Read my chips - books and video games, vs or co-op?

Of all media, my first love was books.  Before I'd ever seen an 'Intendo' or played Atari, or, as far as I can tell, even watched TV, my Mom would read to us kids every night before going to sleep.  And I don't mean to brag, but she was a fantastic reader.  My Mom always loved children's lit, and she read with great enthusiasm.  It didn't hurt that she had tastes suited to her particular talents, the two favorites being Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss.  Highly lyrical writing, my Mom would read these to us over and again in her bubbly, sing-song reading voice, and we grew to love and anticipate reading time.  She would hold the books open for us to see, and I would follow my mom's voice and the words on the page, slowly decoding them as I learned to read myself.

The first career I ever wanted was to be a novelist.  Long before I knew anything about what it was like to have a job, or support myself, I was sure I wanted to write books.  The earliest effort I can still recall was a story about Dragon Warrior II (fanfiction!).  I borrowed the plot, setting, names and most of the action from the game, but I filled in the details.  I seem to remember I finished the first chapter and it was maybe ten binder pages long.  It involved the main characters being sent on their journey by the king, and then going to the weapon and armor shop to buy their gear, then going to the Inn to sleep.  Pretty generic, I know, and yet I still remember what the town looked like in my mind, the real-world variation on the 8-bit Dragon Warrior graphics.

The power of the imagination is really amazing to me;  even (seemingly) generic, unoriginal thoughts have their own unique qualities.  And books have an amazing ability to bring this out in people like me.  Even a writer who spends very little time on character description - my mind will simply insert a character of my own making based on... it's own arbitrary decisions, I guess.  Nothing can quite do this for like a book.  I'm not sure why, but I think it may be the fact that there are no pictures.  That through words, only, my imagination builds a world of depth.  (I'm really going to begin speculating here, so... consider yourself warned.  )

If the internet explosion of fan art is any indication, other people get their own inspired images video games and other media.  Not to mention my own example of Dragon Warrior II.  However, that example was informed by the act of writing, the imaginary world took shape as I wrote about it.  I am tempted to cite the lower-detail, symbolic imagery of DW II and other 8-bit games, not to mention comics and cartoons-- in an effort to claim that the more realistic graphics of movies, tv and modern video games somehow dumb down the imagination and don't challenge it as much.  But that's probably bullshit.  I mean, there is intuitive sense there, but I have seen plenty of movies and had dreams about them, and seen new worlds of creativity using the imagery contained within.

It's not like I can measure this shit, but I am wildly tempted to place video games and books in a Versus context, instead of co-op, as I did with my DW II writing as a young'un.  Am I just aggressive and cantankerous?  Or is there something there, and I can't quite figure it out?  Whatever the case, I do know that I'm prone to asking rhetorical questions, so that must count for something.

In conclusion, I haven't been playing a lot of games lately, and I feel like what I really need is a good book.  I'm thinking Murakami.  I also think that books and games are fundamentally similar, and obviously different.  I'm mostly interested in how they are similar, and I'd like more of that part, please.  Thanks.

-D 

A Glimpse Of Things To Come?

A couple of days ago (6/19/13) I experienced an event that other gamers may be forced to experience in the near future.  

I've spent the last two days here in Bend, OR.  A sort of graduation present from Conklederps parents who flew up later last week and arrived here a few days before us.  The hotel we've stayed at, Pine Ridge Inn has been pretty awesome: the view of the Deschutes River from the back porch/balcony is especially nice.  The Wifi signal though is pretty much non-existent.  Conklederp's dad said that the best place to get a signal for him was in the bathroom near/on the toilet and I'm pretty sure he wasn't joking.

So during the in-between times of hiking one of many amazing trails and going to one of a dozen breweries, I figured I would play some games via Steam, at least the ones that I already had downloaded.  I was able to play Skyrim three times before Steam experienced something it didn't like and forced itself to shut down.  It was upon restarting Steam that I first received the above message.

I probably should have known to put Steam in “Offline” mode the first time I noticed that I couldn't log onto the hotel's Wifi signal.  Not doing what I should have done though has now put me in the position of not being able to play games that I have purchased.  Even locating the folders on my hard drive and attempting to boot up without the aid of Steam was unsuccessful.

