AND ANOTHER THING

I may have left out some things in this weeks update on originality. The upside.

Like I mentioned in the previous blog, originality lies in either re-introducing a story in an unexpected way, giving the story a twist or re-introducing it in a new light.

Here are the three best examples of each type (in order, I know reading is difficult for some people so I'm not going to make it harder than it already is {I am not insulting anyones intelligence, most Vikings only learn to read if they pay enough attention to the hastily scribbled wills left around a recently raided hut}).

Unexpected: BIOSHOCK

Yeah, the guy who you thought was good wasn't (it's happened before). It turns out you've been lead astray by false memories (Momento anyone?). Trapped somewhere with a long trek through other peoples blood your only chance for salvation (any movie with our old reject Viking friend Arnold Shwartzakruger {he changed his name when he became a star, as Shwartzakruger means brick-face}).

The unexpected?

YOU'RE UNDER THE OCEAN IN A METROPOLIS BUILT BY A MAN IN THE 60'S WHO HATED THE POLITICAL CLIMATE AND BECAME THE GOD OF HIS OWN VISION! (YOU ALSO GET TO SHOOT FUCKING LIGHTNING OUT OF YOUR HANDS!)

The kicker?

It makes sense. Scientists made it possible to shoot fireballs (FUCKING FIREBALLS) out of your hands, not to create a super being or train soldiers, but because of free enterprise and freedom from any moral restraint.


Giving the story a twist: FOLKLORE

I loved Folklore. Most of the creatures in it come from Viking mythology, and nothing brought me more satisfaction then bringing down the creatures that had once made me wet myself in terror (my grandmothers story times were quite brutal; any pain happening in the story would be bestowed on me for 'realism').

The twist?

No-one is who you think they are. The guy you play as is actually dead, and the lady is the mysterious girl from the past who was the centre of a circle of suspicious and gruesome murders.

Why is this better than any other twist?

Despite knowing this twist (I am a genius if you recall), the real twist was how it got to the conclusion. Knowing the village you are going to raid doesn't make the sea serpent on the way there any less intriguing. But seriously, play Folklore.

And lastly...

Re-introducing with a new light: GOD OF WAR

Somehow, despite not liking this game, it's come up twice. How do some people get so lucky?

It's Greek mythology but suited to todays audience. Gone is the style of the Illiad, the beauty and tradgedy; only to be left by a pale tattooed man who is about as good looking as a sack of dried fish (which, when you're hungry, doesn't look half bad).

A comparison
All beauty and strength/All bad arse (no hair hahaha!)
Tradgedy/Ironic and sad story (yes, there is a difference, read a dictionary)
Gods and men are bound in contests of pride/Kratos has anger issues and storms Mount Olympus with TITANS! (Which I could easily beat).

The second tier is designed for young minds with low attention spans, ie, modern society.

Now I must go and develop my story further so people can play at least one more good game in their lifetime.

I give me 5/5 for my ability to recognise greatness (for instance; my own greatness).

Originality...where?

There is a problem with buying games that are popular. The problem with buying these games is, strangely enough, the word popular.

Popular, from the Viking populus (Vikings invented Latin to see if other people would waste their lives studying it {and you do}) means a gathering that one can butcher, slaughter, kill, maim, loot, steal and any other fun shit you want (this is straight from the Viking Dictionary).

So popular means people. Unfortunately, people on a whole, are stupid. Not 'can I end a sentence with a preposition?' stupid, not 'I'll stay up late despite having to work tomorrow' stupid, but:

MR. 69 STUPID.

So these are the kind of people, who, by being giant morons buy and like what other morons like and thus the game becomes popular, begets sequels and then when an innocent Viking gamer sees it on special, decides to buy it because it was cheap and it was popular.

This weeks review was supposed to be on Dragon Age, which has a deceptively awesome intro movie.

It is no longer on Dragon Age, but on the reason that I stopped playing it an hour in.

People don't know it yet, but there is no such thing as originality. Stories evolve. So when Vikings were watching you monkeys build your huts out of mud (poo really) we listened to your stories. Every story starts out with the same premise, a basic premise that evolves. By now it is nearly impossible to make anything truly original.

What must be done to induce the idea of originality is to evolve a story in a way the viewer is not expecting, giving the story a twist or reintroducing the story in a new light.

