Gaming Slowdown

With work starting to pick up, school looming in the near future, and a bunch of other things that keep me busy, I haven’t really found a lot of time to do any serious gaming as of late. I’ve played some Umbrella Chronicles which my brother bought and I’ve also played a bit of Tomb Raider: Underworld which another brother got for his birthday.

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles is quite a fun game. I’ve never been a huge fan of on-a-rail shooters but with the Wiimote it really adds to the experience. Blasting away zombies and destorying random stuff in the stages as you go along is entertaining and playing co-op with a friend really adds to the experience.

Tomb Raider: Underworld on the other hand didn’t impress me in the least. Now, I will admit that it may be better on a superior system (we have the PS2 version), but that still doesn’t change the core gameplay. In some of the tighter places in the intro stage I found myself fighting the camera and the controls. People complain about the old games having clunky controls, but I swear I could do better with those than I was doing here. Things improved in the open, but then when I got underwater on the next stage things got awkward again.

Aside from my own experience, I’ve also watched my brothers play and heard what they thought about the game. The enemies in the game are extremely few, and even then they present no challenge whatsoever so it’s like they’re there for no reason at all other than to create a fascade that you’re in danger.

The game heavily focuses on the puzzle aspect, but even with that both of my brothers who have now beaten the game said that even Legend was better with that. Legend also had been a short game, but they said that this was even shorter than that! In fact they said that Legend was 20x better. With the little bit that I played and with what they’ve said, it’s no surprise to me why the series is getting yet another reboot already. Who knows, maybe we’ll finally get some Tomb Rraider games that can compare to what they once were.

Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince *MINOR SPOILERS*

So after immediately getting out of the theater I said what all of my family agreed with; Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince is definitely the best of the Harry Potter movies. One thing I was glad about was the fact that it has been about a year and a half since I read the books so it was not fresh in my mind. With the other movies I watched each of them right after reading the book and even though I tried not to, I found myself comparing the movie to the book way too much. That’s not to say I didn’t notice any changes, just not as many and I didn’t let them bother me as much.

I would say that this movie is the darkest of them, which goes right along with how the books were. Right from the start you have destruction and chaos as the Death Eaters attack the muggle world, and it all looks really bleak because of how most everything is filtered by a shade of gray. My dad made a comment on how he thought that they didn’t focus enough on how hard the times were, and while it didn’t really slap it in your face, comments were made throughout the movie about the times in addition to the dark look which remained throughout, so I think that worked for it really well. My question would be why this received the PG rating when it should well have been PG-13. This just goes to show how little a rating label means and how you should find out the reasons why it was given the rating.

Even with the movie being the darkest thus far, it also managed to be the most humorous. Little things throughout the movie had me chuckling and the romantic relationships throughout provided some good humor (particularly between Ron and Lavender). I would also say that this was the best that Michael Gambon has done with Dumbledore. Before he seemed much too serious and not very lighthearted like his book counterpart (or Richard Harris from the first two movies). In HBP he actually made me laugh a few times and seemed closer to what he should be.

Now, I did say that I wasn’t nitpicking about the differences between the book and movie (unlike somebody who did the whole ride back), but there are a few things that stood out to me while watching that I would question. First is the inclusion of a certain scene in the middle of the movie that was completely invented for the movie. Those who have seen it know which I am talking about. I’m just not really sure why this was done, though it may have to do with some of the changes they may end up making in The Deathly Hallows. I mean, yeah, it provided some needed action, but it kinda felt strange. Not that it was bad, just I didn’t think it was quite right.

The second thing would be the lack of memories that Dumbledore shows Harry. Getting to learn about Voldemort’s past was one of my favorite parts of the book and in the movie it was reduced to basically two memories. While those were surely the most important to include and the movie still worked without the others, I felt that perhaps the time used for the new scene I mentioned previously would have been used better to show at least one more memory.

