More random thoughts

Well, I got yelled at over the weekend by Bill, so let's try to sum up some thoughts from the last few weeks.

• I can't decide if I'm pissed off enough at Gametap to cancel my service. I bought a month of it for $1, only to realize that I can't play it on my computer because I'm running 64 bit Windows. It also won't work on our business laptop because the graphics are supposedly not good enough, even though it meet specifications. However, it works on our spare computer, and quite frankly it's awesome. I've tried some games that I haven't played in forever (Lords of the Realm 2), some games I've always wanted to try (Fallout), some games I've never heard of that rocked (Beyond Good and Evil), and a game that I am now addicted to - Puzzlequest - more on that later.
• As a watcher of Sesame Street when I was a kid, I recently found some old classics on YouTube. And they are hilarious to watch now. Try watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7cWBrGAIcc or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe3Hh8nvn4k and keep a straight face.
• For anyone who enjoys watching the NFL, you need to read Bill Simmons at least once a week. Here's his most recent article - http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/081107.
• I haven't played Rock Band or Guitar Hero in over 2 weeks. The problem is, we have a neighbor who goes to sleep at like 8:00 PM, and if we make ANY noise whatsoever, he starts banging on the wall. The guy needs to realize that if he's living in a townhouse and wants to sleep that early, he needs to invest in some earplugs. This happens not only during the week, but also around 10-11 on the weekend. I'm starting to get the shakes.
• I took my 9 year old sister bowling yesterday. She enjoyed herself once she started knocking some pins down, but I think she expected to bowl a 160 like she does on the Wii. I hope she doesn't expect to pick up baseball or golf that easily either.
• So Puzzlequest is an absolutely amazing game. I started playing it, and it seemed like a more advanced game of Bejeweled. No. It's about 1000 times better. I know it's been around for a while, but an RPG puzzle game? Genius! I'm officially hooked.
• No matter who you voted for, remember to pray for Obama now - anyone in there needs all the help they can get.
• Wrath of the Lich King comes out soon. I hope it's good for those of you still playing. I get the itch now and then, but that's all it ever is.
• I have been doing some reading on cryptology, or the study of secret code. It's really interesting actually - I think I could get into that. Trouble is, in the last 20 years with computers being what they are, the field is almost inaccessible. It's a shame really. But it's enjoyable to me.

Maybe I'll think of a topic later that I can post more about. I guess I'll probably see you in a few weeks.

Guitar Hero World Tour vs. Rock Band 2 - an Unfair Comparison

So let's begin by rehashing my initial experience with rhythm games. My very first was Donkey Konga for the Gamecube. Cute little game with drums. It was a lot of fun, though limited in challenge. A great way to have non-gamers enjoy a video game. But it didn't stick. It was fun in small doses...after a while your hands hurt and you got tired of playing cutesie old school Nintendo music and Mighty Might Bosstones "The Impression That I Get" which was by far the best song.

So several years later, Guitar Hero comes out, and I remained blissfully in the world of Azeroth through Guitar Hero One and Two, only leaving Cenarion Circle for an occasional sleep session and 8 hour work day. Needless to say, I didn't play many other games.

So when Bootstrap Bill brought over Guitar Hero III for the Wii, I was excited. We started playing the set list, and I started out on medium difficulty. I liked it. A lot. I bought the game, even though I didn't own a Wii (though there is one in our house). Unfortunately, the game was limited in the Wii version, but I didn't care. I was jamming out to Scorpions, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, and Metallica. I loved the way that it brought the authenticity of playing the guitar, but removed the large challenge of learning how to strum and play chords correctly. Now it was fun AND easy. As South Park said, real guitars are for old people.

So I got up to expert on guitars with Guitar Hero III, and got sluck on the &@#*ing Slayer song. But it was a ton of fun to play. Then, Rock Band came out. And you can drum? For those of you who have known me for all of my life, I can't play the drums worth a shit. But I always pretend that I can. I'll drum the current beat in my head on my steering wheel, on my legs, on my brother's head, on whatever is available at the time. So I can drum without really learning how? AWESOME!

Rock Band was amazing. It still had the fun guitar parts, but the drumming was unreal. I loved it, and I played it until I was good enough to play songs on expert. There aren't too many songs I can't play on expert Rock Band (damn you Iron Maiden drummer, damn you.) and I can play most anything on expert guitar as well.

Eventually Rock Band lost a little luster, but it was still fun to play here and there in a group setting. And I believe that I posted a while ago my thoughts on Guitar Hero III vs. Rock Band. Rock Band is a lot more fun in a group setting because you can play with 3 others instead of only 1. But Guitar Hero has a much better single player mission mode, and has a lot better guitar parts in my opinion.

Then the problem with Activision vs. Harmonix broke out. Instruments weren't compatible. WTF guys! You're missing an incredible opportunity to reach more people!

And then we found out that Rock Band 2 (hereby known as RB2 because I'm lazy) would be coming out around the same time as Guitar Hero World Tour (hereby known as GH4 because I'm really lazy). And GH4 will be competing directly with RB2 by added singing and drums? Wow - that's awesome! But.....GH4 drums have three toms and 2 cymbals. There goes the idea of eventually having compatible instruments, eh?

So we reach around a few weeks ago just before Rock Band 2 comes out for the PS3. I got to "rent" the game that weekend before it came out because I'm cooler than you. We set it up in my parents' basement where we usually play, because there's a high def projector screen down there and plenty of room. We hook it up and start playing. And initially it was fun, though it didn't seem much different than RB1. Then it started to happen. We started to fail song after song. We each have been mostly playing Expert level for weeks now, and we couldn't do it. Even the original songs. We couldn't get the calibration to work, despite the new tools being MUCH better. Every song felt off, and even though we were hitting notes right, it wasn't giving us credit. Even when we played the downloadable songs that we could ace on RB1, we couldn't do it.

That combined with the limited song selection frustrated us to no end. We ended the night prematurely having played for about 2-3 hours. What was to blame? Perhaps the calibration, perhaps not. But one thing was for sure...it was much harder and more frustrating.

That brings us to tonight. We got to "rent" GH4 for the weekend before it goes on shelves. Thank God that Sony made Activision and Harmonix play nice. Our 4 tom drums worked just fine and our RB1 guitars played the songs very well. I can only assume it works the same way in the other direction. PRAISE BE!

So we picked it up in the same way as RB2. We calibrated and started playing. And.....it worked. We could play the songs on expert! Amazing!

We played three player tour unlocking set lists. If we got stuck on a song, we kept trying it until we got it (because GH4 doesn't give you fans that you will lose). Some of the GH4 parts were really challenging. It seemed that the notes don't appear for quite as long as they do in RB2 before you need to hit them. While this difference may be measured in milliseconds, it was enough for it to be harder to see unpredictable parts. Also, the parts though still pattern based, differed a lot more. So yes it was harder. But it wasn't frustratingly hard. RB2 was frustratingly hard - when you think you are playing the part correctly, but it's not precise enough. After a single calibration of GH4, we didn't have this problem. GH4 parts were more challenging (and I'm sure they'll get harder) but we didn't feel the level of frustration. We played one song 8 times before we got it, and it felt great when we were done. We played for 3.5 hours, and if our hands and legs didn't hurt so badly from Expert drumming Dammit, we might still be at it.

Also, to address the set lists, I've heard so many people say that they like RB2 setlist a lot better than GH4. I call shenanigans. RB2 has some great artists like Rush, Guns N Roses, and Panic at the Disco, but the songs are "The Trees," Shackler's Revenge," and "Nine in the Afternoon"? WTF! Meanwhile, we actually didn't mind playing Beastie Boys and Michael Jackson because the songs were "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" and "Beat It." Note to Harmonix: Please pick better songs from these artists! Songs that are fun to play maybe? Seeing Mighty Might Bosstones and finding out the song is "Where'd You Go" is like the guy finding out that Lola was a dude. Meanwhile, "Hot For Teacher" is an amazing Van Halen choice for GH4 - I can't wait to unlock it.

