playstation network

day 14

I've been occupied by PC games. It wasn't so bad. I already had minecraft so I played that for a while. Later, I got attracted to the Valve games like portal and Half-life 2. They're great games that I might review later. After what happened to playstation network, I'm not so eager to try out playstation network now.

Gaming With Intellect: Metal Gear Series

Welcome to the premiere of Gaming With Intellect, where I get really dirty from digging really deep into games to reveal its very smart side!

As you guys may know, I'm gonna kick it off with one of my favourite game series of all (on second thought my favourite series of all time), and I'm talking about none other than the Metal Gear series! So let's get this @#$% started!

I remember playing Metal Gear Solid 2: The Sons Of Liberty when I was 7, a mature rated game that wasn't visually violent, but it had that eeire mature, and sophisticated feel when playing it or watching it. It got to me very easily, but that drew me in much closer. The amazing stealth mechanics, long, but amazingly executed cinematics, a story that still rapes my mind but is still well woven, what's not to love?

So I followed the Metal Gear series for a while, then I saw MGS 3: Snake Eater, and boy was I amazed at that game. Not only was the it perfect cinematically, and the gameplay was much more intuitive, but that's when I realised MGS games aren't just masterpeices in gaming, but its a masterpeice in art form.

Hideo Kojima didn't want game just to play a game, he want's you to be immersed with the game. He wants you to bawl in sadness when EVA gives the final debriefing about The Boss in the last cutscene of Snake Eater, he wants you to test your patience when you want to get really stealthy, and he wants you to see what it takes to being a true soldier; and he (Mr. Kojima) succeeded.

For that exact reason, I'm (and was) being very skeptical about the portable installments and Rising. I mean yeah, I knew it was gonna be really good but I really worried that it wasn't gonna feel like a true Metal Gear game that has stripped of its goodies due to the PSP's limitations. Luckily, Portable Ops and Peace Walker exceeded my expectations, it felt like a big ass adventure was in the palm of my hands. But there's still MGS Rising, the true "black sheep" of the series that I'm worried about.

I already didn't like Raiden that much in MGS 2 cause honestly, no one can outbeat Snake as a hero character, and plus, it was just unnecessary. That was one of my biggest concerns with Sons of Liberty. In Guns Of The Patriot, Raiden was back and more badass thankfully, but that costed him his personality, another negative. Yeah, his pain and suffering conveyed in MGS 4 got to me, but he was just a meer robot. So why bring a robot back as the starring characterin the next installment? Not mention, the completely irrelevent gameplay mechanics. Again, its a very good mechanic, slicing and dicing people and other things, but there's a time and place for every thing, and slicing $%^& up like an asian cutting vegetables does suit well in the MGS universe. Worst of all, Metal Gear games made you keep your mind in the game and the game punishes you if you start to play mindlessly, and Rising completely abolishes that policy that I come to love, so now, you can just go ahead and slice everything in your path, without even a wee-bit of thought. Is Kojima truly giving up of the seires but ending it on a low note, or is it just a tech demo to see what motion sensign controllers are capable of doing? If that's the case either way, consider me officially losing hope in the franchise.

In conclusion, the Metal Gear series are the a series of games meant for your mind. You have to form a strategy, outsmart your enemy, pay attention to ALL the cutscene if you want anyhope in understanding the whole plot; and I love all that. It sheer cinematics make the games feel like a movie and sure it may give gameplay a bad rub, but you can`t do nothing but admire how well both are executed. But I'm starting to get the itch about the story. Everything has an end, and Kojima needs to close the book on the series soon; but his next project Rising, seems like a sign of a "video game series apocalypse" where the whole seires crumbles in a disastrous ending. I truely love the series, but watching something (heck even someone) deteriorate until its death is hard sight to watch, and I don't that to happen to a series that I have adored for so long.

Hello Everybody!

What's up everybody I'm Syseral! The newest author of Null!

Now don't worry, I'm not gonna be orgasming about video game news (I'm lookingat your FIFTYBOTTLES!!!), but here, I'm the comic relief, and the gamer with intellect. I beleive that like movies and books, video games can be analyzed for the good, and that's what I'm here for. I'm not here to mindlessly talk about video game news, I'm talking about gaming with intellect! Hopefully you guys will understand what I'm trying to say (If not, well better off playing Black Ops)

Anyways, every week (if I can make this my initiative, I'll be doing a series called Gaming With Intellect, where I talk about the smart side of games and I dig real deep to analyze what they truely mean.

Well that's it for me, and remember to always check out Null!

-Syseral (The gamer with the step above most gamers)

Black Mesa

Aperture Laboratories

We Promise Cake

Viewers

In March alone, we manged to get 716 viewers. If you read this, pat yourself on the back. You should happy that you spend your free time reading a blog about Canadian video game players.

