It's sad that most of my achievements lately are on XBOX360...
So, I try not to play too much Left 4 Dead 2 because I think when I do it eats a bit into my writing time/morale. However, this weekend I made an exception, and managed to get an achievement I never imagined I'd get. "Still Something to Prove", where you have to beat every (original) campaign on Expert difficulty. And expert difficulty is HARD, particularly when, like me, you play with the bots (who are very stupid. Seriously, if you're in the middle of a fire patch and go down, the bots will run in and try to revive you, burning off all their health and going down too). So how did I manage? I cheated! Well, not really. For those who are unaware, each week Valve schedules a "mutation" that you can play, which slightly alters the game rules in some fun way. I used the current one for the achievement.
It's called "Gib Fest", where the change is that all the characters are auto-equipped with a M60 with infinite ammo, and no need to reload. It's the biggest gun in the game and normally a rarity (and once you run out of ammo it disappears leaving you with no weapon but a hand pistol until you find another). So, naturally, the firepower helps, particularly with Tanks. They'll still kill you if you're not careful, but if you maange to hold it off long enough you can take one down without death. The bots are still dumb (they'll often run right up to the tank and fire at it if one of us is down), but you can compensate.
I really don't consider it cheating because I think the only way to naturally get Expert, even if you're pretty good, is to team up with other Expert players and not bots (bots never use things like molitovs and pipe bombs which are essential to keeping the hordes off your back), and my various psychological issues make that difficult... I just don't feel right asking anybody and if I join a game in progress I fear I'll embarass myself, so I never try.
Anyway, I started tackling Dark Carnival, and that took forever, I got very near to beating a level only to die at the last minute so many times. That I did on Friday. Then, on Saturday, I did the rest, Swammp Fever (second easiest of them, I think only three or four times I died and had to restart), The Parish (hard because of the armored zombies, but the finale was the easiest of all of them), Hard Rain (difficult because of the witches, and how setting tanks on fire doesn't usually last in a hurricane, but the levels are relatively short and by this time I'd gotten some practice in tactics), and finally the one I thought would be hardest, Dead Center. Actually, I figured the first three levels of it would be easy, and the last would be hard. Turns out I was right about the first part, wrong about the second. Dead Center took me the least amount of time of any of them, and I don't think I died once (Rochelle did because of a witch, but we found her in a closet in the gun store and healed her right up with the extra medkits). The finale though, which involves running around, collecting gas cans, and filling up a car with them, I thought would be murder, playing alone. But it wasn't. What I did was go around collecting all the gas cans first, first the top floor ones, throwing them down to the bottom, then the second floor, then finally getting the ground floor (picking up one, throwing it as far as I could towards the car, then getting the next closest one and repeating). I'd gotten nearl of gthe ones from the top floors when the tank struck, and we were able to kill it while it was climbing up after us, and then I'd poured in 8 of 13 gas tanks when the second tank came and we managed to take it down, and I had plenty of time to pour in the last 5 gas cans to win the game. And yay, Achievement unlocked. That's 61 out of 65 achievements for the game done. One more remains likely very difficult (win an expert campaign in 'Realism Mode', mutations don't help with that), another which is very difficult because it involves talking to people to set it up (start a 4x4 team and win a game of scavenger or vs), and two others that require very specific circumstances (in versus, revive a dead survivor with a defib after entering and leaving the safe room, and, in The Passing, playing Versus, Charge a survivor through eight wedding chairs). The last two probably would work great if I could coordinate with somebody to get the achievement through somewhat 'cheap' ways of "I'll help you if you help me", in a private game of versus, but again, unless I have someone I already know well who wants to do that, I probably won't be able to ask.
