Crack in the Armor

Okay, I’ve been extremely busy playing Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360, and I do intend to write a lot more about it, but for now I just want to make a note about something that’s bugging.  After days of thinking that the game is nearly flawless, I have run into a snag.  I suppose it’s always more interesting to write about a complaint rather than praise.

I’m at a point in the game where every single mission is designed to make you drive as far as possible.  The standard mission scenario involves driving from wherever you happen to be to one of your contact’s homes or offices where you get the story and the mission.  Then they send you to a new point to actually perform whatever task is required of you.  Nearly always killing someone.  Our hero is a hired gun, so what else would he be doing?  My complaint is that the destination is always as far away as possible, so you spend 5 to 10 minutes or more driving through Liberty City, gaining nothing, just wasting time.  Busy work.  Leg work.  How could it hurt to put the mission sites closer to the contact’s home?  I feel like every mission is a chore because I know I’ll have to drive to the other side of the map before I even get my chance at the mission.  It has become boring and tedious.

If, knock on wood, you should fail the mission, you are sent a text message which gives you the option to retry what you’ve just failed.  Great!  Choose yes, and you will re-emerge at the mission site, right?  Nope.  You are teleported to the contact’s house, just in time to make the meaningless drive once again.  Frustrating.  I don’t need to see the cut scenes and hear the story again, and if I’m confused about an element of the mission I will simply read the briefing.  I do NOT need to watch it all over again.  And I definitely do not need to repeat the long, boring drive to the mission site.

There is a solution, but it’s kind of cheesy on the developers’ part.  Instead of stealing a car, you can enter a taxi as a passenger and get a ride to the next waypoint.  However, the cab driver informs you that he’s going to take the long way.  I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that’s what he says.  So you have two more options.  One is to press X and “hurry” the trip, causing the cab driver to become more aggressive in traffic, but not really shorten the drive time significantly.  The other is to press A and skip the whole trip, magically appearing at the destination nearly instantly.  What’s the catch?  It costs more to skip the trip.  What??  Why would they penalize me for not wanting to sit in traffic?  That’s not gaming.  That’s just watching buildings go by.  I appreciate the option to ride that taxi and skip the trip, and I nearly always do it, but I am angered each time I press that A button, knowing that my hard earned blood money is being taken away unfairly.  I would love to know their logic on this decision.

Like I said, there is much, much more to write about.  Overall I absolutely love the game.  The continuous string of ‘hits’ Mr. Bellic is performing for his friends and clients will hopefully give way to more interesting missions and story lines as the game progresses.

A More Interesting Life in 9 Steps

Are you bored?  Me too.

Scott H Young has some suggestions to make things more interesting.  I was skeptical at first,  but he’s got some good ideas.  Check out his blog.

Toast

I can remember when my mom used to make toast for me.
It was always so good the way she made the butter soak in
and the sugar just right
I remember how safe I felt sitting at the table, my legs still too
short to reach the cold linoleum

Nobody makes toast for me anymore
My legs reach the floor easily now
And the linoleum is much colder than I’d ever dreamed

 

Jake and Amir

I think these guys started out goofing around on Vimeo, but now with their own site Jake and Amir’s videos have gone to another level.  Almost every short is set at their desks inside the “Connected Ventures” bunker in New York, but they don’t let the limited space restrict them.  They continue to come up with bizarre short stories, mostly showcasing Amir’s unpredictable level of selfish foolishness.  He’s in his own world where he’s positive that everyone loves and respects him because he’s so “ace”, but his misplaced confidence only serves to highlight his social disability.  Jake is the perfect straight man.  He is clearly fed up with Amir, but for some reason never asks to have his desk moved.  Jake has unending patience when it comes to Amir, and we expect to learn that he has a soft-spot in his heart for the outcast, but… he doesn’t.

Together, peppered with other interesting staff members (Hi Sarah!), they continue to consistently put out laugh out loud, 2 minute videos.  Check out Jake and Amir’s videos on their own site and on the Vimeo site. Not kid safe due to language.

Vimeo

Jake and Amir

 

World of Warcraft

I’m done.  I cancelled my account.  Yes again.

This time it was different.  This time I did it because I was bored with it.  I’ve played SO MUCH that now every quest, every flight, every errand seemed like a chore.  It’s good to know that I have finally run that juggernaut into the ground.

Okay, and Grand Theft Auto IV is coming out on the 29th, so I’ll have more important things to do.

It’s 3 a.m. I must be lonely

Turns out if you turn on MTV or VH1 in the middle of the night they show things called “music videos”. Evidently bands make these little short films to showcase their songs in a visual format. I remember similar ‘videos’ in the 80’s but it’s been many years since I’ve actually seen one. 
Of course, most of them were rap. Quick camera angles showing expensive cars and bottles of cognac interlaced with close-up shots of female asses and the same group of black guys from every other video wearing basketball uniforms (for some reason I’m sure) and sunglasses and a huge collection of gold chains featuring their full names (Qdaddy, Back-Bown, Master DJ Rockin LP Mack Upstairs Maid) in 4 inch letters, standing in a tight group shouting ‘rhymes’ and pointing menacingly at me while bending at the knee repeatedly. 
2 or 3 of them actually had a guitar and a white guy covered in tattoos and a face full of metal, screaming and hammering power chords covered with up to a dozen distortion pedals chained together to hide the fact that he really can’t play those power chords. The white guy ‘video’ is full of dark, brick-walled rooms, floors scattered with discarded car parts and large buckets of fire. At some point the room will flood as rain falls from the ceiling(?) and white guy will look upwards into a spotlight with angst and rage as the rain soaks both man and guitar. 
He’s probably angry because he’s afraid his face will rust. 

She 5

The roar of the fountain in the park cut the summer air
I would write in my notebook while she waded about
Trying to pick up pennies with her pretty painted toes
The lunch hour shirt-sleeves watched her from behind sunglasses
And weighed their success against lost smiles

 

 

She 4

The windows are open and the drone of traffic
breezes in with the night air
Her earrings reflect the streelight as she
fumbles with my guitar
I study her silouhette framed by the city lights
and I have to smile as she plays softer 
each time someone passes on the sidewalk below

 

 

She 3

We always sat in the back of the coffeehouse
Back against the wall at the wobbly table
She never liked to have her back to anyone
I asked her if she remembered how old 
she was when she stopped trusting
She asked me how old I was when
the light in my eyes went out

 

 

She 2

She sat on the ground with her knees pulled to her chest
and sipped the French water she’d stolen from the store
We could hear the slow freight train
impossibly far away
as we leaned against the car
and watched the meteors cut long white grooves
into the jeweled ceiling