Chuckie's Journal

- I can’t complain about work. My eight hour shifts have at most about six hours of work. I have yet to use my additional 2 hours in which I’m still being paid to be productive to do homework or reading, but I’ll adjust in time, I’m sure.  

-My sleep schedule like always is ridiculously off track. If a man representing normalcy was on a ship riding the currents of functional sleep, my man would have been lost at sea years ago, but now he’s entirely shipwrecked. A few weeks back I may have told people that my sleeping habits were awkward, but at least they were regular. I could account for my time based off of the day that had passed.  

How glorious that sounds.  

Now, I lose entire fucking grips of time. If I had such sands that could reverse specific moments, I’d be frightened to use a single grain. Who knows where I’ve been or what I’ve done. I’ve woken up to find strangers in my house. Strangers IVE INVITED! 

Anyway, I’d use said sands to rewrite papers that were horrendous. I almost want to apologize to my TAs for having those papers thrust upon them, a poor reflection of not only my work, but of my being. 

Grade wise I have a nice buffer of A’s in all my classes so I’m positive that unless I do equally poor on the final exams I can maintain them all and at worst forfeit a few to B’s. Regretfully though, my character has been tarnished. 

But Seriously, some nights I get 4 hours, some nights I get two separate blocks of 4 hours in which I do Something in between, and about twice a week I get a nice 12-13 hour uninterrupted respite. I’m sure it “averages” to about 8 hours of sleep. So for those of you that wonder why I don’t answer the phone at 8pm or 2am like I used to, I’m probably asleep. And even if I’m awake, I’m actually asleep.  

-I’ve spent the majority of my gaming time on my 360, and I don’t know when my tastes shifted, nor would I have believed they ever would, but it’s jarring to acknowledge that the games I’m playing almost exclusively are western developed. Ubisoft’s repetitive sand box game Assassin’s Creed deserves most of the praise it was given. The “leap of faith” is awesome and the controls awkward at first, but logical and original in the grand scheme of things. With each of the 4 face buttons representing an aspect of Altiar’s body. The bottom button his legs, the left and right buttons his arm’s, and the top button for actions related to the use of his head. My only complaint really is that Jonathon Blow’s Braid gives us a longer experience. Although for the first hour or so I could make a case for AC being equally fresh. 

Assassin’s Creed’s real down fall is that it should have been developed for another few months, maybe less then that. It’s just that each voiced dialogue from the NPCs in the city is exactly the same from the first time you are given the liberty to travel from one populous to another. Everything a character can utter in the game will be heard in the first 2 hours. From then on, you’re essentially hearing and doing the same exact stuff over and over. While the difficulty is increasing it never feels substantial. You never feel as though the game is forcing you to think of its mechanics differently. The only reason you can’t do the same moves you did in the beginning of the game (ignoring the prologue) is because the game artificially takes that option away from you. It gives you new skills as you progress through the story. I imagine the reason they don’t give you all the skills to start is because the players would realize how repetitive the game is almost immediately.

What makes up for all that though is that the game is fun. Most games are repetitive, but most at least force you to think differently the further you progress.  

I’ve also spent a lot of time with Gears of War 2. I’m not really buying the whole, “no, seriously guys, this story is good this time around.” It opens nicely, but the actual dialogue during missions is disgusting. I’ll try to pay attention more to the story when I attempt insane mode, but really, you hide, you shoot stuff, you hide some more. It’s fun, but let’s accept what it is. 

Matt, Trevyn and I just recently played the Left 4 Dead demo last night. Another game deserving it’s praise. I don’t really want to comment too much on it without playing the real game, but the fact that the simulator has a director that will randomize when players will be terrorized by a wave of zombies really makes the experience feel authentic. For those of you some how reading this far into my “game” section, but that still don’t know what Left 4 Dead is, it’s a "zombie horror survival simulator," essentially.  Where regardless of the number of controlled players, there are always 4 characters in the game in which the player must cooperate with to survive zombie death. Cooperate is italicized because of people like Trevyn, who likes to set off car alarms to insure the death of many. 

I’d advise people to read what they have said at RobotPanic.com about Left 4 Dead and to check out their weekly podcast, The Drunken Gamers. But I know most of you are lazy, so I’ll just insert what is the most acute reflection of my own personal experience/thoughts with the game. It comes from their post declaring it as the "best zombie game (ever)" with 5 reasons.

“2. It Let’s You BE the Character: That’s not me saying it gives you the ability to role play. Although you can do that if you must. What makes Left 4 Dead such a brilliant game is that it’s meant to be co-op and as such, takes what is often Xbox LIVE’s greatest detriment and turns it into an asset. We’ve bitched about the douche factor on LIVE for years. We’re not easy people to get along with in general over here and we’re often too easily annoyed by the slightest quirks in people. When it comes to online play, the anonymous nature of a headset and an avatar usually leads us far, far away from any interaction with strangers. But in Left 4 Dead, it works.

When you’re in a group with 3 other strangers, the weird ass quirky people actually work as characters in a zombie movie. You’re always going to have the “new kid” who’s doing this for the first time. There’s your noob. You’re going to have the experienced, hard as nails tough guy. There’s your expert, hardcore player. You’re going to have your strategist, you’re going to have a daredevil, and you’re going to have some crazy ass guy that’s a loose cannon and annoys the shit out of everybody. All the different personalities that you find on your favorite online service work very well in a game like this. Without putting on some fake story, or forcing you to do something to give the game a better narrative, the co-op nature of the game simply let’s everyone be a character. And with every “oh, shit!” moment, the nature of your companions comes through and makes it feel as if you’re really IN a zombie movie. This may be the first time that the fundamental nature of Xbox LIVE and Steam really become an integral, core part of the game. For my money, this is the first time the social element of Xbox LIVE really, really works.”

Can’t wait for that to arrive in the mail.

Hope that wasn’t too long.

I can’t seem to post as often as I’d like,.  

      Who’s to say whats to blame?

Extra Interests:

-Cooking Mama and Vegetarians Unite!

-People may be forced to be less offensive, lets cross our fingers!