RACCOON DADDY – Games and Parenting Community
The community where gaming parents are welcome, so take a break!!
Was fairly bored and I came across this article from People. If you have a spouse, family of your own or children, I’d ask you take the time to read it. HERE
No person should ever have to go through loss like this. I commend the guy for really opening up to everyone. Imagining the pain that is that, every day she’s been gone…
If this would happen to me or Louie, Jesus, I really can’t imagine!
Mild Spoilers for the game Dead Rising 2
For now, I put a temporary halt on finishing that Zombie Genocider Master achievement in lieu of just playing the damn game. I did need to go through and complete the survivor notebook, so I made another save and ran through the game, saving survivors and such.
While doing so, I got a chance to re-experience the Dead Rising 2 story. It made me think of how I am as a father and how Chuck is to his daughter Katie. This got me thinking, “what would it be like if I was in his situation”. Take note, that there are HOARDS of zombies infesting Fortune City and quite a few dozen psychopaths running mad killing people.
Chuck has a lot of stones for doing what he has to do for his lil’ baby girl. I’d do the same and I share that same feeling, that I’d do anything by ANY MEANS NECESSARY, to make sure she survives. After all, it’s our natural instincts to ensure our offspring survive us.
But to make sure that happens, Chuck has to cut, shoot and bash his way through the gauntlet in order to give his girl her dosage of Zombrex. (Medicine she needs to survive)
My conflict is, should I somehow end up surviving that madness, would I be the same?! All the killing, the rotting stench burned into my brain, the brutality of everything that occurs during the course of the game; would I be ANY different than the psychopaths I killed in self defense. Probably not and I’d imagine ending as zombie food eventually; I feel bad for my daughter if we ended up like that.
So, here are some questions for you guys. (Answer ANY ones you like)
Today’s showcase is something of a treat for me, as I’m an affectionato historical fiction and American westerns. CaptainBerunov takes the same things I love and turns them into a well-weaved tapestry of color and brings life into his works. Many of the effects he creates, seem to make you feel that fire which emanates from the skeletal creations. (which he clearly has an appreciation for Marvel’s Ghost Rider and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s series)
Take the time to appreciate this artist’s work, have a few chuckles at my commentary and enjoy the show.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been indulging with my inner “gun nut” and looking through the Internet Movie Firearm Database!
The Joker (Heath Ledger) an RPG, in the Dark Knight
By far, this is one of my favorite sites, right now! It’s just put together SO DAMN WELL!
There, you can look up ANY film, video game, TV series and anime series and WILL find every firearm used and seen during it’s duration. Personally, I love the overall attention to detail the writers have here, as they make sure the weapon matches what is being depicted.
For example, in Call of Duty: Black Ops, they call out that a lot of the weapons used are anachronistic (meaning-that never existed before the set time). Such as an MP5K (shown below.
In-game screen
“An MP5K Prototype is featured in the game. Its appearance is massively anachronistic: the MP5 itself was developed in 1966, but the MP5K appears in the game in a level set in 1963, while the first MP5K prototype with wooden vertical foregrip was developed in 1976. It would have been more accurate to see the HK54 prototype of the MP5 which lacked a vertical foregrip. An MP5K appears as the fifth weapon tier in Gun Game (as can be seen in the bottom image).” – IMFDB.ORG
Real pic
Which is kinda cool and isn’t really intended to be a buzzkill, as most of these articles written are intended for those that have finished the said media.
WISE WARNING!!! EXPECT SPOILERS ON THIS SITE!!
But if you’ve finished that game or movie and wanna look back at the COOL hardware used, be sure to set aside an ass ton of time, cuz there is plenty of info here!
Another thing that is cool, is that they will show you how many of the sci-fi weapons from movies like Blade Runner and Aliens were made, using the real guns!
Hope you enjoy the site, like I am!
Last night, Louie FINALLY threw down the gauntlet and offered to play few games with me. Which was complete shock, as that was one of the reasons I started blogging. It REALLY caught me off guard, as I’m used to being silly, cracking jokes at the dialogue in whatever I’m playing. Clearly, there I wasn’t gonna say no!
Sadly, we only had like an hour at most before I had to get ready for work. The Xbox 360 was a no go, as my 2nd controller needed to have it’s batteries recharged. (Note to self, do that.) So the PS3 was my only option. (My PS4 only has one controller. Note to self, get a second one.)
