Before the GTA IV Review: 360 vs PS3

Well, after months of hype and thunder, GTA IV has finally hit shelves. And now, two weeks later, the most exciting part of the GTA IV blitz arrives: I'm finally posting a review. I'm sure you've been breathless with anticipation.

So, my GTA IV adventure started with the Gamestop midnight launch. No, I didn't wait around in line for a couple hours. I showed up a little after midnight, waited my turn, and bought the game like a normal person. No reservation. Why didn't I reserve I game that I knew full well I'd be purchasing? Because I didn't know which system I was going to buy it for.

See, one of the downsides of owning both a PS3 and a 360 (aside from being out close to $800) is that whenever a new, multi-platform release hits the market, you have to choose between the consoles. And about half the time, one version of the game or the other has some sort of annoying ass glitch. Last year's Madden had an appalling frame rate on the 360. Turok on the PS3 has that annoying texture pop-in, and Condemned 2 on the 360 had a bug that ATE SAVE DATA. So, seeking to avoid disaster once again, I decided to wait until someone out there posted a comparison between the two versions of the game. And it just so happens that the day of the game's release, I got the information I needed. According to a handful of comparison reviews, the 360 version had slightly longer load times, and the occasional texture pop-in problem. The PS3 had the mandatory 3.4 gig install, but seemed the stronger of the two graphically (albeit by a slim margin). The XB360 did have the benefit of easier multiplayer, via XBL, but I rarely play games online these days anyway, so I decided to spring for the PS3 version, and finally get some serious mileage out of that damn thing.

And, as with every other time I've given the PS3 a chance to redeem itself, I payed for it. After the 3.4 gig install, I settled in to play some GTA 4, only to have my PS3 crash (not freeze, not lock up, CRASH) before the opening cut scene ended. I'll cut the rest of the story short, but after going out and buying an intercooler (thinking the PS3 might be overheating), calling Rockstar tech support (they had no idea), uninstalling and reinstalling the game data, and trolling the internet for a fix, I was still stuck with a copy of GTA 4 I couldn't play. Thankfully, the guys at my local Gamestop know me well enough to allow me to swap out the 'defective' PS3 version for an XB360 copy.

I haven't had any trouble at all with the 360 version. I have occasionally noticed a texture pop-in, but it's usually pretty quick, and tends to only come up when I'm absolutely hauling balls in a graphically busy part of town. I'd still have liked to play it on the PS3, if for no other reason than to justify my purchase of a Dual Shock 3. But to Rockstar's credit (and the dismay of many a fanboy) it seems that GTA IV gives out an equal experience on both platforms. In other words, the only reasons to buy it on one system or the other are: which controller do you prefer, and who are you going to be playing it online with?

...assuming your 360 doesn't RROD, and your PS3 doesn't... well, doesn't do whatever the hell mine did.

You're Doing it Wrong: Condemned 2 (again)

You. Sons. Of bitches.

I was really having a damn nice time playing Condemned 2. It was emersive, atmospheric, the themes in the story were great. And I really loved the unlockable bonuses you got at the end of each level. I found all the hidden crap, so I get a holster that can hold any weapon? Sweet!

So, I went through, got a gold rank on EVERY STAGE BUT ONE. I was most of the way through the game, probably at the second to last level. I turned my Xbox off... and you ATE MY FUCKING SAVE DATA? WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?

I was like ten hours in. And I've got no desire to sit back through the whole damn thing again. This just wrecked my whole day.

Ars Technica is sad, too.

You're Doing it Wrong: Condemned 2

Okay. First things first, Condemned 2 has gotten a LOT right. It's atmospheric, it's spooky, it's got a GREAT first person fighting system, and a captivating story. But that just makes what they got wrong all that much worse.

The game is too god damn dark. Not occasionally, not once in a while, ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Every god damn level. I had to crank my in-game brightness setting up to 70. That's as high as it would go without making all the colors look blown out. And still, it's dark as fuck.

Maybe it's my TV, but I don't think so. I know, the dark is spooky. Oooo! But let's not get carried away, lads. I'd like to actually be able to navigate the levels. By far the worst example of this problem is in the occasional "crazy drunk hobo dream sequence" levels. I've played through two of them thus far, and at the end of both stages, everything on screen is covered in black tar, there's some sort of insane distortion effect on the screen, and an endless parade of black monsters are crawling out of every doorway to claw me to death. This is not fun. It's all but impossible to figure out which way I'm supposed to go, the enemies might as well be invisible, and usually I've only got to travel 20 feet in a certain direction to complete the level. I might as well put on kaleidescope goggles and try to navigate a hall of mirrors. In the DARK.

