Uncategorized The Latest Crap Third Act: Alan Wake’s Ending Completely Blows
June 7, 2010 scottcjones 4Comments

>
If you haven’t played Alan Wake yet, and you plan to, be warned: I’m about to shine a light on its finale AND PULL THE LEFT TRIGGER. (Which makes your beam really strong, and totally drains your flashlight’s batteries.)

Actually, wait. Hold up. Don’t go anywhere.
What I’m about to say probably won’t do any damage to whatever enjoyment you’d glean from the game. Alan Wake’s first few hours are without a doubt the best hours of the game–and are arguably the most interesting, genuinely unnerving hours of 2010 so far. And you can still experience those hours. Nothing I’m saying here can take those hours away from you.
My issue is with the left turn the game makes in its final hours, straight into a pile of horseshit.
Looking back, I could sort of feel the left turn coming, too. As I ran through the game–Pro Tip: Hold down the left-bumper and Alan Wake will run!–then, after very short distances, paused to double over and wheeze like a 19th century chimney sweep–Pro Tip: Writers are apparently in very bad shape!–I began to dread the Left Turn more than I dreaded the lumberjack shadow-zombies that live in the game’s virtual woodlands.
Right from the start, Alan Wake continually doles out glimpse montages. Look, there’s an old lady. There’s my wife sinking to the bottom of a lake. There’s a guy in an old-time diving suit. There’s Alan Wake chattering to himself on a television. And so forth.
The glimpse-montage is a familiar gimmick. We’ve seen it before countless times in movies and TV shows. The deal that is struck by the glimpse-montage is this: Here is a series of seemingly disparate images. But stick around, and eventually these disparate images will cohere in a semi-logical, and semi-satisfying conclusion.
Alan Wake never makes good on that promise. It never even comes close to making good on that promise. Is Alan Wake’s wife still alive? Who is the old lady behind the black veil? Who is the guy-thing in the old-time diving suit? Did Alan’s magic clicker really destroy the old lady in the black veil? Why did light come blowing out of her eyes and mouth at the end? Is it all metaphor?
Don’t look at me for the answers.
And a more pressing question: Who left all of these goddamn coffee thermoses around? In one of the game’s gamier moments, I was about to encounter an intimidating group of the Taken (the aforementioned shadow-zombies), and instead of checking my inventory to make sure I had a flashbang ready and that my shotgun was loaded, and girding my loins for a battle, I was suddenly humping my way towards a pale blue coffee thermos THAT I JUST HAD TO COLLECT.
Alan Wake is not a bad game. I enjoyed the game’s deliberate pacing, the way that it confidently allows dread to accrue. I loved the Pacific Northwest setting. I’ve always been a sucker for old, bottomless lakes and cabins with faulty wiring. And for a survival-horror game, the combat in the game is extremely satisfying. Torching the Taken with my flashlight beam until they became vulnerable/corporeal, then jacking them up with a few blasts from my pump-action shotgun never really got old.
That’s not entirely true. Near the end, it got old. A little, anyway.
I just wish the whole damn thing had made more fucking sense. You can’t ask me to invest eight hours into something, and then leave me with nothing but a series of nonsensical cutscenes at the end. Maybe Remedy was concerned that if they actually adhered to the laws of logic and storytelling, if they gave us anything tangible and satisfying, we wouldn’t all be sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for DLC and the sequel.
Gamers often brag about how many games they’ve finished. They can’t wait to crow about how they took such-and-such game out to the woodshed and really showed it who’s the boss. Yet, nine out of 10 times, whenever I polish off a game, I never walk away with a feeling of accomplishment. The final hours of Alan Wake were tedious and masturbatory. This morning, as I put the game back on the shelf, I feel what I usually feel whenever I finish a game: a vague sense of regret and disappointment.
(COMMENTS)
Uncategorized Apartment Search & Videogames: Part 1
June 4, 2010 scottcjones 1Comment

>
The apartments here (in Vancouver) are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, anywhere on earth.