To be fair, my assessment is biased. I'm playing expert mode, which is not going to be the most popular mode. Also, I couldn't get RB2 to be comfortably synchronized, though part of that I feel is the game's fault. I also got stuck with songs that I didn't enjoy or couldn't beat on expert - and Hard is just a joke once you've beaten Long Time/Foreplay on Expert. Not even fun.

I'm also using Rock Band 1 instruments, which means only 4 drum spots, no cymbals, no touch sensitivity, no guitar slide, and no wireless drum. I didn't try singing on GH4, (though it was much improved on RB2 from what I noticed) and I didn't try out enough songs on either to give a solid opinion. But what I can say from experience is that both are MUCH more difficult on expert than Rock Band 1. Rock Band 2 requires more precision, whereas Guitar Hero builds on GH3 and went balls to the wall on some of the parts, even for the drums. If we could get RB2 to calibrate right, then I'd have a fair assessment on my hands. But based on what we saw, I would recommend GH4 over RB2. A week ago I wouldn't have believed it, but it's true. I'd like to try out the guitar slide and the 5-piece drumset sometime, but money doesn't grow on trees. At least we can play both because Sony helped out the consumer. I hope both games do well.

Couple small notes I didn't touch on

• still don't like how GH4 makes you choose difficulty level of you instrument before your setlist - makes group setting more difficult for rotation
• I've heard the RB2 "No Fail Mode" is amazing, but I haven't tried it (maybe I should have....)
• I like and don't like how GH4 shares star power among the players - it helps single instruments struggling to stay alive - I would have failed one song 7 times because it took me a while to get the hang of it. However, it's frustrating and not very intuitive to know whether you can/should use it before someone else.
• I like the way that drums trigger the star power in GH4 - you can choose when to do it at will, not when they decide to give you a fill part.
• I don't like how you can't do a single song in a setlist in GH4 - you have to do the whole setlist at once. Pain in the ass. Plus the hard song is always last, and you're like "well we're this close, we gotta beat it!" Never have I hated Blink 182 more than tonight.
• I'd better stop because I'm exhausted - I'll post again with more info once I've tried both again, but those are my impressions for ya. Sorry for all the rambling.
  

Super Random Blog Post

Lots of random ramblings, so try to keep up.

• Not a huge fan of Oblivion so far. Graphics are nice, it's about a million times better than Morrowind (which I was hooked on for a while) and the openness of it is pretty decent too. But you know, I can't handle openness. I need structure in my games - I need purpose, or else I'm going to spend five hours looking around for stupid herbs because this guy asked me to. And I'm going to hate every minute of it, but I feel like I have to do it. It isn't even that I want a linear game - just not an open plain.
• So I know that everyone can't wait for 12 more days when we don't need to hear about politics all day long. But didn't it start a year after the last Presidential election? We're never going to completely get away from it. Sometimes I want to become a hermit.
• Everyone's saying about how if the Tampa Bay Rays can get to the World Series, the Pirates can. But the Tampa Bay Rays have something going for them - they aren't a bunch of dumb *#$@s.
• Hinterland is an interesting game. It's too bad they couldn't add an extra layer of complexity and do multiplayer. That would be crazy awesome and a whole lot more fun. Even single player against AI with a town on the other side would be sweet. As it is, I've played through the game 3 different times, and it's losing its luster already. It was fun, but it could have used more depth.
• Economic downturns are necessary parts of capitalism. There are tons of bad businesses out there who just made a living off of the fruits of others. When the economy goes down, yes it means unemployment and bad times for a lot of people. But it also means weeding out the crap. Good businesses will stay lean and make it through stronger than ever before. I hope we're one of em.
• Team Fortress II. Way too much fun for its own good.
• You can now buy a 30 GB solid state drive for under $150 that boots Windows Vista in less than 7 seconds. It's so fast that people are overheating their CPUs because the CPU is used to waiting for the hard drive, and now that it doesn't have too it has to work too hard. In about a year, it will be feasible for even poor folks like me to have their OS and games installed on an 80GB solid state disk. What's even the point of RAM then?
• What's the regular hard drive companies' response to the solid state drives? A terabyte drive available for under $100. Two years ago, it was $2 per gig. Now it's $10. Absolutely nuts. Can't wait til Black Friday.
  
• Hockey is twice as much fun to watch than football. Football is 10 times more fun to watch than baseball. Suddenly I don't mind if the Pirates suck as long as the Steelers and Penguins don't.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force has made a comeback in my life. Friggin hilarious. www.mcpeepants.com. I read that the new Family Guys are incredibly good - anyone confirm that? If so, I'll have to check em out.
• If you're bored, check out our Ethix Systems newsletters at newsletter.ethixsystems.com. You might learn something.
  

What I'm Playing

Since it's been a long time since I posted, here are the games that I've been playing in my spare time (which has been somewhat limited lately).

Jedi Outcast II

I beat this game over the course of about two weeks playing on and off. I've beaten the game numerous times - it's one of my favorite FPS games, because you don't need to have great shooting accuracy. After the first two level sequences and a training mission, you get a lightsaber, which means you don't need to shoot much for the rest of the game. I flew through the game because I've beaten all of the puzzles once before. But boy is it fun being a Jedi. I was going to get the new one, but due to its cost and the poor reviews I've read (they say the controls and camera angles are frustrating) I've decided to hold off.

Warcraft III

Sometimes the classics never go away. Can you tell that I'm poor at the moment? I broke this game out after a long time, and I forgot how much fun it was. It really did revolutionize the RTS genre with the introduction of heroes. I used to dislike it, but with my WoW experience the game takes a new meaning. First of all, I know where things are going on. When they say "go to Dalaran" I know where that is. It's far more engaging as a result. Secondly, I learned how to use the abilities of the heroes for benefit - I had never really used the paladin's heal or the death knight's coil as a heal before. And boy does it make a difference. Heroes really do change the game for the better.

Team Fortress II

I've been playing this one for almost a year now, and it never loses its edge. It's eternal PVP 16 vs 16. Even though there are only about 10 maps and only 9 classes, it never seems to get old. This is my default "I'm bored" game, and it gets more fun when playing with people you know over vent.

Guild Wars

I never thought I would play another MMO, because it gets so time consuming. But I've found that an MMO is only time-consuming if you make it so. Playing this game with Nick and Justin slows me down. We only play when we all can play, which is only once or twice a week. It's very enjoyable - lot of differences from WoW, some good and some bad. But it's nice getting back into a cooperative RPG.

The World Is Flat

No, this isn't a game. It's a book about how the world is changing due to technology. It's a very interesting read and sheds a lot of light as to how our world is going to change since anyone in any part of the world can participate in the global economy now. It is very long, but it's interesting to hear stories about big companies and their struggles in adapting to the flat world.

The Economy - What's Going On

I've been reading and hearing all sorts of different opinions about the current state of the economy. And since I actually feel like I have somewhat of an understanding about it, I wanted to post so anyone can understand the basics about how it happened and what the bailout is all about.

The Problem

In the beginning, there was the housing market. Between 1997 and 2006, the average American home rose 25% in value. For years, people were making a killing off of the housing market - land was becoming overvalued, especially in prime real estate locations. I'm actually not sure of the cause, but let's just understand that housing is like anything else as a commodity. Prices go up and down with demand. People had a high demand for real estate, and so the prices went up. Is your area building tons of housing? I know ours is.

So these mortgage companies decided to get a piece of the housing action. They gave mortgages to individuals in a high risk category, meaning they would likely not be able to afford their mortgage payments. Usually this is a bad idea, right? Well when the attempted owner could not pay for the house, the company got it. And since real estate was going up so much in value, they would end up turning a profit anyway. Genius, right?

