Ah yes, the Rage-Phrase. My submission to the NGD. Haven't heard of it? Fear not, for it is still in its infancy. "What is a Rage-Phrase?" one might ask? It's something that we, as gamers, all have by default. Alone or with friends, we all have and use it (quite often in most cases) in most every gaming session we partake in.

The definition is as follows:

Rage-Phrase (noun, verb, -phrase⋅ing, -phrase⋅d)

-The expression or set of expletives shouted at the TV or through a headset that occurs while playing a video game (most notably during competitive online games, i.e. Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, etc.). Commonly brought on by bouts of extreme anger or disbelief. The expression is usually uttered several times over the course of a match.

Most peoples screams and shouts vary, but everyone has their one phrase, their Rage-Phrase, that they keep coming back to. That's the one I'm writing about.

This is an example of mine:

I get killed by another douchebag who uses Akimbo 1887's in Modern Warfare 2

".....goooooooOOOOOoooooood FUCKING DAMNIT!!!!"

A few more examples:

"noooooooooooOOOOOOOO WAAY!!!:

"HO HO HOHOOHohohoho yeah RIGHT dude!"

"not possible..."

And there you have it. Everyone's phrase is common to themselves. So out with it! What are some of yours or your favorites of others?

After just finishing ODST, my mind has wandered back to my beginnings with the Halo series. I've had my ups and down with the games, but one things for sure: these games have made a huge impact on gaming and are, like it or not, forever entrenched in the gaming hall of fame.

My Halo history, if you will:

I've been a Halo fan since the beginning (not quite a fan-fiction writing überfan, but a fan regardless). Halo: Combat Evolved was such a new experience with me, from the graphics to the sublime controls to the (soon to be) iconic new villainous force. Halo showed that a great FPS was possible on a console in the midst of all out PC frag fests like UT and Counterstrike that seemed to garner all of the attention. It was a blast to play single player, and even more fun to kill all the alien baddies with a buddy in the new-to-me co-op mode. The game was almost perfect. Well...except for that damn library level. Fuck that place.

Halo 2 is the black sheep in the series for me, which may sound odd at first. The amount of hype leading up to this game was ridiculous, which culminated with my friends and I waiting in line for over 4 hours at our local Gamestop to pick the game up at midnight. We couldn't have been happier. We rushed home as fast as we could to play this beast; this milestone in our gaming careers. I was excited at the opportunity to continue the fight back on Earth and to give the pew-pew laser beam butt-heads another ass kicking. Too make a long story short, I was rather disappointed. Now before some of you get up in arms over this, keep in mind that I did not have Xbox LIVE at the time and could not play the brand new multiplayer. It was single player or bust for me back then. I am solely talking about the single player/co-cop experience. Now at the core the game is better than the original. Better graphics, more weapons, new enemies, and a new story. The execution of all of these separate parts works, yet the game still manages to fail. Just when you are getting into the game and getting into the story....this happens.



UGGGGgggGGGghHHHhHHHHhDhSDhsaddgfghBARFjliulefdfH.......god DAMNIT. Not at ALL what I wanted. I can understand Bungie wanting to further expand and progress the Halo universe, but I HATED it. "Alright sweet, new level....wait....I'm not the master chief.......wait.......what?" I didn't really mind it for one level, maybe thinking it was a fluke, a one and done type of thing. But alas, it most definitely was not. I dealt with it though. I was still having an okay time. Not nearly the same "WOW" as I felt when I played through Halo: CE. Once again, however, when the game is getting mildly interesting again towards the end.....well...yeah...we all know what happens. Let's try to forget. This is my least favorite in the series. Enough said.