For the same amount of rent that might get me a studio apartment (with a square footage on par with what a taxi cab’s trunk would have) on a terrible block in a terrible neighborhood/terrible borough in New York City, you can have something that would make a nouveau rap star blush.
Outdoor decks. Fireplaces. Views of snow-topped mountains and the ocean. Laundry machines in your own apartment. These are things that people expect from their living experiences here. Here, people fill their closets with clothing, instead of trying to pass them off as second bedrooms.
You don’t have to be Derek Jeter, or a venture capitalist, or one of the Sex and the City ladies to enjoy a semi-decent quality of life here.
I’ve been thinking about space and apartments a lot lately because I’ve been considering a move. Make no mistake, where I currently live is fine. I’ve got a couple of bathrooms to choose from. A fancy shower. An outdoor deck and fireplace that, in a year’s time, I have yet to use. (I think I enjoy the idea of using my deck, the promise of the deck, more than I actually enjoy using it. Yes, I’m strange.)
But I’m feeling a little restless these days. So my real estate agent, a nice woman named Shelly, has been showing me places for the last couple of weeks.
The places that I’ve seen so far? The stuff of dreams, people.
Duplexes. Multiple bathrooms. Closets. Laundry machines as far as the eye can see. (I don’t even think they have laundromats here. Is there a more terrible urban invention than the laundromat?)
But the criteria that is absolutely number one on my list of must-haves: Is this place good for gaming?
Gaming requires privacy. And darkness. If not darkness, then at the very least shadow. My colleague Victor Lucas has a gaming room in the basement of his house that is, no joke, so damn dark you can practically feel the mushrooms growing on you down there.
A good gaming space–or gaming cave–requires several important qualities:
1. It needs to be a separate space from the rest of the house/apartment.
2. It needs to be as far away as possible from where your significant other sleeps at night.
3. It needs to receive an extremely limited amount of sunlight.
4. The designated space must have a conveniently located electrical outlet that is capable of handling at least eight to 10 inputs simultaneously.
The result should be a private room that is so dramatically gloomy that even Gollum would have trouble finding his Precious in there.
I’ve seen some places with potential so far. I saw a place yesterday in a converted warehouse with huge wooden support beams and exposed brick and a kitchen that featured a Viking range. I got a terrific feeling from being in the place. I heard that the actress Kristin Kreuk lives there. I thought about it non-stop all night. Maybe Kristin Kreuk would bump into one another in the elevator one day. We’d become friends, and no doubt exchange keys, so that we could check on each other’s apartment while we were traveling. And then, one day, as we were staying up late talking one night, the 1978 Superman movie would suddenly come on TV. She would remark on my slight monkey-like resemblance to the Man of Steel. And then we would make out for several bliss-filled hours…
But in the sober, head-clearing light of morning, I faced facts: There was no part of the apartment that would permit me to have the private gaming space I need to do my work. Or “work.”
So, for now, the search continues.
Sorry, Kristin.
(COMMENTS)
Uncategorized Wii = Dead (Literally This Time)
June 1, 2010 scottcjones 7Comments

>
Turned on the Wii last night only to be warmly greeted by a black screen and the following curt, clipped sentences: “THE SYSTEM FILES ARE CORRUPTED. PLEASE REFER TO THE WII OPERATIONS MANUAL FOR HELP TROUBLSHOOTING.”

As if simply telling me that my Wii is fucked was not enough, the nice person in charge of creating this screen–yes, someone has to create these types of screens; paging Dr. Kafka–also saw fit to render the two sentences in some of jarbled-up, broken-assed font.
I was oddly calm during this moment. I didn’t start sweating, or turning over furniture. I didn’t pour myself a drink the way that Tom Hagen pours Vito Corleone a drink before telling him that Sonny got shot on the causeway.
I very calmly, cooly began troubleshooting. Step one: I have no fucking idea where my “operations manual” is. So I moved on to step two: restarting and saying a prayer.
The most curious aspect of the experience was the complete and utter lack of emotion I felt about the whole thing. I have had emotional relationships with my consoles. About a month ago, I visited my New York City at my apartment. I went through my closets and found my Super Nintendos (plural; my brother gave me his when he got married), my PlayStation, my Dreamcast, my Nintendo 64, etc. I held each machine for a moment, wiped the dust from its casing, and as cornball as it sounds, I spent some time recalling all the terrific times the two of us had together.
Let me tell you, those machines got me through some rough periods in my life. Break-ups. Deaths. Firings. Even smaller moments–example: missing the 10:19 bus in Chicago, knowing that I’d be late for my shift at the stupid, dumb, fancy restaurant where I worked in the ’90s–were bearable because I knew at the end of the day, after all the bullshit and headaches and arguments with Frank the sous chef, it would be me and M. Bison going at it hammer and tongs in Street Fighter II on the SNES.
Which brings me back to my cold reaction to the Wii’s death.
Make no mistake, the Wii and I have had some fun together. The Super Mario Galaxy games? Excite Truck? Mario Kart Wii? Good stuff, all of it.
But the aspect of the Wii that I have always loved the most was the Virtual Console. The white, unassuming little box has always been little more than a cipher to me, an empty vessel that appropriates old dreams and experiences. Of course, I downloaded all of the best shit from the past. Super Metroid? The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? WaveRace 64? They’re all on my Wii’s corrupted hard drive.
Which should make me panic.
But it doesn’t.
Because I know I can simply download them all again once a new Wii comes into my life.
Or, I can get on a plane, fly to New York. I can always hook up my old consoles and play them there.
Old consoles, which by the way had a failure rate of 0.000000000 percent.
CORRECTION: My friend John Teti who edits the A.V. Club’s videogame section sent me this useful bit of information: “The thing is, you can’t download all your Virtual Console games again — at least not without paying for them again. Because Nintendo is shit and they tie downloads to a single machine.” Thanks, John.
(COMMENTS)
Uncategorized Me & My iPad: A No-Love Story (So Far)
May 27, 2010 scottcjones 1Comment

