Red Dead Redemption-- Alright!

Red Dead Redemption is everything that it's predecessor Red Dead Revolver and fellow Cowboy Free-Roam GUN always strove to be- Grand Theft Auto with cowboys. And it works. By God it works.
It's amazing what happens when you take the Grand Theft Auto formula and you apply it to an out-of-city location. It's something a lot of games have tried in the past, and very few have ever come close to getting it right.

The story is simple and straight Wild West film fodder. You play as John Marston, who barely has a passing resemblance to Red from the previous game. John's a crony for the Bureau, an early incarnation of the FBI, and is on a mission to hunt down people from his own bloody past in order to see the safe return of his wife and son.
And like Niko Bellic before him, everyone has a problem, and John seems to be the only one capable getting the job down, distracting him from his quest in classic GTA Clone form.

And for the record, I suck at Horseshoes just as bad in this game as I do in real life. I have also finally learned the nuances of Texas Hold'em. I still do not know what constitutes a Full House, but by God I got one somehow.

It really helps the game that John Marston isn't too terribly down on himself that his family is being held hostage by the government. He's actually quite a peppy guy, coming off more like a Doc Holiday than a Wyatt Earp. He definately doesn't lend himself well to the kind of murderous rampaging that's normally associated with this kind of game, but it's a wonderful deterrent to unnecessary violence.
It's much in the same vein as Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series coming off as a total military badass in most interactions, but sounding like a complete and utter tool when he's hitting on the female members of his crew. Unless pissed off, Marstons a pretty cool cat.

This game doesn't render a rental, it definately is well worth the money to own. There is far too much game here to complete in five days.

Country music has a very specific demographic. Recently when I've been forced to dwell in a room or vehicle in which those particular melodies are playing, I take notice how they are usually about love, breakups, rowdy but apparently whole country living, and waxing poetic on the relationships one has with their parents.

The demographic country music targets is more often than not Married People with kids. It's safe to listen to around your kids and you can relate to it probably.
Despite my country upbringings, me and the musical genre to not agree on a lot of things philosophically. Also I am a 25 year old single male who only enters drinking establishments two times a month at most. On top of that, cowboy boots are incredibly goofy looking. Country Western, needless to say, does not put a wiggle in my step.

So yeah~~

We recently recorded another episode of the Podcast, which you might find on any of the seemingly random venues we post our digital drivel at. Leo joined us on the mic this time around, in which we christened him with the sub-title: 00.5. He's not quite a Double-O Zero, but not yet a Double-O One. I say he's neither because he's neither British nor a spy.

We spent a lot of time recording the podcast stepping on each others toes, and even at one point had three different conversations going on at once. It's at that point that I can picture everyone switch to a different Podcast on their playlist. And if we were the only Podcast you'd happen to be listening to at the time in question, we probably ruined your day. Sorry about that.

Scraps plays a lot of games.

Scraps here~~

So. Dragon Age: Awakening. Finally knocked that off recently. I think I can honestly say I am done with Dragon Age for the time being. I'm just going to put that on the shelf and let it stand as one of many victories and triumphs in gaming that I have completed.
Awakening has a lot of interesting ideas, but the bulk of the expansion consists of request boards and fetch quests over actual quests.
The story involves this character called The Architect, and a character called The Mother, whom are two Intelligent Darkspawn warring against each other. I won't spoil it for you, because, it is indeed an awesome, eye-opening revelation if you've been paying attention to the player codex of Origins.
The problem being, it feels like it ends just as it's getting good. Things are finally falling into place, and everything is going good, and then you get pigeonholed into the final scenario.

I may delete Awakening from my hard drive just to open up space, and later on, if I ever feel the need to play it again, just buy the disc version.

I think Awakening would have faired better as a book, as it draws heavily from the Dragon Age novel, The Calling. Since I did not read the book, nor was I even aware there was a book, I sort of felt like I was getting only half the experience.

Since I got Dragon Age done with, and am kinda bored with my current 360 library, I've been digging myself hip deep into Persona 3 FES, starting to get to work on the mountain of old PS2 titles I have and have yet to even start. I will probably focus on them for a time, until something comes along for 360 that catches my time and attention.

