Friday, September 3, 2010

Pure

Do you like ATVs? Do you like racing? Do you like doing tricks in mid air on ATVs? If you answered yes to all those, you will enjoy playing Pure as that's what this game is all about. What's even harder to believe is that Disney made this game. Which is one of the reasons I grabbed it to see how they did on making a racing game.

So sit down, pull the gas, and enjoy some fun/hard racing in Pure. You'll go through 4 classes of ATVs. D, C, B, and A. Which A is the best.

You can build your ATV from scratch, modify it, change the design, mix up the stickers, and upgrade your ATV through out the game. There is an easy way to build your ATV for race or tricks depending on what you're doing. Just gotta hold down the button and it will do it all for you if you don't want to mess with making one each time you build one.

You will race through a World Tour event doing Sprints, Races, or Freestyle.

Sprint: Short tracks to see who can finish the race first.
Race: Long tracks to see who can finish the race first.
Freestyle: Pull off tricks and combo's to boost your score to see who can have the highest score before you run out of gas.

All three race types are fun and enjoyable to play. It does get harder to win on some of the later on but that's only because you will need to learn the tracks and find the shortest way around it. Once you figure that out, you'll be in the top every time.

You'll be captivated by the scenery in which you can't just stop to look around or you'll lose the race. That or you'll run off the mountain. You even might just crash into the side of a rock or tree. So keep your eye on the track as you can take different paths on every track race. Some are optimal for time and some are better for jumps to get more tricks in.

Once you finish up the world tour you will be able to perform all the tricks in the game. Which is a lot considering A is for easy tricks, B is for medium tricks, and Y is for hard tricks. Not only do you push a button, but you push a direction on the analog stick to perform the trick. So that's 8 directions per letter. Which is 24 tricks but WAIT! You can also click and hold in the RB or LB buttons to perform special tricks on top of those. So that's 24 more tricks for a total of 48 tricks in the game. However, you have a meter in the game that builds up. Once it's maxed out, you can perform special tricks for each rider in the game. Yes some are the same but they each have their own individual tricks. Plus left and right tricks count differently as your rider does the trick to that side of the ATV. So you have 8 more tricks you can do on top of the 48 plus more for each rider. Then you perform a full 360 forward and backwards trick by tapping forward or back twice and holding it for 2 more tricks. What's even better is all those different types of tricks are achievements. So if you want all 1000 in this games, you're going to get to see and do all those tricks. Sad part is you'll have to do some of them in one race of the World Tour event. Which are the hardest achievements in the game.

This game does include online and people are still racing today online. Some are ungodly good and can nail freestyle tricks in places you wouldn't think of doing that type of trick there. So you can have some fun racing online if you're looking for that. If you're looking for achievements, just get a friend to help ya knock them out quickly and you'll be done in an hour with that or less.

Overall, enjoyed the game. When trying to finish up all 1000, I got very frustrated and quit playing it. Was ready to get rid of it say forget that 1000. Couple friends got it, did the achievements I was trying to get, got a push, got some advice and finished it up. YEAH! So thanks for the help and good luck to all who get this game.

Clash of the Titans

I remember watching the first Clash of the Titans movie when I was a kid growing up. It was just one of those movies I wore out and would watch it anytime it came on TV. So now they have done a remake of it and I finally got around to watching it.

It seems a lot of people didn't like the movie. I enjoyed watching it. Yes, things changed from the original but that's to be expected. They are trying to bring it up to date and put their on twist on it. So if you're trying to compare, sure I'll say I like the first one is better over the new one any day of the week. However the new one was still a descent movie in its own reguards.

The movie does follow the same story line and they did a good job on the details for all the animated portions of the movie. Being able to get the details down and do the changes they did turned out very well. Especially with the Titans.

I'm not going to dive into this but wanted a post on it since I got around to watching it. That and I enjoyed it so much as a kid, I wanted a post on it. So if you're looking for a movie to watch with this type genre, it will be worth picking up on a boring weekend with nothing going on. If you're looking for some over the top movie, this isn't going to bring that for you. Go grab 300 and watch it instead.

Resident Evil 5

If you've never played a Resident Evil game then you're going to feel like I do on this game.

