Video Game Challenge - Progress of weekend Oct 8 & 9

In the immortal words of recently un-cancelled Gob Bluth “I’ve made a huge mistake”

I don’t want to say that I’ve failed my video game challenge – maybe I just over estimated my skills as a gamer. Not to say I was thinking I was anything better than a novice but it turns out that Crysis 2 is beyond my skill level even at its lowest difficulty.

When I think about getting a first person shooter – I will look at gameplay videos before I take a dive into one. I find those really popular war games to be too detailed – meaning I can barely tell the difference between the enemy and the background – so I spend my time shooting at falling leaves while these crack shots are pounding me repeatedly. The first level – which is basically a tutorial – I died 10 times or something insane – against the easiest of foes.

So, unless I find an invincibility cheat – I won’t be able to beat this game by November 11th.

I’m going to have to adjust my challenge.

Fallout: New Vegas: Still beaten – but it is funny how there was a Bethesda sale over the weekend and I could have picked up two of the expansions for the price of one. I passed though.

Crysis 2: You win. I lose.

The Saboteur: Still sitting at 47% complete – I will get to you later.

Batman Arkham Asylum: I loaded up Batman again this weekend and saw that I was 19% of the way through – and said “bullshit” – started looking up info on the interweb – and I was 12 chapters into the 16 chapter game as one gamer put it. I guess the game is counting all the Riddler challenges and secret-secrets that I either couldn’t get to or didn’t go for.

After a few thumb injuring sessions this weekend – I’m hunting down the Poison Ivy with the antidote for the crazy juice the Joker gave her. Then from my understanding it’s on to beat up on the Joker.

Mass Effect 2: If it wasn’t for Red Dead Redemption – I would have beaten ME2 a while ago because I was almost done with it by the time RDR took over my XBOX. I have my crew’s loyalty – I’ve got my ship upgraded – the portal thingy is ready to go – and all I needed to do was to make the jump through the portal and I was on the very last level.

So, I’m adding 2 games to replace Crysis 2 – so the challenge has been upgraded to beating 4 games before SKYRIM comes out on November 11th (one month from this post). I’m fairly certain I will get 3 out of 4 of them done – and if I don’t get one done it will probably be The Saboteur.

As a side note – I played some Lego Star Wars III – and got that up to 100% completion – which I won’t count towards my challenge – but it is pretty neat.

Monday Muzak: Up in the Dark

the blog entry of eternal annoyance

I sat down in the theater with my buttery popcorn and extra-large soda – the floor was sticky and the seat was soft and cool to my bare naked ass. There was a lady in front of me that smelled like dog biscuits – her hair was in a bun and there were dried peaches on her shoulder. There was a large man in short shorts behind me and in his bright yellow bag next to him there was a sedated cat that was part of his murderous routine of drugging alley cats and bringing them to the movie theater to be strangled. Then the lights dimmed and I experienced what would fast become another forgettable movie that I’m super excited to tell you all about right now!

I’m sorry – I’m sick of this Journalism 101 painting the scene of whatever. Sick of hearing some bullshit that has nothing to do with what people are writing about – I don’t care about your physical experience with whatever happens before – tell me the actual experience of it all.

Upon meeting my hero for the first time – I cut my toe nails in the shape of his name – shave my forearms – ate a 12 lb turkey and basted my crotch with garlic sauce. My hero came striding confidently into the room while eating what appeared to be an elderly man’s shoe. He sat down and started complaining that the chair was not rust colored like he requested – and began to belch big gassy burps that had the faint smell of vanilla and elm trees all while he checked his belly button for lost Smarties Candies.

As much as I painted an interesting picture for you – you’ll never really know what the physical experience was actually – the reader is not there. I am guilty of it – I’m sure – but I try to steer away from it at a crutch.

I’m just raging on because I’m reading too much lately – I need to start watching more stuff – reading is stupid.

Trollhunter [2010]

Trollhunter was a fine concept – but unfortunately it was the narrative structure that they chose for the film that was their downfall. College film students decided to follow a suspected bear poacher – and soon discover that he’s not a poacher at all – he hunts trolls. I thought that with the whole cinema verite style that they chose to tell the tale – was a good choice – but ONLY if they wanted to stay within that realm and not venture off that path. I don’t know many documentaries where instead of shooting what they were out to shoot – they relied so heavily on showing reaction shots of the filmmakers. When there’s a troll coming your way – and it’s never been filmed – and you’ve got a big huge motherfucking amazing story to show the world – something that exposes and causes doubt in everything as a society we all believe – why do you turn the camera away from it in order to see the sound girl gawking? SPOILER: With about 30 minutes left in the film they bring on a new character – essentially to replace one of the other characters – this whole thing broke my suspension of disbelief – they are no longer student doing a documentary but now something entirely different. Students are still students – and to replace a character like that doesn’t make any sense using the narrative structure they chose.

