Cringe

To make a long story short, I saw a cobweb this morning on my kitchen ceiling which eventually lead to this. This one was a bit rushed because I was trying to finish it before heading out to work. The meticulous part of me wants to rewrite it til my fingers are raw but that would defeat the purpose of calling this a freestyle

In A Tight Spot

            “Archie, get away from that!”

            “Most interesting,” said Archie as he gazed at the eight reflections of the giant spider’s eyes. Sharp cracks cut through the muggy jungle air as each spindly leg took turns lurching itself towards the ever curious prey. “Judging by the narrow form of this arachnid, I would surmise it to rely more on cunning and agility rather than the traditional means of entanglement to hunt its prey.”

            “Judging by its hungry eyes, we need to get out of here!” said Lan. He thrust his hand out to latch onto Archie’s arm and pulled him aside to run only to turn to the sight of two more spiders patiently approaching them.

            “Most curious,” noted Archie. “Arachnids are known to primarily be lone hunters lacking any form of community within its own species. In fact, some classes of this organism are notorious for its fatal mating practices.”

            The faint slivers of sunlight pierced through the umbrella of trees in the jungle forest as the gargantuan spiders edged closer towards the two young travelers. Lan could see their mouths fluttering with excitement as they drew closer. He let out a gulp. “I don’t think these spiders have mating on their minds!” He cringed closer to his companion. Was this it? After all their close calls with Alpha, this was how it was all going to end? As nourishment for the inhabitants of the Babylonian jungle?

            “Quite curious,” said Archie, “Seeing how the ratio of predator to prey is three to two and most spiders ingest through liquefied consumptions, how will the spoils be rationed?”

            Lan removed his pack from his back and swung it towards their assailants in a last ditch effort to keep them back. “How about figuring out how there will be no spoils at all?!” said Lan before one of the spiders snagged his pack away from him with its fangs and shredded it apart with its two protruding fangs like paper.

            Suddenly, a high frequency buzz emanated throughout the jungle, causing the spider with the remainder of Lan’s bag to cease its oral rampage. The eight legged behemoths turned to face the same direction and stood there losing all interested in Archie and Lan.

            “Auditory signaling? This is indeed most interesting!” said Archie.

            Lan grabbed Archie’s arm. “Whatever it is, its giving us a window to escape!” He pulled his friend to head to the opposite direction of the spiders were facing only to have one of them cut off from its supposed trance to scurry over to block them from their escape with a hiss that raised every hair on Lan’s body. Before they could react, the spider spun around with its abdomen pointing right at Lan.

            “I was wondering if these arachnids possessed that particular function,” said Archie.

            “What?” Lan turned his attention to his friend. “What are you blabbering about now?!”

            Lan’s answer was clear, translucent to be more precise. A thick stream of webbing jettisoned out of the spider’s abdomen with such force that it knocked Lan to the ground. With the webbing still attached to both of them, the spider grabbed hold of him with its two front legs as the two back legs threaded out more webbing from its abdomen.

            “Fascinating,” breathed Archie. He watched the spider feed more of the silken fiber onto Lan as it wove it around him with the precision and expertise of a seasoned craftsman until his whole body was wound tight like a cocoon save for his head. When it was done, the spider returned to its previous position and continued to face the same direction.

            “Just kill me now,” sighed Lan.

            The buzzing came to a stop. “That,” said a deep voice, “depends on why you’re in our forest.”

            Lan struggled to look as he wiggled his body to behold a sight that left both of them in awe. The spiders moved back to make room for a man dressed similar to Lan and Archie. He patted one of the spiders on its head as he walked past them, heading towards the two confused travelers.

            “Care to explain?”

First Person Freestyle Writing

It's been a while since I have used this blog and I am doing my best to make time to write more. I spent a day writing this. I normally write in third person so I decided to try out first person to see how it would feel. Any comments/critique is greatly appreciated.

Unfinished Business

            Dio wasn’t giving me anything. No surprise there, hermits and recluses aren’t primarily known for their charity. You’d think something as immaterial as a few answered questions would be pretty easy to fulfill. But he just sat there, leaning back in his finely finished wooden rocking chair on his equally finely finished wooden deck with his legs kicked up on the railing and his hands interlaced behind his head. I sat there in a regular chair, not a rocking one, on the other side of his deck squirming to find a comfortable position. This must have been his way of dealing with unwanted guests. That would have explained the worn out knots protruding from the middle of the seat. 