>So I’ve had my iPad for nearly a month now. Each day I carry it to the office in the morning, where it usually sits in my duffel bag for eight hours. Each night, I carry it home. I recharge it. I might get in a quick bout of Angry Birds before bed, or check on my crops–usually rotten crops with the sad face floating above them–in We Rule.

This has not turned out to be the love story I hoped it might be.
It’s not the iPad’s fault. It does everything it promised it would do. It lights up. It looks pretty. It responds to my touches/caresses.
Yet I don’t feel compelled to use it on a regular basis, and I don’t know why that is. After four weeks, it has not become my go-to place for connection and information. (My laptop and iPhone still get all the attention around here.)
In fact, I spend more time using my Xbox 360 than I do using the iPad. Here’s a list of the things in my home that I spend more time using than the iPad:
1. Laptop.
2. iPhone.
3. Xbox 360.
4. PlayStation 3.
5. Philips Sonic Care toothbrush.
6. Wii.
7. PSPgo.
8. Sears Microwave.
9. Cat 1.
10. DSi.
(Sorry, Cat 2, you did not qualify.)
Make no mistake, I have seen some truly great things on the iPad. But will this machine ever becomes an organic part of my life? I’m growing increasingly skeptical. I downloaded the Amazon Kindle App a few weeks ago and bought Michael Lewis’s Moneyball, to see if I could stomach reading a book on the iPad. I read a few chapters–chapters which I no longer recall the sum and substance of for some reason–then completely forgot about it.
That seems to be happening on an ever increasing basis for me: I continually forget that the iPad is there, that it’s even an entertainment/communication option at all. Sure, it can do cool shit. But for the most part it does cool shit that my iPhone and laptop were already doing (and doing well).
There’s also the expense of the thing, and the whole fragility factor. I’ve dropped my iPhone a hundred times, and not winced, because at the end of the day, it’s my phone. (I’ve been dropping cellphone for 10 years.) Yet whenever I handle the iPad, I feel like I need to scrub my hands and arms like a surgeon first, and maybe put on a freshly pressed shirt. There’s a formality inherent in using the iPad that I don’t like. Last week, my girlfriend was using it WHILE EATING POPCORN. (This sight nearly made me stroke out.)
Man, I don’t know.
Until it can really show me something–and I still hold out hope that it will–and until it feels like a more integral part of my daily existence, the iPad is in danger of becoming by far the most expensive item in my junk drawer/electronics graveyard.
(COMMENTS)
On Subject Of My Multiplayer Phobia
April 30, 2010 scottcjones 3Comments

>So yesterday Vic and I rolled up our sleeves and dove controller-first (not head-first) into Lost Planet 2. We played a bit of split-screen co-op. Vic has a 52-inch plasma that has single-handedly made him nearsighted. Yet, in LP 2’s co-op play, we had to make due with split screens that were at best 17 or so inches across. Much of the screen, for some inexplicable reason, was taken up by 1. black space and 2. a pair of useless compass-map things.

