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Shadow of the Colossus. Wow. Talk about using some hardcore brainpower. As I’ve stated, in order to find out the general direction of where you are meant to go, just hold your sword in the air, and your analog sticks will start to shake. Keyword: GENERAL direction. In the past all I have had to do was climb up cliffs to find my next victim, well not this time. Eventually I decided to try a somewhat hidden path, which took me to a dead end lake. I had no idea that my character could even swim, so I quickly dismissed this idea and wandered around for a good 20 minutes before calling a friend. I was indeed supposed to swim to a path that came out of the water. At the edge of the walkway I had to jump across a 10-foot gap to hang onto another ledge. From there I would perform a “backflip-ish” jump to a ledge behind him, and eventually climbing up that monstrosity to reach the target. Pretty complicated, huh? There’s my ogre, but of course it wouldn’t be the same as the last, as I could find no place on his body to hang onto/climb up. Here comes another phone a friend. If i could get the colossi to hit a stone platform with his sledgehammer, part of his armor would fall off and I could then climb. It was close to the hour and 15 mark when I decided I’d had enough. Now I know his two vital spots are on his head and stomach, so I should kill him pretty quickly, except for one thing I forgot to mention. With this game, you are only allowed to save after you kill each colossus. So yeah, remember everything that I just said? Well, that’s exactly where I have to start next time I turn the console on.

link it up

Yes, I’m the biggest Harry Potter nerd, but I’m not too sure if I will be running at the front of the pack to pick up the new game. It’s not just this particular title that I’m having problems with, but also the saga as a whole. The books were great, and I understand that because of how long and detailed they were, you can’t fit all of that information into a two-hour movie (totally understandable). I don’t like trying to take this condensed version and trickling it into a game. It seems the reviewer fully agrees and states, “you’re not here to play the movie; you’re here to live in the movie’s universe.” I know that no programmer wants to develop 700 pages of imagination into the interactive medium, because I wouldn’t, but I still think I would be more excited if this were the case. In the end, I’ll still be able to create potions, duel with my enemies, and even play some Quidditch, so I might just have to rent it, and see if I can deal with all of the plot holes before I whip out my wallet.

“Even with all emphasis on group activity, most of the major features of Half-Life still only happens through individual inactivate. Everyone had different ideas as to what exactly the game should look like, or at lest what features we just had to do.”  The workers control the means of production. What that means is depending on how hard the workers work, your production and final work are measured. There are constant cycles of work workers and what is being produces. If you don’t have valid inputs from your works then your product is going suck because there is not any broaden perspectives. 

http://xbox.joystiq.com/2009/06/30/xbox-live-top-10-the-chief-is-back/

In this article some how Halo 3 beats Call of Duty: world at war. I don’t know how that happen since Halo 3 came out like a year ago…but ok. In the Halo world there is a new game coming out. I’m not sure if I want to get it or not. Most likely I will some time in my life. But the new COD game Modern warfare 2 that’s coming out I’m really looking forward to it. It seems like there is always going to be an all out sell war between these two games. Maybe the Master Chief should go up against the U.S military, lets see who’ll win? Most likely the  Chief because he is 7 foot tall I think and like 1000 pounds of amour lol. But it’ll be a close fight I think. 

January 17 1943 0830 Libya Sunny light winds 77 degrees.

The Afrika korps is falling back to the Tripoli their lost major supply base in the region. We have been equipped with an improved version of amour piercing round but we still need to get close enough for effect.

Tank Commander David Welsh, 7^th armored Divi

This level was pretty much the same as the last level, but with more enemy tanks, a lot more. There were even more ground enemy troops as well. The last level was so easy and now it seems I got what I asked for because now this level was really hard to beat. Wave after wave of enemy tanks blasting and hitting our tank. My vision was blurred with red and sand that I couldn’t see what I was hitting. At some points I felt like I was just spinning around hitting tanks, friendly and foe. After the battle settled and the wind and sand died down, I ended up blowing everyone and everything up, but my own tank. It was sloppy…but the job was done. 

First the good news. Garou: Mark of the Wolves is new available for Xbox Live Arcade! If you didn’t play it on the Playstation 2, then at least download the demo. Garou is one of the most innovative fighting games of all time and contained SNK’s fighting game storyline that began with Art of Fighting and continued with Fatal Fury. It’s also extremely well balanced since after nine years, only one character has an infinite, the tier list keeps changing, the low-tier characters are worth using and even the bosses are balanced with the rest of the cast. I wish you “good ruck” finding a better fighter.

Now the bad news. Washed up film producer Larry Kasanoff is new suing Midway and their new parent company Time Warner for the rights to the Mortal Kombat franchise which will prevent Warner Interactive and Midway from releasing the now in development MK9 in order for Kasanoff to produce a sequel for Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. A sequel that’s spent twelve years in development and has yet to leave pre-production and promises to be just as awful as the first two movies. Actually, it’ll be worse since Kasanoff’s last film had excessive product placement and nobody wants to see Sub-Zero down a can of Red Bull with the camera focusing in on the label as Subby chugs the energy drink so that he’s pumped and alert enough to fight Shao Kahn.

Let’s not forget that Foodfight was the first film that Kasanoff made in nine years. In that nine year period, Kasanoff only produced the banal Mortal Kombat: Conquest television show that I saw a few clips of when I was flipping through channels and needless to say, it was really, really awful. How awful? It was a syndicated Saturday afternoon TV show. I’ll let that sink in.

