5 Awesome Video Games: Red Dead Redemption

In no particular order, I’m listing some video games that I absolutely love. :)

Now, this is the last installment for this particular 5 things series. And I know it took a long time! But my biggest problem was that I had so many contenders, and I had a really hard time narrowing it down to only five games.

But, without further ado, I give you my last pick: Red Dead Redemption.

(Now, I’m not very far in this game, so bear with me. I normally outline the plot, but I’ve pretty much just been wandering around in game. So. I’ve got nothing.)

Why did I choose RDR? There were several reasons, actually. One, it has cowboys. I’m not really a cowboy film person, but I do enjoy a good one every now and again. I mean, leather dusters, horses, guns, scruffy guys with beards, what’s not to love? Two, it has guns AND A LASSO. And did you know that lassoing someone in public is a crime? I’ve gotten a ‘wanted’ status just for lassoing a pretty lady. And I can’t even begin to list how many times I’ve tied someone up and dragged them around on my horse through a cactus field until they died. … What?

Three, the random side quests are implemented in an interesting way. One thing that really REALLY turns me off about MMOs is this: walk up to Person A, get list of things I need to gather, gather things from list, return. Repeat 100 times. BORING. In this game, you’re walking around on your horse, maybe making the trek to your next main quest, and a damsel runs up begging for help because a coyote is chasing her. Or bandits stole her apples. Or a guy on a horse asks you to follow him, because someone is being hung for a crime he didn’t commit. And then you both run off into the sunset and shoot up some bandits. These people are interested in being helped! Not just standing around in the market asking you to do the boring, dirty work for them!

Four, the scenery. It’s quite good looks-wise, and I like that there is so much to explore - but yet, it doesn’t take a million hours to get from point A to point B. It’s more streamlined than Grand Theft Auto. Of course, the main reason is because you’re not in a modern-day city. But… whatever. Details.

Anyway, before I ramble on, I should end it here. Red Dead Redemption made my list with only a few hours of gameplay. It may seem like a bad call, but it isn’t. Plus, it’s my list. It doesn’t matter to me what the ending is, or how disappointing it is (I’m looking at you, Borderlands) it’s how much I enjoy playing it. 

See my other 5 Things posts here.

A really long 5 things post

 This has been sitting in my drafts folder for quite some time. I don’t know whom I stole it from, though.

Animals

1. killer whales
2. wolves
3. horses
4. hawks
5. … kittens?

TV series

1. How I Met Your Mother
2. Being Erica
3. My Name Is Earl
4. Band of Brothers
5. Frasier

Foods

1. Chinese noodles (or anything chinese takeout in general)
2. Sushi
3. Pancakes/crepes/waffles
4. Poutine
5. Kraft Dinner (… classy!)

Films

1. X-Men/X2/etc
2. Shawn of the Dead
3. From Dusk Till Dawn
4. The Lord of The Rings
5. Sin City

Animated Series

1. Futurama
2. The Simpsons
3. ReBoot
4. Transformers/Beast Wars
5. Digimon

Things a room needs

1. comfy sitting area
2. books
3. writing desk
4. window with a view that isn’t my neighbour’s porch
5. colour!

OTPs

1. Wolverine/Rogue
2. Auron/Rikku
3. .
4. .
5. that’s about it

Video games

1. Assassin’s Creed
2. Resident Evil 4
3. Final Fantasy X
4. God of War
5. Left 4 Dead 2

Places I want to visit

1.  (Peru)
2. Rome
3. Hong Kong
4. Vancouver, BC
5. New Zealand 

(I recently did a post that had more on the list here)

Things I couldn’t live without

1. Books
2. Drawing utensils/art supplies
3. Music (singing is so uplifting)
4. Internet access. I’ve done it before, but now I have people that I would be losing contact with. 
5. .

Precious and meaningful objects

1.  My writing desk. It belonged to an obscure relative, my grandfather inherited it, cleaned it up and gave it to me when I was 8.
2. Adrian’s baby clothes from when he came home from the hospital. He was so tiny, it was almost impossible to find things that fit him at 2 months old.
3. My blanket that I’ve had since I was a toddler. (I still have it, and no, it doesn’t have holes)
4. .
5. .