It was quite a profit center, until the real estate market started being more realistically valued. Due to overbuilding during this period of housing boom, we had a housing bust. So now these companies have all these bad mortgages that people can't afford to pay. As a result, these companies declare bankruptcy. Heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Both are mortgage companies designed to help people who are having trouble paying their mortgage. Now that there are a whole lot more people who can't afford it, these companies went under, and the government has already helped bail these two companies out by offering low-rate federal loans to them, but it wasn't enough. The biggest company to go under was Lehman Brothers, and this triggered the crisis as we know it today. To read more details (and there are a lot more details) check this Wikipedia article: Subprime Mortgage Crisis

The Bailout

What are the trains of thought with the bailout? Well, if things continue as they are, credit will begin to become more difficult to obtain. Companies would not be able to access credit, and economic progress would slow down drastically. As a result, we could have a stock market crash, and a depression (though not the Great Depression). I've already read stories about established auto dealers not being able to get credit to increase inventory.

The bailout proposes to spend 700 billion dollars toward purchasing these bad mortgages. This supposedly would stabilize the market, and allow people to just start fresh with the market. The problem with this plan is that it may only temporarily stop the flow of things. The biggest problem with the plan is that the 700 billion dollars aren't coming from anywhere - it is all deficit spending. Another problem that most people see with it (and these are mostly business owners talking) is that bailing out these companies doesn't teach any culpability. If you make bad business decisions then you go out of business. But if you make bad business decisions at a high enough level to affect the economy, the government will simply bail you out. Not a good lesson to be teaching young businesspeople.

My Thoughts

I'm not sure what to think really. I think that we are a country with way too much dependence on credit. When you're having financial troubles, you need to start using your debit card, and not a credit card. This is the only way to curb your spending to within your means. We're all trained (especially the younger generation) that soon we'll have more money, so might as well spend some now. We may need a depression to wake us up and teach us that money doesn't grow on trees.

On the other hand, I hate to think that people losing jobs and going destitute is the right way to fix things. Maybe the government will actually put things into place to prevent this from happening again, and the bailout would be a good thing. It's funny though - the Great Depression was caused by people overspending money they didn't have on overvalued stocks, and as soon as stocks became less valued everyone lost everything. Now, people overspent money they didn't have on houses because institutions let them, and as soon as houses became less valued, these individuals and the institutions lost everything. Notice a trend?

I personally think that while it would cause a downturn, lowering the ability to get credit would be a good thing for this country. Learning to rely more on savings will stabilize our economy far more than a bailout would, although the short term would be rocky.

If there's one thing I know, it's that the media is blowing the situation way out of proportion. It will be a while before things get bad, and our economy is still thriving. We still only have 5% unemployment. Things aren't as bad as people think. I hope that the bailout doesn't pass simply because of the media attention it's receiving.

Team Fortress II: Class Parity

One of the biggest problems that people always had when I was playing WoW PVP was how difficult it was to defeat a specific class with a specific build 1v1. If you specced your character a certain way, no matter how skilled you were, the other guy would likely beat you by following a particular formula.

This problem exists anytime you play a game with more than one class. TFII has 9 classes, and there is definitely class parity here. Ever try to take down a heavy with a pyro? Or a soldier with a scout? Yes, if you can ambush a person you have a great chance of taking them down. But in a one on one showdown, the demoman is going to kill the spy 98 times out of 100.

So why is this not a big deal in TF2? The primary reason is that people can change classes on a whim. If the heavy is pwning you as a scout, then go spy or sniper and kick his ass.

I get a lot of enjoyment out of playing each class, when the situation calls for it. When I connect to a game, I get two pieces of information: 1. the map I'm on, and 2. the classes that everyone else is playing. Using these, I decide what class to play. Here are my thoughts on when each class is most important, and when I switch to them.

Scout: Usually a poor choice quite frankly. Unless the opposing team has very few good engineers, this will be a difficult choice to make. However, if the map is very wide open, and there are plenty of the other classes, I will go scout. Scouts are great if you know the map that you are playing on. If you can get behind the opposition, and kill the medics, snipers and engineers (before they create a turret), it can make them play a lot more defensively. Two scouts working together are lethal against a team without any sentry guns up.

Soldier: A great choice if the map features a lot of long corridors, and if the team has few soldiers or snipers. Every team needs someone able to fire from afar, so if everyone is playing pyro and heavy, soldier is a great choice. Soldiers are also great with medics with a kritzkrieg and not quite as good teamed up with a medic uber. Finally, if there are great positions to rocket jump to, soldier is a great choice simply because of their ability to get somewhere unexpected. It's hard to stand your ground when rockets are being flung your way, so even if you aren't getting any kills, soldiers make the enemy run for cover - a valuable thing when attacking or defending.

Pyro: Contrary to the soldier that loves long corridors, pyros thrive around corners. They are great for sneaking up behind enemies, especially with the backburner. Pyros are one of the best uber targets, since they have practically unlimited ammo and if they can get in range, will destroy most fortifications. On the other side, the only true way to defend against an uber pyro is a pyro with the compression blast. The best counter to an uber-heavy team is a pyro with compression blast. Finally, pyros are great spy checkers - spies hate pyros.

Demomen: I love the demomen - they have rocket jumps like soldiers when used right. They can plant traps for the opposition very easily. A team with 3 demos playing defense is almost unpenetrable. Demos are great defending a small area with one entrance. They are also excellent destroyers of sentries, so on offense if the opposition has tons of sentries, sometimes all it takes is an uberred demo since you can toss your stickies out and blow everything up at once. Demos are great for offense too, since you can fire blindly from behind cliffs and ledges without taking fire from the opposition. Great teamed up with a medic.

Heavy: A heavy is an easy decision. If you have medics and engineers and no heavies, your team is retarded. A heavy is a fantastic medic and engineer friend. On offense, it means teleports and ubers. On defense, it means unlimited ammo from a dispenser and uber-counters. Nothing frustrates an offensive uber more than a defensive uber two seconds later. Not great against good enemy spies or snipers, but against everything else, if you can get your minigun spinning fast enough, you can hold ground exceptionally well.

Engineer: If you don't have any engineers, this is the most important job to have (toss up between medic). You provide teleports to get your allies closer to the action more quickly. You can defend a spot very easily. You provide more ammo and health for those who need it. The key to an offensive engineer is getting teleporters up quickly, watching for spies, and defending against the overzealous enemy trying to get behind everyone on your team (usually a scout or pyro). The key to a defending engineer is keeping a sentry up, watching for spies, and preventing any non-uberred opponents from killing you or your sentry. Also, help your fellow engineers! A level 3 sentry is better than 2 level one sentries. Work together to win.

Medic: If your team has no medics, do it. It's not a glamourous job, but an absolutely necessary one. Don't go medic if your entire team is engineers, snipers, and scouts. They are all retards - you need some heavy hitters like soldiers, pyros, demos, and heavys to do anything well. But assuming you have some of these, go medic. Your team will be much more effective than if you do anything else. Use your ubers wisely to take down opposing sentries or defending against other ubers. Use kritzkriegs when necessary (rarely are they better than ubers). Heal anyone who needs it, and make sure you don't die unnecessarily, unless you just finished an uber - dying at 90% ubercharge is frustrating as hell.

Sniper: I'm not very good as a sniper for the most part, but you have no snipers and the opposition has none, sniper is perfect. Nothing makes people duck for cover more than being one shotted from afar. If the opposition has a bunch of snipers, go spy instead. If you have two snipers or more, play something else.