The one other thing that bothered me, though, was perhaps one of the biggest considering the name that the movie carries. The whole plot concerning the Half-Blood Prince was very much downplayed in the movie. It was still there, but it took a back seat to everything else it seemed. There was a very quick mention of trying to find out who the Half-Blood Prince was, but I don’t think you would be really trying to figure out who it was throughout the movie if you didn’t already know. Once it gets to the end you basically have one quick line thrown out there that reveals Prince’s identity, and while it may have been pretty quick like that in the book, you at least had the explanation of why he was called this. There’s absolutely no way to figure out the meaning behind the name in the movie.

Now, all that said, I don’t want to make it sound like I’m putting the movie down too much because of those changes. I’m not expecting an exact faithful reproduction of the book because for one I know some things don’t work well on screen and also this is the director’s interpretation of the book. The movie very much exceeded my expectations in that it was a very good movie and actually did stick to the book fairly well. If you have been following the movies but lately have been feeling let down by them like I know some people have, I would encourage you to not give up on the series and go see the movie because it really is the best so far in pretty much every way.

MGS3: Home Stretch *MAJOR SPOILERS*

Well, it’s been awhile since my last update so this should be a pretty long one.

Escaping from Groznyj Grad did indeed turn out to be the hardest part of the game. Things had been going well up until I got to Groznyj Grad Northwest. That place was a huge pain in the butt. My biggest problem was of course the area near the sewer entrance. The guard that patrolled that area was not the biggest problem, but rather the guard dog there. My other big problem was the fact that I cannot aim worth a crap with the Single Action Army. I finally was able to aim somewhat better by using the binoculars to help center the camera on something, but even then that only worked on larger objects.

On the run that I finally made it on, I got extremely lucky by making mistakes that benefited me. To start off, when I crawled over near the spotlight to shoot it out, I somehow managed to make it ricochet off and kill one of the guards, so that made things a little easier. Then when I tried to blow up the barrels to take out the guard patrolling the area by the sewer entrance, I missed the barrel and shot him instead. A couple of more shots trying to hit the barrels ended up killing the guy, leaving the barrels to take the dog out (since they were never both close enough at the same time). After that happened I was able to easily make it out of that nightmare of an area.

From there it was smooth sailing for awhile. The part with The Sorrow is pretty interesting. I’m not sure if you’d really call it a boss fight or not, but it’s still something really different. After this I had the conversation with Major Zero and the others where they explained about The Boss and The Sorrow, but I must have missed one conversation because I remember it making it clearer that Ocelot was in fact their child. This conversation made mention of a child that was taken away (and she says that again at the end) but there’s no way you can gather that much just from this.

Getting back into Groznyj Grad and planting the C3 charges on the Shagohod was a lot easier than it had been for me before. The reason why was this time I had the maintenance uniform and so as long as the other workers didn’t get a good look at me I was free to walk around and plant them.

The fight with Volgin here was pretty tough and took awhile for me to do. For the first part of the fight I got the hang of using CQC on him and then popping him with the tranquilizer. In fact the first part of the fight was pretty easy. It was the second part where he would start shooting out multiple bolts of electricity that would get me. I finally was able to take him out using a few tricks that I had picked up, though.

After that has to be one of my favorite parts in the game. The chase in MGS was fun, but this tops it in every way possible. Mowing down the guards was a bit easier for me since I had the special Cold War camo from Volgin, so as long as I was facing them I didn’t have to worry about getting shot. I also love popping off the drivers on the motorcycles at just the right time and having them collide with the others. Both fun and a good tactic. Finishing off the Shagohod and Volgin was surprisingly easy compared to what I had remembered. I barely took any damage the whole fight and easily took him out. After that was more motorcycles riding which was easy but fun.

Then… Then we’ve got one more tough part to avoid being seen, though actually it wasn’t that bad. Once I got EVA to stop being an idiot and actually come when I told her to, I was able to distract the first wave of guards with some magazines and grenade them to death. Then it was just a matter of running for it and getting out of that area. In the next area I simply tranquilized her and left her right there while I crawled through and picked off all the guys. I’d also like to note here that while that’s easy to leave her like that, it’s also annoying and kind of disturbing to hear her talking about how “that feels good” and mentioning Snake, The Boss, and…. Fido? This is one seriously messed up girl.