I couldn’t tell where I was, or who or what I was shooting at. We endured a few missions together, then I cabbed it home, promising Vic that I’d jump online and play over the Net with him.
As soon as I got home, I ate a pickle. Then I fell fast asleep with one of my cats curled up on my chest. I woke up around 6:30. I turned on the Xbox, and got Lost Planet 2 working. I texted Vic, asking him if he was ready to go. He said he was busy downloading the Halo Reach beta, and that I should join him there. I said, “No.”
Now I’d read that Lost Planet 2 really doesn’t offer much in the way of a single-player experience. No matter. I tried to play a bit more of the campaign on my own, with three A.I.-controlled partners rounding out my party. The A.I. was just fucking worthless. I had to do everything on my own. Idiots.
A few hours later, presumably after he’d tired of Reach, Vic pinged me. He was ready to get online. Suddenly, I was overcome with some kind of videogame inertia. The last thing I wanted to do in the world right then was go online and play more Lost Planet 2. I don’t know how else to put this other than to say this: I simply was not in the mood.
And that’s my problem with multiplayer gaming in general. I need to really feel up to doing it in order to, you know, do it. I despise all the time-wasting you have to do in lobbies, waiting for other players to check in, or log on, or update their 360s or whatever. There’s always a ton of farting around that needs to happen in order to make a multiplayer session work. There is nothing I hate more than sitting in front of my TV, stupid headset on my head, waiting for someone to join my party.
I can feel myself slowing inching towards death in these moments. This is the exact opposite of a good time for me. And this is the exact opposite of why I enjoy playing games. I play games because I want to get wrapped up in the fiction; I play games to escape. I play games because, frankly, I need a break from the world, and, to be more specific, from people in general.
People. I love them, but sometimes they wear me out. Even my closest friends.
I also despise the inherent competitiveness of multiplayer gaming. Even in cooperative situations, like Left4Dead, there’s always that load-out screen, where kill numbers are tallied and your performance is quantified via various stats and data. I call this the Mine Is Bigger Than Yours moment. And yes, I hate it.
Vic, partly out of frustration, texted me last night saying, “I’m adding multiplayer gaming to your list of phobias.” And you know what? I think I do have a weird phobia around it. I absolutely dread it.
I attribute some of my dread to the fact that I grew up with a brother who was only a year younger than I was. In school, in sports, he and I competed constantly. It felt like the first 18 years of my life was one long competition.
So I don’t seek out competition now, not actively. Yes, it’s nice if you’re at the top of your friend leaderboard for Street Fighter IV. I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want those Mine Is Bigger Than Yours moments. I don’t need them. So you guys have your fun online. I’m happiest, and most comfortable, playing offline, solo, doing my own thing. Seriously, I am.
(COMMENTS)
Uncategorized iPhone Plants Vs. Zombies: Borderline Unplayable?
April 12, 2010 scottcjones

>
I never quite got around to polishing off the desktop version of Plants Vs. Zombies. So, when the game appeared in the iPhone App store for the wallet-friendly price of three dollars, I downloaded it and set to work righting that wrong.

Now I’m regretting doing so.
Plants Vs. Zombies is not a great tower defense game, especially when compared with far superior offerings like Fieldrunners or geoDefense Swarm. But what it has going for it is how all of these subtle elements like the catchy UFO-like sound that indicates that a zombie is approaching and the sauce pot that Dave the neighbor inexplicably wears on his head somehow, some way all cohere into an experience that worms its way into your, um, brains, and stays there.
It’s bright. It’s colorful. It’s jaunty. In some way, PopCap has become the casual-game industry equivalent to Disney. They create these indelible, hooky experiences that feel safe and dangerous at once. It’s the only place in the gaming universe that my mom and I share any common ground. Which is really saying something.
Unfortunately, despite the iPhone’s prowess, and PopCap’s prowess, Plants Vs. Zombies chugs to a halt whenever things get hectic. Get six or seven Peashooters shooting, get 10 or 11 zombies shambling about and things slow to an unplayable, unforgiveable crawl. I haven’t seen this sort of slowdown since the Super Nintendo days.
Here’s hoping that PopCap is working on an update at this very moment.
If you’re considering a purchase, here’s my advice: go with the PC or Mac version of the game until you hear otherwise.
(COMMENTS)
Uncategorized Hidden Potential (And Why the Wii Doesn’t Have Any)
February 8, 2010 scottcjones 4Comments

>I watched the Super Bowl yesterday with a friend of mine who works as a game developer here in Vancouver.

One of the many benefits of living in Vancouver, besides near constant rain and high taxes and all the natural beauty your eyes can take: Becoming friends with developers.