Spy: If you don't have one, this is a fun class to play. If you have a lot of spies on your side, unless you coordinate it will likely be best to try another class. Spy checking comes in spurts - if there are a lot of you, they will watch more. Spies are integral to destroying opposing engineer stuff and killing snipers. They are also great against dumb medic/heavy combos who aren't paying attention.

Your individual role is very important. I think that everyone should learn how to play every class so they can figure out what their team needs the most. A team with 5 engineers should have a heavy or pyro so they can spy check. A team with a bunch of heavies really needs some medics. Hopefully I'll be able to post more often and talk about more about specific strategies, but remember to choose your class wisely - it may be the difference between success and failure for your whole team.

Actually, yes I am that busy

Seriously. We have a lot of important things that we are doing here at Ethix Systems.

1. Scratching ourselves
2. Playing Team Fortress II
3. Working on the business itself

I'll make this brief, because Nick is gazing at me like my head is going to come off if I don't get back to work. We're not only very busy working on projects for clients, but we are also building our business infrastructure. We are planning on hiring an intern, which is taking a lot of time to work out. We are developing a support contract for our existing clients so we can help them budget their software expenses. And we are developing a newsletter to tell people about the kinds of projects we are working on. (If you want to receive it, I'm sending out the first one today. Send me an email at decarr@ethixsystems.com)

But the kicker is that I'll be starting to teach a web programming class for 5 weeks at Saint Vincent on Tuesday. So things are going a little crazy.

Not to fear - I'll be back. I have much TF2 to discuss, and I'll hopefully have some other things to share. But lately, it's been mostly business and I haven't had much interesting to share.

Don't stop visiting please. Just be patient!

Dan

Team Fortress II: Meet the Scout

In an effort to rejuvenate my blog posts, I thought I would post in here about the game that I'm easily playing the most these days.

Team Fortress II is a very fast paced game FPS with a twist. There are 9 classes to choose from, each with benefits and downsides. I'm going to start with the most difficult to play (in my opinion) and give some tips.

The Scout.

Read more: http://tf2wiki.net/wiki/Scout

The site probably says a lot of stuff that I'm going to say, but...I'll say it anyway.

The scout is a lightweight, fast-moving killer when used properly. One on one against a heavy, pyro, soldier, or most of the other common classes, you don't stand too much of a chance. Engineer turrets? You can just about forget it.

But there are some things that scouts are great at - speed and maneuverability. Your double jumps allows you to get some places that only soldiers and demos can get to. On top of buildings and ledges are great places to shoot from unnoticed.

But the very best thing that a scout can do is run behind enemy lines and wreck havoc. With an open battlefield, plenty of things to hide behind, and lots of health packs, a scout can suppress an enemy charge very well.

Scouts are excellent in melee since their bats hit quickly, and you can finish off a sniper or medic this way often before they even realize you are there. Hiding behind corners, killing one or two people, and moving on. That's what makes a great scout. You can't hold a single position for very long. If you get caught on fire, you will probably die. A shotgun blast to the face may do it too. You have to move, fire, and get out.

So in my opinion, the best scouts are the ones that sneak along behind the enemy and kill the little guys. If you can down a sniper or a medic, often that will change a game. But you have to be very careful not to stare down a heavy. Fire and run, and get to the healthpacks first, and you'll be fine.

Not the best class to start playing TF2 with. Position is everything, and you need to know your maps very well.

Next time: The Soldier.

Will Activision Ruin Blizzard?

When this was announced, tons of people (including myself) were worried about what might happen to Blizzards' three touted franchises. There are two ways of looking at this situation. The first is that Activision will be ruining Blizzard, and the second is that Blizzard will bring Activision back from the depths of EA-level production.

I personally in light of new events would like to support the argument that Blizzard ain't going nowhere, and that Activision might actually learn something from Vivendi.

• Blizzard's reputation speaks for itself. Any gaming company would like to have Blizzard's sterling reputation, including EA and Activision. When announced, Vivendi and Activision were adamant that each would continue to develop games separately - as in Vivendi will continue to work on Starcraft, WoW, etc. and Activision will continue to work on Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, etc. Why do you think that they did this? Because Blizzard fans were so paranoid that Activision would ruin Blizzard's games. It wasn't because all those Call of Duty fans were worried about Blizzard ruining their game. With this in mind, Activision and Blizzard seem to already know about each others' reputations, and will likely work hard to maintain Blizzard's good reputation, while working hard to improve Activision's. Whether that will work remains to be seen.
• Blizzard at one time had been working on a two year cycle (approximately). Over a span of twelve years, they had released 6 major new titles (Warcraft II in 1995, Diablo in 1996, Starcraft in 1998, Diablo II in 2000, Warcraft III in 2002, World of Warcraft in 2004.) Now, about a year apart, Blizzard announced Starcraft II and then Diablo III, two highly anticipated games from titles that are 10 and 8 years old, respectively. Not to mention yet another expansion for WoW and rumors of yet another big MMO. This deal with Activision will allow Blizzard to make more quality games, because they can actually afford to work on more than one big title at a time without worrying about a flop like Starcraft Ghost bankrupting them.
• Now that Guitar Hero IV has been announced, I was interested to hear that it is taking on Rock Band directly by adding drums. People are getting pissed off about this, because "it's copying" and "it will be bad for consumers because we'll have to buy both." Well, why do you have to buy both? I think that it's a good thing, because it will mean direct competition from both. If Guitar Hero IV kept with its two guitars, would Rock Band feel pressure to improve their game at all? Probably not. I blame the bad blood between the two companies more than the direct competition for any technical issues. I agree that Activision has made some questionable company decisions. But now Vivendi has controlling interest in the companies, and business decisions will be run through Vivendi and the new higher-ups. I hope to see a newer company attitude from this. Will this stop the blood feud between Harmonix and Activision? Probably not. But still, I think that it is better to see Guitar Hero directly challenging Rock Band in this way. I guess we shall see.

Honestly though, I like this merger. Activision has produced some cliche games from movies, and they aren't as buggy or as poorly put together as EA's have been. Blizzard now has resources to tap into the console market where it might be appropriate (though likely not for any of the main three franchises). I expect to see better things from Activision and to continue to see marvelous things from Blizzard. (And I sure hope I'm right.)

Diablo III Announced

Boy Blizzard has been busy. First Starcraft II, and now Diablo III.

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/

It looks awesome.

A Few Free Demos

I don't have a lot of time, so I'll make it brief.

Team Fortress II Free Trial

This weekend, play Team Fortress II for free. Only this weekend though. If you haven't tried it, you ought to. Just as a note though, prepare to be frustrated initially. Lots of people are really really good, and it takes some time to learn the maps and the classes. If you're worried about survival and learning, try being a medic, find a big guy to heal, and stay out of the line of fire. That's usually the best way to start out. Or start out as a soldier. But watch out for spies! Download Steam to try it out.

Spore Creature Creator

The makers of spore have introduced their creature creator. I haven't tried it yet, but it's a sample from the game, and probably the first time to really get an idea of what the game is about. Download it at www.spore.com.

Have fun, and have a great weekend. Hopefully I can post more soon.

Portal Trial

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php

Play the first 11 levels of Portal just by downloading Steam.

Steam is kinda resource intense (it's a chat client for gaming), but...for the first 11 levels of Portal, it's definitely worth trying out.

Monsters (PS3)

Well, I've been back for a few weeks now, so I'm finally caught up on work, and I've gotten some time to play some more video games. So I might be posting a little more now.

I started playing Monsters, a downloadable game for the PS3. It's made by PixelJunk and costs $8. Definitely worth every penny.

Have you ever played Warcraft III: Frozen Throne and found the secret level? It's just like this game. Basically, you are a little turtle running around building towers. You start out being able to build arrow towers, cannon towers, and anti-air towers. The enemies start walking towards your base where your 20 babies are sitting undefended (oh no!), and your towers fire upon them, hopefully killing them. Those enemies drop eggs and coins. Coins are used to buy more towers, and eggs are used to research new towers or upgrade your towers. You can also upgrade your towers by "dancing" on top of them.

