Grand Theft Auto V - pics and impressions

I'm about 30 hours into GTA V, enjoying most of my time, but having a few issues with it.
Biggest issue, by far, is that it mostly still plays like GTAIV. Or if I want to be really mean, GTA III. Rockstar have done a great job at making a big, (mostly) believable world, with some great characters and dialogue, but the actual gameplay has changed very little since the first 3D GTA. About the only innovation is the 3 main characters, and most times that really works and is a great addition. What else is new? Umm...let's see...

I'm not saying every single instalment of the GTA series should be a completely new experience, but, for me at least, this formula is getting old. I hope that for a next gen GTA, the Rockstar guys really think long and hard on what they want to do next, and build everything from the ground up.
For me, it's hard to understand how many people say "GTA IV was crap, but GTA V is great!" Like I said, the only big change is the 3 main characters, and the setting. That's it. The same issues I had with GTA IV are still in GTA V. Crappy shooting, boring driving, crappy mission structures (at least there's a decent checkpoint system), "random events" that are the same from previous games, and more. Right now I'd say GTA V is the better game, but it's not like it's an immensely huge improvement.

Since GTA IV, I've played Just Cause 2, Saint's Row the 3rd and Sleeping Dogs, and they all did things better than GTA IV and now GTA V. I have to agree with this Kotaku article about "the minimap game" and how the games I mentioned handle this much better. Actually, in general, I still prefer Sleeping Dogs, mostly because of the combat and how your character didn't move/feel so sluggish like in all of the GTA games. And c'mon, what is this "tap A/X to run" crap? That is PS2 level gameplay in 2013, I'm surprised so few people call the game out on outdated gameplay concepts like this.

Anyway, I know I'm complaining a lot, but it's because I care! Or something. I am enjoying myself, and it's impressive how much Rockstar squeezed out of ageing hardware, but I can't see this being my personal game of the year.

One of the fun things you can do is take pics in the game that automatically get uploaded on the Rockstar Social Club website. I'll share a few here:

My Franklin, modelled after Benjamin Sisko, posing in front of his crib.

This is how my Trevor looks (more or less based on a pic of his voice actor).

Glitch dog. Very disturbing as it was flopping all over itself. It untangled itself when his owner crossed the street though. 

Paparazzi shot. 

Franklin enjoying the great outdoors.

Michael taking a selfie with his favourite Republican Space Ranger.

Aghr, zombies!

"I can lengthen your penice"

Top GROSSing. 

More to follow. Maybe.

Metroid Prime

I bought Metroid Prime Trilogy for Wii some years ago (really cheap in fact), but never played the games. So last week I decided to give it a go, and do a replay of Metroid Prime.

I had to get used to playing with the Wiimote and nunchuk, and even at the end of the game I kept confusing the visor and weapon buttons (plus and minus on the Wiimote). It was simpler on the Gamecube, you could change visor with the d-pad and weapons were on the c-stick I think. Anyway, overall it's not something that took away any enjoyment of the game.

And what a game it is. It's always been in my top 10 of best games ever, and I thought that playing through it again would change my perception of it a little bit... after all, it's 10 years old, and a lot of 3D games generally don't age that well... But this is Metroid Prime. The gameplay is still great, the graphics are good, though showing their age in certain aspects (mud and water textures, not a lot of detail on enemies). The gameplay is still fairly unique, you can't really compare it to a "normal" FPS with how the (sort of) open world works, the morph ball puzzles, etc. It really is its own breed. I think Retro did an awesome job of transferring the Super Metroid feel to 3D.

No game is perfect though. The Phazon Mines section at the end of the game is easily the worst area of the game. There is some backtracking to be done - which in the worst case is a cheap way of prolonging the game, but at least going through the world again is not too bad since you have new abilities and can go hunting for energy tanks and missile expansions before taking on the last bosses. I started looking for the artifacts very early, but you can only get all of them once you have the power bomb, grapple beam and X-ray visor.

But I consider those only minor criticisms, the game is beautiful, the game is well-designed and really clever in places, the music is great (my personal favourite tracks are the 2 Phendrana Drifts songs and the Drowned Frigate), and the atmosphere, something I'm very sensitive to in a game, is amazing.

I finished the game in 13h23, with 79% of the items. If I remember correctly, that included 190 missiles, 12 energy tanks, and 5 power bombs. That's what I found without using any help from Gamefaqs or the like. I could've made more of an effort I guess, but towards the end of the game I really wanted to take on the final bosses. The Meta Ridley boss fight was great, and quite difficult. The end boss (not going to say who/what it is, spoilers! Which is funny because it's in the titl... nevermind!) was much easier, and a little less fun to beat maybe. Still, there are no bad bosses in this game.

So after this playthrough, 10 years after my first, my feelings for this game haven't changed that much. If anything, I love it even more, it stood the test of time much better than I thought. Who said this again; a great game is a great game forever? Well, Metroid Prime was a great game 10 years ago and it still is today. It's easily one of my favourite games of all time.


As for my history with the Metroid Prime franchise: I actually bought my Gamecube when Metroid Prime came out here in Europe, I got this bundle (and got Eternal Darkness for free - which I also loved). And yes, it included this "name plate" - as you can see both my Gamecube and the name plate are still intact:

I bought that exactly ten and a half years ago...!

