A Cappella Crossword

Oh, Bugger All...

It seems that the gaming industry is once again following the tried and true maxim of Hollywood and the United States government: "If at first you don't succeed, throw in more money."

Apparently Sierra is following up on the steaming pile of skunk excrement known as 50 Cent: Bulletproof with a next-gen sequel, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

At this point I hardly expect that Mr. Cent will have to die trying in his quest to get rich, and neither will Sierra. White suburban teenagers in FUBU jackets will fly to this game like Eliot Spitzer to a brothel, only to sell it back to Blockbuster or Game Crazy like the dried-up whore that it is. The only people who won't get rich in this whole deal are said white teenagers, who will get a quick cheap thrill before realizing that they're wallets were stolen when they were asleep. Then they'll go to Gamespot or IGN to
vent their impotent frustrations.

Okay, I'll quit beating that metaphor. Prediction: This game will suck, but it will rake in tons of cash while quality titles are ignored. I'm against almost all regulations, but I wish that the industry would at least put some sort of moratorium on celebrities in games.

I Swear, I Just Can't Help Myself

Here are two more Hitman videos, this time from Silent Assassin, the second installment of the series.

The setup for the first:

Agent 47 slipped on a turd at Beldingford Manor and broke his tail bone, so the Agency hired Larry. Larry followed instructions quite well on this mission, so we hired him for another mission, which he did a little too well.

Larry the Literal-minded Pt. 1 - Basement Killing from Gene on Vimeo.

And the second:

Since Larry did a decent job the first time, the Agency decided to hire him again. Unfortunately, this time he followed instructions a little too well.

Larry, the Literal-minded Pt. 2 - The Jacuzzi Job from Gene on Vimeo.

Okay, I promise I'll stop doing Hitman videos for at least a week. I have too many other games to cover as it is.

GTA IV - Why I (Sort of) Don't Care

I'm sure that on April 29th people will be murdering each other to get a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, and with good reason: GTA is one of the few gaming franchises that has never disappointed. Every version has always been an improvement over the last, if we don't count the portable spin-offs, and it's always fun to play the bad guy. After all, who hasn't played even so innocuous a title as The Sims without doing something evil? It's fun.

I won't be waiting in line, though. First of all, the damn game is going to sell out at every retail store on the planet within two minutes, and they won't restock it for at least a month. This was my experience with both Vice City and San Andreas. It's like trying to see a long-awaited movie on opening night. Why bother fighting the crowds when you can just wait a few weeks and get the exact same product? I'm sure I'll buy it at some point, because it probably will be awesome, but I see no reason to be trampled in the process.

This is just one example of how stupid the hype around this game is. It's every bit as stupid as the Halo edition of the 360. Seriously, are these things going to become collectors' items one day? They're electronic gizmos. It doesn't matter if it has a fancy decal for an extra hundred dollars, because we all know that the thing will be obsolete in a few years anyway. My 360 is the old white model, and it works just fine without any customization. My only complaint is that I bought it before it came with an HDMI output, but that's just another example of how good Microsoft is at screwing things up and pissing off customers. (How did this Gates guy become the richest man in the universe again?)

Count me out. I have enough games to last well into summer, when all this will die down. That being said, here is some footage from the first GTA and the latest to show just how far we have come in only a few years. I can't say I'm not just a little excited.

Then:

And now:

More Hitman Stuff

I'm in the eye of the hurricane right now, having just turned in a final paper this afternoon and awaiting the flood of student papers and flurry of grading that will begin Friday. I haven't had much blog time, but I rarely do any serious work after about 6:00, so that's when I usually make game videos. Lately I've been piggybacking on Orlando by making YouTube responses to his awesome Hitman walkthroughs, which has been a pleasant diversion. Here are two of the videos I've made in the last two days. They are nowhere near as long as the first one, so I'm not asking you to sit through twenty minutes of me messing around.

Description of the first:

Agent 47 blew off one of his toes while cleaning his Silverballers, so the Agency recruited Steve. He did his job well enough, but we think he's seen The Godfather too many times.

