Sunday Ramblings

Is it okay to not like games you suck at?

The Sunday Ramblings are back! Currently, The Trailer Jockey is going on a little adventure through his Xbox 360 Bucket List. With a limited amount of titles worth purchasing at full retail for the Xbox One, it only makes sense to play through what I haven't experienced yet. This list consists of both classics that I should have played by now, and promising titles that didn't seem to live up to the hype it created. Deus Ex: Human Revolution generated generally positive reviews, but it flew under the radar in the US, only shipping 800,000 copies.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Cinematic Trailer

Big scores with small sales usually means you're in for a treat! A few hours controlling Adam Jensen, however, made something abundantly clear: I was really bad at this game. DE:HR focuses very heavily on stealth... you can shoot your way through the game, but the amount of extra experience gained from being silent and non-lethal was far more fruitful than going Rambo on everyone. That said, there was a lot of surveillance and timing needed to be successful at the stealth part, the AI was surprisingly competent in becoming alerted if you made the wrong move into their vision cone.

Stealth is a patience game, and that is a game that I truly need to learn how to play. I would pop out of cover too early, not take the time to monitor guard movements, and blatantly sprint around corners into security cameras. Not exactly the pinnacle of a master of silence. The moment a guard would catch a whiff of you, there were two choices: backtrack through the level and hide until he gave up, or wait behind a corner and hope you can activate the quicktime melee knockout before he raises the alarm. Of course, I wouldn't want to go back and wait, which turned into having to clear out a lot of rooms with gunfire.

This made enjoying the story of the game extremely difficult, but that's completely on me. Could I have talked myself into focusing and digging into the deep story to create interest? Absolutely. Would I have pulled more and more hair out every single time I had to backtrack? You bet your behind. I gave up after about ten hours, there's only so much the body can withstand.

Dues Ex: Human Revolution - Stealth Trailer

Gamers are a tough crowd, and admitting weakness to a mass amount of super nerds is a message board's equivalent of a shark smelling blood in the water. A cruise through reddit will quickly show just how seriously they take their games. Say the wrong thing, and you're offering yourself as tribute to a ruthless slew of insults and curses. But the reality is we're all human, and there might be a game every now and again that really just stumps you.

Phew, that felt good to get off my chest. We'll be hopping back onto the bucket list train this week, along with the introduction of weekly trailer wrap-ups! Oh, and this whole site may look different soon. Big things happening over here!

Have something you want to ramble about? Have a game you wanted to love but couldn't because you were god awful at it? Leave it in the comments below!

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Reveal Trailer

"That a journalist ought to be able to disagree with the President!"

Call of Duty, we've done this dance before. You reveal your game with big explosions, epic action, and a powerful speech. We get all excited for... finally... another great CoD, until we're ultimately disappointed. I've seen it before, and damn if you're going to do it to me again.

Enter Frank Underwood Kevin Spacey, and suddenly I'm thinking about giving it a chance again. Is a big name celebrity what the franchise needs to feel new and exciting again? Will his impassioned monologue (who was he talking to, anyhow? So House of Cards) about how "it's so wrong that America pushes democracy on other countries" while super soldiers simultaneously kick ass and take names make people actually care about the story? I haven't had that feeling since the first Modern Warfare came out.

Here's the thing: it's kind of ridiculous to speculate at this point. We only have this trailer. No other gameplay, features, anything like that. People have their feelings about the Call of Duty franchise fully formed and cemented in their brains by now, god knows they've had enough opportunity to do so. So until you see more from this game, just enjoy this short moment of badassery that CoD still seems to have a solid grip on. They make a fun trailer, you have to give them that.

Oh, and if you can't tell... Kevin's gonna be the bad guy. That journalist line was priceless. I'm still afraid of subway trains because of that man.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC
Release: Nov 4, 2014
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Sledgehammer Games