Childhood cartoons 

1. Sailor Moon
2. Beasties/Beast Wars
3. ReBoot
4. Card Captors/Card Captor Sakura 
5. X-Men

Disney films

1. Beauty and the Beast
2. Tarzan
3. The Little Mermaid
4. Monster’s Inc.
5. Tangled

Wishes

1. To be free of depression for the rest of my life
2. Money, I guess. Doesn’t everyone wish for that?

Goals

1. To get through this semester
2. Tidy home
3. Buy a house of our own
4. Get a job to support Nick through school

Things I’d like to be

1. Confident
2. Happy
3. Debt-free
4. A better mom
5. A bird (a hawk. None of them pussy seagulls)

Visited websites

1. tumblr
2. facebook
3. gmail
4. grooveshark
5. webCT/school site

Fears

1. Suffocation
2. People
3. Dentists
4. Seaweed/Fish
5. Failure

(read more on this subject here)

Things about nature that I love

1. Sunshine
2. Moss
3. Natural rock formations
4. The colour of the leaves in autumn
5. That first warm day after a long, cold winter

Books

1. The Hobbit
2. A Song of Ice and Fire
3. The Fox and the Hound
4. The Divide
5. Looking for Alaska

Talents I’d like to have

1. Singing
2. Dance
3. Cooking
4. Writing
5. Sewing

5 Things I Love In a Video Game: Interaction

In no particular order, I present you with a list of five things that I love in a video game! (I wasn’t exactly sure how to word this, so forgive me for being confusing.)

Name one thing that is more fun than blowing shit up.

Go on.

Yeah, you couldn’t name anything, right? (Even if you did, I didn’t hear you anyway).

I absolutely love it when I get to destroy things in video games. You don’t even know how excited I get when I see explosive barrels (Borderlands is my crack). But what’s even better? 

When you can destroy random things. Things that don’t have any impact whatsoever on anything else around them. I don’t even know how much time I’ve wasted in Golden Eye 007 going around and shooting all of the boxes, tables, whatever. My five-year-old and I play Modern Warfare 2 split screen, and just wander around shooting computers, bags of coffee beans, chickens, boxes of fruit… whatever we can find. It’s teaching him how to use the controller, and it’s something that I enjoy just a little too much. 

In fact, I don’t even know the story of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, even though I’ve put a good 10-15+ hours into it. Why? Because the only thing I did in that game was:

•  Drive to the nearest highway. Create pileup. Shoot cars until they explode. Repeat.
•  Spawn in a tank. Turn gun backwards. Fire repeatedly to propel tank forward/create chaos.

I don’t know why I find pointless destruction so fun. It just is. It makes a game just that much better when I can go around breaking everything around me.

Even just picking up or using everything around me is good.

I was a little irritated in the older Silent Hill games when you could only interact

 with key objects (even though I understand coding limitations and whatnot - and I’ll still agree that they’re amazing games), especially when I was like “USE THAT FRIGGIN CHAINSAW/CINDERBLOCK/TOOLBOX! GOD DAMNIT!” in the construction site in SH:3 and Heather was all like “I’m useless”. But when Origins let me use portable televisions, toasters, filing cabinets and a whole lot of other things as weapons, you’d better bet the game was a little more enjoyable. Even if it scared the crap out of me. (Yes, I’m a baby.)

While interaction isn’t necessary for me to love a game, it’s something that just adds that little extra touch. Like… icing flowers on an already delicious cake, or extra cheese curds in your poutine. Or when you get an onion ring mixed in with your fries. (can you tell I’m hungry?) I’ll happily play an extremely linear game where you can’t really interact with ANYTHING (Hell, I’ve played Final Fantasy X through three times, haven’t I?) but I’ll always go back to GTA to make my highway pileups.

5 Things I Love In a Video Game: Co-op/Multiplayer

In no particular order, I present you with a list of five things that I love in a video game!

So, I’m sure this is pretty obvious by now: I’m lazy. Or, not lazy perhaps, it just takes motivation to do things that are what I’m not currently doing. Once I’m cleaning, I love cleaning. Once I’m sewing, I love doing it. But does cleaning ever get done? Usually not. And when is the last time I sewed something? According to tumblr, about 5 months ago.

So what does this have to do with gaming? Simple. I usually don’t bother getting off the computer, or putting down my book or whatever to start playing games unless somebody (or something) makes me. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing video games. I just usually don’t. The last few games I’ve really played are: Left 4 Dead 2, Borderlands, Halo 3, Assassin’s Creed, Gears of War and Call of Duty (Black Ops/MW2). Only one of those games was really on my own, and I’ve owned it for about two years before I got around to playing it. 

