Nick Rempe

A graphic designer living in central Iowa. Constantly complaining and giving his opinion on video games, while finding time to play them on occasion. Trying miniature painting, web development and the perfect hot chocolate recipe.

Dec 14
Nolan North, the voice of this console generation. Uncharted 2 took the Game of the Year award at this year’s Spike Video Game Awards.  This is a good thing because I feel like I need more validity when it comes to how awesome Uncharted 2 is.  I can only say so many things about the game when people start to tune me out.  But what I am tired of saying is that it is a PlayStation 3 exclusive. Exclusivity is a hurdle that I wish we didn’t have to do jump.  I never have thought that in the future after Nintendo, that we would have four huge consoles fighting over marketshare, as well as mobile/portable alternatives.  With the popularity and saturation of the consoles, games are flooding shelves and the competition is almost impossible unless your marketing budget is as high as some movies. To hear that some people haven’t had the pleasure of playing Braid, Miner Dig Deep, or Fat Princess is disheartening, but it is an effect of the marketplace. I have it all, I wish my PC went a little faster, I wish I had some extra cash to spend on games, but I am glad that I don’t have decisions.  Uncharted vs. Gears of War.  Metal Gear Solid vs. Halo.  Pixel Junk: Eden vs. Shadow Complex. I wish Nolan North would even out the playing field with an “one console that plays everything” and call it NN64.

Nolan North, the voice of this console generation.

Uncharted 2 took the Game of the Year award at this year’s Spike Video Game Awards.  This is a good thing because I feel like I need more validity when it comes to how awesome Uncharted 2 is.  I can only say so many things about the game when people start to tune me out.  But what I am tired of saying is that it is a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

Exclusivity is a hurdle that I wish we didn’t have to do jump.  I never have thought that in the future after Nintendo, that we would have four huge consoles fighting over marketshare, as well as mobile/portable alternatives.  With the popularity and saturation of the consoles, games are flooding shelves and the competition is almost impossible unless your marketing budget is as high as some movies.

To hear that some people haven’t had the pleasure of playing Braid, Miner Dig Deep, or Fat Princess is disheartening, but it is an effect of the marketplace.

I have it all, I wish my PC went a little faster, I wish I had some extra cash to spend on games, but I am glad that I don’t have decisions.  Uncharted vs. Gears of War.  Metal Gear Solid vs. Halo.  Pixel Junk: Eden vs. Shadow Complex.

I wish Nolan North would even out the playing field with an “one console that plays everything” and call it NN64.
Posted at 10:08pm

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Nov 29

Busy

I had a rough week at work last week, then had a couple days to catch my breath, only to fling myself back into the fray at the tree farm.  It really isn’t draining on me, I did get to play a good chunk of Mass Effect, but not as much as I would like.

Because of this, I am getting a longer Christmas break and putting all my chips in for that weekend being bangin’ awesome.

I will try and get some writing done, but I have no motivation to do so.  If anything does get posted, treat it like gold.  I am going to catch up on Yo Gabba Gabba appearances, the Jack Black one made me shit myself.

Posted at 9:17pm

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Nov 25
Geth Death. Playing through Mass Effect for the first time and glad that I am not alone.  There is a small, but popular LTTP thread on GAF that is following someone’s first play-through of Mass 1 (or so that is what the Bioware doctors call it).  This game has its hooks in me pretty deep. Space soap opera, this is the best way to describe it.  But since the action is much more exciting than in Star Trek, you keep coming back to it.  After turning it off, I will usually boot it up within the next day and try go get some time in.  But it isn’t just an hour, it usually is two or three… which would explain why I am writing this post so late. I am sure that I am a few hours away from blue alien sex.  This is very exciting.

Geth Death.

Playing through Mass Effect for the first time and glad that I am not alone.  There is a small, but popular LTTP thread on GAF that is following someone’s first play-through of Mass 1 (or so that is what the Bioware doctors call it).  This game has its hooks in me pretty deep.

Space soap opera, this is the best way to describe it.  But since the action is much more exciting than in Star Trek, you keep coming back to it.  After turning it off, I will usually boot it up within the next day and try go get some time in.  But it isn’t just an hour, it usually is two or three… which would explain why I am writing this post so late.

I am sure that I am a few hours away from blue alien sex.  This is very exciting.
Posted at 1:03am

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Nov 18

This is truly the age of dragons

Two weekends ago, I sat on a couch with Zach and Rod thumbling through the first few hours of the Dragon Age: Origins as an Elf/Warrior/Commoner campaign.  It was - for lack of a more epic, dragonish descriptor -  amazing.

