through 4 games, or three plus one from gamefly. Whatever these 4 games are, once I've put a game in the list of four, it stays there until I complete it. Once I've completed a game, I'll decide at that point what game I want to put in its place, based on the other games/genres I'm working on, and my mood. For example, if Eternal Sonata is currently in the 4, I'm not going to pick another JRPG.

I don't want to plan ahead what will go into the rotation of 4, as I've found that never works. When I try to plan games ahead, it feels too much like work, and one's hobby shouldn't be work, right? Hopefully, having three options to choose from when I get bored of a game, and bouncing back and forth, will work wonders for me.

As I was coming up with this idea, I wondered how I should handle extremely time-intensive achievements, like lvl 100 in Gears 2, or Inferno in EDF 2017, for example. If I'm sinking a huge amount of time into those, it'll quickly feel like I only have three options, plus the time sink. So, I decided to have a (+1) game on the list. The +1 game is there because it's achievement(s) take forever, and will never get done unless I give myself a lot of time to do them. The +1 is meant to be a break if all 4 other games are somehow getting stale to me, or as something longer to work on as a break from quicker achievements.

The Current Four +1

Perfect Dark Zero
Silent Hill Homecoming
Penny Arcade Episode 1
(#4 is TBD. Those 3 have kept me entertained enough that I won't pick a #4 until I need to)

+1 = Gears of War 2

Of course, this isn't ultra-rigid. If an opportunity comes along to boost something, or people are getting together to play something not in the 4 (R6V2, L4D, UT3, whatever), I'll be joining in. This is just the general rule for my solo play from here on. Hopefully it'll allow me to complete more games, and have more fun while doing it. We'll see.

I've cut Gamefly down to one game at a time , and I'm considering cancelling it completely next month. Money is tight, and I have a huge backlog to work through, so maybe I should shift my attention to focusing on games I've already paid for until I find that thing called a JOB.

House-Rules Horde Variants

First off, I have to give a shout out to my buddy Sabre, who became afflicted with the RROD last night, while playing with us in Gears. He'll be out for 3 weeks at most, hopefully. I've suggested to him on his blog that he check out some military sci-fi books by John Ringo to pass the time (as an English major, my natural response to situations like this is to tell people to go READ something LOL. Books are awesome, mmmkay?) Sabre is also the one who gave me the idea for this post, so it's kinda funny and sad that it's going up the day after his Xbox dies...

Note: Most of these variants have not yet been tried by yours truly, so I'm not certain how well the game's structure will allow them to work, particularly on the harder waves. However, on waves 1-20 on casual, at the very least, all of these should be playable. I'd love to try some of them out when I can get a group willing to mess around.

Pimp Hands: Players are only allowed to kill enemies with melee attacks (no chainsaws!). The competition is to see who can score the most kills before the party wipes. Recommended for waves 1-10 only, as the health bonus on Locust makes this too hard after that. Remarks about your pimp hand and its awesomeness are encouraged.

Lumberjacks: Similar to Pimp Hands, except enemies can only be killed by Lancer Chainsaw. Other weapons are allowed for Tickers and any enemy that cannot be chainsawed.

Simon Says Horde: One person is designated "Simon" (or whatever you want to call them). Simon is not allowed to kill anything. This person simply designates an enemy type (Ticker, Wretch, etc), and the other players can only kill enemies of that type. Simon must also make sure players are actually killing what they are supposed to. Simon can change enemy types whenever he/she wants. Simon can call out individual enemies (the wretch in the middle, for example) if the number of remaining enemies is 5 or less. The person with the highest score at the first party wipe is the winner.

Leapfrog Horde: Players take turns killing Locust in a repeating order. For example, Thrawn--> Dark --> Silva --> Bishop --> Derek. In this party, I would have to kill an enemy, then Dark, then Silva, and on down the line. Once Derek has killed one, the circle begins with me again. If someone dies, their spot in the circle is cut out. I expect taking turns like this would actually be a tricky challenge, especially in the higher waves of each cycle.

Head-to-Head Horde: Pretty straightforward, since it's essentially in the game already. The person with the highest point score when the party wipes is the winner. Since you're competing for score, feel free to kill steal, and "opt-out" on reviving someone, if it seems advantageous to your score. It may be wise to require the party to clear the first 10 waves before a winner can be declared, so someone doesn't try to deliberately wipe the group and give themselves the win too early.

Hot-Seat Horde: The person on the "Hot Seat" is the ONLY one allowed to kill anything. After a set amount of time passes (be it 30 seconds, a minute, whatever), the hot seat is passed to the next person in line. If someone is downed, their turn is over, and the next person in line can revive them and start their turn, or start when the previous player dies. The player on the hot seat also changes after every wave. Highest score at party wipe is the winner.

Obvoiusly, many of these games are better suited to maps where the majority of the players can bunker up and remove themselves from the most intense combat. River, Fuel Station (from Combustable maps), Day One, and Jacinto come to mide right away, but I'm sure there are others, as well. Enjoy!

Prima's Achievement Book Reviewed

Recently, Prima put out a guide book for xbox 360 achievements, made in conjunction with xbox360achievements.org. As someone who generally likes having hard-copy guides, I picked up a copy, and thought I'd pass along my opinion of the book. Trust me, you'll be glad I did.

Unofficial Xbox 360 Achievements book
MSRP: $14.99
432 Pages
Pros:

1. Hard copy of the guides, so internet isn't necessary.
2. Some of the guides, like Tales of Vesperia, are very good, and probably better in print form.
3. Guides for 70+ games.

Cons:

1. Original authors are not credited.
2. Tiny type
3. Numerous editing issues
4. Poor layout
5. You can get this information FREE on the internet.

Cons (expanded):

1. As a writer, the fact that the people who worked so hard to write those guide don't even get acknowledged, while others make money off of their work, really makes me mad. I feel those authors were exploited. Prima couldn't even spare a page or two to recognize and thank authors.
2. It's easy to lose your place on the page with the tiny type. They tried to ram as many words onto a page as they could, which makes it hard to read through, especially for the longer explanations.
3. Prima should be embarrassed to have put this guide out in this condition. On the top right corner of the right page is the name of the current game guide. Why "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is the page tab for Fight Night Round 3 baffles me. On the left and right side of the pages are tabs indicating the current genre. On the left pages, sports are called "Old Skool Sports" on the right page, it's misspelled as "Ols Skool Sports." I found those errors in 30 seconds... I stopped looking after that. Also, why are several games called "Short Sports" when they're listed as 30+ hours to complete? Lego Indy is correctly named in the table of contents, but called "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in the actual book.
4. Poor layout comes with the tiny text. They don't even give you an extra line or an indent between paragraphs... good luck following that CSI guide. Also, why is the table of contents in alphabetical order, when the rest of the book is divided by genre? A more logical approach would have been to list the games by genre and the order in which they appear.
5. With the above flaws mentioned, do you really want to pay for info you can get for free from x360a? Some of these guides I will actually use in print form, but I simply cannot recommend this book. I hope x360a gets a cut of the sales, but let someone else do the buying.

Grade: D- (Only the quality of the RPG section keeps this from failure)

Don't buy it. You can't say I never did you any favors =P

Halo Wars Demo Impressions

Note: The Afro Samurai review was finished on Sunday, and now merely awaits posting. Hopefully it'll be up sometime today.

So, I was bored yesterday and decided, since I couldn't decide what to play, to check out the Halo Wars demo. I've gone on record before as saying I'm not the biggest Halo fan, as the universe is pretty generic and lacks much depth to anyone who reads a lot of (quality) science fiction. Added to that, I'm just not impressed with Bungie's storytelling capabilities. However, I'm still itching for a truly good console RTS game, so I'll give anything a try. C&C3 was OK, Warhammer controlled horribly, and EndWar's voice controls won't work for me at all. Could Halo Wars finally be the game to get it right?

Obviously, I came to the demo as a skeptic, and came away completely surprised by the quality here. The visuals (animations in particular) make Halo 3 look like a bad joke. While the RTS action here is noticeably less complex than the C&C titles or Starcraft, there's still some pretty decent unit variety, and the tech tree is easy to understand and work through.
Base construction is simple, as bases are a hub surrounded by multiple slots you can fit a building into. There's no need to think about where a building should go like there is in the C&C games. All units pour out of the same opening in the base, making finding them easy, and setting rally points is a breeze. With the bumpers, players can quickly select all units on screen, or all units they've built, allowing for quick commands. The d-pad allows for rapid switching from your base to the units doing the fighting, so multitasking combat with production is as easy as its ever been. Armies are limited in their size to about 30-40 units, which I found to be a nice and manageably small number, while keeping the action feeling intense. And with the possibility of 6 players in full battles, competition should get very intense. They even thought to include nice touches, like having groups of units move at the speed of their slowest member, so units stay together, unlike in C&C, where it was tough to keep everyone together. Resource management is incredibly simple, so players can spend more time focusing on climbing up the tech tree, building units, and managing a battle.

If tutorial length can say anything about the quality of the controls, Halo Wars fares very well. It took my about a half hour (if I remember right) to get the controls for C&C3 down. Warhammer took over 3 hours (1.5 in tutorial) to get down, and I still never mastered them. I was through everything in Halo Wars, and confident in my commanding abilities, in no more than 15 minutes.
After playing the first two missions of the campaign, and a couple skirmish missions (and DESTROYING the AI on normal... I should probably play on Heroic), I'm completely sold on Halo Wars. Ensemble Studios has finally make THE console RTS game. You can even play through the whole campaign in co-op. When my brother gets back from Spain, I'm forcing him to download the demo and try it out himself. Perhaps I can finally get him interested in an RTS, and we can co-op the campaign... or at least he can ride on the Grand Admiral's coattails lol =)

I'm picking up this game, the only question now is when. Do I get it now and play it on my bench weeks in the GSL? Do I wait until after the GSL and get it as a celebration that KOTOR lost? (to my team or any other) I'll have to think about it, especially with RE5 coming soon.

I encourage people to download the Halo Wars demo and try it for themselves. I was extremely impressed.

Afro Samurai and 100Ks

I received Afro Samurai yesterday, and I've begun playing that on an offline account, as I take notes and prepare to write the review. Normally, I'll throw anything on my card so I get the points for my time, but this close to the GSL starting, no free addition to my game stash is going to be wasted. I'll get those points "for real" in a couple weeks. Instead of even thinking about the points, I've just been playing the game. Having familiarity with the game before the league starts should allow me to get through it again in better-than-average time. I'll do my best to have the review complete by Sunday night, but make no guarantees. I also downloaded a couple episodes of the show off the video marketplace, so I'm more familiar with the original material.

According to TrueAchievements, my score is 99,758 (TrueAchievements calculates your score based on how many other people have the same achievements you do. Achievements fewer people have earned are worth more points). Since I'm so close to getting my first 100k, I might take some time away from reviewing to load up Stranglehold and try to get a few more points out of it. It's not as sweet as the "real" 100k, but it's a start.

Fabruary-March will be the "100k Blitz," as I anticipate watching my friends Silva, Derek, Bishop, and Buck Wyyld (he only needs 300 or so, surely he can get that in 2 months) reach that milestone, and I shouldn't be too far behind them. I'm looking forward to it.

That's the Friday update, folks. Happy gaming.

The Thrawn Experiment

I'll get to the title content in a minute, but I have some thoughts first... I read Hammer's blog and saw the news of 1up/EGMs demise... I guess they won't be getting back to me on an informational interview, as they understandably have other things to think about. I'm sad to see one of the big gaming sites/mags go. There's one less place where I could work, and one less source of information and entertainment for all of us. Hopefully everyone who lost their job from this buy-out is able to find work in the industry elsewhere. You can find the article here:

http://www.consolemonster.com/newspost.php?id=0000004709

On the gaming front, I continue to work on ROTA and Condemned 2. I've found there are actually just enough people playing it online to get into real matches, and I've been able to earn several of the MP achievements legit. I'm even half of the way to Serial Killer. There are still several I'm going to need to boost, including MP overachiever, anything that has to be done in ranked, and most of the Crime Scene achievements. I don't really want to talk about gaming progress today, however, so on to the title content!

THE THRAWN EXPERIMENT

I was thinking one afternoon, and came up with this social experiment/challenge for gamers. The challenge is to see if a person can make it through an entire year without spending ANY MONEY from their own pockets on games, and yet be happy with their gaming activities. Here are the rules of the challenge:

1. Not a single penny of a person's own money may be used to buy video games, game guides, Microsoft points, or accessories for 365 days. No Gamefly or Blockbuster rentals, or renewing magazine subscriptions... unless someone else pays for them (and no "I'll pay you back next year" deals, that's CHEATING)
2. The person MAY trade games, using services like Goozex, social networking, or Gamestop, as long as they don't pay for anything. They would need to find someone else to pay the Goozex $1 per trade fee, as that counts as spending your own money.
3. A person MAY sell their games on ebay, and use that money to purchase other games, as long as the amount of the purchase is less than or equal to what they earned. Even going 1 cent over (including tax) disqualifies you. Anyone going for a truly hardcore challenge should not allow themselves any use of ebay.
4. Microsoft points already in a person's account at the time of the challenge starting may be spent. Any additional points must be donated by someone else, or purchased from cash earned by selling games.
5. Gift cards received for birthdays, x-mas, etc. can be used on games, as long as you're not spending any of your own cash. That's someone else's money being used for games, not your own.
6. ADDED RULE: You can debate the legality of spending your own money to get SOMEONE ELSE a game, like as a birthday present. This is not to be used as a loophole where you "give someone" a game, and they conveniently "loan" it to you two days later. Respect the spirit of the challenge.
   

As you can see, in this version, people are allowed to spend money, as long as they're not dipping into their pockets from it, but instead recycling from their collection. A stricter version of this would allow for trades only, with absolutely NO cash transactions of any kind.
There are several interesting things I would expect to see in this:

1. It tests a person's resourcefulness: How good are they at getting the maximum return from their games?
2. It tests social networking: Can this person utilize their existing collection through trades for new games with others? How will they secure games they have not played before? What methods are used?
3. It questions gamer generosity: Will anyone loan or give away games they no longer want? Or Microsoft points?
4. It tests what type of gamer you are: Could you play Gears 2, CoD, or some other game online forever and not feel the need to get a new game? Would you get itchy for that newest AAA title, or need to play something you don't already have all the points in?
5. It would work as a study of sorts of the used-games market.

I know anyone in the industry would hate me for thinking this one up, since it means that person isn't spending on their products. With the economic challenges people face now, I expect a lot more people to become ever more thrifty, even if they don't go to the extent of not spending a penny on games.

As a Sociology major, I would find any reports or results of this fascinating. It's certainly food for thought. How would you handle the Thrawn Experiment? What would you do?

So far, I actually haven't spent any money yet in 2009 on games, and could therefore subject myself to my own experiment, if I really wanted. With RE5 coming out this year, I'm not sure I would last very long. I don't think I could wait several weeks, let alone months, without playing that game, once it's out. I also have no idea how I'd get to 100k this year doing this challenge. I'd have to hit Operation Jedi REALLY hard, and have a fair amount of help from others.

I'll leave you to ponder that challenge while I go try to get some more grant work done, and try to get deeper into Condemned and ROTA. I originally wanted to have the ROTA review done before I head off for the weekend, but I don't think that will happen now. I have a few questions left on ROTA, which I'm waiting until the end to see how they are resolved. Since writing one of my reviews takes the better part of a day, the only way I'd be done by Friday night is if I plow through the rest of ROTA tonight, and I can't do that... There's probably 5-6 hours left at least, and I can't hold my attention to ANY game that long without doing something else (possible exception being Fallout 3). New goal is to be done by Tuesday night.

Images:
http://www.tortdeform.com/archives/no%20money.gif
http://www.baevents.com/magoun5Km/no-money.jpg

Farewell to My Wingman: What Co-Op Play Means to Me

This post is dedicated entirely to my brother Evan, who took off on a plane earlier today to spend five months studying abroad in Spain. I'm excited and happy for him, because I know from my own experiences in Japan that studying abroad is a wonderful thing, and I know he'll grow as a person and learn a lot over there. At the same time, I'm sad to see him go, as I'll be without my co-op Wingman for almost half a year. Of course, I'll miss him for a lot more than just video games, but since this is a game-related blog, co-op is the subject to talk about.