Anyway, that's how I spent much of my Saturday morning/afternoon when I probably should have been writing. Oops. But I felt okay on making the exception because, on the writing angle.. I'm not back, per se, but I have, for the first time in quite a while, had a story idea that I really like. It's not 100% there yet in conception, but enough's there that I can start and see where it goes. Oddly, it was provoked by a dream, and when I was thinking about it afterwards I connected it to an idea I had a long time ago with no 'story' attached. The idea is sort of 'whimsy' SF (that is, something weird and inexplicable happens that changes everything, that really doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny on its own, but I try to treat it seriously), which is nice because it fits well with not only the fact that it came from the dream, but also the dream itself (which had sort of a romantic (not in the sense of a love story, but a romantic spirit), almost poetical quality rather than being a straight narrative). So I'll be working on that. I had other ideas I liked but haven't quite grabbed me, but at least it's a good sign, hopefully I'm crawling my way out of the idea desert.
Back to games for a moment, since I've been seeing a lot of commercials for Kinect, which I don't plan on buying in part because I really don't have room to jump around. However, I like the idea. I think MY main problem, other than the space issue, is that for most of the uses of it I've seen, it's best for sports or dance games. And I'm sure it'll do well for that type of thing in the marketplace, but for me, personally... BORING. I like adventure games, fighting games, zombies games, something that takes me out of the real world. For me to consider the Kinect, again, space aside, I'd need some seriously cool things you could do in these kinds of games. But in any of those types of games, 'movement' is going to be an issue. You might be able to punch out somebody on the screen by making a punching motion, or fire by making finger pistols, but how to you move? Walk in place? How do you turn? Those are the questions they'll have to solve in a way that feels organic and natural. (I should note that in this section of the post I'm talking ENTIRELY out of my ass. I've never even played with a Kinect. These may be relatively solved issues in practice. I'm just discussing the issues I see with the concept as a way to have fun and explore what I might do with the problems.) I don't like the idea of walking in place, it just always feels wrong, unless they add a treadmill, and turning is the big problem. I'd actually rather they regress a little, and add a simple controller that JUST controls your movement, and is held in one hand (or, you could do something where, say, one finger is monitored distinctly from everything else. If, say your pinky is extended, it means move forward, and other positions mean other movements like turning). Less immersive, but better at controlling, I'd think. Oddly enough, I could see a game involving climbing as the main movement element doable (climbing in place seems to be more natural than walking), some kind of Monkey-man game?
The other option is to make games designed around sitting down or standing in a fixed position. So some general thoughts on the matter, nothing really structured, just whatever comes to mind, I'm bored:
Car ones are obvious, but I'd personally rather some kind of space travel game where you're in the flight deck of a fighter type ship. It'd have to be fairly simple, but you could imagine one set entirely in ship that wouldn't get boring, you could have communications on screen with people (voice and facial recognition are supposed to be features of the Kinect, though I'd not be surprised if we need a console a generation or two later before those become fully useful for gameplay and interacting with other characters)
Slightly off topic for a moment, but I think another area that kinect should consider, if it hasn't already, is the idea of 'props'. Things that you use for gameplay that aren't actually controlled. Like a plastic sword the Kinect recgnizes just by its movements, or a magic wand, or, in the case of the Space Flight Sim, a flight stick. If it can tell when you're pressing the buttons, not because the buttons are powered, but because it knows what button-pushing looks like. For the simpler ones, they could be made cheaply and even improvised if the original breaks, and maybe improvising can be made part of the gameplay (Any thin object in your hand is a weapon, but if it's long like a broom, it's a great sword, if it's small like a remote control, it's a dagger. But having something that gives some kind of tactile feed back would likely add to the experience. The basic X-Box controller might work as a makeshift flight stick. Or, of course, in a SF space-based one, you could have the ship flown entirely with hand gestures, which seems like the more likely option, sort of like the ships in Earth: Final Conflict (before it sucked).
Anyway, back to different game types: Another more specific option is Professor X: The Game. No, seriously, you play Professor X, in a wheelchair. (I don't mean this to be offensive and I really hope it's not taken that way - I don't see any reason why you can't have a game hero in a wheelchair). You can move by making rolling motions while in a seated positon, you can activate your mind powers by holding your hands up to your temples while looking at a character and speaking your commands. You could do something with non-Professor X characters (a wheelchair-based character in a zombie apocalypse might be a cool idea to build a game around), but the idea of playing the X-Man character is specifically kinda cool to me. Maybe you can even 'telepathically' use other X-Men and guide them in their missions.
