Call of Duty 2 Part Deux

OK, so, back to Call of Duty 2. In the second set of missions, you get to play as the British out in the desert. There's the usual run-and-gun missions, of course, including the blowing up of many a Flak 88 Anti-Aircraft gun. Befitting the desert agenda, there is a tank run where you take on an entire Panzer division, and survive in one piece. The mission is actually one of the easiest of the entire game - probably more for the novelty of driving a tank than anything else.


From there, the missions go something like this: take out AA guns, go on a joyride manning the gun on an armored car, then take out more AA guns. Then, to spice things up, our soldier gets to man an AA gun himself and shoot down some of his own planes. This last mission sounds oddly familiar of an original Call of Duty mission, but whatever. When enough planes have been downed, join Captain Price for a toddy and bunker down for the night.



Next up...the Americans.

Been a'while

Well, it's been a few weeks since the last post, but that doesn't mean I haven't been gaming. I found that the best place to pick up a few games is on Target's end-caps. In the past couple of months I've managed to grab Stranglehold, Kane & Lynch, TMNT, and Timeshift - all on the cheap. I'll be tackling a few of them in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned.

Call of Duty 2

OK, so today I ran out to watch Jumper, which was about as good as I expected. Good to see Hayden Christiansen do some actual acting, unlike what was seen in SW 1-3.

When I got back, it was on to the next game, which was going to be Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare until I realized that I hadn't actually played COD2 yet (NM COD3, as it was a console only BS move). So, I installed COD2 and COD4 for a bit of old-time and current fragging.

COD2 starts out eerily similar to COD1, or was it the expansion pack, I don't remember. Anyway, I'm another Russian "recruit", handed a gun and a uniform and told to march forward into the fray...or get shot if I don't.

The COD series has always been pretty good as far as scripted events go, and the developers want you to feel like a part of an actual army, opposed to the Medal of Honor titles where it mostly seemed that it was you vs. the entire other army. Of course, they always come down to the same sets of missions: timed survival, planting bombs, a vehicle run or two, and typically at least one sniper attack, but that doesn't mean the they're not a good run through.

So, I'm out here in the cold with a crappy rifle and a bunch of Nazis out for some target-shooting. That and a few Panzer tanks they keep rolling through Stalingrad. At one point I'm a glorified Verizon repair man, making repairs to our communication lines, which really was a bit of a pain in the ass.

Before long, we're sneaking through pipelines that run above what I think is a trainyard. Every now and then I take some potshots through gaps in the pipe to snuff a few soldiers milling about, but forget that gives away my position and I rapidly get filled with holes a few times before I finally make it through.

Grrr. More tanks. And silly me, I usually have to run up to a tank and slap on an explosive to destroy them. Oh, what I wouldn't give for some Panzershreks or other means of blowing them up. Soon it seems that we're marching onto City Hall for the wrap-up of this campaign. Getting in - not so bad, but then the inevitable survival mission begins. Hundreds of Germans all of a sudden appear out of the woodworks including some halftracks.

In the end, we stand victorious
Axis: 0 Allies: 1

Short, but sweet

On a second attempt, I found that if you just run around and read all of the text, eventually you can disappear into the toilet. And, no, that's not a joke.

Next thing I know I'm on a ship out in the ocean. More running around in my skimpy outfit. I think my name is Eo, and I'm some sort of magic user or witch with red eyes, a pair of pistols, a laser sword and the bounciest pair of boobs this side of Hollywood. All of my friends have had the same augmentation as well it seems...as well as a love of wearing close to nothing on our bodies (not that I'm complaining).

Starting to get the hang of this game now, or is it really a movie? There's really not much to do in the "gaming" section other than run around, slice up mechanical bees (?) and evade the occasional laser beam or cave-in. The bulk of A-Ga are long, cutscenes typically of a sexual nature, and typically not the fun kind either.

Finally, a boss battle.
I'm fighting a robo-crab. The extent of the battle is: run around in a circle and button-mash as quickly as I can. I shoot fast. Crab shoots some bubbles. Crab dies. Yay.

More of this ensues although now I'm swimming in, what else, a skimpy bikini


Swim, swim, swim. Out of the water now. Run, run, run. Hmm, open door as other than traps there appears to be nothing of interest other than doors that open and doors that don't. Behind Door #2 is the next boss; some kind of space slug.

