{"id":807,"date":"2012-04-22T20:38:34","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T11:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/?p=807"},"modified":"2012-04-22T20:38:34","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T11:08:34","slug":"a-grim-realisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/?p=807","title":{"rendered":"A Grim Realisation"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the middle of the protracted writing session that produced last week’s blog post<\/a>, I had an impromptu visit from my brother and his son. I’ve mentioned my nephew a few times on this blog, often wanting to use our twenty-eight-year age gap as a (hopefully) interesting contrast in attitudes. After he mocked me because his PSN profile level was higher than mine – Level 6, 83% versus Level 6, 13% – I pointed out the fact that he had four times as many games on his profile as I did. In doing so, I was challenging him to play like me – and that, in retrospect, was a pretty silly thing to do. After all, he should feel free to play games the way he<\/em> wants, finding the joy he<\/em> wants\u2026 I should just be a guiding force, not a dictator.<\/p>\n

But his goading triggered a competitive spark in me, and I quickly wrapped up most of the remaining Trophies for Flower<\/em> and Journey<\/em> early in the week. Then, during a moment of procrastination (and somewhat prompted by the fact that my nephew claims<\/em> – he’s got a habit of cheating occasionally – to have beaten the game on Hard), I flitted over my 2012 Resolutions<\/a> and started considering at my commitment to knock Uncharted 2<\/em> off The List<\/a>. So I started digging around a bit to see what I’d be happy with\u2026 I was thinking all Trophies (naturally), as well as all multiplayer add-ons – boosters, skins, et al<\/em>. You know, all the game had to offer.<\/p>\n

Now, I was well aware that the multiplayer components required a fair bit of work – the Trophies, especially, would probably need some significant boosting. Some perusal of various PS3 community sites led me to believe that the support for boosting Trophies is\u2026 well, almost non-existent; still, the challenge of forming a reasonable boosting crew wasn’t daunting at all. To get things started, I popped online midweek for a bit of multiplayer action\u2026 and failed to find a game. There didn’t seem to be anyone still playing.<\/p>\n

And then I started looking at the character skins\u2026 and my hopes plummeted. Some of the skins only became available at Level 80 – eighty!<\/em> – and that, quite frankly, is a bridge too far. With my current rank stuck somewhere around Level 14 (with maybe $300,000 earned), and knowing that the levels between 60 and 80 required fifteen million<\/em> dollars apiece, Level 80 felt like it would require many<\/em> Seriouslys worth of effort.<\/p>\n

I came to the grim realisation that my ideal Uncharted 2<\/em> completion would be bloody difficult. This was further backed up when I discovered that a number of skins were one-offs – only available for participants in special events, or as rewards for selected offers. It became apparent that there was no way to get them all regardless<\/em> of the (seemingly impossible) Level 80 requirement.<\/p>\n

My goal was, thus, impossible<\/em> to achieve.<\/p>\n

And, of course, my incredibly mature reaction to that realisation was to mentally throw my toys from the pram. “Fuck it,” I thought, “why bother with this stuff at all? What should my goal really<\/em> be?”<\/p>\n

So I started thinking about what would make me happy with all this content-experiencing stuff that I like to do. I can’t escape Achievements and Trophies, that’s for sure – there’s too many numbers associated with them to allow me that freedom. But if I were to accept that the primary reason I buy these games is for the single-player content, than can I dismiss any extended multiplayer hijinks?<\/p>\n

There’s so<\/em> much that’s appealing in that premise: imagine being able to give Uncharted 3<\/em>‘s multiplayer only the barest of investigations. Imagine being able to write off Halo: Reach<\/em>‘s horrendously convoluted Commendations! It’s a tantalising idea, but not one I can commit to\u2026 yet. I’m still ruminating on whether I can, in good conscience, accept such a shifting of goalposts.<\/p>\n

But, speaking of Uncharted 3<\/em>, I also wandered online to play a bit more of it’s multiplayer modes. The difference between it and its immediate predecessor are enormous, as is the skill levels of the players that inhabit those worlds; but I found a fun pastime in playing co-op missions in both Uncharted<\/em>s, yielding minor Level increases (now up to 17 and 11, respectively).<\/p>\n

And – deep breath<\/em> – I also fired up Perfect Dark Zero<\/em> for the first time in years<\/em>. It’s really not a friendly game, is it? The introductory level on the easiest difficulty setting was all I could stomach; completing that game is going to be a real test of mettle. But there was one really nice thing about playing PDZ<\/em> again: the opening movie<\/a> is the first game-related thing I ever saw on my (then) brand new 360\u2026 my introduction to this generation, if you will. And, as a big fan of the Bond franchise, I was immediately sucked in by the movie, and even today it still generates genuine excitement in me.<\/p>\n

Pity about the game behind it, though.<\/p>\n

Finally, this week I had cause to buy a new Wii – and, in a vain attempt to future-proof, I wanted one of the old-style units with Gamecube compatibility (my Gamecube is really tetchy with my F-Zero GX<\/em> disc, whereas my Wii has never locked up with it, so I figured I’d play all my GC games on the Wii in the future). The only new Wii unit I could find was a Mario Kart bundle\u2026 so now I own Mario Kart Wii<\/em>, a somewhat unwanted – but not unappreciated – addition to The List. After being staggered that the copyright notice on the title screen says that it was released in 2008 – nearly four years ago, now! – I settled in and played the first Cup – with the Wheel, naturally. It feels good: solid, playful. But I know it’s going to be a List-dweller, though I may grant myself some leeway with regards to three-starring all Cups.<\/p>\n

And, just to be sure of the unit’s quality, I played F-Zero GX<\/em> again. Two attempts at the easiest Cup on the easiest difficulty: the Blue Falcon took me to five straight wins. The Wild Goose, on the other hand, was a twitchy fucker that I never had any semblance of control over. That game will also<\/em> be a perpetual List-dweller.<\/p>\n

The next week? Well, Wednesday should see me claiming the last of my Flower<\/em> and Journey<\/em> Trophies, and I’m almost<\/em> finished with my second play through of Saints Row: The Third<\/em> (after being stymied by a missing Stunt Jump). But then what? More tortuous PDZ<\/em>, or Uncharted 2<\/em>? Or maybe the tasty treat of Ico<\/em> that I’ve got waiting in the wings?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the middle of the protracted writing session that produced last week’s blog post, I had an impromptu visit from my brother and his son. I’ve mentioned my nephew a few times on this blog, often wanting to use our twenty-eight-year age gap as a (hopefully) interesting contrast in attitudes. After he mocked me because … Continue reading A Grim Realisation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[127,134,135,136,126,121,122],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc-gamer.moobaa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}