Boo-fucking-yah. Who's the man? I'm the man. Why am I the man? Because I can sprint forever and never get tired. Well, in Grand Theft Auto III, anyway. Mostly this comment is meant for a specific person, although I'm sure the, what, probably at least one of you who stumbled in here because you did a search on GTA3 or something are thinking to yourselves, "Whoop-de-doo, you did all 12 levels of paramedic missions. Anyone can do that." Well, it took me a long time to be able to do it, and I'm sort of proud of myself. I guess I do get better at games after all. Well, sometimes. Maybe.
I'm not proud of myself for buying it, though. I was supposed to not buy games anymore. I subscribed to GameFly so that I wouldn't be tempted to buy games anymore. Well, console games. Computer games are still a temptation. But I was at Fred Meyer(kind of like a Wal-Mart, but not quite as evil, for those of you further east and south who've never heard of Freddy's), and I saw the double pack of 3 and VC, and I thought, you know, I really enjoyed the hell out of those games. And I considered getting it for Xbox, but a) the Xbox version was ten bucks more, and b) the PS2 controller is just so much better. I mean, I do like the shoulder triggers actually being triggers, that's cool, but the black and white buttons just do not effectively replace the extra shoulder buttons. I bought SSX3 for Xbox instead of PS2 because it would look prettier, but after having played so much Tricky on PS2, it's practically impossible for me to play 3 on Xbox.
Although mouse-and-keyboard is worse. Except for the sniper missions, where I really pine for mouse-and-keyboard. And here I'm back to talking about GTA, so you know. I mean, there could be sniper missions in SSX3, I haven't played all of it, after all, but I do sort of doubt it. (No analog movement for keyboard makes helicopters nigh onto impossible to fly, for instance.)
Now, if I could just figure out how to get all the fucking spammers to drop dead. Or, well, at least stop putting their shit on my poor little blog. And what the hell is a Trackback, anyway? And I wonder if it would be worth the trouble to try putting in some formatting. And maybe someday I could learn some basic HTML and figure out how to put in links. I should probably look at the Help thingy. I'm not going to, but I probably should.
'cause, I mean, do I care if anyone ever reads this? Am I doing it for the attention, or am I doing it because it helps to get my thoughts down in writing? I know there's only two or three people reading this, and most of them have probably stopped bothering to check this site because I update so rarely, and truth be told it's not very interesting anyway...I mean, the friend who convinced me to start this(I'm not quite sure why I refuse to refer to people by name here when pretty much everybody who reads this knows exactly who I'm talking about, but, whatever) keeps trying to convince me that I'm amusing or otherwise entertaining in some way, but I'm pretty sure that he's just being nice. Either that, or it just doesn't translate over very well.
I feel like talking right now, for some reason. There's no one around to talk to, so typing is my substitute, but it's a good one.
I have a real love/hate thing going with my job. On the one hand, I work in a comic book store, which is cool. It's fairly low-stress, the dedicated customers are pretty cool, and fairly often, the staff is reasonably cool, too. On the other hand, the casual customers are usually your normal brain-dead morons who would maybe not make the world a better place by eating a gun muzzle, but they would at least make my life a little more enjoyable by just going away. Also, sometimes the staff we get saddled with fit this bill as well. We tend to get three kinds of people: Dorks(I am proud of my dork-hood! Okay, well, no, I'm not. I'd really rather be cool. It's just that I am not cool, and I will never be cool, so I'm not even going to bother trying to pretend that I am anything other than what I am) who are into comics or games or anime or sports cards and can see no greater achievement in life than working at the store until they realize that, while relaxed we are, "working" is not just a euphemism for "standing around chatting about geekery all day getting paid". They tend to come in varying levels of intelligence, and, contrary to what I know a lot of people(especially geeks) tend to think, their geekdom does not in any way imply that they're probably toward the high end. Just 'cause you like sci-fi and computers doesn't mean you're smart. Some of the stupidest people I haven't been able to come up with excuses not to talk to have been into all the same shit I'm into. Most of them tend to quit pretty quickly. I was in this category when I first started working for the company, but I've evolved a little. And, naturally, I was at the high end of the intelligence spectrum.
Then you have the kids and other assorted losers who just want a job, any job(as long as it's not flipping burgers, although that pays better, usually). They usually know next to nothing about any of the products we carry, but feel that the week and a half they spent obsessed with the Crow after the movie came out makes them an expert on about half of the products we carry. They usually get way into collecting comics or occasionally games, put hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise on hold for themselves, then quit two weeks later and never buy any of it and never come back to the store. Mostly complete wastes of time and space, but occasionally can be unexpectedly very cool.
And last, you have the people who are kind of into one or two of our product categories, but not to the point that they're total nerds about it, and they're bored most of the time and they need a little supplemental income but not too much because their girlfriend/wife/parents/boyfriend/husband/dom/sub/other makes enough to support them, but not enough to support whatever hobbies, and anyway they usually don't have any kids or anything else to keep them occupied while the poing(to steal a word from a friend) is out earning a living, so they get a job at the ol' comic shop. These people tend to be pretty intelligent, reasonably knowledgeable, and don't have any foolish notions about all the work they're not going to be doing, but they are grateful for all the work they don't do.
Okay, after re-reading that last sentence, I've come to the conclusion that I'm nearly comatose and should sleep. I might bitch/expound about the vagaries of being a comic shop clerk some other time. Or I might forget completely and never speak of it again.
