30 Days of Video Games Day 30

My Favorite Game of All Time

Oh God.  I knew this was coming.  I knew this was coming, and I could not stop it.  All of the preparation in the world would not be able to help me now.  I'm not going to BS this and give you multiple answers.  No shout-outs, no I-was-thinking-of-this-games, just the answer.

Goddammit.

Easy and awesome as it would be, I can't just post this and call it a day.

Must...resist...mentioning...seven...games...

Okay.  I think I have my favorite game chosen, and I will probably regret this shortly after I type it.  At least three of the people reading this already know the answer and are thinking, "Why doesn't he just type it already?"

Okay.  I think that as of this writing, my favorite game of all time is Team Fortress 2.  I'll actually make a case for this.

1) The game is just too damn fun.  I love the don't-give-a-fuck attitude it takes with everyone's bad exaggerated accents, the cartoony graphics, and the very tight gameplay.  Pretty much every class is at least somewhat accessible, though it's almost guaranteed you are going to get raped when you start out as a Spy and don't know what you're doing.  

2) The updates have kept an almost four-year-old game new and interesting.  I'm pretty sure that if TF2 were the same game it was when it was released, very few people would still be playing it.  It's held on to the players it has by constantly bringing new weapons into the game and drastically altering certain classes.  Everyone hates Snipers, right?  A lot of it is because their advantage is distance; there is often nothing you could have done differently to beat them in a battle, as opposed to thinking, "Well if I had used my melee weapon instead, I could have killed that guy."  To fix this, you give the Sniper an option of using a Bow and Arrow set.  This gets him up close into the action.  Plus, the announcements for new weapons are often  retardedly awesome.  

3) The media surrounding the game.  Meet the Medic came out a full year after Meet the Spy.  Meet the Spy was so good, there were people worried that Valve wouldn't make Meet the Medic or Meet the Pyro because they wouldn't be good enough to top Meet the Spy.  Well, Meet the Pyro is marked as Coming Eventually, but Meet the Medic exceeded peoples' expectations.  It's stuff like this that gets you connected to these characters that we set on fire, riddle with bullets, and blow up into many small parts.

4) The community.  Valve hasn't designed all of the new weapons that are in the game.  Hell, at this point, they probably haven't designed more than half.  Half might even be pushing it.  Every single class has a weapon or four that were added to the game after someone in the TF2-playing community designed it.  Three updates all have work from The Polycount Pack, which was a new-weapons design contest by Valve and the folks at Polycount.  They aren't just new skins, but they also have different stats, making choosing your weapon a big decision.

5) Hats.  Hats are stupid.  When they were introduced, they did nothing.  They still do nothing.  No hat on its own has changed the game for anyone unless it was a mental thing, which would be stupid on the user's end.  To make a random hat, you have to sacrifice upwards of 50 useful weapons that actually do stuff.  There are only five hats that actually do anything, and you need three matching weapons in a set to make them be useful.  And goddammit do we want them.  We want them so much that often players will pay real money for something that has no effect on the game whatsoever.

Pictured: a hypothetical scenario, but a realistic one.

But they look cool, and they reflect on the characters' personalities, which is really cool for someone obsessed with that like me.  It's stupid, irreverent, and overall a waste of time.  But fun.

Those last two sentences actually pretty much sum up my feelings about TF2 succinctly.

30 Days of Video Games Day 26

Best Voice Acting:

Again, I'm told that Uncharted and Uncharted 2 would be one of those games that would take this title if I had played it.  But luckily, Valve has me covered on multiple fronts for this one.

Firstly, the Half-Life series.  Unfortunately, I haven't played Half-Life 2 in a while, so I don't remember the voice acting very well.  It was high-quality stuff, though.  I remember the first Half-Life, though, and that is mostly because of the G-Man.

Or as he's also known: Seriously What the Hell is Your Agenda?

At the end of the original Half-Life, he congratulates you for defeating the final boss of the game and blah blah blah enigmatic crazy bullshit.  You could see him in every chapter of the game, but to hear him actually speak to you is creepy as hell.  He also makes mention of his "employers," who are again completely unknown (but there are theories.  Oh boy are there theories).  The G-man's speech stands out greatly as probably the most memorable parts of Half-Life and Half-Life 2.

Then there's Team Fortress 2.  I haven't gushed about the game in a few blogs, so I'll hear no complaining from any readers on this subject.  One of the things that really can draw you in to the game is the different (ridiculous) accents that each mercenary has, giving away their countries of origin.  But it's the fun that the script has with the characters that makes it great.  It's like a room full of Americans went, "What would an Australian say as a battle cry?"  And then we end up with a bad Australian accent yelling "God save the queen!" and a Scotsman yelling "Freeeedooooom!"  It gives a very light tone to a game where I will end up setting people on fire and blowing them up into small bits.  The game's a cartoon, and the characters really make it great.  Watch any of the Meet the Team videos and you'll get the idea.

But the best voice acting, I think, has to go to Portal and Portal 2.  They really turned two pretty damn good games into two of the best games in this field.  I can't say enough good about GLaDOS.

Ceiling GLaDOS is watching  you...

As the only "companion" you have in Portal, she quickly becomes your best friend, even though you KNOW that she has every intention of killing you.  Any time I heard her monotone, auto-tuney voice come over the loud-speaker, it was a joyous occasion.  It really helped, too, that the script for this game was amazing.  The same goes for GLaDOS's script in Portal 2.

Portal 2 really set the story element in motion with its voice acting, though!  Bringing in J.K. Simmons to play Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Science, was amazing.  Wheatley was a great contrast to GLaDOS; where she was extremely intelligent but had the personality of a serial killer, Wheatley was a welcome-wagon that never stopped welcoming you with the warmest of greetings... until he wakes up GLaDOS and starts the events of Portal 2.  Because Chell is a mute protagonist (and maybe just a straight-up mute person), the story depends entirely on the physical looks of Aperture Labratories and the voices around her.  Portal and Portal 2 pulled this off better than any other game I've played.

30 Days of Videogames Day 15

Post a screenshot from a game you're playing right now.

I could do this for a lot of games.  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Game One: Team Fortress 2 -

I love TF2, but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reading this.

Game Two: Osmos -

A still screenshot does not do this game justice.



Osmos is a really neat game that came with my Humble Indie Bundle.  It's a really neat (and occasionally frustrating) time-waster.

Game Three: Spiral Knights -

Spiral Knights seems like a free MMO-Lite.  You get set up in a party with three other people you don't know (unless you actually have friends) and kill monsters for greater wealth and therefore, weapons.  Even when I think I'm not going to play, though, I use all my energy (think along the lines of a Facebook or Twitter-based game that only allows a certain number of actions a day) to post weapons on the auction house.  I'm rich, beyotch!

Game Four: Tropico 3 - 

It's kind of like a politically-twisted Sim City.  You're a small island in the Caribbean in the middle of the Cold War.  Both superpowers want your alliances, and give you financial aid.  The main objective is to stay in power and accomplish any objectives you may have in that time frame.  The key is balancing development with the environment, and capitalism with communism.  You also have to make sure your army can take on any rebels that might rise against you.

Game Five: Amnesia: The Dark Descent -

Goddammit this game is scary.  This game is freaking scary.  I have made so little progress into this game because the atmosphere is so damn scary.  Easily one of the best videogame gifts I have ever been given, maybe the best.

Seriously, it's so freaking scary.