Spider Sense is Tingling

Sandbox games, like Grand Theft Auto or Crackdown, only have a finite amount of greatness they can achieve. I enjoy these games when the urge strikes, but they'll never be remembered by me in the Hall of Favorites. That's not to say that early on these types of games didn't alter the face of videogames, but by the very nature of the great sweeping open-world you limit the emotional impact the story can have. You can't have an amazingly thrilling conclusion when at anytime you can go punch random people in the face or scour the city of hidden collectable pick ups.
    But they're fun! Sometimes. What I enjoy most is the various modes of transportation. Grand Theft Auto has the dozens (hundreds?) of different cars. Yawn. But it also has motor cycles, helicopters, airplanes, boats, and, yes, sometimes, jet packs. Prototype had it's share of military vehicles which were farily fun, but I'm a sucker for people that can jump 100 feet in the air and glide halfway across the city on weird bio-matter glidey-wing things. Now I'm approaching the point. Spider-Man: Web of Shadows.
    The last Spider-Man game I played to completion was Spider-Man 2 for PS2, so I don't touch these games often. That's mostly because I don't think they're very good. Spider-Man 2 was really flawed for reasons that no one cares about anymore. It's like 10 years old. But what they did correct was web-swinging throughout what I assume is a fairly accurate model of New York city. Web of Shadows kicked Spider-Man 2's web-swinging's ass! The combat is pretty tight too. All in all I was pretty impressed with Web of Shadows but in a fairly trivial way. I was wanting to go out and buy Prototype for a second time. Instead I got Spidey and was very fulfilled.
    The story is not great and it's fundamentally flawed. They used Venom and the Symbiote (if you don't know what a symbiote is go ahead and stop reading, you won't care) as the major villians, but they screwed Venom up entirely. In the game Venom assults New York and tries to turn everyone into monsters. In the comics Venom just hates Spider-Man, but is all about protecting the innocent...not turning them into monsters. Regardless, the bottom line is the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is really fun, if you like really superficial games.

Awkward Beginnings

Hello and welcome to my first post. This post will cover topics such as: "Who the fuck are you?", "What's the point of Blogsothoth Gaming?", "Why would you do this?", and "Encourage comments". Why am I covering these topics? Because the internet told me to here.

Re: Who the fuck are you?
I am a college student in Michigan majoring in computer science and aspiring to be a programmer. I also like games...like alot. So much so, that it's the sole purpose of Blogsothoth Gaming. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I have dabbled in pen & paper role-playing games, but most of my gaming is on XBox 360 or PC.

Re: What's the point of Blogsothoth Gaming?
What's the point of anything really? The less thought-provoking answer is that I'll be keeping a semi-permanent record of the things I've "accomplished" in my various virtual existences.

Re: Why would you do this?
A multifaceted question. One reason is that it gives me something with a modicum of structure to do, and there are few things one can do that are more self-serving than blogging. Another reason is that it gives me a place to vent under the tenuous guise of writing about gaming. Finally, I'd like a place of my very own* to review all of my intangible gaming accomplishments. There are other reasons, but they're nobody's business but my own.

*powered by blogger.com

Re: Encourage comments
Please comment. I "want to foster an atmosphere of community and involvement for [my] readers" . Anyone posting comments in a way that I deem to be "inappropriate" will be dealt with accordingly, so play nice please.


As a preview of what's to come, here are some of the games I may be talking about in the posts to come:
Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)
Eve online (PC MMORPG)
Halo Wars (XBox 360 real-time strategy)
Alien vs. Predator (360 first person shooter)
Crackdown 2 (360 sandbox style game)

As you may be able to tell, my finger is not on the proverbial pulse of new gaming. Reporting and reviewing brand new games is NOT the point of Blogsothoth Gaming. It's more about presenting my personal experience and opinions about the games I'm playing, what I've gotten out of them, and what I'm doing in them. Long post, I know, but it's an introduction.