"Metro: Last Light" first impressions.

Sorry I've not been posting, but this "video project" I keep mentioning is essentially a 15-20 documentary/comedy gaming show that I'm narrating in character, and as such has become the most difficult project I've ever tackled. I've been baring down on it every day, as much as I can, to the detriment of my blog and "social media presence." But whatever. I'm really proud of what's coming together, even if it completely sucks, and I hope people can at least get a chuckle out of it. NOW! Here's what I think of Metro: Last Light. My first impressions, anyway. I'll be back tomorrow, maybe a couple of more times this week. Now that I'm just editing video/audio, it's actually a welcome break to sit down and write a blog.

Metro: Last Light is a truly amazing game that I’ve been greedily devouring for a better part of the last two days. Every moment I wasn’t playing, I was thinking about it... I’m pretty sure my girlfriend thinks I’m cheating on her with a video game. A thought made no less painful by the presence of the “nudity” warning on the ESRB badge.

Can you blame me? Dat ASS...

The gameplay is well put together, the graphics are good, blah blah blah. Not what I really feel like tackling in a blog post. I’m just going to throw atmosphere up as a target and hurl thought-darts at it for a minute.

Thick, scary, eerily beautiful, profoundly well designed. The abandoned tunnels and sewers or the dilapidated surface world of Moscow in 2034 are some of the most engrossing I’ve experienced in years. If you’ve read this blog before, you’ll know I’m a environment freak. They are so principally important to what I find to be a quality gameplay experience that I’ll play through horrible games that have good environments just because I like where I am. They’re the reason I can’t play through good games like Skyrim, but can play through trash like Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

Unfortunately for my journalistic integrity, a lot of what I qualify as a good environment has little to do with anything the game designers do, and lots to do with what appeals to me aesthetically. I grew up in the middle of the woods - was a teenager in the middle of the woods. Therefor, the concrete and steel of an urban game hold favor over the woodland landscapes that dominate “medieval” rpgs and period shooters.

Can't it be both?

In the case of Metro: Last Light, I’m a lucky boy, and I get both a well designed environment, and one that appeals to my aesthetic sense. They also appear in the perfect context, lending an important but often neglected air of necessity to the tunnels and collapsed buildings. Appearing on a surface world long ravaged by post-nuclear environmental crises, a gust of wind picks up, hinting at the destructive and unpredictable nature of the weather. A button press wipes off your ever-present gas mask, just sprayed with debris. A distant howl of an beast not yet known to you. The sun obscured by a cloud, chases the horizon at a pace too swift to leave you comfortable as a player.

No matter the rest of my experience (my time with the single player campaign is nearly over) or the inevitable and obnoxious complaints that will come up as I come to better know this game, that particular moment I just described has stored itself in a rarely used drawer of my brain. It’s sharing that space with the first time I played Resident Evil 1 and the dogs burst through the window, or the final battle with Sephiroth in Final Fantasy 7, or my first leap from atop a church steeple in Assassin’s Creed. Metro: Last Light, for what may come, has given me a permanent gaming memory, and that’s a rare thing indeed.

Oh, and there’s a fucking revolver-shotgun that you use to shoot Wererats. And titties. Glorious Russian titties. Buy this game.

Irish Coffee, May 7th, 2-SOMEONE GIVE ME A FUCKING CIGARETTE!

Weird blog, weird format, weird day. I quit smoking yesterday, as I promised myself I would upon turning 30, and good god has it made me weird. I didn't think it was that bad, but I just reread what I wrote here today and fuck... It's not very "Ned," I'll tell you that much. But whatever, it's not too bad. Back in the saddle again after one of the worst hangovers I've had in my life, but if you ever aim to quit smoking cigarettes, I have a plan for you: Spend the evening prior drinking yourself into a stupor and smoking enough cigarettes to feel like you were orally molested by Joe Camel. When you wake up, you'll feel so completely like shit and your desire to smoke cigarettes will be so completely removed from your thoughts that you'll have no difficulty getting through the first 24 hours of non-smoking. Historically the most difficult. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to curl up in the fetal position and sweat like Rent-boy for a while. See you tomorrow!