Move onto Halo 3. The first hotly anticipated title for my shiny new Xbox 360. I had since calmed down after the, uhm, "events" at the end of Halo 2 and was ready to kill more Covenant and save the galaxy. I was excited for Halo 3, also, because of the fact that I now had Xbox LIVE and could bring the fight to people online. I basically never played Halo 2 online and was totally new to the whole idea of Halo multiplayer. TRIPLE KILL. So, we have an engaging and fun single player campaign (or the usual co-op, but this time with up to 4 players) and an absolute fun as hell online multiplayer (not to mention a totally badass last level. This was it. What more could I need? This was the complete Halo experience I was waiting for.

After sinking hundreds of hours into the game (essentially wearing it out) and with new games coming out (Modern Warfare FTMFW!), Halo began to fall a bit to the wayside. Oh, and Halo having one of the worst communities in gaming doesnt' help either. I would still pop it in from time to time if a friend wanted to play, but that was about it. God I had played that game a lot. Then came E3 2009 and my first glimpse of Halo 3: ODST.



What was this? Not really following the Halo universe other than playing the games, this was news to me. I thought I had heard rumors of Bungie ending Halo with Halo 3. So I started doing some research. Was this a full-fledged new game, or just an expansion? I heard plenty of talk on both sides of the argument, with Bungie saying it was an expansion at the beginning (if memory serves me correctly). After playing the game to completion, I can tell you this: While it's pretty fun, it's nothing more than an overpriced expansion. A $60 flash in the pan, only justified by the most hardcore Halo fan. The campaign is somewhat entertaining, but in the end it's horrendously short and mostly forgettable. The Gears of War 2 Horde mode-themed Firefight is the only part of the game that has any redeeming value. Team up with your friends to fight off wave after wave of increasingly hard Covenant forces. This is fun. But it's not without its faults. Part of the excitement of playing Horde mode with your friends was the fact that it ended! As far as I know, Firefight does not end. It keeps going until you run out of lives. What's the point? It's fun for a little while, sure, but there's no real sense of accomplishment at all. Especially if you team up with some really good talent, it can go on forever and become a snooze-fest. This is just bad game design (if in fact it does end, let me know and make fun of me). The addition of a 2nd disc containing Halo 3's multiplayer and all of the map packs is welcome, but not enough to really justify the game's price. Which is my real issue with the game in the first place. $30 makes way more sense. It comes off as an incredible disservice to Bungie's ferociously loyal fan base.



That's the long and short of it. Are you one of the 3 people on the planet who hasn't played a Halo game? By all means, please do. You'd be missing out on what could be one of the finer moments in gaming history. But be warned, in space, no one can hear you scream...

When someone asks you, "Hey, what are your favorite games? Top 10 maybe?" So totally unfair. Have you ever tried to list several of your favorite games off the top of your head? If you're anything like me you'll get all ADD and not be able to get past two or three. Think about it: How many amazing games have you played in your lifetime? And you're supposed to sift through all of these fantastic memories in just a few moments? I'm going to take the time over the life of my blog and episodically update with some words on some of my favorite all-time games. Ready.....GO!

EPISODE 1:

Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium






1994
SEGA

Back in the mid-90's the name of the RPG game in the USA was Final Fantasy. For the majority of kids, it was really Final Fantasy or bust. I was one of those kids until a chance meeting with the cover of PSIV in one of the isles at Blockbuster. I had never heard of the Phantasy Star series at that time and was completely intrigued. The box art drew me in and the gameplay never let me go. Even 15 years later.

The game revolves around Chaz, an inexperienced monster hunter in the land of Motavia who teams up with grizzled and sexy veteran Alys. The land is becoming increasingly hostile, with odd climate changes and monster attacks becoming more and more common. One little contract from the local university to clear out the basement of baddies leads to one of my all-time favorite RPG adventures That, in my humble opinion, rivals any Final Fantasy experience from the same era.

