bully patch?
first, rockstar proved both themselves and me to be liars as the bully patch has still not surfaced.
after surfing various forums on this topic it seems that the general mood can be summed up into three categories:
1) exceedingly upset that they mentioned a date they couldn't stick to-which was a week and should have had it out by friday.*
2) refusing to open their copy until the patch is released-so, i guess, they can take it back if the patch isn't released?
3) are imploring everyone to remain calm as the patch is still on it's way, rockstar just shouldn't have promised it would be out so soon. supposedly it's already with microsoft QA-which i believe i mentioned in an earlier post-and that can sometimes take a couple of weeks.
smash bros. brawl
so i finally dug into the subspace emissary mode in earnest this weekend and i can safely come to the conclusion that it was not designed by a platformer designer.
crap if it isn't flawed.
it just seems that every other level you have impossible jumps, lose all your men, and have completely ambiguous goals.
the most important part to understand in platform video game design (to me) is that everything should serve a purpose in telling the 'story' of the game. nowhere recently has this been most evident to have been ignored than in smash bros sse mode.
there are times when you go through a door and just walk a short distance until the level fades out. i was left yelling at the tv, why is that there?
and sometimes, like in the snake challenge, you're not quite sure what you have to do to open a door you just see lights flashing. at first i thought i was doing it wrong because i kept seeing alarm lights, but then i figured out that was actually me unlocking one of the four sets of doors to progress further.
too often am i backtracking un-necessarily because nothing in the game is explicitly clear.
that said, now that i've tried some more characters and had some time to brawl a little more, it is fun.
the fighting is great, snake works-which was unexpected-and it's a good buy. it won't be a 10/10 for my review like everyone else, but there is a lot to do in brawl, even if they actual combat hasn't evolved that much.
rock band
so, after having my copy of rock band for a few months now, this weekend was my first real multiplayer experience.
my buddy andrew was over and we went through a nice little chunk of the game with him on guitar, my fiancee jen on bass and myself helming the band from the drum throne.
definitely a better experience than the single player venture and i'm beginning to understand why it's such a guitar-hero killer even though we bombed the jet song.
will rock out with my...uhhh...maybe i'll just rock out for now,
JD
*one guy even said he was going to boycott GTA IV because rockstar didn't come through with their promised patch date. i'm sure they'll be hurting when that one guy doesn't buy what will most likely be the biggest and best-selling game of 2008.
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