The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So Left 4 Dead on Easy is a totally different game.

After a night of Ticket to Ride followed by some connection issues followed by a solid Dead Air advanced run, Morbid Coffee and I were left with one plan, and one plan only: To, uh, get me the Akimbo Assassin achievement. We did this by, of course, going to No Mercy on Easy.
I was shocked and surprised. It was INTENSE. A full game of Left 4 Dead normally takes about an hour and a half, maybe longer if there are a lot of failures. Coffee and I burned through the game in 22 minutes. 22! AND I was doing the Akimbo Assassin achievement, like I said, so I was holding myself back and only using pistols! It was a whoosh and a swoosh and it was nothing like the Left 4 Dead I know and love. And it was totally sweet.
Seriously, on harder difficulties, the game is all about survival. As it should be! But suddenly, on easy, that wasn’t even anything to even pretend to care about anymore. It was all about speed. You had to run fast, and shoot just enough zombies to sneak past. It was a total rush, and man, I can’t wait to try some speed runs with a full group of people, instead of two computer players. Attempting to beat times could make for a really great alternate Left 4 Dead night. I can’t wait to try!

So as I realized and sat down to order the Double Jump Persona 4 guide for when Persona 4 comes out this week, I realized that I’ve spend almost plastic instrument music game money on this game, what with the expensive goodies pack, the game itself, and now this guide.

Man, I must really like Persona.

And I mean, I do. Not only is it, luckily, a completely awesome and good game, but it also OOZES style, and man, if there’s one thing that can really sell me on a game, it’s having a strong style. Art, music, everything coming together to create a perfect, awesome mix. Persona 3 did this, and everything I’ve seen of Persona 4 suggests it will too. And so I buy the stuffed animals and the T-shirts and…
Well, I won’t apologize for wanting things I want. Just the cost of what I’ve been doing, that I’ve pushed into triple digits spent on this game, struck me as I was ordering. And I thought I’d share.

So, looking for things to play that don’t require new purchases that might step on someone’s gift-buying shoes, I’ve been looking into DLC offerings. One thing that caught my eye was the fact that there were two cheap (I think like… 2 dollars of Microsoft Funmoney, maybe 2.50) DLC campaigns for Band of Bugs. I thought Band of Bugs was a pretty nice little game, back when I first got it. It was an interesting quick and dirty Tactics clone that you could pick up and play easily, so I got one of the two campaigns. I, uh, apparently bought the second one first, though, but since the plots are unrelated, I suppose that’s not too horrible.

The Campaign I got was Ninja Sticks of Fury, which added a stickbug ninja class to the game, as well as snow levels. The pack was less meaty than I was hoping. I apparently retained most of my skills from playing through the original campaign, because I only had to restart twice as I played through it. I got maybe 4 hours of gameplay out of it. Still, that’s not TOO bad of a cost/value ratio. I spend 2 bucks on caffeine drinks everyday, and they probably don’t give me as much enjoyment.
The ninja class itself is kind of overpowered, I suppose. They have the weapon choices and movement of the mosquito thieves but a double-attack similar to the Mantis royal guards. If they get hit twice in a row, they’re screwed, but they can take out just about anyone with one hit after you get them above… what… level 5? Whenever they get the dual-attack. Still, their ranged weapon isn’t nearly as useful as the Mosquito’s crossbow. It does shit for damage against higher level enemies. Still, the flexibility to switch is nice.

Overall, I could probably recommend this? I mean, I am pretty sure I’m going to buy the other campaign before Chrissymas, so obviously it didn’t deter me. But I dunno, be warned that it isn’t some expert-level super-campaign. It’s not that hard. It’s just more levels. If you wanted more Band of Bugs, go for it.

So, on Thanksgiving, my mother had a secret activity. This activity came about when I told her about the game “You’re In The Movies” and she got so excited that she immediately thrust money into my paw and told me to go and buy it and keep it a secret. So we played and made two movies that day. And no, I’m not going to show you, because then you would see me, and I would be embarrassed. You’d have to beg.

In any case, the game is exactly what I thought it would be. It’s not a horrible experience, especially if you, you know, don’t act too cool for it and really get into it and ham it up. Also, it is the kind of game that my parents find amazing. Like, to the point where my mom is wanting to borrow my Xbox 360 so she can play this with her brother, and whatnot. She. Loved. It. And my dad had a great, great time too. And I had fun. And I think Jonathan and his ladyfriend had a decent time as well. I mean, the premise is solid. Green-screening people into movie trailers makes for a funny, awesome time if everyone plays long. It’s a solid evening of entertainment.