Anyway, after that we’re on to the final fight. The Boss herself. I originally was going to fight her using CQC, but after getting royally pwned numerous times with no real improvement I decided to forget that and just do it the easy way. I hid in the flowers and sniped her using The End’s sniper and easily finished her off with time to spare. Get this, though. After getting my stats page, my jaw drops when I see that I have 16 alerts. What the…. Then it hits me. I didn’t realize that the stats carried over when you continued. Since I would only use it occasionally and it would always be in the same area I didn’t think anything about it. So while I did avoid being seen the whole game, I technically didn’t because of that. Crap.

Anyway, about the ending. I’ve heard some say that it was lame, but I don’t see how you can say that. It’s easily better than the confusing mess of an ending in MGS2 and I don’t see how the one in MGS can be considered better really. You’ve got the final duel with “John” and “Adamska” (a nice nod to the fact that he’s ADAM), everything gets wrapped up with EVA and who she really was and how she explained the truth about The Boss.

That right there makes The Boss not just one of my favorite female game characters, but just one of my favorite game characters period. You’ve got the whole relationship between her and Snake throughout the whole game being shown. She used to be his mentor and she’s seemingly on your side at the start. She explains about how as times change so do enemies and all that, and then next thing you know she’s turned against you, yet the whole time she’s actually on your side. She’s building you up and making you stronger and secretly helping you along. If Snake had known the truth there would be no way that he could have gone through with killing her, but she did her duty and made sure that things went as they should. Then when he’s standing there in front of her grave with the music playing and him saluting her (with his eyes tearing up) how can you not be moved by that?

Then just when you think everything is done and if it wasn’t enough to be surprised by all that with The Boss, you’ve got the traditional conversation at the end with Ocelot. I had honestly kinda forgotten that he was working with the American Philosophers (of course later known as the Patriots). I also didn’t remember that he had actually recovered the real Philosopher’s Legacy (or at least half of it) and that EVA actually had the fake. That makes me think now. If he was working with them there, then….. Of screw it, I’m not gonna even think about it now. I’ll finish playing what I have (and maybe make complete sense of MGS2) and only then will I bother speculating the whole thing. And I’m sure then I’ll be dying to play MGS4 even more.

So as of right now, I’m going to say that overall MGS3 takes the top spot as my favorite of them. What I said in the beginning about the other Cobra members not having much development is true, but like somebody pointed out to me, that was traded for the focus on the characters that really mattered and that was well worth the trade off. I will say that I think I still prefer the other setting to the jungle as far as sneaking around as stuff, but I’ll hold off final judgment until I play the others. Amazing game and one of my all time favorites.

Final Results

Difficulty: Extreme

Play Time: 20:38:30

Save: 67 times

Continue: 55 times

Alert Phase: 16 times

Humans Killed: 164 people

Seriously Injured: 59 times

Total Damage: 21 life bars

Life Meds Used: 0

Plants & Animals Captured: 30 kinds

Meals Eaten: 83

Special Item: Not Used

Title: Spider

MGS3 – From The Fear To Groznyj Grad Northwest *MAJOR SPOILERS*

The Fear ended up being much easier than I had thought he would be to take out with the tranquilizer. I didn’t have any rotten or poisonous food to toss out, but things still worked out well. I just stood in one spot for most of the fight, shooting him as he leapt from branch to branch. Once he got low enough on stamina to start hunting for food I was lucky that he always seemed to find something poisonous on his first try. After that I just kept shooting him and not letting him get the chance to kill anything more for food.

Working my way back to the jungle before The End was easy, but once I was there is when I had the problem. The fight would go alright, but I was low on tranquilizers and going to the shack with ammo doesn’t exactly work well when you’re trying to fight him and not allow him to do his photosynthesis thing.

What I ended up having to do was go back into the area right before him and then go off to where that cabin is. I had avoided this area before because there was no need to go there, especially when there are a good amount of guys defending the place. That made it hard to do this and avoid being seen, at least the way I approached it. After wasting a bunch of time there I finally got the ammo I needed and made my way back to fight The End. After several tries where I was getting myself familiar with the areas again, I was able to beat him and get his camo and his sniper rifle. This is definitely one of my favorite boss fights in the game. It’s really unique and makes you use a bunch of different tactics to be able to track him and sneak up on him.

