Burnout: Revenge

So I'm playing through Burnout: Revenge. Same rant as with Star Wars: Republic Commando. The freaking game cheats in order to keep me from winning.

Now I understand that as the levels go up, the game has to get harder. The game designers accomplished this, in part, by increasing the amount of traffic in the game. I accept that, as I accept that I have to be a better driver in order to win. However, when I watch the game change a vehicle from one that I can run into and destroy into a large truck that I can run into to destroy *myself,* I find that unacceptable.

I've also had the game take over the driving, or at the very least ignoring what I was doing in order to cause me to crash. When I pull left on the joystick, I expect the car to go left, not veer to the right in order to crash into a pillar. And I can accept that a car might have pushed me to the right, but then when my car explodes, it should catch the pushing vehicle in the explosion, correct? Then why doesn't it?

But maybe it's just me. :)

Video game update #2

I finished Star Wars: Republic Commando this morning. Don't let my rant from yesterday fool you, this is a great game. You will get used to the stupidity of your teammates, and you can control them somewhat by assigning them firing points if only to keep them out of your way.

Guess I'm going to start working on Goldeneye. I bought it to play with a friend of mine through the online co-operative, but I still haven't opened it. guess that makes it my next game. Unless I get Lego Star wars. Played the demo and loved it. It's a cool looking and cool playing game.

Video game update

I'm still working my way through Star Wars: Republic Commando. I'm on the final world (Kashyyk) and I worked my butt off trying to get past the stinking bridge. My struggle with it lead to my rant for today.

Why do video game designers feel that their games need to cheat in order for players to be challenged? For example, in SW:RC, my teammates continually walk in front of my firing line. They know how to crouch; I've seen them do it. But as the game progresses they consistently walk in front of me while I'm using my rapid-fire weapon. Or they will have crouched in front of me, and then stand up while I'm shooting, causing me to give him a fatal headshot.

As another example from the same game, I will give my guys a command, say to start using a turret to attack the enemies. They will start heading to it, but then they will stop and just stand there, not even defending themselves from the advancing attack droids.

In the game Driver on the PS1, I actually saw the game switch civilian cars, which were easily destroyed and were there simply as obstacles, into indestructible police cars which would promptly begin attacking you. The game seemed to do it whenever you managed to outdistance the existing cops, when the game had no other chance to beat the player.

Why can't game creators just write better games? There seems to be an inverse correlation between the beauty of a game and the strength of gameplay. If the game's beautiful, the gameplay is utter crap. Conversely, if the game play is excellent then the game's graphics get low ratings. SW:RC is very pretty, but when there are many characters on the screen (and remember, you have three teammates) it gets slow and jerky which makes the game difficult to control.

And don't get me started on Halo 2. I'm one of those heathens who thinks that the hype for this game completely overcame its actual quality. And now it seems that others don't want to admit it, so they jump on the "this game is awesome" bandwagon. I refuse to play this game online anymore because the host has such an obvious advantage, the weapons are so completely unbalanced, and the view is so limited that I find it totally unplayable. I can't count the number of times I've had a bead on my opponent with the sniper rifle, only to discover that he must have an impervious helmet on. By the same token, I'm not so impervious when someone snipes me. That disparity just boggles me.

I can't believe it's just me, since other games get it right. Rainbow Six 3 handles it very well. So does Ghost Recon 2. And I don't mean to pick on first-person shooters, that's just where I notice it most.

Old-time radio

I've had a long-time passion for old-time radio shows. I've recently discovered a great site (www.rusc.com) that has a huge number of shows to download. There is a modest subscription fee (to pay for the bandwidth, not for the shows themselves) that allows you to download pretty much as much as you want.

I'm currently filling my iPod with You Bet Your Life, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, the Whistler, and Inner Sanctum. Gotta love those old comedies and thrillers.

-David

New podcast

I've decided to start my own podcast. Over the weekend I got turned onto a podcast (BrainStrain). The podcast has three musical trivia questions. It originally came out daily, but now comes out weekly. It's short, sweet, and totally fun.

In keeping with that, I decided that I would start a TV Trivia podcast. There's a link to it in the sidebar, and I hope to have my first couple shows starting next week! It should be fun, and I don't think it will be that much work. :)

-David

My first post...

I will probably change the name of this blog at some point, but I know that initially I'm probably going to rant about things that pertain to comics, online vendors for comics, comic conventions, and such. I will probably also rant about the other things that interest me, like television (including British TV), video games, and computers.

I don't think it will all be rants, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is. :)