I imagine things like this happening with future Xbox One owners, although when I try to stop and think about when an Xbox One would be without service, the results are somewhat short listed.  Do people take their Xboxes on vacation with them the same way that I took my computer (being one of two ways I play video games these days)?  When at home, how often have we lost an internet signal for more than an hour?  Would I really be that hard pressed to play a video game the day after I move into a new house/apartment where internet service has not been set up?  Although, I guess the other issue is if the servers that exist for the sole purpose of interconnecting Xbox One users go down, games will not be able to be played because both sides are not longer talking to each other, which would be similar as not having an internet connection to begin with.

The new Xbox One is touted as an all-in-one entertainment center.  You're probably not going to be moving that thing around from place-to-place as you would say, a laptop.  It's not a portable gaming device.  Now that's something that I would find both ludicrous and frightening: a portable gaming device that required a constant online connection in order to play games that you have already purchased.  Gadzooks!

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

[Edit:  Just before posting this, I read an article on Cnet about how Microsoft is now no longer requiring the Xbox One to be logged onto the internet every 24 hours.  This somewhat changes the whole reason for the article existing, but damn it, I want to share my thoughts, even if they are 9-10 hours outdated.  Take that internet!]

"Yeah, I Just Beat Mega Man!"

Like the title says, today I'm going to be talking about Mega Man.  Capcom's 1987 Nintendo Entertainment System release.  Nearly everything about the "history" of the game you can find over on Wikipedia so I'm not even going to attempt to talk about it on that front.  Like the majority of our posts here, I will talk about my experiences with this little bit from a 26 year old video game.  And now,

There's a song by Totally Radd!! called "Victory Pose."  I read it somewhere that the group (person?) said that it was a song that captured the feeling of legitimately beating the first Mega Man, dropping the controller and standing up with your arms raised to the sound of imagined applause.  I must have read that somewhere on Amazon.com, which is where I first heard a snip-it of the song, so here it is in full:

So yes, I did in fact just beat Mega Man on a port that I purchased from Nintendo's eShop and played on my 3DS.  Some may scoff at not having beaten the game on the original console, but let me reassure any and all nay-sayers, that the game is in fact a "direct" port.  All known glitches and ticks with the original cartridge will play havoc with you on the 3DS port as well.  I should probably also elaborate when I say "3DS port" in that it's not a 3D rendering of the original Mega Man and it's not part of Nintendo's 3D Classics line that includes Excitebike, Kid Icarus and Kirby's Dreamland among others.  It's just an eShop game that I played (and BEAT!) on my 3DS.

And now that that's out of the way, let me just say, that this game is pretty goddamn difficult.  I wrote a post last year that included Mega Man as a game that I would probably never complete due to losing those countless slips of paper containing hastily scribbled down passwords.  It almost makes me want to purchase Ninja Gaiden from the eShop and give that game another go.

But back to Mega Man.  Guts Man stage was a pain in the ass.  Those moving/flipping platforms, y'all know what I'm talkin' about.  The disappearing platforms in Ice Man stage.  Pretty much every stage in Dr. Wily's villainous compound.  The game was just brutal.  I don't know how long I spent just in Dr. Wily's Devilish Compound of Villainy, but I spent a total of seven hours, three minutes on this game.  Compare it to someone who knows what they're doing and the game can be completed in just under half-an-hour.  It really took one of my coworkers saying that he would ask me everyday [starting last Friday (6/14/13)] if I'd beaten Mega Man yet to get me off my lazy ass.  Last night, I hunkered down and completed it.  

Like I previously stated, the four stages in Dr. Wily's Hellhole of Excruciating Evil are what helped to rack in the extra hours of gameplay.  Yes, I will admit that I watched a couple of youtube videos for ideas/hints/tactics on how to get through areas and defeat bosses, but I feel that that's only the lowest form of "cheating," if you were the type of person that would consider that to be cheating.  Even with online guidance, I would still have to play the game myself without any kind of modification, say, a Game Genie.  Jumps still have to be timed right, blasts of evil energy still have to be dodged and special weapons that have to be conserved, like a squirrel burying a precious bone.  

