JohnnyBGamer

2011 Reflections: Part 2

Gaming-wise, 2011 was a high mark for me as a gamer. I completed more games last year than I ever have in my gaming career. Part of this has to do with how much I enjoy gaming on the PS3; the other part being how short games are becoming. In 2011, I completed:

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune – Which was excellent.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Which was even better.
Call of Duty Black Ops – A massive disappointment due to boring set pieces and a ho-hum story line.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – One of the greatest games I’ve ever played. A roller-coaster screaming to be ridden at least once. I wrote a few words about the game’s “No Russian” mission you can read here.

I also played a few other games last year:

Enslaved – Repetitive level design bored me.
Mario Galaxy 2 – Still working through it.
Final Fantasy 13 – Gave up on it due to a hard to follow story line.
Dragon Age Origins – Nothing fresh to see here.
Tiny Tower – You can a few words about it here.
L.A. Noire – I have a love/ hate relationship with L.A. Noire. The game is amazing in what it does but becomes highly repetitive over time. I came within 4 cases of finishing this game. 4 cases! I will no doubt pick this up again when I have the time and drive to plow through to the end. I did learn a few lessons from L.A. Noire which you can read about here.
Batman: Arkham Asylum – I’m truthfully not sure what I think about this game. It did make me question what I play in front of my 2 year old, which you can read about here.
inFamous – Cool game with a great concept. Somehow not compelling enough for me to finish.

I‘m sure there were more games that I played but I can’t think of them right now. What did gaming in 2011 look like for you?

2011 Reflections: Part 1

2011 was an interesting year for me and my family, to say the least. Over the course of twelve months, we experienced:

3 deaths (all grandparents)
1 wedding (my sister)
2 surgeries (both mine)

In short, there was a lot of time spent in mourning, celebration, and recovery. We experienced more change last year than I have ever experienced in my entire life. I am hoping that 2012 turns out to be a less eventful, much calmer year. One can only deal with so many changes at a time. So, happy new year and welcome 2012!

Christmas Thoughts: Round 5

Earlier in this series (Round 3), I talked about the radio controlled cars my brother and I would get each Christmas. Well, one year my Christmas list deviated from the norm, I asked for a radio controlled hovercraft.

The Nikko Air Bullet Hovercraft didn’t last very long. My memories of it include:

Waiting forever to charge the battery.
Racing it down a neighbors driveway that was covered in ice.
Finding out that it wasn’t water proof, like the commercial actively demonstrated, after hovering it in the pool.
Watching my brother take it apart after it had been deemed never to run again.

In hindsight, I probably should have asked for a Typhoon.

Christmas Thoughts: Round 4

Sometime in the 4th grade, I thought it would be cool to bring my Tyco Hot Keyz to school for show and tell. Synthesizer strapped to my back, I proudly rode my bike to school that day with my best friend Andrea. I was the man.

The Christmas I received my Tyco Hot Keyz was one of the best ever. I remember my brother receiving a “guitar” that played noises when you pressed different buttons. Though I was a tad jealous of my brother’s gift (he always made things seem cooler than they were), I had been given a keytar!

We rocked out that Christmas on my grandparents hearth (which was like a stage). I’m sure my parents must have hated those things.

All hail the loud and annoying Christmas presents, they make children happy.

Christmas Thoughts: Round 3

Every Christmas, without fail, my brother and I would ask for remote control cars; every Christmas, without fail, we’d receive said cars and break them within a week. As the years progressed, my relatives began to catch on to the fact that $100+ RC cars were being totaled. I remember one year where we were told that we weren’t getting radio controlled anything due to them breaking each year (threats aside, we got them anyways).

One year my Aunt presented me with two cars and asked me to decide upon one.

The first was a Tyko Fast Traxx:

Tyco Fast Traxx — Mine was a sweet yellow.

The second car was a Tyco Hijacker:

I ended up deciding upon the Tyco Fast Traxx. My brother and I promptly took it outside and began putting it through its paces. Little known to me at the time, when the Fast Traxx’s treads grew warm, they would fall off. Eventually these rubber treads grew so worn (within a week or two) that they wouldn’t stay on the tire they attached to.

Now we had a bike jump out on our back patio that my brother had built. So, we launched the car off of it. Ended up cracking the car where the back wheels attached to the body. You could literally see the gears inside the car moving. Not good. I guess what I am trying to say is that we killed the car, quickly. Another Christmas car destroyed. Mission accomplished, I guess…if that was the goal…which it wasn’t. We were just kids playing with toys.