It's an old concept (I know there are other games like it, but I've never played them) with a newer twist. There are online scores so you can see your ranking on certain levels as well as the whole area. There are unlockable items as well.

They made the game cutsie for casual people, but it's intense enough for serious players too. Try saving all 20 of your babies on each level - it isn't easy. It's also a lot of fun to see how high of a score you can get. The highest we got was into the 300's. We were proud.

You can play the game single player or co-op. Co-op is a lot of fun if you're with someone who can strategize with you well.

We just started playing the expansion (another $6), and it's whole other island of levels. Can't wait to see how it turns out. If you have a PS3 and like RTS games, this should be an awesome one.

Oh, and can anyone else not wait to see if Spore is going to be either a flop or the game of the year? I don't think there's an in-between.

Back in the US

Hello everyone. I enjoyed my trip, but I have to say, it was good to get back and eat fried food and hamburgers again.

I haven't been actively posting since my life has been designated to working and very little leisure. However, I have to say that during my trip, I got a chance to read a lot.

I read a lot of Issac Asimov. He's a very popular science fiction author who writes some very interesting stories. The best way to describe his stories in my opinion are to say that they are like mysteries. The characters in his story are trying find the solution to a problem, whether it's a murder or the inevitable takeover of a planet. But they do so in a very nonviolent and ingenious way everytime. He can take a situation and turn it on its head very easily. If you're into sci-fi, I'd definitely recommend reading his Foundation series at least for a start. If you like those, read his other works too...they are also a great read.

Another book that I'm rereading now (with a lot of my spare time) is "The Agony and the Ecstasy." This is a historical fiction story about Michelangelo's life (the painter and sculptor, not the turtle.) Seeing the Sistine Chapel in person made me want to reread this. It's a very engaging story that puts you right in Florence and Rome in the time of Michelangelo very realistically. It's a classic for a reason. It is a long book, but very engaging. And it gives a lot more depth to his life and his works as a result.

And finally, if you're looking for pure entertainment, try reading Tricky Business by Dave Barry. Dave Barry is well known for his weekly newspaper humor column, but he also has written a few novels. It is an engaging story with humor that will sometimes leave you laughing out loud (literally). Fans of goofy movies involving Ben Stiller and Will Farrell would like this kind of movie, I am certain. That is, if you like to read anyway.

I haven't been playing a lot of games other than Team Fortress II. If you haven't played it since the new map Gold Rush, it's a lot of fun. Plus, trying to get the Medic achievements is a blast.

Hopefully I'll get more interesting as time goes on.

Website for Italy Trip

My trip chronicles with Justin have been relocated to a place where I can post some pictures.

By no means is this site a complete rendering of our trip...we have lots more pictures and some movie files to post. However, we don't want to spend our trip time working too much on the website and not enjoying the trip. But slowly we'll put our trip onto the site, a little bit at a time, so we can share our experiences with you all.

http://70.89.111.21:3002/index.html

Enjoy!

Trip To Italy - The Journey There

Bonnegiorno! Here I am in L’Italia. We had a pretty good trip. We had a connecting flight from Pittsburgh to Chicago in the morning, and had some time to kill, so we decided to take the metro into Chicago, walk around, and have lunch there. It was pretty nice. They definitely have “The Windy City” right. The first thing that I noticed was how flat it was. Everything was in a perfect grid compared to anything I’ve seen in PA. They don’t really have any rolling hills out there.

We walked around in Chicago and saw briefly the theater district, the riverwalk, and possibly the Sears Tower (we’re pretty sure we saw it, but couldn’t distinguish it from all of the other big buildings. We ate in a small place called Potbelly Sandwich Works. I had a lunch meat sandwich wrap made fresh and some chicken noodle soup. It was very good. We didn’t have too much of a chance to look around since we only had 4 hours there, and the metro was a 45 minute drive. Fortunately, the security checkpoints didn’t take too long to get through so there was no worry of missing our flight. Travelling on a Tuesday was a great idea.

The flight wasn’t too bad for a 9 hour flight. We brought plenty of stuff to do. I had my laptop (it’s amazing how little you can do without the Internet anymore), we brought several books from the library, and Nick and Jess let us borrow their Nintendo DS’s for the trip. We played Mario Kart through the whole flight from Pittsburgh to Chicago, and played a good bit of the trip on the way to Italy.

Justin’s seat tactics worked. We ordered our tickets online, and it gave us the option to choose our seats. The plane had seating that was 2/3/2. Two seats next to each other near the window, and three seats in the very middle. All of the seats against the window were taken, so Justin took two aisle seats in the middle section in the same row that had an empty seat between us. He figured that the middle seat would likely be the last taken by anyone, so if there were vacant seats, we’d have a shot at an empty seat between us. Well, that’s exactly what happened. It made sleeping a little bit easier, but it’s still definitely hard to sleep practically sitting up.

The food wasn’t too bad either – we got beef and mashed potatoes, a small salad, a dinner roll, and a really good triple chocolate brownie. I wish I had slept more though, because we took off at 3:00 PM, and we arrived 9 hours later…at 6 in the morning in Italy. Basically, it was Daylight Savings Time, times 6. So we didn’t get much sleep before our first big day in Italy.

I have a lot to tell about already, but time is short. I still have jet lag, am exhausted from today, and have to get some work done too. I’ll try to get some pictures up for next time as well. Ciao!

Trip to Italy

Well, some of you know, but most of you don't. I'll be taking a two week trip with my brother Justin to Italy starting tomorrow. Definitely too busy today to be excited - it'll probably start tonight when we leave for Pittsburgh.

We've been trying to learn at least a little Italian, but it's been pretty tough. I took too much Spanish to be very good at Italian - I keep lapsing into old Spanish habits.

What I've decided to do is TRY to do a daily blog to keep track of my experience. Or at least an every-so-often blog. So all of you lucky people get to see my trip firsthand. So don't be too surprised if you see a frenzy of activity in the next few days or so.

Wish us luck, and the next time I blog will be from L'Italia. Ciao!

Team Fortress Hilarity

Even if you've never played this game, you'll find this absolutely hilarious. Some moron is using game exploits and just stupid activity to screw over his team, including making teleport death-traps for his teammates, preventing his own snipers from seeing, and locking his team in their spawn point with a glitch. Absolutely hilarious to hear everyone's in game reaction to his antics.

Warning: strong language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUPzN7tp7bQ

Brain Phenomenon

So I've been working all evening on some projects, and when Nick and I are tired, strange things start to happen (don't tell our clients). But tonight I realized just how much fun you can have changing songs titles that have "_-ain" in them to song titles with "brain" in them.

Take these fun examples:

"Have You Ever Seen My Brain" by CCR (Have You Ever Seen The Rain)
"Last Brain in London" by ELO (Last Train to London)
"Where's My Brain" by Eric Clapton (Let It Rain)
"Brains on the Scarecrow" by John Mellencamp (Rain on the Scarecrow)
"Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Brains" by Ricky Nelson (Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain)
"Crazy Brain" by Ozzy Osbourne (Crazy Train)

I calculated it, and I am roughly 215 times more likely to sing along to the "brain version" of any of these songs. Should this be called the "Brain Phenomenon?"

Is anyone else amused by this? Or is it just me at midnight being really tired?

Yeah that's what I thought. Anyway, feel free to add any song titles that you find amusing as well.

Someday I'll post something relevant and interesting, I swear.

Links

Well, I still haven't been doing a whole lot. Been working a lot, playing Titanquest, Team Fortress 2, and Rock Band a good bit. So nothing terribly new to report.

But I've been sent a number of purely entertaining links that I wanted to share with you all.

