Whatever that means..
Well, knowing I don’t have an audience to my blog yet I will write to the future audience *hopeful*.High School was pretty rough for me last semester, it kicked my butt. Between taking some college courses at a community college in my area and Algebra 2 at High School, I was spent. I also lost a little bit of the fire for writing about games. But, realizing the new games coming up and seeing a couple of legends in gaming editorial excellence get canned or leave(GameSpot.com) I felt I needed to write and not quit because of laziness if it’s something I enjoy a lot and feel strongly about. Anyways without further adieu I’ll kick off my “return”.
So, as I’ve said before, since this is my blog I’ll be writing about things I’m interested in and want to talk about. This means I won’t be covering everything under the sun regarding games.
So a lot has come out while I’ve been gone. Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii was one huge thing for me since I own a Wii. I guess I’ll give some quick comments about it.
Mario games just about always come with many praising remarks and glory to be given. Super Mario Sunshine felt like a let down to me when measured against just about any other Super Mario game out there. I was skeptical about Galaxy, at first. I remember thinking “What is going to make me want to go back to playing a platformer?”. Well, some videos, and great reviews from respected gaming website editors peaked my interest. Anyway, I got it and let me tell you they were not mistaken in their praise. This game starts off charming enough, as any Mario game. But after a few stars you think, “Is this as hard is it gets?”. You’ll want to bite off your tongue just a few galaxies later. Each Galaxy has multiple stars and the further you get the harder the stars are to collect. There is another feature of comets that, when in orbit of said galaxy, change the rules of that galaxy. Which is really brilliant as it gives replay value to a game that has a pretty standard game length otherwise and Galaxy is a game worth playing much more than the 60 stars it takes to beat. After getting the 60, if you brave the other 60 you are rewarded with a new playable character. Luigi of course! Luigi jumps higher and runs faster with a penalty of taking longer to stop. If you go through and get every star again with Luigi you are rewarded with one final star. This game won game of the year on GameSpot.com. A worthy champion in my opinion.
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare came out too. This gam really is something amazing. I bought the original Call of Duty for the PC back in like 2003 or something because the clan I was playing WW2Online with bought it and loved it. Since then I haven’t missed a CoD game(with the exception of CoD3 which was not on the PC. The only reason I can forgive this is it allowed Infinity Ward to have much more time on CoD4 ).
Call of Duty in my opinion was a game that kept the genre of WW2 Shooter alive long after it would have been otherwise. These games gave an intensity and a newness to the WW2 Shooter experience every time a new one was released. I think everyone can agree though that they were ready for the jump to Modern Warfare by the 4th installment. While the game has a surprisingly shorter campaign than expected, it is a very clean, intense, well-written campaign that throws you into about 9 hours of non-stop action and somehow doesn’t lose it’s story in the fray. There are these short cinematic moments in the game that you get to be a part of. They really make you feel a part of the story. One is after the first mission you play. The President of a fictional Middle-Eastern country has been kidnapped and you watch, through his eyes, as he is dragged into a car, driven to a stadium, and then executed.
It’s a good thing Infinity Ward had their Multiplayer team focused on Multiplayer for the full time they worked on the project because we all knew after playing the Single Player that only a piece of the meaty goodness that is Call of Duty 4 had been uncovered. The immense amount of effort put into the Multiplayer really shows. The intuitive class and ranking systems are done so the game doesn’t feel too much like an RPG but rewards you for playing the game more and getting better. The multiplayer gameplay, however, is good enough to stand on it’s own.
Call of Duty 4 is another great addition to the series. Infinity Ward really timed the transition to modern times perfectly. Not only that, but they delivered a game that more than manages to live up to its series’ past pattern of fast-paced, intense action with a story that pushes you through to care about what you’re doing as more than “killing bad guys”. Not only this but it raises the bar on the First Person Shooter genre and the Call of Duty series itself to knew heights that must be played and experienced to comprehend.
That’s good for now. I have some other things to talk about but I’ll give your eyes a break. Thanks for staying with me..sheesh.