Otherwise – it was an all right film – like I said I liked the concept of it all – but if they would have just dropped the cinema verite structure and made it a straightforward film – it would have been much better. Neat effects.

Bullit [1968] Blu-Ray

I finally unwrapped my BULLIT Blu-Ray disc that I got for cheap on Amazon – I really wanted to follow along with the plot this time – all my previous viewings left me lost by the time Frank was being talked down to by his girlfriend for being too callous. I really liked the styling’s of the film and the car chase was amazing – and that kept me coming back to this film – and though I lost the plot it didn’t matter to me as much.

This time I kind of spaced in the beginning of the film – and came back to the film usually where I lose the plot. I still like the film – but knowing it completely hasn’t made me jump to the love plateau. I somehow feel like that chase is the climax of the tension of the film – and you’re almost left with a bit of a new plot to figure out. Maybe it’s because it’s more internally developing as opposed to the external – “let’s sit down and review what has gone on thus far” kind of plots.

If you haven’t seen it – I recommend it – it’s a very good movie. I’m going to give it more time and try and watch it all the way through again.

As a Blu-Ray – unfortunately it’s not as great as I had hoped. There seemed to be a fair amount of static in the background and in the dark scenes – the foreground was crisp and the colors really popped well. Steve McQueen and the cast looked great! The car chase left certain things blurry (as they should have been) - but certain classic scenes looked really nice. When it comes to the other scenes - I have to wonder if they were skipped over. For that reason, I have been putting off getting older films on Blu-Ray because I get the feeling that studios aren’t going to put the money in to doing a FULL clean restoration of older titles unless they are TOP titles. I get the feeling that they are just sharpening them up and releasing them as Blu-Ray to pad their catalog.

Then again I may not fully understand Blu-Ray. I do remember an in-store demo showing how in a battlefield the blurry soldiers behind the focal point – were clear. And I remember seeing the boat on the ocean where the background waves were as crisp and clear as the ones in the foreground. I’m not sure if that’s really the point of the medium or if it’s a mere selling point to get you to jump.

My experience with films shot before Blu-Ray and digital technology – has been mixed – but mostly on the poorer side. TERMINATOR did not look great / FRENCH CONNECTION looked horrible / THE WILD BUNCH was so-so (though I stopped watching a half-hour into it – I wasn’t in the mood for it) / BULLIT was nice in the foreground – spotty in the background.

It will start becoming a cost selling point if I don’t start seeing a big improvement in the Blu-Ray’s that I rent of older films. If the Blu is cheaper – I’ll do it – but if it will just look like an upconvert of the cheaper DVD – I might as well save the coin. Though I have been noticing in some of the newer releases on Amazon of the films I have been interested in that the Blu-Rays are coming up cheaper than the DVD – but these are newer films – I think that’s the beginning of the possible phase out (I hope not though).

Video Game Challenge - Progress of weekend Oct 1 & Oct 2

Despite other things – this weekend I finally defeated Fallout: New Vegas – it wasn’t as much of a thrill as I had hoped – but I’m now a third of the way through my pre-SKYRIM video game challenge.

Fallout: New Vegas: I took no sides apparently – I was hoping that I was lining myself up for the side of the “good guys” – but I must have overstepped one quest or the game’s glitches closed a door for me – I cannot honestly say.

I had been following along with my strategy guide – reading up on what requirements I needed for each outcome – and at no point did I read – if you do THIS you will never get to THAT on the path I took. Oh well.

The glitches were pretty funny though – as I only played the game for maybe a half-hour to wrap it up – BUT with it freezing twice – it turned out I had to restart several areas and that made me play it for about an hour instead. I mean right as the narrator was about to tell me how my actions affected the Mojave – the game froze – and with no auto-save chronicling my fight with The Beast from the East – I had to face off with him twice to officially beat the game.

The Saboteur: I loaded up the game to see how far along I was officially – and I’m 47% of the way through the game. I’ve got many Nazi’s still walking around and guard towers and such to annihilate – so this could take a while.

Crysis 2: I finally unwrapped the game and flipped through the instructions – I wonder how long it will take me to beat that one.

Monday Muzak: 7/4 Shoreline