Climbing up the mountain side took a little time and was a bit annoying with as many times as I set them off and made them call in back up, but with patience I made it through, though I was running low on ammo for both of my pistols. So when I went to fight The Fury I thought that I would just have to kill him, which I did. For awhile I was almost thinking that at least when he exploded it made some sense since he was on fire and had the jetpack that could blow up. Then there was the whole thing with the giant face in the flames that flew around the room and then came at you. That just went from being the one that made the most sense to the most over the top death of a boss so far.

Sneaking into Groznyj Grad from there was a lot more simple than I remembered. I didn’t have any trouble being seen and made my way in and then just hung out up on the second floor until Raikov came. I’d also like to make note here of the conversation with EVA that I had right before here that I didn’t remember. The one where she said how she was usually good at getting guys to take off their clothes but it wouldn’t work with Raikov, though Snake might have a better shot at doing it. I remembered the thong that he wore of course, but I forgot about these other things. Then there was how Volgin saw through the disguise later. I love how they had fun picking on Raiden in this one.

So now I’ve made it through there and am in the prison cell after the torture scene. I had forgotten how brutal that actually was, and how Ocelot had never approved of Volgin’s methods but got interested in it here which of course leads to the torture scenes in the other games. One thing that I found odd was after everybody had left but EVA. Snake started to say, “you’re…” but then stopped, like he didn’t know that she was EVA until then. Seriously? Well… then again, I guess he hadn’t seen her like that close up before, only at a distance. But still, he saved her from being shot “because she was important to the mission,” so that makes it sound like he DID know it was her. I don’t know, something doesn’t seem right there.

So next is the escape. One thing I’ve always wondered is right here where Snake can have that nightmare. Is that like a demo of some other game or is it just something totally made for this? I’ve never heard one way or the other. Anyway, next time I play should be a bit tough.

MGS3 – Chyornaya Peschera Cave To Graniny Gorki Lab *SPOILERS*

I’ve been slowly going through the game for the past several days now, playing a little here and a little there along with other games.

When I first got to The Pain I was going to try and go for a stamina victory, but that was proving to be too aggravating to be worth it. The camo that you get is cool, but it won’t be a very big help in this run, so I’ll just wait and get it another time. Once I decided to just kill him it made things much easier. Taking the AK-47 and the shotgun to him quickly brought him down leaving me without a scratch. He’s still just as blah as I remembered him. Most of the fight I was having to swim to avoid the bees and then I just pop up onto the rock for a minute to get a few shots again before going back under. One thing that I had forgotten about that is kinda stupid is the way they die in this game. I mean really, they literally explode (what, were they strapped with explosives?) and yell out their name, which echoes as it fades. Not a big deal or anything, just…. Stupid.

After that area I got to go into the watery swamp-like place that was lined by trees. I had to go a bit slow here to make sure that I wasn’t spotted and was able to take out the guys in those hover… things. Didn’t help that the things explode when you kill the guys and put it into evasion mode. Once I got rid of all of those guys I took the path off to the side first so that I could pick up the SVD. Then I proceeded into the next area triggering the cut scene with Volgin, Sokolov, and “Tatyana”. Of course we had to have the mandatory pants peeing scene, and this is where that shows up. It’s funny watching Sokolov cower while Ocelot toys with him.

After the scene I could have taken out The End with my sniper, but I knew that wouldn’t be smart. For one, then that area where he will be would be filled with an Ocelot Unit that I’d have to deal with (which is especially not good when going for no alerts) and I also wouldn’t be able to get his camo or gun if I did that. I thought about trying to hit him with my tranq gun in hopes that he might start the fight later with some stamina missing, but I wasn’t ever able to hit him so I just didn’t worry about it.

The next couple of areas were pretty straight forward, just picking off a few guys and proceeding onward. Once I got into the lab I donned my scientist disguise and was able to freely walk around. Well, almost. If I was out of place the guards would get suspicious and the real scientists are able to spot you as a fake if you let them get a good look at you. I ran around and got up any goodies that were laying around before going down to talk to Granin.

