Requirements

If someone tells you, "Write documentation on this.", I suppose an intelligent person would ask a ton of questions to get details, so that the end result satisfies the person making the request by providing them exactly what they want.

On the other hand, it could be said that if you want something done exactly so, you should either do it yourself, or make sure that you provide the person doing it with explicit instructions, rather that simply telling them, "Write documentation on this."

I'm trying to decide who to be more annoyed with -- Me for not confirming exactly what Mr. Picky wanted, or Mr. Picky for being a picky bitch.

Greatness

This post has been bouncing around in my head for about a week now, but I'm just getting around to writing it.  I suppose part of the problem is that I just haven't really been in the mood to write something that I felt would be decent, rather than just a few paragraph as my last two posts have been.  That changed yesterday, when I was given an assignment by my boss to write a user guide.  I was compelled to do a really good job on it, mainly because I wanted to show him that I actually have some writing skill.  That's something he's mentioned as being a rare commodity here in the office.  Just the kind of thing that inspires me.

In any case, I was feeling incredibly restless on Tuesday.  This happens when I feel I have nothing to do of interest.  It's human nature for a person to want to do things that they feel are great.  As a whole, humans accomplish that through their careers, their hobbies, their friends, or their families.  I'm no different.  This made me think back, and try and decide what I can remember as being the "great thing" I've done in my life.

Naturally, my mind immediately goes back to my years as a horseshoe pitcher.  I guess I could technically classify my entire interesting (albeit relatively short) career as pretty great.  I can remember so many moments that fill me with a sensational feeling of pride.  It was wonderful to be one of the best at something, and I'm grateful that I will always have that to look back on.  And because I know the question may be on the minds of anyone who may read this, no, I do not have any interest in the sport any longer.  It died with my grandfather.

Looking back, if I had to choose one instance, one event, from that time in my life as the tentpole of what all I accomplished, it would have to be at the World Tournament in Kitchener, Canada during the summer of 1997.

I'm trying to figure out why that is.  I can name quite a few other events that are probably more impressive than that.  The perfect game is one.  The very next year's World Tournament is another.  My marathon games with Frank Bohun also comes to mind.  Hell, even my contributions off the court from the age of 15 is more important in my eyes.  But, I think the sheer intensity and circumstances of what happened in Kitchener makes it stand out above all the others to me.  I remember it so vividly.

Regular play had just completed, and I knew there was going to be a playoff. Marcus Mosness and I both had one loss.  Quite honestly (and I'm not just referring to that one day, either), I don't know how I did what I did.  If I try to imagine myself in that kind of situation today, I don't see me having the nerves to handle it.  It's something that I developed at the World Tournament in 1996.  I was quite capable of averaging over 65% then, but I was struggling with 60%.  It was nerves.  Something interesting happened, though.  Since I played so poorly that I didn't make the championships, I was able to pitch in this National competition that they used to have.  Basically, it was a mixed tournament played at the same time as the World Tournament, and you had to win a "national" tournament during the course of the previous year.  I was eligible after winning a tournament in West Virginia.

So I was in this thing, and I was playing against some of the greatest senior men, open women, and junior players in the country.  I was fantastic.  I didn't win, but I gave everyone a great game and gave the audience something amazing to see.  I played Sue Snyder, one of the greatest ladies I've ever seen throw a horseshoe, and our game was so intense and so close that after it was over she just turned to me and gave me a huge hug.  It was the first major time I was noticed by people I didn't personally know.  People came up to me commenting on my discipline on the court.  It was such a strange experience.

The reason I did so well in that tournament is because I didn't think about the pressure.  There wasn't any for me -- I already finished the World Tournament and wasn't worrying about doing well any longer.  I just let all that go, relaxed, and that was the result.  I learned from that, and nerves never got to me again.

But I'm getting off-track now. Back to that day in Kitchener.

I was never fully aware of the audience during regular play at that tournament.  I was always out there not only with all my other opponents (all 15 of them), but also many other players doing their own respective games.  Everything was different in the playoff.  It was announced over the PA system throughout the entire complex when and where it was happening, and who was playing.  No one else was playing -- it was only Marcus and me on the courts.  Every single spectator was looking at us.  It was surreal.  I may never be world famous, but I got a taste of what it must be like that day.

The audience disappeared for me once the game began.  And oh dear God the game of horseshoe pitching was so easy to me that day, and it was the shortest 40 shoes of my life.  I remember that with the scoreboards they had, they turned a dial when you hit the 30 shoe mark.  When the scorekeeper turned that dial to 30 shoes pitched, I looked at the score.  For a moment I honestly couldn't believe what I was doing.

In the end, I threw 36 of the 40 shoes around the stake.  That's a 90% game, if you're not so good at math.  It's an amazing game if you're not sure what that means.