            I eventually gave in and stood up to gaze into the open mountain meadow to take a break from the situation. The rustling of the long rooted trees and tall grass distracted me from my lethargic host, providing me with a show of luscious branches dancing in the crisp summer wind, swaying left and right with the finesse of a well choreographed piece.

            “Nice isn’t it,” he interrupted.

            I looked back to see him in peering at me through creased eyelids. “Don’t tell me this is why you left,” I said with as much sarcasm I could muster.

            “Nah,” he shrugged with a smile, “But it sure is a nice perk.”

            “Then why?”

            Dio let out a sigh. “This again,” he said as he leaned back even further. I wanted to grab his legs and push his chair down to the floor. I knew that he knew why I was here, hell my very existence was one of the reasons why he left in the first place. “Let me save us the time and trouble with a simple answer; I’m not going back.”

            After all the bush beating and trivial “How do you do’s”, a part of me wanted to just pick up my travel pack and leave while convincing myself that I tried, that we didn’t need someone that so easily turned his back on the Collective so many years ago. But unfortunately for both of us, I was too stubborn with an answer like that. “That’s that?! You haven’t even bothered asking how everyone is doing and you already made your decision? You don’t even know what is going on out there, why I’m here, or why they thought it would be a brilliant idea to send me, a nineteen year old, of all people to ask you to stop hiding?!”

            “Hiding?!” he shot to his feet as soon as they left the railing. “Who said anything about hiding?!”

            Pride is a funny thing to mess with. “Your actions speak for themselves.”

            “Watch it boy,” he loomed over me. “My actions are of what Czarnian mothers warned their children about to keep them from misbehaving.”

            No matter how much I backed away, he kept getting closer.

            “Justifiable causes and the greater good doesn’t really do much good for your conscience when it’s your hands that have to get bloodied.”

            Maybe that was the wrong button to push. I was getting pushed backed even farther.

            “Hiding?!” He chuckled. “No matter where I go, how far I try to get away from this war, their screaming innocent faces will always find me whenever I close my eyes.”

            I toppled over the railing behind me rolled into the grass. When I finally recovered, I looked up to see Dio standing over me with such agony that bled from his own words.

            “Why am I here?” he asked. “Because out there I’m a weapon, a sword meant to cleave and spill blood for reasons muddled in shades of grey. I don’t care what righteous cause or good fight you want me to be a part of.” He looked down at his opened hands then said, “Blood stains all the same,” before walking back into his cabin.

            I laid there in the grass for who knows how long, contemplating what Dio said just a moment ago. This was going to be a lot harder than I thought. Not only did I have to convince him to rejoin the collective, now I had to also convince myself as well.

Fall in to Fallout: New Vegas

Story: 

Benny and members of the Great Khans

You are literally thrown in media res of a conspiracy that will ultimately decide the fate of New Vegas.  Throughout the game, you will run into smaller factions such as the Boomers, Great Khans, Brotherhood of Steel, and others in the Mojave Wasteland with the stakes rising as you set foot in New Vegas and the three major factions ask you for your help in claiming the Hoover Dam, the only stable power source in all of the Mojave. Should you pledge your loyalty to the Romanesque Legion of Caesar, an army of cold blooded killers who wish nothing more than to conquer and enslave? Perhaps working with the New California Republic (NCR) by helping them police and regulate the land? Or becoming the right hand man to the reclusive guardian of New Vegas, Robert House, who carries a secret agenda of liberating New Vegas. 

Layout:   

Too familiar?

            New Vegas is not necessarily a sequel, but another story of the Fallout world. The game engine can easily be recognized as the same as Fallout 3, leaving nothing really new to offer. The color scheme is focused more towards a sandy yellow as opposed to the lifeless grey in order to emphasize the desert setting. The actual city of New Vegas is a new experience for Fallout enthusiasts, giving players the chance to gamble and become involved in the inner workings of the casinos.

Behold the Centaur!

Not only are there plenty of drug fiends and gangs running amok, there is also a plethora of wild mutated creatures from two headed cows to man sized geckos to radiation induced abominations called “Centaurs”. Whether you’re cracking a Legionnaire’s skull with a fatal melee blow or sniping an NCR Ranger in the far off distance, you have the luxury of pillaging their bodies for any notable loot which you can keep for yourself or sell to traders in order to improve your odds of survival.

Interaction/Mechanics:

One of the many outcomes of a quest.

