"When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
I want you all to watch that clip up there. Yes, all 8+ minutes of it.
Done? Ok, that clip was the work of a man named Ulillillia (nom de reality: unknown). Thanks to the kind people at Portal of Evil I was exposed to his work earlier this week and between this clip, the others like it and his website, I'm utterly fascinated by this misanthrope. He seems to care so much about games like Bubsy: 3D that his narration and thoughts on the subject go beyond being tedious and dull, to being savant-level ruminations on the nature of the game, and by proxy, on life itself.
Oh, but the rabbit hole only goes deeper! This is where I'd quote his website, but the information packed into the thing is far too dense to be taken in bits. It's like it's all been written specifically so that you're forced to read as much of it as possible, and by reading more of it, you achieve a feeling of zen-like comfort and a sense that Ulillillia has gone beyond normal fascination or obsession and stepped into whatever term is used to describe a person who has played Bubsy: 3D for 4500 hours. Add to that the notion that he annotates absolutely everything in the sort of detail usually reserved for Department of Defense IT contracts, and that he actively lives a role-playing game and you come to realize you're glimpsing a world straddling the boundary of genius and lunacy and teetering like mad.
Porno is cool and all, but this is why the Internet was created.
Games of the week. Whatever. You know how we do.
Colette Bennett:
TAIKO DRUM MASTER.
Also Final Fantasy: Revenant Wings and Myst DS!
I"M SO HAPPY!
Leigh Alexander:
You ready?
Galaxy, Mass Effect, Trauma Center: New Blood, Ontamarama, Phantom Hourglass (still! damn forest temple) and Dracula X Chronicles. I have no life.
Nex:
TONS of World of Warcraft (I just got my account back), Virtua Fighter 5 to get my custom Eileen to Master level online, and enough Guitar Hero III to give me carpal tunnel cramps the likes of which are experienced only by chronic masturbators and data processing clerks.
Also, I spent 14 hours with Mass Effect. You'd like to think this is the point at which I'm going to say it's terrible in an effort to play the anti-hype card and show solidarity with Anthony and Jim, but that's not really how I do things. I love the damn game. It's the perfect evolution of the BioWare RPG style combined with new-gen FPS trappings, and aside from the terrible controls on the Mako, the lads at BioWare have earned your cash.
Niero:
I've been mentally playing Loco Roco Cocoreccho in my head all week.
Its more fun than the actual game.
Topher Cantler:
Izuna, Geometry wars: Galaxies on Wii and DS, Rock Band, Ikaruga, Subarashiki Kono Sekai, and Eternal Sonata.
Savant:
After finally purchasing an HDTV, I'm going back through all my Xbox 360 games and seeing how they look. Mostly, though, I've been playing a lot of Assassin's Creed and Carcassonne with the future-wife.
I've also been playing a rather dangerous game, as well. It's called How The Hell Do I Calibrate Lag in Guitar Hero III? I just can't get the thing to "feel" as good as it did on my old CRT. Oh well.
BlindsideDork:
My brother let me brother his PSP so I got to play the God of War: Chains of Olympus demo and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. But that doesn't mean I have forgotten my old faithfuls Team Fortress 2 , Picross DS, and Ghost Squad. So much gaming! So much good!
Chad Concelmo:
I have played nothing but Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations all week long (I <3 Godot!). This whole "finish a game completely before starting a new one" policy that I have implemented for years may finally be the death of me. I have such a huge list of games waiting in the wings that it is starting to get ridiculous. Here's a preview of my November 16, 2008 edition of Games of the Week: I just started playing The Orange Box and, man, I love it! Ugh. I need more hours in the day.
Hamza "CTZ" Aziz:
I played and finished Half-Life 2, Episode 1 and Episode 2. The ending would have been great except I read a damn spoiler by mistake. But, I did forget Alex almost dies so when I saw her get stabbed I was really in shock. I played some Portal too but didn't really play far into it. So far, I'm not real feeling it.
