I may not be American but…

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Fable 2 party, Dead Space thoughts & Soulja Boy drama

Fable II, the Launch Party
Some people have noticed that Fable II has been spinning in my Xbox 360 lately and a ton of people have messaged me looking for impressions. Unfortunately I can’t talk about Fable II just yet but expect to see a lot of content about the game on X3F next week.

Microsoft rented out a pub in downtown Toronto to help launch the game. The funniest part about playing a game at an event like this is when people give up. What I mean is, in Fable II you can kill anyone (except children) in a town but the city guards are going to be on you like white on rice ASAP. A menu pops up and notifies you that you can pay a fine for your crimes, do community service to lessen the sentence or resist arrest — all of this information has been released in previous previews AND was an element in the original Fable. People at the launch party would murder innocents, resist, get their asses handed to them and then give up. So, when I came in (fashionably late to the party) every time I picked up a controller it was as I was getting my ass handed to ME!

This sort of thing happens a lot at press events which is why it is often difficult to get good impressions. Note to all playing games at an event who then want to write about — ALWAYS restart the demo.

Space the final…. holy shit what was that?!
For the last few days I’ve been playing Dead Space. After seething in anger because Dustin got his hands on it, I picked up a copy and jumped in. Quick impressions, 9 chapters (out of 12 in) the game is good. While Dead Space looks nice I think a lot of people glazed over how good it sounds. The audio in the game adds to the already eerie environment and really creates a cool world.

There isn’t as much back tracking as Dustin led me to believe. I mean, you do go back but often it is literally two or three rooms. I was expecting you to have to redo entire areas of the game but that isn’t the case. The creatures are cool… the first time you see them. After that you’re kinda left with a sense that they are a ridiculous blend of scabs and sharp things. The game has made me jump once or twice but it really isn’t as scary as I thought it would be.

The HUD-less design and the ideal of menu projection into the world relative to the character and not the camera is very well implemented. It’s very impressive to watch a video message from someone on board the ship and rotate the camera around to see the images stacked creating a holographic display.

Gun play is fantastic so far but that is based on me only using the first weapon — I’m trying to get the achievement, go figure.

All in all I’m impressed with the game and I think EA has a good franchise on their hands. I anticipate playing through the game a few times.

Also, the Leviathan looks like a demonic vagina.

Disappointed in Soulja Boy Commentary
Recently I posted a video of rapper Soulja Boy calling out Xbox Live gamers on X3F. Some people questioned why we would bother — the answer: It was Saturday and it was funny, get over it — and some people laughed. We thought nothing of it really but suddenly my inbox was flooded with comments that were being posted on X3F that were highly racist and used words that should never be uttered, regardless of skin color.

Not surprisingly all of the racist comments were deleted as soon as I saw them and every single person who used the racial slur typically used by bigots was banned from the entire Joystiq Network. Meaning, no more commenting for you.

I’m shocked. I didn’t think that our readers would ever stoop to that level and actually write something so hateful. I wanted to email each person and bitch them out personally but who has the time, really?

If you were one of the people who used a slur then I’m ashamed you ever visited our site. Biggotry like that is the reason for a lot of pain across the world and it will get you no where. You want to be a hater then hate because Soulja Boy has a shitty GamerScore and bad Halo 3 stats, not because he’s black.

Also, bigotry like that is why a lot of people won’t vote for Barrack Obama. Good luck supporting a Republican President, because the last eight years has worked out so well.

Honestly, does anyone want Sarah Palin within arms reach of nuclear launch codes? She can’t even name a newspaper.

Seemed like a good idea at the time … ladies

Remember my great idea of posting everything I do every week? Well, that didn’t pan out. The thing about writing at a blog for 5+ days a week means you don’t really want to look at another blog on your off time!

It’s like when I worked as a manager for EB Games. You are surrounded by videogames and sometimes you need a book or a movie.

Speaking of which. Right now I’m reading a couple of books. Top of the list is “Don’t Get Too Comfortable” by David Rakoff. Rakoff is a newly christened American after living in the States as a visiting Canadian for nearly twenty years. The book is a funny look on the process of being an American.

Also on the list is “When You Are Engulfed in Flames” by David Sedaris. Haven’t really dived into that one enough to talk about it but it is notable that Sedaris moved to to the Far East to write it and to quit smoking. Yes, moved half way across the globe to quit smoking! I should do that myself.

BigCast 003 is pretty entertaining, if only because it was a total clusterf***! I was hella tired and stressed out during recording. The entertaining parts will be the outtakes and the bonus chapter I’m planning on including which saw Akela, Kyle and I jaw on about comics. Fun stuff.

Bought a brand spanking new MacBook. Pimp as shit.

The X3F Fancast Friends group on Facebook has some hilarious photoshops of me and the guys. Props to Richard Elliot. For some reason the group isn’t allowing images to be uploaded anymore, but Rich is looking into it. No, it wasn’t disabled by any of us!

E3 is next week. Scary stuff for me personally as it’s the first E3 I’ll be really entrenched in. I won’t be there but with Rich and Dustin gone it’s up to Terrence and myself to get things done.

It goes without saying but the Fancast is going to be a little odd this week. It’s going to be Rich, Dustin and Alexander talking about E3 on a nightly basis. As for Terrence and I … wait and see!

I’d keep writing but I have work to do and need to go buy Civilization Revolution!!!!!

Blog’s New Look

Dunners (aka Dustin) let me know that the old version of my site didn’t scale properly for those of you who don’t run your monitors at 1280×1024 (or something like that).

That in mind I decided to use a different theme, from a list of other ugly ones, and redesigned the blog.

While it isn’t exactly what I’d like, it’s one of the few good looking options available to me via WordPress.

How is this version scaling?

The one where Xav explains the grind

There are a few things I hate in games but one of the most annoying is the level grind itself.

Forcing players to play through countless waves of the same poorly designed enemies just so that I can hit Level 50 is an artificial and redundant design in games.

For some games, the grind is the game.

MMO’s are a good example — I’m not pointing fingers but while some people love them, sitting down to play WoW or Guild Wars was a lesson in patience.

Being 24 and busy with work at X3F and other freelance gigs, the only genre I have time for are action shooters. Be it first-person, third, shmups — whatever. So you might think twitch gaming has created this hate for the level grind.

The level grind is a feature prolific within role-playing games for the most part. I remember playing Final Fantasy VII and in preparation for my Weapon fights (Ruby in-particular) I realized I had to max out my character’s stats to win. Scouring data found in magazines, discussing best-practices with my friends, and random luck scored me the info that the best way to ensure success is by grinding out my characters and if I didn’t want to do it myself there was a trick.

I tried the grind myself, but just got bored and frustrated by it until i discovered a small offshore island that, due to it’s awkward shape, allowed players to bound back and forth on the shoreline. Equipped with tape and a turbo controller, I set the game up to do my dirty work for me and after a few days worth of exploits I was maxed.

So the moral of the story is, I hate the grind. Some people love it, and that’s great… but for me it doesn’t work.

I need story, progression and for things to happen … and you typically don’t get that with fetch quests and killing 100 cacti in a row.

So why is my personal blog called The Level Grind?

This is the place where I can shoot-the-sh*t. Talk about what’s going on inside and around my X3F life, gaming experiences, my favorites and hates, and everything in between.

Level Grinding is just filler, and so is The Level Grind.