As soon as you are able to move, you are given the freedom to explore the Mojave Wasteland through multiple angles. One of the major strengths and appeals to the Fallout series are the countless possibilities a player can use to approach just about any situation. Want to try a diplomatic approach to talk your way out of a fight? Maybe sneak by with enough stealth and lockpicking skills to avoid a fight? Or maybe you could just throw caution to the window and run in, guns blazing, taking down all who fall in your sights.

Survival is the theme of this game and the post-apocalyptic wasteland does nothing less than emphasize it. You will find yourself traveling long distances, hopping from town to town like a true wanderer with your trusty Pip-Boy to keep track of the your stats, inventory, quests, and GPS. It’s no wonder that one of the many traits your character can invest is titled “Survival” where you must scrounge for any source of sustenance. This not only allows the player to regain hit points per second (HP/S) depending on how many points are invested in it, but also also allows you to make campfire recipes to improve the quality of the food you consume.  Although this may seem like a trivial trait, it is quite effective in the new hardcore feature which adds a bit more realism by including a hydration, food, and sleep meter to your stats which you will continuously need to keep an eye on. Players will thoroughly enjoy the epic climb to the top from scrounging for mole meat to dining on fine wines and throwing their caps around at the numerous casinos.

The V.A.T.S at work.

The combat system contains a mixture of mechanics of a traditional first person shooter, where a player must aim their shots manually in real time or use cinematic stat based attacks utilized by Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S). The difference between firing off two to four shots at a time in V.A.T.S can be determined by the amount of action points you have which recharges over time.

New Vegas has not only put some particular traits like “Speech” to more use, but other traits and stats have the chance to influence alternative choices along with your reputation in each faction. The complexity of reputation goes much farther than being good or bad; siding with one faction can lead to another hating you and some quests disappearing. For better or worse, your choices will ultimately determine the fate of the Mojave and the individual people you meet. Quests and side quests alike have multiple outcomes which will occasionally put you in the fork in the road where each decision results in its own ramifications.

The ever loyal Rex.

Companions of all shapes and sizes can help keep you company and watch your back in some tight situations depending on how you tweak you “companion wheel”, a special interface that helps you manage the behavior of your companion along with other features. Speaking of features, “fast travel” helps break the monotony and time consumption of backtracking by instantly taking you to a previously explored location.

Presentation:

As mentioned earlier, little has changed since Fallout 3 aside from allowing more options in quests. The autosave in the game is actually a vital necessity thanks to the many bugs and glitches residing in the game itself; you will easily become angry at the sight of a frozen loading screen and parts of the map that you will fall through the floor of.

The soundtrack of New Vegas is quality that fits perfectly with the theme of a classic Vegas. Wayne Newton’s voice makes a guest appearance through a radio station called, “Radio New Vegas”, which plays music reminiscent of a Vegas from another time; other notable actors such as Matthew Perry, Ron Perlman, and Felicia Day also lend their voices. This combined with the dynamic sound effects of explosions, beeps, and plasma blasts results in high quality audio that should not be overlooked.

Pro:

Whether you have played previous installments of the Fallout series or not, New Vegas is an easy game to immerse yourself into. Aside from the glitches, Bethesda did a good job in creating a unique world full of things to do. The variety of weapons are surprisingly plentiful in the wasteland along with plenty of enemies to test them on. There is plenty of replay value not only to try your hand at the hardcore mode, but also to complete the quests over and over again with the many alternative choices which helps determine the fate of the Mojave after completing the main quests.

Con:

The bugs and glitches have already been mentioned several times but it is a point that cannot be stressed enough for a game that was highly anticipated amongst dedicated fans. Although New Vegas' layout  was well put together, it is almost too similar to Fallout 3. Hopefully if they decide to make another Fallout game, it won’t seem so much as a rehash as a whole new gaming experience to enjoy.

Get out there and get your hands dirty.

The Blood, Sweat, and Guts of God of War 3

Kratos ready for action.

Story:

Kratos being shown as a speck traversing the Titan, Gaia.