It has some problems, though. First off, I think the price is ridiculous. It should be $40 WITH the camera, MAYBE $50. Why? Because those people who would find this game exciting (aka my mom) aren’t going to have a game console at all, or if they do, they’re going to have a Wii, not a 360. So basically, this game is depending on the hardcore buying this to play with their non-gamer friends and family. You need the game to be budget-priced to draw in that kind of crowd. I NEVER would have picked up this game if my mom hadn’t paid for it, you know?
The other issue is the technology. Instead of a green screen, the game basically takes a picture of the room without people, and then uses that to determine where the people are. It works… okay, but it’s easily confused. Parts of people’s body can disappear at random. It can ruin an awesome, funny clip made when Jonathan’s head is missing sometimes, for instance. It should have worked better.

Still, overall, if you have a camera, this would seem like the perfect game to rent while visiting parents for Christmas or something like that. A group of non-gamers with a gamer guide could have hours and hours of fun with this game. Still, as far as a purchase goes…? Well, I’d wait until it drops a lot, which it probably will.

So I finally got around to playing through Penny Arcade: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 2. The experience was significantly enjoyable. The original game has one major conceptual problem and one stupid problem that bothers me. Surprisingly, for this episode, they fixed the major issue and not the stupid problem.

The major problem with episode 1 was the fact that there was like 2 locations and you went to them like 30 times over and over again with new monsters on fetch quests. That was really not cool. The writing was up to Penny Arcade’s awesome standard, and the combat was surprisingly engaging, but the story, being a series of fetch-quests, was less than compelling.
They really fixed that with this game. Granted, there was maybe one more area than in the last game? But they make you go to them in an intelligent fashion. Instead of doing one thing, and then being sent on a quest, and then doing that, then being sent on another quest, you start with one objective, which slowly balloons much more naturally until you have a bunch of inter-connected quests, each of which requires going from area to area several times, but you’re doing it to figure out how to comply with the odd quests you’re given in a much more organic way, so it’s much, much less annoying, and actually makes the whole game feel more… significant. Well, that and some of the story.

Hey, this next two paragraphs have plotish spoilers, so… skip that, if you want. Until the next empty line.
The game did some very, very awesome things with Penny Arcade-style cameos and reusing of characters from the last episode. The killing off of basically every character you met in last and this episode so quickly and at random was actually a fairly effective storytelling device. I’m not connected to these people in the same way that I’m, say, connected to my dog in Fable 2, but in most of the episodic games, once a character shows up, they keep reappearing, because it’s easy to do and effective. Seeing these people again made it seem like the pee doctor and whatnot would be coming back again and again. And then bam. Dead. All bets were off, and they made it clear that they are going to make the story they want, no matter what, and nobody is really safe in this world. It was nice, and also fit with the crazy-ass brutality of the world, as well. Villains in the world they’ve created WOULDN’T just walk in and give a speech. They really would kill everyone. If this is a world where I can murder random annoying people with gardening tools, the villain can totally destroy every single person he wants to.
I also got really, really excited when I met Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood. His assist attack was effective, but nothing like what I was expecting. Then, at the end of the game, the preview for the next episode made it damn clear that he’s going to be an important part in it. I. Can’t. Wait. He’s just a hilarious concept that could be rolled into this game so, so well. I really can’t wait to see what happens.

The stupid little thing they didn’t fix was the fact that the text is barely, barely readable on an SD TV. It is hurt my eyes small. I was hoping they would fix that before the next episode, and they did not. Stupid bastards, a lot of people still have Standard Def! Stop being dicks! Still, it didn’t ruin the game overall. It was just annoying.

But yeah, still, this game was fun times, and I’m signed up for the other two episodes, especially now that they dropped the price per episode to the more palatable $15. I mean, if you like solid, Mini-game and timing based RPG combat and Penny Arcade’s writing style, you really can’t go wrong. Really.

I was testing out the NXE’s new “start downloads from your PC” feature when I noticed the existence of Domnio Master, the ultimate online domino experience. When did this come out? I had to try the demo.
Why? Well, two reasons. One, Uno on XBLA is hella fun, really. Not having played any with Talking Time people is actually kind of a problem I’d like to fix. I’d have nothing against more good, fun, simple games like that on XBLA. Two, I do have kind of an odd relationship with Dominoes. I never get to play them, but I have a kind of odd obsession or affinity with them after reading Nymphomation and loving it, much like I like all of Noon’s Vurt mythology stuff. So if it was a really compelling Domino game, I mean, who knows? I might buy it.

The first reason I didn’t buy it, of course, was the fact that it costs 10 bucks. Seriously? I have fully-featured Dominoes in Clubhouse Games, which only cost me, what? 20 bucks? It even has online play of a sort. So, yeah, no value.
The second is that it just has a really weird vibe. I got into a game, and the computer AI I was up against in the demo was a picture of a Fox wearing green shades with the handle “FoxyLady1991”. What am I supposed to make of that? I mean, is this AI supposed to be 14 years old? And if so, why is she foxy? Is it just a furry thing? I mean, that would be okay, but that would be weird to put in the game, I guess.
The last reason, though honestly I didn’t need any more but the price, was the fact that the game refuses to streamline anything. I would pick to place a bone, and there was only one option of where to put it, and it would still require another press to pick which play I want to make. That’s just kind of silly. There shouldn’t be that extra button press there.

