Um, well – I played GTA: Vice City today, to see how it was since I’ve been playing Driv3r for quite some time, and now I don’t know what to think. I really like Grand Theft Auto for its immersiveness (I know I’ve mentioned this prior) but Driv3r, in spite of its numerous glitches, is really a nice-looking game. Furthermore, the controls feel tighter compared than those of GTA. This is purely subjective, but I think Driv3r balances well between the looseness of GTA and the extreme tightness of The Getaway. It will take awhile to get used to again, but I think I can make the sacrifice for San Andreas.
Speaking of websites (who?) – here are some that I’ve recently been enamored with: gtagaming.com; engadget.com; joystiq.com; consolidatedskateboard.com; adultswim.com; elementskateboards.com; toymachine.com; edmunds.com; apple.com; gamespot.com; esfootwear.com; that’s it for now.
And so Adult Swim – what is going on here? This week Seth McFarlane (creator of Family Guy) is showing his four favorite episodes and personally introducing each. Fine – great idea. But so far, two of the three were on last week. Just venting.
It’s hard to really qualify Driv3r at this point. I like the additional vehicles and the detail in the cities seems to be adequate. The problem – well, the main problem and the biggest difference between the Driver series and Grand Theft Auto is that Driver’s environments are very stark and artificial while GTA’s make you feel much more at home. Simple things are missing, most notably interaction with others. There’s not a lot of this in GTA but it makes you feel like part of the world. I also prefer the radio stations of GTA to the ambient music of Driver (and The Getaway), especially with the commercials.
I have yet to play the missions at this point, since I spent most of the night getting acclimated to the new surroundings, but Driv3r will shape up to be a decent time waster if nothing else.
There was this one time where I had this blog and I didn’t update it for like two weeks. Wait – that was now. Anyway, here I am with a list of fragmented thoughts:
- scootering is fun, biking is almost as fun, especially with the weather finally getting nicer.
- bought Kanye West’s the College Dropout and Jay-Z’s Black Album. Kanye’s is better.
- also bought the Kill Bill vol . 1 soundtrack – also good.
- also also bought Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. MGS2 is good, Hitman is hard.
- still enjoying the Getaway and eagerly awaiting my reserved copy of Driv3r.
- finally updated my blog with more meaningless blather nobody cares about.
- thinking about a new phone (camera!) but there aren’t any good ones around here. Yet.
- we gave the cat another bath the other day – he liked that a lot
- I need to go rollerblading sometime.
- it’s finally almost summer and I’m happy about that. I think
Despite the advice of Gamespot.com, I went ahead and bought the Getaway anyway. My main intention was driving around london instead of Miami or somewhere else, and it had some added appeal in that it used licensed cars (ie Lexus, Rover) instead of making them up. But I have to say that after completing the game over the weekend (it loses some points for shortness), I am looking forward to the next installment. The driving is average, and the cutscenes are sometimes ridiculously long, but it remains fun to play, and less frustrating than others when it comes to the combat side of things. And I think that combat is where this game really shines over its peers, the sole reason being Stealth Mode. More things should have stealth mode. Anyway, stealth mode is a neat little series of actions that allows you to (easily) strafe along walls, and crouch behind boxes. It is this feature alone that makes me really relish the combat in the game instead of dreading it. Things are straightforward instead of being overly complicated, which seems to be a theme. It doesn’t have you doing side missions and have big plot twists, and I think it works without them. I also really enjoyed the detail and accuracy of the game. Abe and I were actually able to find the dorm he stayed in when he lived in London for school, which is pretty neat. The only thing I could really ask for is more length to the game, and also more interior environments, which will hopefully be remedied by Black Monday.
So yeah, on to the part that sucks. The weather here has been absolutely terrible for about 90% of this month, so far. According to the forecast for the rest of the week, it’s either going to be cloudy or raining. I guess that’d be fine if I lived in Seattle, but then again I wouldn’t have to deal with excessive cold so it’d be a nice trade. Here I get both. Yay.
I watched Kill Bill again yesterday, and it was still awesome.