A couple of things about watching the Super Bowl in Canada:
1. The commercials are completely different here and, for the most part, lame. (I had to watch all the “real” commercials online after the fact, including the Dante’s Inferno commercial.)
2. It’s very difficult to find anyone who genuinely gives a rat’s ass about the Super Bowl in Canada.
My friend, who I will refer to as “Thumb-Blaster” in order to protect his identity, is probably the only person on earth to have finished No More Heroes (the man found every damn collectible in the game) and to also suffer from a pathological Modern Warfare 2 obsession. He’s a terrific human being, full of curiosity, neuroses and savvy insights into life, and more importantly, how games are made.
As you’ve probably guessed, Thumb-Blaster isn’t much of a football fan. To keep Thumb-Blaster engaged, I did my best to make nerd-centric small talk during the game’s idle moments (i.e. during the Canadian commercials). We discussed Battlestar, the merits of The Saboteur, The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (he loved it; I’d rather have my taxes done than play it again), and so forth.
Yes, it was an old fashioned, boot-stomping, nerd-style hoedown.
During halftime, as we consumed sausages at an almost alarming rate, I asked Thumb-Blaster why Wii games haven’t evolved the way that games typically evolve over the lifecycle of a console. In other words, Twilight Princess (2006) and, to an even greater degree Metroid Prime 3 (2007), looked terrific, but more recent Wii games don’t necessarily look, or play, any better than those first-generation Wii titles. Early games for the PS2, 360, and PS3 have all made significant strides over time. Yet the Wii appears to have stalled out. How come?
Thumb-Blaster’s response: “It’s because the Wii just kind of laid it all out there.”
Explanation: “It’s an easy machine to understand, and to program for. Therefore, there are no hidden possibilities in the hardware to be uncovered. Basically, with the Wii, what you see is what you get.”
On the other hand, Thumb-Blaster continued, the nuances of both the 360 and the PS3 are still being sussed out. “We don’t really know what [these machines] are capable of yet. We’re still trying to figure them out. Truth is, no one really knows what to do with the cell processors yet. Nobody really knows how to use them. People are starting to experiment, but we’re still a long way from having a handle on them.”
I went back to my sausage sandwich. I’d never thought of these machines as being mysterious before. I liked the idea that both machines hold some hidden, unrealized potential. Neither machine seems even remotely tapped out yet. (Hell, I’m still convinced that the PS2 has some life left in it.)
I once loved my consoles. The Super Nintendo? Man, I would have married that thing, and kissed it and loved it all night long in the honeymoon suite at the Radisson.
I’ve never been in love with the 360 or the PS3; not like that, anyway. Both seem a little cold and distant and distant and alien. They’re like attractive women at a party who won’t talk to me, but instead prefer only to peer at me askance. I’ve never loved them as objects; I don’t think I ever could. I need them, but I’m indifferent towards them. If either one broke down, I wouldn’t mourn the loss. I’d simply head to the nearest store and buy a new one.
Still, after Thumb-Blaster’s words of wisdom–Thumb-Blaster is so very wise–I’m not exactly ready to rent out the Radisson honeymoon suite just yet, but I am just a tad more fond of both machines today.
(COMMENTS)
On Subject Of The Fallacy of “Being Good” at Videogames
February 1, 2010 scottcjones 4Comments

>
A friend recently described a mutual friend as “being good” at videogames. Here are his exact words: “[Person X] is really awesome at videogames,” he said.

