I’ve finally completely moved my blog to http://grantroberts.com/blog.

If for some bizarre reason you were subscribed to this feed (at http://grantastic.wordpress.com/feed), please update your feed link to:

http://grantroberts.com/blog/wp-feed.php

Thank you.

Just to extend the metaphor even further, I went back to Tomb Raider: Legend right after the last post.  It’s kind of similar to when I got back together with my ex-girlfriend Carrie after she cheated on me to end our first time together.  Except with less Pachouli and more hanging from wall cracks.

Anyway, I downloaded a trainer to give myself infinite health packs and continued on my journey into Lara Croft’s past — I’ll be damned if I was going to let anonymous biker thugs derail me from a game with an 80-plus score on GameRankings.

Sure enough, the game got pretty awesome again soon after the Kazakhstan Experiment.  After finishing that level, I proceeded to a level set in England, complete with a brilliant Max Payne 2-style level-within-a-level.

And then… crates.

Now, before I go any further, let me say that I loved Portal.  I don’t think it was the greatest game ever, or even the greatest game of 2007, but it was an extremely well-designed game.  I don’t think that it ushered in a new era of storytelling, even though GLaDOS’s dialogue was brilliant.

But I did like the Companion Cube sequences.  I don’t really “get” the cult that’s sprung up around it, but it’s not because I think I’m above that kind of iconography worship.  After all, I’m the guy who wore ankh necklaces for years because I loved the Ultima series so much.

No, the Cube was a cool concept, and made for a fun twist on the latter levels.

What does this have to do with Tomb Raider: Legend, you ask?

Not quite as marketable, I admit.

BEHOLD!

The light yet surprisingly durable twin crates!

Seriously.  You use this guy and his buddy, like, ten times as long as you use the Weighted Companion Cube.  And the puzzles are just as interesting as the ones in Portal.

This leads me to wonder a lot of things.  Like, did the Portal team play the England sequence in Tomb Raider: Legend before designing the Companion Cube levels?  Yes, they have a plausible story for where the Cube idea came from, but jeez.  The level designer at Crystal Dynamics who worked on the England level must die a little inside every time someone orders a pair of the Weighted Companion Cube fuzzy dice online.

So, yeah.  That’s probably all I’ll have to say about Tomb Raider for quite a while, seeing as how it’s now the only game I’ve ever blogged about twice.  How weird is that.  But in conclusion, yay, Tomb Raider: Legend.  And while we’re at it, yay, Portal.

Look, Tomb Raider.  I loved you back in the ’90’s.  You and I had some great times together.  When I first saw that T-rex in the jungle?  That was a magic moment.

And sure, you and I had fallen out of touch over the years.  Honestly, who wouldn’t?  From what I had heard and seen, you had been in a rut for years.

But just the other day, I thought I’d give you a call and see what you were up to.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

And for a while, you were like a breath of fresh air.  Where had you been for the last few years?

Tomb Raider: Underworld took up quite a bit of my time over the last week or so.  It was full of fun puzzles, and frozen zombies, and surprisingly well-written and well-acted dialogue.  Even the lovely Virginia noticed how well-crafted everything was.

But like any relationship with an old fling, it wasn’t meant to last.

In the last level, I encountered a rather irritating bug, and was unable to proceed to the end of the game.  So Underworld joined the long list of games that I haven’t been able to finish lately.  Ah, well.

It was only after I’d played about halfway through the game that I realized I was missing out on some story and character elements.  A quick Wikipedia search confirmed that Tomb Raider: Legend should have been first on my list.

So I picked up Legend and took it out for a spin.  And hey, it was fun, too!  I was a little put off by the fact that half the game involved shooting guys and moving around office buildings instead of raiding tombs, but hey, you’ve got to mix up the formula a bit.

However, as the great poet Dwayne Johnson once said:  Know your role.

Early on in Legend, there is an extended motorcycle-riding sequence.  There are other enemies on motorcycles trying to shoot at the player, but for the most part, the sequence was easily beaten.  I didn’t think much of it.  After all, the motorcycle sequences in Underworld were pretty fun — because Crystal Dynamics had obviously learned their lesson from the Kazakhstan level.

Look, I'm raiding tombs! Really!

In the Kazakhstan level of Legend, we have an even longer motorcycle sequence.  This time, however, there are SUV’s in addition to the guys on bikes.  And… it’s really hard.  As in, I’ve tried it ten times and haven’t successfully made it through the level.  And I won’t ever make it through the level.  Why?

BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO ENGAGE IN MOTORCYCLE COMBAT.

I WANT TO RAID TOMBS.

AND SOLVE PUZZLES.

It would be easy for me to say that I won’t be playing any more Tomb Raider games any time soon.  But, to be honest, they’ve got their hooks into me.  The games are fun, the puzzles are tuned just well enough that I only had to look on YouTube twice for hints, and the characters are interesting.

Until then, I’ve got what appears to be Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time mixed with ICO coming out in a few days.  That ought to tide me over for a while.

By the way, sorry for the lack of updates to this blog lately.  I’ve been working on another project that’s been taking up most of my time.  And playing way too much of this.

Virginia, I love you.

(Other Virginia, I also love you.)

I take back everything bad I ever said about my home state.

Oh, and congratulations, 44.

Note to my friends at Bethesda Softworks:

(And before I go any further, let me say that I am one of millions who have really enjoyed both Fallout 3 and its fraternal twin, Oblivion.)

(Oh, and this might be considered a minor spoiler for the ending of Fallout 3. So proceed with caution.)

If I just was able to pick up a companion two hours before the end of the game, and that character has the ability to render the circumstances of your final “showdown” irrelevant, then you need to handle it better than this:

Seriously.

Also, please contact Square Enix re: how to handle the death of a secondary character.

And hurry up and release an expansion.  Heh.

It’s a little ridiculous that I’ve been writing on this blog for a few weeks now, but I haven’t really mentioned video games that much at all.  Maybe it’s because with the election in eight days, my thoughts are elsewhere.

However, I’ve been playing a lot of games lately.  I just haven’t been writing about them.

Dead Space is number one on my list at the moment.  I’m only about two hours or so into the game, but it’s shaping up to be pretty incredible.  They really get the atmosphere right, from the music cues whenever enemies appear to the in-game advertising for fictional products.

I do wonder what the focus group and playtesting data must have shown for the game, however.  Within the first few minutes, you’re told by no less than three different sources about OMG STRATEGIC DISMEMBERMENT.  It is a pretty fun concept, especially with weapons that do damage in a visible line.  But… I get it.  I need to shoot off limbs.  Thank you.

I don’t remember the exact sequence, but I’m pretty sure the first hint you get is a visual cue.  We’ll call this one…

GOOD:

"He wouldn't bother to carve 'aaaargh'..."

This is nice.  The top of the “C” in “cut” is thicker than the bottom, which gives a nice mental image of the guy sticking his hand in a fresh wound to get some blood-ink, and ending up with a lot more than he’d thought he’d get.  I’m not really sure why the author has two right hands, though.  Or why, if he was losing that much blood, he would bother to waste it on a possessive pronoun.  I think “CUT OFF LIMBS” gets the point across.  No need to get flowery.

BETTER:

Right around the time you see the WARNING WRITTEN IN BLOOD, you also receive an audio transmission from another survivor:

“Isaac — be careful.  Shooting them in the body didn’t seem to work.  Go for the limbs.  Dismember them.  That should do the job.”

It’s times like these that I wish we had reached the point in games where you could talk back to the characters.  ”‘Shoot for the limbs’, okay, I get it.  Did you not think I knew what ‘dismember’ meant?  I’m supposed to be controlling an electrical and mechanical engineer.”

As an aside, hats off to EA for naming the main character “Isaac”.  When I chose to name the main character in Space Siege ”Seth”, I met with resistance from the dev team.  I thought it was a great name for its “father of humanity” connotations, and because Seth Bullock was a badass.  But I got told that “Seth” was “too nerdy”, among other things.

In the end, it was the right decision — as was changing his last name to “Walker” from “Kendrick”.  That would have been bad.

I just wish we’d had the same inspiration when we named the main character in Unreal II – “John Dalton” isn’t exactly the most memorable appellation I’ve ever heard.

But yeah, “Isaac”.  Good show.  I hope that Matt’s wrong about why they named him “Isaac Clarke”, because that’s a little cheesy.  Still, it’s a good name nonetheless.  Also a good name?  ”Necromorphs”.  Punchy, and it sounds like something we’d actually call aliens.  We had a similar problem on Space Siege with our aliens — I originally called them “The Hunters”, since they were originally from the Beta Canum Venaticorum system… which is Latin for “Hunting Dog”.  Unfortunately, when I realized that Halo and Half-Life had already gotten there first, I had to change it.