I just really enjoy playing with other people. It’s one of the things my husband and I used to do when we started dating - we played games together. It’s a little disappointing how few games we can find that are splitscreen co-op nowadays. And I was really pissed when I picked up Resistance 2 and found out that they got rid of the co-op storymode and put in some stupid mini quests instead. Like, what the hell? :| Resistance was one of my favourite splitscreen co-ops on the PS3, and they don’t even have that in the sequel? WHY?

For me, playing with other people makes the game more enjoyable, and more likely that I’ll finish them. I literally spent 20+ hours dawdling in Final Fantasy XII because I didn’t want to fight the final boss and end the game. I powered through that game within a few weeks - which is pretty rare, but when I came to the end, it took me months to actually go attempt the final boss. 

I loved, loved, LOVED Resident Evil 4. But four years after I’ve picked the game up, I still haven’t beaten it. If I’m playing with someone else, I can’t get away with that. Partially because there isn’t much exploration really in co-op games, but also because the other person tends to get impatient. We finished Resident Evil 5 in about three weeks, which is pretty impressive in comparison.

So, there you have it. If a game ever wants to be appealing to me, it pretty much needs to have some sort of interaction with other humans. (Except MMOs. I’ve tried, and I just can’t get into those) Maybe it’s because I’m so socially inept, that playing games with other people is really the only social interaction that I can do, and do relatively well, without looking stupid. I don’t know. 

5 Awesome Video Games: Halo 2

In no particular order, I’m listing some video games that I absolutely love. :)

You probably could have guessed by my previous 5 Things post that Halo would make this list. And you’re right!

In Halo 2, you play as both Master Chief (the guy on the cover) and the Arbiter — a disgraced alien that is given the mission to redeem himself after his failure to protect one of the sacred and mysterious rings in space (called Halo) in the first game. … It’s hard to explain, especially when it has been years since I’ve played this.

 I’m pretty sure Halo 2 was my first game on the Xbox. Mostly because I didn’t own an Xbox, and had no interest in getting one. 

But playing the co-op on this game was one thing that I did a lot of when I started dating my husband. The game was still pretty new, and it was really different from anything I had played at the time. The weapons were fun, the characters (especially the enemies) were cool to look at, and the ability to drive alien vehicles was a great step-up from the first Halo. 

Aside from the story line (which you could play alone, or in co-op) there was also multiplayer competitive modes. I’ll admit, I had a love/hate relationship with that part of the game. Everyone I played with was a LOT better than me (partially because my girly hands couldn’t reach all the buttons on the old Xbox controllers), and games with those at the same level as me (i.e. 5 years younger than me) usually ended with them arguing about screen-watching. As I got better, I did enjoy it more, but my friends got bored of it way before I did. 

Writing this made me realize how awkward the word Xbox is I really am. I couldn’t figure out if the B should be capitalized or not, or if it should be all capitals, and I also was confused and tried to spell box with a cks for some odd reason. Wtf?

5 Things I Love In a Video Game: Fun Weapons

In no particular order, I present you with a list of five things that I love in a video game!

I recently picked up Halo 3 for the first time (yes, I’m delayed) a few weeks ago, and was reminded of why I like it more than most other popular shooters: the weapons.

While I did enjoy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 quite a bit; the online multiplayer was a good time-killer when I was too tired (or couldn’t be assed) to play a harder game that involved using the ol’ think-bone. But then I got Black Ops. And poked around on the older CoD games, and I just got bored fast. It’s all the same things: assault rifles, light machine guns, shot guns, pistols and snipers. 

… Yawn. 

Halo, along with some other games that I enjoy, has something that CoD doesn’t: fun (and weird) weapons. In Halo, it’s the Needler. You can’t argue with the double Needlers (and I was sad that they wouldn’t let you dual-wield them in H3). 

There was also the brute shot. I know they changed it in 3 as well, I don’t think the bullets bounce anymore. But the gun is like, 30% gun 148% big-ass blade. Go ahead, just try and convince me that it isn’t fun to run around slashing the crap out of enemies with this thing. Even when I’m out of bullets, I charge into battle and start slashing everything in my way. (And then usually die. But since I play co-op, I revive anyway, YAY!)

Star Wars, obviously had the lightsabres, I always enjoy playing as Darth Maul/Aalya Secura in Battlefront II because they have dual blades. And dual blades means twice the fun.

In TimeSplitters Future Perfect you have something called the Injector. Literally, you shoot darts at someone that makes them inflate bigger and bigger until they explode. 