And you know what?  I did it.  I beat Mega Man.  Without Game Genie. A game designed by a then young gaming company who had only developed about eight titles for the NES.  That game was hard.  That game had some great music in it.  That game was fun.  And now, onto Mega Man 3.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Wind Guide You

I'm in love with my own ideas: Birds and Bees

So, I was listening to this podcast from Science Friday, about the sad plight of bees.  They really sound like they're up against a lot, and are very sensitive.  There's a problem of a lack of variety - corn, corn corn, too much, doesn't serve their purpose and they're malnourished.  And then there's pesticides, where only a few parts per billion can get into the bees systems from the pollen and then affect their behavior. 

So, of course, while listening to this I thought:  Video game!  Maybe an RTS, maybe a hybrid game.  But a bee colony has a set of behaviors, each bee is essentially grinding pollen, and/or on a fetch quest.  They've also got some rad other behaviors, like scouting, dancing and of course, making honey.  Why not have a game about it ?  What I like about this game is that it doesn't have to be *super duper* compelling game-play wise.  It can be basic, even a little boring.  But what it *does* have to do is be as accurate as possible (maybe a little bit of creative license, but there's always some of that, they call it 'theory').  And allow the players to take part in the different parts of running a bee colony.  Sim Bee!  Sim Colony!  TM TM TM!!!  Anyway, I think that would be great.  I also think it would be great to pilot a Bee in 3d space.  zip zip zip!

In addition, it wouldn't be hard to come up with a story arc.  Have a bee colony that's doing well, through the generations.  But then have it run into some of the bee colony problems listed above in the podcast.  Suddenly, there's a lack of nutritional variety, become more and more scarce, while on  the other hand, there's pesticides slowly finding their way in, fucking shit up.  Sadness.  But a good story, and valuable!

The second animal idea I had was bird flight simulator.  I suppose there could be some flocking that might happen. Birds come in many shapes and sizes and flying styles, not all can form those great 'V's we see overhead.  But birds have their own interesting qualities if you watch them.  I'm sure that the annals of ornithology have all sorts of fun data to play with in terms of gaming and simulation.  

Because- so many games are just simulators if you look at them right.  Mario Kart is a go-kart simulator.  But that was too boring, so they through in items and zips and combat and such. 

Mega Man is a running jumping and shooting simulator--  A Kinesiology simulator!  It's not very accurate though.  Same for Super Mario Bros.  Similar to how action figures are little humans, that just don't move right.  Those funny art pose figurines are much closer than GI Joe or HeMan ever were.

Anyway, I think educational and simulation games is where its at.  You can quote me on that.  Also, you can steal my ideas, since they aren't worth much on their own.  But I really want to stress that I think games based on educational and science topics can really be awesome.  Everyone loves physics engines, let's try to use them for something other than blowing shit up!  And if I'm right, then playing games that will teach us about the birds and the bees may help us be more compassionate, and that's a quality you can never have too much of.  

-D

Things that Kind of Went on at E3, 2013

If you've come looking for an article filled with information that you can find elsewhere, then you've come to the right place.  I'm just writing what I want about an event that I've never been to and have only read about.  And because here we cover predominantly video games, I feel somewhat obligated to bring up that little convention that just wrapped up yesterday down in SoCal.

So now, I bring to you, our wonderful reader:

I've actually read quite a bit this year before, during and after the megalopolis known as E3.  For some reason I had thought that the Electronics & Entertainment Expo was an all week affair, although I guess it only ran from Tuesday June 11th through Thursday June 13th, because the companies putting the expo on didn't want to get in the way of serious gaming time from Friday through Monday.  Maybe?  Keep in mind, during the next couple of paragraphs, that my knowledge is limited, I did not attend E3 and all I will be discussing are things that I liked that I read about.  So now you're getting second or third hand information and not information from a direct source.

That all being said, I would like to say that the thing that surprised me the most about this years E3, was that Rare and Double Helix Games are developing a new Killer Instinct game as an Xbox One exclusive.  Sigh.  Killer Instinct was the game that got me into fighting games, and when I say "fighting games," I should elaborate and say that I only fiddled with other fighting games (Street Fighter II, Tekken, Mortal Kombat) and I never mastered any of them, KI included.  The Joystiq article has the most concise review, being the trailer, then a few sparse words.  There wasn't any mention of who is going to do the music (if it's going to be Robin Beanland from Rare who did the original soundtrack along with Graeme Norgate).

