METAL WEIRD SOLID 4

*Beware stream of consciousness below. No grammar. Warning. Warning*

Yes, I'm late playing this game but you know what? I'm sick of buying games that every one says are great and then they don't turn out to be so great. And you waste your time and you're all excited about playing a new game and you get into it right at the beginning and then it all goes to complete shite.

Like Dead Space. It's listed as one of the best games of 2008 but can you say "repetitive" beyond all get out? Good then say it. As a matter of fact, you can say it over and over until the makers of Dead Space get really bored of you saying it. Just like I got really bored of killing the same HR Geiger Tony Scott Ridley Aliens 1 2 3 4 Resurrection 3D Jason Predator RIP OFF creature that is somehow supposed to .... I don't know what .... scare me? Gross me out? Surprise me? Whatever. The game had such promise! Promise, I tell you! But....

It's just a video game version of the very bad Bill Murray (blecccch) Andie MacDowell movie, Groundhog Day .... except it's in space! With no Sigourney Weaver to make it interesting. Bah! I gave up from sheer boredom by level 4 but wait....

I did go back for more.

That's right I gave that game it's second life! Second chance. And all that happened was exactly what I expected: A really big boss at the end of level fill in the blank who turns out to be "unbeatable" unless.... you hop to the top and hit him 3 times with a barrel....no wait...the barrel has to be on fire....no wait...you have to jump from the top corner to the bottom right corner to the left corner back to the top AND THEN throw a boomerang....no wait....flip him on his back and kill him that way....no wait...you throw a turtle at him and wait until Mario comes along with Princess Peach and .... no wait....you have to open an account with RBC and then write a story nominating your chef to get entered into the first draw where you sit in the doctor's office on flu shot day where you.....no wait...isn't this supposed to be a first person shooter? Isn't this supposed to be a game for grown ups? Why are we still using the same old platform big boss level garbage from 1983? Seriously? If I wanted to play a platform game with a big boss level I'd play NINTENDO MARIO FILL IN THE BLANK. I paid for a creepy horror deep space thriller kind of game where I expect to be really involved in a cool story with cool characters and cool stuff to do. What did I get for my money? Insanity. By definition I paid for insanity. Repetitive actions repeatedly where you repetitively repeat but expect a different result.

With all the money the video game industry makes.....yeah you....I'm talking to YOU, video game industry! You can't come up with something else for me to do at the end of a level? With all this money you're making you can't possibly conceive of something new, or interesting or clever or ANYTHING different? I have to flip the boss around and shoot him in the soft spot? THAT'S WHAT ONE OF THE BEST GAMES OF THE YEAR HAS TO OFFER? Fie. You should be ashamed. Hang thy head in shame, video game industry! Look! You're even making me use expletives!!

I sold Dead Space back to the shop. At a loss of $30. Of course.

Instead...Drake's Fortune. Now here's something interesting. Great characterization. All these different tasks and jungle and treachery and very .... ummm... Indiana Jones in terms of presentation. Cool! Hunting for treasure in an ancient city. Cool. Air, sea, desert, jungle...COOL. But wait ... what's this .... zombies? Killer fast zombies en masse? But wait a minute where the hell did these things come from. So far (albeit fantastic) it's a pretty believable plot.... But ... what are the zombies doing here? And what do you mean I have to KEEP STARTING THIS PARTICULAR LEVEL OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN? Why this level? I was able to save my game in all the previous levels that didn't have all these insane killer zombies coming at me!

It's not that I oppose zombie games...it's just that I DIDN'T BUY A ZOMBIE GAME. And I most certainly DID NOT buy a zombie game like this. Where I play 18 levels that have no zombies and the last few levels are zombie ridden. Infested. Why would I buy a zombie game like that?

So what happened, video game developers? Yeah, YOU! I'm talking to you, video game developers. Did your creative department take ill and you just couldn't wait to finish the story so you decided to toss in a gaggle of zombies that are as dumb as a bag of hammers and as ugly as a bag of monkeys' arseholes? Did zombies take over your studio and force you to include zombies by holding their arms out at you and biting things? Did a mysterious zombie plague (Like in World War Z) take over the planet and it just hasn't reached this neighbourhood yet so I don't know yet that you are all dead and now zombies and have taken up the cause to promote zombie-ism in our fair country? Did you just have a bad day and decide to take it out on us? By robbing us of our $60? WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE DID ALL THE ZOMBIES COME FROM?


I sold Drake's Fortune back to the shop. At a loss of $30. Of course.

So now we're on to Metal Gear Solid 4. Don't worry, I won't disrespect the game. I know it's game of the year and all. I didn't play any of the previous Gears so maybe I'm missing something in terms of plot but ... yeah it's pretty cool.

I love the stealth stuff cuz it's THRILLING....really gets the ticker going to be waiting around like that while there's a sniper on a roof. Uh-huh. The acting is pretty good and there are tons of weapons. Uh-huh. And I'm only just really getting into this game (I think. I don't even know how long the game is.) But I'm not going to keep silent about how stupid the Laughing Octopus scenario was. Really.

Love the fact that there are these killer chick soldiers and yabbady yabbada and I can even excuse how goofy the Octopus costume is because of the camo feature but I gotta say .... the laughing the whole time. Bad-acting, laughing, not good-acting laughing. Not scary, creepy laughing like "Dang, she's messed up!" laughing. Just weird bad laughing. Irritating. Didn't make any sense to me. I'm like "What the hell is that thing laughing at?" See, she looks like a machine so why she finds anything funny escapes me right off the bat. I know, I know. You're thinking "You don't even get it yet. You don't get that it's part human and there's a story there. You're just too critical." Uh-huh. Well, here's the thing. It was bad enough that the thing was laughing incessantly but then....when I found out why ... well ... I kind of had to drop the game down a notch or two because it's just a stupid back-story that is one of the most useless back-stories ever. It's an especially stupid and useless back-story because I learned the back story AFTER I killed the thing and then I didn't even care. In fact, Snake doesn't care, neither. He even says so after the back-story scene is over. So what the hell was that for? Why put that whole scene in the game? Kind of a waste of time, no?

And what's worse is that after you pull all the camo armour off her, she becomes Laughing Beauty and she's all blonde and gorgeous and her hair is flipping in the *wind* (why is it even windy inside all of a sudden?) and she just won't stop laughing until she ... I don't know ... is shot 100 times and then somehow feels a bit of .... what is that? Regret? We don't even know until 10 minutes later.

And wait there's more weirdness....she's a HUGGER. Yeah, you read that correctly. After her armour comes off. After she spends all that time laughing and trying to blow your head off. After you watch her pull other people apart, you shoot off her armour off and she tries to hug you. Repeatedly. And you have to escape her evil hug. The evil hug of a hot killer blonde octopus robot stripped of her robotness. Yep.

Well, I guess I can't complain because that's the BEST GAME OF THE YEAR solution to the platform big boss challenge - you can only defeat it when you pull of it's armour and let it hug you.

I can't complain.