As you will notice above, I have taken the liberty of changing the name of this blog. I felt I needed something new, and fresh to go along with the new year. Long time fans of this blog will remember that it was originally entitled Matt's English 301 blog. You see, this blog was originally started last semester as part of an assignment in a college English class. With that semester long gone, and a new one before me, I have decided to continue updating this blog with topics of personal interest to me. So I plan to post the following in the coming months.
1. Reviews of movies and video games that I feel interested writing about.
2. A lyrical anaylsis of Rush's discography
3. Commentary on various issues
So stay tuned there is more to come, and thanks for all your support...
Song of the Day:
Monday, January 12, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
My Top Four Games of 2008
Well, its 2009 and to kick off my first post of the new year I decided to give a quick recap of my top four favorite games of 2008. Just to be clear this list is highly 360 centric, as this tends to be my exclusive gaming platform these days. So PS3, Wii, hand held, and PC games are sadly omitted (and it looks like there were some good ones too). Also this started out as my favorite five games, but when I got down to it I decided that these four are the only really stellar games I would recommend without qualification. So here goes...
1. Grand Theft Auto IV: GTA IV takes the top spot on my list, and while the game was hyped to an extreme degree I would still have to say that the game did a pretty solid job of living up to the hype. The game does what every great sequel should aspire to do; provide fresh innovations and improvements on the core game play while preserving what makes the game so fun and attractive in the first place. Pretty much every complaint I have with the GTA series has been addressed from being able to instantly re-try missions after failing without having to drive back to your employer, to a targeting system that actually targets who you want to kill. As opposed to previous GTA games. I actually looked forward to combat in GTA IV with its GOW style cover system. The new Liberty City is also easily the most detailed, organic looking urban environment I have seen in any video game. You can play this game for hours and still be amazed and the little graphical details in this game. The story takes itself a lot more seriously this time, and sometimes a little too seriously for my tastes. You can tell Rockstar really wants this to be the Heat/Godfather/Scarface/Gone With The Wind of video game stories, and while sometimes it doesn't work I think its a good direction to be taking the series. GTA IV still is probably the most entertaining and diverse game of '08.
2. Gears of War 2: Much like GTA IV, Gears of War 2 simple builds on everything that was great about the original. If you weren't sold on the originals game play then you can pretty much skip this one, because there is nothing drastically new. But if you enjoyed the first one or even moderately liked it than this game is absolutely worth it. The single player campaign is significantly longer than the original, and filled with plenty of new enemies and weapons. The storyline while not high literature by any stretch of the imagination is much more fleshed out and fully realized. I think somebody actually hired a writer for this as there is actually an attempt to build up the characters and the origins and intentions of the locust are finally being set up. In fact the ending sets up Gears 3 quite nicely.
3. Mirror's Edge: Mirrors Edge is frustrating, glitchy and repetitive, but at the same time Mirrors Edge is also one of the most unique addictive, and challenging games I've played in a while. The first person perspective is such a great immersing perspective that it is great to see games that utilize it for more than just blowing the shit out of aliens. While you can engage enemies and use guns the game is more about navigating through environments in a manner not unlike the Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia games. To do this it takes a lot of patience, precision, and timing . I died a lot, and had to repeat segments over again, but I never got too frustrated as my deaths were usually my own mistakes, and you quickly tend to learn the games own internal logic and can figure out where to go or what to do. Plus pulling off a successful series of acrobatic stunts is so rewarding that you tend to forget that you spent the last ten minutes falling to your death. I hope there will be a sequel as there is potential for a truly great franchise here.