Steve the Michael Corleone Wannabe - The Seafood Massacre from Gene on Vimeo.

Description of the second:

Agent 47 had a contract to take out a 400 pound opera singer. When he garotted her, she fell backwards and broke three of his ribs, so we had to find yet another replacement.

Zeke seemed like a good candidate: very professional, a bit on the quiet side and proficient with firearms.

The ensuing chaos was totally unexpected. When we asked Zeke why he did what he did, he said, "All sinners shall burn. I am an agent of the Lord." The name should have been a tip-off. He is now at the bottom of a lake, as per Agency orders.

Ezekiel the Fanatic - The Meat King's Party from Gene on Vimeo.

What can I say? I love these games, whether playing in stealth mode or psychotic freak mode. Once I figure out how to do a mission in stealth, I usually revert to psycho-killer. It must be an unbridled id thing.

The Unprofessional

I was bored...Okay, bored isn't the right word. I was lazy and decided to make a video of a mission from Hitman: Blood Money wherein I play as Todd, the most incompetent hitman in the world. It started as a lark, but eventually took me almost a day to edit (and the damn thing still doesn't look right.) I guess this is just more practice until I figure out what I'm doing.

The Inefficient Hitman - A New Life from Gene on Vimeo.

Your Demo Sucks - Conflict: Denied Ops

This demo was actually the inspiration for this series of videos I plan to make. It was just that dumb. Basic overview: The graphics suck, the dialog is sub-moronic, the friendly AI is dumber than a bag of rocks being beaten with a box of hammers, and the enemy AI is worse.

This is the first official review of the series, and it's over a week late, since the game launched at the end of February. (Here is one of many nasty reviews of the game as a whole.) Also, it's a bit rough around the edges because it's the first time I mixed video with my own audio, but I hope it's still enjoyable. Things will improve with practice. And now....Conflict: Denied Ops.

Your Demo Sucks - Conflict: Denied Ops from Gene on Vimeo.

YouTube Is a Cesspool Part Deux

Just to irritate my YouTube troll, I decided to upload another video of a Road Rage event in Burnout with a French soundtrack, this time using La Chanson de Jacky by Jacques Brel. It's not perfect. The music doesn't sound very good because I was using a video editor with which I'm still a bit unfamiliar, but I made the video in about a half hour, so everything pretty much worked out.

The next morning, I had already received a one-star rating. I really can't tell if it's the same fellow, but I'm guessing it is. I do have one fan in Romania who gave the original video five stars and subscribed to the channel, though, and when I had to delete the first video (thereby losing his rating and comment) I asked him to do me a favor and re-rate it. Well, he did me one better by leaving this comment:

Sure M8. And if he does not understand what you try to accomplish with the music, he is an uncultured swine.

The English is slightly broken, but I think we would all have to admit that it's better than that of the American who left the earlier comment. Also, I love the phrase "uncultured swine." We Americans don't use phrases like that nearly enough. Anyway, here is the latest Burnout video, warts and all.

La Chanson du Burnout Paradise from Gene on Vimeo.

YouTube Is a Cesspool

I cross-post my videos at YouTube and Vimeo. I use YouTube because it attracts more hits, but I embed the videos using Vimeo's player because it seems to fit the site's theme better. Last night I had to replace my original Burnout video so that the right URL appeared in the title screen. Vimeo has a handy function where one can simply replace an existing video, but with YouTube the original video must be deleted entirely and uploaded again. No big deal.

Well, this morning I checked my email and found that someone had commented on the original YouTube video before I had deleted it. Unfortunately the comment is now lost, but the commenter did take the time to give the video a one-star rating. I really don't mind that, but he also left a rather interesting message on my channel. I won't give away the profile name, but this is the comment I received:

dumbass dumbass dumbass dumbass dumbass dumbass bastard bastard an once agian this is america you son of a bitch !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm assuming that the genius in question objected to my using music in (gasp!) French as a soundtrack to the video, which is all well and good. I'm no big fan of France myself, though I have nothing against the French as a people (so keep your shirts on, folks.) As to the rest of the comment, I think that it is a bit redundant to call someone a "dumbass" six times and a "bastard" twice. I don't mind being called a dumbass, since it may very well be true, but I know for a fact that I am not a bastard since I was born within wedlock.