Scraps vs. The Internets

Doctor Scraps here--

A new party member named Kasumi has been announced for DLC in Mass Effect 2 on April 6th. Is anybody else envisioning a buxom, blue and white gi-wearing kung fu girl jump kicking Collectors and Krogans? It would indeed be teh hawtness, but also highly inpractical.
Ah, see this is why ole' Scrappy needs to do this homework before he starts typing-- Kasumi is a Thief character, one of those Sly Cooper types. And she looks like a Sith Lord. As long as she is more interactable than Zaeed wound up being, I'll be happy. I've been looking for an excuse to play ME2 for a while.

You know-- I have quite a few pet peeves when it comes to the internet. One of them is people who post on forums for specific games...for this example, we're going to say Mass Effect since I just got done talking about it. You browse a Mass Effect forum andf some jackhole makes a post entitled "How would you compare this to Final Fantasy 13?"
I wouldn't. Different genre, different play style, dingus.
Another variant is "This game or this game?"
Make your own decision, moron. If you're browsing the Mass Effect forum on Gamefaqs, don't ask whether Mass Effect 2 is better than Bioshock 2, you know what answer you're going to get!
Of course, we have this wonderful thing on the internet called Moderated Free Speach, which prevents me from scalding these fools verbally, because I'm then officially "infringing upon their right to have an opinion", even if they are idiots.

Jade on Useless Characters:

There are so many different ways that a player can make themselves useful in a game: they can be the team's medic, techie, tank, resident magic (or force) user, or even comic relief to name a few. There are skills and talents availble to every class and race that a good player can use to their advantage. Whatever the ends may be. The trick is merely to know what you want to do with your character and then follow the necessary paths to get you there. Note, however, that I said a "good player."There are just as many ways, as I have come to notice, to make yourself utterly useless in a game. Creating a twi'lik noble with nothing but buff abilities in a cambat-heavy, Run-and-Gun campaign for example. Your teammates would prefer you helping in the front lines, not hiding behind us all granting random bonuses that don't really help that much anyway. On the flip-side, creating an overpowered God character in a Military campaign that explodes everyone's head before we get a chance to question them is equally as useless. You are not Bruce Willis. Yes...terrorists just happened to hi-jack the spa resort that our so called "benefactor" sent us to, but we have no-idea if it was coincidence or not because their grey matter is all over the docking bay floor. Thanks for being a sport. Oh, and would someone please tell me what use a wannabe assassin is to a party of nobles, protected by a few Jedi, on a DIPLOMATIC mission. Just who do you think you are going to assassinate? I have a lightsaber...I will CUT you...

There are two other types of useless characters that really irritate me: the ones that take anything and everything that sounds "good" but ultimately gets them nowhere, and droids. In all fairness, I haven't played much with droid characters but the ones in our group right now seriously annoy me. The R-5 isn't so bad. It is goofy campaign anyway where we all play the most unlikely characters and our R-5 has a built in Easy-Bake oven. Good comic relief. However...she has no weapons! The other droid...I don't even know what he is trying to be or do. He spent the entire first session following the R-5 around trying to rape it. I can't believe I'm going to say this but I actually missed the pimp Jawa (complete with hoes and bling)! As for taking random talents with no apparent goal in mind...pick up the damn book and read it every once in a while. Have a character concept ready (more than just an anime-esque drawing of the cutest Zabrak the galaxy has ever seen thank you very much) and choose a race whose species traits and personality goes along with it. Pick a class that gives you access to the talents and prestige class you really want. Don't half-ass it for the first 5 levels and then bitch because you don't have ANY of the prerequisites for something you all of a sudden REALLY want to take.

Like I said, as a player you can make yourself an asset or a liability in a variety of ways. These are only a few examples that we have personally seen in our own endevors. I'm sure there are still a few that I have forgotten to mention and there will, of course, be more. Oh yes...there will be more. If you have any useless character stories you want to vent about, post them as a comment on our blog or message Fractured Transmissions on our myspace!

From: Jade--