The problem with Dragon Age: Origins is that it comes with a helping of “you just don’t get it”.  Nicole was driven to sleep by the dialog and the amount of time that we were spending messing with the radial menu.  I come from a land of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate where my entire teenage years was spent being weaved into the stories, menus and mechanics of these games.  I have invested into titles that today seem dull and static to Nicole.  Dragon Age: Origins is a refinement of these systems with a healthy amount of cutscenes, dialog, camera work, voice acting and visuals to keep your mind busy forever.  Just watching through most of the beginning, you are constantly reminding yourself to go back and explore, or reroll a character to act a certain way.  This game is only attractive to those kinds of people, but it doesn’t have enough “wow” factor to keep an casual onlooker interested.  But that isn’t the point of the game, it is more of a love letter to people that have already spent the amount of time on Bioware’s previous titles.

I remember specifically spending a few hours dungeon crawling in Diablo 2 while under a blanket, with a heater underneath it and waiting until we could dig ourselves out of the snow in order to go to school.  Television didn’t appeal to us a teenagers as much as a high fantasy video game did.

I have been spending a lot of time with Dragon Age: Journeys and have come to an idea that I don’t want to play games like this in the browser, it lessens it.  I really do want to download it for free and put it into fullscreen so that I can take advantage of all the prehistory.  I hope to get a copy for Christmas and to spend 4 relentless days pouring over menus, drops and dialog.  I would like to give Journey’s the same attention, but it is built for me to treat it like a red-headed stepchild.  I have been conditioned by Flash games to only spend five minutes playing them and then leave.  But do I only have this repulsion because of the other bazillion things to play?

Best Buy will have Dragon Age: Origins for $35 on Black Friday, this has been added to my list of things to do on that specific Friday.  The other part of the list - and there is only one other thing I have to do - is play more Borderlands.

Posted at 8:34pm

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Nov 16

CAN’T WAIT!
Posted at 10:49pm

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Nov 14

Sorry for all the Modern Warefare 2 hate.  This video shows that hidden gems do exist in a serious game.  If any of these things happened in the multi, I would have shit my pants.
Posted at 8:49am

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Nov 13

What’s old is new

New Super Mario Brothers Wii.

Who would of thought that we would be sitting here and accepting a game (a game with high praise that is) with “New” in the title?  5 years ago, I would of told you that it didn’t exist.  It couldn’t exist.  It shouldn’t exist.  That was before New Super Mario Brothers on the DS.  When I got that game on launch, I was thrilled to play a Mario platformer on DS especially that Mario 64 left such a poor taste in my mouth (Mario 64’s controls did not transfer to the DS, it’s all about that trigger Z button on the 64).  But this was hard to swallow, “New” was in the title.

Sure I smoked it, I loved it, but there was a lot of weird things to do in it.  The multiplayer is strange and not that much fun.  It could be because I was playing with my brothers, but just doing a competitive game within a small level wasn’t really worth programming.  Give me another world or level.  Another hype factor in the game was the mega mushroom.  You only used it maybe twice in the game and it only was effective for 15 seconds, it was bullshit.

Now we are on the cusp of the biggest release of the year in my opinion.  Sure, everyone had their renaissance on Tuesday with Modern Warfare 2 but this game is much more than a shooter with a killer online attached.  This is the game that you will purchase, sit with friends that have all played a platformer before, and hand hold each other through the levels of the Mushroom Kingdom.  This will relight the nostalgic kindle in your heart and keep burning for as long as you have people around to play with you.

It will outsell Modern Warfare 2, it will be much more fun that Modern Warfare 2, and people are doing themselves a disservice thinking otherwise.  I mean, how revolutionary was shooting civilians anyway?

I will answer that with another question.

How revolutionary is the penguin suit?

