There's a point in Metal Gear Rising where I did a double take. As Raiden is running along the underground Mexican child soldier/AI Brain facility, his action is cut down to have a dialog sequence with the Doktor. There's he's informed that this is the Artificial blood, which was an important plot point for Metal Gear Solid 4 right after the fancy fight between Raiden and Vamp.

So then I started to wonder why exactly is the blood all red if there was such a sudden stop to inform me this? Well it was to mask in a loading sequence, but it ended just realizing there wasn't any need for red blood if the while blood is still represented in this game.

Now this didn't necessarily ruin everything about Rising, in fact I enjoyed it greatly. It's just a point where I'm noticing that video game plots are getting closer to dumb action films that I enjoy that are horribly flawed. Like the film Point Break or Johnny Mnemonic.

The DMC reboot came along with a similar problem, the more I started to think about it the more I was starting to see the flaws in the overall film. Limbo is happening and that's why Dante is considered a bad guy, but then he's not there, but he's filmed there, but he can only shoot at Kat, and Kat is a medium so she sees him no one else does.

DMC and Rising set up an interesting parallels of current social and political events to set up an interesting satire. At times it's compelling and then other times it's ridiculous Rising goes far and beyond DMC to the point it's so silly I salute it's sense of ambition. To be honest all of this is just nothing more then a set up for action to take place around. Both games just crank up the melodrama in odd times where it doesn't come off well. But that's why I bring up Point Break and Johnny Mnemonic, somewhat competent films with thick layer of cheese. A tremendous amount of time is spent on character growth but then remain unlikable even by the end of the film.

It's one of those things that really pull me away from ever considering games are art. Point Break is a film I'd never consider art, but I'll quote it any chance I get. "You gonna jump or jerk off?" It's fun, no shame in that.

As I play Rising, I do want there to be white blood, but then that's myself being an adult trying to not enjoy the visceral image the red blood is displayed on the screen. Red is striking color, can't blame them for using it, and I wouldn't want them to not use it.

I just need to turn off my brain more often.

Right now sitting through a reformat process.

Why? Well that's what the Sony Customer representative recommended. 7 hour wait.

Apparently this is a common problem with the PS3 in which the HDD has problems. This has been popping up for the past month. During cinematics, it will freeze.

I'm used to seeing this screen a lot.

I'm not sure really if I should just send it in or just give up and buy another PS3. I say this because I'm not surprised of devices breaking down and just replacing them with a newer model. My sister has about 5 different ipods, and 10 different macboooks. I'm not going to pretend "this has violated the trust of the consumer." That's ridiculous, I'd be sending it to a assembly line repair shop that's just going to go through standard diagnostics, polish it up to work at a somewhat compatible state and then when I get it back it will last 3 months.

It's weird world we live in, went in to send in my lawn mower for a missing bolt to hold in the blade together. There's a guy waiting in line, and he's arguing with the clerk who's sitting at the front desk. The old man is arguing over a part he's holding, but the clerk is asking "you need a serial number on the part." This is really what costumer is about, not saying Sony was as bad as this. But the guy at the desk has to stay at the desk and not loose his post unless he's sure of what he has to do. It's protocol for the hardware store he works for. He may come off as a dick, but that's the system we live in.

I'm just a consumer, and I shouldn't hold any real sentimental value over my video game system. But right now just kicking around questions if I should sent it in to repair or just buy a new system and save the drama of repairs nonsense.

Still got 7 hours to wait till this reformat happens, but I do think it's the blu ray laser that's unable to read the discs.

Monkey Island 2 isn't necessarily the best graphic adventure game. Yup it's a best selling game, it's well received game, but it's not necessarily the better then it's previous game or it's other brothers and sisters in the golden gods of Graphic adventure Lucasarts games. The massive technical leap of Sam and Max Hit the Road easily overshadows everything Monkey Island 2 tries to do. Instead Monkey Island 2 feels a bit like a stop gap in Lucasarts games.

It's not necessarily a bad game but it does a lot of odd things to make it just difficult to enjoyably.

Let me start from the begining.

I tend to replay Lucasarts adventure games for inspiration. Steve Purcell and Peter Chan's background work inspire me, their beautiful composition and easy to read nature are the better then anyone else out there. But I will always use ScummVM in order to replay these game, reading off ripped CDs I've owned for over 15 years, when an Electronics Boutique was going out of business. Well I was fortunate enough to be gifted Monkey Island 2 Special edition, but was sitting there for close to a year and a half and I never really did push myself to use it until I had the lust for achievement points running through my vain.

Easily Monkey Island 1 special edition was really the most painful of the re-imagined graphics I have ever seen before. But something about the new work in Monkey Island 2, gave me an opportunity to give it a second chance. Now, as an artist, I could easily just critique all because there's an easy button to flip back and forth, but I do feel that Lucasarts did a half way decent job at really making the graphics easily readable for the viewer to find hints and objexts. The original Monkey Island 2 was one of the first big leaps in technology using scanned in art. So Steve Purcell's art, which now is now showcased in Pixar Studio's art gallery, is every bit noticeable. but there was no alteraterations. No tweaking of colors, so everything looks washed out. To be fair this isn't just the special edition the original game running on ScummVM also looks washed out.

Now the animation isn't nessicarly horrible, using prerendered models, do actually add a bit more flow and sway. And they never do PUSH the faces into something horrible mess. But the original art and animation does add it's own unique charm, the drinking game man nervious twitchy leg is audorable and makes you like him more before you kill him.

It's greatest sin is it's abuse of sailing back and forth to fetch items from each island. Finding obscure items to solve a puzzle when in reality simplicity of the Jail Cell puzzle from the Pirates of the Carabean ride solves it. Still it's own silly logic has it's own limits, I'm often reminded how steam punk logic isn't terribly broken when you start building things a bit too far. The whole feeding apparatus and Stan the modern day salesmen work in monkey island world. It's just the whole ending amusement park and Guybrush and Lee Chuck were brothers all along just goes too far.

It's not as a fan that I don't enjoy the silliness, in fact I actually crave for the weirdiness in almost all my games. I just feel that in Monkey Island 2, the weirdiness doesn't have a real stable leg to stand on it's own. Steampunk fiction tries really hard to PUSH it's way into fantasy and other worldly themes, and they actually work. Now, the story of Monkey Island 2 does help illustrate just how criminal Guybrush is with all his WACKY Antics of adventure game logic. If it had gone further, maybe it'd be up to par with Sam and Max and Day of the Tentacles endings of just going into random destruction to solve their own problems.

Again, I'm impressed with the work Lucasarts did to help maintain this game. There's a point where I want to call them the "devil" as much as any self rightous internet blogger would. But still I can play this game on literally any laptop, on beautiful quality, and the original pixel art is unspoiled. It's a pretty much a half recommendation, but compared to Tales of Monkey Island which is pushing the series into more relevant

I don't believe I'm in the minority when I say this, but I play TF2 to relax.

Actually on a lot of games I'd find dudes a lot more relax then me. Actually first time I discovered this was during Counter Strike days, in the super tense match, guys would explain how they chill out instead of easily get frustrated. And it's not till now I realized that TF2 is that game for me. It's something where I don't care if I win or loose, just log in hang out on a server I regurally visit and play with people I know. Now I have a track record of over 2000 hours. I know Steam has deleted a few hours but if your count my time spent with individual class you will see I play maybe an hour a 2 a day since the game's been released.

I regularly try to invite friends to join, but even then it's FAR TOO FRUSTRATING. "the team isn't doing what I want them to do." "I keep getting killed, don't know where it'd from." and other excuses. That never gets to me. I don't consider myself a PRO Gamer, I don't even consider my time spent on TF2 to be serious. I will play as Pyro and just run head first into danger constantly hitting the compressed air blast. Knock people back, get them into corners, and then let someone else kill them. I feel more like it's griefing then it is actually playing.

Now that's not all, I do visit the modded servers regularly. Love the Saxton Hale mod, just ridiculous over powering boss that gets randomly selected by the players in the server.

Prop Hunt servers are ideal ways to have fun. I love the all speak servers to have a witty banter trying to convince players I'm not there.

I have a soft spot for the Frog servers, reminds me a lot of the quake 1 days and the glyphs.

Is there a way to get players into my mind set? I am not sure? There's this persistent laziness of gamers. Sometimes clever but most of the time it's frustrating for them to try to something new. This isn't Red Orchestra or ARMA2, where it's walking across a 15 mile map only to get headshot by an unidentified sniper. This is like how Tekken 3 starts, RIGHT UP IN FRONT OF A DUDE'S GRILL, AND THEN THE MATCH STARTS. But it's not that alone, it's not so much skill, it's more along the lines of drunken accidents that lead me into actually making kills in this game. I would never claim myself to be a tactical shooter fan, but the chase I get to run around like a goof ball with a silly weapon, I'M THERE! My tactics really consist of "Just aim into this direction and unload my gun." And somehow I magically get 3 kills. It's more like Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies wacky scene, but I'd like to think there's more Rum involved.

My intention aren't to win, but instead, "I wonder what sprays they have inside their spawn point."

even, when people say it's about the community, actually, I shut off all speak, and just chill out. I'll have another thing streaming on my second monitor, I'll be drawing with a paper and pencil. I don't believe I'm actually socializing half the time. Half the time it's that satisfying POP of seeing gibs fly across the screen. It's a visceral experience that requires very little interaction.

I guess I write this, after listening to the Bombcast, just the whole rant against TF2 made me realize "I'm a fanboy, and I can't go without going into a blind rage when someone critiques what I enjoy." Now the truth is that the game isn't IMPOSSIBLE to get into. But it's more about the laziness of the gamers and their excuses to not get it. I feel it's more about being persistent and encouraging. "Hey, check out this cool map." or "try out this rad weapon." I still believe it's not as professional as other games out there. It's delightful goofy make your own fun.