Jim Sterling:
Mass of Sh*t and Warriors Orochi. By the time this comes out I will have played Eternal Sonata too, but things keep getting in the way of my playing that one.
Faith:
I've been playing Viva Pinata, Puzzle Quest, Brain Age and tonight I'm devoting 4 hours to installing Final Fantasy XI on my Xbox 360. Sweet, huh?
Dale North:
I just finished with my review copy of Nartuo:Rise of a Ninja for the Xbox 360 and have moved back to Persona 3. I've also broken out the various classic game collections from Taito, Capcom, Namco, and Sega for the PS2. They're such a better value than a Virtual Console download.
Dick McVengeance:
Madden 08, Star Trek Conquest, and Godzilla Unleashed are what's taking up my plate for the most part. That, and Finish My Screenplay or My Teacher Feeds Me To His Dogs.
Ron Workman:
Lego Star Wars 2! How I went as long as I did without playing this, I will never understand. I really have a blast playing it. GRAW 2 is another that I skipped and I am catching up on now. These games are totally worth the cheap price. LSW2 can be found used for 10-15 bucks and I picked up GRAW 2 for 20 new. Jim Sterling likes to have tea parties and dress his victims up like clowns before he eats and rapes them. N+ on XBLA is really fun, as well as Arkadian Warriors which is something that I never thought that I would play. Halo 3 and my old stand by Rise of Nations on the PC. Don't forget to get the free DLC for Boom Boom Rocket on XBL by the way.
Tristero:
I played through Daxter for PSP, which was a bit of a let down. There are four different types of bugs to fight against in the game, and that's literally it. How did they get away with that? Interestingly enough, Me and My Katamari isn't half bad, if you're a complete nut for the series like I am. The controls are rough, but there's some cute fun to be had with enough uniqueness thrown in to separate it from the other titles. And Gradius Collection ... honey, don't even get me stahted, okay? If you have a PSP, buy it now!
Gameboi:
Still playing through Super Mario Galaxy, and Mass Effect. I haven't felt the need to play any other games at the moment.
Billy? Did you play video games this week? What have we told you about those games? That's right: they're Satan's rowboat, and if you aren't careful, he'll paddle up your river of shame and steal your precious jewels!
So Billy, what did you play?
Contest:
11:14 AM on 12.02.2007
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Given up on playing Super Luigi Galaxy (screw the play control for Luigi), so I've been playing Odama along with a few other Cube titles I picked up used recently.
I fell off the Team Fortress 2 bandwagon as my real life takes priority, but I'll be firing that up soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4tKUs134gc&feature=related
I would be playing PAIN but I busted my sixaxis, and now I need a new one. So no games for liam this week.
I rented Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and have been having an absolute blast with it (no pun intended). I love it. It's great fun, and I hope the Wii sees more awesome titles like this. I've never been a big fan on on-rails shooters in the arcade 'cause they consume my quarters like . . . a . . . quarter-consuming . . . thing, but on a home console, I'm all about it. Come on, Suda! Re-release Killer7 on the Wii. You know you want to.
I've also delved back into Portal to try to grab a few achievements I missed on the first and 2nd times through, but I failed at the one I was trying to get; camera shy or whatever that achievement is. Perhaps I'll try again later.
Also, I've been playing an obscene amount of TF2. I fucking LOVE me some TF2. It's just as good, if not better than, I remember it when it was still a Quake mod. I play it as much as I absolutely can.
Wow, long post is long.
But yeah, I've been playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations too like Chad, in addition to Pokémon Pearl on the DS (I will never stop playing until the _next_ Pokémon game is released). On my Xbox 360, I played Halo 3 on Friday Night Fights, but I usually play Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas if I have a choice of multiplayer gaming. Too bad it's not as popular as it once was, but it's still not hard at all to find a server.
Yeah, Godot is rad. I am halfway through Chapter 3 and am dying to know who he really is. I have a few guesses ...
Wow.
After I check out his site in it's entirety, check my blog for a full DSM-IV diagnosis.
