Sven0330Sven0330Virginia
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Loving State of Decay 2. First time I have pre-ordered and played a game right away in a long time

Sven0330

Sven0330's Blog (44 followers)

Sep29
One By One They FallPermalink
Hello to the world of TA Gamers!

I just checked today and realized it has been over a month since I wrote my last blog here. That can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. Good thing since that means there hasn't been a ton of gaming drama in my world worth talking about or anything super crazy going on...or a good thing if you don't like my blogs (in which case you probably don't read them anyways). Bad thing since that could equal not a lot of progress or fun in that timeframe or the reverse of my good thing comment, you like my blogs and missed them (singing I'm so vain, I probably think this blog is about me...)

Okay enough of that. Real reason I wanted to write this current blog is I miss it and I miss the outlet of writing about gaming. This is not going to be an insightful blog or asking a huge question to the community to make everyone think. This one is for me, to be silly and talk about my recent bean dive recovery and make useless jokes that few will read and throw in some absurd pictures along the way. Straightforward, that is really it.

Last time I left I think I had 5 completed games from my dive. Currently my tally has risen up to 8 since I have polished off DmC: Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 6, and Game of Thrones. Along the way for whatever reason though I have found myself being brought into many other games that I just never got around to mopping up achievements from such as the Guitar Hero franchise games and an old Call of Duty. There has just been a lot of game hopping in general and part of me keeps wanting to tell myself to just grind out one game (actually, I think Bob in my head is saying that. I just tell him to shut up).

And now to steal the Jim Gaffigan references from my buddy Granstaff...

That guy hears voices in his head...he needs therapy and lots of medication...

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First of all, I think I mentioned this in a previous blog, but DmC: Devil May Cry was AWESOME. It is really the one game I have truly loved playing in this bean dive so far (Ducktales doesn't count for me since it was my childhood but I liked that one too). It has me completely psyched to finish my bean dive so I can start the Devil May Cry HD collection. Can't say enough good things about that game. As for the other two I finished they left a lot more to be desired. Resident Evil 6 was okay, just not my cup of tea. I have a sad feeling that I am done with the RE franchise as the games just don't excite me like they used to nor do they pull me into their story. For me if a game becomes tedious and stops being fun I won't go out and buy it anymore. Props to all those who love it, but it sounds as if I will drift away from another franchise.

Then there was Game of Thrones. To all who know little bits about me should know I am a big fan of the books. I have also now started watching the show (don't have HBO so only own seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and that is my only way to watch it. I know I am quite a few seasons behind) but have finished all 5 books and am drooling for the 6th one to come out now. Anyone else who follows Game of Thrones will most likely understand why...and I know I have to be careful as to not spoil the story for anyone. If you really want my reason, I will put it in the spoiler below...

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*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***


So I am excited to play the game despite poor reviews and scores just for the story alone. One redeeming quality is that the story was actually pretty good. Had a few twists and turns in it and kept me guessing a time or two as to what was going to happen. However that was it, the rest of the game for lack of a better term, was shit. Controls were terrible, environments were bland, animation was rough and character kept switch between two poses while talking in a loop like they had some odd twitch that they were dealing with. Combat was lame to look at let alone control since it was fascinating that if you swing a weapon while an enemy is two feet away it MAGICALLY hits them. It was a shame that a game with such a well written plot was executed with the skill of a chimp.

Along the way for reasons completely unknown to me I decided to dive back into some Guitar Hero games, mainly World Tour and Aerosmith. I had a wonderful session day in which a friend of mine and I knocked out all the MP achievement for Aerosmith and left me just staring at the Score Hero achievement (score 325,000 or higher on Train Kept a Rollin) as my last hurdle to eventually 100% that game. Along the way to that achievement, I re-discovered that my skills in GH are not what they used to be. I also developed a very concerning pain in my hand in which if you press right below my middle finger but above the palm of my hand it will shoot pain throughout my whole arm and hand in an excruciating matter. A bassist friend of mine says it may be the beginning of trigger finger...oh joy! I ended up practicing that song every day and attempting it at least 3 times a day as well to improve my score and started hating the song as much as I hate looking at Steven Tyler's face (I am sorry, dude can sing but he is just not a looker. As Peter Griffin would say "I'm sorry I just can't look at you, there is ugly and then there is circus ugly"). I did build myself up from 193,000ish to eventually up to 275,000ish which was pretty good progress. Eventually I had that magical moment in which a unicorn appeared with a leprechaun riding its back amidst a rainbow that allowed me to full combo the crazy chord section of that song 100% along with SP and barely beat the score by about 333,000. If only that could happen with Guitar Hero III which is one of the banes of my gaming existence.