Kasanoff’s claims are only backed up by a contract that claims that he owns the rights to the characters when they’re used oustside of the games. However, Kasanoff is now claiming that the characters are completely his since he claims that he developed them as characters.

This is crap for a number of reasons.

Reason one: John Tobias was one of the main screenwriters for the second Mortal Kombat film while he was also working at Midway meaning that Midway still played a hand in creating the story for Mortal Kombat as pertains to the film series.

Reason two: The contract only applied to media outside of the game series.

Reason three: All characters in the game were created by Midway employees and are therefore owned by Midway’s Chicago studio.

Reason four: The Mortal Kombat Team’s lead writer John Vogel is responsible for far more character development than Kasanoff ever was. Kasanoff states that the characters in the game are merely “stock characters” which is a total lie and is completely degrading to Vogel’s job as a professional writer in the video game industry and everything that the man has added to the series over the years. As far as fighting games go, Mortal Kombat is known for paying the most attention to story details and there are numerous threads on the Midway’s forums about the plot of Mortal Kombat. Whereas the story is poorly written and unimportant in SNK’s King of Fighters series, Mortal Kombat has  created a fimrly established canon which is one of the series’ main accomplishments and a big reason why I’ve been a fan for the past fourteen years.

The reason for the suit is because Kasanoff doesn’t want Time Warner to gain control of the rights to the film franchise that Kasanoff hasn’t been working on for the past twelve years. He’s seen what Time Warner did to the Batman film franchise after hiring Christopher Nolan to replace Joel Shumaker and he’s afraid that Time Warner might make a movie that will do the series justice that will be far different than the abortion that Kasanoff will inevitably create. Kasanoff has only produced one watchable film and that was True Lies which was still not the California Governor’s best movie by a long shot. (That honor goes to a tie between Predator and Terminator 2.) In fact, it was one of the only original properties that Kasanoff produced. Most of his movies were sequels or films developed on licensed properties, demonstrating the sheer lack of creativity that this man has.

For Kasanoff to be so afraid of Time Warner gaining the rights to a franchise that he has only tarnished the image of and hasn’t utilized for years is beyond immature and given that Kasanoff’s position is reliant on a carefully worded contract that still lists the characters and franchise itself as belonging to Midway, it doesn’t look as though he’s likely to win and if he does, then he’ll be canceling a game that’s currently in progress which will harm both the Midway employees who’ve already been through hell and the fans who simply want to see the next game in the franchise. If worst comes to worst, then Ed Boon would be justified in seeking vengeance against Kasanoff through a challenge of skill and raw physical ability. Boon must challenge Kasanoff to…. MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Justice is served

Sources: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3GUSyiZNp0&feature=channel_page

http://forums.midway.com/future_mortal_kombat_game_discussion/b10741/30201185/p1/?40

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6212579.html

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/06/25/mortal-kombat-film-producer-sues-midway-over-ip-rights

If you get this, I love you.

Building Challenge
Hosted by I AM Columbia and Hibiki Ochs.

Bring your best, most open and expanded mind and try your hand at building something fresh! Every Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm SLT!

Twice a week I’ll be picking the freshest new inspirations for you to build off of. Keep it under 50 prims and keep it incredible! Bring your friends, family, enemies, etc.

If you’ve never done a build challenge, here’s what we got going on:

I post a quote onto a billboard at the start of it.  You have 50 minutes tops to make something based of that quote, and then the onlookers vote on their favorite.  I’ll have a voting board, I’ll try to get some side games going for people not building (SLopoly or otherwise), and there’s always the island to explore!  Once the winners have been decided they will get ribbons, and their creations will be lauded until the next contest!

Hit me up in world anytime with questions and such, and while you’re here check out the freshest island in all of SL, the I AM Columbia Island!

-Hibiki Ochs

While reading pages 212-225 I have realized that making a sucessful hit game takes a of work. Well, this does go without saying. If you want something to take off, then hard work is mandatory. The article talks heavily about this “cabal”. According to the article a “cabal” is a group of experienced people to get the job done. The making of Half Life reminds me of my college career. In group projects, ideas come and go, and you man not get along with a certain person. However, you have to make it work in order to move on. I liked on page 219 when Ken talked about a creature that was originally a friendly one. Yet, due to it’s rough appearance, gamers immediately killed it. At the time Half Life was a one of a kind game due to it’s storyline, and still is. I find Half Life similiar to Duke Nukem in that you are fighting odd looking creatures. However, I have never played Half Life, I am now intrigued too.

Officially I own 3 different buildings other than the apartment that was given at the beginning of the game.  My favorite is the one in Vice Point.  It has pool in the front and with some work you can jump and walk around to the back and get a sniper rifle.  To the side of the house there is a garage where you can keep one car.

This is what game play has been reduced to.  The plot didn’t gratify and wasn’t interesting enough so I swayed over to a curiosity of buying buildings.  Though I own 3 buildings I feel empty still, like that void isn’t filled.  The houses provide a location to save and garage but for some reason I want more.  I need more.  I want to go into the houses.  I wonder what happens when I own all the houses or maybe a strip club. Hmm.

It seems like the “Cabal” strategy used by the designers at Valve for creating Half-Life is second nature for today’s games. However, at the time, I am sure the horizontal creation process of multiple experts in various fields was revolutionary at the time. That is probably what makes Half-Life so legendary—the fact that the game development today essentially spawned from Valve’s “Cabal”. Granted, I have never played the game, but I would like to very soon to see what all the “hype” is about.