And over the years, my Metroid Prime collection grew...

I still haven't finished 2 by the way. From the start I never liked it as much as 1, and I think there was some frustrating/difficult boss in the game, I just gave up and moved on to other games... I'll start over with the Trilogy version some time later this year. I liked Corruption more than 2, I'll play that one as well to see if I still like it.

About the Metroid Prime Trilogy "collector's edition": it has a neat little booklet with the Metroid Prime story (all three games, how they start and how the end) and some cool art work:

That's all for now! I did a replay of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past earlier this month so I might do a short review of that as well soon.

Normal updating will resume shortly

Seems like I scared off everyone reading this blog once I started talking about Lego, but don't fear! I'll do more videogame talk in the coming months, and I have a seperate Lego blog if anyone here is interested: toomuchlegodude.blogspot.com 

Rocky Horror Picture Show at the cinema!!

"Tell us about it Janet!" 

There's this film festival in my home town, Ostend. It's not that special, and in the past 5 years, I might have gone to three shows - and one (2 eps of a Battlestar Galactica season I think) got cancelled, so yeah. In fact, the first year was probably their best year as they had a lot more variety than they do now.
Anyway - a few days ago I randomly discovered they're showing Rocky Horror Picture Show. Later I found out the reason; Peter Suschitzky, who was the director of photography on this, is one of the guests this year.

There wasn't much info on the site, so I wasn't sure if this was going to be a 'special' showing where they encourage audience interaction, or a normal one. Being in Belgium, and in a boring seaside town, I had my money on a normal showing, with hardly anyone showing up, and -maybe- some people dressing up. Also, the show was at 5.15PM, on a weekday, so it wouldn't really attract a lot of out-of-towners.

But whatever. I put on the fanciest clothes I could find (going for the narrator look, but not quite succeeding) and off I go. Choosing the fanciest mode of transportation - the coastal tram! Got my ticket. Got into the room 10 minutes before the start. Near empty, so I take a spot somewhere in the middle. More people come in, far more than expected. Lots of young girls for some reason? A lot of them sit right behind me, boo. Also... a group of people dressed up! Well... most of them were just wearing cheap colourful carnival wigs and whatnot over their regular clothes. Well it's the thought that counts, and I was curious if they would be using any props. They were sitting in the back row, so I turned my head during the wedding scene, and yup! They were throwing rice! They did the usual stuff as far as I could see/hear. I think it might have annoyed the more serious people - I mean if you're new to RHPC it might just seem like a few drunk people causing a ruckus, and randomly shining flashlights at the screen! (of course it's not random, but if this is the first time seeing the film you might not get all the links!)

As for me, probably to the shock and amusement of the schoolgirls behind me, I sang - badly of course - along with a few songs, laughed at a lot of the little things that amuse me (and those are plentiful), and had a great time, even on my lonesome. I noticed a few details I hadn't noticed on previous viewings; the bigger screen certainly helped. The "nipslips" (surely this movie invented them?) are far more noticeable on a large screen as well heh.

They stopped the projection during the credits because they had a "surprise" - the director of photography was actually there!! We could ask him questions - this being Boring Belgium, no-one had a question of course. I had a lame back-up question but was too embarrassed to ask, and of course on my way home I think up a good one, that's typically Tem. ...I've forgotten it already though. And that's just old age.

Anyway - one of the guys at the back, who I'm pretty sure was the guy who laughed at basically everything, but especially Frank seducing Brad and Janet separately but in the exact same way - said he already did a show like this in Germany, which had a lot more people participating - well duh, I doubt that one was on a Wednesday afternoon in a little town. I've also learned that the girls sitting behind me were high school girls accompanied by their teacher!!! Funny. One of the girls complained that this isn't the sort of movie their teacher should take them to. She has a point in a way, but then again not - even if you don't "get" it overall, it has quite a few themes that can make a good class discussion. As for being inappropriate, in high school I saw Trainspotting (English class) and A Clockwork Orange (Ethics) which probably also aren't movies you should see as a teen. Then again, maybe you should, as I got older I got to see both of those in a different light, learned how to 'read between the lines' and actually get them.
And both are now two of my favourite movies of all time.

They might not have been if there wasn't some sort of learning process involved. I'm going quite off-topic with this but there was a discussion on my favourite/most hated (it's both) forum on the internet, NeoGAF, about Fight Club. Someone said it's a different movie when you watch it as a teen and then watch it again in your twenties or later. I have to agree with this. When I was a teen I liked A Clockwork Orange and Fight Club because of the violence, yo dude violence is cool hur hur. But then later I started appreciating movies in different ways, and I started to get the messages I missed as a teen. Nowadays, I can both enjoy the gratuitous violence in these movies (I am still a boy after all), AND understand the underlying (or actually super-obvious) themes.
It probably also helps that all four of the movies I mentioned here are coming-of-age stories, which I quite like in general. Coming-of-age stories in a very twisted way, maybe, but think about it. (actually a lot of my favourite movies seem to have coming-of-age elements in them - Amélie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Let the Right One in, just to name three more)

Back on topic - I had a great time and I'm happy I went even if I couldn't find any friends to go with. My friends in London are also fans and want to take me along to something like this, complete with dressing up, participating and everything. The hardest part is finding a date that suits all of us. It will happen though. Eventually. Don't dream it...