The graphics in the game are extremely good. That is going to pull you in as they did an excellent job. When someone slings their head and opens their mouth to holler at you. Then you see it split open in to 4 pieces like a clover with drool, teeth and a nasty snarl. Even better when the guy on the bike rides by and tries to bite you with his mouth. Which is what they all want to do in this game; bite you or beat you to a bloody pulp. The graphics in this game are not going to let you down in the slightest.

The story line flows rather good as well. It's good but after you beat it once, that back button on your controller will help you skip all the cinematic's faster.

Speaking of the cinematic's, they show up through out the game and pop up quite frequently. Which the cinematic's look just like the game but you're not controlling the guy or girl at that point. However some cinematic's do enforce the timed button smashing to complete it. Which you are going to find out that you hate. Mainly because you know you hit the button but the game doesn't register it. It gives you about a second to hit it, if that, or it won't count. Especially when you have to hit X and A together. If it's not you, then it's your partner hollering that he hit the button, he knows he did. Yet you're dead on the screen and starting all over from the beginning to try again.

Which having a partner is a very good thing as this game is better playing with someone. Especially since the AI can be a complete idiot on occasion. It makes no sense to me why the AI can't take a side step to shoot the enemy but instead, blast me with the gun, which doesn't kill the enemy behind me at all. Which of course I then get hit and hurt while the AI is still shooting me thinking magically the bullet will go through and kill the enemy. Which if it's my year she's shooting, then it does hit the enemy but not my chest or head. GRRRrrr The AI will die at times that make no sense as well. For instance, if their is a beam of light that if it touches you, you will be blown to bits. How about the AI just walks out into it for some reason when it was just standing their waiting for it to go by. The AI needed a little more work in this game. The one good thing about the AI is if you load it up with an unlimited Mag gun, they will take out a ton of the enemies and help you out immensely. Load them up with health so if you are hurt, they will replenish you and themselves if your health gets low. Plus it stops them from picking everything up around them while running through the chapters.

The next thing you're going to hate in this game is the horrible controls. The way everything is configured out is not your norm you are use to. If you plan to get all the achievements in the game, you will get use to it but you're still not going to like it. It takes forever to turn left, right or behind you. Which there is a button to flip you to your partner but you'll do that by accident and the enemy will be behind you after you click it. So you'll probably get smacked in the back of the head while you start trying to turn around to not get hit. Which, as you'll notice, you have to stop completely to fire a gun or swing your knife. Which by the way, you have to hold the Left Trigger down to be able to pull the Right Trigger down to fire. That goes with grenades, flash bangs, etc... Your knife is actually the Left Bumper button to pull it out in which you still need to use the RT to swing it. You have an inventory menu that comes up by pressing Y. Your D pad can give you instance access to the up, down, left, and right section. The rest however you have to stop, bring up the menu and then highlight what you want to use or equip. Their is no jump button in the game either but you'll do a lot of jumping up, down, across and some dodging with X for the action sequence to make stuff happen.

There are a good range of weapons in the game you will find and unlock. Which you can upgrade them all to make them better. Which upgrading them all will unlock an achievement for you as well. Which takes a lot of money. The Rocket Launcher, Mag pistol, and Sniper gun are going to be your best weapons in the end. Just starting out though, keep your pistol and shotgun on you as that's the ammo that gets dropped through out the game.

After you beat the game and start on your next run, you will be earning exchange points for the bonus materials. Which you only get when you finish up the Chapters in the game. Which will also depend on your rank for the amount of exchange points you get. You will need to upgrade all the weapons so you can unlock the unlimited ammo for the best guns in the game. You want unlimited on the Mag before you buy anything else with your exchange points. So save until you can get it. It will just help you out in the game more than you'll know. After that, get your time down under 5 hours to unlock the unlimited RL which doesn't cost you anything. Between those two, you'll pretty much be set and can start buying all the figurines for that achievement. Which you can't buy the last one until you S rank every mission at least once on any difficulty.

You can play on easy, regular, or veteran for difficulty when you start out the game. Once you beat veteran, you will unlock professional which you don't want to run through until you have the unlimited mag and rocket launcher. One hit and you will die. You have about a second to get healed which the AI can't seem to do even standing right beside you. The achievements are stackable, so if you play through on Veteran first, you can unlock three at once when you finish the campaign.

This game does have collectibles. Find a good guide as they are not all that easy to find. You need to find everything to unlock extra stuff in the game as well. Running through on easy you won't have to worry about dieing so much while looking for everything if you have missed it.