It's quite frustrating. Still, the rest of the game is good enough to warrant playing, so I continue.
(Image: icanhascheezburger.com)

About the backlog...

According to the hit counter in the right hand side of this blog, SOMEONE is reading this.

God help you.
So, whoever you are, if you've been thinking about reading all the way through the Insomnia Blog archives... well, I wouldn't. There's a lot of crazy back there from a few years ago. Back in the days when I was really supposed to be in college, and was mad at the world that I wasn't. Also, I think hitting the legal drinking age somehow released some sort of post-pubescent toxin that made me prone to fits of Wookie hyper-rage.

You've been warned.

You're Doing It Wrong: Turok

Dinosaurs. Teh Footure. And an Angry Injun with a Bow and Arrow. How could you fuck this game up?

Well, you can't. Not really. But if you're playing the PS3 version, you do get to enjoy a whole shit-ton of texture pop-ins. Mmm. Pop-in fresh. Also, on occasion, when turning your god damn head, you may notice a brief flash of white on some of the brushes. Pay no attention, that's just the medication kicking in.

I could also rail against lackluster level design, a control scheme best described as "Meh", and a completely nonsensical difficulty curve, but frankly, it's the lighting-like white flashes at the periphery of my vision every 20 seconds that really have my panties in a bunch.

Worst part? Saw a friend playing this game on the 360, and it didn't seem to have this problem. This is what I get for trying to actually play a game on my $600 media center.

(Image used without permission from some Emo blog I don't read.)

MiniReview: Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles

Dammit, Yahtzee. I swear, he does this just to steal my thunder.

Anyway, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. About the only complaint I have about this game is the Wiimote is a poor substitute for a light gun. My first instinct is to aim and fire, and that just does not work. Still, it's a fun game, even if the difficulty curve is way too high.

VERDICT: Buy. Considering how slim the pickings are on the Wii, if you don't pick this one up, it's almost like reducing the value of the system.

You're Doing It Wrong: Project Sylpheed

Project: Sylpheed, Square-Enix's spaceshooter for the 360 is not a bad game. Or, maybe I've lowered my standards during this post 2000 space sim drought. But anyway, I've been having a good time playing this title, but then I ran into a problem... a clipping problem. In space.
Several of the game's capital ship models have invisible edges that you can collide with. And the level I'm stuck on has a giant fucking space station floating in it, and if you get within half a light year of that fucking thing it's game over.
Also, why the fuck would a game auto-save when you first load it? REDUNDANT! And upgrades are fun, but buy the wrong ones (like I did) and ten missions in you're fucked.
And, finally, fucking AWFUL voice overs. Holy Jesus. We're talking 90s Capcom grade.
...still playing it, though.

InsomniaReview: Cloverfield

I WAS going to make this brief... so as not to 'spoil' this highly anticipated movie for anyone. But... thinking about it... there really isn't anything spoiler worthy in this whole damn movie. Yeah, you heard me. From start to finish, Cloverfield is highly predictable. If you've seen a "man vs. the whatever" movie in say, the last 50 years, you'll be able to predict what's coming down the line a mile off. The ending (spoiler alert: everybody dies) is a bit of a surprise, but only if you aren't paying attention.

Now, let me start by talking about what I liked about the movie, before I chop it into a thousand little pieces. I LOVE monster movies. Love em. Godzilla, Gamera, you name it, I'll watch it. Hell, I even managed to squeeze some enjoyment out of the American made Godzilla movie. (Hey, screw you, the visual effects were pretty good. I mean, they managed to make Ann Heche look like she possesses a soul. That's quite a feat!) So, I love the PREMISE for Cloverfield. A monster attacks Manhattan (you had me at hello, sailor). And you, the viewer, follow along from the viewpoint of a handheld camera as a group of 20-something, trendy New Yorkers must... ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.

That reminds me... I had a dream about Kurt Russel last night... sorry, what?
Oh yes, Cloverfield.
So, the whole concept isn't half bad. I mean, aside from having a bunch of yuppies as your entire cast. Giant monster. New York. Add to that some really great visual effects, a few cleverly written and executed sequences, and you've got yourself a sure win.