A myriad of characters join you in your quests, each with their own unique abilities. The core of the game feels familiar, like any 8 or 16-bit RPG you've played in the past. You travel from town to town, fighting enemies and leveling up your characters. You all know this, it's RPGing 101. The thing that set it apart on the battle side was Macros. Macros worked like this: Queue up all of the commands for your characters in a single round, save it, and sit back and watch your characters do your bidding. Neat, right? Less button pressing and more killing. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you queued up your attacks/magic in just the right combination, you would get a massive group attack that dealt considerable more damage that just a normal sword strike or fire spell. Brilliant.

Another amazing thing about this game was the presentation. Any other RPG would have the characters play out their drama in the same style as you just talking to each other in some random town. Enter: the cut scene. I used to think the first cut scene I had ever seen were the CGI ones from Final Fantasy VII. Little did I know that i had seen them 3 years earlier in PSIV. Presented in a very colorful anime style that had you yearning for the leveling and dungeon crawling to cease and the next bit of story to unfold so you could bask in the bright, cinematic glory. It was absolutely unlike anything I had ever seen at that time and I can't say enough good things about them. The only other thing that I can think of that 'WOWed" me in the same vein would be the first time I saw Mode 7 graphics in motion, but I still like these cut scenes better :)

But enough about all of that. This is what you need to know: A huge open world to explore. A 30 to 40 hour campaign. Fan-TASTIC anime-styled cut scenes (as seen above). New and creative gameplay mechanics. An interesting and fun narrative to follow. Not to mention a 3-tiered screen encompassing final boss. Why does it seem like no one ever talks about this game? Maybe you do here at Destructoid and I'm just fresh meat and I don't know this. I hope that's the case. Do yourself a favor. Get a hold of this game. It's on about a billion Sega Genesis compilations. No excuses.

i was surprised to get the amount of comments that i did after my first blog post. usually when i write anything it never really gets any attention. isn't it ironic then that when i write about nothing, it gets recognized? thanks for the comments though. you are all great.

so what to write? my history or my history with games? what i ate for breakfast?

i should talk about games. i like games.

being 25 years old my first experience with gaming was the original Super Mario Bros when i was 4 years old. i had absolutely no idea about gaming at that point. i would learn later in life that my dad was kind of into ms. pac-man and various pinball games, but nothing you would call a hobby. we had nothing in the house game related back then. one day a girl who was the daughter of a friend of the family came over and brought a NES with a copy of the game. dad hooked it up and her and i sat down to play. needless to say i had literally no idea of what i was doing. hah, and come to think of it she really didn't either. but she showed me the basics and in a few minutes i was hooked, squashing goombas and getting all the coins a 4 year old could manage.

you did not want to be my parents in the immediate future following that. i would NOT stop pestering them about getting an NES. day after day. the sad part was that it didn't happen. well not for a few years. i believe i got one when i was 6 or 7 (i must have calmed down in that time). life began anew...

fast forward from this



to this



here i am. at my favorite gaming site. not much has changed since then. less hair on my head. more hair on my face. school? i originally went to study broadcasting, but to make a long story short i made a stupid decision and left college shortly after i arrived. haven't been back since and it haunts me everyday. i will go back though. i promise. so in the meantime i spend my time with work and gaming. i am the main bartender/bar manager/assistant banquet manager at the local country club. the pay is decent and the cost of living around here is ultra-cheap (some of the lowest in the country, if i remember correctly). i am saving for a trip to europe in the winter to visit family (my dad is from austria). i haven't been since i was 15 so it's been a while. i really miss it over there.

well enough of me for now. hope you all enjoyed this. i know i didn't.

jokes! i make them!

thanks for reading. i think i will write about my favorite games in my next post. see you then

welcome welcome welcome.

this is my first attempt at a gaming blog. i've tried normal, "LOL dis me" blogs before, but they never really panned out. and i just kept reverting to games anyways.

i've got a few things planned out for this but i'll have to get it altogether before i start writing. mostly reviews and whatever pops into my head. i'm currently listening to the retroforceGO episode on final fantasy VII and i'm getting a rush of emotions and memories in my head. cool. another thing to write about.

that's it for now. i am boring. have a picture: