As everybody can see there has been one HUGE change to vanlandw.com. Yesterday after finishing a major milestone I decided to change my banner as a reflection.

It was a long and winding road but Call of Duty World at War has been defeated on the Xbox 360 on Veteran difficulty, by vanlandw.

There will be more on this at a later time after some decompression but I wanted to share a few graphics I made. The symbol for “Veteran”  is brutal and I thought putting a badge somewhere on the site would brighten up the place.

The original of this picture was found on the Call of Duty Wikia submitted by SaintofLosAngelesXD(m) but I wanted to clean it up a bit. Using the original image I made a cleaned up version and a transparent version.

Do with them what you will. You will not survive either way.

Without truly knowing my writing about games has become about evangelism more then anything. Revisiting some of my older posts the unintended interpretation could be viewed much a push to avoid or a push to seek.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West falls under seek.

In a world flooded with more choice then anybody could ever imagine processing in a lifetime I’ve found word of mouth coupled with valued and trusted opinions is the best way to be introduced to something. This can be applied to practically anything: music, restaurants, books, brands, movies, partners and games.

Sure the Metacritic score is mixed but the only source I trust for game reviews scored Enslaved a strong 4/5 star review. One found the main female character to be a ‘selfish, dishonest and irresponsible‘ person. Another described the primary characters bound to a ‘commitment born of mutual dependency, a desired submission‘. Polarizing to say the least.

Enslaved is an experience open to interpretation  along side a guided thrill ride. Something video games can do quite well.

I fully recommend spending $20 and taking a weekend or two away from Call of Duty and play this game instead. Enslaved is very approachable and the in-game performances alone are worth seeing. There are moments in this game that are genuinely fantastic.

“I think relationships are what makes us who we are. It’s relationships that drive us to do amazing, or terrible, things. I think it’s a brilliant subject to explore,”
-Nina Kristensen Ninja Theory

I agree..

Sometimes being sneaky is the only option. As one can see above Assassin’s Creed is really a game about stealth. All of those people had no idea I was going to end their lives.

Honestly what happened was I rode into this army camp, jumped off the horse, engaged every enemy to hand-to-hand combat and ended all their lives.

Much of the game is pure brute force grinding or at least it felt  it was.

The Assassins Creed series is becoming a big deal. Sales are huge and honestly the stories of these games are worth the time. The shame is the first game can be a bitch to get though. Much of the content here is pure filler and should be avoided. Collecting flags can be addicting but doesn’t come with much of a reward like collecting Agility Orbs in Crackdown. Sure achievements can drive men to strange things but to get though Assassin’s Creed do yourself the favor and avoid being driven to madness. A few notes and recommendations to breeze though this game to progress forward to the better sequels.

The first thing to note is don’t feel bad about skipping objectives in the cities. All the towns have countless civilian save missions that all say the same thing after you complete it. These can be safely skipped. Main thing to note is just do enough objectives to unlock the assassination missions. Sure, there is achievements associated with doing everything but really they are not worth it. Personally I would say a good goal to hit would be finishing this game in a few sittings.

Also, do yourself a favor and just avoid getting the flags and killing all Templars. In the first city (Masyaf) take the time and get all the flags and a simple achievement. It’s a good way to learn the controls and there is only around 20 flags to collect. The larger areas have up to 100 flags and it would be insane to get them all. Finding the Templars is also practically impossible minus a guide. They don’t show up on the game map (a major beef I have with countless open world games) and isn’t really worth the time. Again, sure they are tied to an achievement and this one could be storyline related but really just don’t bother.

The main thing to do is just progress though the story and honestly just do what stays fun. While I played my gut wanted me to accomplish every objective but  story progression I would say is key as the sequels are said to be better games.

Assassin’s Creed is worth a play though and many people I know have tried to finish this game but quit due to being overwhelmed or getting bored. The final missions and the ending to the game is completely worth seeing so hopefully this can help a few people get though it.

Note: I primarily posted this as I liked the title to the post and I wanted to use the photo I took for something.

Achievements screen from Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. A brilliant game in every regard.

If anybody is thinking about creating their own rap song this is where I would suggest to get your start. Track listing is honestly pretty good and I will be downloading The Pharcyde  – Passin’ Me By immediately.

There was once upon time after a few too many beverages during a wedding reception I was asked to give some advice to the groom on video. My response was “don’t forget your roots”.

Thinking back about this time honestly it was a silly answer. I don’t know shit about my own roots more or less enough to forget about them but on video it was rather funny. OK…back to the topic on hand.

For awhile (my entire LIFE!! omg so tragic) it lightly bothered me that I never beat Zelda 2. Growing up I remember getting rather far but getting stuck trying to enter the Great Palace but without placing all the crystals it’s impossible to enter. For some reason my young brain thought that using the Fairy spell to pass the barrier would work. That was as far as I ever got and never finished the game.

Back in November after an impromptu play of Zelda 1 it was logical to give the second game another stab. Going in knowing it was going to be rough I’m glad it was something I took my time with. After finishing the game it felt like a return to my roots so to speak. Or something to pass time while my girlfriend is at work rather then then shooting virtual terrorists in the face.

Really I’m just a stubborn idiot.

The first thing that sticks out is yes, I did perish many times over the course of Zelda 2. There are pits, and enemies that hit hard. Sometimes solutions are not clear as they should be and if you don’t level up and find the magic and heart containers things can get rough. Zelda 2 is still a challenge and mostly due to combat.

For 2d/2 button action fighting game Zelda 2 does hold up. Many of the enemy types are palette swaps in essence but almost every combat encounter can be troublesome. Even on the beautiful american box art Zelda 2 proclaims this game as the “ultimate challenge” and I can see how people would never see the end without cheating. In Zelda 1 the challenge came from figuring out where to do. Zelda 2 does carry over some of that but as a player you are going to die because some jerkoff with a shield is going to block all your attacks and slash you in the knees. The reward for this is the best game over screen ever.

Yes, this year is the Zelda’s 25th Anniversary but for now I feel pretty good where I’m at with the series.  After hearing so many good things about The Wind Waker I should track down a copy and work on that game next but a break is in order. Zelda 2 does come recommended but for first time players it can be daunting. Luckily I remembered most everything from my childhood but without that knowledge I would have had to look up a FAQ.

For a new player would highly suggest to look up the maps for at least for the final dungeon. Clearly you could pen and paper a map and I debated doing that to play “pure” but ef that there are wonderful maps already online. Also, look up the locations of the magic and heart containers. The magic ones are pretty easy to find but two of the heart containers would be just completely random to find them. With full magic and health the last few sections of the game are much easier.

THANKS A MILLION EVERYBODY

Select Difficulty > Veteran > You will not survive

Yeah, you guys know the drill. A new Call of Duty game comes out, I somehow end up with my hands on it, I play it on it’s hardest difficulty right off the bat for no reason at all, and I end up writing about how much I hate it. This saga all started because my friend and I trudged though Call of Duty 4 on Veteran. Like a sadist I’m always up for a challenge and look where it’s taken me.

Gaming purgatory.

Right off the bat Black Ops makes grave mistakes that mark the campaign a worse experience then Modern Warfare 2. After reflecting on MW2 for the past year that game, minus it’s mindless storyline, was actually in parts fun to play even on Veteran. Black Ops is a completely a mixed bag. Some missions and scenarios are brilliant where others are complete bullshit. For example, the Vorkuta mission (minus the dumb conclusion and getaway) is fantastic. How the objectives are unveiled felt like a fun rip on the series and I always love a good prison break.

I can 100% confirm re-spawning enemies make their grand reappearance in multiple sections in Pitch Black Operations. Without question the worst part of COD4 are the areas where, for example, you shoot some asshole in the window and a second later another asshole would take his place in the window. Truly horrid.

The worst part of Black Ops is the mission S.O.G. For the designers I’m sure in their diabolical ways planned “this is the mission the layman is going to be broken trying to get the veteran achievements. “After not having to look up game play suggestion videos for MW2 I had to for one checkpoint in the above level. Watch the video then come back. You kill the guys they keep coming back. Listen to the poor guy in the video. He makes it look easy but he even admits how many times he had to die to get this part right. You try to rush forward you are cut down immediately. Your AI guys (as they are for the entirety of the game) are completely worthless and not a good way to judge your safety. On Veteran it’s complete luck to pass this section.

Gripes, bitching, moaning, whatever.

Along your quest for military supremacy your AI companions have this great ability to either always take the best cover spots or seriously push you out of cover. On Veteran a good strat is hugging a wall and doing a pop in/out of cover. Some dick level designer always wants to put Woods or Hudson exactly where you want to be to blast the fools they refuse to. Multiple times I was just cussing at them for being asses for taking my spot putting me in danger of game over.

On the mission “Rebirth” there is a part where you will man a tank. This is not an easy part and your tank on Veteran cannot take many hits. Also, the player is not controlling the movement of the tank so progression is scripted and you only move the gun. The game hit a checkpoint right in the middle of a firefight not in a safe area. On respawn the shots were impossible I couldn’t kill the guys behind me and in front of me at the same time thus having to restart the entire level. I’ve never had a game with an automatic checkpoint system EVER screw me over like this.

On the final mission of the game “Redemption” I ran into another well documented glitch that required another level restart. After going though half the level downing three helicopters and running the gauntlet of memorizing the location of countless instantly lethal men the last thing I would have ever thought happened. A scripting error. If anything Call of Duty does right is scripting events. During my decent in the boat apparently I’m suppose to be accompanied with an AI guy and apparently he didn’t come with me thus not allowing the trigger of the next event. Seriously how in the world did this issue get past 12 minutes of credits?

Something that I didn’t even bother with on MW2 was the multiplayer component. With Black Ops since my friends recently have been playing online I’ve played enough to reach level 29. This is the reason to come to Call of Duty and I can see why people like it for reasons I’m not going to get into here. The community is huge at one point there were over a million people online. The same night a tenth of that was playing Halo Reach. In the battle of Halo vs COD really I believe it’s a personal preference. Halo feels like anybody can come in and have a good or a bad match where COD feels it caters to the good and constantly rewards them for being good. For those bad players the hook is to make them strive to be good to have what what the already good players have. As poor as those sentences read really it was the best way I could put it. For myself Halo has been my preferred game of choice for competitive multiplayer since Counter Strike practically for online statistics and rocket race alone and Black Ops won’t change that. Black Ops did change that I’m no longer afraid of playing COD online other then the next game better not have the RC-XD killstreak. I swear I hate that stupid remote controlled car so much.

So, after all that where are we? For my small fanbase after reading my maniacal rants on Call of Duty one would ask ‘why in the hell does he keep doing this to himself? Now that I’m 1up over anybody I know on “Veteran Completions” that slightly dampens but doesn’t extinguish the need to keep beating these. Part of me also still feels like the challenge is fun. The whole “I did it and nobody else did” is always a goal to strive for. On top of everything I still have lingering thoughts trying to comprehend how these games are the most popular in an industry where there are tons of better alternatives for content.

I cannot condone (recommend?) the campaign on Veteran difficulty. My gift of  stubbornness was the sole reason I was able to trudge though this game. After finishing the game I went back and did some achievement hunting on an easier difficulty and I can see where mortals can find their fun. As always being behind the barrel is done well and Treyarch appeared to try to make the storyline interesting even though I didn’t pay attention to any of it. Honestly don’t listen to me I’m just a jaded old man who’s lost his way. If one needs a balanced four star review read Giant Bomb’s it’s great and all of it true. This post could go on forever.

Note: I forgot to mention they finally (!!) removed those patronizing quotes when you die. My stomach and lasting sanity wouldn’t handle seeing “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction” – President John F Kennedy every twenty seconds after walking Mason into a death trap.