Except.
I hated absolutely every fucking character in that god damn movie. And the subplots left me rooting for the god damn monster.
We start off with a happy scene of Rob (the main character, I suppose) and Beth (his pseudo girlfriend) being all lovely-dovey for about 10 minutes. This should be your first clue that things will end tragically for the pair. As the "prologue" continues, we discover that Rob is some kind of emotional cripple, terrified of either commitment or expressing himself, and Beth is the kind of rotten bitch who will bring her new boyfriend to your "I'm leaving the country" party, a month after you two finally hooked up.
For those of you keeping score at home, Rob = pussy. Beth = slut. All caught up? Okay, moving on. We're next introduces to Rob's brother and HIS girlfriend. Out of the lot, Rob's brother is probably the only character I would have liked to see more of. He was a straight shooter, spoke his mind, and he was an ass. Good times, you ask me. But don't get attached, he's doesn't make it very long. Lily, or Liz, whatever the hell her name is, the girlfriend, is completely worthless. She's one of those well meaning types who's best left in the background. Seriously, you could have written her out of the movie entirely and nothing would have changed.
And that brings us to our final pair... Marlena (fucking New Yorkers and they're made up names) and Hud. Yeah. Hud. Hud is my least favorite character by FAR. Two reasons. One, he's the cameraman for the run of the movie. He is the lens through which we get to experience this film. And he's a fucking simpleton. I'm not being mean, or cruel. He is made out, in the film, to be a fool.
We've all known that guy who can't shut up, can't keep a secret, says the wrong thing at the wrong time, and who is completely immune to sarcasm. This is Hud. He carries us, along with his juvenile crush on Marlena, through the entire movie, blithering like an idiot the whole way. I suppose Hud was meant to be likeable, but he's not. He's an oaf. Personally, I would have rather had someone clever narrating this movie, but no. We get Hud. And as for Marlena.. well, see Lily (or Liz?) above.
So that's your cast. From there, the movie proceeds as expected. Rob and Beth have an argument at the party, because she's a WHORE. Hud moves around the party, establishing that he is an idiot to everyone there. And just as you start wondering if you've walked in on OC: The Movie, the monster saves us all from the travails of trust fund baby life and attacks the city. People are scared. Special effects ensue. An attempt to escape Manhattan is made, ending in tragedy and death. Rob recieves a call from Beth, who is hurt and trapped. He must save her (minutes after the death of his brother), and his idiot friends must help! And so Rob and Frodo... sorry, Hud, travel to Mount Doom, sorry, Beth's apartment, yada yada yada. Some people die, some people don't die soon ENOUGH, and in the meantime we occasionally get to see the military's vain attempts to stop the giant stonking monster rampaging through the city.

So, all in all, Cloverfield has a great premise, and fantastic promise. The monster bits are great, well done. Abrams is clearly a fan of the genre. But all the romantic subplots and character development was extremely shallow, and felt unnecessarily added on. Like a spoiler on a Dodge Neon, they served no purpose. I, for one, would have preferred more monster, thank you.

But by far the shittiest part of Cloverfield was the deluge of viral internet crap I had to wade through for the last 8 months. I mean, shit. After all the hype, you'd have thought this was the second coming of our Lord and Destroyer, Cthulhu. But it's not. It's not terrible, but it's not great, and it's certainly not as good as we'd been lead to believe. So, Kudos, nice marketing job, but I think I'll wait for the inevitable sequel on DVD.

VERDICT: If you REALLY like giant monsters, and can ignore or sit through pointless and shallow character interactions, and have an extra $12, go ahead. There will be worse movies to see this year, I'm sure. But if you think you should probably wait for it on video, you're probably right.

