Grand Theft Auto III

Sometimes, despite my ever growing list of current games I need to play (and finish), I like to revisit games from my past. Despite my cold and distant persona, I’m quite the sentimental person. The past week or so, I decided to play through GTA III (I purchased the trilogy for PS4 and figured, let’s burn through them, then GTA IV, and finally start to work on GTA V … and GTA Online doesn’t count).

Starting the game hit me with a rush of memories. The first time I played the game, I was in eighth grade, so I was maybe 13. My cousin Stacy (not by blood, but we called each other cousin nonetheless) owed the game, and one time during one of my sleepovers at his house, he let me start a game. It’s interesting how my taste in videos games was influenced by him. Before him, my taste was more or less, fighting and racing games, maybe an action-adventure game every now and again.

He introduced me to FF VII, which changed my life. I played it right before FF X came out, and somehow didn’t discover Aerith dies until she actually died in my game.

When I started GTA III, I hadn’t played anything like it. It was strange and exciting to have this open world and to be able to cause mass destruction within it. I borrowed it from him and I remember my sisters and I spending a good bit of the summer taking turns ruining the city. It was great.

Though I enjoyed causing chaos and mayhem, my favorite part of the game was the radio. I would listen to Lips 106, Flashback Radio, Head Radio and Chatterbox. Sometimes, more so with Vice City than III, I would just drive around listening to the music on the radio. I still knew the words to my favorite songs, and I could remember when X song played that meant to change to Y station to listen to Z song. It made me feel like a kid again. And it made me a diehard fan of the series and open world games.

The Walking Dead: Season Two & A New Frontier (games, not the show)

I first played the first season of The Walking Dead a few years ago. I thought I’d played the second season as well, only to learn (by the time they were available on PS4) that I hadn’t. Being the trophy whore that I am, I decided to play the first season again on PS4 and play seasons two and three (A New Frontier) as well.

I haven’t watched the show, I can’t give a reason why, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I love the games though, and if they represent the show in any way, I’m certain I’ll love the show too. Ever since Indigo Prophecy (at least, gaming wise, book wise, it was the Goosebumps: Choose Your Own Adventure), I’ve been a fan of stories that allow you to alter it by the choices you make.

With The Walking Dead those choices were typically life and death, and even the smallest of choices could lead to a life or death decision. I cared about the characters, especially Lee and Clementine. Clementine is my favorite child character from any video game.

Right after the first season, I went right into the second season. I really enjoyed the updates to the graphics and the gameplay, but most important, I loved the character development of Clementine. In season one, she was a little girl who didn’t understand what was happening and there were many heartbreaking moments where she was forced to understand for her own survive.

The Clementine you see in season two is wiser and more self-sufficient and she continues on that path as the season progresses, and more difficult choices are thrown your way. By the time you encounter Clementine in A New Frontier, she is miles away from that little girl she was in season one. She is a hardened survivor, but every now and again, you’d see bits of that little girl underneath. It was an amazing story, and she is set to come back for the final season next year, I’m so excited. Also, you can have your decisions from one season carry over to the next, which I love.

Though I tend to favor vampires of all the fantasy creatures, I do have an interest in zombie games, stories, movies. Playing through The Walking Dead even inspired a story idea of my own. I’m currently fleshing out the outline (which is always the easiest part for me) and hopefully I’ll write the script some time next year.

If you’re a gamer and like TellTale games, or point and click games in general, I highly recommend giving The Walking Dead a try. If you are more about gameplay than story, these might not be the games for you.

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 for PS4 arrived on my doorstep on July 12^th (thankfully, I have Tuesdays off) and I immediately dove in.

It is easily my favorite game of the series. It’s safe to say it one of my favorite co-op games as well.

Years ago, a buddy and I platinumed the game on PS3. It was so much fun. He had played with a friend of his, who helped him beat the game under five hours and get the unlimited rocket launcher ammo. In turn, he played through with me so I could get it as well. Then we played through on Professional Mode, and unlocked that Platinum trophy.

We planned to platinum the game again, this time on PS4. Most of my PS4 RE5 play experience has been with him. I read an article the other day talking about what made RE5 such a great game was the co-op. After a few hours of struggling to play Professional Mode on my own, I can’t help but agree. The AI is incredibly annoying when you play single player. Co-op allows you to get things done much faster, whereas playing single player felt more like leading Chris (I always play as Sheva) around, which only slowed me down. Not to mention, for whatever reason, he won’t use the rocket launcher at all. He tends to go for guns that have limited ammo, rather than using the ones I give him that have unlimited. My buddy and I beat Veteran Mode together in a little over three hours.

In three hours, I am just entering Chapter 3 of the game, which is about the halfway point, playing solo on Professional.

I’ve yet to play RE6, despite owning it, but, from what I recall, the reviews weren’t favorable. Nonetheless, if it has a co-op experience like RE5, I’m sure I will enjoy it. And all this Resident Evil play just makes me excited for RE7.

Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3

I platinumed the game the other day. It was one of the easier platinums, though rather tedious and repetitive. I love the Dead or Alive Xtreme series. I don’t know if it is because I’m gay or what, but I absolutely love buying the different swimsuits and seeing how they look on different girls.

I started as a fan of Dead Or Alive on PS2 with Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore. I’m a huge fan of fighting games and I loved the graphics. I’m also, more or less, a Sony fanboy. I was devastated to learn DOA 3 would be exclusive to Microsoft’s new Xbox. So, I purchased one.

By the time I bought one, Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball had been released. I remember my mom was so hesitant to buy it for me (I was maybe 15 or 16 at the time, so I couldn’t buy it myself due to the M rating). I still love the song “How Crazy Are You?” by Meja because of the intro to the first two games. I felt so accomplished when I got ever girl the Venus costume. See, in the first two games, instead of rejecting your gift, as they do in the third, they would just throw it away, and obtaining money took more effort back then.

While playing the third game in the Xtreme series, something hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember there was a lot of controversy about the game. Now, the Dead or Alive series is known for its controversy due to the way the female characters look and dress. There was a lot of fun made over the physics of the second game where the individual breasts had their own creepy movements. Even when the girls stopped moving, their breasts kept going.

This time, the controversy was over not bringing the game stateside. There was some odd statement about how it was due to the issues of sexism in video games going on stateside. But the real reason, at least in my opinion, is the same reason they bumped up the girls ages from 16 to 18 for the stateside releases of the games… It looks a little too much like child pornography for our Western taste.

I remember playing as Marie Rose and thinking, this just looks and feels wrong. There is no way this girl is 18. She is so much smaller than the other girls. It doesn’t help that in anime, even grown adult women tend to have child like tendencies. It just felt wrong to have her in swimsuits other than her own. For the most part, the ones you could purchase as her (as the girls have different collections) were very sweet and innocent. Most of the other characters… not so much.

So, her outfits look weird on the other girls, who are… fully developed, to say the least, and their outfits looks wrong on her because they are skimpy and sexy and she looks so young and childlike. It would have never gone over well stateside. And for good reason. After playing as her to get the trophies I needed to get playing as her, I haven’t used her since because it makes me feel creepy, especially when there are missions where you have to take voyeuristic photos of the girls.

If there were ever to be a release outside Japan and Asia, which I highly doubt at this point, I don’t see how they would do it without completely removing her from the game. Though, in all honesty, I’m not sure why she’s in the Xtreme series game in the first place rather than Lisa, Lefang, Tina and/or Christie.