Posted at 7:43pm

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Nov 12
I have been chipping away at Batman: Arkham Asylum.  It doesn’t help that there are about 20 other games I want to be playing, but Batman is extremely compelling. Batman is a detective. Using this mechanic it slows the pace of the game down a little and allows you to really soak in everything about Arkham Asylum.  Making this a smaller more manageable space, than let’s say a GTA4, really gets you familiar with the entire layout of the complex.  I am fairly confident that I can cruise from one area of the game to the other with extreme ease and speed, much like Batman.  The detective mode also lends itself to familiar gameplay in Metroid Prime.  Scanning things, finding ways to get out of situations, exits, gargoyles and finding Riddler clues is really fun.  These supply more longevity to the game, especially for completionists.  It’s extremely awesome. Voice work. The original cast from the animated series signed on to do the voices and the nostalgic value keeps me listening for more.  Joker, Batman, Commissioner Gordon, Harley and Riddler already have a vocal attachment to me, and when the interview tapes play, it is like having these nuggets from the television show at your disposal.  Also, Joker is constantly on the PA making fun of you or lecturing his cronies. Weapons and upgrades. You gain a lot of weapons to help you in Arkham and all of them are fun to use.  Using your XP to purchase other weapons, or fun Batman-like toys is also interesting.  I played with the remote controlled Baterang for like 40 minutes.  Also, whenever Batman uses the explosive gel he draws a bat on the wall/floor.  It’s obvious that this guy has issues, but really, I can’t believe they are taking it this far.  Batman dreams, lives, breathes bats all the time.  I can get into this. I haven’t messed with the challenge rooms or passed the game yet.  I am still taking this game as a slow burn, but please be patient with me.  It is a perfect shit storm out there right now, AND NEW SUPER MARIO BROTHERS WII COMES OUT ON SUNDAY. Shit.

I have been chipping away at Batman: Arkham Asylum.  It doesn’t help that there are about 20 other games I want to be playing, but Batman is extremely compelling.

Batman is a detective. Using this mechanic it slows the pace of the game down a little and allows you to really soak in everything about Arkham Asylum.  Making this a smaller more manageable space, than let’s say a GTA4, really gets you familiar with the entire layout of the complex.  I am fairly confident that I can cruise from one area of the game to the other with extreme ease and speed, much like Batman.  The detective mode also lends itself to familiar gameplay in Metroid Prime.  Scanning things, finding ways to get out of situations, exits, gargoyles and finding Riddler clues is really fun.  These supply more longevity to the game, especially for completionists.  It’s extremely awesome.

Voice work. The original cast from the animated series signed on to do the voices and the nostalgic value keeps me listening for more.  Joker, Batman, Commissioner Gordon, Harley and Riddler already have a vocal attachment to me, and when the interview tapes play, it is like having these nuggets from the television show at your disposal.  Also, Joker is constantly on the PA making fun of you or lecturing his cronies.

Weapons and upgrades. You gain a lot of weapons to help you in Arkham and all of them are fun to use.  Using your XP to purchase other weapons, or fun Batman-like toys is also interesting.  I played with the remote controlled Baterang for like 40 minutes.  Also, whenever Batman uses the explosive gel he draws a bat on the wall/floor.  It’s obvious that this guy has issues, but really, I can’t believe they are taking it this far.  Batman dreams, lives, breathes bats all the time.  I can get into this.

I haven’t messed with the challenge rooms or passed the game yet.  I am still taking this game as a slow burn, but please be patient with me.  It is a perfect shit storm out there right now, AND NEW SUPER MARIO BROTHERS WII COMES OUT ON SUNDAY.

Shit.
Posted at 7:24pm

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Nov 3

Criminals

  • me: liz have you ever had friends get into an accident and then fight their case in court?
  • Elizabeth: not that i know of...
  • me: k
  • Elizabeth: are you guys trying to decide if you should fight it or not?
  • me: yes
  • she is pissed because i am calling her a criminal
  • since my family has no criminal background, i told her to call her mom up
  • or her brothers
  • that didn't go over well
  • Elizabeth: hahaha....awww i'm sure it didn't
  • me: kewl, i am going to keep researching
  • Elizabeth: yeah....because did you say that if she fights it then it won't hurt her insurance?
  • me: yeah
  • i am pretty sure it goes up
  • and she is the only reason why it is so high in the first place
  • Elizabeth: awwww
  • poor nicole.
Posted at 10:57pm

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Nov 2

October is over, now back to normal

October was full.  Full of weddings, outings, parties, birthdays, schedule conflicts and thanks to Nicole’s crazy weekend, car wrecks.  I am more prepared for November and feel like I have a one up on the entire month.  When I get busy, I play a lot of catch up and tend to stay up for inhuman amounts of time trying to wedge everything in.  On top of work, I had exercise, and three fantastic games to play through before the wreckage of November hit.

Here we go.  Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - Incredible.  Brutal Legend - Incredible.  Batman: Arkham Asylum - Incredible.

I really hope that I can spend more time in Brutal Legend’s multiplayer mode.  Riddler’s puzzles need to be solved.  Nathan Drake needs to score some money in multiplayer and find all the treasures.  There is so much in these games that it is baffling why they would all release in the Fall.

Chris’ birthday on Thursday, Sunday with family, and Thanksgiving with Nicole’s family.  Better stock up on beer and whiskey now.

Posted at 9:01pm

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