PixlBit

Fourteen this time! I'm cruisin'. 

Return to Castle Wolfenstein - I almost finished it again but those Nazi ladies spoiled it for me. Their AI is a little bit over agressive - hard to hit and they have laser accuracy. The game doesn't give you a view down the gun sights, only a zoom for the sniper rifle. I could use a little more careful aiming when only headshots count for much. I liked the music by BIll Brown who has done many other video game soundtracks including the 2009 Wolfenstein game. It seems he does more movie soundtracks these days. 

Psi-Ops The Mindgate Conspiracy - This is a shooter with psychic powers that let you toss enemies and objects around with wreckless abandon. I got stuck though in a room with a turret that I couldn't destroy. I threw everything I could think at it with no result. I dunno. Maybe there was a switch to turn it off somewhere? I beat this game way back but I'll take a break this time. Good game though. 

Timesplitters Future Perfect - I was messing around with the wrist mounted Temporal Uplink and got shot. This device sounds exactly like the Grav Gun in Half-Life 2. I got a little distracted by that. Stop shooting guys! I got a Grav Gun!

Shenmue II - Wow, I got much farther in this than ever before. At first it is jank city but after a while the story pulled me in, and I discovered a pretty responsive and interesting Hong Kong city. Often I would be asked to go to some district and have no idea, even with maps, how to get there. But you just have to ask around and eventually someone will say, "I have to go that way anyway, follow me." and the game will have you tag along automatically until you decide to stop following. Neat! I got to the third Wude (courage) challenge and couldn't figure out how to succeed at it. You are presented very quickly with a blinking "A" on the screen, so I started jabbing it. Fail! Come back tomorrow. Same thing tomorrow and the next day. I'm running out of money for the hotel and have to find that part-time job at the docks again, but I'm far from that district. What the heck! Maybe I'm to resist pushing "A"? Tricky. It would be a typical Martial Arts challenge - do the thing opposite to what seems obvious. Well, maybe another time. I've had enough janky movement and difficult navigation for one day. Kind of an interesting game though. Did the Yakuza series continue this kind of game?

Links 2004 - This is my favorite golf game and maybe that's because the swing meter is done by not timed button presses but with a movement of the left analog stick, making it feel closer to a real golf swing. Pull down on the stick to swing back and then push forward at the right time to swing forward and strike the ball. I got through all the amatuer tours and challenges and then started to fall behind in the pro tour. The margin for error in pro golf is very thin which makes me kind of hate it. I played until I needed to repeat some challenges to move on. 

Hunter The Reckoning - Wow, this was much trickier than I rememeber it. It's an isometric view action game where you fight off hoards of zombies and rescue innocents. Drops are essential to keep going but, if you use ranged weapons, you'll never get them because they disappear fast. So you have to get in there with melee attacks and try not to get surrounded. Additionally, you have to use magic for some enemies. I found all the actions a little bit slow, which made it hard to keep the beasts off you. Then I had to do an escort mission. Oh, escort missions! I beat this game way back, and in co-op with MK, but I didn't have much patience for it this week. It's no walk in the park. Or, it was a escort mission in the park, but with zombies. 

Armed and Dangerous - I always loved the humor in this third-person shooter. You can shoot a shark that attacks enemies through the ground. The dialog and situations are in a very British style of humor, one of my favorites. It's by Planet Moon Studios whom I wish did more like this. I got to a point where a mission was a little vague and had a time limit. Time limits are another mechanic that tries my patience. I took a break. 

Project Snowblind - A FPS I played way back. It seemed fine this time but I think I had an issue with vague directions in one mission, got lost, and then stopped. I'll have to dig in a little more next time. 

FarCry Insincts Predator - This was a blast until I couldn't find the helipad among a bunch of islands. The compass gives you only a general notion of a mission objective's direction. I must've jet-skied around it several times, pentrated the jungle, found the base, and then came up against a locked fence and no helipad. I stopped, but I'll dig in deeper next time. I've beaten it way back anyway. The world is gorgeous and boating around is fun. I love the feral powers that let you toss enemies all over the place. You can set traps easily as well. 

Call of Duty 2: The Big Red One - I finished this game by Treyarch and watched all the extras on my special edition version. You fight across all parts of the Western theater of WWII, driving tanks and jeeps, fireing AA guns at Stukas, flying in bombers sighting bomb sites and shooting the turrets. It's one endless shooting gallery. 

Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks - Way harder than I remember it when MK and I beat it Ko-Op. A great action RPG unique to the Mortal Kombat games. I realized that I had to repeat whole levels if I fail at any time in one. That, will try my patience. 

Ultimate Spider-Man - Another Treyarch game, this time a cell-shaded Spider-Man and my favorite Spider-Man game. I get annoyed at the web swinging races you have do though. The first one is with Johnny Storm and I had to repeat it several times before I was getting used to the side to side motion of the web swinging. It's somewhat realistic as you attach to adjacent buildings but it's disorientating. I'll persist another time. 

Black - A great FPS by Critereon who made Burnout. It's a bit spec-ops though, which means you have to be a little strategic and try to take out enemies incognito. I was in a run-and-gun mood though. The gun sounds in this game are very realistic. You get some good boom for your buck here. 

Destroy All Humans! - A gem by Pandemic. I love cloaking myself as a human and then mind reading NPCs for their jokes on '50s culture. You do stealth and wreck-house missions in this game. Each map has side missions you can repeat for DNA currency to buy upgrades. Richard Horvitz does a lot more voices than just Pox, I noticed. He's so great. I got stuck trying to blow up the Majestic's vehicle. Your jet-pack is a little bit lame before upgrades and it's hard to keep up with the car. I'm thinking I need to blow up stuff around the car to stop it. I'll have to try that next time. I love the music by Gary Schyman. You may know him from the Bioshock games. It riffs on Bernard Herrmann's B sci-fi movie soundtracks of the 50s. 

And that's a lot. I've got maybe a dozen more before I move on to DS.