The PS4 was finally (?) revealed this week as well.  Gizmodo has a pretty decent article comparing the PS4 and the Xbox One with a special guest appearance by the Wii U.  Speaking of the Wii U, the Penny-Arcade Report brought up Nintendo's lack of big show press conference-type activities that are the norm for this convention.  Basically what I came away from E3, was that I probably won't be owning any of the current next-gen consoles and I'll be sticking with my PC and 3DS for new games.  However, if I do end up buying a gaming console, it might be the Wii U as I really just want a dedicated video game console, not an all-in-one, that's what my PC is for, and I already have one.

David Wong over at Cracked.com wrote a great article about how certain powers in the video game industry view its consumers.  Not everything he brings up is from E3 this week, but enough is directly related to how the video game industry advertises and sells itself, hence my inclusion of it here.

Lastly I'm going to list a few of the games (and the system that I would be playing them on) that managed to catch my attention, which is just another way of saying that if I won't be able to play it, I don't care too much, such as Tom Clancy's The Division which comes out on the PS4 and Xbox One or Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U.

• The Evil Within from Bethesda Softworks (PC)
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds from Nintendo (3DS)
• Dragonage: Inquisition from Bioware (PC) 
• [Although I still haven't played the first in the series].
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 from Konami (PC)
• [Haven't played anything from this series either].
• Batman: Arkham Origins from Warner Bros. Games (PC)
• Not mentioned at E3 was Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate (3DS) from Armature Studios
• Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure (3DS)
• The Elder Scrolls: Online from Bethesda Softworks (PC)

That's really it.  That's all I know, maybe a bit more, but that's all I feel like I'm able to share about something that I've only read about.  So with that, happy Friday and y'all have a pleasant weekend.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Spark I Once Had Seems to Have Died

Nine days into June, and I'm posting again

Whelp, I've been busy lately, 



I'm going to take a moment to comment on the various things Jaquonian said in his previous post. Just 'cause. And I'm going to do it in reverse order.

Firstly, I guess I'm okay with Evangeline Lilly, until further notice. It makes sense that they'd want to have a character with a name who is an elf, given that in the Hobbit Book, the Mirkwood elves don't really have any distinguishing characters. It's kind of like how they expanded Haldir's character in LOTR.  Also, it makes sense that she'd be female, because there is a serious lack of female characters in Middle Earth.  

Personally, the thing I didn't like about the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was how bloody long it was. Granted, I expected it to be long when it was first announced, but I don't see the point now that it's been broken into three films. In addition, it felt much longer because of the directors insistence on regular 'edge of your seat' chase scenes. Over and over again, the characters were literally - and I do mean literally -  hanging from cliffs. It just made for a stressful viewing experience, especially for a movie based on a book that I find rather relaxing.  

I'm prepared to forgive non-canon moves, but when they contribute to an already over-long and stressful movie experience, then I'm not happy.  That said, I'm excited to see the Mirkwood scenes, and for god sake, SMAUG!  I mean... I have some pretty high expectations for that guy.   Benedict Cumberbatch is pretty awesome in Sherlock, and was great in Star Trek II.  Quick aside:  Star Trek II was not as good as Star Trek 1, though not particularly bad - just not particularly good.  It also suffered from the 'roller coaster ride' effect, like the Hobbit.  I guess that's just how it's done now.  I could have used much more dialogue from Cumberbatch. 

Topic Jump!

In retrospect, I wish I'd paid more attention to that first Humble Weekly Bundle.  Walking Dead has gotten great reviews, and I think it's mostly a point and click adventure.  And, what the hell, maybe Back to the Future is good too.  I think point and click is right about my speed these days, given I'm 30 going on 60.  Just kidding, but yeah, getting older sucks, especially the part where you have to work all day.  

As another aside,  my life has felt a bit like this scene from Ghostbusters.  "Dogs and Cats, living together!"

Bummer about Shadow of the Eternals.  However, their message does seem very hopeful, so even if they couldn't come up with the cash, maybe this will continue to lead to good things.  

-D


I'll leave you with a link:  Good old Games.  This is yet another digital gaming store.  The focus here is on retro PC gaming.  This is a pretty deep well for me, seeing as my years up until recently have been spent console gaming.  I'm particularly interested in giving a game called 'Planescape: Torment' a try.  

