The Virtual Quo

Consolidation

2010-05-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well, in case you have not already notice, I don't really post on here all that often anymore (the last post before this one was in January). So I am consolidating this blog in with my personal wordpress one at http://statusofthequo.com/.

I was originally thinking that I would cross-post any relevant content onto here, and even continue to write my diatribes about certain games and the industry as a whole. The hope was that I may get a chance to write for another website in the not to distant future. That hasn't worked for 4 months however, so I don't think that is going to change too much anytime soon. In fact I am so out of the loop of the games industry now, I couldn't write anything current without taking a bunch of time to get caught up.

Feel free to come back and visit this site whenever you like, and read the old stuff (too lazy to move it, though I may find time at some point), and please visit my new site. Enjoy, and thank you for reading.

Choose your own adventure... er I mean Racer.

2010-01-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

So I was reading "the Twitters" today and found a tweet from Turn 10 studios that caught my attention (Turn 10 are the makers of the Forza franchise). Now everyone knows that I love my car porn racing games, Forza and Gran Turismo are the highlights of the genre. Anyway, back to the point. This tweet pointed me to the Jalopnik.com website to one of the greatest announcements in the history of car porn racing games. Take 120 of the most iconic cars in history, and have a large group of die hard car enthusiasts vote on their favorites and put them into a video game.

That's what they are doing here.

Over the next week, the 120 choices will be whittled down to 15. From that 15, Turn 10 will take 9 of them (plus the 1 Jalopnik editor's choice) and turn them into a car pack available this summer. Oh, and did I mention that the 1982 DeLorian DMC-12 is one of the choices? Yeah, get over there and vote. There are new lists every day to pick only the best of the best. For some reason someone forgot to include the 1975 AMC Matador(merely an oversight I am sure), but the sportier version of it, the '71 AMC Javelin AMX is a choice.

I for one, am pumped to be flying around a track in a DeLorian this summer.

Zombursday!

2010-01-22T09:19:00.001-08:00

So I don't really know why I am writing anything today other than to say that once again another Zombursday (aka Zombie Thursday) has come and gone, and it was a blast again.

For those that are unaware of what the hell I am talking about, I will explain. Since my bother picked me up Left 4 Dead 2 for Christmas, myself, my brother and two other real life friends log on every Thursday to kill some undead. Last night's experience was the toughest yet as we moved up to advanced in the difficulty. Tougher zombies that do WAY more damage. We put it on Dead Center, and everything was going smoothly until the last section where your band of survivors has to fill a stock car up with Gas while fighting off hordes of zombies to make your escape from the mall. So we split into 2 groups of 2. My brother and I would run around the 3 floor mall throwing gas cans to the team below to fill up the car. Well, it was going smooth until the game decided it was time to kill us by spawning a Charger, a Tank, and a Smoker all at the same time. The smoker grabbed one, the charger got the other, and the tank just threw rocks at my disabled teammates. By the time the two of us got to the bottom floor, both of them were already killed, and the tank decided to beat the stuffing out of the two of us with little resistance.

It really surprised me how much of a dick the AI is in this game when you start ramping up the difficulty. It will happily take advantage of the group splitting up by sending everything it has at half of them while practically ignoring the other half. It's definitely what makes the game so replayable, but can also lead to some frustrating moments. I have to say that overall, Valve did a pretty good job on this one.

Going back to the old

2010-01-18T12:05:00.000-08:00

8 Days ago, I was talked into doing something that I was pretty certain would never happen. I reactivated my Star wars: Galaxies account.

Now, I played this game for a long time, most of 2003 and 2004 to be exact, never mind the amount of time I put into it. Then one day that all ended. They changed the fundamental way the game worked, and told me that I could no longer play the way that I enjoyed. There really was a great community in that game, and I have to admit that there were nights that I spent siting in a virtual cantina on Lok, or Naboo, or Tatooine just talking to other people as they perform (yes, there is in fact an entertainer profession). Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) decided to end all of that with one patch, once again reinforcing the well known fact that Sony does in fact hate gamers. On that day, I said I would never come back.

Well, I guess that I lied since here I am nearly 6 years later playing it again. I have to say that I am actually liking it. I was even able to pretty much start back up where I left off. Mind you the hundreds of billions of credits that I had on my characters were gobbled up by my houses (the game requires maintenance to be payed to player structures), and I lost pretty much all of my old resources to guild mates that had access to my houses even after I quit.

There are still a lot of things that I like about the game. It still has probably the best space combat flight sim of any game let alone an MMO, and I could probably just play that part of it and enjoy it. The way that resources are treated are unmatched in any game, and while the crafting has been rather substantially reduced in it's importance, it still remains an integral part of the game. It used to be that everything was crafted by another player who harvested the resources to make it. Resources would change over time, and there was nothing in the game that was going to make it easy by guaranteeing good quality resources. If you were on a particularly unlucky server, you could have been waiting for over a year or more for that one last resource you needed to make that amazing gun or armor. This in itself created a demand for resource sellers that would command fleets of harvesters to supply the top crafters. That's what I did. I found and sold the fundamentals of the game.

This time around I am going to work on production of actual stuff. I see it only fitting to work on space crafting seeing as how I like that part the most. It's also very convenient that you can now have 2 characters per server. So unlike the old game where you could be a crafter OR a combat profession, I can now have one of each.

I don't see myself playing this for any real length of time, as I have a large collection of other games I need to get back to. Also with Mass Effect 2 coming out one week from today, I can foresee a slight break from all other gaming coming soon. I am waiting with anticipation on the next Star Wars MMO (The Old Republic), that is being made by Bioware, which in my opinion is the top developer in the world today. The game itself isn't slated to hit shelves until 2011, but until then, I can get my quick Star Wars fix from something I figured I would never play again.

And No, I will not be returning to World of Warcraft. That's a pandora's box that I don't want to reopen.

Some updates

2010-01-08T07:54:00.000-08:00

So I updated the little list of "Upcoming releases I give a crap about", that can be found near the bottom of the left column. I did miss a couple of notable releases, but I am going to try to be a little more vigilant to update that when I hear of something interesting. Right now all I have on there is Mass Effect 2 and Gran Turismo 5. Both should be games that I get almost too much enjoyment out of.

Right now from Gameaccess.ca I have Overlord 2 (that was on my list prior to today's update). I have yet to play it despite having it since the end of November. To make things even more interesting, they are sending me Brutal Legend now as well. I really liked the demo for that game, so we will have to see if the full game lives up to that. I really just have too many games to play right now.

Also, got a chance to play some more Left 4 Dead 2 last night with my brother. Thursday has become the Official L4D2 night of the week. I have to admit, I can't wait for next Thursday. This really was a sleeper hit for me as I figured it would get boring fast. Admittedly, the single player did. The multiplayer keeps me coming back.

I really need to spend less time with real life so I can get caught up on all my games.

A good Christmas for gaming

2010-01-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

So I have to say that my gaming addiction was well nourished this Christmas by my family, and by some amazing deals on Steam.

It started out with my loving wife getting my Dragon age: Origins. This is a game that I have been putting off buying mostly because I don't have time to play what I already have, and partially in an effort to reduce my game expenditures. Well, I imagine that if my wife wanted to tell me that she didn't want to see me for the next few weeks, there is no better way to say it then by buying me Dragon age. For the time I have spent playing it, the story is fantastic, and I am always eager to "turn the page" so to speak. The combat seems to be standing in my way at times though. I got to a point were I had to turn down the difficulty to continue on, and once again, I have gotten to a point were constant death is occurring. Sadly there is no easier than easy, and I am not sure if I can just go back from where I am and do something else. I forced myself to stop simply to preserve the life of my keyboard. Not to worry however, as there were other distractions.

My brother was kind enough to pick me up a copy of Left 4 dead 2. A game which I have heard a lot about, but never really drew me in. As it turns out, him and two other friends play it every week, and I would make the fourth. So I got into it, and I have to say it's a hell of a lot of fun with three other people that you know. It's quite frantic however, so I find myself totally burnt out on it after only a couple of hours. Maybe it's just a sign that I am getting old.

To make my rediscovered love of PC gaming even stronger, Steam had a 2 week long sale to beat all sales. I have yet to even play all the games I picked up, but all of them are great titles. Here is a quick list, in no particular order:

STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyle

Torchlight

Commander Keen Complete pack

King's Bounty: Armored Princess

Mount and Blade

Mr. Robot

Morrowind

Trine

All for under $40.

Torchlight is probably my favorite so far, but only because I have played Morrowind many time in the past, it will just be nice to have a copy that I can keep track of. All in all it was a good couple weeks for PC gaming.

Lucky gaming week

2009-12-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

So last week, I managed to use up all of my luck for who knows how long. I won, not one but two XBLA games in twitter "retweet" contests. The first game was courtesy of Crispygamer.com. It's a game called Ion Assault, which is an interesting take on Asteroids. You have to destroy all the asteroids in a zone by charging up your weapon and gathering particles. When you fire it shoots them at the target, and they wash over everything in front of them. There are some really interesting particle physics in play here, and it really looks quite pretty when you fire. It does carry the difficulty of the arcade shooter genre which was practically designed with the premise of stealing all your quarters. You die a lot in this beasty.

The second game was courtesy of The10k.com. It was Call of Duty: Classic. Now I really don't have to explain this too much. It's a port of the Original call of duty game. It's a WW2 shooter. It's really hard, and I suck at FPSs on a console. I played it for one night, and it was kickin' my ass. It's a small doses game for me.

I also bought my first PSN title this past weekend, and it may be a new addiction for me. Pixel Junk Eden. I can't say enough good stuff about this game. The premise is that you have to grow "plants" by collecting pollen so that you can climb up the plants and reach the goals for the level. It sounds very strange, but I have to say that this is probably my second favorite platformer ever (Bonk's Revenge is still my favorite). It has great music, nice visuals, and is challenging without the normal perfectly timed jump required. I am still early in this game, and I have put a lot of time into it already. It my get impossible hard later on (like Rocket Riot), but I am really hoping that it just stays perfect the way that it is.

Well, that's all I have right now, so I am going to end it here.

I'm done!