4. Dead Space: If your as stoked as I am about the impending release of Resident Evil 5, and have not yet played Dead Space then you are in for a treat as Dead Space is the perfect way to spend your time while you wait for Capcom's next zombie epic. Dead Space borrows heavily from RE4. The over the shoulder camera view, the upgradeable weapons, and ammo purchasing stations, the fast zombie like enemies, and huge mutated boss creatures... However, in my opinion there are a lot worse games you can borrow from than Resident Evil 4, and Dead Space adds its own twists mostly because of its outer space sci-fi setting. The enemies are vicious aliens with regenerating limbs that require strategic dismembering of their limbs to quickly eliminate, and there are several awesome sections that take place in complete zero g that lead to some interesting combat situations. Dead Space is highly derivative of movies such as Alien, The Thing, and Event Horizon and also of games such as RE 4 and Half-life, but the end result is still a lot of fun.
My current song of the week:
1. Grand Theft Auto IV: GTA IV takes the top spot on my list, and while the game was hyped to an extreme degree I would still have to say that the game did a pretty solid job of living up to the hype. The game does what every great sequel should aspire to do; provide fresh innovations and improvements on the core game play while preserving what makes the game so fun and attractive in the first place. Pretty much every complaint I have with the GTA series has been addressed from being able to instantly re-try missions after failing without having to drive back to your employer, to a targeting system that actually targets who you want to kill. As opposed to previous GTA games. I actually looked forward to combat in GTA IV with its GOW style cover system. The new Liberty City is also easily the most detailed, organic looking urban environment I have seen in any video game. You can play this game for hours and still be amazed and the little graphical details in this game. The story takes itself a lot more seriously this time, and sometimes a little too seriously for my tastes. You can tell Rockstar really wants this to be the Heat/Godfather/Scarface/Gone With The Wind of video game stories, and while sometimes it doesn't work I think its a good direction to be taking the series. GTA IV still is probably the most entertaining and diverse game of '08.
2. Gears of War 2: Much like GTA IV, Gears of War 2 simple builds on everything that was great about the original. If you weren't sold on the originals game play then you can pretty much skip this one, because there is nothing drastically new. But if you enjoyed the first one or even moderately liked it than this game is absolutely worth it. The single player campaign is significantly longer than the original, and filled with plenty of new enemies and weapons. The storyline while not high literature by any stretch of the imagination is much more fleshed out and fully realized. I think somebody actually hired a writer for this as there is actually an attempt to build up the characters and the origins and intentions of the locust are finally being set up. In fact the ending sets up Gears 3 quite nicely.
3. Mirror's Edge: Mirrors Edge is frustrating, glitchy and repetitive, but at the same time Mirrors Edge is also one of the most unique addictive, and challenging games I've played in a while. The first person perspective is such a great immersing perspective that it is great to see games that utilize it for more than just blowing the shit out of aliens. While you can engage enemies and use guns the game is more about navigating through environments in a manner not unlike the Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia games. To do this it takes a lot of patience, precision, and timing . I died a lot, and had to repeat segments over again, but I never got too frustrated as my deaths were usually my own mistakes, and you quickly tend to learn the games own internal logic and can figure out where to go or what to do. Plus pulling off a successful series of acrobatic stunts is so rewarding that you tend to forget that you spent the last ten minutes falling to your death. I hope there will be a sequel as there is potential for a truly great franchise here.
4. Dead Space: If your as stoked as I am about the impending release of Resident Evil 5, and have not yet played Dead Space then you are in for a treat as Dead Space is the perfect way to spend your time while you wait for Capcom's next zombie epic. Dead Space borrows heavily from RE4. The over the shoulder camera view, the upgradeable weapons, and ammo purchasing stations, the fast zombie like enemies, and huge mutated boss creatures... However, in my opinion there are a lot worse games you can borrow from than Resident Evil 4, and Dead Space adds its own twists mostly because of its outer space sci-fi setting. The enemies are vicious aliens with regenerating limbs that require strategic dismembering of their limbs to quickly eliminate, and there are several awesome sections that take place in complete zero g that lead to some interesting combat situations. Dead Space is highly derivative of movies such as Alien, The Thing, and Event Horizon and also of games such as RE 4 and Half-life, but the end result is still a lot of fun.
My current song of the week:
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