Falling In Love
by sweep
A wise man told be to stick to blogging about Videogames and Alcohol. How hard can it be? Sweeps series of misleading blog titles is set to continue this week: By " falling" I meant... you know... Gravity. VVVVVV is a game that, one would have thought, lacks the capacity to truly induce the hypnotic state that keeps you awake until 3am. It's a game that has no disillusionment with it's punishme...
A wise man told be to stick to blogging about Videogames and Alcohol. How hard can it be?
Sweeps series of misleading blog titles is set to continue this week:
By "falling" I meant... you know... Gravity.
VVVVVV is a game that, one would have thought, lacks the capacity to truly induce the hypnotic state that keeps you awake until 3am. It's a game that has no disillusionment with it's punishment as a source of entertainment. The puzzles are simple, yet brutally hard. At one stage I became enraged to the point I actually turned off my entire computer in frustration. Upon investigation I discovered the source of my anger was the games music: the main theme was being played backwards. That, compounded with my repeated failures, was unbearable. Discovering the games attempts to fuck with my mind simply made me all the more determined to power through. The more difficult the game becomes the more proud I will feel having completed it. But still. Mindfucked. I'm playing the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Beta on PC.
It's bumpy but enjoyable. 1943 on XBLA was my first real battlefield experience. It was also my first real S-Rank on giantbomb, so I suppose that's all the endorsement I really need to provide. I'm enjoying the Beta for what it is, though the lack of polish really does begin to grind after a while. In a moment of public spiritedness I even wrote a report on the BC2 Beta Bug reporting forums, though considering the amount of pain that other users are currently experiencing my own beefs are relatively uninteresting. However I have, apparently, a way of complaining that seems to attract a lot of attention. Weird.And So, To Mass Effect 2
I played for 19 hours in 2 sittings. My housemate walked through the living-room 4 times at various intervals over the course of my adventure and each time expressed amazement at my commitment to a single game. I nodded. Mass Effect is not only a game i'm thoroughly enjoying, it's a game I feel necessary to talk about constantly, to people who clearly have no interest, to complete strangers, to people who aren't even listening, to myself. My entire being is saturated with my enthusiasm for a game that is so inherently brilliant. The characters have a life to them that makes them not only valuable for their abilities but for their personalities, for their depth and charm. I find myself unable to commit to a single team, discovering new crew-members always conflicts my opinion of who is the most badass. I tend to roll with Legion and Miranda, though Garrus and Grunt are both fucking cool dudes who I would totally have sex with. In the game? Sure...
Have you heard this guy on the left sing? It's pretty awesome. Each landscape is a pleasure to explore.
You want to go to a Space Prison? Fuck yeah, I wonder how that shit works? And the answer is usually: Like a fox. The game does a great job of not only sparking your interest but maintaining it for each expedition. I find myself in scenarios where i'm genuinely interested in the outcome. I want to know what happens. I want to know what Tali looks like under her mask. I need to remember to feed my space fish. I want to know what effect each minor decision will have on the members of my team. I even look forward to my second playthrough so I can find out how things would have happened in an alternate universe.The game constantly surprises, the boundaries set by it's prequel are constantly broken and improved upon. It's a game that has instantly become one of my favourite videogame escapades of all time. It's a million shared experiences that are all fantastically unique. It's for games like Mass Effect 2 that I play videogames at all.
Perhaps my favourite aspect of the game are the split-second paragon/renegade decisions.
These decisions are so impulsive that it's hard to do anything but act naturally. And by naturally I often find myself choosing the option that seems the most interesting. And by interesting I usually mean kicking a dude out a fucking window. But sometimes I find myself making choices that I would not have made otherwise. Often you are only given a single choice - do something good/bad or do nothing. Often the most difficult decisions are ignoring the flashing Paragon button on screen. "You could save this dudes life!?!?" screams the game. "But it would be more entertaining to watch them die?" is always my reply. It's actually hard maintaining my space-bastard persona, but I have a reputation to keep. Nobody fucks with Sweep Shepard.
Perhaps my largest personal qualm with Mass Effect 2 are the extreme Paragon/Renegade chat options - specifically the ones that the game shows you but you are unable to press on account of not being badass enough. It's at these times that I only really feel frustrated. The game is effectively taunting me, telling me that in order to reveal these options I must be more evil. To reach such a level of evilness however requires a fairly committed level of negativity. This in turn constricts your decisions when playing the game, effectively removing the impulsive element of choice. I start clicking renegade options automatically to get more interesting results in each conversation. The flow of the game stops being natural. If to get the most out of the games morality-quest I must fully commit to either being good or bad then why even bother giving me decisions at all? Anyway. The game is incredible. You should go play it. You already did? Play it again.
That's about it on the Sweep front. I had a bunch of deadlines so I haven't been getting much sleep lately and have been pretty cranky as a result. Sorry if I snapped at you at some point over the last few days. You probably didn't deserve it...
Thanks For Reading
Love Sweep