Quick Movie Review: World War Z

This is a really good zombie movie. I thought this movie had an interesting new perspective on zombies. It was intense and I thought the zombies were well done and scary as hell. The pacing of the movie was also really fast and I think that really helped the movie along, although the ending seemed kind of rushed and not well explained. I liked this movie a lot.

Twisted Metal game review

When I think of vehicular combat, I think of Twisted Metal. The original Twisted Metal for PS1 is a game that I would play religiously, so I was very happy to see this series finally have a presence on PS3. Is the new Twisted Metal as fun, addictive and ground breaking as the original back in the day?

This new game takes everything you like about Twisted Metal and upgrades it. The graphics look great, the driving and handling are smooth and the online modes are a blast to play. However, fans of the series will notice right that many of their favorite characters and vehicles are missing. Instead, there are only 3 actual drivers that drive all the different cars. Aside from that there is a good variety of vehicles to choose from. You might want a vehicle that is slower but has strong armor, or you might choose a sports car with weak armor and employ hit and run tactics. Your personal preference and play style will dictate what cars you are able to be successful with. There’s even a helicopter!

The single player story in this game is kind of short, especially when you consider that there is only one storyline instead of the multiple storylines and endings that past games had. Instead, you are treated to one story that covers the events of 3 participants in the Twisted Metal tournament. The cut scenes are live action and are very well done – I wish more games would do this! As part of the story mode you will engage in several very fun boss encounters, and if you are truly hardcore you can attempt to beat the story line on Hard or Twisted mode for a very formidable challenge.

The single player is fun and all, but in all honesty you will probably beat the game 2 or 3 times before you get sick of story mode. This is a game that was designed for multiplayer local and online play, and that’s probably where you’ll spend the majority of your time. There are lots of different game types, including death match, hunted, last man standing and a ‘capture the flag’ type game called nuke. The lobby screens are pretty well designed and the game has some fun features for online play including clan and party support. Playing this game online is a freakin’ blast but not without it’s networking issues. In my time playing online I have had some problems getting into lobbies, mid-game disconnections and freezing. The game has already been patched twice and online stability was improved greatly by the second patch, so I’m sure that the developers will have a lot of these networking issues solved soon enough. The good news is that the game is so fun to play that it’s easy to forgive a hiccup or two with the network.

There’s a lot to like about the new Twisted Metal. Battles are fast-paced, look great from a graphical perspective and are full of destruction. There are also some nice details that really round out the package, such as being able to design custom skins for your vehicles (via the Twisted Metal web site) and custom soundtrack support! I think this is definitely worth a purchase. It’s one of those games that has a simple premise, but when you start getting into it you are treated to a game that is deceptively complex and rich with strategy and tactics. Oh, and Sweet Tooth can morph into a robot and fly!

Who will enjoy this game?

• Fans of classic Twisted Metal games
• People with an appetite for destruction
• People who enjoy playing online but would like a break from FPS/TPS shooters
• Social gamers

Haiku of the Day: Power Walking

Power Walking

Look at these assholes
Walking so fast, arms pumping
Power walking sucks 

Quick Movie Review: Date Night

Boring, mediocre, bland. Not much else to say about it. I feel like this movie had potential to be really funny if the plot weren’t so bad.

Oblivion and the ‘leveling problem’

In preparation for Skyrim, I’m doing a new playthrough of Oblivion. I really like this game but hate its broken-ass leveling system. If you’ve played Oblivion before you know what I’m talking about. The game’s enemies and treasures level up as your character does, which sounds like a great idea in theory but it’s entirely possible to screw up your character to the point where you are ‘behind the curve’ of the game and the enemies all own you. To figure out why this happens we have to analyze how the leveling system works.

When you create your character, you’re asked to choose 7 major skills that basically define your character’s abilities and also determine when you level-up. These skills have their own independent skill levels that are raised as you use those skills in the game. When you have a total of 10 skill levels across your major skills you level up. If you are playing as a warrior, for example, you might want to choose ‘Blade’ and ‘Heavy Armor’ for major skills in the interest of improving your character’s fighting ability. This would most likely be fine because with these skills you should be able to handle the stronger enemies as the game progresses.

The problem arises when you decide to try a more interesting character build, like say a thief. As a good thief, you will most likely want to choose a major skill like ‘Sneak’. What good is a thief that can’t sneak? Just imagine yourself in a dungeon, shrouded in darkness, bow and arrow in hand, just ready for that sneak attack on an enemy guarding a treasure you so desire. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Here’s the problem: choosing a major skill like ‘Sneak’ for a thief could actually hurt your character. You will sneak pretty much constantly and your character could level up too fast, causing enemies to become too powerful for you to defeat. What you will end up having to do is stop using ‘Sneak’ and the other major skills you chose in the interest of not leveling up. That’s right, in this game you want to avoid leveling up. This is inherently flawed because as an RPG gamer your sensibilities are to choose the skills that your character is going to use most, but some skills level up so quickly through normal play and don’t really contribute to your characters ability to stay alive that they end up hindering you more than helping you.

So what’s the solution to this problem? What I am going to try for my new playthrough is the following: I’m going to pick major skills that I can generally avoid using in the game, things like ‘Hand to Hand’, ‘Heavy Armor’ and ‘Conjuration’. Basically my strategy will be to have all my good skills as minor skills, level them up until I’m satisfied (gaining minor skill levels does not cause your character/game to level up) and then level up a throw-away major skill 10 times to trigger the character level up. How ass backwards is that? This will be my first time trying this strategy but I think it will result in the best character for me. The beginning of the game might be harder due to the fact that I will not be getting the initial stat bonuses from choosing such skills as ‘Sneak’ and ‘Marksman’ as major skills for my thief character, but I think in the long run it will make my character better and the game more fun.

I’ve purposely been avoiding looking up Skyrim info to avoid things getting spoiled, but I’m very happy to say that Skyrim will be adopting the (much better) leveling system from the Fallout series.

TLDR version: To make the best character in this game, choose major skills that you don’t actually want to use.

‘The Fastest Thing Alive’ cover

Remember this shit?

Some Unibrows

Here are a couple tunes from my band, Unibrows. These songs are from our newest recording Hollow. If you want to buy a copy of the EP online you can get it here.

www.unibrowsnation.com
©2010 Unibrows