Dead Space 3: Now With Friendship.

The short:
You'll know what you're in for if you've played the previous two games.  If you can say anything about Dead Space 3 i'ts that it knows what it is.  The co-op was a huge selling point for me and I wound up loving the weapon crafting system.  It's worthy to take a look at.


The long:
Isaac Clarke is back.  The tenacious-as-all-hell Engineer who had his life torn apart (sometimes literally) back in the first Dead Space is somehow how still kicking and yet again finds himself having to fight necromorphs while setting the new standard of bladder control under terrifying circumstances.

While I did enjoy the story, and I think any fans of the previous games will as well, I don't want to reveal too much.  There's loads of Let's Plays out there for anyone who wants to watch the game without playing it themselves, however it is quite the experience.

New to this game is crafting your own weapons.  As opposed to finding items that unlock things from a skill tree-esque upgrade path players can change out the parts to the weapons to alter a weapons specs.  These parts also determine whether or not you will craft a shotgun that fires spikes or a gatling gun that fires spikes and etc.  Along with the weapon parts there are also upgrade circuits you can find and attach to your weapons that add simple stats such as +1 Firing Speed, Damage, Clip or Reload.

While some may find this whole process a little too much compared to simply purchasing guns and upgrading them like the previous games I found the whole weapon construction rather enjoyable.  My main playthrough was in co-op with a friend and it was really interesting to see the crazy weapons that we could create.  I should note that we never wound up with exactly similar weapon styles so it also helped vary things in the gameplay for both of us.

Included with the crafting is packs that you can buy with microsoft points on the xbox version (not sure how it works on PS3) or ration packs that you find when you deploy scavenger bots or you can find in secret rooms.  These packs give things from simple materials to powered up weapon parts.  Think what you will of EA for this, I'm just glad they gave us a way to get them without paying money.

I should also note that the actual crafting process is rather fun too, although a little time consuming.  At one point in the game I was at a bench for over 40 minutes trying to build the perfect weapon.  While it may take some trial and error to find what weapon is really your style, when it finally clicked it felt great and I knew I had a tool that would help me make it through any horrifying situation that would be waiting in the next room.  And there are plenty of horrifying situations.

The gameplay is rather standard for a Dead Space game at this point.  Obtaining and conserving resources is a large part because even on normal enemies hit hard.  The one huge change is the addition of cooperative gameplay.    This was the big selling point to myself as I will always take co-op over singleplayer if I can help it.  What parts I did play through on singleplayer still gave me a good, albeit different, experience than when I played through it on co-op. 

When playing co-op Isaac has a soldier named John Carver, who has his own reasons to want to destroy the markers, fighting with him side by side.  The addition of another player and character actually has an effect on the story of the game, while not a huge ones, and there are a few side objectives that can only be completed in co-op.

Overall I rather enjoyed the game.  While I was on the fence about the crafting system in the beginning it really grew on me.  I knew the co-op would be a huge selling point to me and I really don't think I would have bought the game if I didn't have a friend to play it with.  If you are at least curious I would suggest renting it.  I'm not exactly sure how much replayability I'll get out of this, I know I at least have to more run-troughs I'm gonna make in an attempt to 100% the collectables.

The bottom line is that you'll win if you have friendship. And guns.  Lots of guns.

If you aren't first you're last?

So today was a rather normal day in the life of your average Pool Assistant/ Assistant to the Aquatic Supervisor/ Whatever title I feel like calling my job to make me feel more professional.  Normal in the sense that I was an integral part in running yet another large swim meet, this time it was the MISCA Men's high school meet, with over 650 swimmers in attendance.  Yep, the deck was pretty packed.

For those of you who do not know how swim meets usually run, they are usually broken into Events and then the Events are broken up into Heats.  Events are just the types of races.  So that's the swim stroke and the distance they are swimming.  An example of this would be 50 Free, which is 50 yards freestyle.  The Heats in these Events are literally just breaking down the events into segments as not every swimmer who signs up for an event can swim at once if there's only 10 or 8 lanes like most usual pools.

Because of this structure, the first heat of an event usually consists of the swimmers who give a previous swim time that is the slowest.  This means that the times in the heats will tend to get progressively faster until the last heat, which tends to be "the best."

As I ran the timing system for the meet today I noticed something that I've seen more than once at this job.  I saw the person and their team's coach freak the heck out when the swimmer got first place in the first meet.  Now I know that they were probably happy because they either beat a school record or a some time that they were trying to get, however it sparked the question in my mind:

Which is better, to be the best of the worst or the worst of the best.

Now real quick, I'd like to clarify that the swimmer who got first isn't ranked at all amongst the worst swimmers.  Heck, I know he was faster than anything I could do, however in that particular environment he was the best amongst the lower set of people.