Saint's Row IV

Today in Atomic Nut-Kick news, there's a new trailer for Saint's Row IV that's showing off a bit more in the way of hand-to-hand combat and the superpowers to be expected from the protagonist.


While I'm as excited as I was when the original launch trailer dropped, it's fairly obvious that aside from the super-jumping, super-body-slamming, and super-nut-kicking, not a whole lot has changed. The last game was all about regular jumping, body slamming, and nut kicking, so without a major engine upgrade the whole experience could start to feel familiar in spite of its zaniness.

I'm sure there will be enough jokes for the whole thing to be worth the price of admission, but I can't help but think it would have been a better idea to wait until next-gen to give us more Saint's Row, rather than throwing this content into a nearly five-year-old game engine.

Either way, they've already got my money... What? There's gonna be boobs...

Next-Box

And if you missed it yesterday (and why wouldn't you have, I was too hungover to blog), it seems the next Xbox will not in fact require a persistent internet connection as has been rumored for some time (that rumor extending to one particular Microsoft employee leaving the company after publicly embarrassing himself on Twitter.)

However, the verbiage from their press release (click here for a look at it on arstechnica) is still a little bit vague, and exactly what is meant by a scenario in which the "users expect [the console] to work without an internet connection," hasn't been made expressly clear, and personally I'd imagine that's because the next-box will in fact work offline, but will be completely fucking crippled without an internet connection.

This will be especially true if Microsoft decides to make it impossible for users to play used games on their new console, a move that will more than likely sell a few PS4s. But again, all rumor at this point, and Microsoft fans are wringing their hands in the hope that their chosen console manufacturer isn't so unbelievably fucking stupid. The big reveal is only two weeks out (May 21st), so all (or most) of our questions should be answered soon.

Summer-summer-summe---ahhh, screw the whole thing.

So here we are again. In the summer lull. Nothing amazing coming down the pipe for quite some time. We were to have Grand Theft Auto V by now (today, I think, was the original release date), but they've held back until this fall. Not that I have a problem with that. I always approve of a game company taking their time and delivering a product that's as clean as possible and worth everyone's time. Yet now, I've nothing to get me through the summer. Again.

If there were a GTA game out right now that was bigger than San Andreas, it would have my attention for 3 months. But no. Nothing to play (FWPs all day). Blood Dragon has come and gone and was only a 4 hour affair (even though it didn't need to be any longer than that), and the landscape looks bleak. Why the fuck does the video game industry so consistently abandon my birth month? I'm sure there's some bullshit excuse like "Oh, a lot of big movies are coming out and people want to spend their time outdoors." Well fuck them and their tans. I want games dammit.

Ok, admittedly, this coming summer is looking a lot better than summers past. In just a little over a week we're finally going to be able to play Metro: Last Light, a game I can't believe more people aren't talking about. I watched the first demo video for the post-apocalyptic shooter (I know, we've never played one of those before), and I gotta say there are some really great mechanics and animations at work. Take a look for yourself:



Then, of course, in mid June; The Last of Us. I've never disliked a Naughty Dog game, and based on the "meet the infected" video from yesterday and everything else I've learned about the game, I don't think I'm going to start now. If you don't know anything about it, check out the link from the last sentence, Google "The Last of Us," then punch yourself in the face for reading a video game blog and not knowing anything about a game that will probably be at the top of many "best of 2013" lists. Here's a screen shot, slacker.

Much like God of War 2 on PS2, it's quite likely that The Last of Us will be the last truly good looking AAA game on the PS3. So enjoy it while you can, and before you get knifed waiting in line for a PS4. Or GTAV.

And enjoy the summer lull, I suppose. Come fall, we'll all be risking our lives for PS4's, Grand Theft Auto V's, and Watch Dogs's's's.