Dragon Age pissed me off royally in this regard. The starting FMV explained about how some monsters or some shit were killing people left and right because they were just evil or some shit (sooooooooo much depth), and these really great soldiers made up of the different races (ma, elves and dwarves {fucking seriously it looked like Lord of the Rings}) beat them off (nyehehhehaha).

Blah blah blah times passes, great soldiers few in number, warn the people etc etc.

At this point I wanted to kill myself. I've seen this movie. It's called Lord of the Rings. I've read lots of fantasy novels, and copy paste looks very much in use here Dragon Age.

Then the absolute worst, worst part.

Your father who is lord of his castle (or some shit) introduces you to his friend who used to fight alongside him. As soon as I saw him I told my grandmother that he would betray me. She hit me with a pot for good measure, her reasoning being that if I knew he would betray me he should be dead. I tried to explain he wasn't real, and then made me soup with a seals head in it, forced me to eat it all the while explaining seals head helps Vikings get their sense of reality back if they are claiming people that aren't real are going to betray them.

After throwing up a good portion of seal outside, I returned to my console, and lo and behold, in the next five minutes of gameplay he's betrayed me. BIG FUCKING SURPRISE.

Did I say that was the worst, worst part? I'm wrong, or this is the worst worst worst part.

This guy who betrays you? Well, despite being a knowledgable, literary genius that knows old, badly re-hashed plots, I can, along with most of the current society, RECOGNISE WHEN THE VOICE ACTOR IS OBVIOUSLY PLAYING AN EVIL CHARACTER.

WHO PAID YOU BLOODY PEOPLE!? SERIOUSLY! I BET AFTER CHOOSING THE VOICE ACTOR YOU ALL HIGH FIVED EACH OTHER, LAUGHING WITH BLINDFOLDS ON AND JERKING EACH OTHER OFF. YEAH YOU'RE SO GREAT! BITE MY SHINY VIKING HAT!

Odin help me, only children are amused by black and white (this isn't racist) characters.

Kratos is bad-arse, but he's not likable. He's an angry, angry man. I hated the game but didn't hate the story. That's because it's a story that is being re-told in new light. It has been adapted for the modern audience.

To finish this review, I spent about five minutes creating a rough storyboard for a game. I'd ask to hear what my readers think, but there is only much storage space for blind praise on the internet.

Alexandria was once the most powerful city-state in somewhere (country to be named later). Its powerful economy, mainly driven by the technology and low-class man power, had once led Alexandria in a war against the rest of the country for total control.

The lesser city states (to be named later) banded together to try and force back Alexandrias forces.

The war had been in effect for many, many years and became increasingly unpopular with the denizens of Alexandria.

During the war, Alexandrias leader, (to be named later), feared an uprising. He established a team of secret police that murdered politcal rivals, revolutionaries and anyone that might cause him to lose the war due to internal strife.

The secret police became a force that was not so secret, and fear was instilled in the people of Alexandria.

Meanwhile, the leaders son, publicly supporting his father, has agendas of his own. Seeing the futility of winning the war and sensing the possibility of losing his own head, he publicly denounces the ruler and after a bloody and public coupe, he becomes a hero to the people and takes his place of power.

He then publicly declares his intentions to run down these secret police, and plans to hold a public torture and execution for those involved. Posters including rough sketches and descriptions of who the secret police are are all over the city, and a reward makes their capture a business venture.

Our team of four (or five; to be named at a later date) consists of the secret polices second in command (the first command becomes advisor to the new ruler) his younger sister and her fiance, the most recent recruit of the secret police.

Our game begins when, on the second night of being declared public enemies, the second command covers his sisters mouth in the middle of the night, to be met by her fiances blade at his throat. Motioning towards the door they listen to the slight sounds of creaking stairs. Second in command motions for them to pretend to be sleeping, and hides behind the door. The door opens almost noiselessly, and takes three steps into the room before second command promptly walks up and slits his throat.

He says:
'We leave, tonight'.

As they pack their things, second command looks outside to see a small unit of Alexandrian soldiers outside. He figures they had tried to do the job silently and present their corpses in the morning, and watches as the commanding officer send two men towards the door to see what was happening.

'Leave your things, go out the window, now, NOW!'