I’ve heard people use this expression before. “So-and-so is awesome at games,” etc. For some reason this expression never fails to give me a case of third-degree red ass.
Blame it on my competitive nature. I grew up with a brother who was a year younger than me. We were peers, always working to out-do–and undo–the other throughout our childhoods.
Whenever I hear that so-and-so is good at videogames, I always want to 1. disprove this notion immediately, preferably by destroying and/or humiliating whoever this so-called good-at-videogames so-and-so is in some game-centric showdown, and 2. have myself immediately declared “good,” “great,” or perhaps even “awesome” at videogames via an impromptu ceremony that would involve a dais and a large trophy of some kind.
But the truth is this: I’m not good, great, or awesome at videogames.
What I am is persistent.
Even as a child, I was always the one who would stay up late at night, the sound turned so low on the television that it was inaudible (our house was very small), desperately trying over and over again to make it into the second round with Mike Tyson (Punch-Out!!), or to get the golden armor and the moon shield (Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts).
One of the core reasons that I fell in love with the medium to begin with is the democratic notion that anybody can eventually beat any game–yes, even Demon’s Souls–as long as they are willing to roll up their sleeves and put in the time.
I wrote a story a few years back about the burgeoning industry of Halo coaching. In the name of research, I hired a coach for a series of lessons. He and I met online. “OK, show me what you got,” he said.
I crouched behind a rock. I waited.
Suddenly, my shield was depleted. Health was waning. I spun in a circle firing into the sky.
I was dead.
Re-spawn.
I never saw him, never knew what hit me.
This was the way things continued during our “show me what you got” session: crouch, shields depleted, spin, fire at sky, panic, dead, re-spawn.
The coach was a competitive Halo player. He was, according to his biography, among the best Halo players in the world. He taught me a few things, showed me how to access areas of maps that most players assume aren’t accessible; taught me techniques for depleting someone’s shield instantly through various combinations of melee attacks and gun fire.
I improved. I got better. I learned to hold my own.
Once the lessons and the story were behind me, I had tangible proof that there were ways to be “good” at Halo.
If I was willing to put in the time, if I was willing to learn the nuances of the maps, I could most likely turn myself into a respectable Halo player. (My coach, someone who you would most definitely describe as “being good at videogames,” told me that he typically practices between four and six hours a day. Now, that’s what I call persistent.)
I realize there are exceptions out there. Exhibit A: Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel.
Exhibit B: I have a friend who told me a story about a colleague who picked up Guitar Hero for the first time in his life at an office party and ripped through the entire game on Expert and didn’t miss a note. Unfortunately, this guy also suffered from Asperger’s Disorder.
What I’m trying to say is this: If you have a friend who is “good” at Modern Warfare 2 or Rock Band, or who can do a speed run through Super Mario 64, most of the time–hell, almost all of the time–it’s because he or she put in the hours. Nothing more, nothing less.
(COMMENTS)
Uncategorized Poet Costume DLC in Dante’s Inferno: More DLC the World Doesn’t Want/Need
January 27, 2010 scottcjones 10Comments

>

Started playing Dante’s Inferno this week. The game, despite high production values and highbrow source material, isn’t all that surprising or exciting. (More on the game itself when the review airs in a couple weeks.)
A few things that occurred to me while playing:
1. Will future lazy college students play this game instead of reading the Cliffs Notes of The Divine Comedy?
2. Will you be interested in purchasing the Poet Costume when the DLC becomes available in February? No? Then how about you, sir? No again?

3. I understand that games, like this one, are expensive to make, and that DLC can extend the life of a game. But if publishers are selling Poet Costumes, and–glancing further down the list–“New In-Game Abilities” (could they be more vague?), maybe game makers are pushing too hard to create things that no one wants, or needs.

The last time I bought DLC was for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
I played through the extra levels, but I barely remember what I did in them, or who I did it to. The levels had none of the narrative gravity of the original game. They were well made, but were also forgettable, barely qualifying as diversions. They were a few hours of white noise that did nothing to enhance–or detract–from the original experience.
When I want more The Force Unleashed, it’s the main game I think about and crave, and not the DLC.
I realize that consuming DLC is a completely voluntary enterprise. But how much of it is necessary? How much of it needs to be in the world?
Have you tried watching Deleted Scenes segments from DVDs? The reason those scenes were cut from the final product are usually painfully obvious.
Or imagine if Coppola suddenly decided to add 20 minutes of footage to The Godfather II. We’d be curious about it, and we’d all want to see it, but would it enhance the original in any tangible way?
Ditto for most DLC. It’s cool in theory, but if the DLC was truly an integral part of the main game, it would have been part of the main game.
You know who I feel bad for? I feel bad for the guy who has to show up at Visceral Games on Wednesday morning, February 10th, still hungover from the Dante’s Inferno launch the night before.
The poor guy has to munch some Advil, then get back to work on that “Poet Costume” the world doesn’t want, or need.
(COMMENTS)
Uncategorized Vic and I Show Up for Work Wearing the Same Exact Outfit
January 27, 2010 scottcjones 1Comment

>

When the Reviews on the Run crew came to pick me up for our shoot yesterday afternoon, I opened the door to the ROTR mobile and was greeted by the sounds of laughter.
What’s so funny? I wondered.
Vic, who was sitting up front, said, “You are not going to believe this, but we are dressed exactly alike.”
Now, Victor has accused me of dressing like him before. And I have accused him of dressing like me. We’ve never determined exactly who the guilty party is here.
I assumed he was making a bigger deal out of it than was necessary…until we parked and exited the car and I got a look at what he was wearing.
Same zip-neck sweater. Same jacket. Similar shoulder bag. And, once he’d donned his eyeglasses, which he wears to play games and/or see Avatar again, he was right:
People were seeing double in downtown Vancouver yesterday.

(COMMENTS)