Overall this game has its up and downs. I did read they are doing a Resident Evil 6 game and it's going to be a completely revamped since the original creator is not coming back for the next one. So hopefully they will fix the controls, especially since, even with the PlayStation Move, this game still stinks for controls from all I've read online where it was used with the game.

Time, Where Does the Time Go

Yesterday started out pretty good and had plans to work on some games last night but things never go as planned.

For some reason, work went beyond crazy when lunch time hit. So didn't really have a lunch, was putting out fires, and resolving issues for next week on into the afternoon. Finally got to leave work and head home. Was worn out and I know most won't be at work tomorrow considering it's a 3 day weekend being Labor Day. So they all take tomorrow off to make it a 4 day weekend but I'll be here at work chugging along.

When I got home, I see the Nook has arrived that I'll talk about later on in this post. However the other thing that happened was good fortune. We had signed up to test out the Playstion Move that is coming out, which of course we didn't get in on it. The interesting part is, it was so popular and such a big hit that they are going to do it again. The email came in while we were looking at something online. So we stopped everything and signed up right then before it filled up. We actually got in! I'm stoked about this since I've been reading up more on the Playstation Move and knowing eventually I would end up getting it. With what we joined up to do, we are hosting a party at our house, inviting friends and going to get the Playstation Move, Eye and some games to let everyone see and play with. The best part is, we get to keep it all. We don't have to pay anything. Woo Hoo!!! Now to save up and find a way to get Kinect and will be good.

Well today was also our date night since someone was being really nice and watched our kids for us this afternoon. So we drove over to Mamma Mia's to try it out after dropping the kids off. We've heard nothing but good things about this place and we had never made it by. Just a small little resturant but the food was good. Which is why you go in the first place. If you're ever down our way and you like pasta, gotta swing by this resturant. So we stuffed ourselves from the delicious food and rolled out the door.

Then headed over to Target and did a little Christmas shopping. Yea, now is the time to start while toys are in stock. Too bad the toys we went to get were completely sold out. If your kid wants some Squinkies, you better start getting them now as that's going to be the hot item for christmas. Did get a few items though, so those will be stashed away until December.

So we get done shopping and head back to get the girls. They are hungry and still running full blast when we get home. So go through everything and finally get them into bed. I started working on my wife's Nook that came in the mail. We ran across a good deal for a brand new one with a case, so we got it. We've already sold our Logetich Harmony remote and now got to sell the Sony ereader we have and will have it paid back off.

It's a pretty cool device and I like it better than the Sony ereader as it seems faster to me. It has more technology built into it for doing other things but the new Sony ereaders coming out will probably be a lot better than the older ones. However the Sony's are still good though, don't get me wrong. It was just time for an upgrade to a newer ereader.

Ran into an issue where none of the epub books would work on it. So was doing research and ended up calling a friend up who has one. Found out about this program called Calibre. http://calibre-ebook.com/ What a sweet program for manageing and converting your ebooks over to whatever format you want. It even detects your ereader and does everything for you with the click of a few buttons. So reconverted the epub's to an epub and it resolved our issues for opening them up on the Nook. Some of the files aren't really labeled properly so got a little project to fix all that so it all shows up properly in the Nook. Which with Calibre, that will be a lot easier to do.

By the time all that was done, it was past 10 pm. So I got online to finish up Resident Evil 5. Which took me until almost 11 to finish it up. The computer can be a complete idiot in that game sometimes. Professional is a one hit die, so not easy to do as it is. So RE5 is finished as far as the 1000 in the game goes but I'm skipping the DLC. Not going to buy something that I'll never play online. Hit up a chat with someone before I headed to bed.

I had hoped to start Dead Rising Case Zero but was too tired. Guess that will be my Friday night game. Nothing like killing some zombies.

Now the real fun begins as at 4 am this morning. I get woken up by my youngest daughter to go potty. Now my oldest has been a little sick and at that point in time, she starts coughing and can't stop. Tried some things and finally gave her medicine early to help calm her down so she could get some more sleep before school.

Me ,however, stayed awake and got ready for work. Mainly because I couldn't go back to sleep after all that. I got here before everyone did this morning. The saying the early bird gets the worms doesn't mean anything when the worms are even up yet. I'm so not sticking around today and I'm heading out early to trade in some games.

Good thing I have NOS in the frig for tonight or I probably will pass out early. Which I might anyway as it won't help me stay awake if I'm that tired.