2009-11-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

So last night I had a moment of one of the greatest feelings I have had in a while. I FINALLY got past the 50% mark of FUEL. As I have said before, it's a terrible game and I am just happy to be done with it. I sent it back this morning, so I will have to wait and see what the next game that gets sent my way. I put 29 hours into that abysmal failure, and yes, I am a little sad that I can't get that time back. It seems that I played 19 hours in the last week alone.

My next game to play is going to be Sacred 2. That was the game they sent me upon the return of Wolverine. From what I have heard about the game, it's along the same lines as Too Human, hack and slash with lots of looting. I do like that style of game as I have put many hours of my life into such games as Diablo (1 and 2), Too human, and Borderlands et all. Some people have said that it's a 100+ hour game. I kind of hope not, but I suppose I will find out soon enough.

In other news Future shop is having some Canadian black Friday sales, that make me sad that I am not buying video games for the next little while. The real kick to the proverbial nuts is that Dragon Age is $40 for PS3/360 and $45 for PC. I would be $45 lighter in the wallet on Friday, but no. I must stay strong.

If you would like to see all the deals, here is a link to the thead on Neogaf.

Someday I may make an entire post devoted to the reason behind my no game buying, but then again. You may never hear about it.

In pursuit of Gamerscore

2009-11-17T09:09:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I surprise myself a little bit. Sometime it's shock that I experience, sometimes it's disappointment, sometimes I just have to sit back after and ask myself, What. The. Fuck. Last night I had one of the later. Well more accurately, I had that feeling this morning. When I was trying to drag my ass out of bed.

For those of you that have never read this blog before, I have a Gameaccess subscription that mails me 2 video games that I hold on to and play until I mail them back and they send me two more (you can click the links at the left to learn more). I put a lot of games on my queue. Pretty much every time one of my favorite podcasts say a game was okay or better it goes on. That has let me play some games I would never normally try. Other times, I have found some massive turds. Mercenaries 2 was one of those turds. Fuel, the game I have right now, is another.

Fuel is an arcade style racer set in a sort of barren area of the world that uses helicopters to move vehicles around when the roads, while littered with crap, are still in okay shape. There are a few different kind of vehicles ranging from dirt bikes to sports cars to monster trucks. Each car has it's style, being offroad or asphalt. "Offroad" vehicles slide around like they are on ice all the time, and "Asphalt" vehicles act like they are on quick sand the second you hit the shoulder. Physics are terrible. Graphics are poor. There is zero story. Loading times are atrocious. Really there is nothing in this game that would normally make me play it. It's claim to fame and the reason it was in my queue: It holds the Guiness world record for largest open world game. Lucky for them that there is no caveat that they can't use the same chunk of land 5000 times.

Anyway, back to my original point. Why the hell am I playing this? Why would I loose sleep so that I can spend more time with this game. The answer comes to me in one word: Gamerscore. Some time ago I found a website called trueachievements.com, which tracks your Xbox live achievements, and assigns them a different value based on the number of people who have played the game versus the number of people who have that achievement. Easy achievements are just the base value. Hard ones are worth multiple times more than the base value. Fuel, having a base value of 1000 points, is worth 3147 True Achievement points. So pretty damn hard. I think it's more of the fact that no one likes this piece of crap so they just don't keep playing.

The one thing that I find most valuable on this site is it shows your completion percentage of all the games you have played. Right now, I am at 53% (you can view my profile here). Now it has taken me a hell of a long time to get it that high, and I REALLY don't want to kill it with this piece of crap. So I find myself playing games that I hate because I have started them. I can't say I like that, but I haven't convinced myself yet that an arbitrary value is not worth spending time on.

I really need to get this thing done so I can send it back and hope for something good.

My latest obsession

2009-10-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I find a game that just sucks me in, grabs me, and doesn't want to let go. Normally these are some pretty main stream titles. Ones that come to mind are Fallout 3, Oblivion, and the ever dominating World of Warcraft. This is one that few people have even heard of, and most who have, have dismissed it outright. This latest game is Borderlands. Before I get into what it's about and what makes it so great, I'll show you the intro movie. It could be one of the most well done ones in my gaming experience.

The first thing you will notice is the comic book style cell shaded graphics. I have to say I really do love when games go in this direction with their art choices. It may just be my nerd self showing, but it just feels right. From that intro it transitions flawlessly into the game. Needless to say it impressed me right from the start. It did get a bit dull for a bit from there, but has picked up since.

The basic premise for this story is that you play one of the four characters in the intro. You are a "Vault Hunter". You are looking for a secret alien vault that is storied to hold untold riches and wealth. The catch? Well legend has it that it's somewhere on a hostile, barren wasteland of a planet fittingly named Pandora.

While I still have not completed the game, it does seriously cater to my inner loot whore. It has the same style of random-ish loot as the Diablo and World of Warcraft series. There are countless mutations of weapons combining a handful of different elemental properties with various types of perks/buffs. Similar to the "Adjective noun of the Animal" format (ie: Brutal Cutlass of the Monkey) in World of Warcraft. In short lots of variations. Unfortunately there is little more than the weapons to collect, so I think it could still do better.

The story is pretty terrible. For the most part it's the tired old story line of "help the locals against the big bad gangs". Fortunately the gameplay is smooth and makes up for it. Shooting is very smooth, aiming is good as long as you are using a gun that is ideal for your class. Using non-standard guns does make hitting the target harder, but not impossible. My experience in this comes from using the Sniper rifle with the Soldier. The game is heavy on the FPS elements, but builds in enough of the RPG elements to make it feel like you are developing your character.

Now in saying all of that, I have set this game down for a bit and have not beat it yet, but it is definitely fun enough to keep me coming back to it for a long time. At this point, this is THE game that I play on my PS3. Unfortunately all the people that I know that did pick up the game, bought it on the Xbox 360, which sucks seeing as how the game supports 4 player online co-op. So I have not gotten the chance to try that out, but I have heard that it's good.

If you have not picked up this game yet, I would highly recommend it. Maybe consider the PS3 version so I don't have to play alone anymore.

So long and thanks for all the fish

2009-10-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

So a few of you may remember a little while ago I announced that I would be writing for Gametwerp.com. After articles went up, I would also post a link to them here just in case someone actually reads this blog.

Well it turns out that while I was on vacation, the creator of the site after carefully reviewing his situation and that of the site has decided to take it down for the time being. It will be back at some point, and I will hopefully be writing for them again after the "rebirth". At the moment the site is just a shell, and none of my links work anymore. I am thinking I will update my old posts to include the actual articles, in a sort of "Originally on Gametwerp.com" thing. We'll see what happens.

Since I am now freelancing again, it looks like I will be going back to writing here, and maybe on the SGCBlogs again. I have my list of ideas that I have yet to use, even though I have been pretty far removed from the gaming world the last few weeks. Time has been against me, but with only about 2 or 3 weeks left in the football season this year, and Extra Life this coming weekend, I will hopefully be back into it soon enough.

Well that's all I have for today. I have been told that the Gametwerp podcast will live on, so make sure to look for it on iTunes, and give it a listen.

Latest Gametwerp.com Article

2009-09-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

My latest article is now up on Gametwerp.com. I wrote it on the eve of the announcement of the 250GB Xbox 360 bundle, and it is a gentle walk through the battle for the biggest console hard drive.

You can check it out on the site at:
http://www.gametwerp.com/battleofthegigabytes.htm

Latest Article

2009-09-17T10:29:00.000-07:00

So I actually had some time to write my Gametwerp article this week. Unfortunately I had very little inspiration. So while procrastinating, it came to me to write about how I was procrastinating. So here is a quick link to my list of top 5 time wasters on Facebook.

bullet list: top 5 Facebook time wasters

The PS3 out of the box.

2009-09-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

So for my birthday Sarah was nice enough to talk to my family about what I wanted to get. I am notorious for not knowing what I want, and if at any point I do know that I want something I tend to go buy it. Anyway, she kept my family up to date about where the best PS3 deals were at the time. So they all went together and picked me up some gift cards so that I could finally get myself a PS3. So I picked up probably the best bundle ever conceived. It was the 160GB with Uncharted bundle with Infamous AND Killzone 2 included. So that is basically 3 of the top PS3 exclusives in one pack, and all for the same price of just a PS3 160GB.

After having it for nearly 2 weeks, I finally got a chance to set it up. I didn't actually play anything, but it's now plugged in. I also told it to download the Little Big Planet demo, which shockingly took over 5 hours to download just over 1GB. That's just wrong. I could have download it faster on my Blackberry. They need to work on that.

I have been writing for Gametwerp.com for a few weeks now, and as I said that I would (but haven't) I am posting links to my articles.

My Shadow complex review:http://www.gametwerp.com/shadowcomplexreview.htm

My Pinnacle Station Mass Effect DLC review: http://www.gametwerp.com/pinnaclestationreview.htm

For those paying attention I have missed a week already, thanks to my calender being full, and I still need to write my article for this week. Since I have not yet played any games for two weeks, I am going to come up with something. So no more writing here, need to start thinking.

Writing for others.

2009-08-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

So while I have been doing the blog thing for some time now, I have been writing primarily for myself. I am sure there are probably a couple of other people reading my blogs, but I am sure they are few and far between. Well last week, I had to start writing for an audience. One of the gaming sites that I have been following for some time recently had to clean out some of their writers, which opened up some spots. Well the administrator needed to fill those spots, and I was lucky enough to be asked. Now don't get me wrong, I know this is a very small site, and I highly doubt that my article will be getting THAT many page views, but it's a start.

The site that I am writing for is Gametwerp.com. They are relatively new and put out a weekly podcast. I was lucky enough to get to be a guest on for the episode that released on my first week as a writer. If you want to listen to the podcast, and hear my goofy voice talk about games, you can check it out here.

My first article went out on August 19th, and was a simple introduction to me and my past and present with gaming. My articles will be published each Wednesday, and I will make sure that I put a link up on hear to point to the latest one each week. I will still be posting the odd blog on here about topics that don't really fit with the other site. I actually sat down on the weekend and spent a bit of time planning out some blog topics, and came up with at least 7 or 8 that can be written anytime. I will be doing some reviews for the site as well, so I am sure this list will be able to fill up both places, just maybe not as frequently here. With that all said, make sure and go read my first article.

