Todd Terwilliger » videogames

The Immigrant Movie

Todd — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:23:47 +0000

If a Viking takes a dump in the woods, does he make sound? Yes, yes he does. How do I know this? Because I made the mistake of seeing Severed Ways at the Angelika Film Center on Saturday.

The premise of the film reads like a teenage boy’s wet dream:

Abandoned by a Western exploration party and stranded in the New World, two lone Vikings wade through a grand primeval landscape, struggling for survival while still in the grip of their Norse ways. An impressive DIY epic, SEVERED WAYS features a frosty black metal soundtrack, including Burzum, Morbid Angel, Judas Priest and Dimmu Borgir.

How could something that sounds so good turn out so horribly, awfully wrong? Where should I begin?

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Post tags: angelika, beowulf, brokeback mountain, john cleese, mary magdalene, monty python & the holy grail, severed ways, sir lancelot, society for creative anachronism, thirteenth warrior

Street Fighting Man

Todd — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:01:14 +0000

In these dark times, there’s nothing more prudent than to blow some coin on a specialty peripheral for an already specialized piece of hardware. In my case, this prudence translated into ordering and then receiving a Hori Real Arcade Pro Ex arcade joystick for my Xbox 360. Never let it be said that I am not a prudent man.

The road that led me to this expression of excess was paved by my purchase of Street Fighter 4 on Saturday. I’ve been playing the game pretty heavy since then. I am not very good. In fact, I am not good at all. The problem is that the 360 controller is ill-suited for pursuit of fighting game perfection and it fooled me into thinking that I could do better, if only I had a better joystick.

This niggling thought, this unscratchable itch, by increments small and then larger, led me inexorably to this place, my apartment, last night, pulling six pounds of ebon controller from a box the size of a small suitcase.

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Post tags: dig dug, ebay, hori real arcade pro ex, hrap ex, joust, pac man, street fighter 4, xbox360

Saturday in the Park Without George

Todd — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:45:09 +0000

As it was only briskly cold, as opposed to mind-numbingly cold, I took my camera and took it for a walk through Fort Greene Park.

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Post tags: fort greene park, gamestop, photos, street fighter 4

Comic Contemplations, Part 2.5

Todd — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:12:51 +0000

In which our hero expounds on the nature of his fandom and shares some random observations.

I realized that yesterday, I went into very little specifics about what I saw at the con. This is not due to some blindness or memory lapse on my part but rather the nature of my particular interest. For me, the con was less a fact-finding mission to glean secrets profound about anything than it was all about the journey, the experience mentally, physically, and metaphysically, in the con itself.

I’m a comic fan but I’m not, at this time, a comic fanboy. I haven’t had a pull at a comic shop since Junior High and while I never completely lost interest in the medium, while I’ve read isolated books here and there, enjoyed adapted films and games, I haven’t actively followed the tangled knot of comic history in an age.

Given my ignorance of the scene, I did not seek out much in the way of forbidden lore. Even if, in my wanderings, such lore was thrust into my face, I wouldn’t have recognized it. For such arcane comic knowledge, I was a very poor vessel.

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Post tags: andre the giant, comics, dc online, ghostbusters, hawx, honky tonk man, hulk hogan, legends of wrestlemania, mad world, new york comic con, tom clancy, world of warcraft

My Favorite Videogames of 2008

Todd — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:30:37 +0000

It’s that time of year when everyone and their mother’s cousin decides to look back and rate the best of the past year. Why should I be any different?

My criteria are simple: these are the games I had the most fun playing in the last year. I don’t care about revolutionary versus evolutionary improvements, gameplay innovations, or graphical perfection. This is all about the fun.

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Post tags: braid, dead space, fable 2, fallout 3, gears of war 2, gta iv, nhl 09, resistance 2, saints row 2, too human

Word Games

Todd — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:00:01 +0000

For some reason, the last week or so, I’ve had an itch to game on my iPhone. I’ve picked up a couple of the higher rated games: Fieldrunners, Samurai Puzzle Battle, and Rolando. They’re all great games. However, the game that has captured my mind is Wurdle.

It’s iPhone Boggle time! Does “Quijibo” Count?

The things I like about Wurdle: it’s quick to play, can be played one-handed, and it stimulates my brain, at least the Scrabble lobes of it.

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Post tags: fieldrunners, iphone, rolando, samurai puzzle battle, scrabble, wurdle

Wiped Out

Todd — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:30:00 +0000

I was a huge found of WipeOut XL on the Playstation. However, since then I had drifted away from the series. It was therefore with much anticipation that I downloaded the brand new WipeOut HD from the PSN store. I was feeling the need, the need for speed.

I only had a chance to fire up a few races but I learned something valuable in the process: I stink at WipeOut HD. Whatever skills I had I let drift a long time ago. Out of three races, the best I finished was 6th (out of 8). My other finishes? 7th and 7th. Both times the 8th racer did not finish due to obliteration. Basically, I finished last, last, and then close to last. I can say this: I am trending upward. That’s gotta count for something, right? Don’t answer that.

It goes without question that the game is an absolute beauty to behold, hear, and play. At $19.95, it’s absolutely cheap for what it delivers in terms of quality and quantity, including online play. However, at my current skill level, online is the last place you’ll find me. I don’t need some mouthy 12 year old to tell me how much I suck. Not yet anyway. Queue the training montage!

Technorati Tags: playstation, psn, wipeout, youtube

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Post tags: playstation, psn, wipeout, youtube

The Iceman Cometh

Todd — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:00:00 +0000

I managed to do two things this weekend: put together a new TV stand and play NHL 09. While it’s nice to have the TV elevated off the floor, the former was not nearly as fun as the latter.

