Tag Archives: video games

Funny

16 Apr

So today it dawned on me that this blog has been around (in it’s many avatars and aliases) for almost 9 years.

9 years.

In Slackerninja-speak, it’s seen me through:

1. Three relationships.

2. Two generations of video game consoles and more games than I can count.

3. A slew of computer hardware, new and old.

4. College and way too many jobs than I should have been employed in.

5. Three sets of friends who have been discarded and disregarded for reasons known and unknown and downright ugly.

6. A boatload of rejections, crashes and burns to count in various facets of my life. Professional, personal and social. I’m a living crash test dummy.

It’s been my whiteboard for all those crazy moments of sheer euphoria, snark, depression, apparent wit and the ever increasing emo-ness that comes along with the sheer attempt at living.

Which is why I find it incredibly funny that this digital journal of sorts, is one of the few things that keeps me sane. Funny how something incredibly simple and potentially taken for granted is all that’s needed to keep one grounded.

Or something like that.

Yeah. 9 years. It’s scary. Almost a decade of half-baked thoughts expressed on the internet and they haven’t put me in a straitjacket yet.

Funny? Incredibly so.

 

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[RANT] So I finished Max Payne 3

23 May

I searched the cold confines of my soul in an attempt to fill up this blog post with something to write about everyone’s favorite anti-depressant addict. Much like a Mumbai policeman at a Juhu rave party, I ended up empty.

There isn’t much to say that hasn’t been said of one of the biggest releases of the year that isn’t called Diablo 3 or prefixed with the words “Call of Duty”. Max is witty and brooding as always, backed up by writing godly enough to make Sachin Tendulkar seem human. Trademark Rockstar production values are back as well.

It might not have the open world charm of Red Dead Redemption or GTA but the attention to detail is stunning as usual.Oh and there’s more than a hint of film noir. In fact it’s slathered in it, from the story telling to the moody music and the shifty environs.

Controlling Max is a sluggish affair but a few tweaks to the control sensitivity, and you won’t miss a beat since the last game in 2003. For a series that invented the oft-used and abused bullet time slash slo-mo move seen in a ton of other titles, it’s good to have it back in full force. So far so good right? Well, mostly.

You see, for all the awesomeness the developers have managed to pack there was one colossal loop hole that keeps nagging me long after I’ve put the game down. If you’re sensitive to spoilers, stop reading.

No seriously, stop.

You still here? Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The last segment of the game takes place on an airstrip. To get there you have to hop on a train. Obviously with this being the near end of the game, you’ll find yourself outnumbered and outgunned by tons of armed baddies who are on another train on the side of yours, going in the same direction.

After you’re done offing most of them, you realise that your train is going to crash into a slab of steel. You promptly jump onto the other train, dispatching the few remaining cronies who were laughing at what seemed to be your apparent downfall.

Then you’re delivered to the airstrip, where, no surprise, there’s enough disposable soldiers for a huge disposable army. It’s at this point where the writers and designers took a magical leap of disbelief. You’re treated to a cut scene of Max Payne slinking off into a hangar like he was Solid Snake. Which he obviously isn’t else this would be called MGS5.

What’s amusing and yet, at the same time, vexing is that not a single bad guy, not a single hired gun would realise that a train just arrived with more corpses than people, carrying the one man single-handedly responsible for lowering the life expectancy of the average video game goon to almost single digits (preceded by a decimal point). It was a frustrating turn of events in ways more than one as it made no sense.

Did Max, after his years of alcohol and painkiller abuse master the art of invisibility? Or did his foes have a death wish? The possibilities are endless because the logic did not exist. Perhaps that was the wrong way of looking at things?

After all, this is a game about a down on his luck, mostly drunk, depressed ex-cop on a quest for redemption who has the ability to slow time down in a gunfight.

The fact is, logic cashed in its chips and left the table a long time ago. It doesn’t make Max Payne 3 any less of a game, it’s just that for a title so polished, some flaws that you’d gloss over if it was called “Angry Gringo Gun Battles 2012″, end up sticking out like a nun in a brothel.

Now that’s a title that Rockstar should have gone with for South American markets. Angry Gringo, not nun in a brothel. Or both. Maybe.

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Oh The Drama: Mass Effect 3 Edition (Spoiler-free)

5 Apr

It was Friday night. Or Saturday morning. Depending which side of the clock you’re more active.

But for me, it was the culmination of a five year journey. An epic adventure that consumed over 300 hours of my life. And at 3AM that day it was all over. Mass Effect 3′s end credits flashed across the screen and that was it. The first thing I did was delete all the 35-odd GB of game installs lying on my Xbox 360 hard drive since the first game’s debut in 2007. Unlike many a fan I didn’t feel the need to rage, troll, throw a bitch fit, fight for a refund or start a petition. Rather, I was overcome with a sense of relief.