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Ended up being proud though that after needing 618 achievements to complete my dive, I am down to only needing 201. Currently I am working on Too Human which is sad to say another poorly done game in my book. I am starting to see why Microsoft gave so many of these titles away at conferences in days past...no one would buy them.

While I am tempted to vent about my personal life on here I think I am gonna hold off on that for now. It might give some of you who read my little pages here more insight of who I really am behind the scenes of gaming (I am very much myself on this site and while gaming but I don't reveal tons of details about me most of the time) but right now there is some bad stuff going down at my work and I have this wonderful irrational paranoia that someone at my job will somehow find this blog and link it to me.

So this rant looks long enough. Thanks to all who may have read this and happy gaming!
Posted by Sven0330 on 29 September 14 at 15:30

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silverstorm55 i was always crap at guitar hero, could only do easy and normal, but it was fun... until it broke and i had to get rid of that :(

i skipped re6 coz of the terrible reviews and i watched a few walkthrough videos (bits of them) and it looked blah. i might get it some day but i probably wont. was it really that bad?
Posted by silverstorm55 on 29 Sep 14 at 16:47
Sven0330 I hear you on Guitar Hero. Takes a LOT of practice. I even play guitar for real and had to re-learn how to play guitar hero, and what is even funnier is songs that I play in real life as well as the game are actually EASIER on a real guitar than expert guitar hero.

As for RE6, the biggest issue I had from the get go was the visibility. I would recommend turning the brightness settings WAY up first, otherwise you literally can't see a thing. As a story it wasn't really horrible as it had some interesting intersections on how it worked, and I can't speak for how it would have been co-op since I did it all solo. I guess it wasn't that hard but it was annoying enough and for me has gone away from what I used to love about the series (such as Resident Evil, 2, 3, and Zero. I actually loved the setting and story of 4 as well but 5 is when they started losing me). I miss the suspense and tactful approach that you used to have to do in the old games.
Posted by Sven0330 on 29 Sep 14 at 18:35
silverstorm55 out of 1, 4, 5 which is re6 nearest to? my fave was 4 (there the only 3 ive played)
Posted by silverstorm55 on 29 Sep 14 at 20:26
Sven0330 This doesn't answer your question as well as I'd like it to, but a mixture of 1 and 5 (but more like 5 than 1) You definitely are going to be short on ammo in the game like 1 and need to be a little stingy, but the combat and mechanics play EXACTLY like 5 with a few very small exceptions.
Posted by Sven0330 on 29 Sep 14 at 20:30
silverstorm55 i liked 5 but the controls were very clunky, im assuming you still cant walk + shoot at the same time? thats what really annoyed me about 5 (and your useless sidekick lol). i also hate running out of ammo lol, thats what annoyed me about the 1st 1 lol. i think maybe 6 would annoy me too much then XD
Posted by silverstorm55 on 29 Sep 14 at 20:36
tornprince2012 Outside the gaming: next book will be in october, NEXT year, so we have quite a while till then.
Secondly, I think, personally, that all those theories will drive G.Martin mad and he will rethink and replan all he planned till now laugh.

Good job on dive, I am swallowing dust behind cry but I still going for my challenge and even (!) was able to get one of my closest friends here to participate in it! Ha!
Posted by tornprince2012 on 29 Sep 14 at 23:01
Sven0330 Actually, G.Martin has admitted that someone out there has guessed accurately where the story is going. He was then asked if he was going to change the outcome so it would be different and he said that he doesn't want to do that and will stick with his original "gameplan" so to speak. I also saw a hilarious picture that said everytime someone asks when the next book will be out, he kills a Stark laugh
Posted by Sven0330 on 30 Sep 14 at 00:48
tornprince2012 I. Don't. Trust. Him.

He will change it.
Posted by tornprince2012 on 30 Sep 14 at 00:54
LuckyKant I wonder if GRRM will finish the books before he dies.
Posted by LuckyKant on 30 Sep 14 at 01:00
Sven0330 I don't know if I fully do either, but I will have fun finding out whenever we do get to read all the way to the conclusion
Posted by Sven0330 on 30 Sep 14 at 01:00
Sven0330 Lucky, that has ALWAYS been a bigger concern of mine since lets face it, he doesn't look as if he is in good health at all
Posted by Sven0330 on 30 Sep 14 at 01:01
LuckyKant I have never watched or read his series but I am aware of him. He is on the bigger side and given his age, heart attacks are not rare. I have seen trailers and it never sold it to me. I am told the show is all about death and sex.

The series I have just got into was The Leftovers. HBO have announced a second season.

I have also watched all of Heroes, Lost, Big Bang Theory (except S8). Community, Breaking Bad.