Last week's article "Crel: The introduction" can be found here.

Seeing the future

2009-08-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

Boy do I wish I could actually do that. The first thing I would do is make some money off sports betting, then figure out what tomorrow's next Google will be. Since I can't do that however, I guess I will just have to settle for the glimpse of the future that I am getting being part of the Xbox Live dashboard preview. I got my e-mail accepting me on Saturday, and my xbox downloaded the update right away.

So I'll start at the beginning. The download took a whopping 2 minutes. The install after a reboot took about the same. Personally, I saw no difference in load times or loading the friends list (mind you I have only 10 friends), so I don't really know what Microsoft is talking about in that department. Also since I have virtually no console friends, I have not tested the party improvements.

I have browsed through the Avatar store. That is the biggest pile of crap ever conceived. I looked first at the Fable 2 store (because I actually like that game). Now the very first thing that caught my eye was that you could buy the entire Highwayman outfit for your avatar. This is how the conversation went in my head:

Oh neat! They made the Highwayman outfit. That looks like it would be cool. Hmm, I wonder why you have to get each piece separately? Wow they are expensive. I wonder how much the entire outfit costs? 740 MS points?!?!? No f'n way!

That pretty much killed even the passing interest that I had in buying crap for my avatar. Give me an entire outfit from Fable 2 or something for 100ms points or something, I'm in. Make me pay as much for an entire game as for clothes? No, just no.

The one feature I do like the improvements to are the Achievement areas. When you go into the achievement browser, the very first thing in the list now shows you all of the games that you have 100% of the achievement for. I only have 6, so it's not much of a list, but I like having it there. It also lets you hit Y to launch into a game from the screen for it. I like how you can just sort through your stuff and choose what game you want to play from there. There have already been a couple of times where I see a game that I haven't played in a while, and forgotten about because I have put them away.

So far, this is really all I have taken away from it so far, it's stable and all, it's just not much to get excited about.

Small part of a massive effort.

2009-07-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

This is reposted on my personal blog, as well as my SG blog.

Those of you who are frequent readers of my blog know that I recently lost my grandfather to Cancer. After beating the disease once over 11 years ago, it came back with a vengeance. After being diagnosed in March, he passed away on the 11th of June.

Sarah (my wife) was also informed back in February that her grandmother was also diagnosed with Cancer. Now at this point in time, she is just about finished her chemo, and has been showing steady signs of improvement. While it's unlikely that the disease will go into full remission, it has halted and she is doing better.

One of my coworkers (Brian) was also diagnosed with Cancer a while ago, and after undergoing a painful surgery, and chemo, the disease has not stopped it's attack on him. Unfortunately the Doctors do not think the normal treatments are going help, so they are currently trying to get him on to an experimental drug, hopefully that will help.

Why am I talking about this? Well, I just wanted to give some background on how cancer has touched my life, and the reason that I will be participating in this years Extra Life campaign that is being organized by the Sarcastic Gamer community in cooperation with the Texas Children's Hospital, one of top Pediatric cancer research centers in the United States. Last year's Extra Life campaign raised over $120,000 for cancer research and they are hoping to beat that this year.

So what is Extra life? Well here is what the site says about it http://extralife.sarcasticgamer.com/.

Extra Life 2009 will take place on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 as gamers from all corners of the globe come together for a 24-hour video game marathon raising money to strike a blow against pediatric cancer. Last year, our first year, Extra Life raised more than $120,000 and was put together in just a couple of months. This year, we’re starting early and throwing open the doors of Extra Life to anyone who wants to have fun while making a difference.

Please make plans NOW to join us on October 17th, starting at 8:00am in your local time zone.

Sign up and get ready for a life changing experience! Play Games. Heal Kids.

So that pretty much sums it up. 24 hours of playing games to save kids lives, and help find a cure for cancer.

While the site has been open to sign up for a while now, and I have been registered to participate since the first day, I am officially kicking off my fundraising drive tomorrow 12 weeks from the date of Extra life (October 17th). I have set a goal of raising $192, which is 8 people sponsoring me $1 per hour of gaming. Now comes the part where I ask for your support.

If you want to help me reach this goal, please click the link below. It will take you directly to my donation page on the Texas Children's hospital page. From there you can donate directly through Paypal (note: it will ask you to enter my legal name for paypal donations it is there as Chris Larsen). Or if you would prefer, you can just contact me directly, and I can accept cash donations. Thank you for your support.

The crap days of summer

2009-07-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Yup, it seems that evey year, the "game drought" gets worse and worse in the summer (maybe it's from Global Warming), and this year is no exception. When we are listening to podcasters wax on at length about what most game players refer to as garbage games or shovelware, we have to come to the realization that there is nothing worth spending money on till the holiday rush. Even my rentals seem to bf forcing this feeling upon me lately, as the good games that I didn't buy last Christmas seem to be so in demand now, that there is no way to rent them. It's as if even Gameaccess is telling me I should just go outside. Well it's hot out, and I don't wanna. So I will play the junk that you keep sending me.

The last two rentals I have received have been some pretty painful gaming. Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires started off the run. I really like the Dynasty Warriors series, but this one put my patience to the test. Basically you are given a map of China divided into sections. The goal; conquer it all. Each section is a battle. The battles are just what every other Dynasty Warriors game is. Each "scenario" starts with replaying the famous battle that were the missions from the other Dynasty Warriors games. This is over in one battle, then the rest of the "scenario" is just conquer the rest of the map. I did get all 1000 gamerscore points from this one which is monotonous on high, but not difficult. Without question, this is the worst game of the series. However, I still like the type of game, so it get's a 5 out of 10 from me.

The next rental that I received was Lord of the Rings: Conquest. I put this on my list only because it was recommended on a podcast because it was a "Great rental". Wow. Were they ever wrong. Terrible gameplay. Uninteresting classes. Single player campaign was just a bunch of multiplayer games with rotten AI that does nothing but get in your way. Enemies pretty much ignore the friendly AI drones and come directly at you. The cut scenes are actually pieces of the movies that fade in and out while the narrator tells the story.

One interesting bit is after you beat the first "Campaign"(which took me about 3 or 4 hours), you get to play as the bad guys as though Frodo failed to destroy the ring, and Sauron gets it back and destroys everything. I especially enjoyed the attack on the Shire where you can literally kill hundreds of hobbits. There is even an achievement for killing 300 of them in a single play through (fittingly called "Stupid hobbitses "). So that one took me 8 hours to play, I have almost all of the single player achievements on it (590 points, so may or may not get the rest), and I have no intention on getting the crap multiplayer ones. This game took longer to get to me in the mail then it took to play. Oh well I guess that means I'll have more time for my next one.

Oh wait, it's Onechanbara: Bikini Suicide Squad. Yup. I had to put it on the list because I was really curious about it. I have been told that the best part of the entire game is the opening cut scene, and it's all downhill from there. Basic premise of the story: Two very attractive female characters, have been cursed, and gain power from being covered in the blood of monster/zombie/things that they kill. So they wear as little clothing as possible to get the highest amount of blood possible on them. Yeah, it's actually that. And yes, I am serious. So I don't have high hopes for it, but I was just amazed that something like this would ever get released in the Puritans land (aka North America).

Oh well, here's hoping that the 4th one is lucky.

The connotations of Nostalgia

2009-06-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

*Tap, Tap, Tap*
Hello? Is this thing on? Oh hey, it does still work. It's a good thing that these blogs don't disappear after too much inactivity, since I am sure that one of my month long hiatuses would have killed it a few times over.

Well I have been meaning to get back at this blog thing, but I was a little too distracted with things falling apart around me to spend too much time playing video games.

Well I finally did get to spend a little bit of time with my console, and I have to say, that it has been good. I was going to go into some details about what I have been playing and all that (you know the normal podcast intro garbage), and I still will talk about it, but I found some context for it today. As always, I was listening to my plethora of podcasts while I was at work today, and one of them started off by announcing that the topics would be Remakes of classic games, some crap about yet another rhythm game, and "Why don't people play old games anymore?". At this point, I am practically cheering out loud for selecting two of those topics, as anyone who frequently reads this blog and the cryptic ramblings that it contains, would know. In case this is your first (and probably last :P ) time reading my blog, I love retro games. Love them. They are great! Also, in case you are curious, it was The Red Button podcast ep#3 (Part of the SG community podcasts)

So practically bouncing in my chair, I am eagerly awaiting the promised portion of the podcast. Finally it arrives! First topic Wolfenstien! Fantastic! I just downloaded that off Xbox Live, and played through the first episode already. Wow what a great retro game. Playing through that first level, I can practically see myself sitting in front of my Uncle's computer with my brother and cousin trying to find 100% of the secret trap doors. Listen some more, upcoming remake of the game. Ok so that sounds like it could be ok. Listen some more, and what do I hear, but an open warning to avoid the classic port. W...T...F? The port is perfect! It's all 6 episodes in one game. What the hell is wrong with you people? At this point I feel like an old man shaking my fist and yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn. They move on to Bionic commando (not a fun game when it first came out), but I don't really listen too intently. I am a little broken inside.

But it's ok, there is still some of this podcast that I want to hear. Why don't more people play old games? Why am I one of the few who still love going back and replaying the games I grew up on. My hopes gradually mount while I am half ignoring the discussion of DJ hero, and working on some java script. And here it comes the moment I have been waiting for. What game are they going to lead off with? Here it comes................. Crackdown! Wait, what!?!?!? Crackdown is 2 years old. That's not old, that's one of my "new" games! What about Doom, or Freespace, or Fallout, heck I would have even accepted a lengthy discussion on the comparative points between Team fortress and TF2. It's at this point that I realize that all hope is lost, and the podcast becomes background noise.

Oh how the connotations of a word can be so different. It seems that I am truly a dieing breed of gamer.

E3: The list

2009-05-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

With E3 just around the corner, I have to say that you can almost feel the end of the gaming drought coming to an end. You can practically smell the rain of games coming. The down side is that I don't think there will be all that much for new announcements that will peak my interest. Naturally there will be all of the top tier sequels that have already been announced that will be showing off a new trailer or a bunch of new "Bullshots". Normally there are a couple of demos that come out during the conference. Unfortunately, we won't get to play any of those games until the typical fall rush, but some news sure beats the hell out of what's going on now in the gaming world.

