So I come home from work today and my front door was unlocked. Weird. My room mates weren’t home. I open my door to see my living room a wreck. My 42 inch HDTV is missing from it’s TV stand. My room mate’s Xbox 360 is missing. I immediately go into a blind rage.



I live in a bad part of Austin, TX and I should have known it would happen. We’re a group of 3 post-college aged people living in a very poor neighborhood. All of our money goes towards video games, electronics, and computers so we have a lot of stuff in our house that is easily spotted as a high-ticket item by thieves.

I call my room mate as soon as I can think about anything other than shooting some one in the face (no, I don’t own a gun just because I live in Texas, but I might get one now). He’s in utter shock and he asks about how the thieves got in. I can’t see any visible entry points and I check all the rooms in the house. In his bedroom, one of the windows is completely opened up and broken.



His HDTV in there is missing along with his girlfriend’s laptop. (We later found out that his fighting game arcade stick was also missing). It seems that the thieves entered through his bedroom, stole the TV and laptop from that room and then on their way out the front door, they spotted my TV, my room mate’s 360 and his arcade stick, and decided to take those too.

Thankfully my PS3 and Wii weren't taken. None of the games for any system were taken either.

When I could finally collect myself enough to talk calmly, I called the police who just basically wrote down a list of all the things that were missing and said they’d send out a cop to dust for fingerprints. Four hours later, the cop finally shows up and basically says that we’re screwed unless we can find the TV ourselves at a pawnshop.

We have renter’s insurance so hopefully we’ll get everything back. But we’re going to try to move out of this neighborhood as soon as possible. I recommend that anyone reading this evaluate their security set up. I thought I’d be fine just because we’re quiet and keep to ourselves but apparently thieves will strike anywhere they think it’s a weak target. Have you ever been robbed? And did you find your stuff or get insurance to cover it?

So my room mate owns a 360, I own a PS3 and a Wii. He's thinking about upgrading to a 360 Elite and I've expressed interest in taking his 360 Pro off his hands to help him get to an Elite more easily. But I'm still on the fence because I'm not sure just how many games I'd want to play on it. As of right now, the best thing the 360 has in my mind is the XBLA titles. The ones I'm most interested in are:

Braid (coming to PSN eventually)
Castle Crashers (coming to PSN eventually)
Peggle (probably coming to PSN since it's on every other platform)
Shadow Complex
Trials HD

So my question to you, the Dtoid community, is this: Is it worth it? He's said I can have his used system plus a 2nd controller for $189. Then I'd need to buy all of those games over again after he transfers them to his new system, which is another $65, I think. My other question is this: are there any other really awesome exclusive games? Keep in mind that I'm not much of a fan of Fighters, FPSs, MMOs, or RTSs. I am a big fan of platformers and puzzle solving games. Oh, and Metal Gear Solid.

Your thoughts?

Maybe it’s because I never owned an Xbox and therefore missed out on the Halo craze, but I am absolutely terrible at FPS games. When I was younger, I played older ones like Doom and Goldeneye and enjoyed them thoroughly, but I missed the next step. Newer FPS games never really clicked for me the way older ones did because I wasn’t playing them nonstop like the rest of the FPS crowd. Maybe my skills have dulled with time, but I just can’t seem to keep up with a younger generation of gamers (and I’m only 25). I’m missing out on an entire social avenue of gaming (through online gaming or local matches) simply because I suck at FPS games. Here’s why:

Aiming


Aiming has always been a huge issue for me. The ability to run in one direction while shooting in another at a moving target never really worked out for me. I’ll pick up the sticks every now and then to try my hand at a newer game like Call of Duty or Halo 3 and ultimately get my ass handed to me by a 12 year old, mostly because I can’t aim right. Maybe it’s because my right thumb isn’t as skilled at operating a control stick as my left one is due to its years of training on an N64. Maybe it’s because I’m left handed and my left thumb is just naturally more agile than my right. Whatever the reason, I am terrible at aiming using a controller stick. Now, give me a light gun and it’s a completely different story.

First Person vs. Third Person


For some reason, 3rd person perspective makes a lot more sense to me. I feel like I have a greater understanding of my surroundings and I won’t get attacked from behind as easily. Even non-shooter games that utilize 1st person perspective throw me off. For example: Mirror’s Edge. I tried to get into that game because the free running idea interested me. But I couldn’t see where my feet were due to the 1st person perspective and I never landed jumps correctly.