My girlfriend also likes watching shows that have finished so she doesn't have to wait ages for the next installment. It is OK in comedies and we are watching The Simpsons together. I have watched the Sunday episodes where a character from The Simpsons and the Family Guy crossover.

We do want to watch the Walking Dead as well, but that is yet to finish so we will continue with The Simpsons whilst we still watch our own shows. I also watch sport shows and British comedies such as Mock the Week which she has no interest in. I am going to start watching X Files as she watches her anime.
Posted by LuckyKant on 30 Sep 14 at 01:14
Luc1d Dreaming Whatever the issues are in your personal life, I hope they get resolved and you come out the other side smiling.

I'm a little freaked out by you saying playing Guitar Hero can be harder than playing an actual guitar. shock I'm just getting started with Rock Band and obviously I'm wondering about moving on to GH at some point. How do you think the two franchises compare for difficulty/fun etc?
Posted by Luc1d Dreaming on 30 Sep 14 at 15:56
Sven0330 Thank you Lucy, the kind words are much appreciated. I try to remember everyone's life is hard, not just mine...but I also get in the trap of not then allowing my feelings to feel validated and that mine don't matter. It's very complicated...therapy is involved.

As for your second questions you have opened a small Pandora's box for me. In my opinion, Rock Band is the undisputed master of music/band games, and I will give you a small reason why by backtracking. I played the original Guitar Hero when it was released for the PS2 back in the day when I still worked for Gamestop. I remembered thinking it was dumb since I played guitar and couldn't figure the game out. Low and behold we set a demo up and I kept playing it after work for fun. Went from Medium, to Hard, and was the first in my store to start conquering Expert mode later on. I got hooked, and ended up loving the game and franchise. Guitar Hero II was the same for me and loved it as well. As soon as Rock Band hit I gave it a try even though I thought it was a knockoff of GH while I also got Guitar Hero III, and THAT was the turning point.

Guitar Hero III is just RIDICULOUSLY hard. Having a musical ear, you are hitting notes in the song that don't exist for sake of difficulty. For goodness sake, in Through the Fire and the Flames the beginning part you play is a synthesizer and not a guitar playing in the background. I still enjoyed the game but it put the difficulty on a level that even I couldn't reach and started I think outing gamers more because of it. Looking at the achievements furthers that difficulty. For example, you need to be able to 5 star all expert songs. I can do all but 3, but the last ones (raining blood in particular) is never going to happen probably for me unless I get someone to help me. Beyond that there are 3 OTHER achievements that are now unattainable since I can't 5 star all of expert. I can't buy everything from the store or all guitars because 5 starring expert unlocks a guitar that you are then able to buy to complete the achievements "long road ahead", "axe collector", and "burning a hole in my pocket." World Tour sealed the deal afterwards cause it's drumming and singing mechanics were broken compared to Rock Band. When it came down to it, Rock Band was more realistic with what you played note wise and was more enjoyable. Plus while achievements were still hard, they never seemed what I have called in the past "stupid hard" or downright impossible. Seriously, on GH III, when am I ever going to PEFECT 20 different songs on expert?

Side note, since Rock Band downloads carry over from game to game, the music library available to you also makes it better.

Okay, I am going to stop this rant. If you wanna know more about my super duper opinion on the music games hit me up online, be more than happy to discuss if I didn't scare you off already wink
Posted by Sven0330 on 30 Sep 14 at 16:17
Luc1d Dreaming I'm not at all scared off, and I look forward to hearing more of your super duper opinion. smile
Posted by Luc1d Dreaming on 30 Sep 14 at 16:27
tornprince2012 I'll just join ( why? BECAUSE!). And will listen to your discussion since I don't understand shit in Xbox music games.roll
Posted by tornprince2012 on 30 Sep 14 at 16:34
Sven0330 We can discuss while singing Beatles songs laugh Still need to find a time we can do that..
Posted by Sven0330 on 30 Sep 14 at 16:41
Sven0330 You can always join torn smile
Posted by Sven0330 on 30 Sep 14 at 16:42
Mr Granstaff "Bacon. The most beautiful thing on Earth." "I should have waited!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YYcQitVp6E
Posted by Mr Granstaff on 30 Sep 14 at 16:51
silverstorm55 yea the notes dont match up to the notes in the songs, a lot of them just didnt make sense! esp when it was a song i know, it makes it even worse :|
Posted by silverstorm55 on 30 Sep 14 at 16:59
tornprince2012 http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.5830

angryangry
Arghhaghahgahgahga - EVIL LAUGH!angry

He will change it, you'll see.
Posted by tornprince2012 on 01 Oct 14 at 11:37
Sven0330 ooooooo can't wait to read more theories! Either way I will never know what he had planned vs what finally gets written. All we will have is his finished product.
Posted by Sven0330 on 01 Oct 14 at 12:38
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