I never claimed I'm the best gamer, but I sure love hitting that taunt button any chance I get

I must confess I was one of those fanboys who was in denial over Metal Gear Solid 4's story. Blinded by the enthusiasm over the release I'd be happy anything with just the name MGS4 on it. Still 4 years passed by, and I'll watch the cinematics and enjoy parts of the story here and there. But it's not till the achievement update where I started to notice the glaring problems of the story.

Well this is just one of the 34 trophies, but it's a gold trophy so it's level of important is pretty significant. I honestly thought I could achievement, I lost count how many times I played the game past 30 times. But around the second act I couldn't take it, I would sit through every single cinema, and I'd just be anxious for the X button to pop up. By act two, with the exposition scenes with Naomi Hunter, I'd start to grow restless and start just looking at random items in my living room, just doing anything to keep myself entertained. Then I'd notice I'd miss my chance and press the button and then just move on with the game. By the time act 5 happened I caved in and seeked for a FAQ on where the flashbacks happened.

The biggest problem is a lot of the melodrama and more somber tones of MGS4 are really dragged on. There is a purpose for them, Snake is now dying, growing super old and Fox Die is transforming him into a walking bomb. The big cancer scene is any movie isn't going to get people to come out of the wood works, but still it's handled pretty horrible with extended dialog lots of made up mumbo jumbo dialog and then at the end the explaination for everything is ...... NANOMACHINES. It's just unsatisfying to watch.

MGS4 to me comes off as a Cult film your having difficult to understand the fandom over. Which is odd because I'm in that fan club, and yes, MGS4 could easily come off as cult film, old dudes stabbing one another with syringe in neck, crazy metal gear on metal gear violence, flashbacks of PS1 era graphics, etc. And that's why I eat it up, it's this level of crazy that I'd love to think is cool.

I've been going through cult cinema and there are awkward films, films with amazing one scene but the rest seems stiff and lifeless. An excellent example is Mario Bava's Danger Diabolik, super sexy crime film with some pretty terrible scenes stitching the film together. But the film has style, so much style it makes James Bond look boring. But it's beloved and gets immunity because of it's charms and not of it's flaws. But also other italian films like Don't Torture the Duckling, gets praised as a suspenseful Luici thriller but it's nothing more then a schlocky exploitation film.

MGS4 does have high ambitions but seems to be bloated with cinemas for about anything. These scenes are handled with double in hopes to sound clever end up just wasting the time of the viewer. Actually Dialog isn't really MGS4's best suit, in fact seeing Snake just ache his way through the game is effective enough. But we still get awkward moments of "I'm going to make a smoking joke, but it falls flat." And really growing old is an excellent scene in the PS1 MGS1 flashback scene. It plays out pretty much out of nostalgia, but then when faced with reality of how the controls and graphics have aged compared today, then it's true where you'd like to see how the game to turn out. And Act 4 being played out all in Shadow Moses is a brilliant moment that I do feel it's worth playing through the game.

But earlier last year MGS HD Collections was released, now while MGS2 and MGS3 were bloated in story and some horrible scenes, I'd prefer those games over MGS4. Yes, Rose's dialog "Your heart was empty like your room" do rank in the worst dialog I've ever seen, but I do think it's still much more enjoyable experience then MGS4's prolonged exposition leading to nothing remarkable. MGS3 had the bizarre Scientists who all DIE so there's no point in giving them over 30 minute long cinemas, but still I'd play MGS3 a million times over. And Peace Walker, a game which took the BEST IDEA EVER, and AXED ALL THE DIALOG OUT in favor of small bite sized sneaking missions.

Is MGS4 the worst game ever? Oh god no. It's still a remarkable commentary on private military, information wars, shadow government, conspiracy theory, the future of prosthetic limbs, etc. It opens the door for discussion, and it does it better then lets say Modern Warfare which is actually very enjoyable but makes everything feel like monster closets and turret sequences. In MGS4 the moment you have a giant shoot out, Snake will just vomit in disgust over himself enjoying the killing which renders him unplayable. And that's why I've loved the MGS series, since the PS1 game when the dogs peed on snake's box, or when Snake has the Box conversations. Just little touches like that in an overly pretentious narrative by an auteur who's in serious need of an editor.

I'm still halfway through this achievement, but I do feel I'm out of this denial, and yeah, MGS4 has a terrible story. AWESOME OLD DUDES STABBING ONE ANOTHER IN THE NECK.

Well apparently both my DS Lite and my DS Fat have cracked hinges so bad they are unplayable

So I got a 3DS as a birthday gift. It's pretty sleek and nice in it's own Nintendo charm.... now what should I get for it? I still don't understand street passing. Kinda am tempted to buy MGS3D because that's my cup of tea

This is one of those cases where, how much technology advances a series and it's hard to go back to the past game. Still one of my favorite games of all time, but if I was given a second I'd run to a DS and play Dawn of Sorrow

Not too much late, actually the game came out around 2 months ago, but there's something satisfying about taking my time and just enjoying the game.... and then beating it in less then 3 days. But still, I'm in awe over the game.