I can't accurately describe how I felt when I stepped off the court, because I actually think I was a little bit shocked at what I'd just done.  I do remember my face being incredibly hot, and I was sort of unsure where I wanted to go.  But my family found me first.  I'd never seen my grandfather walking so proudly or so quickly in all his left, and I think that image is the most vivid for me when I think back to it.  My brother also surprised me by giving me an incredibly large hug.  And so many hand shakes, by so many people, many of whom I didn't even know.  Heads shook in disbelief, and I could hear people talking to one another as I walked through the crowd to collapse onto a bench.  I still remember Cliff Powell turning to Ron Weiss and saying, "Incredible...he just had the eye of the tiger during that game."

(The urge to walk to the stands yelling "Adrian!" probably would have existed had I not been too dazed to even think clearly.)

That is my own story of greatness, the thing I can look back on to say, "I -did- something."  

"Rushes" and "Misleading"

Today's gaming news made me think hard about two aspects of the gaming industry that really piss my mittens.

1. Rushing a release.

A vast majority of the time, it seems like we suffer because a game was released before it was ready.  Just today you can see news of Dead Island getting a huge, huge release day patch to fix 37 issues.  No one has even played the game yet, and they're issuing a patch!  I just don't understand why this is even acceptable to anyone.  Anyone who knows me realizes that I'm pretty optimistic when it comes to games.  The vast majority of this community are over-privileged whiners who will complain about the sky being the wrong shade of blue.  But me, I even like bad games a lot of the times.  So if this bugs me, I just can't understand why it keeps happening.  I suppose bureaucracy wins the day here, and the almighty dollar is more important than producing a good product.

2. Misleading Advertising

I'm looking at -YOU-, League of Legends.  I just saw your ad on a gaming website.  That wasn't in-game footage you were showing off.  YOU LIARS!  

Y'know, it's been a while since a song has gotten right into my head and stayed there to the point where I find myself humming it.  What's even more unique is that this song is new enough that I don't know the lyrics yet.  Don't ya just hate that?  You want to sing a song, and you have to make up your own words...

In any case, the song in question is Cough Syrup by Young the Giant.  I currently have it on loop, and it's what's helping me get through this day.  I don't know why, it just is.  

YDCBITYA: Deus Ex Human Revolution

I tried to play the first Deus Ex when it came out.  Quite honestly, I never got what all the praise was about.  It's consistently hailed as the greatest PC game ever made, and it seems to be that it only has that distinction because of the element of varying choice the game provided.  While that's all well and good, that alone really doesn't complete the picture for me.  

Part of the problem for me, I think, is that I played the game after it was a few years old, and thus pretty dated.  The game didn't look all that great to begin with when it was released, and a few years time certainly didn't help matters any.  And for the record, yes, graphics do matter to me in certain ways.  Games like Minecraft don't have to have great graphics because that's not why you're playing.  But for something like Deus Ex, where you're supposed to be immersed in a fictional, science fiction heavy world, yes, it matters quite a bit.

All that being said, we come around now to DXHR.  It's natural to make comparisons to the original, so let's do it this way:  Eidos took it, and updated it to 2011.  This is important, because a lot of times this isn't really done all that great.  When id Software did it with Doom 3, they basically made a technological showcase for their new graphics engine.  Nothing wrong with that, of course -- I quite enjoyed Doom 3 and still enjoy playing it today.  But, something like Doom 3 isn't game of the year material.


DXHR is different in that regard.  A lot of the common mistakes that are made today were not made here.  When they looked at what needed to be trimmed out from the original game, they didn't cut out what made the game so great in the first place.  (Because despite what I may think, yes, it was a great game.)  You still have that unique inventory system, the upgradeable weapons, and naturally, the massive amounts of choice in anything that you do.  Additionally, in adding in the things that have become commonplace in games of today, they didn't make the game clunky.  They knew what wouldn't work for their game.  And the things they did add in, they did correctly.  The cover system is probably one of the greatest I've ever seen in a game.  It's so easy to use, and you actually get so used to it that eventually you don't even realize you're in cover.  And the regenerating health is bar-none the best I've ever seen, mostly because of how very fragile Adam Jensen is.  It works, and it works very well.


So, I suppose it's quite obvious by my gushing praise here that I loved this game, and you're right.  I did.  It's game of the year material, and it's one of the greatest games I've ever played.  Everyone knows that I consider the stories of Half-Life and Max Payne to be some of the best written in the gaming industry, and this story is right up there with those.  The mystery and conspiracy that the game pushes you through really makes me reminisce about the original Max Payne.  A lot.  I loved it.



For these YDCBITYA articles that I write, I needed a way to summarize my thoughts without relying on a percentage or numbering system.  I don't like those.  So, I developed a way of telling you what I thought about a game in a simple way:

1.  Everyone should play this game:  It's one of the best, and anyone who has ever played any kind of video game should play it.

2.  Fans of the genre should play this game:  It's one of the best of the genre, and anyone who enjoys the genre will enjoy this game.

3.  OH MY GOD MY EYES ARE BURNING:  I didn't like it.

So, of course, my final verdict of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is that everyone should play this game.  Get to it.

Second Impressions: Deus Ex

I'm now six hours into the game.  I was getting a little bit frustrated last night, and have only myself to blame.  It all worked out, though.  See, I was doing this one mission that had several main objectives and one secondary objective.  It was that secondary objective that was killing me -- Infiltrate the area and complete the mission without being detected.