With what little time we had, I skimmed through my digital library in hopes of finding a game she’d like. First up was Jet Set Radio (one player), which she just thought it was weird, calling them creepy; which I had to laugh at. We played with three retries, in order to keep us engaged. Louie complained about the movement and how it was kinda difficult to handle. Obviously, I told her with every time she said “I can’t do this!” to just remember that games are all about trial/error, learning and improving. (I gave her a lot of credit, as she hasn’t played a video game since, Guitar Hero.) When it was my turn, I kinda agreed with her about the wonky controls. Playing it seems like your character has a Low-G effect. Considering that the game was eating up our time, we tried something else.
Little Big Planet 2 seemed like a good idea, to our luck, I hadn’t played it in a while and had 2 hours in updates pending. Our last game for the night was Virtua Fighter 5, which was fun to play a local fighter with someone. (Most of the time, I’m going online or playing solo.)
I remember her complaining about why all of the women were portrayed as puny and always pretty. (Clearly, she hasn’t played as Vanessa!)
We ended up tied with a few wins between each other and then we called it quits for the night. I liked this…ya know, the whole sharing activities, I wanna do more! I’ll have to go through my library and see what we can do as 2-player and what has to be one player experiences.
Hell, eventually I ought to let play a few titles and have me watch her play. She always liked to watch me play Uncharted, maybe I’ll get her into that or the new Tomb Raider.
#blog #blogging, #ps3, #ps4, #xbox360, #love, #couple, #quality time, #relationships, #taking time, #marriage #quality time #make time, #personal
Last month, I was coming home from work one morning and opened the front door. Normally, our 25lbs chubby brown puggle Daisy would come walking up to the door to greet me. Except I was greeted by her and a grey Yorkie about half her size, with beady brown eyes. For a moment, I thought…I’m in the Twilight Zone, cuz we don’t have another dog and we never let one in recently.
This is the closest resemblance to Rosie, sorry I don’t have any available pictures to show, at the moment.
I called up Louie and it turns out, the dog was cowering in front of the doorstep as she was leaving for work that morning. The poor dog was lost, with no tag or collar and simply walked and brushed up against her leg. She felt that it had chosen her, and who wouldn’t, the dog was really friggin’ cute.
Once Louie got home, we started thinking of ways to find it’s owner. First, it was the SPCA, which we found out that she didn’t have a chip. Then we did flyers, social media and Craigslist ads (which were a waste of time, really). Nothing…no one could either prove they owned her or wanted to take her in.
Maybe I should’ve put this up on Craigslist, as we kept getting emails about “owners” of Rosie. None had ANY proof of ownership!
So we took her in, not knowing what to do next. Mostly, she was a great dog around the house and warmed up to the family almost instantly! Louie and Grace, loved her so much; Grace (our 4yr old) named her Rosie Cozy.
However, we noticed that Rosie had issues with fear and would tend to cower and hide. This lead to difficuties having her go to the bathroom and ultimately accidents in the house. Also, Daisy was not getting along with her and the two would fight over food and sometimes bed space. These things were making her stay to be difficult but managable. Until she ran into the busy street last week…
When bolted out into the road, she almost caused a multicar accident on a two-lane street. This led our neighbor (who is normally pretty friendly to us), to yell at my wife for almost causing that accident outside. After a talk with the neighbor and with Louie, we decided it was time to give her up.
Luckily, we found a no-kill shelter that could take her in and help her find a new family. Louie couldn’t bring herself to take her and Grace, had become so attached to her, that we had to tell her that we’d found her original family. (Telling her that would’ve made it much easier for her to understand Rosie leaving)
When I got there, I was pretty much told to wait outside and was told to “wait until our dog person will see you”. But it looked as though they weren’t going to be able to take her that day. By sheer irony or just crazy good luck, the dog expert there said that she knew someone who wanted a Yorkie. It turned out that the owner of the local bakery was the same that made our wedding cake almost 5 years ago!!
Talk about a crazy coincidence!!
KINDA LIKE THIS!
I THINK…NOT!!
A couple hours later, we met up with the baker’s family. Rosie warmed up to them almost instantly; which is pretty much what happened with us. I really didn’t need to ask, “Do you want to have as part of your family?!” Everything seemed to come together that evening and it only got better.
As we waited for Rosie to get her inoculations and paperwork to be finished, her husband Rob, began talking about work and what do as our daily. He and I ended up having a ton in common and we ended up doing some business networking and it looks like I may have a new job opportunity with his company!
Fingers are crossed like you cannot believe and with how everything went from one month ago to today, seems more than coincidental. Capitalizing on this, I made a stop into the their bakery and bought a birthday cake for my wife. (Who had her’s the next day) and took Grace and Louie out to Don Pablo’s. Overall, a phenomenal night and can’t remember one day that went so smoothly.