Playstation network down

It's been day nine, the response on the playstation network website has changed. But it still hasn't been able to work. The good news is that people's information most likely haven't been stolen. I don't know if I can make it. I barely got through last week without PSN. See you all on the other side.

Playstation Network

I am very annoyed with Sony. I get free time to visit the Playstation Network but no, the network decides to shut down. Besides that, you can't even play online. Say good bye to demos, online multiplayer and everything else on the playstation. This is not the first day, it started on the 20th and now it's day four. I'm just informing you all in case you didn't know. But the most silly thing is that you can still use the internet on the PSP and the PS3. What use are websites if you can't get games off of them.

Resistance 3

SPOILERS AHEAD

I went to EB games about a month ago, I've seen the trailer for resistance and it seems awesome. Although it seems that a big chunk of the game is on a boat, it still seems interesting. You play as Joseph Capelli, Nathan Hales partner. For those who don't know, Nathan is the main character in the first two games. In the second one he gets infected into the enemy. In the third game, which has nothing to do with Nathan, James gets infected. Now the Fourth game but the third in the Nathan/Joseph series is going to be released. I checked the playstation magazine and the multiplayer has shrunk to 16 people matches. But the weapon upgrades and team special abilities are going to replace those potential 30 players. I would seriously like to die as the chimera and have leapers jump out of my corpse.

Halo:Combat Evolved

I am going to post a review every once and a while now, but I know i haven't posted in quite some time. i will now break this streak with Halo:Combat Evolved.

Most of you probably know this game, and that it is the first in a series of Microsoft/Bungie Sci-Fi action games. but this is the on that started it all.

There is the cover for the PC edition, and it was of course also released on the Original Xbox, which is the version i own. now lets dive into some game-play, Shall we?

The campaign starts off in the year 2552, on board the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) starship The Pillar of Autumn, which has just exited Slip-Stream, something similar to light speed or warp, over a mysterious artifact, a giant man made ring. They had to flee the planet Reach (the setting for Halo:Reach) after a massive Covenant (alien) attack, in which the planet was glassed. following protocol, Cortana, the ships artificial intelligence (AI) makes a jump to a set of coordinates she picked up a while ago during a mission. (Read: Halo: The Fall Of Reach) You are over Halo, and there is a battle aboard your ship. you have to evacuate with Cortana and, after multiple firefights, manage to make it to an escape pod, along with a bunch of Marines. The escape pod fires, and you head towards Halo. You crash land, and the rest of the crew is killed but, thanks to your armor, you survive.

I am not going to go any further in to the Campaign, that is basically the whole first level, Pillar of Autumn. As for the game play, the graphics are relatively good, for the time, and, as the back of the case says, the environments flow smoothly together. They [Bungie] have found a way to near perfectly balance the ecology and technology of the Forerunner Ring. As for the controls, they are quite fluent, but there are around 6 presets for them if you don't like the original. The story line is pretty good, and the plot twists can be quite interesting. for the time the game was fairly revolutionary, so that gets it some extra points.

Now for the multi-player. the Xbox version does not have online multi-player, although the PC version does. i have only played the PC demo, so i am not sure what the full PC online is like, but if it is ANYTHING like the demo, it is pretty good. As for local multi-player on Xbox, i used to play it all the time with my brother, and i think we both found it quite fun. Some of the most memorable maps are places like 'Blood Gulch'(returned in Halo: Wars, and Halo: Reach), 'Battle Creek', and 'Hang 'em High'.

Overall, i give Halo: Combat Evolved 85/100 Sgt. Johnson's

Comments

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Stats

Another poll just closed. We might record Little Big Planet. I'm also getting excited/ annoyed by the fact that Pirates of The Caribbean have just gone lego. I mean, Lego Star Wars was great, then the made a bunch of sequels. Next it was Indiana Jones, it was understandable since they're both Lucas arts films. But Pirates of the Caribbean seem too much.

Amazing Minecraft Seeds!

I'm sure most of you have heard it before, but yes, what I bring to you today is an awesome Minecraft seed found by "Redstone Wire" from Minecraft Forums. He tagged it as a "double surface dungeon" seed, which it most certainly is (cool, but at the same time, PRETTY DAMN AGGRAVATING!), but what I found most interesting was this amazing double overhang right near the dungeons. A testament to just how beautiful crappy 8-bit virtual Lego blocks can look... Anyways, I'll post some screenshots below. There are also many squid near the shoreline. The seed for this one is "Quesadila". Enjoy!

The second seed is one that I found, and while it isn't exactly amazing, it does have shit tons of coal in the natural caves (which there are many of!). Downside: Despite having an awesome, expansive lake and many branched trees, as well as underground lakes and rivers and easy to find lava (if you dig down near the shore, that is), many, many monsters will come out of the caves at night, seeing as how most of them open up to the surface. Many more monster than would normally spawn. Despite the gently ascending hills, this isn't exactly the kind of map that a newbie player would want to start out on. Anyways, hope you enjoy my find on this one! The seed for this is "Dungeon".

