So today I've beaten not one, but two games. The first is the bonus maps included in Portal: Still Alive, as downloaded off of XBox Live Arcade. I downloaded the game thinking it's a sequel to the copy I already own with the Orange Box after reading someone's blog post. Not so. It's the same game again, but with new Achievements and 14 bonus levels, which are rather weak compared to the game proper. The graphics level has been reduced as well, although it's not so noticeable. You see right away that your portal gun looks different, but that's about it. So I'm feeling rather ripped off. I wouldn't recommend anyone buying it. I would recommend they buy the Orange Box, however, since it's only $15 more than the downloadable stand-alone Portal game, and includes not one, not two, not three, not four, buy five games total including Portal itself, although Half-Life two and it's sequels really only count as one game, and there's no one ever online to play Team Fortress 2 with, since they've long ago moved on to bigger and better online multiplayer shooters. So really, it's only two games. They're good games, though. Well, Portal only takes about an hour-and-a-half to get through, so it's kind of just a mini-game. So really, it's only one game, but it's still a bargain. Portal: Still Alive takes even less time to get through once you realize: Hey, this is the same damn game. If you subscribe to Steam on your PC (fuck yo' Mac!) you can even download the bonus levels for free, making your XBox Live Arcade Purchase rather silly. I wish I had known that. They really need to stick some kind of description to these games in the Arcade section. They all have the demos available for free, and you can honestly get a sense of what you're purchasing, but I was thinking even after I ran through the game proper once more that I was getting the old game and a new game sequel that would be accessed after winning. Oh well. I killed some time.
Speaking of killing time, I also beat GTA IV about four months after every other person on the planet has beaten it. Why so long? Because I only bought the damn thing a few weeks ago, foo'! I was having some trouble with the final mission and a few associated with it. I was either dying or the guy I was chasing got away. There was a levy involved in which I had to run a motorcycle off of, and for about five runs I was like, "Where the fuck is the levy?" so I kept having to go back through the whole scenario. Not to give much away, but in terms of endings, this would make one of the worst Hollywood movies in a long time. I know someone out there is wanting to make a GTA movie. If I saw this ending, I'd walk out. It's like Michael Bay took possession of the game in it's final moments.
*SPOILER ALERT* You drive a motorcycle onto a helicopter; then it blows up. If they could put that in a bottle and sell it as a perfume, it'd be called: Essence by Michael Bay.
Having beaten the game, I've unlocked a section on the Rockstar Social Club website that shows you the completed times of the top players in the world. In the 360 version of the game there's an Achievement you can unlock if you beat the game in 30 hours. The top score: 9 hours. Someone kept playing and playing and playing until they had their time down to 9 hours. They won by mere milliseconds, so he's not alone in this endeavour. I myself have only a few thousand dollar to go until I unlock the Millionaire's Club section of the Rockstar Social Club. I'm at around 978,000 or so. I'm assuming once I get in it's going to show me the richest people in the game's world, and it'll be some insurmountable amount. It's like going to be comparing me with Bill Gates.It might even be Bill Gates. He probably has a whole warehouse full of Chinese kids he pays to play video games for him just to get high scores. Which, now that I think about it: Bill Gates probably does have a XBox Live Account, seeing as how he owns the company. Which means: someone, at some time, has fragged Bill Gates. That's awesome.
In review: the writing in GTA IV is good, but the story is bad. The plot rambles, but it goes into extreme depths with it's main character. You learn everything you could possibly want to know about him, even facts about his early childhood, and his relationship to his mother.
One of the most interesting things about the game is the choices you can make, which change the outcome. This is nothing new, but it's good to see it in there. You have to choose which characters live and die, so you get to pick who sticks around.
Also: is there any point to reviewing a game once it's out? People are in such a mad rush to buy games nowadays that unless you're an industry reviewer with an advanced copy, there's no way you could release a review on time to satisfy the public. The same thing goes for movies. Television is still up for grabs, but games are dead. I'm writing this like six months after the release, which was the most successful release of any game, movie, album, or other entertainment product ever, in the history of mankind. Ergo: everyone already knows everything about the game, and with greater insight than myself. So I give up.
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