The fiance and sister and recruit (who was asleep on the floor during this time, will provide little comic relief when they step on him or something) flee to the window as the two soldiers, upon hearing the shout of now, burst in the door. Second command has an awesome mad (Viking worthy) fight scene where he kills them both, but not before one of them has bellowed,
'THEYRE GETTING AWAY!'

The night comes alive, people are running out of their houses in the dark to try and catch the fugitives. In the dark and the panic, musket shots ring out, people fall, soldiers are relentless in trying to kill the secret police.

Cutting away from our fleeing protagonists, one soldier cant understand while they were shooting with civilians in the way.

'Orders were any means necessary, public be damned. Theyre too dangerous to be left alive'

In the chaos the whinnying of horses is heard.

'LANCERS!'

Bellows second command, and they pick up their pace. Meanwhile lancers (heavily armoured mounted troops) knock over civilians and are closing the distance between themselves and the fugitives. The fiance is knocked down by a large civilian by accident, second command looks back as the fiance mouthes (run) in slow mo.

Second command watches as a lancer approaches him, and watches as a lance pierces his body. His scream, mingled with the scream of his little sister, snaps him back to reality, and he pulls her as she watches him get stabbed, beaten and stoned by the citizens of Alexandria.

They reach the city walls while the public are being entertained by the fiances death, and go through a secret door they obviously know was their from use in their 'business'.

The second command tells them not to stop til they reach the other side of the woods.

As they run, starting credits roll as they flashback to the fiances death, to missions they had carried out themselves (bad things like blackmail and kidnap and torture and murder etc). They reach the top of a wooded hill, to look at the city of Alexandria as the sun rises behind it, the bells of the city clanging joyfully, as if delighted to have captured the fugitive. The screen pans skyward as the title of the game is displayed against the blue sky.

The first scene of the game we are in a safehouse, an abandoned wood cutters cottage. Over a meagre breakfast they discuss what to do. The little sister wants to see Alexandria fall. The recruit says they should be loyal to the country, as it was their duty to serve them in what they had done and still their duty now.
'Or' the thought crosses second commands head, 'take the power for ourselves'

Is this really that hard? REALLY?

I give my story 5/5, and the Viking Salute*.

*The Viking Salute is also known as the Viking Stomp, in which we put our fingers on our heads like horns and stomp to or not to music. I will try and get a video recording of a Viking congregation Viking stomping for your amusement.

THE VIKING GAMER VS THE PLESH!

Lost Planet 2

You knew I loved Killzone. You know I hated Monster Hunter Tri.

But in between those revelations, they got together. They dated for a while, then had a passionate and torrid affair that shocked onlookers and made a mockery of love.

The child they bore was Lost Planet 2. And it's a very healthy child.

Having only played the original Lost Planet as a demo, which didn't include very much of what I'm seeing in its progeny. What it did include, however, was a vast, white environment, with so much whiteness that it almost sent me snowblind.

Being in the snow about 90% of the year round gave me an appreciation for that demo, as the level designers really captured the nothingness that is a snow-blasted barren landcape.

The lack of any monsters or people to kill also really captured what it's like living in a barren, boring, snow-blasted landscape. It also disproved the theory that guns can make anything interesting, unless you count shooting at pixelated snow interesting, in which case I can only assume, along with the rest of mankind, that you area probably the most boring person alive.

Lost Planet 2 did the first five minutes right, for one. I'm in the snow, with a group of people (other players, but i'll get to that), and we have to activate some data posts. I'm not sure what a data post is, but I'm sure that I've just walked over and activated a mech suit with two hugely intimidating gatling guns attached to it. Walking through the white and markless environment I'm suddenly ambushed by huge, weird flower things that are spurting out monsters. I mow them down mercilessly, their remnants re-powering my thermal gear.

Upon finding the data post I dismount my death-dealing dual gatling gun mech, only to be prompted with the offer of taking one of the gatling guns with me.

Declining the invitation, I activate the data post, and continue my mission, which involves me using a grappling hook to hoist myself up a mountain side.

After reaching the summit, fellow troops that are descending from a chopper is attacked and subsequently blown to hell by a giant monster. Running to meet the enemy head on, I fire at its weak spots, which glow bright orange from its natural thermal insides.

It falls heavily as it dies, turns to a stone like substance, and once shot again, explodes into tiny pieces.

Mind-blowing awesomeness.

So that's the first five minutes, which should be enticing enough for you.

But as I know you're a hard crowd to please, there are several other reasons this is a great game.

