Now that the boring-ass elections are done, let's talk about video games!
Overstock had a sale, so I bought "Justice League: Heroes" and "Bully".
The former: eh. It's okay; the gameplay is pretty easy, and it's always fun for a big geek like me to be able to play superhero. A few of the characters are a blast, particularly Zatanna (who has one of the few good voice-actors and some hilarious powers, like turning her opponents into bunnies), and there's always the comics-nerd frisson when someone like Queen Bee shows up. But there's nothing in the way of roleplay or character, there's no free play, the environment isn't worth exploring even where it can be, and the structure of the thing is straight-up punchout/get from one end of the room to the next. It holds my attention to exactly the point where I can pick which character to play, but beyond that, it's just "What would it look like if Martian Manhunter did...THIS?". So: eh.
The latter: holy shit. Now, I ain't sayin' this can rival GTA:SA, the greatest vidya-game of all times, but man, I am having an absolute blast playing it. Big, open-ended, great voice-acting, fun missions, gorgeously mapped-out and detailed environment, plenty of fun to explore, and (as you might expect from the Hausers, who are to to video games what Grant Morrison is to comic books) funny as hell. There's also some swell original music (I could listen to the main theme, that bass-heavy thing that plays when you're just tooling around the school, all day), and the social interaction actually works a bit better than it does in GTA:SA. "Dead Red Revolver", a huge letdown, proved to me that I'm not a total mark for Rockstar, but "Bully" has won me back to the fold in a big way. It's just a huge amount of fun. Definitely worth the chunks of my life I've wasted on it!
More later, I gotta go to chemistry class...
The former: eh. It's okay; the gameplay is pretty easy, and it's always fun for a big geek like me to be able to play superhero. A few of the characters are a blast, particularly Zatanna (who has one of the few good voice-actors and some hilarious powers, like turning her opponents into bunnies), and there's always the comics-nerd frisson when someone like Queen Bee shows up. But there's nothing in the way of roleplay or character, there's no free play, the environment isn't worth exploring even where it can be, and the structure of the thing is straight-up punchout/get from one end of the room to the next. It holds my attention to exactly the point where I can pick which character to play, but beyond that, it's just "What would it look like if Martian Manhunter did...THIS?". So: eh.
The latter: holy shit. Now, I ain't sayin' this can rival GTA:SA, the greatest vidya-game of all times, but man, I am having an absolute blast playing it. Big, open-ended, great voice-acting, fun missions, gorgeously mapped-out and detailed environment, plenty of fun to explore, and (as you might expect from the Hausers, who are to to video games what Grant Morrison is to comic books) funny as hell. There's also some swell original music (I could listen to the main theme, that bass-heavy thing that plays when you're just tooling around the school, all day), and the social interaction actually works a bit better than it does in GTA:SA. "Dead Red Revolver", a huge letdown, proved to me that I'm not a total mark for Rockstar, but "Bully" has won me back to the fold in a big way. It's just a huge amount of fun. Definitely worth the chunks of my life I've wasted on it!
More later, I gotta go to chemistry class...