Standing, you can either play a game on rails, or some kind of limited tower defense game, but really, without some kind of free ability to travel and explore where you want, most of the things you can do with the Kinect feel like 'mini-game' material, rather than something you can build a full gaming experience around, tell a whole adventure.
There is one other type of game that could be done well with the Kinect, the "god game". Remember Black and White? That did so well with the mouse pointer acting as a hand. Imagine it with your hand acting as a hand. The gestures would feel more intuitive, and the only potential difficulty would be adjusting the point of view or your location in the world.
Anyway, on to TV. Walking Dead is still moving well, probably the show I'm most excited about, even if there's only 3 episodes left this season (rassum-frassum). Stargate is second, and Caprica's last 2 episodes ever. Fringe is on the plus side still. Everything else is... pretty blah. At best, the kind of show I still enjoy as a diversion but don't care about enough to miss if it was suddenly gone, at worst I'm actively disappointed by.
I really need there to be some really cool TV shows again, something I can geek out and obsess over. This year was almost a total bust for that.
I've officially given up on The Event. For those that don't know, I don't have cable, I either get stuff through magic, or watch TV over an antenna signal. I get most network shows through one or another Canadian channel. However, when I change channels, I often have to adjust the antenna a little for a relatively clear picture and sound. It takes maybe 20-30 seconds unless my antenna's having a really bad day.
Last episode of the Event, I had a choice between watching the Event and gettimg up to adjust the antenna, or leaving the TV on the channel it was already on and watching whatever. I changed the channel, but did not adjust the antenna. Apparently, I would rather watch The Event on a blurry TV full of static sound. Or, rather, I'd prefer to hang around reading random things on the internet while it played in the background. This is not a ringing endorsement of the show by any means. I officially do not even care about the Event enough to adjust the antenna, so obviously, from now on I'm not even going to bother changing the channel. Sorry, show, you should have been better and stop trying to be Lost with all these flashbacks to the lives of boring characters.
Speaking of LOST, I watched "New Man In Charge", the DVD epilogue to the series and... well, it doesn't change much. I wish it had been left in the premiere, but only because that would have hopefully less time spent on the crap we got and at least given us a COUPLE of answers. But it didn't do enough to make me feel at all better about the series or to convince me to buy the DVDs ever. The show is still tainted for me by them having 2 years to wrap up a show, and giving us what they did. (But, if nothing else, unlike the Event, I actually gave a damn what happened and what the characters lives were like).
It's called "Gib Fest", where the change is that all the characters are auto-equipped with a M60 with infinite ammo, and no need to reload. It's the biggest gun in the game and normally a rarity (and once you run out of ammo it disappears leaving you with no weapon but a hand pistol until you find another). So, naturally, the firepower helps, particularly with Tanks. They'll still kill you if you're not careful, but if you maange to hold it off long enough you can take one down without death. The bots are still dumb (they'll often run right up to the tank and fire at it if one of us is down), but you can compensate.
I really don't consider it cheating because I think the only way to naturally get Expert, even if you're pretty good, is to team up with other Expert players and not bots (bots never use things like molitovs and pipe bombs which are essential to keeping the hordes off your back), and my various psychological issues make that difficult... I just don't feel right asking anybody and if I join a game in progress I fear I'll embarass myself, so I never try.