The next chapter in the game takes you into a lush rainforest environment, where your travels into the wilderness are continually hampered not only by monsters, but other worse monsters, (Not Vikings) but your fellow man! And it is here, in the next chapter (we call it the 'start' in Viking) that the true wonder of this game is revealed.

The graphics are beautiful and big and the environment is extremely complimentary to the game. Never being able to see too far ahead of your current position, you must have all senses pricked to be ready for an enemy ambush.

For a Viking an ambush is like a surprise party. Everyone there has come for you (in one way or another) and you get to be the centre of attention until the mindless bloodbath is over, and you shout 'hip hip hooray'! three time so you know you had a great time.

While an initial summary of the environment may lead you to think the game is a little linear, it is dense enough and accommodating enough as to feel you are exploring a vast wilderness as opposed to following a pre-destined course.

The addition of the grappling hook gives players an extra dimension to the environment as well. Want to see what's at the top of the waterfall? Do it. Want to run off a building and not die? The grappling hook will save you. Want to use it on a giant, angry monster? I'll explain that further later.

Fighting humans as well as monsters really puts the game into a great story. Man is divided on a strange and hostile planet, and everything except your team-mates are against you.

As if prophesised by yours truly, the game is nearly exactly how I described Monster Hunter Tri should have been.

The monsters don't move like they were made from play dough, nor do they look like they were originally drawn by a child with no thumbs and an accountants imagination.

They move eratically, fluidly, aggressively. They climb, jump, crawl. They do what creatures do when attacked or facing an unknown aggressor.

When fighting the bigger creatures, there is nothing more fun than using your grappling hook (I told you i'd get to it) to close the distance between you in a heartbeat, before shooting their weakpoints, backflipping off them and continuing to pour lead into their vitals.

The variety of weapons is thus far one that is pragmatic if not imaginative. I don't want to give the wrong impression, however, as using a shotgun to relocate an enemies face is incredibly satisfying and, somehow, more 'real' in this game then any other I've played.

I think the fact the weapons are so...themselves (machine gun=machine gun) that we aren't as appreciative of how great it looks to see fellow players and AI alike move and shoot realistically.

What I think makes this game especially great is the campaign mode. If you decide to play online, which you will about 90% of the time, you can play by yourself with AI helping you (and they actually help you, which in itself is a breakthrough) or another player in the game-o-verse may drop in to help you out.

Before I score this game, I have to ask:

Capcom, you developed both of these games. Why is a game not devoted entirely to killing monsters have better monster killings than a game where the ONLY point is to kill monsters!? CAN YOU TELL ME THAT CAPCOM!?

Why is it always left to the Vikings to speak up!? Slavery? Vikings stopped it. War? Vikings stopped them all. Raids on villages? It's a cultural thing, say anything against it and you're probably racist.

AWFUL VIDEO GAMES NOT LIVING UP TO THEIR POINT AND TITLE!? CAPCOM, YOU'RE NEXT!

But before the reckoning Capcom, Lost Planet 2 is great fun, and if playing with your friends, so much better.

I'm giving this game 4/5 limbs shot or torn off enraged giant monters.

Til next time, the gamer with horns in his hat.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Before I begin on the game, I must inform you, mortal readers, of the experiences of Viking movie theatres.

It is common knowledge and absolute fact that a Viking is one half monstrous looting killer, and one half hat. So it is on the very rare occassions of funerals and showers (and thats only a slight possibility) will we take off our hats.

Viking cinemas have an unfortunate design which does not account for this. For me, the Viking Gamer, this is alright, because even among Vikings I am considered a giant. An irresistably handsome giant. So, ipso facto, I can see over all of my seated brethren at any given time.

For those who are less fortunate than me in both height and looks, this means a lot of staring at a screen through a sea of horns.

The bests seats in the house, then, are those right in front of the screen, and since these are also simultaneously the worst seats in the house, the whole experience is one of frustration, anger and eventual duels to the death outside the cinema complex where ironically, we will take off our hats at the service.

The most important thing is that I managed to see over the horns, and had a great time watching the movie.

So what does this have to do with the game? Nothing and everything.

When was the last time you played a movie-game? Iron Man 2? And how was that? HUH!? Pretty damn horrible. I have no doubt if you did play Iron Man 2 then right now you're curled up in a little ball, hoping that cats will come and urinate on you so you can scream 'clean! CLEAN!'