I think the answer to this little question in my head is that it would probably be better to be the worst of the best, as you would have room for improvement, whereas when you're the best of of the worst you're already maxed out, although I can think of some counter arguments to this.

For one, to be the worst amongst the best it must be a little disheartening.  No one likes being last.  No one likes losing, so even though you may have the potential to reach above the best, it would be difficult even in the emotional sense.

Secondly, even thought you are the best of a particular group of people, it doesn't mean you can't improve.  I'm not gonna give the illusion that I'm a swimming expert.  I swam in junior high and have constant but minimal exposure to it through my sister and job.  But an example that works with swimming is Michael Phelps back when he was the poster boy of American swimming.  He may have been the best in the world of certain groups, but that didn't mean he couldn't train harder and get better.  So I think it's still possible to improve even if you don't have a bar to set it to.  Heck, people do stuff with that with things like technology all the time. 

So that's just a little thought that popped into my head today and my two cents on it.  Maybe I just typed this all becasue I like to hear my keyboard clickity clack, but I thought I would share it with you all.  Hope you all are having a great day, night or in-betwixt. 

Also, before I go:

This video is pretty much irrelevant, but while looking for music to go with writing this I rediscovered this old thing.  I figured I'd share it for nostalgia's case.  Also, check out Indiana Jones' nose... it's big... and that's the joke.

Hope you all have a good one, thanks for reading!

A Slightly Biased Review of Sword Art Online

The short: Sword Art Online is an anime series and a multi-volume set of light novels that I found entirely enjoyable.  I lost a good deal of sleep in order to find out what would happen next to Kirito, the main character, and I was rooting for his success far before the end of the first novel.  From a gamer's point of view I enjoyed most parts of the series, however a few plot devices later in the series did aggravate me.  As the translated light novels can be found for free and the anime can be watched in entirety for free on crunchyroll (with ads, unfortunately) its hard to find a reason not to give Sword Art Online a shot.

So give it a shot.

Offical Sword Art Online Cover Art, Image Taken from Crunchyroll

The long:
I recently sat down to begin watching a new anime I heard about called Sword Art Online... and then I didn't stop.  Now the fact is it takes quite a bit for me to actually want to marathon an anime.  I'm not huge on them and it's only because of my recent subscription to crunchyroll (due mostly to SAO, or Sword Art Online) that I've begun actually seeking out anime to watch.  As with all good things, my discovery of Sword Art Online has a story attached.

Our story begins last summer when my friend Frank brought up SAO for the first time.  He told me of a book he was reading that was actually a translation of a light novel from Japan.  He only gave me a very general rundown of a plot, but even the vague description stuck with me.

He said something similar to "The book is set in the near future.  Full virtual reality had been invented and with its invention came the demand for a Virtual Reality Massively Multilayer Online, or VRMMO, game (think virtual reality World of Warcraft if you aren't a heavy gamer).  A VRMMO is announced and it's titled "Sword Art Online," however when the players log on in the first day they realize they can't log out.  The creator then tells the players that they will not be able to log out unless they defeat all 100 levels of the game.  He also says that if the players die in the game they will be killed in real life."

That's it.  That's the premise to SAO, but oh man is it a juicy one. Now while I remember that conversation, especially the "What would you do in that situation?" discussion that followed, I didn't really seek out this book.  I don't know why, we had just never brought up SAO again after that.

Skip half a year and we come to last month.  After hearing about SAO, the anime this time, from a few friend and other internet people, I decided I was interested.  My friend Frank sent me to a link where I could find the translated light novels (there's about 10 of em) and away I read!

I know this is a review of the anime, but I do have to say that the light novels are pretty cool too.  I usually rate books on how much sleep they make me lose and SAO made me miss a whole night of quality sleep over Christmas break, so I give it a "Gosh I'm tired."

Now the light novels are structured a bit weird, with the main story of the actual game Sword Art Online filling the pages of the first two light novels, side stories that occurred during the first two filling the third light novel and other things, which I'm not going mention for the sake of spoilers, filling the third and fourth light novels.

After killing the first two light novels in two relatively sleepless nights I decided I wanted to give the anime a go.  If the books kept me up reading than the anime kept me up watching and helped things tie together a lot more.  I personally enjoyed the anime more than the light novels, if anything because they put the side stories from volume 3 in the place they belong chronologically so the story seemed to flow better.  My friend complained that this caused the main story to feel rush but I disagree.  I don't think anyone who watches the anime without reading the light novels would even notice.

As I want to avoid giving away too many details I think I'll stop this 'review' here.  The first paragraph is really everything you need to know.  If anything I would say you should give episode 1 a chance while you can still watch it for free or crunchyroll.  Here's that link again ;)