In any case, seriously, Domino Master? When the hell did that come out? I mean, I pay attention to these releases. Why didn’t I know this? Huh? Did it slip under everyone’s radar? Where’s the 1up Review of this?

Well, at least the cuing the downloads on the PC worked perfect and awesome.

So, Left 4 Dead is a lot less fun when you can’t communicate.

I mean, I knew this already. Talking with friends while doing something? Almost always improves a gaming experience. Hell, friends improve almost any activity, do they not? Even like, you know, sex with friends is better than sex with strangers. Maybe. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.

In any case, the last time I played Versus mode, in the first round I encountered a pretty shitty bug. We started the game in split screen, letting Jonathan and Essner try the Infected. Split-screen works alright for the campaign, but it is nigh unplayable online. There just isn’t time for the one person with a headset to go between and co-ordinate both the other split-screen player and the people on the headset. Add to that the fact that you can mostly forget about your computer partners in offline co-op, because the AI is so good. You need to know where everyone is in online games, and you simply can’t see enough. Finally, when you’re playing as the infected, this helpful info box is on the screen. However, it basically covers the ENTIRE split-screen area, making it completely impossible to set up ambushes well, since you can’t see until you spawn. Don’t play split-screen online, kids.
In any case, eventually they left and so I left the game, killed the split-screen, and jumped back into the game, only to find I could no longer talk to people on my team. This. Sucked. All the energy and excitement I had in Left 4 Dead the first time I played with it online was all gone. It was a depressing experience of frustration.
Eventually, I figured out that what was causing all my chatter to disappear was having a Guest signed in who wasn’t playing. After I logged the guest back out, I could talk and communicate again, and then the game got completely awesome again. Still, it was pretty striking how such a great game can get so much less than great without friendly banter and strategizing. At the very least, it convinced me to never, ever attempt an online game of this. At least, not without having friends fill up my entire team and murdering the random XBL kids.

So it looked like I was going to have to jump into Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People Episode 4… you know, I’m done with references. Sorry.

But seriously, Dangeresque 3 did not fail to deliver. It was pretty completely great. They went the extra mile to make the episode actually look like a Dangeresque movie, from the quick cuts to Strong Sad for stunts to the camera occasionally getting distracted like a bad cameraman should to horrible editing in the game that leaves in things you shouldn’t see. It’s just… perfect. And hey, it was actually in 3D, just like it was promised. Still, I bet people who are big Strong Bad fans could be kind of upset by having such a heavily demanded and loved thing actually be done in the game. But if they were such a fan, why weren’t they buying the games anyway? Bastards.
The puzzles themselves were actually fairly puzzle-y too, in parts. This is the first episode of SBCG4AP where I’ve had to look up an answer because I was frustrated. Granted, the solution was actually very meta, so I don’t blame myself for not getting it, but it was the first time these games have stumped me.
I feel like if I talk about it too much, I’ll spoil some of its awesome. So I won’t. But this game’s humor got me out of not one but two fairly shitty moods. It’s great, great stuff. I would probably put it as better than Strong Badia the Free, which was my favorite episode before this one. Granted, it was pulling from and counting on a LOT more in-jokes than Strong Badia the Free which was mostly all original content, which I can appreciate. But seriously, it was the best yet. If you like Strong Bad, you deserve to play this game. You’ll laugh.

So I got Left 4 Dead and I’ve had one solid night of trying it.

Holy crap. Seriously.

We only had 6 players, but with 8 players? It would be bliss. This is by far one of the best multiplayer games around. Hands. Down.
We started by playing the Campaign, of course. Four of us trying to beat No Mercy. Advanced is much harder than in the demo, it seems. We couldn’t beat it! Wave after wave… it was so very intense. And even though we kept dying, it was a ton of fun. Still, eventually we decided to try to see something else, and joined up with another couple of people, and played Versus mode.
Now, I wasn’t buying this game for the versus mode. I figured I wouldn’t like it much. Picking on people as the infected didn’t seem like fun, and I just wanted the co-operative teamwork of the campaign.
I was so very wrong.
Campaign mode is great, don’t get me wrong, but Versus mode is probably THE BEST competitive multiplayer experience I have been a part of. The sides are small enough to be intimate, and you are constantly working with each other and talking strategy on both sides of the equation. It plays different as the survivors because, with the increased special zombie count and knowing there are human players behind them, you really have to be careful about things like stopping to heal… anything. You have to clear rooms, check every one for an ambush. I mean, you do in the single player, to the extent, but knowing your opponents are scheming makes it even more intense.
And the Infected! Dammit, that was fun shit. I expected it to be boring, since you spend the majority of your time respawning. But now, you’re spending that time scheming with your fellow zombies and cheering them on when they manage to pounce someone or get a swarm after them. I thought it was going to be a more solo rogue experience, but you are just as co-ordinated and a team as the survivors, and when you catch them in a good trap, it’s fucking sweet. But that just makes you all the more nervous next round, knowing they’re trying to top it.