A couple of things about the scene right here with him. First of all, I love the music which is a westernized version of the theme from MGS2. Then there are other things involving Metal Gear. Sokolov designed the Shagohod and got the funding in place of him, but Granin’s design is what we will later see as Metal Gear REX. Also, if you pay attention during the scene, he talks about sending the plans to one of his American friends, and when he says this it focuses on a picture of him and this man with curly hair and glasses, which very much resembles Otacon. So this man in the picture is very likely to be Hal’s father since I’m pretty sure that he mentions about his father working with nuclear weapons.

So that’s where I’m currently at. I need to escape from the lab and go to fight The Fear which should be an interesting battle since I’ll try first for a stamina win over him. If I have plenty of rotten/poisonous food to drop out then he shouldn’t be a problem.

Also, one other little thing I want to mention. Is it just me or does Snake/Big Boss seem to be more raspy in this game? Kind of like Hayter was trying a bit too hard? Maybe he was just trying to create a difference between Big Boss and Solid Snake or something if so. I dunno. I’ll see once I play Metal Gear Solid.

Rocking Out and Time Traveling

Guitar Hero I & II

Due to the nature of these games I decided to just combine the two to talk about. After having played Guitar Hero III and Aerosmith, this was a major step back for me. As I had been told, the hammer-ons were very unreliable compared to what I was used to. Fortunately I was able to get by most parts with just strumming really fast instead, or getting my timing down perfectly and getting them to work. Playing on Expert, through the whole main set list I didn’t have a problem, at least until Bark at the Moon. Even then I made it to 98% on my first try and beat it on my second. Then in the bonus songs there was only one where I failed once. Definitely a much easier game after playing the other.

After that I moved on to Guitar Hero II. I immediately noticed that the hammer-ons were much improved, and in fact I can’t see that they’re any worse than on GHIII. So far I’ve completed 31/40 of the main set of songs. I had a bit of trouble with Freya and had to play that over again after losing, and I’ve come really close to failing a song a couple of more times, once of them being Crazy On You. I’ll play a couple more times and get into the bonus songs and see what I can do with them. Maybe I’ll be able to tackle Jordan, though if it’s harder than Through the Fire and the Flames then I don’t think that will be happening until I get a lot of practice at it.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages *MAJOR SPOILERS*

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The last few dungeons were pretty good. They gave me a pretty good challenge and had me thinking in places and making me stop in places instead of just blowing through brainlessly. Jabu-Jabu was obviously very much like the Water Temple of from Ocarina of Time with the changing water levels.

The 8^th dungeon also had some good puzzles. Besides the overall dungeon, there was that one room in particular where you had to step on every tile once and not backtrack or jump any. There’ve been one or two others like this in the game, but this one really took me a good chunk of time. I don’t know how long I sat there one night trying to figure this one out, but I finally did after many failed attempts. The boss here was also pretty cool. It had a few different forms with each using a different weapon that you’ve picked up along the way.

After that it was on the black tower so I could go to the final boss. For the most part this wasn’t a big deal, but there was one area in particular that I hated. It was probably the only part of the game that I really disliked. The room where there are tons of stairways in the room with only one of them going forward with the rest taking back to where you just came from. I swear this was so freaking annoying. If there had been some kind of clue that let you puzzle out which one was the right one to take then that would have been fine, but having to keep going back until you got the right one drove me nuts and I died I don’t know how many times. I know I complain about the easiness of some games and wanting a challenge, but this was just stupid because it required either dumb luck to happen upon the right one or trying every single one until you found it.

Aside from that part, though, I didn’t have a problem with the actual dungeon. From there it’s a clear shot to Veran. First there’s the fight similar to earlier in the game, so that was easy. The next part where she turned what looked like an evil fairy was a bit tougher if you didn’t know the patterns and how she worked. I made it through here, but was severely weakened so that when I got to her final form(s) I very quickly died. After several tries at learning her second form so that I had enough health I was able to attempt to beat the final form with a real chance. Even then it took a few more tries. In all…. Probably about 15 attempts (though to be fair the first couple were low on health because I didn’t think about going a bit further back to get some fairies).