1. Mario in Javascript - Sure it isn't perfect, but if anyone has ever coded Javascript....this is truly a masterpiece.

2. Canada On Strike - The South Park season has kinda been meh so far, until last week's episode. Pure comedy. After watching it, make sure you watch the videos that inspired it. The list is located here.

3. Top 100 April Fools Jokes - Many of these were from a time when you wouldn't imagine too many pranks were played at a wide-spread level. Some are just awesome. I didn't realize that April Fools was celebrated internationally.

4. Speaking of April Fools - anyone who played WoW and missed this....inexcusable.

5. Windows 98 and XP Music - This is very nerdy, but still somewhat entertaining. I enjoyed it.

I know there are more...I'll just have to save them for another post later.

Keep posting fun links in your comments...I'm enjoying them, just never remember to comment back about them.

What's Up

So the last week has been pretty dull for me. Not that I've been incredibly bored, but nothing really new has come up. I refuse to post about the really dull and boring stuff that goes on in my life. (That definitely opened me up for some rips.)

Anyway, I'd like to hear from you people who read this. Anything interesting going on? Wow-related, video game-related, RL-related. I don't care. What are you all doing? Comment!

Titanquest

So I've finally played enough of Titanquest to feel that I can accurately review it. I haven't completed the game, so I may change my mind on some aspects of it.

Have you ever played Diablo II in all of its glory? Made in 2000, this game is still actively played online (though not as much since WoW came out). Why is this? It's a classic RPG with a decent plot, great class balance, great skill trees, good item progression, and long-lasting strategy. You can pick up the game in minutes, and take months to truly master it. The game is more about your character than it is about the storyline or the monsters that you fight. It's interesting to think about playing the game as a different character using a different set of skills.

Titanquest is truly a Diablo II ripoff. Perhaps Diablo II created the point-click RPG genre. If that's the case, then Titanquest has developed it into the new generation Diablo. We're still waiting for Diablo III, but Titanquest can be considered Diablo 2.5 I think.

Again, the storyline really is bland. It's based in ancient Greece, and all sorts of monsters have come out from mythology to fight mankind. Your job is to find them and kill them. Seems pretty straight forward? It is. The storyline is slow and not very deep. But the gameplay makes up for it.

In Diablo II, you had 7 classes to choose from, and each had three talent trees to put points into. In Titanquest, they increase that to 8 (9 with the expansion), but the difference is that you don't pick one. You pick two. My character is an Oracle (combination of Spirit and Storm trees). You choose your first tree at level 2, and your second tree at level 8. The trees are more complex than Diablo as well. Each level you get 3 skill points (as opposed to 1 for Diablo). You can put these skill points into new abilities, or you can use them to progress higher up the tree. This way, you don't need to hoard points or save them until you get to the abilities that you want.

Having 36 different combinations can make for unlimited character skill development, and has led to the same kind of online following that Diablo has enjoyed. Like Diablo, the game is based around gear and relics (gems). The interface is nicer too. Instead of having left and right click, there is a bar to use for casting. It works similarly in the end, but it's much easier to see all of your options in front of you.

Other advantages that it enjoys over Diablo is improved statistic tracking, better graphics and music, better transportation methods, redos on skill points, side quests, and better saved game placement.

I really enjoy these kinds of games because you can nitpick about what abilities will be best for your character to have. It places the focus on character development rather than the environment interaction. I wish the game had a more engaging storyline, but I do enjoy the sidequests (something that Diablo lacked as well).

Multiplayer is also available, but I don't know if I can recommend it. Multiplayer slows things down a little, and if there's one thing that this game doesn't need, it's slowing down. I tried playing this with friends multiplayer and couldn't get into it. Single players gives you more time to figure out what abilities work and which ones don't.

In summary, if you liked Diablo II, you will like this game - it is superior in a lot of ways. Though I can't wait until Diablo III - it will probably blow this game out of the water.

Some old school text games

I was given these two DOS games by my buddy Jim (most of you know him as Saro). Nothing quite like some old school text games. People had to be pretty clever to make decent games back in the day. You couldn't hide behind terrific graphics and cut-scenes. The plot had to be interesting, and game-play engaging.

The first game is called Executive Suite. The purpose is to move yourself up the ranks of the company and increase your worth. You have to make solid business decisions to move up the company ranks. Screw up and you can get demoted or even let go. Not a long game, but interesting enough to try a few times. A couple of decisions will come back to bite you, and every result makes pretty good sense.

The second game is called Alter Ego. I haven't had a chance to play it all the way through - it's a much longer one. But the premise, is you get to control decisions made by a baby all the way up through old age. Every decision you make affects your personality, financial situation, social skills, and overall satisfaction. There are a lot of decision points, and I've only gotten to toddler stage. But it's a very interesting game.

One note: The male version creates you a female character, and the female version creates you a male character. This is because it's more interesting to try living a life through the opposite sex. Give it a try. I'd like to see what people think.

NOTE: Alter Ego can give people problems, especially anyone running Vista. If you can't run it, try using a DOS emulator like DOSBox.

Anyone who knows of any other cool DOS games like this...feel free to share them. The classics never truly go away.

Great Day at Work

When you wake up in the morning, you never know what kind of a day you're going to have. Yesterday morning, I had the feeling that my day was going to be really bad. I woke up at 6:45 (2 hours earlier than I usually do) because I had two early morning meetings to go to. Then I knew it would be a long day, because I had a BASH (Business After Scheduled Hours) for our local Chamber of Commerce, and I told Jeff, a colleague of mine, that I would be meeting with him after the BASH to work on helping each other's businesses out. So I knew it was going to be about a 14 hour day. Nothing to look forward to.

For about the last month or so, we've been barely making it by. I guess I should explain for anyone who doesn't know...when you own your own business, you don't get a paycheck. We get money by getting people to pay us for what we do. So if we don't get any work, we don't get paid.

We build software for businesses. My analogy for this is, say you have two blocks of wood connected by a screw. And you need to get that screw out. You can use any number of tools to get that screw out. A penny will work. A screwdriver will work. And a power drill will work. Which is the best solution? As this relates to software, most people who sell software are trying to sell a product. They will tell you that you should buy their penny. Or you should buy their drill. All of them will work, but perhaps they aren't the best tool for the situation. We actually look at what you're doing. We ask questions, like "how many times will you need to get that screw out?" And "how long will you be doing this? for a year?" Then we figure out what the best software to use would be, and either build it, help you implement it, or whatever.

OK, back on track to my point. We've had some really big quotes for some really big jobs out there. In early February we quoted a job for about $125,000. (Yes, that many zeroes!) Another job we quoted at $30,000 early March, and finally a third at $15,000 around late February. We expected to have had at least one of these jobs by not. Not so. We have still been waiting to hear back from everyone.

In the meantime, we've picked up some smaller jobs. A $3,000 job here, a $1,000 job there. But those don't quite pay the bills. So we've been holding our breath for a long time on a lot of these.

Wednesday morning's meeting was a volunteer meeting for the Monroeville Chamber of Commerce...I'm on their marketing committee to help them figure out how best to market their projects and events. During that time, they mentioned a need for their website to have customer logins. Perfect job for us, so we'll be talking with them about that. It will be small, but filler work is great. Then I met a designer and an IT person....two great places for referrals since they often work with people needing what we do.

Got back to the office, and actually worked on a project that was at a standstill. I finally fixed the problem that I'd been having, so I made a lot of progress.

The day still was kinda long, so off I went to the BASH. There I was introduced to a woman whose husband's company is getting raped by their software vendor. Apparently they pay $250 for a phone call to tech support. How ridiculous is that? So we'll be talking with them about fixing up their circumstance. Definitely a good lead.

After that I met with Jeff, who had a really ingenius idea for software. So when I discussed it with him, it seemed that he had the right mindset to build a software program from the ground up. If he really wants to do that, then power to him. I guarantee that he'll want us to be involved at the very least, if not programming the software ourselves.

