Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Can't Sleep, Gotta Save The World!

So recently everyone who's anyone (with a 360) has been playing Halo: Reach. Strangely enough, this isn't about Reach, or football (Colts destroyed the Giants for anyone who cares).

Anyway.

No, this is about a game I didn't give a chance when it was first released. A game that, when it it became a $20 greatest hits title, I played for an hour or two and shelfed. Now that I've given more time and changed my strategy toward, have fallen in love with. The hand-holding, public kissy-kissy, single-strand-of-spaghetti-drawing-you-closer-and-closer-until-your-faces-smash-together kind of love that not many games can provide. A few games that come to mind are LoZ: A Link to the Past, Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Mass Effect and of course, Mass Effect 2. I could list more and you might ask, "Ryan, I thought you said not many games could provide that kind of love?" Well asshole, how many games have been made in the past 24 years? If I could name a solid one hundred games, that would still be considered "not many". Lucky I don't even think I could name 20, neither would I want to for love of time.

Now I bet you're thinking one of two things, "What game is he talking about!?!?" In response, you shouldn't be freaking out with that much anticipation about the games I love. That would be weird. Or you're thinking "I'm gonna stop reading now". In response I would make sad face and go about my day. For the mild mannered and slightly interested, I present to you:



Now in Technicolor!
Fallout 3

Now I, again, think I know what you're thinking: "How did you not give Fallout 3 a chance?". For boards users, it's would go a little something *Dramatic pause* like this: "What?!?1 You suxZ0rz, how did you not give teh Falloutz a chance!!?11!"

Well, I did give it a chance, and I didn't like what I was playing. Mostly because I'm not into the whole 'scavenge-to-survive, yet we're gonna throw a world of super mutant-make-me-wanna-cry' gameplay. Does that make me a bad person or gamer? No. I also suck at RTS, and no, I don't suck at RPGs. Come back to me after you've played and beat Mass Effect 1 and 2 a total of 8 and 6 times respectably, A Link to the Past so much you've lost count, and both KoTors several times. Then we can judge each other. I prefer not to judge gamers, as I respect gamers as family. The only person I judge as a gamer, and as a person, it FozzytheGamer. I kid Fozzy. I <3 you.

My love story routes from one. single. strategy. I changed the difficulty to easy. I don't do this often. I, as a matter of fact, hate it. I prefer to play on the difficulty the Developers see fit, usually in this day and age, is a variant of the word 'Normal'. Some games, like Halo, describe hard or "Heroic" as the norm. I fall in line and listen to their wisdom. When I get through a game on the default difficulty, and decided I loved it enough to give it another go, I amp up the difficulty. Gears of War, Halo and Call of Duty are all great examples of such. I've tackled The hardest modes at some point or another. Halo will be getting the Legendary treatment soon and Call of Duty because, evidently, I'm a self-masochist. Though I do love that rush of beating a Call of Duty when the difficulty description is "You will not survive". Bring it on.

When it came to Fallout 3, it was different. I didn't enjoy myself like the others. It was frustrating just dying all the time with no health packs and getting ripped apart. RPGs are known for there brutality when it comes to save points and combat. Luckily, I know this pattern and save quite a bit, with multiple saves. Yet, it still happens where I would be exploring and get jumped by Mercs with weapons far superior to my own. Once the difficult decision to change the difficulty was made (See what I did there) I started enjoying myself. Ammo is aplenty, enemies are reasonable to defeat and I've progressed ten-fold in the story. Also, it is awesome.

I'm still deciding if it's one of the games that will not lose it's spark. Remember the long, ramble of a love speech I gave earlier? Well, the games I mentioned never lost that spark. It's like the early period in the relationship and it's on a constant loop. With most games, I have the same relationship, until we spend time together and things get comfortable. It's not a bad thing, I can fart in front of her and nobody minds, she pees with the door open and nobody minds. It's still not the same as that first time you decided to be a couple though. With games like Modern Warfare 2, it's the beating-boyfriend kind of relationshit (yes, shit) where boy loves girl one day, hits girl second day because they're out of pepper. Pepper is a metaphor. One to signify his life is falling through holes around him and being ingested by society. That and he is a jackass for hitting a woman. I don't condone that kind of behavior in RL, but when it comes to games, it's my relationshit with Modern Warfare 2.

But I digress.