If you haven't played Iron Man 2, I will impress upon you how bad the game was.

Moving on, movie-game tie-ins are normally much worse than a surprise castration. So when I downloaded Scott Pilgrim vs The World I wasn't too certain of what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised but not so overenthused that I ripped my shirt off and murdered the neighboring town (again).

Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a sidescroller fighter in which you play as either Scott Pilgrim, Kim, Stills or Ramona Flowers. One of the first things you'll notice is that the game seems to be based around youth violence. You can pick up just about everything and use it as a weapon, which is some cases funny (when you're picking up your enemy and using him/her to beat down other enemies) or things which seem less than humorous (bottles, baseball bats). Remembering it's just a game, and that games have had no scientific behavioural links to youth violence, and thus cannot affect gamers into hitting random pedestrians with stop signs, you play on.

Above: Nothing says Canadian love story like throwing a Katana into a Ninjas face.

The first time round in single player it's more than likely that you'll primarily use Scott. He's an indie, bassist and slacker, and in love with Ramona Flowers, a chick with wierd goggles on her head. The first thing you'll notice about the game are its graphics. Purposefully retro, but in no way 'bad'.

I find this charming. Scott Pilgrim in the graphic novels and movie both represent a love of gaming, not so much a love of retro gaming, but just the ideals of what gaming is. Defeating different varieties of enemies and bosses with their own set of skills and tactics, earning points and coins that allow the player to either feel a sense of achievement or actually try and reach a new high score...

In any other scenario, it would be construed that the developers were simply trying to create a game that was 'indie' and thus put all the ingredients together that would make a 'definably' indie game.

But the game plays and feels like something you may have wanted to play with your friends on your Nintendo years ago.

BUT...

Where this game lacks is where its strong points should be.

If you can remember your usual sidescroller, there was a point at the beginning when you started the game that had a really bad fmv (in-game movie) that basically said who the villain was and whose arse you were going to kick.

As you proceeded in the game, after defeating bosses you would get more 'storyline' or what effects you were having on the enemies as a whole. While the first FMV (which didn't even have the decency of style to be in-game) did go over the bare facts that Scott loved Ramona and had to defeat her evil exes, that's where it ends.

Scott Pilgrims brilliance lays in that it has a mix of trivial reality (youth relationships and cheating and all that bullshit {nobody mention Twilight}) and the exaggerated violence and showmanship of a hardcore sidescrolling fighter game.

YET, whenever I defeat a boss all I get is Scott and Ramona making out in a different scenario.

WHAT THE HELL!?

I wanted to experience Scott Pilgrim and all I got was this lousy game.

Leaving this aside, the gameplay itself is, at best, fairly average.

While the enemies are highly entertaining and have their own purposes and styles and agendas,

versing them doesn't have the same fun flair to it as Golden Axe or Ninja Turtles did. The more entertaining things like using and throwing objects and weapons becomes a little tedious, and even the continual beating in of a face can become tiring rather than invigorating.

Throwing a fatty...


...and then punching her in the face while she's down.

Each character is basic essence the same, with the same moves executed in slightly different but un-meaningful ways.

Before all of you trolls start complaining that EVERY sidescroller is like that, look back to my examples. Golden Axe characters had different range and attack damage, as well as different spells that did different things. Ninja Turtles was much the same, with different special moves, range and damage.

In your favourite sidescrollers, especially the ones you could play on multiplayer, working as a team was fun because of the different combos you could come up with and being an individual character made you separate but so much more in sync.

A Viking raiding party is much the same way. We're not an army, so our victims can enjoy thinking about the numerous ways in which they may be slaughtered. My victims have the pleasure of the Gentle Beauty, and can happily spend their last few seconds wondering why their legs and torso are three metres away from them. If they encounter my bi-polar beserker cousin they can die in wonderous fascination, thinking, 'I didn't know you could do that to a person with a chipped mug!'

The last thing the game lacks is any meaningful upgrades. There are certain points in which you can stock back up on hit points and 'gut points' (gut points give you the opportunity to do an attack which does damage in a wider area, which remains fairly unused in my gameplay), and in the first of these places you can buy a 'bionic arm' which gives you a huge boost in strength. After obtaining it, the enemies become fairly easy, and if difficulty was an appeal, that's gone too.

