The Unbelievable!

Today I wanted to post about personal triumphs. Goals achieved and weights lifted. Here is my struggle with finishing video games. There are lots of stumbling blocks along the way, but since finishing Brink, I thought it might be possible to finish another video game. Here is such a story.

Gears of War was released in 2006 and the only real reason I know that is I actually finished the game and saw the ending credits. I've had this game for 2 years maybe. It was an impulse "used game" purchase that I ended up costing me $20.00. I had played it a few times solo and with my com padre , Scott over at Pumping Irony. Still I was unable to fully get into the game and ended up putting it away in my gaming drawer, where it sat among other unfinished games until 3 weeks ago.

It had been suggested by Mr. Pumping Irony, that dust off Gears of War, get a co op game going on Insanity and get a few achievements. So, I removed the game from its hiding spot and placed it on the table so that when I time came I could just pop it in. Well, a week went by, mostly due to me being out of town for my anniversary, so we didn't game. The next week I was in Nashville, again my fault, soaking up all that nice hot weather. I arrived back in town this past Saturday, exhausted and just wanting to laze around the house for a few days.

Well, as I was relaxing from my week out of town, I kept staring at the Gears box. Finally I decided to pop it in and give it a few minutes of my time. Well a few minutes ended up being almost of Sunday that rolled into a bit of Monday afternoon. When I had finished I was starting up mission 5. I had gotten a few achievements and decided to see how many more there were to be had. It turns out upon further investigation that I had a far bit left to go, most of them are for harder difficulty levels and multiplaying. The most interesting thing I did discover was that I was only one mission away from completing the game. I couldn't believe it. Just a few more hours of play and I would have beaten my second console game in a month. A goal I never thought possible with my constant inability to stay focused. Until Brink, I hadn't completed a single game on the console. Sure, I've played board games and quick arcade type games, but never a game with a full fledged story before, well, before Brink, sad to say that was my first finished game, but such is life. Its like a girl losing her virginity to the fat kid with glasses in the back row with the z sounding name. Oh wait, that boy was me. lol Anyway.

Well, yesterday I got home early and decided that this was it. I was going to put another notch in my bed post by finally bedding down Gears of War and getting that sweet satisfaction of finishing her off, I mean it. Sorry got carried away with my analogy. Well, it was pretty straight forward, get to the end of the train, kill the boss. To tell the truth, in missions 3 and 4 I hit a few tough spots that kept me hanging longer in a section that I really needed to be because 1)it takes me a while to figure out how to get through a section if it has some trick to it 2) I didn't consult with the Internet on how to get past a boss or a section, I just figured it out on my own. So I figured that getting to the end of mission 5 was going to be difficult, but in fact it was pretty easy. I did die a few times due to my stupidity, but for the most part it wasn't too frustrating. Well, until I got to Raam, the final boss.

Raam was not easy. I died a lot. I did finally figure out that a straight on approach did not work. Finally, because I was just inches from finishing the game I decided to work the magic of the Internet for a strat. Well, after reading a few, I discovered that I was fucked. Most if not all of the strategies said keep shooting him in the head with the sniper rifle, check, got that gun, but only after you get the birds off him, which is done with a Torque bow, crap, don't have one of those, don't know where to get one, and I don't want to reload the whole mission just to pick up one weapon for the end, which I'm sure I won't be able to hold on to any ammo for. I could use grenades to get the birds off, but that requires standing up to do and every time I tried that I died. I kept trying different approaches with no better results. I did start getting better at shooting him in the head without getting the sniper rifle jammed on reload.

Now it wasn't completely hopeless. He isn't protected by the birds the whole time, they do fly out and try to attack me, which gives me a good opportunity to shoot him. However, that window is small and if he starts moving forward, it makes it harder. Well, I'm sure this is getting drawn out, so I'll wrap it up. I just kept running up against that wall hoping for some kind of break and finally I got it. He got stuck on some of the obstacles and couldn't move forward, the birds didn't go back to protect him so I was able to get a few good shots off and as he finally started moving forward and I thought I was done for, I got off a shot and finished that fucker off

The game takes over and you get a nice video how you save the day, and make it to safety. The game ends and the credits start to roll. I have to say as frustrated as I was and how close I was to yanking that game out of the disc tray, it was very satisfying to sit there and watch the credits roll. I watched all of them, because I deserved it. lol

My assessment of the game, it was good and I can't start to unwrap Gears of War 2 which I've had since release but never opened. I do want to finish a few other games that I'm currently playing. Mass Effect 2 has been occupying my time recently and once I play a bit more I'll give a nice review. Also still have Crysis 2 and LA Noire to finish, which I do plan on doing soon. I am a bit worried about LA Noire. I keep listening to podcasts that say after a while the game keeps boring and there is a weird twist after the Vice desk that upsets a few players. Not sure how I like knowing that going forward but, since I'm taking big breaks in between I don't think it will bother me as much as those running straight through the game.

Also being a non reformed game enthusiast, I purchased World of Kefling and Trenched. Trench is a nice tower of defense game but with a very different spin to it that I find fun and refreshing if not hard and complicated. World of Kefling is an Xbox 360 avatar game that is very similar to an RTS game. I played the demo of it yesterday and just had to buy it. lol

That is about it for gaming. I know my posts haven't been as frequent as I know you the reader and I would like. Its very hard finding things to post about since I'm not really playing an MMO right now. I hope to remedy that soon once SWTOR comes out. In the mean time I do plan to give Eve a shot. I have a 21 day friend pass thanks to Stargrace. Once I have more bitterness in my life from an MMO game, I'll be able to do more posting I hope. Just stick with me, I'm not going anywhere and if you get bored waiting, go Here and Here for all your MMO rage and bitterness.