A weekly log of the games I’ve played accompanied by some random thoughts about them

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV
As I’ve been driving around in Liberty City to do some missions and trying to get more dates with Little Jacob so I can start buying gun from him, I’ve realized just how much of a modern dystopia Rockstar has crafted. It’s not so much the fact that it seems criminal activity goes pretty much unpunished if you aren’t in sight of the police or if you can evade them. Nor is it the ability to take, steal or kill with impunity. It’s not even the general details of urban decay and negligence — the carnival doesn’t work, most buildings look like tenaments that haven’t been touched since they were built. Note: I haven’t been to Manhattan yet, which I presume is more sleek anyway.

I’m totally almost going off on a tangent. What struck me as so overwhelmingly dystopian in Grand Theft Auto IV was the way residents were portrayed. From what I could tell, nobody I could find that wasn’t directly interacting with me had a good thing to say. Everybody was angry, swearing, upset or something to anybody and nobody, and especially if you bumped into them or waited too long at a green light. Wow at the instant vitriol at being slow on the streets. Granted, this is an observation from just listening to the ambient conversation as I went around Liberty City, so it’s not very scientific.

I’m afraid I’m not being terribly eloquent about this revelation. I’ll have to put some more thought into it.

Monday, September 8, 2008
NHL 09 demo
I keep buying EA’s NHL games and I do play them, but I don’t keep with it for long enough. Nothing really wrong with the game to account for the attrition. The improvements in the last few years have felt pretty great. I really liked the skill stick mechanic and, after some adjustments, the pace of the game felt right.

The one thing from the demo of NHL 2K7 that I liked which I didn’t find in NHL 07 and NHL 08 is that I couldn’t really play positional hockey as much as I thought. The zones felt a little too cramped and maybe no matter what adjustments I made, the defense was too aggressive to let me cycle in the corner endlessly because doing that isn’t much of a threat. It feels like NHL 09 solved that a little bit based on the short one period demo I played. It was enough to make me pick up the game sooner rather than later — although to be fair, I think the EA Sports Hockey League feature already did that. Hopefully next week and then I have to find a team since the NeoGAF roster is full up from the looks of it.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV
So the dates for Michelle are definitely positive this time around, so I won’t be putting this down and restarting anytime soon like last time. Even though the stats in the game say I only have one successful date and many failed ones, Michelle has accepted my offers to go out. And to go up to her place… mmm, warm coffee. Her enthusiasm was just stunning.

I also now have an e-mail account that I can use at tw@… now with spam. Awesome. Thanks to this e-mail account I found out that there is at least some sort of car collecting mission in Grand Theft Auto IV, since Roman’s roided out buddy Brucie sends me e-mails with vehicles to steal. Unfortunately the ones I’ve had to steal so far as just sitting there for the taking, whereas what I liked in Grand Theft Auto III was that I had to keep my eye out for certain rare vehicles as I went around Liberty City. Sometimes that means I had to fail a mission to keep a certain car, another time I had to incur the wrath of law enforcement to get one of their SWAT trucks. We’ll see how things continue on this string of side quests for Brucie, but this is the type of thing I could get into.

Friday, September 12, 2008
Rock Band
After a few false starts, it was game on for this intra-continental three piece band. You know, the one with my parents and myself.

Yeah, I was at home, playing Rock Band, over the internet, with my parents on Friday night. What’s it to you?

Amazingly, this was my first online foray of Rock Band. I now remembered that I was upset that Band World Tour wasn’t available online. That would have been pretty awesome. All in all, I had fun, this was a great way to spend a little virtual time with my parents. We’ll be doing this again I’m sure. Especially with Rock Band 2 around the corner.

Saturday, September 14, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV
Success! After doing only side quests and social sim missions for a bit, I can now buy cheap guns and armor from Little Jacob. I also did my first of two “friend missions.” Which I didn’t know what they were until I ran across a walkthrough while I was searching for screenshots.

Now I’m back to slogging through the Little Brucie missions, which has been continued to be fun.

Grand theft auto indeed.