Fallout 3 is trying to ruin my sleep schedule something fierce. I usually(try) go to bed around 3AM. I don't have a full time job, so this is pretty easy, So I can wake up around 10AM. I used to work nights and am a night person, so it was easy for me to stay up until 6AM and wake up at 1 or 2PM. This always made me feel like a bag of shit, so I decided to make some changes, look for a day job and try to stay on schedule. Lately, Fallout 3 told me to go eff myself and I've been sleeping late and staying up later. It's also how I found myself living in Fallout 3's world. I was not letting my character sleep. I was too busy trying to saving the world. Sleep was for the weak. When I realized what was happening, I decided to fix that and I'm currently in the process of fixing that, in game and out. I love my Lone Wanderer and myself to much to screw up our sleep. So now, she sleeps when she's been up to long, and I keep my 3AM regiment...sort of. Last night doesn't count, kay?

As of now, I made the mistake of jumping into the Reach Multiplayer for shits and giggles. Bad move. As soon as I'm done writing this, I'm going to turn my Xbox on and play Reach. Fallout will take a back seat for a while. Let's see if it's draw is enough to bring me back. I'm thinking yes, it will. I guess we'll see.

Well friends, I have to say, I enjoyed this quite a bit. I haven't blogged in quite some time and this was fun. Maybe more in the future, but having a podcast kind of hurt me wanting to write a blog. Who want to read when they can listen right? Which reminds me, he dudes, TeaBagRadio is recording on Thursday with Special Guest Ryan DeLaRosa of The Game Over Podcast! G-OVAH!!!!

If you've got questions, we've got answers. Just think, you might actually be the lucky winner of Halo: Reach and a possible mystery game! I don't know how long the guys are gonna keep give out free stuff, maybe for the next 10 years, maybe yesterday, so don't take the chance, just send in a question and you're entered. Crazy easy, right? RIGHT? Right. If you do have questions, no pressure or anything or even just have some comments or a funny story, hit us up at TeaBagFM@gmail.com

Also, have you guys heard of this awesome way of keeping in touch with people? It's called Twitter and I want you all to be on it so I can follow you and you can follow me and we can all be friends! If you're on there, let me know! Let's be friends! Kay? You can find TeaBagRadio, Sean, Dub and myself on there. I'll even link it!

@TeaBagRadio
@Trucker_Sean
@Dubarewskies
@SharpShotApollo
Special Guest: @AirstrikeRhino

For those of you who read this, I thank you. For those of you who are listeners, you guys are awesome and it's your support that keeps us going. You guys are the best, and only TeaBagForce we could ask for!

Until next time, this is your friendly neighborhood SharpShotApollo, signing off.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Kicking of MyIGN with a TeaBag!

So MyIGN has launched. Maybe I’ll start blogging more over there? Well maybe when they switch over everything from the old system.

In the meantime, I have a question for all of you who listen to TeaBagRadio, which should be all of you! I’ve always wanted to know how people would respond to the question:

If you woke up one morning with super powers and were compelled to fight crime, would you tell those you love?

Most people can come up with an answer, but explain yourself why you would or wouldn’t and if it’s something we like, you can hear it read on the podcast AND you may even win something TBA! You have plenty of time, as we may not do the topic on this week’s episode, but be sure to check for it in the near future!

I want to hear reasons. Any reasons so don’t be shy, no response will be overlooked, but we will have to narrow it down, so pour your heart into this one!

That’s it for this short entry. Get your answers in at TeaBagFM@gmail.com and use the subject: “If I had powers…

I can’t wait to see your input friends! If you’ve joined that new thing called Twitter, you can follow @TeaBagRadio for updates on episode and more!

Until next time,

- Your friendly neighborhood SharpShotApollo

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Pimping Content

So I've finally branched out from the IGN blogs to a Blogger one. I never really thought about it before today. Although I love the IGN community and blogs, it is a bit limited in what you can do. One of which is include a twitter feed etc. If interested, check out my blog "The Mystery Machine".

I'll be continuing to blog there, but it's been slow. I've been busy with a lot of other things, including the podcast I co-host called: TeaBag Radio. We talk mostly about games, but we've been known to trail off on other subjects. If you've ever listened to Rebel FM or Giant Bombcast, we kind of have the same vain. We're explicit, so if your virgin ears can' handle it, you've been warned.


Our 5th episode is online, which you can find on iTunes or you can head over to teabagradio.podbean.com for the show blog, stream and direct download. Give us a listen if you're into gaming. Rate us if you like us! If you're super lazy, check us out right here at the embedded player below! If you're on Twitter, find us @TeaBagRadio and myself @SharpShotApollo.

Yours truly,

- Your friendly neighborhood SharpShotApollo