I am so high from… gods, what, three hours of gameplay? A versus match is an all night affair, but it is a FUCKING SWEET all night affair. I hope we can play so, so many more of these. And that’s just the first impression from ONE CAMPAIGN. I haven’t even tried the levels that weren’t in the demo yet.

Man, I can’t fucking wait.

Call of Duty: World at War is the best WWII mod for Call of Duty 4 available. I don’t regret my purchase? But I would suggest that most people just give it a rent and enjoy a quick play through of the single player unless they’re gung-ho about the multiplayer aspects.

That’s the short version. Here’s the long version: Call of Duty 4 has a fucking great engine, and as such, it’s no surprise at all that a game made with that engine to emulate that game plays awesome. It also has all those WWII weapons I fell in love with back in CoD2, so that’s nice. The Gewher is still my weapon of choice. Heh. The game also has co-op, which was the only thing CoD4 was missing. It’s kind of the saving grace of the game, though. The Single Player suffers from Me-too-ness. Most of the memorable sequences in CoD4 are recreated in this setting with a little twist. “Being Taught How To Snipe Level”? Check. “Manning a Gun Plane”? Check. Even the flipping back and forth between two stories is done, although here, it is for absolutely no reason whatsoever, instead of creating the narrative of CoD4. That’s really a problem: WWII is done to death. You would have to almost completely deviate from history to make a compelling narrative out of WWII at this point. CoD4 actually had a story, because it got to write a story, and it was much better for it. Still, Co-op makes everything better, and this is no exception at all. If you have a friend, you’ll have a good time.
But most of the single player is fun but forgettable, honestly. It doesn’t help that they went out of their way to do flame physics, and thus “flamethrower it” is the solution to almost everything in the game. It gets really annoying, because the flamethrower is not all that fun to use, after awhile. The first few times, it’s a lot of fun burning up grass to stop would-be ambushers. But then it makes you do it for like 4 more levels, and you realize how vulnerable you can be running forward with the flamethrower trying to hit people. It gets frustrating. What’s also frustrating is how, since there were no flamethrowers used all that much in the Russian campaign, they give you Molotov cocktails as your special grenades. It is extremely hard to kill someone with one of those, the animation to throw them takes about an hour, leaving you out in the open getting shot, and it takes up the place of smoke grenades, which are insanely useful against AI opponents. Many frustrating sections would have been a lot easier if I could have had just one smoke grenade instead of those stupid firebombs. Ugh.
Multiplayer, like the single player, is pretty well just re-purposed CoD4. However, that’s a great, great thing in my mind, as CoD4’s multiplayer was one of the first I really seriously got into in a shooter. It’s still just as fun, too. Many people are saying the dog summon, which replaces the helicopter summon, is more annoying. I completely disagree. If you’re paying attention, you can deal with the dogs. It’s hard to do more than hide in a building until the helicopter runs away, unless you’re carrying an RPG, and even then, you only have two tries and will probably miss both times. Then again, I suppose the helicopter can only be bothering one person at a time, so maybe it’s a tradeoff. In any case, though, the maps are completely great as well. They’re well-thought-out and I can’t think of any that annoy me. It’s a fun time. If you’re bored of CoD4’s multiplayer, this will easily scratch that itch. It’s enough new to get me back into multiplayer games, anyway.
The final piece of this puzzle is Nazi Zombies. I have no fucking idea why this is in the game. It starts up right after the credits, which kind of kills the sense of “war is a real thing” that they were trying very hard to foster by using real film clips and shit throughout the campaign. Still, it honestly looks like a lot of fun. You have to build up points to buy weapons, and you have to keep rebuilding these barricades as they get knocked down, and you can play with four players… it seems like a good time. At the same time, uh, I’m about to pick up Left 4 Dead, which is a much fuller experience, so it might be kind of moot.

Anyway, there’s some extended impressions. If you have it and are playing online on the 360, let me know, but again, probably don’t buy it unless you’re going to get your Team Deathmatch on. There are too many other great things coming out right now.

UPDATE FROM SEVERAL DAYS AFTER I WROTE THIS ORIGINALLY! The game randomly deleted my save, meaning I can’t pick any level but the first for co-op and can no longer play Nazi Zombies! Why is all of this locked? Why does the game hate me? Well, it worked, because I now hate this game. All developers making games with locked content, ESPECIALLY multiplayer content, should be shot and killed. I want to play what I paid for. Bastards.