Since the introduction of the Xbox 360 (maybe earlier?), gamers and players alike were treated with little bite sized snack add-ons, we call DLC or downloadable content (for those who’ve been living in a bunker for the last decade) At first, it started as an avatar picture for your profile, a new weapon skin or an new character to play with.
Then came major add-ons from games like The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, which added totally new areas to explore, which was pretty cool, but most of it was just REALLY short. The Shivering Isles expansion was a MUCH larger world that took the same game and placed into an “Alice in Wonderland” kind of world. Fans LOVED it and companies steadily picked up on the fact that additional content AFTER a retail release was a GOOD thing!
Mass Effect, Gears of War, Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5 and many others began launch their own content MANY months following the release of a successful title. (BIG HINT: SUCCESSFUL TITLE! More on that, later.) Fans that bought the add-ons were left salivating for another release or add-on. Some were given what they wanted, others sorely disappointed by stale sequels and poor expansions.
Currently, the market is FLOODED with DLC content!!
Most releases are GUARENTEED to have expansions, regardless if the game is successful or not! Games are given shorter production windows and made smaller in value. It seems like we’re getting the short of the stick with many of our games. (At least, the Playstation and Xbox owners are, not sure about the Nintendo crowd.) Recent releases such as Destiny, carry a heavy price tag for players that just want the FULL experience RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!! Will this ever be the same?! No, probably not. Unless community mods become a welcomed staple on console games, it’s not going to.
Which brings me to whole purpose of writing this shit today, I’ve decided to weigh what’s truly good about DLC and what isn’t. Maybe this will encourage you and others to be more mindful DLC purchases or just plunge into a really great add-on!
BAD – IT COSTS TOO MUCH!! A prime example, is the expansion for Fallout 4: Far Harbor. Following a price increase on their “season pass” from $29.99 to $49.99 Bethesda (Fallout 4’s developer) released Far Harbor with a $25 price tag! (WTF right?!) Many fans believed this was due to it being a massive addition to the game, extending play for many hours. What most people got was an add-on that was short, but sweet, lasting up to 10 to 12 hours. It left many fans with a sour taste in their mouths, if they ended up paying the full price for that DLC. (Opinions may vary)
On a note with season passes, many of these are going for the price of FULL RETAIL purchase! Many of which, are being announced at PRE-RELEASE/PRE-ORDER times. (Talk about counting your chickens before they hatch!)
GOOD- YOU GET MORE STUFF FROM THE GAME YOU LOVE! Many will complain about the price of DLC. But in all honesty, IF YOU LOVED PLAYING THAT GAME, wouldn’t you want more content when everything is all said and done?! SURE!! DLC does this, with it, you’ve got new modes, weapons, skins, customization options, stories, areas, maps, etc. For example, I love playing Mortal Kombat X (or XL as it’s described with all of the content added), the new characters like Jason Vorhees, the Predator and other classic characters folks asked for and got. DLC works out great when it works for you! Hell, I’ll even admit, Call of Duty’s zombie maps ARE creative, with their easter eggs, new weapons and guest characters with one liners tossed in for good humor.
BAD-LACK OF CREATIVE CONTENT! Sadly, when we get a fantastic game, that universally, fans love. We find a yearning for some extra continuation of that same gameplay and feel. But the expectation is pretty much a letdown once the real content arrives. Borderlands 2 did this with its second season, which seemed to have its team already exhausted from ideas on expanding the current game as is. Most likely, a lot of the material was more director’s cut, stuff that really didn’t need to be resold to us. (They were bit sized add-on that were cheap, admittedly and were SORT OF fun, if you weren’t already bored with the game.)
GOOD- ADD-ONS BREATH NEW LIFE INTO MULTIPLAYER SESSIONS. Electronic Arts and Activision have always been pretty good at putting out map packs. Premium members on both tend to get an expansion once every three months, which is clearly intended to EXTEND its server life. This usually keeps its loyal fans in sessions and constantly in competition.
BAD – ONLINE GOES DEAD WITH EXCLUSIVED SESSIONS. Battlefield Hardline and Arkham Origins were perfect examples of this. One or two months after an expansion was released, the exclusive servers focused on that particular expansion were GHOST TOWNS. Think about how many times, you’ve seen a session like that!!! IT HAPPENS A LOT!! Fortunately, EA has been catching onto that with Hardline and has been gradually been offering their DLC free during certain weeks. Does it change anything??? Not that I’ve noticed, as too many players have moved away from the game. (Battlefield with less vehicles and small maps, makes for a less interesting game!)
Go on Hardline’s “Betrayal” maps and this what you get…forget having 64 players.
