I can never get all three cats in a picture together

And it figures that the one time I actually did, it didn't come out well.

Calling myself out on my video game hypocrisy

Now that I've posted my impressions of Uncharted 3, I thought it would be an appropriate time to point out my own hypocrisy.

Uncharted 3 was a great game, there's no denying that. But one of my biggest problems with it was that not enough was changed. It felt exactly like the previous two games, aside from a few minor tweaks. It's basically the same complaint I had about Bioshock 2. If you haven't played the other games, you'll probably enjoy the newest installment more because the experience will be new to you.

Is this a valid reason to be upset with a game? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, that's not really the point.

I've made no attempt to hide my distaste for the direction the Resident Evil series has gone in. Or how disappointed I was with Silent Hill Homecoming's turn towards more of an action game. Resident Evil 4 and 5 went through drastic changes. They don't even feel like part of the Resident Evil universe...Which is why I hate them. (Although I do think RE5 is fun to play with another person.) And here I am, complaining about games like Uncharted 3 and Bioshock 2 not taking things far enough.

The only sense I can really make of this is that maybe it's a genre based issue. I have no use for shooters in general. Fight a group of enemies to get to the next area, where you'll fight another group of enemies...That just never did it for me. What's the point? It's repetitive. Uncharted and Uncharted 2 had enough platforming and puzzles to where it felt like I was actually accomplishing something. The shooting was broken up. Uncharted 3 didn't seem to have as much of either and I think that's where it went wrong for me.

With games like Resident Evil, there was a lot of strategy involved. You had a certain amount of item slots to carry your guns, ammo, healing items, keys and any random puzzle items you might need later on. You really had to consider what you were bringing with you when you left an item box. Your survival depended on it. And you could never kill every enemy you came across. Resident Evil Remake actually gave you an incentive NOT to kill the zombies. If you weren't able to burn their bodies within a certain period of time, they would turn into Crimson Heads...Super zombies. Not only would you have wasted precious ammo to kill them the first time, but you now had to kill them a SECOND time while they're running at you and attacking you with their claws.

It may also be an issue of a dying genre. Survival horror never seemed to be as popular as shooters are. And Capcom, in an attempt to save their series, have decided to "get with the times" and turn Resident Evil into a [poorly constructed] shooter so they could make more money. Meanwhile, games like Uncharted don't go through significant changes because they already sell so well.

I guess my problem is that the changes to Resident Evil 4 and 5 were too drastic, while the changes to Uncharted 3 weren't drastic enough. There needs to be a middle ground. Innovation is good, it keeps games new and interesting. But most companies seem to miss the mark. Be ambitious! But don't destroy what you've created in the process.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

I've been meaning to write this post for the past three days, but I was overwhelmed by the amount of notes I had written down. Here is my attempt at making some sort of sense out of them. (There are spoilers. You've been warned.)

He went a little crazy. Again.

He did open it. Got it alllll over the place.

He also tried to run off with his cat treats in his mouth. Picked them up, growled, and took off. Demon cat.

This says it all

Phantom of the Opera

Again. February 22nd. So excited. :D

I haven't had my SNES for a long time now

But I can't part with these games. Even though I have them on the Wii's VC.

The Beatles Anthology

I always forget I own this. I've had it for years and I still haven't watched it yet. I tend to watch the same DVDs over and over because if I've already seen them, I don't have to pay attention to them. I REALLY have to be in the mood to focus on something I haven't watched yet. If that makes sense. I'm very easily distracted.

And, while we're here. Look what else I remembered about today.

This will be Finnick's first Christmas

I bought this book a few years ago

Still have to finish reading it. I honestly forgot I even had it until today.

Because you can never have too many cat pictures

The best example of how Corpse Party gets to you on a psychological level

Massive spoilers regarding Morishige and Kizami. You’ve been warned.

The ghosts aren't the most disturbing part of Corpse Party

You can collect files in this game...This one is Victim's Memoirs 1/5. And I will probably remember it for the rest of my life, much like other people remember "4 itchy tasty" from Resident Evil.

But that's not all. There's more. Here is the complete file:

Victim’s Memoirs 1/5

I ate my friend today.

What else was I supposed to do? I was starving.

We both were. And there’s no food here. So we decided, together, that one of us should try to live just a little bit longer.

If I ever get home, I’m supposed to tell all the people waiting for us what happened.

We left it all up to a game of paper-scissors-rock. Loser eats winner.

And I lost.

I felt her blood going down my throat, quenching my thirst. And her meat was supple and satisfying.

But that blood and meat was once my friend. Up until just a few hours before, I’d been talking with her.

As I feasted, I just kept thinking, this food used to be a person. Before I tore it apart, it all worked together to sustain a life.

And every time I thought about that, I just started crying…and I couldn’t stop.

I wanted some part of her to be with me even after she died, so I decided to keep one of her eyeballs.

And I thought maybe I should write all of this down, to help preserve some small portion of my sanity.

The entire time I was in Florida

I just kept looking at my pictures of the city. It didn't really help. If anything, it made me more homesick.

At least one game still manages to be scary

I'm sleeping with the TV on tonight. Because I've been playing Corpse Party for the past few hours and it's managed to put me on edge.

The cannibalism made me sick. And the thing is, you don't even see a lot of the deaths in this game. You read about them. Or HEAR them while looking at a blank screen. It's still so effective though.

I hate the way the music cuts out any time I enter a stairwell. I don't mean that as a complaint either. There's just something about it that is so unsettling.

In Chapter 3, the lights seem to go on and off depending on your location, so your vision is limited to a few feet around you. It creates this feeling of paranoia because you don't know what else is in the room with you. You HAVE to move forward, but you don't want to because anything could be waiting for you in the darkness.

These aren't cheap jump scares. A lot of it is psychological. I expected, at most, an interesting story that would be fun to play through. I never thought the game would actually be scary, especially considering the graphics and the fact that I'm playing it on a handheld.

I would even say this rivals some survival horror games I've played. I never felt the need to sleep with my TV on after playing Resident Evil.