So, in conclusion: weird = fun. And fun = good.

Am I simple minded? Probably. Definitely. 

And while I still enjoy going online for MW2 when I have a spare hour (or three), it will never match the sheer glee of running around filling people with shiny pink spikes. 

5 Great Books

 The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 

Summary: The Hobbit follows the adventures of Bilbo Baggins as he is brought along with a party of dwarves on a quest to the Lonely Mountain. There lies a horde of treasure that was stolen from them, by the dragon named Smaug. 

Surprisingly, I just got around to reading this book this summer. I’ve been wanting to read this (and the LOTR) for years and years, but I never got around to it. I really liked that Tolkien managed to put miles upon miles of journey in such a small book, and not have it feel tedious or slow at all. Even though I knew the basic story, I couldn’t put the book down until I finished.

 The Divide by Nicholas Evans

Summary: The body of Abbie Cooper is found frozen in a remote mountain creek. A few years ago she was the picture of the perfect daughter, but just before her death she was wanted for eco-terrorism and murder. The story follows her downslide, and the struggles of her family as she went through it.

I’ve read every book by this author, and I’ve really enjoyed all of them. This book is his newest, and possibly his best. Its arguably my favourite book of all time. Even though Abbie ends up doing the wrong things, I couldn’t help but sympathize with her. 

1984 by George Orwell

Summary: In a world where the government knows and sees everything, and is getting to the point where they know and can control your thoughts, Winston Smith is surviving just like everyone else. Until he finds a notebook. He secretly starts keeping a diary of rebellious thoughts, and becoming more and more suspicious of the system and those around him. And when he meets Julia, he drifts even further into rebellion.

Another book that took me a long time to pick up, but once I did I couldn’t put it down. For a book written in the 1940s, the story is still pretty disturbing. The way that the government has completely brainwashed the population is crazy, but strangely believeable.

The Fox and The Hound by Daniel P. Mannix 

Summary: The story follows the life of a fox named Todd. He was raised by humans for the first half of his life, and then released into the wild. The story mainly consists of Todds escapes from a nearby hunter and his dogs Cooper and Chief.

The amount of work that Mannix put into studying the behaviour of foxes is quite apparent in this book. All of the techniques that they use to evade their pursuers are really interesting, each time you worry maybe this time he’ll get caught. The story is almost nothing like the Disney movie, which confused me at first. In the end, I like the story a lot more this way.

The Jesus Incident by Frank Herbert

Summary: A crew of humans find themselves on a new planet, brought there by their artificially intelligent ship, which demands to be their new god. The new planet, Pandora, is full of dangerous creatures and the humans have to struggle to survive, as well as meet the demands of Ship. Everything starts to collapse when the clones they are creating to fight the creatures begin to rebel against them.

I’ll admit, I found this book quite confusing when I first read it many years ago. I found it in my father’s old room at my grandmother’s house, and read it during one of the holidays. It probably would have been easier to understand if I had read the first book, but at the time I was unaware that it was part of a series. The story is interesting, but I would probably enjoy it more if I could read it again (If I could find it). 

5 Albums That Shaped Me

Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory. I first heard them on a Dragonball Z AMV, and immediately downloaded every DBZ video that had their music on it. (Ah, the good ol’ days before youtube…) My father always complained that they were too much “rap” for his likes, but I still loved them. In fact, I could also probably credit Meteora in this list, but I wanted to have a bit of variety. :) 

Hybrid Theory was the album that brought me from my apathetic view of music - listening to Backstreet Boys and N*Sync because that’s what my friends liked. Without this CD, who knows what I’d be listening to today.

The Tea Party’s Transmission CD led to further drifting from mainstream music. I was introduced to them sometime near the end of 2001, around the same time I discovered Linkin Park, and by then they had a good collection of albums already. The Tea Party had quite a few great albums, each one had a unique sound to it - The Interzone Mantras had a very middle-eastern flavour, while Transmission was more grungy. I love Jeff’s voice, because I can sing along to it, and each song on the CD is unique. You don’t get that sensation halfway through the CD where you can’t remember which song you’re on. 

Fallen by Evanescence. I first heard them in the movie Daredevil. I think I bought the CD the next day. I fell for her voice, and I still love it. The second album wasn’t as good though. 

This CD came to me right around the time where I hit that awkward/depression stage that a lot of teenagers seem to go through. I was having a hard time making friends in High School, and boyfriends were still something I thought I’d never get. All the pain and sadness that is conveyed in this CD, I just felt so connected to it.

