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.

Infection

I've not posted in a week or so because I had to prepare for finals. Also, coincidentally, I haven't had much to say about gaming. Now that finals are over I bought and have been playing Prototype like it's my fucking job. I rented Prototype about a year ago and played through it super fast. I thought at the time that I played it so obsessively because it was a rental, and had to go back in 4-5 days. I realize now that I played through it so fast because it's addictive and incredible.
     I feel a little strange bit of guilt saying that its so great because it was a big deal when it came out. It shouldn't deserve the hype it got on it's release because it's little more than a Grand Theft Auto clone. A clone that has super powers. Don't misunderstand me though. I love this game. Activision essentially took their Spider Man 2 game, which was total crap, and over hauled it to make Prototype. Prototype is so derivative of other games (GTA and Spider-Man) that I feel like it should have no merits of it's own, but I cannot stop playing it. And this is after already playing the game to it's completion. Not to belabor the point, but Prototype has so much working against in my mind that the fact that I'm giving the game a virtual "Thumbs up" should communicate that this is an amazing game. A little short, but unadulterated fun!
     Other than that I want to blab on about a couple up coming games. This year is going to be a big one for games that make me excited like a little girl. Mass Effect 3 is supposed to be out near the end of the year! Some people poo-poo ME and ME2. Those people are fucking dumb-dumbs. If YOU didn't like ME or ME2 than I'm including you under the dumb-dumb umbrella. Mass Effect 2 might be my favorite game ever. And I'm putting that up against titans such as Chrono Trigger and Metal Gear Solid. Needless to say, I'm highly anticipating Mass Effect 3. Another big 'un is Skyrim: Elder Scrolls V. I only got into the Elder Scrolls series in the last 4-5 years. I played through the majority of Morrowind and loved it, I played the fuck out of Oblivion and it took Morrowind and kicked it in it's dated-graphics ass! I don't have anything more to say about it. Finally, a game that is already out: Portal 2. I want it so bad it hurts. If anyone reading this has $60 to spare send it to me immediately and I will buy Portal 2. I hope against hope that there will be a tie-in to Half Life 3 because ***SPOILER ALERT*** Half Life 2 Episode 2 had Aperture Science show up at the very end ***END SPOILER ALERT*** Regardless, I got to play a little bit of Portal 2 last week and it certainly delivered on the Awesome-ness. Rant Status: Over