BUT...

Despite everything, the game is still fairly fun to play. I think I'll finish it with every character once and never touch it again, but despite that, it will have been worth the 20 or so bucks I paid for it.

I give this game 3.5 out of 5 badly beaten youths.

Til next time, the gamer with horns on his hat.

The First Five

Before I begin my excellent Viking dissection of the 'First Five', I have a few announcements to make.

As you should know from last weeks blog, I now have an assistant Dwarf technician who knows his way arround computers and technology in general the same way Ianardo knows his way around the house of a married woman who has become infatuated with him and demands every carnal pleasure imaginable. To put it much more simply, our Dwarf knows his way around computers as I know my axes way through a peasants intestines. Even more simply, he's very VERY good with computers. In fact his resume (it wasn't really his resume, he was just wearing a shirt with the words on it) only said 'I Will Hack the Shit Outta You'.

Moving on, the reason this Dwarf is so important is that he has indeed 'hacked the shit' out of my site, and found out that I'm getting roughly 84 unique hits on a monday, aka, when the blogs go up.

Better yet, some of these hits are coming from people outside Vikingland, such as the UK and the USA.

There is only one thing I have to say to these people.

WELCOME! AND FOLLOW MY BLOG, BY ODIN! REALLY! FOLLOW IT! I HAVE A QUOTA OF 100 FOLLOWERS BY YEARS END TO FILL!

Many of my followers may believe that I wouldn't like foreigners, maybe because they are inherently racist (you bastards) or that my general Viking experience with foreigners has been, in fact, when I am the foreigner looting, killing and pillaging in a place foreign to me.

THIS IS UNTRUE. I love people from other places! Without raiding and pillaging, which is the BACKBONE of Viking economics, we wouldn't be able to do anything. Our whole way of life depends on having people living in places we have to sail off to to plunder.

Unfortunately, due to my growing popularity (84 unique hits bitches!) I risk invading a village which holds a follower of yours truly.

That's why I, the Viking Gamer, am setting up Viking tourist industries.

That's right! The genuine Viking experience! All you have to do is set up a village, away from your own, and on an unspecified date we raid your fake village and 'kill' (we may accidentally kill, there's a waiver involved) and loot and pillage and go away. There will be heaps of photo ops, as long as you have a quick finger and can duck and weave well, as well as the opportunity to really experience the sheer horror and terror of watching your whole life burn down before your eyes while giant, muscled men run towards you, drenched in blood, wielding axes bigger than your fathers newly made corpse, screaming demonic battle-cries.

Prices vary according to the population of the village, distance to the village etc.

We also do childrens parties.

So, yes, I love people from other places, and encourage these people to follow my blog and leave a comment. I would love to put on my horned hat and talk gaming with people from anywhere, and remember people, there's always the chance I will interview you.


What do I mean by the 'First Five'? Well, as a Viking warrior (a handsome, Viking warrior {a handsome, kickass Viking warrior [the bestest handsomest awesomest amazingest Viking warrior EVER]}) I am used to be exhilerated in much less time than 5 minutes. A raid my only last five minutes! If I dragon punch, it's about 30 seconds.

So when I play a game, my attention has to be more grabbed than my hand on a peasants tunic when I'm bearing down on him, ready to steal his sandwich.

In the first five minutes of Bioshock I am trapped in an underwater city, and I can feel my chest tighten as claustrophobia sets in. My nerves start to unravel as a broken jukebox plays a skipping Pattie Page; 'How much is that doggy in the window doggy in the window doggy in the window...'

In the first five minutes of Final Fantasy VII I am stunned by the enormity of the situation I am thrown into, fascinated by a reality alike yet so unlike my own, aching to know what's going to happen next.

In the first five minutes of Darksiders, I wondered if my money would have been better spent on a fleshlight, or better yet, a different game that wouldn’t have been a waste of my life.

The first five minutes of any game are crucial to its success, and inevitably define the pace and narrative structure for the entirety of the game. These same minutes will often also be the deciding factor of whether or not you’ll want to finish the game.

Think of the most critically acclaimed games. How many of them had you from the moment you took control? And why did these games draw you in?

Take God of War for instance. Our protagonist declares himself abandoned by the gods, and as he steps off the cliff, our narrator begins with; ‘And Kratos cast himself from the highest mountain in all of Greece...’