And now, for those obligatory double-overhang screenshots...

Ridge Racer 3D Review

Yes, it's finally here! My Ridge Racer 3D Review! Anyways, here goes...

This is the first Ridge Racer game I've ever played. Yes, that's right, even though I've owned a PS1 and PS2, I've never played a single Ridge Racer game... Sad, isn't it? Anyways, the reason for that was because I hadn't exactly heard nice things about it... But that was probably because I read the Ridge Racer DS review and thought the entire series was bad. Whoopsie. But, upon picking up my 3Ds on March 28th, and seeing as how the launch titles weren't even close to good and I sucked at Street Fighter, I decided I would pick up a game that had received some good scores on a few websites, and so I went with Ridge Racer 3D. I couldn't wait to plop the cart into my 3DS and just have some good times with it, because hey, even if the game sucks, this is a new Nintendo console we're talking about here. Anyways, on to the actual review...

Ridge Racer 3D, despite the name, is far from a new game. Sure, there's probably some new content in here, but from what I hear, only 20% of that stuff is new, so unless you've never played a Ridge Racer game before, I don't really see a point in picking this up, even though the courses that are included are expertly designed and a blast to play on. But, despite this recycled content, Ridge Racer is actually quite a meaty game. The first game mode I played was Grand Prix mode, and after about 2 hours and 9 events later, I noticed I was only 9% or 10% of the way through the game. I was surprised, and I'll put some perspective on this so you know why. There are three Grand Prix modes; Basic, Advanced, and Expert, the latter two having to be unlocked. Each Grand Prix contains approximately 18-20 events. Each event has 4 races that must be won in it. The first two races, you must get in 3rd place or higher, the third, 2nd or higher, and the last, 1st. If you can't meet up with these requirements, then you must retry that race. Each race lasts about 2-6 minutes, depending on which car you use and how bad/good you are, as well as course length. So, let's just say that each course I raced on lasted 5 minutes, so not counting the time it took to shovel through the menus (there are a lot in here, thank God they aren't that convoluted!), that would be (9 events, four races which are five minutes each) 4x5=20, 20x9=180. 180 minutes I spent on this game just racing and I was only 10% complete it! So, suffice to say, getting to the end in this game is a slow grind, and one that isn't particularly helped by the fact that many of the courses are recycled for multiple events and your first races are unbelievably slow due to lack of good cars. Oh, yeah, and it's just WAY too easy in the beginning! Sure, difficulty does ramp up, but that only happens when you're 40% of the way through the game! That's many, many hours of play time! Eesh... Luckily, when things do pick up the pace, the game is as fun as ever, really making you feel powerful and in control of your car when you pull off those massive drifts and powerslide past opponents.

The graphics in this game are just inexcusable. Sure, some effects can be quite nice, such as the reflective water in the large cityscapes or the sparks flying off the cars (which seem to whiz right past your face, a very nice touch), but overall, the car models are unimpressive, the visual effects aren't all that flashy, and even though cars have dynamic reflections, reflecting everything around them, the refresh rate on those things are downright terrible, and the pixels are so chunky it's hard to tell just what exactly the car is reflecting! I think the resolution on the reflections must've been about 100x60 pixels... In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the developers actually took the engine off of the PSP Ridge Racer game, and then plastered it onto the 3Ds version, making it loom possibly even worse in the process because of the necessary porting job! Overall, even though the 3D helps you plan your next turn and helps immerse you much more, this isn't the kind of game that you buy to show off your shiny new 3DS handheld... Get Street Fighter if you wanna do that.

The music in this game is pretty nice, and there are some standout tracks in here as well. I often found myself choosing my favourite track for a particularly challenging race, and the techno beats help keep your blood pumping. The sound effects are quite nice too, and as you would expect, your car makes a wide variety of noises as it's skidding around corners.

Overall, Ridge Racer 3D is a decent game that does a nice job of entertaining you while you gawk over your brand new 3DS, and while it may not look the best or have the best to offer you, it's still a helluva fun game when the action picks up about halfway through and its a good way of breaking in your new system.

I give Ridge Racer 3D 78/100 3D glasses.

Minecraft Server

Hey all the fans of (null) review not found can now go to our Minecraft server @ 192.168.1.106:50500. Report griefers to nullportalftw@gmail.com . We will be on there from time to time and it will be up when I can put it up but have fun. I am PortalFTW on Minecraft and I'm sure the others that have Minecraft will post their usernames shortly. Also if you have a pirated version you will not be able to go on the server and any of the blog members that have a pirated account should not post their username.