Shattered Reality

Here’s something I haven’t done in a while: talked about video games. Erich convinced me to pick up WoW?????? two months ago, and, while I’ve been more or less enjoying it, it definitely doesn’t feel like it has that “hold” potential where I won’t get bored with it soon.

An upcoming game that never really held my attention but is starting to now is Age of Conan. I like the unique classes and the potential that’s there, but I don’t know how I feel about not being able to craft until later in the game. The game looks a little bland in regards to everything appearing to be in a desert setting (kind of reminds me of Tabula Rasa in that sense). AoC does have the potential to really do well with its player-run cities, but those can be hit-or-miss. I’m still hopeful, though. If I pick it up, I’ll probably end up with the collector’s edition like I usually do- I’m a sucker for art books and in-game bonus items.

MMO’s aside, I have a slew of other games I’ve yet to finish: Doom 3, Final Fantasy III DS, Bioshock, Tony Hawk Project 8, Overlord, Dead Rising, Lego Star Wars II, and others I’m sure.

Ben Heck recently wrapped up his work on the first Playstaion 3 laptop (I’d link to his site but their new server seems to be down). This baby features a 17″ LCD screen, capable of 720p resolution with a HDMI-DVI connection; built-in keyboard and speakers; and weighs in at 16 pounds. I want one. (I wonder what kind of heat this behemoth will produce.)

Following the link above, Engadget will soon be auctioning off the one-on-a-kind model for charity. Ben Heck also created the Xbox 360 Laptop, and, something I just learned, a Wii Laptop! I’m always impressed by how clean and “natural” his creations come looking. He also has a book out titled Hacking Video Game Consoles that I’d like to pick up some day.

Just.. wow. Some of the rag-doll animations looked too “rag doll-ish”, but it’s still unfinished and everything else is beautiful.

I turned 21 today!

My buddy recently introduced me to Travian, a free online strategy game in which you build up a village. Simple but fun. It’s cool because you can take a few minutes to do some stuff here and there without having to play for long periods of time. Check out my village.

Vanguard fans, the server merge is happening next week.

I sat down to write this post four hours ago. It did not get written four hours ago. Instead, I was distracted by the new version of Wordpress (v2.2). I went to download it, as I’m sure I’m overdue for an update; but before I installed it, I wanted to get it set up locally to test because I hate updating and having it end up broken. Turns out I haven’t copied this site to my local server yet, so I started doing that. Of course, that had to be problematic, so after a while of putsing around with my WAMP install, I downloaded the EVE-Online 14 day trial and became thoroughly distracted.

I have not played enough of EVE to make a solid review, but I plan to play it some more over the next week or two and really get a feel for the game. I still wish upon wishes that Guild Wars wasn’t so boring; I’ve tried time and again to get into it, but it just lacks any kind of pull (aside from a beautiful world). Star Wars Galaxies had such potential, but they killed that real quick. Asheron’s Call is dwindling away after 7 some years in the industry. I hear Vanguard is pretty good, and that LotRO is worthwhile, too. I actually watched the Grammys with someone who was (is?) working on LotRO; that was really cool. (Oblivion is still fun, but it lacks human interaction being a single player title.)

(My writing felt really forced tonight; I’m out of practice :/)

This comic pretty much says it all….Mario Party always did have those quirky things that just pissed me off so much that I wouldn’t even feel like looking at the game’s case for the months to come.

My little brother asked me to play Super Smash Brothers Melee with him. Fifteen minutes of button mashing and I was through; I’d imagine the game to be more entertaining if you knew moves for your character. Unfortunately, picking the game up once every few months doesn’t embolden yourself with such knowledge. I remember playing Super Smash Brothers back on Nintendo 64; that was quite the party game. You know, go to a friends house, rally up four controllers, pick your favorite character and beat the crap out of your friend’s Nintendo-y exterior. I do, however, remember not owning that one, either.

To make up for my lack of posts this past week, I present you this video

(NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etVCUmgfMag

Entitled Internet is for porn, this is a World of Warcraft musical explaining why the Internet was born. Catchy music, and damn funny.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72263-0.html?tw=wn_index_1

If you check out the above article, you’ll see that Multiverse is in talk with Fox Licensing to turn Firefly into an MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) Game. As Tim Buckley put it, if this is done half-assed, it would be an absolute abomination to the series. I’ve loved Firefly and then Serenity from the first time I viewed either, and the prospect of a game is intriguing, but I just hope they don’t screw this up.

I don’t think it’s too often the first post is the best post you make for a while; they usually improve as you post a few more blogs. Instead of just randomly writing most of the time, I’m going to pick things to actually write about.

On PS3 launch day (Nov. 17th, 2006), I went to Target and picked up an Xbox 360. No waiting in line (even at the checkout!), no fighting for a ticket to purchase it, no jumping over other people and their carts to reach the electornics shelf first. No sir (or ma’am!). I walked in, told them I want a 360 and Gears of War, paid for the things, and waltzed right on out of there, past the Wii campers and all.

In fact, this comic depicts my excursion perfectly. That weekend concluded with me picking up Lego Star Wars II and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

First off, Gears of War is an absolute God-send to the 360. It has beautiful graphics with cut-scenes that really aren’t cut-scenes because they take you seamlessly from gameplay to cinematic and back again. It’s also not your typical shoot-em-up-style game. Well, it’s a shoot-em-up-style game, but there are tactics and strategy involved; most notably the “Take Cover” commands. You can run up to an object in the world and “take cover” so you’re (mostly) protected from enemy fire, taking a second to poke your head out or just your gun to return the favor; or perhaps you blindly throw a gernade over a crashed car and hoping it explodes something worthwhile? Perhaps you just wanted to see it explode. Regardless, you won’t get tired of the game because it’s going to make you think your way through some problems and blast your way through others. Gears of War will provide you with a lot of seriously gripping gameplay; but if it starts to get old, head on-line or jump into co-op mode and play with a friend.

I’ll write about Oblivion and Lego Star Wars another day, but to sum them up really quick: Oblivion is a pretty massive role playing game (RPG), but it’s single player only. That has its pros and cons, but is turning out to suck up the majority of my gaming time. Lego Star Wars is an incredibly stupid kind of fun game, one that’s rediculously entertaining to play, but can get old pretty quick. Still worth buying, however I suggest picking it up for a last-gen console (PS2, Game Cube, Xbox) because it’s cheaper than the next-gen systems by $10-$20 bucks, and I mean c’mon, it’s Legos, they can’t up the graphics that much.