 Kittie’s Until the End CD was actually the second one from them that I heard. I had first heard their song Brackish and picked up that CD… probably a good 6 months before I found this one. It is such an improvement from their first CD, and I still quite like it. Probably one of the most awesome all-girl metal bands out there. 

This, and their other CD I owned, was my big step into metal. Kittie is what brought me into Static X and all kinds of other music that my mother hated. 

After all this, I was stuck listening to the same stuff for a good year or so. At that time I was a new mother, had no internet connection, and didn’t listen to the radio, so I really had no way to find anything else I liked. I began to burn out, and become disinterested in music again.

Dark Passion Play by Nightwish was a big step in my music history. This CD brought me to the world of Symphonic Metal, and to bands like Sonata Arctica, Freedom Call, Apocalyptica, and of course, classic Nightwish as well.

This album is just so… awesome. It renewed my love for music, and for that it will always be one of my favourites.  <3

5 Awesome Video Games: God of War

In no particular order, I’m listing some video games that I absolutely love. :)

After owning God of War game since it came out (and its sequel as well) I’m just getting around to playing this game now. I can’t believe I didn’t pick it up earlier! This game is insanely challenging, and totally fun.

You play as Kratos, the muscled sex-god out to get revenge on Ares, the god of war. Along the way you slaughter pretty much every being in Greek mythology.

The game is a great balance of fighting and puzzles. And the puzzles are frigging brutal. For every death I have from combat, I have about 30 from the puzzles/traps. I’m serious.

But, in all honesty, I don’t mind dying so often from stuff like that. There is enough saves/checkpoints to keep it from getting annoying.

Another thing I liked was the amount of stuff hidden everywhere. I always make sure to explore every nook and cranny, and in some games its a waste of time and effort - but in this game there is always something to find… be it health, experience orbs, or items that give health/mana upgrades.

The sequel is just as good, as was the one on PSP. I haven’t seen a single minute of GoW3 though… but I’d imagine its just as awesome. :)

5 Awesome Video Games: Resident Evil 4

In no particular order, I’m listing some video games that I absolutely love. :)

Probably one of the BEST games on the Gamecube, Resident Evil 4 is what introduced me to the game series (I had seen the movies, but… they’re quite different), and led me to pick up several other RE games just to get more of the story.

The game features Leon Kennedy, an agent sent to Europe rescue the President’s daughter Ashley. Leon is attacked by vicious villagers, part of a cult that is controlled by parasites injected into the person’s body. 

The gameplay in this game is quite good, there is a good range of weapons to use and they are customizable as well. But one of my favourite parts of the game? The inventory system. It not only prevented you from (unrealistically) carrying 50 different guns, 20 grenades, and a crapload of healing - it also satisfied my obsession with organizing things. Essentially, you get a briefcase (which you can expand later in the game) and you have to fit everything into it. If you pick up an item that doesn’t fit? You can’t carry it. It means you really have to strategize what you pick up and what you leave behind.

But enough about the inventory. The levels were engaging, the boss fights were fun and the amount of things you unlock at the end of the game made it worthwhile to play through again.

This was, and still is, a game that I am passionate about. Its scary enough to be exciting, but not to stop me from playing it (I’m looking at you, Silent Hill), and it is fast-paced enough to keep me from getting bored or confused about where I’m supposed to be going.

5 Awesome Video Games: Left 4 Dead 2

In no particular order, I’m listing some video games that I absolutely love. :) 

I was introduced to this game sometime in March of this year. I’d seen maybe a few minutes of the first one on the XBox 360, but didn’t think much of it. But when I tried this one, I fell in love.

The story isn’t too complex. You’re a group of four people stuck in a zombie apocalypse. Thats… pretty much it. The game has humour strewn throughout it, much like any other Valve game, which makes it more enjoyable than serious shooter games.

The online play is just so fun. There’s several different modes to play (versus, survival, etc), but I usually just stick with the campaign. 

I like that the levels aren’t always the same. Sometimes you encounter certain special infected in some areas, sometimes they show up elsewhere. It’s nice not always going “Okay, we know the big guy is around this corner, save your ammo. Because he isn’t always there.” If you’re straggling behind, the game sends a horde after you. And sometimes you encounter a Tank (pretty much the boss enemies) right out the door of your first safe room.

The ends of every level are pretty challenging, especially in the hardest difficulty. It takes a lot of skill, a lot of teamwork, and some luck to get through them.