Anyway, I started tackling Dark Carnival, and that took forever, I got very near to beating a level only to die at the last minute so many times. That I did on Friday. Then, on Saturday, I did the rest, Swammp Fever (second easiest of them, I think only three or four times I died and had to restart), The Parish (hard because of the armored zombies, but the finale was the easiest of all of them), Hard Rain (difficult because of the witches, and how setting tanks on fire doesn't usually last in a hurricane, but the levels are relatively short and by this time I'd gotten some practice in tactics), and finally the one I thought would be hardest, Dead Center. Actually, I figured the first three levels of it would be easy, and the last would be hard. Turns out I was right about the first part, wrong about the second. Dead Center took me the least amount of time of any of them, and I don't think I died once (Rochelle did because of a witch, but we found her in a closet in the gun store and healed her right up with the extra medkits). The finale though, which involves running around, collecting gas cans, and filling up a car with them, I thought would be murder, playing alone. But it wasn't. What I did was go around collecting all the gas cans first, first the top floor ones, throwing them down to the bottom, then the second floor, then finally getting the ground floor (picking up one, throwing it as far as I could towards the car, then getting the next closest one and repeating). I'd gotten nearl of gthe ones from the top floors when the tank struck, and we were able to kill it while it was climbing up after us, and then I'd poured in 8 of 13 gas tanks when the second tank came and we managed to take it down, and I had plenty of time to pour in the last 5 gas cans to win the game. And yay, Achievement unlocked. That's 61 out of 65 achievements for the game done. One more remains likely very difficult (win an expert campaign in 'Realism Mode', mutations don't help with that), another which is very difficult because it involves talking to people to set it up (start a 4x4 team and win a game of scavenger or vs), and two others that require very specific circumstances (in versus, revive a dead survivor with a defib after entering and leaving the safe room, and, in The Passing, playing Versus, Charge a survivor through eight wedding chairs). The last two probably would work great if I could coordinate with somebody to get the achievement through somewhat 'cheap' ways of "I'll help you if you help me", in a private game of versus, but again, unless I have someone I already know well who wants to do that, I probably won't be able to ask.
Anyway, that's how I spent much of my Saturday morning/afternoon when I probably should have been writing. Oops. But I felt okay on making the exception because, on the writing angle.. I'm not back, per se, but I have, for the first time in quite a while, had a story idea that I really like. It's not 100% there yet in conception, but enough's there that I can start and see where it goes. Oddly, it was provoked by a dream, and when I was thinking about it afterwards I connected it to an idea I had a long time ago with no 'story' attached. The idea is sort of 'whimsy' SF (that is, something weird and inexplicable happens that changes everything, that really doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny on its own, but I try to treat it seriously), which is nice because it fits well with not only the fact that it came from the dream, but also the dream itself (which had sort of a romantic (not in the sense of a love story, but a romantic spirit), almost poetical quality rather than being a straight narrative). So I'll be working on that. I had other ideas I liked but haven't quite grabbed me, but at least it's a good sign, hopefully I'm crawling my way out of the idea desert.
Back to games for a moment, since I've been seeing a lot of commercials for Kinect, which I don't plan on buying in part because I really don't have room to jump around. However, I like the idea. I think MY main problem, other than the space issue, is that for most of the uses of it I've seen, it's best for sports or dance games. And I'm sure it'll do well for that type of thing in the marketplace, but for me, personally... BORING. I like adventure games, fighting games, zombies games, something that takes me out of the real world. For me to consider the Kinect, again, space aside, I'd need some seriously cool things you could do in these kinds of games. But in any of those types of games, 'movement' is going to be an issue. You might be able to punch out somebody on the screen by making a punching motion, or fire by making finger pistols, but how to you move? Walk in place? How do you turn? Those are the questions they'll have to solve in a way that feels organic and natural. (I should note that in this section of the post I'm talking ENTIRELY out of my ass. I've never even played with a Kinect. These may be relatively solved issues in practice. I'm just discussing the issues I see with the concept as a way to have fun and explore what I might do with the problems.) I don't like the idea of walking in place, it just always feels wrong, unless they add a treadmill, and turning is the big problem. I'd actually rather they regress a little, and add a simple controller that JUST controls your movement, and is held in one hand (or, you could do something where, say, one finger is monitored distinctly from everything else. If, say your pinky is extended, it means move forward, and other positions mean other movements like turning). Less immersive, but better at controlling, I'd think. Oddly enough, I could see a game involving climbing as the main movement element doable (climbing in place seems to be more natural than walking), some kind of Monkey-man game?