So I went back to the office, feeling pretty good about the day. When I got back, I got an email from a colleague who had been in contact with the woman in charge of the $125,000 project. She said that we'd have to wait about 2 weeks, but it seems that we have a really REALLY good shot at getting the project. Then I found out from Nick that we had two other phone calls. One saying that we are just about guaranteed the $15,000 job that I mentioned before, and one saying that a friend of ours has another client who needs some work done.

What a whopper of a day. I sat in my chair for a good 5 minutes and just tried to take it all in. I know that I don't usually post about our projects, and things that we're up to. Most people don't care to know about the tools that we found to help our clients, and solutions to problems that we've encountered. I'm a friggin programmer! But I had to share this day, because this makes days like last Thursday (where we had to scramble to make payroll) very much worth it. On days like yesterday, it's good to be a business owner.

And if anyone is interested in some of the projects that we do, I'd be more than happy to talk about them here. Just be honest though....does anyone really care that we found a program that allows you to run a WAMP stack (Apache, MySQL, and PHP) locally without needing a web server? Probably not. But let me know, because I'll be happy to share the kinds of things that we do.

As a footnote, I've been playing Titanquest and a little bit of Baldur's Gate II. Once I feel more comfortable with them, I'll post some reviews.

OCRemix.org

I don't remember who showed this to me first, but I wanted to share it with one and all.

Everyone knows that some of the best music ever made has been for video games. Even the classic NES games with its 4 bit sound had some classic melodies that are still catchy. So if you yearn for the greatness of old video game music, this is an awesome website.

OC Remix is a website that collects independent remixes of video game music. People will submit entries, and the music is available to download for FREE. No licenses or anything!

Personally, I'm a huge fan of the Megaman II music that's there....to me that game had some of the best music ever.

Some of the remixes are techno, some are classical, some are rock n roll, and some are everything in between. And I'm sure that everyone will agree that Super Mario World / Sleigh Ride is downright awesome.

Enjoy the music from your favorite games as interpreted by these great remixers. Please share some of your favorites. Here are mine:

-Anything by Disco Dan
-Dr. Willy's Wedding, and most anything from Mega Man 2

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - First Impressions

Well, I only got to play this game for about an hour and a half. We rented it, because Nick/Rubix's fiance works at Family Video, and we get game rentals at half price. However, a day into the rental we were told that since it's a "New Release" we can't rent it at half price for now. So....whatever.

I wanted to post since it looks like there is interest in the game from the previous few comments.

When I saw that the game was coming out for the Wii, I was pretty psyched. I played the game a good bit on the Gamecube. I didn't get exceptionally good at the game, but I learned enough about the controls and enjoyed it.

So I popped in the game and just started playing. Now mind you, after playing Super Mario Galaxy, I had some pretty high expectations. I expected for the game to use the Wii's motion sensors as the primary attacks, or at least some sort of attack. Unfortunately, this was not the case. My character stood still as I waved my little controller around in the air. The controls ended up being almost exactly like the Gamecube controls. In some ways, this is good. I didn't have to relearn any moves. However, it felt very redundant. I played single player mode through a quick game, and quickly turned the game off. The game was a repeat in my mind. New characters, new graphics, new environments. Same moves, same mentality, same basic principle.

I admit at that point I thought that the game was a dud. I was looking forward to a completely different game. One that used the Wii's unique motion sensor to make me feel like I was swordfighting or something. Make a Power punch a forward thrust or something. In this way I was sadly disappointed.

Later on, I tried playing the Co-op mode with Nick. It was very enjoyable. It forces you to play different characters, something none of the other games did. I enjoyed the different aspects of the levels as well. Some were a normal arena match, some were side-scrolling, and some were a combination of both. We only got 6% through, but I liked the idea of having a single player version of the game. It was the most enjoyable part for me.

I was never a huge Smash Bros multiplayer fan. Usually I was either playing with someone who knew the game inside and out and destroyed me, or someone who didn't know how to play who I toasted every time. I expect that since the game is meant to be mulitplayer, that would probably be the most enjoyable part. Single player might be fun to run through the adventure mode once or twice, but then I'd probably be tired of it.

I will have to try it again sometime, perhaps in a multiplayer setting to see what happens. I don't think that I gave it nearly enough time for it to impress me. But my first impressions were "same old, same old."

Love to hear your thoughts.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Yes I'm back with another review finally.

After around 30 hours of gameplay, I finished KotOR. And here is my review, with a twist.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC)

This is an RPG that focuses on a combination of turn-based and real time combat. Everyone attacks at the same speed (with the exception of a speed boost or slow force power) but you can play cat-and-mouse in real time. It's an interesting combination. Like most RPG's, you have a team of allies who fight with you. Some are Jedi, some are mercenaries looking for a home, some are droids, and each has its own unique capabilities. There is a lot of social interaction, for lack of a better word. Much hinges on your ability to solve problems, find the right people, and say the right things to them.

One of the most intriguing parts of the game is the balance between Light and Dark. Anytime you act in a benevolent way, you will get Light Points and be closer to being a Jedi. Anytime you do something evil, you will get Dark Points and be closer to being a Sith. Becoming either good or evil allows you to have access to certain Jedi abilities. Jedi have the ability to move faster, heal party members, and defend against attacks more effectively. Sith have the ability to slow opponents, drain their life, and use lightning attacks. And that is only the beginning.

First Impressions:

This was the second time that I played this game. The first time that I tried it was maybe 2-3 years ago. I remember liking the storyline a lot, but feeling very overwhelmed. It seemed like there were too many things going on and I had a hard time keeping track of them.

Eventually, I stopped playing it. I think I got stuck on a particular part and got frustrated. I remember there being Dark Jedi involved.

Second Impressions:

I played the game again, and the second time around things were much less intimidating. I understood the premise of the game better, and could concentrate on choosing my stats more carefully. There were only a few parts of the game that I considered to be difficult, including the final battle. There was more strategy involved than outright confrontation. If you brought a teammate who had leet hacker skills, you could hack the computer and cause the enemy droids to attack their masters. You could also reprogram droids to fight for you temporarily, or simple persuade your foes into walking away from combat.

What I Liked:

Dark vs. Light
I really liked the choices made in the game. There was a woman who needed 200 credits to pay her debt. If you gave her the credits, you'd get Light Points. If you killed her to get the bounty on her head, you'd get Dark Points. In some situations, it was more beneficial to get Dark Points to gain more experience. However, too many Dark Points and you could lose your ability to heal your party.

Storyline:
The storyline was very engaging. For the most part, it allowed you to go at your own pace. There were plenty of side quests to do that helped you get XP to aid you in your main quest. And you had the choice to complete them in the "light" way or the "dark" way. At one point in the game, you have to pretend to join a Sith training facility. Accomplishing the tasks there was incredibly difficult to remain in the Light. However, a Dark Jedi would have had difficulty when you were training for the Jedi Order earlier in the game. Many difficult decisions were placed well in the game. And there were a lot of plot twists that made for a great story.

Music:
You gotta love the Star Wars music.

What I Didn't Like:

Interface:
The interface was pretty tough to deal with. In combat, you got a chance to pause and look at your options, and it's a good thing. Choosing abilities real-time was difficult. In addition, inventory and quest management was really cumbersome. I gathered a lot of different grenades and mines and other assorted items throughout, and rarely used them at all. Every once in a while I would go on a selling spree and sell almost everything that I had, just so I could find the items that I needed.

Graphics:
I don't know if it was the engine or my video card, but it was very "blipy." I would take 3-4 steps, and it would blip for a moment. It wasn't very smooth no matter how low I turned the settings. As such, I wasn't too impressed by the graphics. The load times could get annoying, but I was more disappointed with the load times of the cut scenes. Usually those would take forever on my machine, and would sometimes freeze my computer even.

