Glog: GTA4 and FF7: Crisis Core

I must admit that I’m very content with my current gaming options. I am a gadget and gaming whore, so bought a PSP for my birthday with my birthday money instead of using it for all the stuff I really needed. I mostly bought it for FF7: Crisis Core. I loved FF7 and heard good things about Crisis Core so decided, somehow, that this was worth a new system.

I was 100% correct in my purchase. Crisis Core is awesome. The gameplay takes some getting used to, and it sometimes bugs me a little that you don’t earn experience points to level up, but the well-crafted story (again, this is from the perspective of someone who loved FF7), beautiful graphics, and customizable character development (yay for materia!) make it a great game overall. I also really like the mission system that lets you play a short game if you don’t have much time and gives you an additional chance to get phat loot.

GTA4 was another birthday present. I toyed with GTA3 but never got that far into it; I played enough to be know the basics of the series. GTA4 plays a lot like the previous installments to me; I’m sure people better acquainted with the old can, and have (there are too many reviews to link and they’re almost all 10/10 anyway, so there isn’t much reason to read), give a better idea of the differences. Here’s what I like about the game:

1. Depth: There are a lot of missions, side missions, friends to make, and girlfriends to bang. You can play this game forever and uncover new angles to your character and to the world in whch he lives.
2. Rewards: For someone who likes being rewarded, GTA4 is great. The rewards range from small (some guy likes you more) to huge (an ass-ton of money or guns), but they are always there. Some people complain about the chore of making and keeping friends, but I find the little thumbs up worth the effort.
3. Quick play: If you don’t feel like playing for long or don’t have much time, you can turn on GTA4 and do any number of things for 10-15 minutes. You can do something to help your character like the aforementioned making and keeping of friendships, or you can grab a shotgun, shoot a cop, and run like hell. I haven’t used any cheat codes yet, but the use of these is bound to make the latter quick activity all the more fun.
4. Story: The story is more than a little played out (handsome immigrant, dark past), but it’s still compelling enough to make you want to figure out what is going to happen next to poor Niko Bellic. Sure, sometimes he does things that are a little weird or seem out of character and sometimes his motivation isn’t entirely clear. It’s no FF7, but it’s still pretty good.
5. Graphics: GTA4 looks really nice. I’m no graphics whore, but admit that graphics can add to a game in many ways. In GTA4, it makes the environment (so important to the style and play of the entire GTA series) seem big and real.

I’m only at the second safe house, so I have a long way to go in the story and the game. I’ll be playing for a long while yet, so I’ll keep everyone posted on what else I enjoy/hate about it.

The best part about these two games is play them at the same time. Crisis Core is for the Metro and late at night, while GTA4 is for other times.

Projects

Sorry for the absence there for awhile, but life got in the way big time. Working (for free!) and finishing grad school (now finally done!) killed me for about four weeks. I’m all better now, excluding being allergic to the very air I breathe, so you can expect more posts. Of note, if I’m not posting much, you can check what I’m doing on Twitter, which I’m hopelessly addicted to again. The RSS feed of my Tweets is on this page, but the feed can be a little slow to update.

I’ve got a couple of projects brewing while I turn my focus towards getting a real job. One is getting a real job, which I hear can be nice, at least for the money. I’m also playing some games; they will get their own post, probably later today or tomorrow. I’m also going to try, for about the 40th freackin’ time, to learn Python. I’ve got a good book, some time, and the supposed ease of the language going for me, so here’s hoping.

Finally, I was thinking of what I can use my World of Warcraft computer for now that I’m off WoW (at least for now; when WOTLK comes out I’m sure I’ll be back on, grinding Derevo to 80) and came up with two options:

1. Ubuntu: I actually tried this before, and my WoW box is currently set up as dual-boot XP/Ubuntu 6.10. However, the Ubuntu partition won’t boot right now, and I need to upgrade to 8.04 anyway, so I’d do a fresh install if I go with this option.
2. Mac OS X: There’s a great project called OSx86 that consists of a bunch of hobbyists that have cracked OS X to run on any x86 system. It doesn’t run perfectly on any hardware, but it is pretty advanced and works with a lot of different setups. It’s not an easy install and will most likely totally bork my XP system, but since I don’t really care for the computer it could be a fun project. If it works, it will give me a much faster OS X system than my current G4 Mac mini. If it doesn’t, then I can always restore XP or put a fresh Ubuntu install on it. My plan is to use these instructions with this OS X image. I’ll report on how it goes.

The last item on my plate is the big BBQ at chéz khren that I’m throwing (I say ‘I’, though my wife is doing most of the work like cooking, inviting people, etc.) in lieu of going to my actual graduation. At least one of my two readers is coming; the other probably has better things to do like hang out in Troy, NY.