Unfortunately, none of the replacements worked that well.  We eventually settled on “Kerak”, which every single actor initially mispronounced in the studio.  I’m still not sure how humanity figured out that they were called the Kerak, since they never communicated, but… I don’t want to go down that road.

Anyway, when I say “Tell, don’t show”, examples like this are what I mean.  The visuals are nice, but the audio communication gets the point across better, without being nearly as on-the-nose.

BEST:

There’s one other audio log that you find around the same time.  If this was the only clue, I think the experience would have been even stronger:

“This is Benson, Tram Engineering.  We think we’ve figured it out.  Smith killed one!  Listen — forget about shooting them in the body.  You gotta cut off the limbs.  Grab a cutter, anything like that.  Cut ‘em apart!”

Perfect.  Much more evocative than “Dismember them.”  And the guy’s plainly terrified, which sells the mood really well.  I’m not wild about “cut” being in there three times in eleven words, but that’s just nitpicking.

So yes.  More awesome audio logs, please.  System Shock 2 can’t be the undisputed king of audio logs forever.  Can it?

Now, back to using my upgraded plasma cutter to shoot off legs.

So while browsing a clothing web site while looking for the last piece of my Halloween costume, I clicked on their “store locator” link.  And let me tell you, they had me with the first item in the bulleted list.

However, the list looked a little anemic, so I humbly submit my additions, free of charge.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it all goes back to the Redskins. I am from Fairfax County, after all.

See, the greater metropolitan D.C. area is football crazy. It was always kind of shocking to me when I moved to San Francisco in ‘97 – I literally didn’t see a single 49ers bumper sticker the entire time I lived there. Granted, I only lived there for nine months, but that’s another story.

So yeah, the ‘Skins. When I was a kid, the head coach of the Washington Redskins was a guy named Joe Gibbs. Yes, the same Joe Gibbs who was brought back twenty years later to re-coach the team, and the same Joe Gibbs who believes “that electing John McCain and Sarah Palin will spark a return to God’s Word and a spiritual revival that will bring our nation together”. That Joe Gibbs.

Anyway, he was the coach when I was a kid. But when I was a toddler, the Redskins had another coach by the name of George Allen.

Now, you may have heard this name before. However, George Herbert Allen, NFL coach, passed away eighteen years ago. His son, George Felix Allen, became a United States Senator in 2001.

Like most Democrats, I was unpleasantly surprised by the results of the 2004 elections. If I hadn’t been over at my then-girlfriend’s house on our second-ever date, I would have been even more depressed than I already was. I made a vow that I would be a lot more active in the next major election, which I assumed would be in 2008.

Boy, was I wrong.

I still remember the 2006 midterm elections very clearly.  I mean, who can ever forget an image like this:

While I was delighted to see Senator Man on Dog cruise to flaming defeat (so to speak) that year, I didn’t have anything to do with it personally.  After all, you don’t get into game development for the money, and I had to pick my battles.  Maria Cantwell wasn’t in any danger of losing to “Mike!” McGavick.  Seattle is pretty safe.  So what could I do to actually follow through on my vow from 2004?

Well, as you know, I was born and raised in Virginia — a state that hasn’t gone blue since LBJ (although recent signs point to the end of that streak).  So when I realized that the Democrats actually had a chance to make significant gains in the Senate in 2006, and that I could help to annihilate George Allen’s presidential hopes in the process… I put my money where my mouth is.  I donated to Jim Webb’s campaign.

And you know the rest.  Yes, that’s right.  Because of me, the Senate switched to Democratic control two years ago.  You’re welcome.

Of course, it’s not all wine and roses.  Webb has certainly had his good moments, but nobody’s perfect.  The Democratic-controlled Congress has been a pretty massive disappointment to almost everyone in the last two years, caving to President Bush far more often than they should have.  Even progressive darling Russ Feingold seems to have taken crazy pills.

But things are different now.  Obama’s lead in the polls is looking insurmountable.  The Democrats are poised to make big gains in the Senate, and a couple dozen more House seats.  I learned in 2004 to not get my hopes up too much, but at some point you have to acknowledge the reality of what’s happening.  We’re going to have a Democratic president in January.  We’re going to control at least 55 Senate seats, which will render Lieberman irrelevant and allow for some progress, finally.