Strategy? Run around in a circle-strafe, avoid bubbles, and don't shoot when it spits some kind of shield out of its mouth. Space slug dies as quickly as robo-crab, although I have no idea why the slug is here, or why I came to kill it. Ahh, who cares? I'm sure there's a message here somewhere.

More cutscenes, although the content is getting worse, much worse. This "game" is not for the weak-hearted. I've watched rape, tentacle rape, S&M, bondage, and the fatal shooting of what I believe is my sister. The sounds consist of something squishy and the smacking of wood. Almost wishing that the cutscenes were shorter or fewer.

After a long scene in which the leader is gang-raped, she saves us from humiliation by apparently willing the bad-guys away while sneaking, cum-stained, over to the door's console. I run outside to blow up another robot, but get shot immediately afterwards by a guy with spiky hair and a bigger gun than mine.

Wheee. Highlight of the game so far is to sneak around in my undies as the third character: some kind of thief with long pony-tails. As the game is played in third-person, you have no other choice but to keep your eyes on your ass - literally and figuratively. Have to avoid the laser beams in the crawlspace (doesn't everyone have lasers up there?) while the screams and moans of even yet another female character being abused get louder.

Now there's cutscene after cutscene. These aren't as bad. I'm guessing that Eo is in a near-dead trance, and decides to come back and kick just a little more ass. There's a round room with an organ in the middle and doors on each side. Obviously you have to play the organ, but as I can't read the Japanese hints, I don't have a prayer of discerning the correct tune.

Thank God for the InterWeb and GameFaqs. I don't know what I did without them. Someone has thankfully posted a walkthrough and listed the sequence of notes to play. In the door to fight, what I assume, is the big foozle - the bad guy behind all of this raping and killing and raping.

Not surprisingly he has bandages covering his face except for one red eyes and a mouthful of fangs. If you've seen any Anime, he looks like any generic bad guy. Also, not surprisingly, I have to run around in circles and shoot him repeatedly in the shoulder, in the face, and into an amulet. Soon after, Foozle dies. Game doesn't end however.

I'll try my best to explain what happens next, even though it's pretty tough. That spiky haired guy returns and a fight ensues. I keep waiting to grab the joystick and get into the fight, but alas, the final battle of the game is once again nothing more than a cutscene. In the end, he gets his just desserts, laughs at his impending death, and then dies.

But then it gets weird. (yeah, only now, I hear ya). Friends start fading out like a bad signal, the ghost of my sister is explaining some crap in a very sorrowful tone, then she fades out too. Finally, the whole world, including Eo, crackles and fades to black as well. WTF?

Sit through credits with an upbeat song to find the answer. It was all just a VR acid-trip! Apparently the world got itself blown up sometime in the future, and one computer running a Virtual Reality simulation survived. I'm actually a girl in a war-torn city playing the simulation, which has reached its conclusion.

So, that's it. Quick game, even quicker if you skipped through the cutscenes. All total it might have taken 3-4 hours, tops. I'm not sure I'm better for having played it. As a final step, I check out the no-panties patch that I found for the barbie-doll genitals crowd out there. Yee-ha! This one's for you!

A-GA!!!!!

That's not a battle cry - that's the short name for a Hentai type of game from Illusion that I had the fortune, or is that misfortune, of coming across.

Based on the screenshots I've seen online, I'm tittilated (pun intended) to give this a try, but everything is in Japanese. I can't tell my display settings from my gamepad settings.

OK

Whew

I clicked on on button and now I'm in the game. The introduction is long - way too long. In fact, it's like watching a porno clip, only done in CGI and pixellated where the squishy parts are. They've gone through all the trouble of making this an adult title, so why is this censored?



Anyway, after a long sex scene, I'm left running around what appears to be a hallway of a house. I run up to doors, but usually nothing happens, or Japanese text tells me to get lost, or something like that. Not a good start. I decide to call it quits for now and go watch some real porn...

Laid off! (ugh)

Well, working in the financial industry and can be rough at times, and 2008 sees me out on the streets after getting the proverbial ax. Of course, what I should be doing is hitting up the job sites and finding a new source of disposable income. That makes the most sense.

However.

There's been a ton of games out there piling up in my cabinets and drawers. I find them...buy them...but haven't been able to keep up with them. So, I'm thinking , now that there's some free time, why not start playing them?

While I play some new (and not so new) games, I'm going to keep an ongoing blog, sorta like an ongoing review only better...or worse?