And you know, while I'm at it, here's another retro gaming link, Racketboy.  It's a really well designed retro site, where you can find great images, and well organized topics, and articles on a very extensive selection of gaming systems.   Except... so far, I haven't really enjoyed the writing.  I guess you can't have everything.  Check it out when you're in a retro mood. 

New Things in the First Seven Days of June, 2013

There are some good things, some amazing things and a very sad thing in the world known as the only planet in Sector 001 known to contain living life.  There's actually a lot more going on than what I'm about to go into, but this is what I'm qualified to discuss.  

First off, the sad news.  Last Wednesday (June 5th) Precursor Games, the company that was born from the wreckage of Silicon Knights and are the creators of Shadow of the Eternals, the "spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem," has cancelled their Kickstarter campaign with less than two weeks remaining and with less than 10% of their goal reached.  One can say that the lack of "funding" was due to the negativity of a Kotaku article, or the known lawsuit against Silicon Knights.  Basically, blame can be placed almost anywhere, if you're the kind of person that needs to place blame somewhere to feel better.  Despite the closing of the Kickstarter, I still see the light at the end of the tunnel, I still have hope.

Last Wednesday, L.D. Robots talked about the current Humble Indie Bundle (8).  I'm not sure when this happened, probably after a week based off of previous HIB's, but the HIB has multiplied to now include four additional games (Tiny and Big in Grandpa's Leftovers, Intrusion 2, English Country Tune and Oil Rush) on top of the seven games that are already listed.  And, now a total of ten soundtracks.  That's just damn amazing/awesome.

A side note with the HIB, is now they're offering a Weekly Sale.  The premise is the same as with the regular Humble Bundle, that you have the option of splitting money between the Humble Bundle people, the game developers, the EFF and Child's Play.  But, instead of waiting months for a massive collection of games and soundtracks, each week there'll be a selection of games offered at a name your own price, price.  The first week (Which ran from May 30th - June 5th) included The Walking Dead, Back to the Future: The Game, Poker Night at the Inventory and some other games that I've since forgotten.  Each week it looks like a new set of games will be up for the now formulaic "name your price."  This week (Week 2) are a collection of Serious Sam games, of which I know nothing.

In another corner of the internet entitled "Take Even More of My Money," Amazon.com has entered into the Online/PC Indie Gaming ring.  After only briefly browsing the store, Amazon's Indie Gaming store looks a lot like Steam's store, with frequent sales and even HIB-esque in that from June 6th - 10th Amazon is offering three free games (Huntsman: The Orphanage, Dynasty of Dusk,  and The Curse of Nordic Cove) when you purchase one of their listed indie games.

Lastly and not video game related, Entertainment Weekly released a picture of Evangeline Lilly as her non-canon character of Tauriel in the upcoming movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  You can read about it here.  I feel like there's going to be a splintering of fans into "I Hate It" and "I Like It," which is going to happen anytime Jackson/Walsh/Boyens make any changes/additions to Tolkien's Middle Earth.  I personally am going to hold any judgement until I actually see the movie.  Yes, I can be a hypocrite and say that something is/will be bullshit at the slightest hint of something I don't like but then say I'll hold judgement, but that's just me.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
And I'm Waiting Patiently

A Review: Dead Space (PC)

Yes, I know that Dead Space 3 came out a couple of months back, but you know what, I heard that the original Dead Space was a fun/frightening game and I had really wanted to play it for some time.  Then, Steam had a sale last December (or was it November?) so I went ahead and purchased the initial two games in the franchise.  I began playing Dead Space last year in December and only in the last couple of weeks did I pick the game back up with the intention of taking the game to the end.  So now, here it is, everything that's already out there in the intertubes about a game that came out back in 2008.

But why bother reading a review of a game that came out 5 years ago that everyone and their third cousin has already played and written about?  Because you value our opinion.  And because some people may not have played it when it first came out (like this guy right here) and want to know if the game has held up since it's release.  Yes, yes it has.

You know what.  I'm not going to give our standard "Full Review."  This game's already been reviewed into the ground and the last thing the Internet needs is another review.  I'll just talk about things that I really liked (and didn't like) about the game.

The universe.  I like the universe created for the series.  Even though my experience in the universe is only based off of one game and the information is limited to what is found on the USG Ishimura, USM Valor and the Aegis VII Colony.  There are allusions to things happening on Earth, but not many and those are mainly snippets of information about the Church of Unitology.