Now, stealth in games has never been my strong suit.  I was barely able to pull it off in the Splinter Cell games -- games designed to be all about stealth!  I pretty much failed at it in the Crysis games.  So stealth and I really don't have a good record, y'know?  But I was bound and determined to finish that mission and complete that secondary objective.  It became more about principal than about enjoying myself, which I realize is counter-productive in a game.

But, I will admit I got a tremendous sense of satisfaction out of actually doing it this way, so it wasn't a total loss.

Aside from this self-inflicted torture, I have only one other thing to complain about.  As anyone who's read my previous posts, or is at all familiar with Deus Ex knows, there are multiple ways to do any mission.  There are many different paths to take.  What I ran into last night, though, showed me that these multiple paths aren't always open to you.

I found this really cool path to take, and I really wanted to go that way because it was clever, and it was sneaky, and it arguably looked like a pretty easy way to go if you were doing things stealthy.  But then I hit a roadblock:  There was a wall in my way.  Ok.  I can deal with that.  I went into my augmentations -- I had one point available to spend, so I threw it into the "Punch Through Walls" ability.  (That ability is BADASS, just for the record, especially when there's someone standing on the other side of the wall.)  So with that handled, I punched my way through the wall and continued on my path.  Then I hit another roadblock:  An elevator shaft.  And now I was stuck.  I didn't have the Icarus ability yet, which allows you to fall from any height without taking damage, and I had no points left to purchase it.  I had to turn around and go a different way.  It was very disappointing to me.

The thing that bothers me is that if that path had only ONE augmentation requirement, I wouldn't have cared.  But needing two that early in the game?  Bleh.  Bad design, in my opinion.

I didn't let it change my overall opinion of the game, though.  I went a different way and still got through the mission without being detected.

And so far, everything else has been gravy.  

First Impressions: Deus Ex

Oh yes, I know that everyone and their mother is talking about Deus Ex: Human Revolution.  The hipster in me in screaming at the top of his lungs right now.  "DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT GAME!  EVERYONE IS PLAYING IT!  STOPPIT!"

Damned hipster alter-ego.

So despite that, I'm here to offer my first impressions of the game, after having played approximately 2-3 hours of it.

First I will share with you one complaint that I was going to have, but that is no longer valid.  I feel it's quite interesting and worth explaining.  I was very early in the game, only a few missions beyond the prologue-slash-tutorial.  I had two or three side quests to do, all of which were behind locked doors that I couldn't hack because I didn't have the proper skill to do so.  At first I was annoyed, thinking the game was pigeon-holing me into having to upgrade my hacking augmentations first in order to make any progress through the game.  But then I remembered that I'm playing Deus Ex.  Dur.  Oh look -- a manhole. Oh look, it leads to an alternate entrance to the building.  Oh look, boxes.  I can stack those up and jump over this fence.  Basically, what I'm trying to say here is that if you don't want to hack a door, then don't.  There is ALWAYS another way, and that is fantastic.

Next:  Bugs.  I've seen only one so far.  I was in the middle of a dialogue in a police station, and the audio went into an infinite loop.  I had to re-load an auto-save to fix it, and it didn't happen again.  Minor, but begs mentioning.

I've avoided reading any type of reviews for this game.  You know me and game critics -- we don't get along.  But I did stumble across a few snippets of information regarding the graphics, and how they seem just a bit dated.  Now having played some of the game, I will agree with this to an extent.  Some of the character models look pretty bad.  The receptionist up in Sarif's office barely looks human.  Others look fine though, to include Jensen, and the environments look fantastic to me, so I've no complaints there.

The flagstone of Deus Ex is the gift of choice, and it's not lost here.  Big breath of relief, everyone!  As I touched upon in my story with the hacking situation, you are free to solve any mission however you want.  But it goes so much further than the simple choice of either running in with guns blazing versus stealthing in all sneaky-like.  In one mission, I started out deciding I was going to be stealthy.  I took down guards with my silent non-lethal dart gun, hid the bodies, and sneaked around like a half-robot ninja.  The next room I entered, though, was a big large open area.  It begged me to start a gunfight.  And so, start a gunfight I did.  Because I could, and it worked just as well as sneaking around worked for me in the previous room.  That is what makes this game special.

Other complaints?  Not many so far.  The loading screens are noticeable, but I've also noticed they speed up after you've been to the area once in a sit-down.  What I mean is -- let's say I just walked into the police station from the city.  The city will load faster for me than it did the first time when I go back outside, since I'd already loaded it once before during my current session of playing the game.  So that's not bad, but y'know, we all hate loading screens.

Aside from the incredible feeling of freedom and choice, there are some other moments that have thus far stuck out to me.  Watching the take-down animation never gets old, whether you're using the lethal or non-lethal variety.  There're more RP elements in the game than I had expected, and it's a pleasant surprise.  Also, the cover system is exceptionally slick.  Diving behind cover and moving from cover to cover has really never been easier, I think.  They kept it simple but extremely effective.

All that being said, I only have one other complaint:  I'm not playing the damned game right this moment.