Archive for March, 2007
Posted under photography
Playing around with an IR filter, a blacklight, and photoshop.
Posted under rant
You’ll notice below that there will be some posts written by other people.
I’m letting some of my friends contribute; most of them being video game reviews.
Enjoy! Feel free to add comments if you have anything on your mind!
Posted under games & reviews & user:Livlos
8.5/10
I’m sure you’ve already heard about this game from multiple sources. If you haven’t, you obviously aren’t a gamer. You probably think this is yet another run of the mill GTA clone, and you couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes it’s a wide open world and yes there are cars that you can steal and drive, but that is all this game has in common with GTA.
You won’t find much of a story in this game. You start by picking an agent and your then immediately thrown into the gaming world. You have 3 gangs that each control 1/3 of the city. Your job is to eliminate every last boss in each gangs echelon. And thats as deep as the story goes.
So there’s no real story? Why should you play this game? The easy and quick answer is simply that this game is a complete blast to play. Your agent starts off slightly super human and will grow into a monster. You have 5 basic skills (agility, driving, shooting, explosives and strength) that you will level up as you go. It’s important to say that unlike similar games, there are no side missions…yes thats right 0 side missions. Just the 20 or so gang bosses to take out. Not to worry, because there is still plenty to do in the world of Crackdown.
Don’t want to take out the bosses? Spend a few hours climbing and running across the city on the roof tops collecting agility orbs as you go. Or participate in the many roof top races which will also increase your agility. Tired of that? Hop in a car and do some street races or perform stunts. Most of the fun to be had in Crackdown is surprisingly the exploration.
Visually this game looks like an over saturated comic book. Once you get close up certain textures aren’t too hot, but it never bothered me to the point of putting down my controller. The lighting is well done as is the change between day and night. Despite the sheer size of this game, you won’t experience much slow down, even with multitudes of villains and civilians and agency officers filling your screen. The city simply feels alive. The sound design in this game is amazing. You won’t even notice it. How is that good? Because it feels real. Open a car door and you will hear the music the driver was playing when you so rudely interrupted him. Walk further from the car and the music fades away. The city sounds like a real living breathing city, so it’s easy to forget about all the work that went into creating it. The music is only played when in a car and fits the game very well. The controls are spot on and very precise.
Yes there are a few bad parts. The ending in my opinion was horrible. They tried to implement a story and for me, it was just too little too late. You will also experience some slow down in frame rate if you try to create too massive of an explosion. Some of the camera angles when trying to make very precise jumps don’t help you out very much.
It should also be mentioned that Crackdown was your ticket to the Halo3 beta.
All and all this game was definitely worth the purchase. This game will keep you entertained for many hours and personally, even though I’ve technically finished the story, I’m still playing to try and get more achievements. Which is surprising, because I’ve never cared about getting achievements before.
Posted under games & rant & user:Livlos
****Spoiler Alert - The following contains spoilers for Crackdown, Saints Row and Rainbow 6 Vegas*****
It might just be me, but what happened to story telling in video games? I remember a time when video games had epic stories and many many weeks of gaming before you got to view an ending animation that wrapped up the story and made the time you invested into the game worth your time.
Now many years and systems later, finishing a game is a rare thing in this household. Most games bore you to no end only a few hours in, other are so buggy as to be unplayable, others still have difficulty settings so unbalanced as to ruin the entire experience. But more often then not, the problem I have is that the story just does not hold my interest. Stereotypical stories you’ve heard and played million times before, or being able to predict whats going to happen next does not make for an interesting game experience.
Although all this might seem annoying, nothing has been worse the latest trend. Let me put you in context. You hear about an up coming movie months ahead of time and get very psyched about it. The day finally comes and you get to go see the movie. The entire thing is fantastic until, 2 hours in, the ending comes up…and completely ruins the experience. Instead of having a nice satisfying conclusion, you get a “to be continued” plot ending. Ok so maybe this isn’t so bad for a 2 hour movie, which will usually have the sequel out the next year. But what if you had spent 10 or more hours watching this movie?
Delving into my recently completed games of the past year or 2, I can use Saints Row as a perfect example. I played that game for weeks upon weeks, I disregarded all the bugs (and yes there were many) and enjoyed the game play and the excellent story line. The game made me laugh and made me hate some of the villains and like the “heroes” . I finally get to the end and what happens? You die in an explosion and your led to believe the “heroes” betrayed you. Might there be a sequel? Maybe….who knows. If there is, how long will we be waiting?
Another good example is Rainbow Six Vegas. Possibly my favorite game on 360 so far. I invested weeks into this game as well. Even though the story was minimal, it kept me going. I finally get to what I thought was the end of another stage…but no I literally get a nice “To be continued”.
And finally, last night I finished another amazing game called Crackdown (watch for my review coming soon). I was told ahead of time the game ends with a twist. In my opinion…not a very good one and a very predictable one at that. You are informed that your boss was the one who set up all the gangs that you just took out and leads you to believe that he now plans on taking on the world. What kind of an ending is that?!?!?
Its to a point where I’m almost preferring games with out a story (guitar hero 2 for example) or games that don’t try too hard with the story relying mostly on the game play to keep you interested.
What does the future hold? We’ll have to wait and see.
-Livløs
This is an AMV (Animé Music Video I believe) that takes the song “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran and fuses it with scenes from Lupin the Third. The song is a cover by Reel Big Fish. The people who made this video did an amazing job of synching the music to the video.
Great music + a great animé = awesomeness.
I love these commercials.
So incredibly zany.
Makes no sense at all.