Actually, the Church of Unitology is something that I was only slightly disappointed in.  Upon hearing about the Church of Unitology (from in-game, not from the mock-Chick tract that I got from PAX in 2010), I was really hoping that it wouldn't be a pseudo-Scientology-type religion, which it did turn out to be, but only in the way that there are special tiers that members are able to attain within the religion.  That's really all I know about Scientology and I'm not about to assume that I know more.

Back to the game.  Another thing that I really liked and felt was a bit of a departure from other survival horror-esque games.  Your character, Isaac Clarke, isn't some bad ass super soldier sworn with protecting the world from unnameable evils.  He's a middle-aged repairman/engineer whose girlfriend is on board the USG Ishimura, which is purely a coincidence (at least it is after the first game).  And your primary weapon?  It's a Plasma Cutter, which uses plasma energy to cut rock.  Yes, eventually you're able to purchase a legit non-mining tool/weapon.  Even the other mining tools that would be used/described as "magic" in another game, are explained well enough that you don't question why a miner would have the ability to have kinesis module or the ability to slow time at a directed object.

Oh, another thing was this:

 What are you looking at?  It's a maintenance inspection card for the elevator.  We've all seen them anytime we go into an elevator and probably shrug them off.  I'd just gotten into an elevator and while hoping that a necromorph wouldn't pop through the ceiling and attack, I noticed this little thing that wasn't anything beyond set decoration.  But, for me, it helped to maintain my investment in this universe.  That, even in this fictional universe, it is good to know that elevators are still maintained on a regular basis.  It's little details like that that help me to enjoy the game for more than what it is.

I also really liked the layout of the ship.  That it seemed plausible that the layout of the ship was how it was, um, laid out.  I don't know how else to explain that.  I never questioned why something was where it was or what it was that I was doing and why.  Every mission within the ship was pretty straight forward.  Can't send out a distress signal?  Go find out what's wrong with the communications array.  Even the NPC's started getting annoyed at how many things seemed to be going wrong and how much time it took just to get something done.  I liked that.  A lot.

Oh yes, how can I forget the intro movie.  Shots of the USG Ishimura with a slightly creepy woman singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  Each line sung sounds like it's an effort just to keep going and to finish.  And, upon hearing the song over and over, I began to wonder if the words were the actual words as they almost sounded too creepy to be from a children's song. Alas, the words are in fact the real words, which I thought was pretty cool.

Science? SCIENCE!!

Lastly, I'll talk about my time playing the game and how I went through it.  I spent 23 hours playing the game, but only 14 hours was saved, meaning that I had spent 9 hours trying to get through different areas many, many (many) times and failing.  Specifically the first time with the ADS Canon and when you run into The Hunter in the large medical bay.  Conklederp can attest to my bouts of "Fucking fix it Hammond!  I don't care about your hangups, fucking. . . fucking damn it!" and "Run, fucking unlock the goddamn door!"

In the game, there are a number of weapons that you can purchase from the ships store, although I stuck with the the Plasma Cutter and the Pulse Rifle.  I did purchase the Ripper, although not really knowing how/when to use it, I sold it back to the store, probably to purchase additional med packs or power nodes to upgrade my equipment/gear.  For the most part, I didn't feel the game was too difficult, with the exception of the two mentioned times involving the ADS Canon and The Hunter and having played through the game on Normal/Medium difficulty.  Even the final boss held to a distinct pattern that once I got over the massiveness of the thing, I was able to calmly defeat the creature.

I will add that there were some aspects of the game that I didn't actively "participate in."  Apparently using parts of the necromorphs as projectiles with the kinesis was "a thing."  I rarely used the kinesis module except when moving heavy equipment or to acquire items that were out of range.  Also the secondary function on the Pulse Rifle apparently could do a lot of damage and the only times (used twice) I was in close quarters and when it fired an energy pulse into the air, I thought it was being used to light dark areas, so I practically never used that function.

Lastly, I will say that while Dead Space was a fairly frightening game, it didn't have a lasting sense of fear and terror.  This is most likely due to the fact that the game primarily took place in outer space and the monsters were horribly 'mutated' humans.  They were nothing that I could possibly run into, in a setting that I will probably never be in.  Those elements made the fear only present in the game and not outside of it.  That's not a criticism about the game, just something I felt like pointing out.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Slaves of Fear