There are a couple of games that I am pretty pumped about, one of them is a little known title called Rise of flight that from what I can tell is due to come out for PC on the 8th of June in North America. The graphics are beautiful. It's a World War 1 flight/combat sim, and this is something I have been looking for since I played Knights of the Sky which came out in 1991. Here is what it says about it on the E3 announcement:

Rise of Flight is the new World War I combat flight-simulator from Russian developer neoqb. Rise of Flight brings the classic, Red Baron style air battles of WWI to your PC with flyable versions of the famous Spad XIII and the deadly Fokker D.VII biplanes. Featuring advanced flight and physics models, amazing visuals, an ultra-detailed damage engine and powerful mission editor, Rise of Flight creates a hyper-realistic combat flight experience. Rise of Flight features both Single-Player Campaign and Online Multi-Player modes of play with built in statistics tracking and detailed career development including promotions and commendations.

It's made by a Russian developer, so it could be terrible, but I have high hopes for it, and it's probably the best thing on the list posted by Sarcastic gamer last week of confirmed anouncements (Found here.

If you look at the list you will notice games like Sushi Academy, Hardy Boys: The hidden theft, Prank your Neighbor, and my vote for golden turd... Jillian Michaels' Fitness Ultimatum 2010.

I did have my interest peaked by Section 8, a new FPS. I have not heard much about it, but the premise seems pretty good. This is what the announcement had to say about it:

On the war-torn planets of tomorrow, mankind’s greatest battle is about to begin. With its frontier colonies devastated by a growing insurrection, Earth dispatches the elite 8th Armored Infantry (nicknamed “Section 8TM“) to repel the coming onslaught. The nickname refers to an old United States military regulation where a soldier would be dismissed from service through being mentally unfit for duty. The near-suicidal missions that this division volunteers for brands them as insane by other military units.

Hopefully we will get to see some teasers for games like Mass Effect 2, Deus Ex 3, and some of the other big mainstream games that I don't likely care about (Modern Warfare 2, Starcraft 2, Ghostbusters).

I am more looking forward to getting E3 out of the way, and get some new games out.

A trip down memory lane

2009-05-20T17:17:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, I was an online gamer. I would literally spend 40 hours per week at work, and another 40 to 60 hours online playing games. Now, I have been a avid gamer as long as I can remember, and it was nothing new for me to lose myself in a game. I remember spending entire weekends in my basement playing Bonk's Revenge on the Turbo Grafix 16. What really got me hooked however was a gaming clan.

Planetside; an SOE game that was a MMOFPS. I think it still exists in some warped and twisted form of the original. I picked it up on pre-order when it first came out because I had always enjoyed PC shooters, and the though of playing against that many people all at once intrigued the hell out of me. I got into the game, played a couple of nights, and then one night got asked if I would help someone start a clan (or guild or whatever it was called in that game), and I could stay in if I wanted to. So I hung around with the group for a few hours, and decided that I would stay. Well, one thing lead to another, and I had become an active member of Clan STING, and had met some of the best gaming friends I would ever have.

We played Planetside until SOE in it's infinite wisdom released an expansion and ruined the game. So once that was done, we needed somewhere else to spend our time. So a bunch of us decided to play Star Wars: Galaxies, and enjoyed the hell out of that too. Built a huge player city, group hunted Krayte Dragons, and Kimoguilas, had a lot of fun. Then SOE went and wrecked that game too. No matter, we will find another one.

Then came WoW. Yup I was a World of Warcraft player. Played from release for two and a half years. The clan picked up some more members, we went raiding, even made a Gnome race movie where 40 or so lvl 1 Gnomes ran from Ironforge to Stormwind, which turned out to be quite popular on the internets for a while. Unfortunately, times changed, and so did peoples priorities, and over time, people faded away, and one day, the clan site went dark never to be seen again.

This is what led me to buy an Xbox 360 years later in search of that old feeling again. I have joined several websites/communities, but I have never again had that kind of experience that I did with Clan STING, and I am pretty sure I never will again. I don't play all that many multiplayer games on the console, primarily because I hate console FPS controls, and the console multiplayer experience is limited to pretty much that. Maybe one day I will find an online game that fits what I am looking for, but until then, I guess I stay single-player.

blows off the dust

2009-05-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I have written anything video game related, and that's because the only thing I have been playing is the occasional bout of brick breaker on my blackberry. This weekend, I finally ended the drought, and dropped a bunch of Microsoft points. I picked up both of the new fallout 3 DLCs, and Arkanoid. Also downloaded Aeges wing for free, for some cheep thrills. Another game I played on Friday was the Beta for the new XBL 1vs100. Now, for those of you that have been living under a rock, the marketing people at Microsoft were looking for a way to "Monetize" their XBL gold members more efficiently. What better way than to cram ads down their throats while they play trivia. So lets take a failed TV game show, and let people play it. Now since the beta is a Canada only thing, and since not all of you are perfect ... I mean Canadian, I'll start with describing the play experience.

So these live sessions are at scheduled times on set days, and run for 2 hours. The first one was last Friday, and the next one is Tomorrow (Tuesday May 12th). When you fire it up, you enter into the waiting room, and the game sets you up in a group of 4. It will group you with people on your friends list first, and then fill any gaps. The first thing that they will tell you how to do is mash the Y button. This makes you dance. You push Y faster, and it gets you to the next "level" you use the D-pad to change your moves.

Once they start the game, your little group of 4 is part of the crowd, and you can participate by answering the same trivia questions as the one and the one hundred. There are infinite number of crowds, but only 101 people who are playing for prizes. The game tracks your score as a crowd member, and the higher your scores, the higher the chances of you being picked for the 1 or the 100. Now because this is still beta, there are no real prizes, but they show up as if they were being given. The One has the ability to win up to 20,000 Microsoft points if they beat all one hundred, and it looks as though if only one of the 100 were to win, they would be rewarded with 800 MS points. Now, I may be wrong about this but after each round, the top three crowd members are shown on the screen as "Prize Winners". What they would win, I have no clue.

Now I will get to the actual game play. The question comes up full screen, and each of three possible answers are associated with one of the three remaining buttons (not Y). You get points for your reaction time, right or wrong. The highest I was ever able to get was 200 point for speed. You then get points for getting the question right and bonus points for your streak of correct answers, and then you get more points for each of the 100 that were eliminated. The fewer that are left, the higher the point value for each person eliminated. Total points for the round are at the top of the screen. Lifetime totals are tracked, as well as your reaction time, and the number of players that you have eliminated (members of the 100 that got the question wrong when you got it right).

The questions for the most part are pretty easy, and I was only having issues with some of the strange pop culture ones (like "who did Zack Effron bring with him to the premier of 17 again". Turns out it was his mom).

I did not get picked as one of the 100 or the one, so I can't comment on how that works, one of my group did, and it looked the same except his background was blue. There does seem to be a lot of potential problems with this idea, such as the possibility that you could play for an entire lifetime, and never get to be one of the 101 players if there are a few million players waiting.

I did enjoy the experience, and I am sure I will be playing it with some frequency. I am unsure of the truth to the rumors of how they will be dishing out achievement points for the game. I will be playing again tomorrow, so if your in Canada, feel free to add me to your friends list (Crel001), and hopefully we will get grouped up, and see how the trivia plays out.

Mirror's edge

2009-04-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

So last night, Mirror's edge was finally in my mail box. I have been wanting to try it out for so long now, and I am really looking forward to playing it tonight, despite having some plans.

Also, when I was picking up a coffee today, there was a Blockbuster nearby. I saw a sign in the window advertising all you can rent games (1 out at a time) for $29.99/month. Seriously? $30 per month? Game access has the same thing for $10/month, and a better selection. Wow, no idea why anyone would pay for this.

Ewww... banner adds.

2009-03-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, so if you actually scroll down on this page you will see that I have added a dreaded banner add.

*Gasp*

I know, I know, why would I ruin a perfectly good blog by putting advertising on it? Well, it's because it's advertising for a service that I actually use and I love it. From time to time I talk about pay sites that I subscribe to, and if I like them or not. In this case, it's a site that I cannot speak highly enough about. Gameaccess.ca is the Canadian version of Gamefly in the states. They are a completely Canadian company based out of Verdun, QC. They offer monthly unlimited game rentals, sales of new and used games, and they are now even buying used games at a slightly better price than what you will get at your local EB Games. My absolute favorite thing that they do is their "deal of the day", in which they offer a specific used game at a HUGE discount. I have picked up the Orange box for 360 for $5.00 and Saint's Row for the 360 for $10.00 in the last little while. Each day it's a new game, for one of the current generation consoles. Now this is the reason that I picked that specific banner. It is supposed to update each day with the particular deal for that day. There are some other banners too, so let me know if you like any of these ones better.

I kinda think the Resident evil one is pretty sweet looking too (I may see if I can have both on the side bar after I finish this post).

Also, if you have your own site, and want to put a banner up on there as well, check out the link at the bottom of the sidebar, and sign up for their affiliate program. Apart from that, sorry for the ads, but I can assure you, that there will never be any ads that I don't specifically like and use their service.

My return to the blogosphere... I think.

2009-03-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

So if you also read my personal blog (thestatusofthequo.blogspot.com), you know that some bad stuff has been happening in my life, and that has put me in a mood that not only made me not want to blog, but I didn't really feel like gaming either. I did just find out that some bad news is getting worse. So I may not be blogging at my old frequency, but sometimes a distraction helps, or so I am told. I guess this distraction is as good as any.

I did pick up peggle on Xbox Live, so that's as close to gaming as I can say that I have been over the last little while. I have found the experience to be both fun and infuriating at the same time. It's a really great concept for a game, and to be honest I would kill to have it as a game on my blackberry. I handily beat the adventure mode, but the challenge mode is driving me crazy. It has to be the cutest game I have ever sworn at with strings of profanity that would make even the sailors I know blush.

I have yet to play the multi-player yet, and to be honest I am always a little afraid to play these type of games online for fear of getting my ass handed to me 10,000 consecutive games. It was that way in Starcraft, it was that way in Forza 2. It's just one of those games where if there is a way to master it, everyone bu me already knows "the secret" for every level. If you do want to beat my ass at peggle though, I'll give it a try, just find me on Xbox live.

A great little webgame

2009-03-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't seen my note about it already on Facebook, here is a quick post about it.

The game is called Auditorium, and can be found here: http://www.playauditorium.com/. The point of the game is to use the "gravity wells" to modify the path of the "particle stream" to go through the proper collection box. It's a very well designed game, has some nice soothing music along the way, and offers some very challenging puzzles. Now there is the free version, which is just a few levels that you can play (which I have still not finished), or the pay version which is $10.99 and offers 70 puzzles. Even with the pay version, there is no download, it just gives you a login to the site. They are still adding levels to the game, and as they are added you will automatically get access to them.

It's a great way to waste some time on a Friday afternoon.

Buying the Rest? Part 3

2009-03-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

In case you missed it Buying the rest? Part 1 and Buying the Rest? Part 2 can be found at those links.

Ok, well I have now found out why you are not supposed to stop working on a project for a month and then try to pick it back up and finish it off. As it turns out you totally forget what you wrote, where you left off and the point you are tying to make. One perk that it does have however is that in waiting to finish this article, the GTA 4 DLC came out. Now I have to admit that I was not really expecting the method that Rockstar used when they brought out this extra content. Now I have not played it all that much, but I have to admit that they did something right.

They have basically sold you a new game that you have to have bought the original game to play. They give you a new story, with new characters, and keep it completely separated from the original (from a playable aspect at least so far, but I am not done it, so don't spoil it for me if I am wrong). You don't have to worry about the balance issues experienced in the first two DLC games that I have talked about already. So far, when I am playing this it feels like I went to the store, and bought an entirely new game, without all the hassle of actually getting off my ass.

One of the things that I do find however is that because it's so instant action, I don't find myself quite as connected with the characters as I was in the full GTA 4. Now I just finished listening to Sarcastic Gamer's Humpday update, and it seemed that the consensus there was that this is the opposite of what they are feeling about it. I just felt that there was more value in the full game's characters because of the time put into them as starters without all the weapons and accumulated story/items/unlocked areas.

I am not going to spend any longer on this as I can't say that I 100% know what I am talking about with the GTA DLC cause I assume that I still have a lot to play, and I can't really asses if it was worth what I spent on it. I will conclude this chunk by saying that SO FAR, this is the best method of adding value/more playtime/reason to keep the game for me.

So I covered the recent past in parts 1 and 2, the present (well for me at least), so I guess that leaves the future of DLC. While the stream of of new content to come is slowing down, it seems that the more we see, the better it becomes. When it comes down to it, making games is a business, and the developers will make what sells. From what I have seen, in the game media at least, it seems that the 3 packs that I talked about have sold pretty well. I suppose it now just comes down to refining the content, and finding the magic formula. Then I suppose I'll have to write a blog about how there is no origiality in the downloadable content anymore.

In anycase, the days of DLC being nothing more than a few extra crappy maps, or costumes seems to be gone. So I suppose that if all the content can be this good, it is a fantastic way keeping your old games new, and a good way for developers to reduce the impact of the used game market on thier bottom line. For all those morons that think they can get me to keep playing their game if they sell me a few new guns (or cars, or levels, or whatever) for $5 or $10 worth of Microsoft points; sorry, not anymore.

I'm sick of buying the rest.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast...almost.

2009-03-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

Well, sorry for falling off the world, but my gaming life has been interrupted by my real life. My Son was born 3 weeks ago Monday. Elliott has been pretty all consuming in terms of time, but I have been playing some Dynasty Warriors 6 while he is sleeping.

I even managed to get some computer time in:

From Elliott Ryan Milo

For those of you that are looking for "Buying the rest" part 3, it's coming. Should be out this week, so check back on Thursday.

Buying the rest? Part 2

2009-02-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read the first part of this article, you can find it Here.

Now for the Fallout 3 DLC. Operation Anchorage is the first of the new content that will be offered for Fallout 3. This is pretty much an additional mission with the addition of a couple of new items. Pretty much the only thing that was given in the description of it was that you play a roll in liberating Anchorage Alaska from the Chinese communist invasion in a VR simulation. Now obviously this suffers from one of the same problems as the Fable DLC, because once you finish the game in fallout, you can't keep playing. You have to go back to your last save. By this time, you have everything you really need in the game anyway. The pack does introduce some new weapons and armor though. It's really is quite enjoyable as a quest though because of the fact that it forces you to play with whatever equipment is in the simulation. It adds some additional background to the fallout universe, and if you look around and get all the information that is available, it's surprisingly well fleshed out. Bethesda definitely took advantage of their experience with additional content to make sure that this fit as seamlessly as possible. It adds a few hours to an already content packed game.

There is however a small scaling problem with it however. Now if you don't want any spoilers as to the gear you get at the end, don't read the next paragraph. If you don't mind, read on.

One of the items that you receive at the end is a suit of Chinese stealth armor. If you are not done all the quests already, this will make any remaining ones a piece of cake. It's best described as an infinite use StealthBoy as long as you crouch. No enemy stands a chance when you can sneak around and head shot them from point blank with a sniper rifle for a sneak kill. Now, this is the opposite direction to what Fable's developers took. They did not consider the impact this would have on a new/newer character, however even the player that has everything would find it interesting.

This is one of the decisions that every developer must decide when adding content to an open world (like Fable, Fallout, Oblivion, or GTA). Balanced game additions, or more powerful and new. Personally I like the more balanced approach that encourage the player to play it again, and not wreck it for the player who bought the game late.

The next Fallout 3 expansion will be The Pitt, which will allow the player to continue on after the end of the game. This comes as a result of many complaints of how the game just stops once you finish the main quest. This seems to beg the question as to why it isn't free? This is improving on the failings of the game. They are bundling it with some new content, so I guess it makes it worth charging for.

Since this post is getting long too and I don't have time to finish it right now, I will end it here, and make part 3 in which I will talk about the future of DLC, but I'll give you a hint, it looks good.

Buying the rest? Part 1

2009-02-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

This time of year for gamers always has "the morning after the big party" kind of feeling to it. There was so much excitement building up to the evening, everyone had a great time during, and got exactly what they came for. Now your waking up in some strange place, surrounded by people you may or may not know, and your head feels like it was driven over by the couch that you are somehow sleeping at the foot of. After a bit, a few more people start to stir, and you all just sort of look at each other awkwardly and wonder what to do next.

All the triple A titles have come and gone, and are now sitting on the pile of games to go back to later. There is nothing of value coming in the next few months, and while you really want to see something new to get excited about, nothing will be announced till the big summer convention season. It really is the time of year that game rentals are actually useful.

This year however, there seems to be a different trend. The post holiday drought is now going to be the DLC (DownLoadable Content) rush. It seems that just about every big game that was released in the fall is getting some new content in the next month or two. Gears of war map packs, Fable 2 Knothole Island, Fallout 3 Operation Anchorage and more comming soon, GTA4 content, Prince of Persia content, and that's just the confirmed stuff. Rumors abound about many other big games of 2008 that are getting some additional content .

Now, this is hardly a new topic to write a blog about as it seems that every website that has ever run an add from a game has an editorial or something about it, but I will put in my take on it.

I want to start by differentiating between DLC and Microtrasactions. Downloadable content has to add something playable to the game, so a new level, or a new map pack. A micro transaction is a new outfit or a different weapon or some small item that will either make no difference in the gameplay or very little difference. In one simple line. Microtransactions suck. I see no value in spending money to buy a pack with some different cousins to play in Beautiful Katamari. DLC however, I think can be of value.

One thing that I think most of these editorials on this subject miss is that if you didn't like the actual game as it was shipped, the DLC will not change that. I don't care how amazing a new map pack is, you won't spontaneously fall in love with Gears of War 2, if you thought it was garbage, or even just ok before the content came out. If you like the game however, the DLC will only serve to make it better. This is probably the primary reason that I went ahead and picked up the DLC for Fable 2 and Fallout 3. I really liked both of these games, and no matter how good/bad the DLC was, that would not change.

Since the Fable one came out first, I'll start with that one. I already had a completely finished character in Fable 2. Owned everything, and done just about all the quests. With one caveat. I had no dog. Now this was an epic failure for me in the gameplay because I had not managed to find one of the dog trick books no matter how hard I tried. Those of you who have played it know that to get the completionist achievement, your dog must know all the tricks. Well dead dog means that I could not teach him that trick, so I took the disk out, fully expecting to never look at it again. Then the announcement of the DLC comes out. I read about it, and see something about a resurrection shrine... for the dog. Holy crap, I have never been sold so fast on an "expansion pack" in all my years of gaming. But this begs the question, why should I have to pay more to play the rest of the game?

Now I understand the one side of this argument that if they made the full game including the shrine, there would be no weight to the final choice in the game. Yeah ok, sure. I can give you that. It still doesn't get rid of that feeling that they cut me off just to make me buy more. All in all, the rest of the DLC wasn't bad. A few more achievement point, and some interesting gear, but what does it matter since I am already done everything? It wasn't until I started my new character (evil female) that I realized where it really fits in. This DLC is actually pretty well scaled. Even the new items are priced so that you can't buy the really good stuff yet, and the trade in items are set up so that unless you have spent a great deal of money to improve the economy you simply are unlikely to find the items you need to trade for the good gift boxes. For my second character it really doesn't feel like the DLC is additional because it fits really well. In my opinion this makes it seem even more fitting to have been included at release because most people will not see this content in the proper light. It will seem like a chore trying to find all the stupid little items to get more items that you don't really have much use for.

Anyway, this post is going long, so I will break it into two parts. The second half will be coming either tonight or tomorrow, and will cover my views on the first Fallout 3 DLC, and some overall opinions on what the future looks like in the DLC world.

Steam and the PC experience

2009-01-22T18:32:00.000-08:00

The biggest complaint from anti-pc gamers is the difficulty of use of the PC as a gaming platform. I went through the main reason for that the other day so I won't repeat it here. The interface on the console however is becoming more and more important to a huge number of gamers, and has indeed become a system seller in itself. So in my blog for this week, this is the subject that I intend to explore; how the interface effects the experience.

I am sure that everyone reading this can remember a couple of years back the laundry list of complaints that Xbox owners had with the PS3's interface, or rather the lack thereof. Each side of the console war had their supporters who would, for some reason unknown to me, come out in droves to defend how their console of choice had this feature or that feature. The internet was filled to overflowing with huge forum threads and rabid accusations of "fanboyism".

We can note that regardless of the flame wars that raged, when the PS3 was released, the interface for that system was sorely lacking in features when compared to the 360. The ease of connecting with friends, finding and downloading additional content or small games (Live arcade or PSN titles), even the method of talking to others all became reasons for choosing one console over the other. Even something as simple as virtual badges of honor showcasing your achievements became a sought after feature. Obviously things have changed in the last couple of years, and Sony has addressed most if not all of these inequities. So it was quite interesting when Microsoft then decided to take the next step in the arms race and release the NXE or "New Xbox Experience", only a mere month before Sony's much anticipated Playstation Home. Clearly, console manufacturers are now realizing just how critical the user experience outside of the games have become.

Now for the PC, these interfaces are anything but new. Blizzard's Battle net was a simplistic version of these interfaces that allowed you to connect and play one game with others that you know. Products like Teamspeak and Ventrillo arose to feed the need for fast and accurate communication from one player to another. The more popular the PC multiplayer experience became, the more money the software development companies would sink into making the online experience smoother and more streamlined. We even saw games like Battlefield 2 where the entire application was developed solely around the multiplayer game.

Now you will be hard pressed to find anyone who will argue that the internet is not the single greatest communications invention since the telephone, and there are probably only slightly more who would argue that a computer is not the best device for using the internet. So why is it that single purpose consoles seem to be winning the interface war?

Well the answer to that can be easily observed when we look at how we start our favorite games. Console games all use the same interface, and PC ones each use their own. Well that is of course until Valve came up with an application called Steam.

Back in March 2002 Valve released Steam to the public as a content distribution system. The app was designed to deliver specific Valve games, mods, and patches to users. It wasn't until more than 5 years later that Valve figured out how to really use Steam properly. In September 2007 they released the Steam community which brought social networking to gamers. At present, there are over 16 million active user accounts with Steam giving it about 10% of the number of users of the worlds largest social network; Facebook.

As the userbase grows, it is becoming easier for Valve to convince independent game developers and publishers that they can use Steam to distribute and promote their content. Presently there are over 550 individual titles available on Steam in 19 different languages. Features that allow lobby functionality, one-click game launching, matchmaking, community groups and viewing what games your friends are playing are now online for certain games. It seems that Steam has positioned itself to become the game interface for the PC.

Games, countries, causes and even gaming communities like Sarcastic Gamer (Sarcastic Gamer PC Community) have formed and allow people to play games with others anywhere around the world. So what does the future hold for Steam? Well that's a topic for another article, but one thing is clear; Steam will only get bigger.

The downside of clearance games

2009-01-21T18:19:00.000-08:00

So I spent this evening touring the EB games (aka Gamestop for my southern readers) in town to see if I could find one of the clearance copies of Armored Core: for answer. Sadly, no luck. It seems that my brother was the only lucky bastard to get the $20 game.

I am spending tonight trying to think of something original to write for tomorrow's feature article. I know that I want something PC related. It's tough however to write anything original on the oldest of all gaming platforms. I am also writing now for the Sarcastic gamer blogs too, so I know that at least one person will be reading it. My little micro post that I put up yesterday was read by a couple of people in the community, who were even kind enough to reply to it. I suppose this is probably what real writer and journalists have to go through before they have to write something.

It's pretty tough. I think I know why they get payed for it.

Love the cheap games.

2009-01-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

So I found out that Armored Core: For Answer is apparently being sold at EB Games for $20. At least this is the info that Matt gave me. He picked up the last copy at the Rochdale EB, so I will have to check out the other ones. I have the first couple of Armored Core games for the PS2, and they were pretty good. I have Armored Core 4 right now from Gameaccess, and the first 30 minutes of it are ok. The latest one brings in Co-op play however, so I think I will pick it up if I can find it, just so I can play it online.

You will also now find an RSS link on this page to Talkingship. They are a great podcast that I have recently discovered. Check them out. They are M rated, so don't listen to them on your speakers at work. They do cover some stuff about video games, but recently that part of it has become more of a Sarcastic Gamer Community Podcast (also Talkingship).

I am also going to put on this blog today a mini-article, in response to a rant about PC games on one of the SGC Podcasts (PodRant #4). It struck me a little bit, and I have sort of been thinking on it for the last few days.

The rant was about the problems the person was having with the configuration issues with PC games. They complained that the difficulty of getting the latest games to work was so hard that he had no desire to play them at all. Well this is where I have issue with. Without question the PC is the ultimate platform for gaming. The controls are better, mods are more readily available, online play is better. There is really nowhere else to play a shooter.

Now admittedly, my first love for gaming is the PC. It also helps that I have a lot of background in computers. Despite that however, I don't see many problems. Why is this? Well, the answer is simple, I buy hardware made by mainstream manufacturers. The only reason that people have problems with PC games, is because there are so many possible configurations of PC, and so many generic manufacturers, there is no way you can test all of them.

With any of the consoles, there are only one or two versions of the hardware, and there is a development kit designed to be used to build these games. That's why you can just drop a game in a 360, and it just works. Why are people surprised when, the $700 Dell PC or the thing they put together from the cheapest parts available, doesn't play Crysis exactly as it's supposed to. What do you really expect?

Spend the money, you won't be disappointed. It is really worth the time and effort to experience just how good games can be on the platform.

Child's play 2008 Wrap up!

2009-01-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

So the Child's play drive has wrapped up for 2008. On Friday they announced the total for the year. Here is the announcement cross posted:

01-16-09 2008 Wrap Up!

We are very proud to announce our final total for the 2008 Child’s Play season: $1,434,377! This is a new annual record for Child’s Play, and we send sincere thanks out to the entire gamer community for the incredible support that made this possible. Every toy and cash donation, every community and campus fundraiser, every employer matching gift and more comes together to make a huge difference in our partner hospitals all around the world. We’d also like to thank all of the volunteers and companies who helped keep Child’s Play running smoothly during our 2008 season.

We’re excited to announce a month-long fundraising campaign in the online worlds of EverQuest and EverQuest 2. Please visit our Events page to see how you can purchase in-game items that show your support of Child’s Play!
While Child’s Play collects donations year round, we wind down our toy drive component at this time of year. We’ll be making occasional updates throughout the year to bring you news about projects that we’ve been working on, and events that will be happening year round. If you have a fund raising event that you’d like added to our off-season calendar, please email klindsay@penny-arcade.com for inclusion. Child’s Play merchandise, including the Child’s Play Charity CD, will be available for purchase on our Activism page while quantities last.

Many thanks again to everyone who helped make Child’s Play 2008 an incredible success!

$1.4 Million is a fantastic total. I'll just leave the post at this today. The Child's play link will still be up for a couple of days on this blog, so you can click through to the site if you want to check it out.

The impact of the past

2009-01-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I am really late on this, but I am finally starting my "series" (for lack of a better term) of game related articles. I have to admit that I am feeling that I am not properly prepared for this as I have really not been gaming all that much over the last couple or three weeks while trying to get ready and then recovering from Christmas. I am sure that my Xbox misses me. So hopefully my articles will only get better from here. My goal is going to change for these however. After reviewing my lack of time, I am going to try for one of these good blogs per week. They should be up on either Thursday or Friday. Any other posts during the week will be of even lower quality than this :P

With the flood of new and shiny games, one really has to wonder why anyone in their right mind would even want to go back and play games that came out 5 or 10 or even 15 years ago. Obviously I must not be in my right mind then, because I have been playing more retro games than anything else lately. I have to admit that even though games are becoming such an emersive experience, I still have this attraction to the old arcade style games.

Now there are some good games that were put out a long time ago that were not made for the arcade machines. Fallout and Fallout 2 are probably the two games that have suddenly become more popular than perhaps even their original release, and this is because of a new generation being exposed to the series with Fallout 3. Now I am not really an "Old gamer" at only 26, but I am seeing more and more that a lot of the gamers out there have never even heard of these old games. I am not even going to start on the lack of people who even understand PC games (that's a topic for a different blog post). Thankfully however there are sites like Good Old Games that are letting the new gamers see the classics.

Just recently another one of these style of games, Commander Keen celebrated it's 18th birthday. Now I can't say I know many people that have even heard of this game before, and I don't know if I could find it now even if I wanted to (honestly, I would love to find it). It was a platformer where you were a kid who built his own spaceship, met some aliens who were intent on destroying the world, and break his ship. The games then center on collecting cola, and finding the pieces of his spaceship or foiling alien plans. Yes it was simplistic, sure it had CGA graphics, but I could sink 5 or 6 hours per night into that game, and it just kept me coming back for more. It seems that there are so few new games that have this effect on me.

The old Arcade style games that I find myself missing, I enjoy for a different reason. It was the speed at which you could play a game. I mean, you were supposed to lose these games. No one could beat them (well I sure as hell couldn't at least) . They just got faster, and more complicated with every level. Take space invaders for example. I mean how tough could a game be where the entire gameplay mechanic consists of rows of aliens who shoot and move back and forth, and move down one row at a time. It was hard. I now play that same game all the time on a facebook flash app. I mean it really doesn't get anymore basic than that. I have Arkanoid (er... I mean brick breaker) on my phone, you can play missile command on several different web sites, and yet it sort of feels fleeting.

The console generation expects these huge interactive worlds (GTA IV, Fallout 3, Oblivion, World of Warcraft). With the impending birth of my son, who is pretty much destin to be a nerd and a gamer, I really am curious to see what he will think of his father's obscure choice in video games. I mean, while I do like a good portion of the games coming out today, I really am missing the days when "beating" a game was just getting a higher score than your friends.

Let me know what your favorite old games were/are, or even if you think I am completely off my rocker.

Check back next week for my next article.

Hello Xbox, I've missed you.

2009-01-13T14:06:00.000-08:00

So lately I have been just too busy to game. I can't say that it's a feeling that I like. Late nights at the office, followed by going home to work on stuff just make for not a lot of time for fun things.

I did however get to spend some time on the ol' 360 last night, and it was a nice getaway. I mean sure a vacation would be better, but you take what you can get I suppose.

I spent some time last night picking up the last few achievements that I have the patience for in Starwars: The force unleashed. It's one of the rentals that I got from Gameaccess, so it will be getting ready for its return after I get the last remaining reasonable achievement. It will put me at 800 of 1000, but I really don't want to attempt to beat it on the hardest difficulty. That's just not fun. I have started a little review for it that is saved in my blog drafts right now, so I should have that finished up soon. I will give a hint though, it's not exactly a glowing review. I would like to get the last achievement tonight, but I think there will be something that I would much rather play... The new Fable 2 expansion.

Knothole Island came out today. I already have it downloaded thanks to the new web marketplace feature. It's by no means a monumental add-on, but it looks like enough is there to keep me busy for a bit, and most importantly a way to bring back my dog. If you don't want to hear any spoilers, stop reading now.

Basically, I chose poorly, and instead of aging really fast, turning into a skelleton and then to dust, I lost my dog FOREVER as a sacrifice to bring back everyone who died constructing the giant spire of doom thingy. Oh, I lost my family (well families technically) too, but I have to say the game does a very poor job of building any empathy for them. The dog however plays such an integral part in the game though, that without him, you cannot complete the game. The silver keys that you have to find pretty much need him there to help you find them. You have to teach him all the tricks to get the completionist achievement. He is also the ONLY creature in the game that you will ever build a conection to. Losing the dog is a punishment.

So I had basically come to thinking that I will have to restart my game and just give up. I put the controler down after trying in vain to still like the game P.D. (post dog). I had pretty much decided that I will probably never touch the game again. But then I read today that there is a mysterious "Resurection Shrine" on Knothole Island. If this can bring back my dog, it's worth the 800 Microsoft points (aka $10) to save this game for me. I truly liked the game, and to end on such a note would really dissapoint me. I can't wait to see if it really is my dream come true.

One more thing before I finish. You may or may not have heard about a game called Tabula Rasa. It was a much hyped MMO that had a nice Sci-Fi twist to it. Well, it sounded good, but it was terrible. I actually picked up this game as a Boxing Day 2007 deal for $10. I only played it for my 30 free days, and really I only used like 10 of those. It was recently anounced that it would be shut down at the end of February, but untill they turned out the lights it was free to play. Well I stumbled across this today, and I must say that even though I disliked it, it pains me to see something like this as a gamer.

2009-01-05T12:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I didn't do so well getting my blog series started. I did get it started like I said that I was going to, but I didn't get a chance to finish it. So basically the first half or so is sitting in a draft. I will work on it, and I will get it done. So look forward to seeing something of interest in the near future.

The shameless plug

2008-12-22T14:46:00.000-08:00

So I said today on my other blog how it was getting lost in the shuffle, and I was sort of neglecting it. Well if that one is neglected, this one had been nearly abandoned. It's been almost a week since my last post, and it was sporadic even before that, but this will change. I am already planning some topics so that I can produce some actually interesting posts. Seeing as how I want to make posts that are worth reading, I figured that I should have people actually reading them. It turns out that my readership for this blog is virtually zero.

So I decided to advertise for it in a way. I am going to start cross posting to the user blog on the Sarcastic Gamer site (http://www.sarcasticgamer.com) and maybe I will even get some traffic out of it. I don't really write for an audience, but it's always nice to know that someone is reading what you write.

So tomorrow I will have a wonderful topic, and will be the first official blog post on the Sarcastic gamer blog. Make sure you stop by and have a read.

Slow days in the PG 13 game worlds

2008-12-16T19:31:00.000-08:00

As I am sure you know, I listen to a lot of gaming podcasts at work, and I have to admit they are not nearly as interesting as they were only a few weeks ago. I was always so excited to hear about what was being released this week, and what the podcasters had played the week before, and what they thought of the games. Lately however, it seems to be just listening to these guys list some of the old games in their collection, and how they are "getting back into" them. I know the holiday rush has come and gone, but I guess I was just getting too used to a good time in the industry.

This drought does however bring out some really interesting topics. One of the podcasts (podtoid) went on at length about the potential for a "porn game industry" and why it is so unlikely to happen. I was really impressed with how much though and reasoning was put into the discussion around this topic. Especially since I would have just answered "Americans, who are the target audience for most English games, are prudes. The mere fact that the games would exist would be enough to spark the outrage of a few million "Won't somebody think of the children" fanatics". This discussion actually got me thinking (no, not about porn). Why is it that there is such a high tolerance for sexuality on television and in the movies, but not in video games?

I am pretty sure that it has something to do with the misguided perception that games are for kids. The reality is that most gamers are adults. Depending on which study you look at, some place gamers over 18 as more than 75% of the market. The publishers are realizing this now more than ever. Of the 11 games that are sitting on my desk to play right now, 5 of them are rated M for mature (equivalent to R for movies). 3 of them are rated T for teen, and 3 are rated E for everyone (Lego Starwars is E10 for children over 10 years old). I know this is hardly scientific, but all of the Mature games I have here are considered by the industry to be triple A titles. These are the games that the developers are spending the big bucks on. It seems that the poeple that know the industry also know who's buying.

So why is it that whe are not allowed to have the same sorts of mature themes in games that we do in movies? Why is it that Fallout 3 had to have some of the names of the drugs in the game changed so that it could be sold in Australia (it is an M rated game BTW)? Why was there a public outcry that occupied the corporate news channels becuase Mass Effect features a 30 second sugested sex scene in which they show the "naked buttocks" of a character (also M rated)?

So while I am not hoping to see any porn games anytime in the future, I would really like to see a Mature game that treats it's audience as adults, and gives us a story experience on par with our other forms of entertainment. I guess what I am saying is wont somebody think about anything else besides the children.

Comfort gaming

2008-12-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

So with all the shit that is happening in the real world, I am definitely looking forward to some gaming to forget about it. I do still have call of Duty 4 to play, but I think that's a little too depressing for this weekend.

I am really hoping that Force Unleashed shows up today, and that I can spend some time over the weekend. It seems to be delayed thanks to the Christmas postal rush, which I have to admit did not even occur to me until I saw the notice posted on their website.

I did make sort of a "comfort purchase" today during a time of weakness. The Gameaccess.ca store has some good deals on in time for Christmas, and one of them was the Orange box for $9.98. Since I get free shipping now that I have the "Pro" rank on the site, I didn't even have to pay for that. Yes I already have it on the PC, but it's a great collection of 5 games, that I am sure I will enjoy playing again if for no other reason than to get the achievement points.

In any case, I think I will need some happy gaming, so I may have to bust out some Viva Pinata or something before the weekend is over.

Getting over the burn out.

2008-12-03T14:41:00.000-08:00

At some point we we get tired of anything that we do too much, even when it's something that we really enjoy. You wouldn't be satisfied with ice cream at every meal, regardless of how much you like ice cream.

Well gaming got that way for me thanks to the September/October/November stretch. I am starting to feel more willing to turn the games on again after 5 days of no games, which I think will be just in time because I have the force unleashed coming my way from Gameaccess.ca which should be here today or tomorrow. I really wanted to play this game before it came out, but after hearing reviews, they sort of talked me out of it. Here's hoping they are wrong.

I'll make sure to post my impressions after I have given it some time.

The generosity of gamers

2008-11-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

You may have already heard about Child's Play, but if you have not, well here is the summary from the website:

Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child’s Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Over 3.5 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children’s hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception.

This year, we have continued expanding across the country and the globe. With around 60 partner hospitals and more arriving every month, you can be sure to find one from the map above that needs your help! You can choose to purchase requested items from their online retailer wish lists, or make a cash donation that helps out Child’s Play hospitals everywhere. Any items purchased through Amazon will be shipped directly to your hospital of choice, so please be sure to select their shipping address rather than your own.

When gamers give back, it makes a difference!

This entire charity was started by the creators of of the Penny Arcade web comic, and has only recently included children's hospitals in Canada. The intent is to get gaming systems and games into children's hospitals, so they don't have to be stuck in beds and bored while they are trying to get better. You can find a link on the side of my page, and I urge you to visit the site.

I have made my donation for the 2008 campaign. I bought a couple of games for the Children's Hospital of Winnipeg (a PS2 and a DS game). All you have to do is click on your preferred hospital on the map on the Child's play website (http://www.childsplaycharity.org/), which takes you to an Amazon wish list for your chosen hospital, and you can send the items that the hospital wants directly to them. Or you can just make a donation via paypal which will go to support all the hospitals equally.

So please, click the links, and help sick kids play.

Alpha gamer... best term ever

2008-11-26T12:20:00.000-08:00

So I recently heard the term "Alpha Gamer" used to describe those gamers who follow the gaming news, and will follow a game from the day that development is announced. These are the gamers for who games used to be made, and are becoming the more vocal minority, in opposition to the flood of casual games. I really like the term. It's one of the nicer ones out there.

I have also been reading a great deal about the Downloadable content (DLC) that is coming out for so many games. GTA 4 (Grand Theft Auto) DLC is coming out in December, Fable 2 DLC is coming out in December, Fallout 3 DLC (2 of them) in January and February. I can imagine that these will of course cost money in the form of Microsoft Points, but I am really hopeing that they are reasonably priced. Unlike the latest DLC from Ubisoft for Far Cry 2 that adds a weapon and 2 vehicles for $10 (800MS points). Wow, that's crap.

I am getting really tempted to buy Left 4 Dead for the PC though. I am on my 3rd gaming podcast for the day, and they have ALL been raving about how great the game is, and seeing as how I don't really have much to really put my new PC hardware through it's paces, it is seeming like a good buy. So, tempted....

Another milestone

2008-11-25T06:42:00.000-08:00

Only days after getting my first 1000 point completed game, last night I broke the 10000 gamer score mark. Now I am really enjoying bugging my brother Matt about it, because he has been a Xbox fan since the first one came out. He got his 360 about 2 years ago (Nov '06) and as of right now, his gamerscore is 7411 (apparently getting all "the car" from Korea in Forza 2 is only 1 point.) I bought my 360 on Boxing day last year (2007). So in your face Matt!

