They're Like, Action Figures Man

I’ve gotten my first comment. I thank you so very much Anonymous, now give me back my PlayStation Network! But you only said “Wow…” I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I can only assume that you’re criticizing me, not complimenting me. I can understand that. I know that my grammar is not the best and there is probably a plethora of spelling mistakes. I just want to make it known that I write this blog just as a hobby. If you’re expecting any journalistic professionalism or integrity you’re looking in the wrong place. But I appreciate you stopping by and at least commenting. It’s nice to know that actual people come here. I do wonder why that Ultimate Alliance 2 post is so popular…

I’ve always liked action figures. I used to have a fairly extensive collection of figures when I was younger. I had comic book figures, cartoon figures, video game figures, and original figures. I liked having them, but I was quickly running out of room so I sold them off. I still have my Transformers though and that collection continues to grow.

For me, video games are like action figures. This is a large part of the reason I like third-person action games. I want the character. The sign of a good game is how well that character is liked by the end of it. I just took this new action figure on a journey, was it good or bad? This is where my issue with Kratos comes in. He was pure badass in the first and second games, but when the third game went for the artistic ending I died a little inside. The figure that I loved to play with now has to be put back on the shelf and left there to gather dust for a while.

That’s my basic philosophy to games. When I get a game like Dynasty Warriors 7 I know that I’m getting a large collection of figures in one shot. I know some of them will be bad figures and some of them will be good. It gets harder to judge though when so many characters do so little in the title. Then I have to go off of looks instead of looks and personality and boy can personality matter.

It was Dante’s over-the-top personality that originally sold me on the character so many years ago. It was also one of the main reasons his second outing seemed to shallow. The character lost almost all of his personality.  If the character doesn’t have personality then the game doesn’t have personality.

Can a game have too much personality? For me, yes. I keep trying to play Bayonetta, but her extreme personality keeps putting me off. I keep telling myself I’ll come back to it. And when I do, I tend to put it down again. I’m sure that she deserves better treatment then this. If you agree then vote for Bayonetta to be the next game I play.

See these two guys? They have the same voice.

Darksiders was another title that I had that issue with. War has nearly ZERO personality. He says every line in the exact same manner. That little black wraith guy who was with him had tons of personality, but he was voiced by Mark Hamill, the voice of the Joker from Batman the Animated Series. the best Batman cartoon ever.  Overall Darksiders was fun, but War’s boring attitude didn’t help anything. I kept waiting for him to show a little more emotion. Maybe in the next game. But that fact that the voice of War, Liam O'Brien also voiced Endrance from the .hack//G.U. series has me laughing.

So that’s how it works. Video games = playing with action figures for me. I prefer the over-the-top style figure, so that puts my current guy, Mr. John Marston of Red Dead Redemption, at a bit of a disadvantage since he’s grounded in reality. But Mr. Marston’s personality has grown on me over the length of the game. Plus the game is telling a pretty interesting story and delivering it in an interesting way.