As for me, I was vacationing at a friend's down in Orlando Florida. Played hours of Jump! Ultimate Stars on the plane. Expect a review. Get this game for X-Mas if you don't already have it.
Once I got there, we played tons of Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga, Pac Man Vs (he, his wife, me, my finance' each have a DS), Trauma Center New Blood, Soul Caliber Legends (fascinatingly awful game), Mario Galaxy, Geometry Wars Galaxies, Resident Evil:Umbrella Chronicles, and even Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess.
My friend still hadn't beaten it, though he started playing it earlier this year. And it wasn't from lack of trying. He's chalked up 185 hours on the game, and is just reaching the second to last dungeon.
He and Ulillillia actually have a lot in common in that way.
It's so buggy... Specially the sound on the driving sequence.
Like our dear The Hamza, I've been playing through Half-Life 2. I will probably continue to do so until I have constant hallucinations of Combine radio transmissions and I develop an acute fear of walking on sand. Ah, the life of an original Xbox owner.
Oh Nex, what have you introduced me to?
the sad part is, they were incredibly smart, and just didn't know an appropriate or productive way to use their talents, so yeah, they ended up doing stupid shit like seeing how high in the map you can get in bubsy 3d, instead of, say, creating a personal teleporter device or learning how to shower.
Other than that, standard multiplayer fare with friends: Guitar Hero 3 (nearly broke my hands on TTFAF), Guitar Hero 1, and for the first time in over a year, DDRMAX2. Shame my pads only got the folds out of them near the end.
And yet, I have this primal urge to play Bubsy 3D..........
I'm kind of interested in Crysis, but not enough to blow a wad of cash on it. The lads at Best Buy don't like my money anyways, after it turned luminescent green from that run in with STALKER:Shadow of Chernobyl.
Speaking of games, this week consisted of Rock Band, Puzzle Quest (back into that habit again), and a bit of Eye of Judgment and Warhawk.
Also, how in hell did you find that bizarre site?
A little hexen / quake 3 too. I just got the id super pack off of steam, reliving my quake youth.
Finally, I played the best game EVAR: Meet Destructoid Editors and Readers at Blip Festival 2007!. It was the most fun I’ve had since, well, I can’t remember...it’s been a while, with school and all. You guys all rock! (I’ll be blogging about this later.)
Good lord.
Great find Nex.
And I have to ignore EVERY game I own this week except for Mass Effect.
I have to mail it overseas next Saturday and I have at least half the game to complete still. Forced RPG'ing is a whip.
After I finish Mass Effect, I'll have Orange Box, Rock Band, Katamari, and GH3 to contend with, so I have my hands full, kinda sorta.
And I just bought E4 last week on XBLA, so there's that too.
Oh, and all of Super Mario Galaxy. Yeah, I have some work to do.
Finished Naruto: Rise of a Ninja (94%), killed the fourth target of Assassin's Creed, reached the Smuggler's Hideout in BioShock, built up a small nice garden at Viva Piñata, tried to understand Forza Motorsport 2 (and still don't get it) and started to play Blue Dragon.
What a week...
Seeing as though he only leaves the house for around 8 hours per month, I don't think he's been outdoors long enough to be properly disgnosed with Asperger's.
Me, I'm still juggling Mario Galaxy and Final Fantasy Tactics. 80 stars in the former, 98 hours into the latter, and I think I'm entering the final battles in the game. Why so many hours? Well, I got all but one character so far, I've done all the Tavern quests but for a couple that seem to demand an Arithmetician (which I don't have yet), and I've got about twenty characters total above level 40.
I can't stop reading his blog.
PC Orange Box or 360? If it's the PC one (which it should be) you better join the Dtoid group.
"Although I called them "pizzaburgers", they were nothing more than miniaturized pizzas with hamburger buns used as the "crust". They tasted nearly three times as good as the other pizzas I was having"
Not twice as good, not even ten times as good, but nearly three times as good. I believe this guy actually has a formula tucked away somewhere that quantifies the deliciousness of pizza. Classic!
Also, TF2.