I was big into hockey games going back to the classic Genesis titles but I had gotten away from them until recently. NHL 08 rekindled my interest in the games and 09 has added gasoline to the fire.

The big draw has become the online and offline Be A Pro modes. What is it? You play as a single player on the team of your choice. No switching between all the players and no control of the coaching decisions. When you’re guy hits the bench for a line change, you sit, when he plays, you play. While the scope of play is therefore more limited than the usual total team control, I also found it liberating. I don’t agonize over team losses because I’m not wholly responsible for them. I’ve also got a finer appreciation of the role of a single position and the discipline to confine yourself to that role. Try to do too much and suddenly you’re out of position. Bad things tend to happen when you’re out of position. Seeing a great play materialize out of solidly playing your position is a great reward and more meaningful because the play had to form outside your sole control.

Online play only takes this sensation and improves it. Now, it isn’t you and a bunch of AI guys but you and a bunch of real people. Being online poses the same hazard of asshattery as other online games but the experience when you can find a team of people willing and able to play team hockey is the best online sports game experience I’ve had. It took me a bit to convince myself to try to go online (fears of idiot kids and morons) but, once I did, I was hooked.

Once nice feature: during games, the only chatter you hear is from your own team. A nice touch to at least avoid some random idiocy.

There is one catch to all this concentrated win: joining games can be seriously buggy. Seriously, annoyingly buggy. There’s nothing that can more efficiently sap fun than to constantly struggle to get into a game. Once in, the game is gold. Getting there can be way more of a struggle than it ought to be. Hopefully, whatever is causing the problems can be patched. It’s not bad enough not to bear but it ought to be patched. It needs to be patched.

I’d stop playing in protest but… I can’t do it. I’m already thinking about by next shift on the ice.

Technorati Tags: nhl 08, nhl 09

Sporadic Fun

Todd — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

I’ve gone into the Space stage in Spore but rather than the game opening up for epic exploration and discovery, I find instead that it has constricted the game mechanics until the endless repetition of frustrating busy-work is almost the antithesis of fun.

I imagined the Space stage to be the embodiment of Star Trek’s “to boldly go” axiom but, unfortunately, this impulse is aggressively thwarted by a system of inter-galactic politics and bureaucratic hand-holding.

The first issue is money. Spice is the only commodity in the Spore universe. It must be harvested then sold for money. This, in itself, is not an issue. The issue is that the spice economy must be manually supervised. There is no automation. I have to go from planet to planet, picking up spice, then going from planet to planet, selling it for the highest price I can find. I can set up trading routes between star systems but this, oddly enough, does not automate this system. It’s only use is to fill a meter that, when filled, will let me buy the star system.

Now I am busy with economic pursuits but still I have time to reach out into the void and explore. Exploring inevitably leads to contact with other space faring races. For some reason, a good number of these hate me on first contact. Before I know it, my homeworld or one of my colonies is calling me to defend them from hostile attack. Some are only pirates but most are from these mysteriously hateful, aggressive empires. Sometimes you can pay them off but often I didn’t have enough money. The attacks begin. Once they begin, they don’t seem to let up. Ever.

So, instead of working my way towards towards the galactic core, I find myself fighting the same tired battles over and over again, building and rebuilding my beaten down colonies, and then trying to build my bank roll back up before the next, inevitable attack.

I suppose I could go and destroy the empires attacking me. I could but that isn’t what I want to do. In a game that implies so many choices, why do I feel like I’m railroaded down a single path? Still, if that’s the only way to get some breathing room, I guess I’ll have to do it. I’ll do it. But I won’t call it fun. Because it’s not. I just have no other choice.

Technorati Tags: spore

Wierd Science

Todd — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Well, I’ve been playing Spore. It’s an interesting animal: both toy and game, linear and sandbox at turns, single player and massively multiplayer. for my money, the creators are the most interesting aspects of the package. Through them, creatures, vehicles, and buildings can be created, customized, and shared through the Spore universe. As a creator, you build creatures or things and then share them. Once shared, they may appear in other people’s games. It’s a great feeling to get a message from a stranger that they encountered your homemade creature on some distant planet in a distant game. Unfortunately, so far, Spore doesn’t provide enough depth and control to really take advantage of our creativity.

To be sure, there are plenty of physical choices to be had. All it takes is a short glance at the Sporepedia to see the width and breadth of people’s imaginations brought to virtual life. However, this creativity is only skin deep. There is so much we can’t do, such as set behaviors, habitats, attitudes, etc. Is my critter a social animal, travelling in packs, or does he wander alone? Is he nocturnal? Is he aggressive or passive? Do they live if forests or plains, mountains or valleys? Do they migrate or stay put? I’d love to have control of not only what my creature looks like in another game but how it behaves in other games. Right now, I can’t do it.

Even though we’re essentially gods leading our creatures from single cells all the way to space, even though we can manipulate how our creatures evolve, our scope is limited. I’d like to be able to build my creatures then let them go and watch. Instead, often I’m embroiled in the minutia of empire building that, in this game, I don’t fundamentally care to do. Unlike in The Sims, I must personally shepherd my creature at all times. I am trapped by my avatar.

I hope, via expansion, that such vistas of less limited godhood will be opened up, in which I can really stir up nature’s pot and watch it coalesce without worrying about such mundane concerns as feeding a handful of critters, building cities, or balancing alliances between petty empires. This is what I want and I still hope, at some stage, Spore will deliver it. Still, it’s not bad fun as it us. It just could be more, much more.

Here are a couple of my creations (works in progress all):

Technorati Tags: spore, the sims