Visceraman1 - Joshua Lopez

I've always found the Tony Hawk games to be ridiculous, pretty unrealistic, lame, and yet fun at the same time. I began playing back on my Dreamcast, and have played nearly every title in the series. The unfortunate thing about the series, is every title is almost exactly the same game, with the addition of a different soundtrack, perhaps different challenges for the various locations, and obviously, different stories for the Story Mode.



Not being a skateboarder in the real world as Jeri calls it, I'm not sure what the fascination with skating through a mall is. It's present in every title in the series, so it must be a huge thing among skateboarders. It became my least favourite area long ago, and I still dread having to complete various challenges in order to advance to a different area. (Because every skateboarder can leap 50 feet through the air and land on a 1/2 inch piece of pipe, grind it, and pick up a video tape at the same time) (And why are the stairs taller than me?)



The plot line in the Story Mode is as lame as ever. Character X is trying to fit in with Gang X, and must perform various tricks in order to please them, all the while followed around by a pseudo-punk-skate chick with horrible conversation skills. The stunts required to progress through the mode are bizarre and have not semblance to reality. A chore to sit through the cut scenes, a chore to perform tedious tasks over and over. A chore altogether.



So why do I continue to play the series when there are so many faults with it? Because overall, it is a fun game, has it's own challenges, and many things are easily ignored by the customizing the soundtrack.

Posted by Joshua at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I think it was about a month ago, that my friend Gary was coming to town, and I was going to acquire a baseball game for us to tackle. Instead, I found myself getting the Midway Volume 2 collection (that's another article), because there were too many baseball titles to choose from - and I had no idea what distinguished one from the next. Last night however, I chose to rectify this, and rented All Star Baseball 2005.

So far, I've come away with two things: 1.)I know absolutely nothing about baseball, and 2). I suck at baseball. Go ahead and make it three things, because 3). There are a shitload of games to be played throughout the season. Jesus!

My batting sucks, my fielding is barely adequate, and since I consistently pitch easy pitches, I get my ass beat. Were it not for the ability to simulate games, I would be 0-4 instead of a brazen 2-2. My largest loss has been 18-2 - if that gives you any idea how bad I suck.

Gameplay itself isn't too bad. I haven't tired of the commentary yet, but if I were to keep the game, I know that would soon happen. The graphics are good, someone actually spent time on the crowd, instead of just inserting flat images in the seats. And from what little I know of the real life game, it seems pretty realistic. I chose to play as the Diamondbacks, which meant Jeri had to endure quite a bit of questions regarding the team, as well as what constituted a slider as opposed to a screwball.



While there are a few tutorials about the game, there seems to be an absence of one regarding pitching. This could have come in handy, but I think I've figured things out on my own. Should I find access to the manual, I may find otherwise.



Often throughout the game, I found myself thinking that I should have gone with either hockey, Call of Duty 2 or the latest Tony Hawk release. Baseball doesn't seem to hook me, I'm already tired of it, and the only challenge is my shitty batting.



I won't be keeping this one past the due date, in fact - I may find myself at the store tonight.

Posted by Joshua at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ah yes, Manhunt. Jeri suggested this one actually, and of course at first glance, I sneered at it, thinking it would be a lame spinoff of Postal meets GTA meets Fight Club. And how wrong I was.



Perhaps I am alone in this thought, but this game actually created a sense of anxiety while playing it. I'm not sure what caused that, could have been the medication, could have been the beer. More likely it was the American Goverenment that created that fear, and it bled over into my gaming life.

Posted by Joshua at 10:30 AM | Permalink

Sometimes I lean towards attention defiency when it comes to gaming. A game has to really hook me for there to be any semblence of repeated playing. The Hitman series has provided that, and much more.

Replay is definitely rewarding, with numerous ways to complete the missions, from killing everyone in sight (which is always great fun), to completing it by killing only the assigned target(s)...horribly challenging. I look forward to the upcoming release of Blood Money to further the challenge.

Posted by Joshua at 10:17 AM | Permalink

Sure Jeri thought it was a bit funny when the clerk said "You know this is last years edition?"; as she knew full well I never followed professional football...well any football really. However, I have now embraced the sport, and my Eagles are continuously outperforming the other teams.



The only area my team seems to really be sucking in, is regards to the financial stability of the team. As I am over 18 million in the hole, I've jacked up all pricing...so far this hasn't affected attendance.

Posted by Joshua at 10:09 AM | Permalink