Last night in my quest for the 5 digit gamerscore, I was playing Mercenaries 2 (one of my rentals from Gameaccess.ca) and I came to the end of my rope with it. It is so buggy and so frustrating because of those bugs, I could simply take no more, and it's on it's way back today. I have to admit that it's fun for a while, but calling in air strikes on unsuspecting targets is only fun for so long.

After you have seen some big explosions, and want something to keep your interest, it's just not there. The premise of the game is that you are a mercenary who helps this guy organize a coup d'etat, and when you go to collect your pay, he tries to kill you. You get pissed off by that, and decide to destroy Venezuela to "get him" and "get even".

Now the glaring bugs in this game by far overshadow anything that is good, but I am going to try to think of something. So... um... the helicopter controls are pretty good.

Ok, enough of that. Now onto the bad. I have never liked quicktime events (or as some industry bigwigs call "Cinemaction"). You know those things where they tell you to push a few buttons in sequence to do something cool? Well this game is full of them! Want to capture a tank? Just run up to the front of it, push Y, then another button once and then mash a second till you win (the last two buttons are decided by the kind of tank you are taking). Want to take a helicopter? Target it, push Y, the left stick up, and then mash a button decided by what kind of helicopter. It is so easy, I would normally just take a tank or helicopter then trying in vain to kill it. The character models are horrible, they look like G.I. Joes because regardless of if you have a gun in your character's hand, they look like they are holding one. Voice acting is terrible. Oh how the list goes on.

The ugly, are the bugs. Grenades bouncing 500 yards away cause they hit a moving NPC. Tanks exploding while driving over an explosion crater in the road. Cars flipping high into the air because they drive over a sidewalk. NPC's shooting through buildings. Friendly forces suddenly attacking you for no reason. Enemies know that you are behind a rock 20 miles away and can hit you with an assault rifle, but you can dodge back and forth and run into a camp full of guys and 1 shot kill them with the but of your gun or your foot.

This game is legitimately horrible. I was really trying to get a gamer score of 500 points at least, but I can't. This game gets a 3/10 from me, because air strikes are cool.

NXE looks ok

2008-11-20T15:02:00.000-08:00

I updated my Xbox to the NXE last night. It took about 6 minutes over Wi-fi so I don't know where most of the people online got their numbers from. I don't think it's any faster or slower, and everything is relatively easy to find. I have not used any of the "Party" features, which I doubt I will ever use. I just don't do that much online stuff with my 360. I guess I just don't know enough people with them online.

One thing that does piss me off a bit is that despite my searching for how to delete all of my 0 gamerscore games, it still doesn't work. All the stuff online says that it's just an option when you have that game selected in the "My Xbox" menu. The option just dosen't show up. No clue why.

The Avatars are kind of neat. I can see a bleak future however where they sell new outfits, facial features and hair styles as microtransactions. 80 MS points for some new shoes, 120 points for a new suit. Just scary, and I just know at some point I am going to end up buying something and then being completely disappointed with myself. Oh well.

I also like how you can now setup a download queue from the Xbox.ca website, and your console will just automatically download what you told it to when it's turned on. It makes it quite convenient to just have to go to the website and tell it to queue up the latest arcade game that everyone is talking about instead of having to fumble through the slightly improved marketplace on the console itself.

You may also notice that I have added my Gamertag to the sidebar of my blog since that's a new addition to Microsoft's feature set too. I have used one from www.mygamercard.net instead however, because the normal Xbox one looks like this:

CREL001

I finally did it!

2008-11-19T10:07:00.000-08:00

The big 1000 in not only one game but 2!

For those that are confused by that, each retail game for the Xbox 360 has a maximum of 1000 gamer score points (can give an additional 250 points per downloaded expansion). After having my 360 for nearly a year, I have managed to get my first 1000 point game. On Monday night I completed Lego Batman. That's one game off my pile. I was so excited by that, I came to the conclusion that I needed to get another game done. So last night I got my 1000 point in Lego Indiana Jones. With that one I had been at 900 for a few months, and just needed a few monotonous achievements (3 to be exact) to finish it. This is pretty exciting for me, I am proud to say that I can now take a couple of games off my gaming "to do" list. Even though they are two of the simpler 1000 point games that I have.

I still have several games that are not even close, but at least I can take solace in the fact that at long last I will be able to remove all the crappy 0 point games that I have rented and sent back. This addition comes with the release of the new Xbox live dashboard that is coming out today. Being refered to as the NXE (New Xbox Experience) it is supposed to make things easier to find, and improve the social networking aspects of the friends list and such.

I don't have it yet, I hear that it's about a 20 minute download (I might have to hook up an ethernet cable to get it that fast), but I'll be playing with it tonight, and designing my Xbox Mii or whatever the hell they are calling it. I'll leave my judgment on that till tomorrow.

Not buying anymore games for a while

2008-11-17T15:31:00.000-08:00

So I finally took Fallout 3 out of my 360 for a bit, and put in Lego Batman again. I am just about done with it. 87% complete, and only 7 levels to finish getting all the mini kits. I still have quite a few of the little side quests to do, but after 60 hours of that game, I needed a break. The good news is that I have a ton of games waiting to be finished. So I am planning not to buy any more games till after Christmas.

I was showing off my collection of games that I still have to spend some time on on Friday, and I was a little surprised to be honest when I sat down and looked at them all. A brief rundown of the games sitting on my desk are:

Too human
Lego Batman
Lego Starwars :The complete saga
Lego Indiana Jones (so close to being done)
Mass Effect
Fable 2
Fallout 3

There might be another couple on that list, but I can't remember them all. Pretty bad sign hey?

Gaming and the moral dilemma

2008-11-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

If we are to listen to the now disbarred Jack Thompson, or even the speech opening "put down the video games..." line that now President Barak Obama has used more times than can be counted, all video games should be considered immoral, and are destroying the family unit and should be blamed for all of the social problems of today. The rest of the intelligent world realizes that this simply is not true, and that video games are just made to be fun (whatever your flavor of fun is).

Now most people understand that there are a lot of games that are built around the "moral dilemma" of good and evil. Fable 2 and Fallout 3 are two great new examples (Fable does it better) of games that put in plenty of moral decisions, and will change the way that the world interacts with you. In these games, I almost always end as an extremely good character, because the vast majority of the decisions just go against my morals, and what I consider the right choice to be. I normally have to try to be bad, and I am not normally happy about it while I do it, and I only do it to get an achievement or some special reward or something. However, these are not the moral decisions that I was thinking about when I started this blog today.

The game that most recently showed up from Gameaccess (Number 6 on my list btw) was Mercenaries 2. Now, there isn't much, but the story of this game is you are a Merc, who rescues a Venezuelan general who launched a failed coup. "The richest man in Venezuala" is the one that gives you this contract, and after you rescue the general, this guy decides to kill you instead of paying you. Merc escapes, and vows to get even with this rich dude.

Ok, sounds pretty straight forward. Where I seem to have a problem with it (and trust me this is one of many) is that they go out of thier way to ensure that the player knows this "Bad guy" is a socialist (They may as well just call him Hugo Chavez). They almost poke fun at the concept of fair taxation, and the major premis for the game is the reappropriation of Oil by the state. You are actually working for the company that used to have the monopoly on exploiting the country's oil, and really want's it back (and they don't care who or what you destroy to do it). The games creators even went so far as to have one of your character's cheesy catch phrases when he kills someone be "Welcome to the Marxist struggle". What?!?!?!

This entire view point seems to just bleed Red, White and Blue American patriotism, and to be honest, I find it totally disgusting. Now I don't normally see this kind of outrage when I play games. I can sit down and have fun killing virtual people in Grand theft auto, and never give it a though. Am I wrong to have this kind of outrage at a game for it's political views?

Games that let you screw up

2008-11-03T11:25:00.000-08:00

So I got some more time to sink into fallout this weekend. I am up to about 22 hours with no sign of the end in sight, so that is just a testament to how much game play is in this package, and I intend on picking every speck of goodness off of it's bones.

I did however completely wreck my game, and I did so in the first few hours, and didn't even notice. My intention was to play the good guy on my first playthough. So when I was confronted with a mission to detonate an unexploded nuclear weapon that was sitting in the middle of a town, that naturally seemed like something I had to stop from happening. So I went and told the Sheriff of the individual's nefarious plot, and he told me to come with him so he could arrest this evil dooer. Well, this bad guy ends up killing the Sheriff (woah! didn't see that comming), and then tells me that he won't forget me turning him in like that, so naturally I help him out with that by removing his head with a combat shotgun. I then get a message saying that because I killed Mr Burke ( the bad guy) I can no longer complete mission X. I think nothing of it, and go along my merry way.

So this brings me to yesterday at breakfast where I am talking to Matt ( my brother) and my friend Patrick about the game. They are talking about the houses that they each have, and how they are decorating it and stuff. I was a little confused at this point, because I was further along in the game than both of them, but I still did not have a house. After asking some questions, I found out that I had wrecked my chances of ever getting a house because I unwittingly pitted the good and evil sides of the quest against each other and they both ended up dead.

Wow, the devolopers at Bethesda sure did think of everything....

In the beginning...

2008-10-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my very first Virtual Quo post. In case you are wondering "what the heck does he need two blogs for?", I will tell you. Basically, I was noticing that my normal Status of the Quo blog was getting a little one dimensional (It may just be because there are so many games out, but that's not the point). I created that blog as my location to talk about anything and everything that was on my mind, irregardless of if anyone was reading it or not. However, it has gotten less and less diverse over the last little while, so this is my attempt to fix that (sometimes referred to as "Compartmentalizing").

So if you haven't figured out what this blog is about yet, it's all about the various lives that I live in my little "Virtual worlds", as well as the real world events that shape them. Thankfully I have not played an MMORPG in a good long time, so you can expect to at least see something more interesting here than "today I spent 4 hours looking for mats to make health potions for the raid tomorrow".

I will also from time to time put up some little "mini reviews" from time to time. I will even try to make that part of the routine for returning my gameaccess.ca games, so I don't put it off and end up not doing it.

So hopefully this blog will interest you, and you will read it. Heck even if I am the only on reading it, I will still be doing it anyway. So enjoy.