Conversely, I’m really good at games like Metal Gear Solid or GTA4, which let you switch between 3rd person and 1st person when each different perspective is necessary (moving around vs. looking through a gun scope). Maybe not the best player ever due to my aiming issues, but just the fact that I can literally know where I am standing helps out a ton in terms of my feeling of immersion in the game. I know that the idea is that I’m supposed to be more immersed in a 1st person game, but I never feel like I am actually part of the game the way I’m supposed to. I look forward to a day where all shooter games give you the option of 1st or 3rd person perspective at the push of a button.

Deathmatch


Unlike single player story driven games or teamwork-oriented games, FPSes tend to be geared towards Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch competitive online gaming. It’s literally kill or be killed in these games and when you already aren’t good at a game genre, the fact that other players are actively killing you in order to improve their own scores only serves to create an environment in which you don’t want to participate. For all the frags a great FPS player has, there are that many lesser players who have fallen under his gun. This fact can be appealing to the good player and very disheartening to a crappy player like myself.

Lazy Developers

This last one is more of a gripe about FPSes than a reason why I suck at them, but I just find it to be a lazy development technique to not have the person you’re playing as represented on screen. The fact that you’re in the eyes of the character means that they developers didn’t have to spend as much time on character design, motion capture, pixel animation, etc. as a 3rd person game’s developer might have had to spend.

Have you ever beaten a game years ago only to find yourself unable to beat it today? This phenomenon has only happened to me a few times in my life. I’m currently playing Metal Gear Solid (PSN version) on my PS3. This is a game that I’ve beaten many times before (well, the version I’ve beaten is Twin Snakes, to be honest) and for some reason, on this play through, I am completely stuck on Metal Gear REX. I can beat the first phase of him just fine, but on the 2nd phase when Liquid opens REX’s mouth, I just immediately get my ass handed to me. I have Grey Fox’s unskippable dialogue memorized (you know, the part where he’s begging you to shoot but Snake just refuses to do so, despite your button presses).

I’ve heard that the Twin Snakes version of MGS is easier than the original. Since this is actually my first play through of the original, I had assumed there would be differences and parts that I was unfamiliar with, but it’s kind of ridiculous how many times I have tried and failed to beat REX.

The only other times this has happened before were when I had beaten Starfox 64 and Ocarina of Time when they first came out and then when I replayed them again later (about 6 years after they were released). The battle with Gannon in Ocarina of Time gave me such a massive headache that I swore I’d never play it again. This swear went untrue because I have since played and beaten it two more times. Starfox still gives me trouble though.

Is this weird? Have any of you ever been completely unable to beat a game you had beaten previously in your life (and then subsequently found yourself able to beat it on much later play throughs)?

Also, any tips you have on beating the 2nd phase of REX would be helpful. Here’s what I’m doing: chaff grenades, stun grenades (running while throwing) running at his missiles in hopes that they’ll go over my head, shooting one or two stingers at the cock pit when I can, and lots and lots of rations. I have the body armor equipped almost constantly. I’m playing on Normal difficulty. Is there anything that I’m missing? Am I wasting time with the chaff grenades in the 2nd phase? I have read several walkthroughs because of how aggravating this is, but to no avail.

Well, Bea Arthur died on the 25th of April and me and some friends have been watching episodes of Golden Girls lately. I had the theme song stuck in my head and in a youtube search, I found this little gem. Whoever made it is a genius. Enjoy!

I dunno about you, but one of my favorite things to do when I'm hungover is play a game that I've beaten before. Lately, I've been playing Ocarina of Time, but other examples are the Metal Gear Solid series, Mario 64, Twilight Princess, A Link to the Past, Okami, Castle Crashers, and others. I dunno why it is, but for some reason it's really one of my favorite things to do after a long night of getting hammered. Actually, me and my friends love drinking and playing games so much that we've even come to describe the activity of being really drunk as "Super Smashed Bros." and "Warhammered Online".

Gaming while hungover beats watching TV cause it keeps me active mentally. And my friends who get wasted and pass out on the couch enjoy watching me play the games. You don't have to talk to people so that's nice. Also, gaming lends itself to sitting in a dark room, and we all know that the sun is the arch nemesis of some one who is hungover.

I thought I'd more articulate with this blog, but I'm actually hungover at the moment.

What are your favorite games to play when hungover? Bonus points: What are your favorite games to get drunk to? (mine are Mariokart, Rock Band, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Warioware Smooth Moves)