InsomniaReview: Call of Duty 4

First off, let me say that I'm sick and god damn tired of WWII shooters. Yes, it's the Normandy beach invasion. Very nice. Clearly you've watched Saving Private Ryan. Can we do something new, now? Oh, tanks in Africa. Lovely.
But if you HAVE to play a WWII shooter, you could do worse than Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 2. This game was a launch title for the 360, and one of the big attention grabbers at the time. And it deserved to be, the game looked great. It didn't play half bad, either, I grudgingly have to admit.
This title is not to be confused with Treyarch's (ptoo!) Call of Duty 3. You see, after the runaway success of Call of Duty 2, Activision, who owns the rights to the title, told Infinity Ward they wanted another one in a year. IW replied, "Uh... we COULD do that, but it would suck." So, Activision did something kind of smart. They hired another developer to make Call of Duty 3 (Treyarch) and had Infinity Ward start on 4. This gave both companies an 18 month development cycle, but still allowed Activision to get it's yearly Call of Duty revenue.
Alas, Treyarch apparently spent their 18 months figuring out how to heat and compress a 20-pound back of horse shit into the shape of a DVD. CAll of Duty 3 was an abomination, even for a WWII game. But we're not here to talk about 3. We're here to talk about 4. I just want to explain to you that 3 and 4, despite being in the same series, could not be further apart.
Of course, another clue that this game is not like Call of Duty 3 is that it's set in the modern day. I know, I just about shat a brick when I heard that, too. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare takes you away from the trench of 1942, when America stepped in to save the world and defeat the legions of categorically evil Nazis, and instead drops you into the shoes of a handful of soldiers fighting in modern day engagements.
There's a lot to like about this title. First off, it's darn good looking. It doesn't exactly blow the roof off, but the graphics are enjoyable. But, for me, it's never about the shiny textures, it's about the game. And in that arena, CoD4 does famously. If you've played 2, you'll likely remember the
grenade indicator, the ability to make the reticle 'lock' to a target, going prone, etc. All those make their way into the game. About the only difference is they've taken away your handy dandy enemy radar, which is kind of silly, if you think about it. I mean, we're closer to having that kind of tech now that in WWII. But you get night vision, claymores, C4, and under barrel grenade launchers to even things out, so it's not all bad.
About my only complaint with gameplay is how fucking accurate the enemies are with the grenades. There's a particular level where you play as a sniper, and you're trying to hold your position and wait for a chopper to come pick you up. Inevitably, hordes of enemies start charging your position like it's the last dance of Genghis Khan. And that wouldn't be so bad, if absolutely ever fucking one of these guys could drop a grenade right on top of you from 100 yards away. I wasn't aware that football was the premier Russian pastime. Most of the time, their uncanny accuracy with the grenades wouldn't matter, but when you're lying prone with a sniper scope in your eye, you don't always have time to either get up and run, or lob the fucking thing back.
But that brings me to my next point: realism. Now, I'm not a soldier. At best, I'm a weekend warrior with a gun fetish. But to my distinctly untrained eye, it seems like COD4 managed to hit all the bases. In the course of your missions, you get to play around with everything from an MP5 (the mainstay SMG for, well, pretty much every military force that figures they might need to kill something indoors) to a fully loaded M4A1 (with grenade launcher, laser sight visible only to NVG, reflex sight, bell peppers and onions), to a god damn Barrett Light 50. Sadly, you only get to shoot that big bastard a few times, but oh, what a shot. Surprisingly, there was no 'tank' mission. Well, there was, but you didn't actually get to ride in the tank. But I can forgive not being able to play in an Abrams because of what they DID let me do... take control of the weapons suite of an AC-130. If you don't know what that is, wiki it. Frankly, I don't know why the US military doesn't show that thing off more often. I think if the poor saps were fighting over in Iraq knew we had those god damn things, they'd lay down arms.
And as great as all the toys are, the best part is it seems like Infinity Ward got the 'feel' right. When you play the SAS man, Soap, you and your team are unapologetic murder machines. You drop right into the first mission and start gunning people down without so much as a 'howdy do'. You and your squad have zero problems shooting sleeping (and therefor unarmed) soldiers in their bunks. It's a god damn mission. You're SAS. Somebody has a nuke, and you do not fuck around. Even better, the game doesn't analyze, or provide commentary on itself. It's not making a point on the morality (or immorality) of war, it's just showing you a snapshot. It's for you to make up your own mind.

But while I'm on that subject, I'd like to direct your attention here. I'm not really sure what the point of this article is. Okay, the Iraq war is bad. Pretty much all of America is with you there. But it was okay when you were just shooting Nazis? Gotcha. So, the German soldiers (not all of whom were Nazis, by the way) didn't have families? I'm not denying that some seriously fucked up shit happened in WWII, but the camps, the genocide, all those decisions were made up at the top. The man in the trenches? He was probably just pissed about the treaty of Versailles, and wanted to get 3 square meals. If "Nazis = bad, America = good" is what you've been 'teaching' your kid about war, then I'm afraid you don't really have a high horse to stand on, friend.
In addition, I'd like to point out that the conflict in COD4 doesn't take place in Iraq, it's in Azerbaijan. But fair enough, they're still brown people who don't worship Jesus. What's the difference, right?

All in all, I found Call of Duty 4's single player campaign fantastically enjoyable. The storyline is well done, start to finish, and along the way you get to play with all kinds of ridiculously expensive pieces of military hardware. I haven't sunk my teeth into the multiplayer yet, but from everything I've heard it's of high quality as well, and includes such mouth watering features as customizable character abilities and levels.

VERDICT: BUY, If you're a lover of high grade military carnage, solid multiplayer, or action movie-esque plots, this game is for you. If you're not... what the fuck are you doing with your life?

Okay. NOW I hate Kotor.

I was just frustrated with the game's clumsy interface. Now I'm pissed off. I'm 25 hours into the fucking game, and I can't go any further forward. I came back into Anchorhead, and the game freezes on me. I reloaded my save file (at that exact point) and it freezes on me.

KOTOR ate my save data. Fuck this game.