So after finally beating her I get to see the ending, though not the true ending since I need to go through Oracle of Seasons now. The Gerudo witches (I only ever heard them called Twinrova on here, not sure if they’re still Koume and Kotake) apparently still succeeded by having Veran spread the sorrow which would grow and grant their wish or something, which I can only assume is to revive Ganon once again since I’ve heard somewhere along the way that he’s in the game. I’m really looking forward to playing OoS now.

Metal Gear Solid 3 – Commencing Operation Snake Eater *MAJOR SPOILERS*

Time to start Operation Snake Eater. I remembered avoiding these guys in this first area to be harder than this, but I found a nice little spot back away from where they come and I just waited them out. After that it was a pretty easy path to where I was to meet up with ADAM. The identity of ADAM had slipped my mind until just now which shows my lack of familiarity with the plot from only playing it once or twice. I’ll talk more about that when the time comes, though.

Instead we have EVA. You would think it was kind of obvious that she wasn’t who she was supposed to be when she wouldn’t give the password. I mean, of course Snake and the gang are cautious and don’t completely trust her, but I guess they let that little detail slip since she’s able to really fool them as the game goes. It’s cool to watch and catch the little hints once you’ve played through, like the gun she has which is made in China and the technique she used to shoot it which also originated from there.

This next part against the Ocelot unit was one that I expected to spend a good deal of time against. It did take awhile, but wasn’t near as hard as I had thought it would be. After some attempts I finally devised a plan of attack. I started out under the bed and would wait until just when they would kick the door down and I would toss a smoke grenade out to keep them from spotting me. After a second of being stopped by coughing I let loose a real grenade and blew those four guys to bits. From there I went down under the building through the trap door which allowed me to get shot in on the two guys along that side of the building.

After that I was able to crawl out through the back and I waited until I could just see the sniper on the roof and I popped his hand with a tranq to put him out. From there on I decided that it was easier just to use that since they don’t really go into evasion mode or realize what happened until it is too late. Once he was gone it was simple. I climbed onto the roof and picked off the one guy in the lower corner. Then I could just go down to where he was and pick off the last two on the other side. Job done.

In the next area I picked up the croc cap which should be of some help. The part after that I also remembered being tough to get through without being seen, but it actually was quite easy. Pick off a dog here and there then take out the guy who comes to check. Move on and strategically pick off the rest and make my way through. At first I was actually going to just sneak through the base and let that be that, but most of my food had gone bad and I needed some more supplies, so I went through here and took everybody out, along with the Hind and the ammo store house. Honestly I’m not sure why I bothered since I’m not planning on being spotted anyway, but whatever.

Next I get to actually face off against Ocelot. It was a pretty good fight in MGS and he was still cool, but this fight easily beats it. Him with not one, but two revolvers and this time he’s much more agile and can better dodge in and out of cover. It took me a few tries because he kept getting some shots in on me, but that was mainly because I was getting greedy with shooting him. Once I took a more cautious approach and only took one or two shots when I got the chance I faired much better. It’s also cool that you have the little quick draw duel in the middle of the fight if you are standing there near the edge of the crevice. I finally took him down using tranquilizers so I could get the special camo, so now I’m down in the crevice and will be making my way toward The Pain (which is actually one of my least favorite boss fights in the Solid series).

Metal Gear Marathon

Being games that are very plot heavy, expect to have spoilers by the barrel full showing up throughout the course of this marathon. However, with this initial post it is actually pretty much spoiler free. There may be a few things that some people would consider spoilers, but there is nothing significant that is mentioned here. Because there is that chance that some people might not want to see something, though, I have marked it this much at least.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence *SLIGHT SPOILERS*

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I kicked off my Metal Gear marathon with this today. Despite liking this one so much, I actually haven’t played through it a whole lot. I believe I played through on Hard my first time and then went through again kind of messing around and trying to get some special camo and such. I started a run on Extreme before but didn’t finish it for some reason.