BAD – DEVELOPERS ARE FORCED TO MAKE DLC! Street Fighter V is the prime suspect with this crime! The title was marketed out as a retail release with the competitive players in mind. BULLSHIT!! Capcom, you shortened the window because you thought that making a earlier release would boost sales. Well, they were right! But the barebones presentation burned a HELLUVA LOT OF BRIDGES with the fans. The ONLY thing that might have saved SFV was that the eventual content was made free. Personally, I passed on this version, as there WILL be another version released at one point. Put simply, give us a finished product, THEN release new content. That seems fair.
YEAH! This is what I wanted to see…oh wait, this never happened.
GOOD – IT TIDES US OVER UNTIL SOMETHING BETTER COMES ALONG. You’ve got the content and DLC and you’re loving it more than Mickey D’s. Then, BAM! The game you’ve been waiting for has been released. Hardcore gamers can identify with this, yet that’s what a game backlog is for! Either way, you’re good to go. (Personally, I don’t fall into this category and just play my older games in my spare time.)
GOOD – FANSERVICE IN A GOOD WAY! An honorable mention is Batman: Arkham Knight. As much as people bitched and hollered about the season pass for that game. If you got the discount, you ended up with a SHIT TON of bat goodies: 6 playable short stories w/characters to use in the challenges, 50+ outfits and vehicle skins and 1 major story add-on. I was lucky and paid $20 bones for it, but I admit it would’ve been a value at full price! DLC does this really well most of the times; sure it should be stuff they add as unlockables from the retail game. But sometimes, you wouldn’t get to see that content without DLC, after release.
BAD – MOST DLC IS EITHER FUN OR A CHORE – I can’t count how many times, I’ve played DLC that was poorly injected into the game or story of something I was playing. This just SHOWS the developers laziness and poor efforts in planning the additional content. It bothers me knowing that have to expect this when I get DLC for a game. It shouldn’t be that way.
Thanks for reading this lengthy rant on how DLC MAKES or BREAKS a purchase. I may be preaching to the choir with some of you guys, but maybe some of you were stuck on being indecisive about it. Hopefully, I helped today!
Years ago, I played Parasite Eve for Playstation 1. Not for the goddamn Final Fantasy VII demo disc, but because it was an AMAZING game! Many that have played it will be are in full agreement with on this. What if I were to tell you that, it’s sequel; which was considered it’s red-headed step child was BETTER than the original.
Oh yeah! It’s my opinion, but I don’t give a shit. It is and always will be, to me, BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL.
As a brief summary without spoiling anything about both games. You play as a NYPD lady-cop named Aya, who is a member of the audience at Carnegie Hall for a performance of Hamlet. Needless to say, she ends up witnessing a huge massacre that occurs during the performance. Being an officer of the law, she springs into pursuit of the suspect whom has genetic superpowers.
(Best of all, the way they explain later, actually makes it feel like it could REALLY happen; if we evolved in some way. All I can say is… BIOLOGY)
Oddly enough, Aya ends up realizing she has these powers as well and that they can help her in fighting the monsters that manifest from the person she is chasing. In the end, you catch the bad guy.
Considering that I’m going to be focusing on the sequel to this game, it’s kind of obvious that the main character is Aya.
Spoiler!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!……………………………………………she survives.
This time, she’s a hotshot FBI agent, due to her special powers and from her experiences with the incidents that happened in New York years before. Obviously, shit goes down and she’s sent in. Things get hairy and from what happens in the events in the beginning, ultimately leads her to the Mojave Desert. From there, the story unfold slowly from a boring search of a dilapidated hotel to a huge-ass can of worms, which I prefer not to spoil!
Gameplay-wise both Parasite Eve and PE2 have COMPLETELY different gameplay styles. Which was one of the MAJOR reasons it got hated on. The first plays like a turn-based RPG, where you perform attacks the wait until the time meter refills, then you can attack. It featured a wide arsenal of weapons and magic abilities, but limited itself to very simple aesthetics.
Parasite Eve’s gameplay
Parasite Eve 2 takes a different twist on the same gameplay, by completely removing turned-based actions with real-time combat. (Which feels pretty similar to Resident Evil 1 and 2)
Here is the a quick demo of the PE2’s combat.
All attacks are based on supplies, your gear, how you react, move and use area of effect abilities. Firearms take a primary focus this time around and tend to be meat of your offense. (Magic being the potatoes!) Guns look and fire like they should and enemies react differently depending on where/when you hit them! Being a bit of “gun nut”, I’ll explain. Aya’s starting weapon is a Beretta M-93R, which uses a burst fire and double action toggle. Which in Layman terms means it’ll shoot three bullets really fast with the squeeze of the trigger or just one if selected. Which is an accurate depiction of the real world gun. For a PLAYSTATION ONE game, this is a great for gun lovers.