The story of the third main installment of the Greek mythology influenced series begins where the second one left off with the vengeful Kratos continuing with his relentless quest to kill off the remaining Gods. After a montage style recap, the player is thrown in the middle of the epic battle with Kratos riding on top of one of the Titans, Gaia, who are climbing up Mount Olympus to exact their revenge. The godly/titanic war ensues as Kratos literally treads on the island sized Gaia to help her defeat Poseidon in the most brutal and hands-on display of maiming that would almost make you feel sorry for the God of the Sea. After taking a blast of lightning and dangling helplessly on, Kratos is dismissed by Gaia as a pawn claiming no further use for him as she lets him plummet to his death. After experiencing what happened to Poseidon, gamers can already conclude that nobody betrays and brushes off Kratos without a gruesome payback.

The goal of GoW3 is quite simple: escape Hades (again), regain your powers, acquire new weapons, and kill everyone you run into (Titans included) as you work your way to the top of Mount Olympus. Admittedly, the storyline may not be very intricate but it does not take away from the awesome cinematic effects of the game itself along with the breathtaking boss fights that will leave even the most hardened gore enthusiasts cringing for more.

Layout:

With such a violent theme like vengeance, it is no surprise that a protagonist like Kratos would take no hesitation in mercilessly disemboweling, decapitating, and maiming any that stand in his way. There are a plethora of recognizable Greek inspired monstrosities such as cyclops, chimera, undead soldiers, harpies, hellhounds, and many more which Kratos will plow through in each level along with traversing the artistically constructed landscape.

How can Kratos get out of this one?

The layout itself is by far one of the most impressive elements of GoW3. The graphics and texture is beyond excellent as well as the fluid animation of Kratos and NPC’s. The titan fights are beyond astonishing as the camera view will zoom out from Kratos in order to reveal a full shot of the titan he is battling, showing Kratos to be no more than a speck in comparison.

Interaction/Mechanics:

Kratos wielding the Blades of Exile.

Throughout the game, Kratos will acquire a multitude of new weapons, magic, and items as he makes his way to the top of Mount Olympus. Each weapon can easily be toggled by the press of a button in mid combat with each balanced out for players to easily favor one over the other based off of their own preferences. Magic is powerful but limited to a blue meter that can be refilled by collecting blue orbs either from enemies or treasure chests. Quest items, collected as the game progresses, will help Kratos overcome the obstacles blocking his path.

Quick Time Event used on a very unfortunate Cyclops.

The fighting system is based off of combos that can be unlocked by purchasing them in the menu screen through a currency of red orbs that can also be accumulated by killing off enemies and opening red treasure chests. The variety of attacks are so vast that every button will be used in each wave of enemies that will easily maximize gameplay. Quick Time Events (QTE’s) have always played a vital role in the series and continues to do so in GoW3, prompting players with button cues at specific times in the game.

Presentation:

Although the foundation of the gameplay is nearly identical to its predecessors, GoW3 refurbishes the Heads Up Display (HUD) enough to ensure loyal GoW fans of the amount of work put this game rather than throwing in the same game sprites and settings with a different scenario like most game sequels do. As mentioned early, the stunning cinematics of the game is what makes it stand out in the series itself. 

The music and sound complements GoW3 very well. The music is nothing short of epic with its ambient chanting that you would expect to hear from a character like Kratos. The explosive clanging of swords has always been an exciting sound to enjoy, but it is the realistic sounds of breaking bones and gushing blood that stands out the most.

Pros:

The play on Greek mythology works well with the story of one man on his quest for vengeance, unhindered by the grotesque abominations set out to kill him. The ruthless actions Kratos enacts on his enemies proves to Titans and Gods alike that he is not someone to mess around with.

Amazing

As far as improving from the previous installments, GoW3 is nothing short of amazing and far exceeds the expectations of a grand finale. The full 1080p HD resolution is fully utilized with the finely detailed graphics and settings. There will be times where players won’t be able to tell the difference a cinematic cutscene and actual gameplay, further enhancing the entertainment value of players and spectators alike. The story works well in giving the GoW series a momentous conclusion to Kratos’s quest, giving a grand send-off to the series.

Cons:

Despite the many accolades of the graphics, layout, gameplay, and story, GoW3 still manages to come with a few hiccups. The occasionally misplaced camera angles in crucial ledge-to-ledge areas can interfere with the flow of the game and some of the puzzles can be more laborious than stimulating, leaving most of them to be time consuming push and pull tasks. As vast as the backdrop and setting of the game can appear, it can feel encumbering at times due to the invisible walls and the strict linear path of the game itself. The length of gameplay can be considerably short (taking only one or two days to beat), leaving players to either replay the game on a higher difficulty with newly unlocked items or try their hand in the gauntlet of the challenges it provides.

Kratos in your face.