The two of us are very different people, with different interests, aptitudes, and personalities, but share common ground in video games, and our love of defeating a common enemy. We've been playing together for as long as I can remember, with a list of completions that includes:

• Jet Force Gemini (N64)
• In Dragon Warrior Monsters (GBC) we completed the incredibly long breeding sequence to create Dark Drium, the ultimate monster. Anyone who knows anything about that game should understand how awesome an undertaking that is.

• Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (Gamecube)
• Dynasty Warriors 4 (PS2)
• Halo 1, 2, and 3
• Gears of War (1 & 2)
• Rainbow Six Vegas (1 & 2)
• Unreal Tournament III
• EDF 2017 (about 5 times)
• Left 4 Dead
• Duke Nuke 'Em 3D
  

I'm sure there's more games that I forgot about, and eventually Crackdown, Army of Two, and Resident Evil 5 will be added to this list. Already, at least 2000 points of my score can be traced directly back to co-op play with my brother, making him the largest individual contributor to my current success. Some of my fondest memories of us include the vanquishing of enemies via co-op, and I'm kind of at a loss on how I'll play while he's gone. Who can I play RE5 with on release? (Don't worry bro, I refuse to tackle the Hardest difficulty with anyone else. I'm saving that achievement for us to mutually annihilate.) My guess is I'm going to have to play more solo games, or learn to enjoy competitive multiplayer.

When you've played with the same co-op partner for years (and probably even more so when you're related to that person) you develop a 6th sense of sorts about what your partner is going to do, and you have a complete understanding of each other's roles. Evan and I barely need to talk anymore to complete games if we don't want to, even on the highest difficulties (we still chat it up 'cause games are more fun that way, of course). He runs for the sniper rile and starts picking off enemies while I practice some close range shock-and-awe. We have our system, and we rock with it.

No trend in the gaming industry do I observe with more happiness than the continuing expansion of co-op play. Where competitive multiplayer has long been dominant, developers are beginning to realize that there are people out there like me who find playing WITH others to be a lot more fun than playing AGAINST others. Some games, like Army of Two or Left 4 Dead, were designed specifically for co-op play, and I hope to see many more games embrace co-op play as time goes on. While there will always be griefers, even in cooperative play, I've found co-op players to be much nicer people, who will work with you to get a mission accomplished. Even in team-based competitive multiplayer, where working as a unit could ensure easy victory, people act like a bunch of mavericks, which has ruined competitive play in Halo 3 (which I wasn't a fan of to begin with), Gears 2, and even Vegas 2. Why people don't communicate in squad-based games is beyond me, and I almost never play multiplayer anymore unless it's with friends.
Perhaps the greatest thing about co-op play is the fact that your opponent is AI, not human. Let's face it, people (and by people, I mean most random people you encounter on Xbox Live) suck. They glitch, they cheat, they quit early, they teabag, they turn Gears of War into a running shotgun fest which was not what the developers intended. They swear, spew forth racist or homophobic garbage, make excessive "your mom" jokes, beat-box, sing, or rap into the mic, are pre-pubescent boys playing M-rated games, and a million other things that annoy and lessen the experience. When playing cooperatively against AI, you know the opposing team is going to play the game the "right" way, and don't have to suffer the annoyances offered by a million idiots. Everyone shares the experience, and walk away satisfied at that shared accomplishment. I've never had a co-op session where players left frustrated or angry, while that happened in almost every competitive session.

With my brother gone, I feel like I'll be cut off from the style of gaming I like most for five months. Sure, I can still chase achievements for all time, but what do I do when I'm sick of that and need to play a different way? I'm going to need to hold auditions for a temporary new Wingman, I think.

I'll conclude my comments on co-op by wishing my bro good luck in Spain. You'll have a blast, I'm sure. Keep me updated about what you're up to. The games will still be here when you get back =)

Dark Drium pic from: http://tiger3k.com/yash/entertainment/games/index.html
other pics from MGC or xbox360achievements