Just to name a few: Sig Sauer P-226, Spas-12, USAS-12, M249-SAW, M4A1 (With a shit-ton of attachment options available), Colt Anaconda, Luger P-08 and whole lot more. To add on to that, many of the gun classes take various ammunition, which have elemental and piercing abilities. Also note, this was the first game that really featured a few of these guns!! (Way before CoD, Battlefield and every damn military game out there did it!)
I digress, just remember you get arsenal, because you NEED an arsenal for this!
Fans of the previous game will know that you magic-like powers to use to also dispatch of those baddies. Sadly, a lot of fans were turned off by the fact that the abilities seemed thinned-out. They were, but I gotta say there aren’t any real “filler spells” unlike, almost every other RPG. I mean, how many spells do you need to cure a status ailment, heal a person or buff a character, NOT MANY; yet fans know there are WAYYYYY to many. Parasite Eve 2 simplifies that and still lets you upgrade the spells you get; which you can visibly see them change with each level.
Story-wise it takes a little bit to pick-up. But when it does, it’ll explain just about everything. All I can say is, enjoy the combat, search your rooms, as if you were a real FBI agent and you’ll enjoy this game!!!
The combat always stayed fresh and fun throughout the course of the game. Sometimes you have the space to move, other times you’ve got nowhere to go and it put in some “kill or be killed” situations. Which makes this more of a survival horror blend, than a true RPG.
Enemies are also some of the most diverse and disturbing you’ll see…period. Monster are some different that you’ll be thinking.
Some are like………….
Others are like…
Then there are ones that are…
My recommendation, if you haven’t played Parasite Eve (the original) START THERE. That way you get a full grasp of the story AND experience one badass game. Then come back to THIS, just remember the combat is the difference between NIGHT and DAY!! Hope you ENJOY IT!!
#videogames, #gaming, #raccoondaddy, #rpgs, #jrpg, #playstation, #funny, #adult humor, #parasite eve #squareenix #playstation 1, #sci-fi, #blog, #blogger, #monday
Alright everyone, from suggestions of changing my blog to be easier to find. The new page site is Raccoon Daddy!! Why the hell would name the new page that?! Because I’M F*CK’N CRAZY!!!
Nah, actually there are a few things to why. One, raccoons are AWESOME!! Honestly, I’ve always dreamed of having one for a pet. (Just with rabies shot, I’m not trying to go down like Edgar Alan Poe!!)
Second, how many of you remember the raccoon leaf from Mario and the Tanooki suit, it was BADASS!
Third, I’m an uber fan of Resident Evil (Racoon City and Forest are the main settings for most of the series)
Last, raccoons are cooler than you, me and well everybody! Provided they’re not rummaging through the garbage!
Be sure to change your links to raccoondaddy.wordpress.com (Formally P2D2721)
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW!!
Today, Louie, Grace and I headed to the mall. 1) to buy some new clothes 2) To get a bite to eat and have a good walk 3) To catch some motherf*cking Pokemon!
As we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed that for a Tuesday, it was oddly busy. Clearly, knowing that what’s been happening this week we imagined there would be droves of people mindlessly POKE-WALKING. In the parking lots you could see a few here and there. But as we got to the sidewalk and looked out to the parking lot, we could see a number of people walking aimlessly. Immediately it dawned upon me…
How? Think about it, Pokemon Go! started out as a solid viral hit within a couple days. People were going in random ass places point cell phones and tablets and swiping up! Now when you go outside, you’re seeing it more and more, which seems to me kind of how a zombie infestation plays out.
For example, if you’re familiar with the show “Fear the Walking Dead”, you’ll know that it starts out with a few infected, that bite people and so fourth, until they’re EVERYWHERE!
Now, I’m not a fortune teller or anything, but I have a feeling that more and more people will continue to become GO-WALKERS. (Which isn’t a bad thing! After all, I’m enjoying the app as well.) But it’s pretty funny to see more people out and playing it.
Back to us being at the mall. Louie was able to catch about 7 or 8, which was cool. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have enough juice to play. But I remained observant, trying to see how many people were playing. Surprisingly, there weren’t as much, despite the mall being kind of busy.
How many has everyone caught so far! Personally, I’ve only gotten ten or so. As my attentions have been more focused on work, playing my brand new “Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2” and being the usual family man.
Also, as an additional bit of information. Here is a Kotaku article about Pokemon Go! as it spreads into Australia!
You can read it HERE