So I’m choosing to focus a bit more close to home.  As I mentioned earlier, I’m in the 7th Congressional District of Washington state.  My district is pretty safely blue.  But just across the lake to the east is the 8th Congressional District — which has been held by a Republican since its creation back in 1982.  It went for both Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, but Dave Reichert has been outperforming its PVI in the last two elections.

We’ve heard a lot about hope and change in this election.  And while I do agree that Obama does occasionally make me feel hopeful, and while I believe that he’s going to change the way presidents do things, I’m saving a little hope that things are going to change in the 8th Congressional District.

That’s why I’m a strong supporter of Darcy Burner for Congress.  I was planning to donate to her campaign even before her house burned down back in July — she’s been one of the most exciting progressive voices in the country over the last few years, but she needs all the help she can get.

So we’ll see what happens.  I think we’re about ready for some good news.

And maybe, just maybe, on November 4, this is what we’ll hear:

It’s Obama.  It’s Obama.

(from Sadly, No)

So I start a week-long freelance gig tomorrow morning. In about eight and a half hours, actually. But I can’t sleep yet, because I’ve been out of work for two months. During this time, even though I’m thirty-three years old, my sleep schedule has slipped more and more into the “night owl” realm.

So I’m awkwardly leaned over the side of the bed while I type on my iPhone,, so as not to wake my lady friend. Who is totally not snoring. Nope.

PLAYING: Hot Shots Golf 2 for the PSP. I’ve been playing golf video games since the original PGA Tour Golf for the Sega Genesis. This is the first one that I’ve really enjoyed playing since then.

Like most people, I’m waiting on Fallout 3 at the end of the month.

Oh, and of course, I’ve been playing the hell out of Rock Band 2. Meanwhile, Resident Evil 4 and Bully are sitting in their Gamefly sleeves.

WATCHING: “Veronica Mars”, season 1. I finally see what all the fuss is about.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, season 2. Ditto.

“Mad Men”, season 1. Same goes for this show. What interesting characters and well-written dialogue.

“Heroes”. Stop making the characters say the word “villain”. It sounds ridiculous.

“Fringe”. FINALLY had what I would call a “good” episode last week.

“House”. Completely wasting the momentum it built up with last season’s final two episodes. In danger of dropping off the “must watch” list.

“The Shield”. Walton Goggins is an amazing actor.

Jesus, I feel like I’m writing a Larry King column here.

LISTENING: Giant Bomb podcasts. Always interesting to see what the third pillar of the video game industry is thinking.

WANTING: To travel to Japan again. Seeing TGS coverage makes me want to get dazzled by Shinjuku all over again.

Well, VA is groggily muttering my name. I think the iGlow may be keeping her up. So I’m signing off. Tune in next week, mighty readership.

Well, the greatest girlfriend ever went and bought me an iPhone 3G on Friday. And, of course, it’s awesome. I mean, I’m writing this blog post from it while standing in an AT&T store, for crying out loud.

However, it’s not all wine and roses. I’m trying to transfer my old Verizon number (area code 703) to the new hotness, and… well, it’s not going well.

Suffice it to say that if you’re trying to move a number from a different market to a new “family plan”, be prepared to not be able to fully enjoy the awesomeness for a few days.

In the meantime, I’ll just carry yw

…so, funny story. Right after typing the above sentence (or typo-ing it, I guess), the process finally completed. Thanks to Peter at the Redmond Town Center AT&T store, we’re all squared away.

So I walked to the parking garage, sat in the Honda, and started writing the rest of this post. I wrote how I was finally going to be able to get rid of my enV (what is it with phones and their weIRd capitalIZATion?). I wrote how awesome if was going to be to be able to write blog posts on the go. And I wrote how I was going to head home and masochistically try to beat “Everlong” on Expert drums. I even said “¡Viva Unemployment!” at the end, and relayed how savvy I was for holding down the exclamation point button to get the upside-down punctuation mark.

Then I hit “Save” at the top right of the iPhone WordPress app, and promptly lost five minutes of parking garage prose.

So, yeah. We’re not quite there yet.

Of course, that did give me my first-ever opportunity to finish a blog post while on the toilet. So maybe we ARE there yet. Hmm. I guess I’m not too far away from Gabe at this point.