I won't bother to comment on the grammar or the spelling. They speak for themselves, or rather they speak for the commenter. How patriotic can one possibly be if one cannot even capitalize the name of his own country? Finally, as for me being a "son of a bitch," my mother and I get along quite well, though other people might have differing opinions. Perhaps this fellow ran into her at some point and the two had an altercation.

Anyway, my next video on YouTube will no probably feature both Burnout and French music. There's no such thing as bad publicity.

Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori

I love Call of Duty 4. In the ongoing battle between Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3, I would definitely pick Call of Duty. I own both and they're both great, but I simply prefer firing machine guns to firing laser beams. However, playing online has been a bit irksome lately, what with all the trash talking and screeching children infecting Xbox Live, so I haven't been playing online very much lately. My current rank is around 27 in COD 4 (whatever that equates to,) and I've been more than happy to let it fester while the online addicts get better and I forget how to aim my gun. Besides, Burnouthas taken up a lot of my gaming time lately.

Anyway, I needed to buy a cable the other day, so I went down to the local mega electronics store, and after finding said cable I decided to check out the Xbox 360 games on sale. Nothing since Burnout has interested me lately, but Call of Duty 2 was on sale, so I figured I'd pick it up. It's Infinity Ward, after all, and I remember playing the game at Blockbuster a few years ago when the 360 first came out and being pretty impressed with the presentation, so it seemed like a good purchase. Besides, it rounded out the collection.

I played through the first two levels (which were great, in typical fashion,) and then decided to try my hand at the multiplayer. The video I have attached is my first two rounds of a Deathmatch, wherein my death played a pretty prominent role. I have to give credit to the guys with whom I played. In spite of the slaughter, I was never called a "n00b" in spite of the fact that that's exactly what I was. I hope that anyone reading this site can find some joy in my humiliation.

Call of Duty 2 - Lamb to the Slaughter from Gene on Vimeo.

Your Demo Sucks - Introduction

Hear ye, hear ye! This is the announcement of a new category on A Cappella Crossword: "Your Demo Sucks." For the introductory post, I have picked a demo that definitely does not suck. Specifically, the original God of War demo which I snagged from the junk-mail pile at my old workplace three years ago. This is merely an example of how a game demo should be done. (Warning: the video is fifteen minutes long.)

Your Demo Sucks - Introduction - God of War from Gene on Vimeo.

That's on a Playstation 2, folks, and it's from 2005. Keep that in mind. When I played this demo I knew that my career as a Spartan warrior was just around the corner if the whole academia thing didn't pan out. The demo is amazing. The graphics are awesome, the sound is awesome, the gore is fantastic, and the action is frenetic. I can practically smell that Hydra's breath when it roars.

Since I don't really feel like shelling out dollars to be a product tester, I have been downloading video game demos from Xbox Live for the past few weeks. I sometimes wonder why companies even bother putting these things out on the market. I don't think it's too much to ask that a demo at least gives me the second or third best content that I will find in the full version, and I certainly do judge a book by it's cover. Even after all of the bad reviews of Kane & Lynch, I still gave the demo a try, which was at least interesting enough to make me want to rent the thing. Yeah, the game kind of sucks, but the point is that the demo was actually sort of fun.

This little demo was so good that I went out like a robot to Best Buy and grabbed a copy without checking any reviews. I just knew it would be amazing. The funny thing is, the game could have completely sucked. The demo could have been the best part of the whole experience. That's not the point, though. The point is that a demo is usually a pretty good indicator of whether or not a game will be awesome, playable or total crap. I'm doing everyone a favor here. Seriously. Gamers: If the demo sucks, you might just want to stay away. Developers: If your game sucks, as a rule of thumb so will the demo (the opposite is not always true, but it's usually a safe bet.) Think of this as my minor contribution to the gaming community. I play crappy demos so you don't buy crappy games.