You see, being a big RPG fan and by extension, an admirer of BioWare’s work, I was naturally pumped when I first read about this space-faring odyssey in the September 2006 issue of EGM (acquired second hand nonetheless) but over time, I’ve learned that things are never what they’re meant to be. There’s always some form of compromise at the end of it all. In this case, it was BioWare forsaking deeper narrative, culling out characters central to the game to package off as DLC and slap multiplayer on it in order to sell more units. Having been on the business side of things in the industry, I can understand where they were coming from and I guess they weren’t given much of a choice either.

Given that BioWare got bought over by the same company who thought it was a cool idea to turn what was arguably the greatest strategy franchise into an FPS (that too, after buying the studio responsible for said franchise) I was expecting far, far worse. And sure, it was diabolical enough that the game mechanics forced me to play the multiplayer mode for over 20 hours, it was better than expected and even grew on me.

After all, it’s not everyday you get a semi-decent game from the same developers who gave you the steaming pile of turd that was Dragon Age 2. Craptacular characters, bugs galore, recycled dungeons and lame plot, it seemed like a pre-alpha build on release. Keeping that in mind as well, Mass Effect 3 wasn’t that bad a game.

Yes, a little more exposition would have been nice as would a greater emphasis on your choices throughout the trilogy but if a next to negligible portion of my 300 hours of gameplay ended up being rubbish, it would be stupid to hold it against the developers. Considering that we live in an age of disposable, 5-10 minute games, a mammoth, interweaving trilogy in itself is a tremendous feat.

So what I’m getting at is this, after all that has happened in the past what with the debauchery of the Dragon Age series and their parent company’s reputation, now unfairly voted as the worst in America, we could have been treated to something a lot more distasteful than a brief slipshod ending. An Angry Birds mini-game perhaps? Or maybe a mineral management simulation?  The possibilities to mess this up were endless. And as gamers we could have been a little classier about our response. I’d like to believe we’re a better breed than disgrunted Instagram using iPhone fanboys.

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The (S)hit List: My Favorite Games of 2K10

18 Jul

Yes this is super late, but in my defense, there were so many great games in 2010 that I’m still playing them. Anyhoo, without further delay (or irony)…


1. New Vegas! Now with a better soundtrack, post-apocalyptic goodness, more options than an octopus has tentacles and no dorky Zach Galifianakis or anyone remotely associated with The Hangover. Unless someone makes a mod for it. Bring your own roofies though.

2. Aside from battling giant sentient alien ships and tapping your crew members, Mass Effect 2′s greatest success is making you playthrough 30-odd hours of what is actually, the world’s first intergalactic recruitment simulator.

3. While Rockstar’s stellar Red Dead Redemption has absolutely no relation to Nintendo’s pink ball of joy, Kirby’s Epic Yarn  was the polar opposite of the coolest rendition of the Wild West (complete with being able to tie a woman to a railway track!). With the objective of confusing the crap out of everyone and pissing off the purists, the above picture does the job. As well as confirm nothing but both games are awesome and you’d be a dark empty void if you don’t play either. And both.

4. Shamelessly ripped from my IVG write up on Vanquish:

Overheard at a video game store:
“Oh, what’s this game Vanquish about?”
“Hmmm, I dunno, I’d Google it but my EDGE network sucks.”
“Well, it looks interesting, guns and all. But, but, but…the dude is not Kratos, Master Chief, Marcus Phoenix, Sam Fisher or even those random soldiers from COD.”
“You’re right, without any of those on the cover, it’s definitely not a good game. Let’s get Splinter Cell: Conviction instead!”
That is probably why Vanquish is the Best Game No One Played. It leads to two observations. One: people are too lazy to read the back of the box. Two: a decent portion of you have played the game; enough to recognize that this is without a doubt the most superlative title that everyone missed out on. It’s a tragedy because it’s got great gameplay, fantastic production values, and it allows you to throw back rockets fired at you by giant robots.

 

5. Bonus image! Best dialogue of 2010:

Wait, what?

 

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Stuff I End Up Hearing. Ballcurry Edition.

14 Jul

 

By “hearing” I mean seeing, reading or absorbing in some form or another. In some cases, even spewing.

“If I talk ballcurry to someone like you about video games, you will know it’s ballcurry. For example if I told you I knew the chief CEO of Konami, you know I’m talking ballcurry!”, a good friend who decided to set the world record for a sentence with the word, “ballcurry”.

“I play with dogs…not women.”, another friend on his reason for volunteering with the Welfare For Stray Dogs.

“God of War is an RPG! You play the role of Kratos.”, the lengths to which a point can be proven. Also, shit my Sam says to prove a point.

“Judas Priest is opening for Metallica. They’re some 90s band. Like the Spice Girls.”, spewed from the same mouth that gave us ballcurry and chief CEO.

“When you hear the song Pokerface, do you think of Po from Kung Fu Panda or Lady Gaga?”, as you can see, I am a deep thinker. And stuff.

“I can’t be a sycopanth but I can be a yes man!”, the same world record setting friend describing his strategy for tackling his boss.

“Honesty is expensive. Cheap people don’t have it.”, sign outside a church.