The other option is to make games designed around sitting down or standing in a fixed position. So some general thoughts on the matter, nothing really structured, just whatever comes to mind, I'm bored:
Car ones are obvious, but I'd personally rather some kind of space travel game where you're in the flight deck of a fighter type ship. It'd have to be fairly simple, but you could imagine one set entirely in ship that wouldn't get boring, you could have communications on screen with people (voice and facial recognition are supposed to be features of the Kinect, though I'd not be surprised if we need a console a generation or two later before those become fully useful for gameplay and interacting with other characters)
Slightly off topic for a moment, but I think another area that kinect should consider, if it hasn't already, is the idea of 'props'. Things that you use for gameplay that aren't actually controlled. Like a plastic sword the Kinect recgnizes just by its movements, or a magic wand, or, in the case of the Space Flight Sim, a flight stick. If it can tell when you're pressing the buttons, not because the buttons are powered, but because it knows what button-pushing looks like. For the simpler ones, they could be made cheaply and even improvised if the original breaks, and maybe improvising can be made part of the gameplay (Any thin object in your hand is a weapon, but if it's long like a broom, it's a great sword, if it's small like a remote control, it's a dagger. But having something that gives some kind of tactile feed back would likely add to the experience. The basic X-Box controller might work as a makeshift flight stick. Or, of course, in a SF space-based one, you could have the ship flown entirely with hand gestures, which seems like the more likely option, sort of like the ships in Earth: Final Conflict (before it sucked).
Anyway, back to different game types: Another more specific option is Professor X: The Game. No, seriously, you play Professor X, in a wheelchair. (I don't mean this to be offensive and I really hope it's not taken that way - I don't see any reason why you can't have a game hero in a wheelchair). You can move by making rolling motions while in a seated positon, you can activate your mind powers by holding your hands up to your temples while looking at a character and speaking your commands. You could do something with non-Professor X characters (a wheelchair-based character in a zombie apocalypse might be a cool idea to build a game around), but the idea of playing the X-Man character is specifically kinda cool to me. Maybe you can even 'telepathically' use other X-Men and guide them in their missions.
Standing, you can either play a game on rails, or some kind of limited tower defense game, but really, without some kind of free ability to travel and explore where you want, most of the things you can do with the Kinect feel like 'mini-game' material, rather than something you can build a full gaming experience around, tell a whole adventure.
There is one other type of game that could be done well with the Kinect, the "god game". Remember Black and White? That did so well with the mouse pointer acting as a hand. Imagine it with your hand acting as a hand. The gestures would feel more intuitive, and the only potential difficulty would be adjusting the point of view or your location in the world.
Anyway, on to TV. Walking Dead is still moving well, probably the show I'm most excited about, even if there's only 3 episodes left this season (rassum-frassum). Stargate is second, and Caprica's last 2 episodes ever. Fringe is on the plus side still. Everything else is... pretty blah. At best, the kind of show I still enjoy as a diversion but don't care about enough to miss if it was suddenly gone, at worst I'm actively disappointed by.
I really need there to be some really cool TV shows again, something I can geek out and obsess over. This year was almost a total bust for that.
I've officially given up on The Event. For those that don't know, I don't have cable, I either get stuff through magic, or watch TV over an antenna signal. I get most network shows through one or another Canadian channel. However, when I change channels, I often have to adjust the antenna a little for a relatively clear picture and sound. It takes maybe 20-30 seconds unless my antenna's having a really bad day.
Last episode of the Event, I had a choice between watching the Event and gettimg up to adjust the antenna, or leaving the TV on the channel it was already on and watching whatever. I changed the channel, but did not adjust the antenna. Apparently, I would rather watch The Event on a blurry TV full of static sound. Or, rather, I'd prefer to hang around reading random things on the internet while it played in the background. This is not a ringing endorsement of the show by any means. I officially do not even care about the Event enough to adjust the antenna, so obviously, from now on I'm not even going to bother changing the channel. Sorry, show, you should have been better and stop trying to be Lost with all these flashbacks to the lives of boring characters.
Speaking of LOST, I watched "New Man In Charge", the DVD epilogue to the series and... well, it doesn't change much. I wish it had been left in the premiere, but only because that would have hopefully less time spent on the crap we got and at least given us a COUPLE of answers. But it didn't do enough to make me feel at all better about the series or to convince me to buy the DVDs ever. The show is still tainted for me by them having 2 years to wrap up a show, and giving us what they did. (But, if nothing else, unlike the Event, I actually gave a damn what happened and what the characters lives were like).