Even before the introduction of our protagonist we are placed in the middle of a story. Why has he been abandoned? Why is he so willing to die? Has Kratos ever seen the sun or is he simply the whitest boy alive? My personal quest to find out whether Kratos was a warrior trying to find redemption or a pissed off buff albino was one of my motivations for finishing this game.

For the next two minutes we don’t even realise how bland our enemies are because we are entranced with our newfound weapons and abilities. Swords on chains. They don’t teach you genius like that at university. They also don’t teach you how to pick up an enemy single headedly and rip him in two, which is the next thing you figure out how to do.

Before the fifth minute has come up, we fight a hydra, half razor sharp teeth, half ugly reptile, one hundred percent ready to tear a chunk from the other, other white meat. In this fifth minute we also discover there are fight sequences that test our abilities to push a button whilst simultaenously trying to tear our eyes away from the insane amount of carnage that you are inflicting on this mythological beast.

To emphasise the point, I didn’t like God of War, and I still don’t. I am also less willing to give a second of my time to something I don’t like, which explains my irregular visits to the dentist.

The obvious question is, ‘why did I finish it then?’

Quite simply, I had to see the conclusion, and I knew this would require hours of gameplay. Why didn’t this deter me? Because in the first five minutes I discovered the joy of slashing enemies with swords on chains and smashing a hydras head into a ship’s hull. I understood there would be ways to entertain myself with the combat system as the game progressed, and if that got boring I was promised with gore and carnage a-plenty.

The first five minutes should be as important to developers as it is for gamers for several reasons. Many retailers are now offering the choice to return a game in a short period of time if you didn’t enjoy it, so impressions have to made quickly. On top of this, gaming is an expensive hobby. If we aren’t initially impressed by our product why should we, as consumers, risk around one hundred dollars (ed: $AUD for you foreign types) on a product that might not live up to its price?

Whether we are aware of it or not, we judge our games in the first five minutes of playing them. In these minutes, our favourite games, and all great games, provide us with an insight into the games big picture as well as giving us a new experience.

It is with games as it is with life; make your first impression count. I know that's easy for me to say, because I'm a 7ft Viking, and ALSO the Viking Gamer, but goddammit, GRAB MY ATTENTION.

And to those of you in the industry who regularly, nay, RELIGIOUSLY follow my blog, just remember that my scoring system is out of five...

COINCIDENCE!?

I think not.

Til next time, the gamer with horns on his hat.

Starcraft II...2? How the hell do I make it look like it does on the box? What? I'm still typing? Oh shi

There is an old Viking saying: If you can't beat 'em, you're probably not a Viking.

As my loyal readers will know, I stated in a previous blog, my skills in Starcraft are not envied, not even by my grandmother who claims that she could beat me at it, and may she be 'dragon-slayed' if she's wrong.

My problem in this scenario is that she couldn't actually beat me at it, let alone figure out the acute differences between the keyboard and the screen, and possibly try to chew or eat the mouse. My problem, with this scenario, good readers, is that when Viking women are grandmothers, they tend to get a little hopeful when it comes to the concept. They then use the words 'dragon' and 'slay' as often as possible, especially in front of your Viking male friends or your prospective employer.


So yes, I sucked at Starcraft. Technically I still do, BUT, I suck a lot less than before and A LOT LESS than a lot of other people.

A lot of the fairly hardcore gamers out there will feel their respect for me go up a little (even though it should be at maximum anyway and will be duly Dragon Punched for their impudence). Why is that? Why is my ability at Starcraft something of value, a judgemental factor in a person/gamer?

The answer is as simple as it is complex. In short, Starcraft is an experience. An individualised, unique, personal experience. No two players will play the same way, or use the same armies, or use similar armies in the same way.

When asking a fellow gamer (Viking or no) about a game you both have, how many times is it about where one of you is up to in the game? Or how you beat a certain boss? Where to turn, where to go, what to do?

How often do you ask the question; 'How do you like to play it?'

And that's the beauty of Starcraft. It's your style you get to play, in every way.

Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom (I swear Vikings are running that place), haven't really changed the gameplay, and have thus kept the heart-racing strategic RTS game a perfectly balanced adrenaline fair that can be enjoyed by any level of gamer.

The most notable change in the game is it is now gorgeous. Supermodel gorgeous. Perhaps even Viking Gamer gorgeous.

