semester break

I'm on semester break right now and this is why I'm not online much. I've been playing video games and watching DVDs for the past six days. This clearly makes me a bum. I also recently have been playing with my aunt's LCD television to test out progressive scan. DVDs support it as well as some of my video games. The picture is enhanced with the interlace removed from the picture as the screen is refreshed all at once. This method improves picture quality in that it removes jagged edges and makes the picture look more natural and film like. With games that only support 480p, its a bit hard to notice a difference since the Ps2 does not have AA but it makes the game smoother than it would look like without it.

I beat a couple of games over the past several days. Goldeneye: Rogue Agent and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (I'm not finished with this game yet, I just beat the story missions).

Let me start with GTA: SA. The game is remarkable like its predecessors before it. It doesn't add much to the mission variety but it does tweak the game here and there. They added sort of like a Sims aspect to the main character. You can customize what he wears and how fat he will get. They added more stuff to do as well. You can gamble, play basketball (which I haven't done), play pool, play videogames, pimp out your ride, participate in hydraulic battles, and YES be able to jump out a plane and skydive (which is AWESOME everytime I do it).

I'll sidetrack a bit with the skydiving. There is a mission I was thrilled to do in which you get to kill everybody on board then jump off way way up in the air. What is cool about the mission is that you stay in the air for several minutes. I tried to recreate the air time in that mission but it seems like there is a limit to how far you can go up, sucks I know.

There were some frustrating missions such as the flying missions but I got used to it. Flying a jet is freaking awesome. You even get to do a casino bank heist which was cool. One of the frustrating missions is the one where you have to get Madd Dog's house back. It's frustrating not because of the shooting parts but because of the driving part. I found it difficult because I had to restart the entire mission again if I failed during the driving sequence. I got really close one time where I shot the gas tank of the enemy but the explosion caught my car as well. I tried to get out of the car but it was too late. It exploded the moment I got out. Overall the best missions I've played are the casino area missions and the Truth missions.

Rockstar even added a gangland part to the game. There are certain parts of Los Santos where your gang gets to control. These parts are hard at first because all you can afford is a submachine gun. Later on it gets easier because you can a lot of cash by then. They also added the idea of getting some of your gang to go with you on driveby shootings. They even added relationships that CJ can partake in.

The best addition to this game is gun experience. The more you use a gun, the more proficient you become. It makes sense. If CJ reaches the hitman level with a certain weapon, it takes less shots to kill someone.

Hopefully the next iteration of GTA will have an updated graphics engine. That is probably the only thing holding this game back.

The next game on my list is Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. I fucking hate this game. It puts the Goldeneye name to shame. The original Goldeneye was remarkable in every fashion. This one doesn't even come close. I'm puzzled because EA's previous Bond game Everything or Nothing was spectacular. RA is far from polished. The graphics are muddy considering this is far from a first generation title. Some of the weapons are useless and the melee combat stinks. I don't mind the AI getting harder (which never happens in this game), but I don't care for the idotic numbers of shielded enemies or hard-to-eliminate enemies. It takes so many fucking shots to kill an ememy unless you get him in the head, but with the weapons they give you, getting a headshot is almost impossible. Later in the game the pistol with unlimited rounds becomes useless as enemies start to possess a weapon that kills you in one shot, a weapon that shoots out remote contolled bombs, and this stupid fucking Venom gun that if you get hit by a bullet your movement is slowed down to snail speed. I really fucking hated that Omen laser gun. When I was far into a level, I would get shot by one of these and then I would have to restart the level or back to the checkpoint (which are very few btw). What I hated is that the enemies would never have a reload animation, but you would. When they had the Omen gun, they would shoot it like it was an assualt rifle, but when you get the gun, you can only shoot off one shot at a time.

The developers added this stupid power system. You can see through walls, useless unless you have a railgun. You can have a temporary shield which drains faster when you get hit. You have an EMP shock which disables certain weapons and electronics (useless as well). You finally have this ability to grab an enemy and throw them. All of these powers drain your energy in about 5 seconds or when you use it once as with the case with the telekinesis power. What's stupid is that it takes so long to refill. They also added the recharging life bar. If the game did not have this, I would never finish the game. Enemies do so much damage. I don't know what I would do without it.

This game is far from being finished. The game has horribly compressed videos (which makes me wonder how FFX and FFX-2's cinematics are DVD quality), bad graphics both in level design and how the game looks in general, and horrible implementation.

Horrible game. What a horrible game.