Random Thought on 3/11/2015- Back from my Honeymoon! Hawaii was awesome!

My apologies for being away so long. I got married and went on a honeymoon in Hawaii (watch our wedding highlights here). The wedding was great, and so was the honeymoon. A unexpected occurrence during the honeymoon was that Hawaii was oddly familiar to me. It took me a minute then I realized, I had spent countless hours driving around Hawaii in Test Drive Unlimited.

A few things to note about driving in real Hawaii- It’s so slow. The weather is perfect and I had a Mustang convertible rented and ready to be driven hard but. the. roads. are. so. slow. The slowness is a culmination of there only being one main road (Maui) and the speed limit PEAKS at 45mnph. I love driving, and I drive in the Midwest where 70mph is the damn school zone. We were moving so slow I had to shake my head to get my hair to blow in the wind. It was painful.

That said, it is gorgeous driving in Hawaii. It is like driving in a postcard. The ocean is so close and there are public beaches littered everywhere. The low speeds give you ample time to view the scenery.

Back to the original point, my Hawaii Deja Vu came from a video game. I played a lot of hours with Test Drive Unlimited on Xbox 360. I was living in Washington D.C. and was unemployed. I would cruise from race to race for hours. I was in a weird place musically at the time lots of Empire of the Sun, Postmarks, and Neon Indian.

Neon Indian’s awesome album cover

Driving down a Hawaiian side street listening to the Postmarks “Looks like Rain” is quite the cathartic experience. I was kind of depressed at the time, being in a new place and unemployed was rough. The Postmarks melancholy tones really set the mood.

At the time, this looked great. Like 2 Cameron Diazes and a Hot Wheels.

Test Drive Unlimited prided itself on being an accurate representation of O’ahu. You go from city streets to rain forest and back in one trip. You can see mountain vistas and ocean horizons. It’s almost too daunting at times to drive in TDU’s O’ahu. Learning the streets and familiarizing yourself to the island is a game in and of itself.

I lived out my fantasy driving of driving a Lotus Esprit V8. The cool thing about Test Drive Unlimited is that it was a life simulator as well. You could pick clothing and build a home. It was great. I am amazed at how well TDU captured the essence of driving through Hawaii. I have played a lot of driving games but few have the captured the feel of driving through a vista in such a real way. Test Drive Unlimited failed in a way as an MMO Racing game, but as a single player Hawaii simulator it was a masterpiece.

Those are my thoughts. TDU is basically free and the sequel that was a complete disaster is set in Hawaii as well. Check them out. Peace!

Abyss Odyssey- A mini review (XBox 360)

What a pleasant surprise. This game is gorgeous, captivating, confusing, sexy, empowering, and a lot of words to me right now.

Yeah…she about sums it up.

This game is a procedural generated 2D action platformer with RPG elements. That is a mouth full. Basically this game is a beautiful Metroid style platformer with randomly generated levels. Death is permanent. You move down floors to reach a final boss at the bottom and every time you play the stages are different.

The art style is amazing. it’s like playing a beautiful painting.

The combat is complex. Every fight feels intentional and significant. You move with the left stick but have normal attacks tied to the right stick. The Y button has special moves you can upgrade. The triggers block. it works really well. After a few minutes you will be rolling around and attack everything. There are fun nuances to the battles! You can buy tokens to turn into the monsters and they each have unique abilities.

The reason this game works is because the leveling system and skill tree balance death out and pace things masterfully.

This game is what I imagine tripping balls is like. some levels have random realistic fish flying through the air and then a topless woman with tentacles will attack. it’s mesmerizing. I beat this game a few nights ago and I recommend it for anybody looking for something different.