Thanks to the fact I now have a Dwarvish assistant from the cold mountains of Vikingland working as my technician, I now have the technological means to bring you pictures of the things I do! Here is a picture of myself and some random guy playing against some other random guys, and here's the part where we fuck them up royally.

All I can say is: Boo. Yah.

What you can't see in the picture (because my awesome battle cruiser things are in the way) is that I have about 30 Immortals (awesome robot guys that go pow pow pow! and kill everything) going pow pow pow and killing everything.

We can all agree on is that the game is beautiful. It's large, bright and inviting, and simply a pleasure to look at while I'm making my plans on how to destroy my enemies.

It's worth noting Blizzard has managed to bring a unique style to every game they release. For instance, if we look at WoW, the characters are all large and bulky and cartoonish, keeping with the feel of Warcraft whilst making it larger than life. It is my firm belief as a genius Viking gamer that Blizzard knows intrinsically the looks and graphics that will appeal to their target audience. Looking at early videos of Diablo 3, I would say their touch is as strong as ever.

The great thing about Starcraft 2 (and 1 to a certain extent) is that it invites you to be tactical. It practically grabs you as you knock on the door, puts a drink in your hand and says 'let's tactic shall we?'.

There are two ways in which this is more present in the current Starcraft then it was in the original.

The first is that you don't really have to have any in-depth knowledge to use the abilities on offer. Sure, some abilities like Mind-storm (Protoss) take a little more finesse to use, but things like our good friend the Observer (Protoss) can lend even the worst player (my grandmother) the chance to use a shield against enemy fire or place an energy wall in the way of an opposing armies march. Siege tanks can be used by ineffective players (myself and my grandmother) to a great (and spectacular looking) effect, which further encourages us to try new things and be adventurous with our style.

The second is the simplification of tactics. Terran supply depots, for instance, can now submerge. So, say your in your pathetic earthling base (go Protoss! WOO!) and you don't want no alien scum (those racist earthlings) coming in and eating your babies, you would build a line of supply depots to keep them out. Luckily, with the ability to submerge, you can let your own troops in and out of your base at will! How extraordinary!

To prove my point, I am still fairly shite at this game yet manage to pull off a certain amount of tactical brilliance. Here I am in action:

Your champion Viking Gamer under attack from a vile purple enemy.

Here I am, running to my allies, turning on my shield as my Zerg brethren un-burrow themselves (I minored in Viking photography, hence the best screenshot ever).

And lastly, the turn and pwn. Two very simple abilities used in conjunction to make me look much, MUCH better than I am.

One of the things that separates Starcraft from other RTS is how perfectly balanced it is. Having played my fair share of RTS games (and being GREAT at all of them [except a few {alright nearly all of them}]), I can only guess at how hard it is for a developer to create varying races or different armies and make sure none have a starting advantage over another. However, Blizzard (the Viking geniuses) have made an RTS that is perfectly balanced. Every army has its own strengths, weaknesses and unique abilities, so every game is going to be fair (unless you're versing my grandmother).

So what else can I say about this game? MANY THINGS!

Finding your friends online is literally painless. Unlike every game I've ever tried to play using Steam, which makes me want to punch God in the throat in rage, Battle.net have decided to take the 'Undiluted Viking Rage' out of 'finding someone to play with'. You can add your friends by putting in your facebook details! FINALLY FACEBOOK HAS A GAMING USE! (And no, Farmville is not a game).

In the 30 or so matches I've played online, I don't think I've even waited 4 minutes before I was placed in a match. When the game was released, peasants everywhere must have rejoiced. See, peasants aren't stupid. They knew if the wait for multiplayer was long and arduous, they woulda known a certain Dragon Punch wielding Viking would come down hard on their lives.

The game also cleverly, happily, and beautifully, records your ten most recent battles, just in case you wanted to check over them. Starcraft II, now with customer service.

I can honestly say Starcraft II is a pleasure to play. I would love to give it 5/5, but as mentioned before, I can't.

So here is the bad thing about Starcraft II: there is a unit in it that is called the Viking, and it's an airship. Not a REAL Viking. Boo on you Starcraft, Boo...on...you.

Anyway, Starcraft II gets 4.90 out of 5, and the chance to be my wife if it ever becomes a hot Viking woman.

Till next time, the gamer with horns on his hat.