Well, just like everyone else, I've been playing Doom 3 for the last few days. I didn't buy it, my friend bought it, but he doesn't own a computer that can run it, and there are two in my apartment. So I told him he could play it here, and he decided to go ahead and leave the disks here since he can't do anything with them while he's not here. Not a bad system. He plans to do the same with Half-Life 2, which I'm really, really looking forward to.
I wasn't looking forward to Doom 3 at all, I was pretty indifferent and thought the screenshots looked like ass. Then it released and the positive reviews started coming in, and I thought, "enh, it's just release-week hype, the complaints will roll in soon enough." But then my friend brought it over and installed it, and I played it, and I just have to say...
SWEET MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST WHAT IS THAT THING OH JESUS *blam* *blam* *blam* AIEEEE NO GET OFF ME AARRGGHHH *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *pant* *pant* *pant*...You get the idea. This game is, in a word, really fucking creepy. I guess that's three words. I have, really, literally, jumped back from the computer screen, more than once. I get shivers walking around, shining my little flashlight(which cleverly does not actually shine right at your targeting reticle; sort of annoying, but it totally enhances the fear effect, as you can never clearly see what you're looking at, if you want to line up your shots while you can see anything) into dark corners and dreading the moment when some hideous thing is going to pop around a corner or out of the ceiling or from behind a door you didn't notice.
And you know how, in a lot of FPS's, when the enemies hit you, you just take damage but your aim isn't interrupted at all? Not so in this game. When an imp smacks the crap out of you, it really looks like he's attacking your gun arm, and your aim is thrown *way* off, to the extent where it's really actually pretty difficult to kill the giant ugly demon that is clawing the living fuck out of you, imagine that. This is fairly easily solved by backing up, of course, but it's sometimes hard to think of that when you've just wet yourself in terror. No, I did not actually wet myself.
Some handy tips for you: Don't waste shotgun shells on regular zombies, unless they appear right next to you or there's a crowd. For the first level or two, you can easily take out marines by getting their attention, then ducking around a corner and blowing them in half with the shotgun when they come around. Later you're better off using the SMG, because they get smart and wait for you, usually behind cover, and lay down suppressing fire. Fortunately they're not smart enough(at least not yet) to stagger their fire to be constant, so you can get them while they reload. For imps, don't run from them, run right up to them. Stick your shotgun in their chest and pull the trigger and watch them disintegrate. Wait until they've thrown their fireball at you, though, and hit them during their recovery animation. And when they start teleporting in, later, those are my favorite imps. They announce their presence with loud, flashy light show instead of the silent crouching in a dark corner the others do, and when they do appear they pose and roar at you, giving you all the time in the world to run up and introduce their midsection to the business end of your shotgun. Easier to kill than zombies.
If you have the pants for it, I suggest you play it with all the lights off, at night, alone. Actually, the lights off thing isn't just for atmosphere; the game is dark as fuck, designedly so, and it's easier to see stuff before it can kill you with all the lights off.
I don't know, though. I still don't think I would've actually paid money for it. It's an excellent game, no mistake, but once I finish it I'll never play it again. I mean, hell, I won't play most of the games I already do own, but at least I intend to. Doom, though, play through once, never again. Although maybe if you like multiplayer games that might make it worth it, although for me, generally, *fuck* multiplayer. Occasionally you might play something cool with some friends, but fuck the internet. And I hear the Doom multiplayer isn't that hot, anyway, although I expect the cool mods will be coming along shortly.
So, I finished Hunter: The Reckoning, and immediately moved on to Hunter: The Reckoning - Wayward. Which, as near as I can tell, came about because someone at Sony said, "Hey, we want a H:TR game, too!" So High Voltage said, "Uh, yeah, okay," slapped a new paint job on the original, and sent it to Sony. And yet, to continue my previous metaphor, it's like the original was painted a sickly greenish-yellow with some primer showing here and there, and the new one is a nice solid black with some cool flame graphics and such. All the levels except one(so far), are just levels from the first game, same layout, same enemy spawns, same ammo pickups. The characters are unchanged except for new outfits and one new Edge power each, although they did add a new character that you get about halfway through, and a couple of unlockable characters as well, although I haven't got those yet. Heck, they even have the same bosses, pretty much.
However, instead of being a completely linear exercise like the first one, this time out the game is mission-based, with you returning to "home" at the end of each level, and selecting where you want to go from there. At first, of course, there are only a couple of areas open to you, but each one you finish opens up a new area, some of which are completely optional. There are secrets and optional missions galore, actually, and a good helping of cheats, none of which you can use until you've finished the game once. Once you've completed an area, you can go back to it at any time, as often as you want. Well, for the most part. Some of the smaller areas close down completely once you've finished all of its missions and found all its secrets.
The game also lets you switch between Hunters at the beginning of each mission, and unlike in the first game, non-active Hunters get XP, too, at about 2/3 of the active Hunter's, so if you decide to switch or add in a friend, you're not completely screwed.
And the best part is the escort missions. Yeah, I know, I know, I hate escort missions, and I would actually prefer not to do these, but this time, the VIPs have a decent amount of health, and the first one has a gun that does decent damage and they both have melee weapons. You only need to worry about fast enemies and large swarms of them. It's like a balm to my soul after the hellish escort missions of past games.
Ut, time for work. Must hurry.