This time I considered trying European Extreme, but if I did that then anything I collect with this run would have to be used on that difficulty, so I decided to just play on regular Extreme, though I’m still planning on avoiding being spotted so I can unlock the stealth camo (in addition to the challenge aspect of it). There are a few particular spots that I can think of that will especially challenging.

The first part of this game is fairly easy and is a nice warm up. Even then, it still takes quite some time when you’re watching the scenes and listening to the radio conversations. Sure, I could skip them since I’ve seen them before, but the story is a huge part of the game and I’m not near as familiar with this as, say, Metal Gear Solid. One thing I like about this game is how you can press R1 during the cut scenes and look from the eyes of Snake. It’s fun to look around and see things that you normally can’t and maybe even something special that was hidden. Relying on it to show you when you can press R1 doesn’t always work, either, since there are some times when you can do it even though it doesn’t show that you can.

As for the cast in this game…. there are things that I love and things I have problems with. For starters there’s the main support group. Major Zero is basically the Roy Campbell of this game. I prefer Campbell as he’s just cooler for one reason or another, but Zero has some humor to him at times that can add a little something different. Para-Medic takes the place as the one who gives information on animals and medical issues, and also saves the game. Instead of Mei Ling’s Chinese proverbs or the sappy stuff that could get old with Rose in MGS2, Para-Medic loves movies and that can be interesting since Snake doesn’t really care about them at all and is much more concerned with real problems. I actually think I prefer Para-Medic over the characters that take on this role in other games. Then we have Sigint who provides information on all your weapons and camo. I guess he’s sort of like a combination of Natash and Otacon from the first MGS. Some of the dialog between him and Snake, and sometimes Para-Medic jumping in as well, can be really funny. I definitely miss Otacon since he’s awesome, but Sigint provides his own brand of humor which I love as well so I can’t complain.

Really, the problems that I have aren’t with the support group but the enemy unit that you face in this game. Though that’s not to say I don’t like them. I think that everyone who has played these games, at least these three, can say that the first MGS game had the most believable group of enemies. The most out there was Psycho Mantis, and maybe Vulcan Raven, but aside from that it felt pretty grounded in that respect. The characters themselves were well developed and each had their own little story which gave it that connection and helped you like that better. Not like them like them, but like them as enemies if you can understand what I’m trying to say. In MGS2 you had some very out there characters and the fights themselves, while good, didn’t feel as great.

I feel that overall in this game we have the best set of boss battles in terms of gameplay. What it lacks, though, as far as the Cobra Unit goes is any real character development. Aside from The Boss and somewhat with The Sorrow, you don’t really know squat about the them. You’ve got some really cool fights, especially with The End, but their characters just aren’t that great to me. The other enemies outside of those four, though, are done very well I think. The relationship between Snake and The Boss that plays out through the game is done well, and I also enjoyed seeing the young Ocelot come into play. He kind of comes off as a cocky kid type of character at first, getting his butt handed to him by Snake, but as the game goes he grows so it’s cool to see how that turns out.

Having said all that, it has been awhile since I’ve played these games so my opinions may change on various aspects regarding each of the games as I go. I just felt that I would give my initial thoughts on the game coming back into it fresh.

So after playing this time I managed to get through the Virtuous Mission. Pretty easy with the only part giving me a tiny bit of trouble was at the bridge. The next part is what should be tough. Actually possibly one of the tougher parts in the game for going unseen. I had to laugh at the part where you rescue Sokolov. He’s trying to act like he knows what he’s doing and is trying to imitate Snake’s stance but is really scared to death. My brother and I were sitting there talking about it and I swear it looked like he had his hands in a hadoken position for a second. The thought of him doing that and yelling HADOKEN is hilarious.

After I was done with that part, it came to about 1:40. Sure didn’t feel like I played that long, but I guess that’s because I didn’t and was watching a lot. The opening itself takes awhile and if you watch it all I don’t think you get to save for the first time until 30 minutes have gone by. Then you’ve got the scenes that close out this mission and that takes up quite a bit of time. I don’t mind, though. I love watching it all. Next time I play should be interesting as the real games starts and the difficulty picks up.

Intro To My Video Game Journal and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! For awhile now I have been recording my progress and giving my thoughts on what I’ve been playing on a few different message boards. I finally figured I would add another place where I can post these thoughts.