“Your PC sucks because it doesn’t warn me when I close a window!”, the sisterbot on why Macs are awesome.

“Video games = you’re a nano-augmented bad ass. Movies = you’re a transgendered travelling salesman.”, as seen on Twitter.

“Snow Leopard? What is that?”,  the collective staff at the Breach Candy iStore.

 ”Malaika how friendly are you with gadgets?” , random suit at a press con featuring Malaika Arora.

“Malaika wanted to touch, feel and do things to all the products presented to her!”, same random suit showing his lecherous side to all and sundry. See the video at a torrent site near you!

“Apple removed JPEG support for the iPad or what?” , expertly called by a fellow Apple skeptic. And more believable than funny.

“Publishers have a good rapport with journalists and get good reviews. “, explains a games developer on how things work. Guess we know why a lot of games get bad reviews then.

“Register, pay $99 and download it for free!”, the same developer elucidating how easy it is to develop for iOS.

“You have any friends in the suburbs? I’m looking for a maid.”, this is what happens when townies decide to move to the ‘burbs.

“Get your time periods right woman!”, this is me trying to correct said ex-townie five minutes later.


Vital Stats:

Quotes featuring Apple in one form or another: 3

Quotes about some Bollywood celeb: 2

Quotes with video games: 4

Quotes resulting in facepalm: all of them

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Slackerninja’s Top 5 Video Games of 2009

31 Dec

2009 sucked. i’ve 42, still borrow money from my mom, live out of my parent’s guest room ,my inflatable doll errr girlfriend is contemplating a sex change operation and my cats have never-ending bouts of diarrhea.

Wait what? Oh you wanted to know what my picks for the best video games of 2009 are? Umm…disregard the first paragraph please? Or at least don’t tell anyone or post it on a large online community populated by hardcore gamers? That’s great. Cool. So where was I…

Ahh yes, 2009 was a good year for games. We saw sequels to Assassin’s Creed, Modern Warfare, Halo, Street Fighter and Resident Evil to name a few but to me it was the new games that stood out from the crowd. And while our fearless leader is right for stating that it has been a bad year for new IP in terms of volume but the quality of the precious few that released are worth their weight in Mr. Zurkons. Having said that, here’s my top five video games of 2009:

5. Demon’s Souls : Tough as hell, unapologetically old school and brutal enough to make New Year’s Eve traffic seem like an hour at a strip club. Demon’s Souls has no concept of an easy mode, in fact it gets tougher every time you die.The stellar level design, art-direction and quirky online modes just ease it ever so slightly. However play responsibly and you’d be rewarded handsomely not only with some sweet loot but with immense satisfaction as well. Play it like a button-masher and you’d believe that if Demon’s Souls was a person it would be Chuck Norris because it’s chief export is pain. Definitely the RPG of choice for the discerning, borderline sadistic PS3 owner. Or just me.

4. Killzone 2: In a year that’s seen Halo and Modern Warfare 2 hit the shelves, Killzone 2 seemed like this odd, unrepentant beast forcing you to embrace its set control scheme, industrial environs, outlandish setting and tough as nails AI. Not to mention one of the better plots around, some sweet weaponry and pretty neat characters. And yes, graphically it looked and still looks awesome. What it lacks in shooter heritage of the aforementioned titles it makes up for in great multiplayer, highly polished gameplay and one of the most “WTF” moments in an FPS this year.

3. Bayonetta: Sure it’s supposed to hit Indian stores by January 8th 2010 but the point is the Japanese version has been available for the longest time. But is it good enough to be on this list you ask? Let’s put it this way, any action game that features a sexy librarian looking witch who pummels the crap out of angels with dual wielding pistols attached to her heels and has hair that transforms into a dragon that devours them whole is a shoe-in to be on any list if not on number one ’nuff said.

2. Batman Arkham Asylum : Perhaps one of the few games of the year that had its pacing bang on target. Brilliant scripting, awe-inspiring boss battles and a level of gameplay so refined that it made the delay not only forgivable but mandatory. Be it merely exploring every nook and cranny of Arkham Asylum or living one of the Scare Crow’s nefarious nightmares this is one superhero game that reeks of pure unadulterated awesome. For once donning the role of a man wearing his underwear over his pants seemed extremely cool and not to mention desirable.

1. Dragon Age: Origins: Earlier in the year Marilyn Manson and BioWare asked us if we were’ready for the new sh*t?’ and for large portion of the year my face gravitated towards my palms whenever the it was mentioned. It’s a good thing the game was nothing like its promotions. Dragon Age: Origins is one of those rare games I’m going to find myself going back to time and time again with a myriad of gameplay choices, customization options and soul sucking replay value. For underneath the nifty Eclipse engine (which does more than have a gratuitous fetish for blood stains mind you) lies a story so poignant, characters so deep and a world so immersive that it left me wondering why the hell don’t we have more games like these?

So there you have it folks, my top 5 games of 2009. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a doll errr…person to operate on. Or something.

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