Basically what I will be doing is talking about what I’m currently doing in the various games that I play. I may give sort of a narration that goes right along with what I do in game, or I may focus more on writing up what I think about the game. Either way, I can already assure you that there will be spoilers, but you don’t need to worry as long as you pay attention because I will make sure to mark those spoilers clearly. If it’s something small like a vague idea of how to progress or something similar then I’ll mark it as slight spoilers. For most normal spoilers throughout the game you will see just a plain spoilers warning. Finally for the big things, like big plot twists and such, I will mark it specifically as major spoilers.

Now, two games that I am currently focusing on are The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Super Mario Galaxy. Also, I will soon be participating in a Metal Gear Marathon and playing all of those games that I own in chronological order. With Oracle of Ages this is my first time playing the game, though I’m already a good ways through the game. Galaxy I’ve already beaten, but I’m going back and trying to go for total completion of the game.

For now I will leave you with what I’ve been doing in Oracle of Ages since picking the game back up.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

So after an extremely long break I popped this back in and started playing again (last time I played was sometime during the fall semester). The reason for stopping was me being more into other games plus the fact that I couldn’t progress any further in the dungeon I was in, which was the Mermaid’s Cave. Now, I honestly have no clue as to why I was stuck, because… well, the other night I started this game up and I was expecting to need to check out a FAQ to remember just exactly where I was and what I had done. What happened, though, was that I almost immediately found one of the keys that I needed, followed by the boss key and then the last remaining key. Didn’t take long at all. I must’ve been having a really bad few days or something when I was playing this before.

As for the boss of the Mermaid’s Cave, he wasn’t too tough, but upon first entering I wasn’t sure as to what exactly I needed to do. I ended up discovering it before long, but it was still long enough that I ended up dying on my first attempt. Wait, what’s that? I didn’t know the enemy’s weak point right off the bat and I actually died!? You hear that Nintendo? This Zelda game actually had some difficulty to it! Until I played these, the last Zelda game where I didn’t have to purposefully die just to see the game over screen was Majora’s Mask. Seriously, Miyamoto, please give me some of that back. I’m not asking for LoZ or Zelda II hard, if it’s just a step back to something like OoT or MM then I’ll be more than happy.

*SLIGHT SPOILERS*

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After defeating the boss I had to get down off of the mountain which wasn’t exactly easy to do. It took me awhile of stumbling around and going in circles since I had totally forgotten the layout of the caves. I finally got back down and went to the castle like that tree had told me to do. I got in easily and got to Nayru, but it took awhile to figure out what to do. I had tried using my sword, bombs, the hook switch, various seeds…. I quit and tried the next day and before long found out that I had apparently not tried the right type of seed or something. Took care of that.

Some weird person showed up at the scene with Link, Nayru, the tree, and the guy in the blue cape were talking (I seriously don’t remember who he’s supposed to be). Not sure if I was supposed to recognize this cloaked person or not. Anyway, I need to go find the next essence in a giant fish. Gee, that sounds awfully familiar. After a bit of searching around in the sea which I can now easily get around in, I found the Zora’s village underwater. So then it’s off to do a little search and find for one item which leads to another which leads to another which leads to the thing I need…. or something like that. Basically I healed the King of the Zoras, turned the Queen of Fairies back to normal and took care of the water pollution so that now Jabu-Jabu can grow up big and strong and I can go inside of him.

This is a pretty good dungeon so far. At first it seems that it will be entirely underwater, but then I realized I couldn’t open the treasure chests so obviously I need to drain the water somehow. This kind of reminds me of the water temple in OoT, though probably not as tough. I’ve had to drain the water and refill it giving myself access to different areas and such. I’ve defeated the mini-boss and got the long switch (wow, never saw that one coming) and that’s where I sit now.

*END SPOILERS*

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I’ll probably be playing this at night when I get home from work to chill out before going to bed. I’ve got the Game Boy Player hooked up to the Game Cube and that’s downstairs so it’s easy to play. I should be able to finish up this game soon and move on to Oracle of Seasons after that.