Replayability:
I don't think that's a word, but whatever. I don't think that I could replay this one. Even though there are several angles to take, the storyline and the puzzles were the best part of the game. Certain points were just tedious, especially in large enemy areas. As a soldier, I was always just hitting Power Attack over and over again until the enemies died (this strategy worked for the entire game until the last area.) Two lightsabers + Power Attack = dead opponents.

Character Balance:
What I mean by this is your friendly characters. Sure it's nice to have a droid that can disable land mines. But if you have three Jedi, have one run into it, take some damage, and use Force Heal to bring them back up to full. After a while, I only used the other two Jedi that I had. Fortunately, everyone levels up evenly, so I didn't have to worry about breaking out a lower level guy for a particular situation. But it made the storyline a bit less interesting to be walking around with the same people.

Overall:

I really enjoyed this game. The story is excellent, and the puzzles are entertaining and challenging. So what if the combat got tedious and the interface sucked? It was more about trying to avoid confrontations and progress the plot of the story. I really liked how you could affect the outcome of the game by doing the different side quests and choosing Light or Dark Jedi. Overall, I found the game enjoyable. If you like RPGs and puzzle games, this was a good one. Not the best that I ever played, but most certainly not the worst. I enjoyed the Jedi Outcast / Jedi Academy series better, personally. Can't wait for the new one to come out.


My next game I was hoping would be Thief, but I cannot find my CD. :-(

So I dunno what will be next. As for posting, I'm probably going to post with other assorted things instead of just game reviews. I've been struggling for topics as of late, but I want to keep in touch with everyone still.

Keep those comments coming...I like to hear from you all.

Rock Band

Well I haven't been playing too many games as of late....this week has been pretty hectic with a lot of different things. But that doesn't mean I can't play catchup with some of the games that I haven't reviewed yet.

Rock Band is probably the most hyped game out at the moment, and the most coveted by non-gaming people. A PS3 and the Rock Band set will likely run you over $650! So the question is, is it worth it?

Rock Band (Playstation 3)

Move aside Guitar Hero. We just added drums and a microphone. I think anyone that has played Guitar Hero alone and with a partner would agree....it's twice as fun with a partner. Imagine having a group of four playing songs together! Rock Band comes with a surprisingly realistic drum set with four pads and a footpedal. It works much like the guitar on the screen, but requires much better coordination to do it.

The microphone is quite creative as well. If recognizes pitch, so you can actually just hum along to the song. But what's the fun in that? The words scroll across the screen, so you might as well sing em!

Add to that the guitar that most people are familiar with. There are a few mechanical differences between the Guitar Hero guitar and the Rock Band guitar. There is an extra set of keys for solos that you can use to avoid strumming, which is very helpful in certain sections.

What I Liked:

-The party atmosphere. It's easy to get anyone involved. Each instrument can be set at a different difficulty level, so it's easy for experts to play with amateurs and not be bored. In addition, four people can play at a time, so even in a party of 8 people, you get to play every other song.

-The teamwork aspect. When you're playing with a group, if one person is struggling to keep up, they may fail. This doesn't necessarily mean the end though...a teammate can save you if they play well enough. The same thing goes for if you're going down the tubes...they can kick it into "overdrive" and you can redeem yourself much faster.

-The song list. Not only are many of the songs from different genres and decades, but they are primarily catchy and easy to get into. In addition, they make new songs available for download every week, so you can buy new songs that you would like to play.

-The multiplayer band-mode. You can actually make your band name, character names, and you can design your characters with physique, hair-styles, body art, and clothing. It acts as a world tour, where you need to earn a bus, and a jet, and bodyguards, and the whole nine yards by doing well at the gigs. Most importantly, there is a lot of flexibility...you can do random song lists, or custom set lists.

What I Didn't Like

-Single Player mode. Don't get me wrong, it works just fine. But while I could play Guitar Hero III alone and get into it, I can't do that for Rock Band. It just isn't as much fun by yourself, and I'd rather do something else than bang on the drums alone.

-Microphone. As creative of an idea as this is, I think this is the least favorite instrument of most people. Some karaoke fanatics will love it. The problem is, not all songs will be in someone's voice range. Doing a set of random songs is frustrating if your voice can't reach the notes on one of the songs. Finally, it doesn't feel as challenging to beat the song by singing. If you're playing on easy or expert, you still sing the same thing. It doesn't get harder...you just have to get more accurate. So it almost doesn't pay to ever sing on expert. It's also easier to beat a song by humming the notes, which is just not nearly as fun either.

-Purchasing of new content. I understand that they are sinking time and money into making new songs and coming up with the drum lines and vocals, etc. But you have to spend maybe $1.75 for a song. That can add up over time, making this initially expensive game even more costly.

Who I Think Would Like This Game

Honestly, anyone who enjoys music will like this game. There are songs from any decade at all sorts of difficulty ranges. The fact that you are playing with friends makes this an amazing party game. Don't be afraid of all of the things that I didn't like about the game. I just wanted to share the things that I had slight frustrations with. Overall I think that this game is well worth the investment, especially if you plan on purchasing a PS3 anyway. If it isn't in the budget yet, I suggest saving up some cash...it's truly a blast.

Many people compare Guitar Hero III to Rock Band....it's really an unfair comparison. One is designed around single player, and the other around multiplayer. That's just the way that it is. If you liked one, you should like the other. I'd like to hear any experiences you've had with Rock Band...post em if you got em. Also any questions, feel free to ask.

Super Mario Galaxy

Four people said that even after three months, they still read my blog.

I'm quite surprised to tell you the truth. But as such, I will try to post interesting material.

This is the first game review that I've really ever done. I won't be doing your run-of-the-mill reviews, because you can go to GameSpot or similar sites and read reviews on just about anything. So, my reviews will contain the following:

1. What kind of game it is.
2. What I liked.
3. What I disliked.
4. Who I think would like this game.

Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Wii)

The first game that I'm going to review is Super Mario Galaxy. If anyone's played Mario 64, it's very much along those lines. The premise is, that the Princess gets captured again by Bowser, but this time you traverse the universe to save her.

You go to different galaxies and play on different planets to find the stars that are hidden/stashed there. Most planets have three stars that are considered "normal." Then there are hidden stars, as well as "comet" stars, which require you to complete various levels with a stipulation. Some of these are to finish within a certain amount of time, or complete it without getting hurt.

What I liked:

-The depth. Every level wasn't all the same. Unlike Mario 64, not all of the stars are available on the first go around. In other words, you can't get the third star by playing the first level. This added more content to the levels, and made the game more challenging, especially when it came time to find the hidden stars.

- The power-ups. I won't spoil the different power-ups that you can get for Mario, but the first one that you encounter is Bee Mario. You can fly, but only for a certain amount of time, before you start plummeting. But if you get hit with water, you turn back into regular Mario.

- The progressive difficulty. The first few levels could be completed by a five year old. But by the end, I was struggling to complete the final levels. Fortunately, none of them were completely frustrating...the longest that I spent on a level was 30 minutes.

- The "walk away" factor. I'm starting to really enjoy games that you can easily walk away from. And I'm not talking about "addiction" kind of walking away. I mean, if you need to stop playing in 5 minutes, you don't have a problem getting to a save point. Since this game is based on sets of smaller sized levels, it's easy to play 2-3 in 15 minutes, and to go do something else.

- The "neato" factor. When Mario 64 came out, it was amazing to play in 3-D. That was neato. But this takes it to a whole new level. For the most part, those levels were flat. That is, down was down, and up was up. In this game, when you're bounding between planets, gravity is always changing. This makes jumping far more interesting, since you may not go in a straight line. The game is always making new uses of gravity, even to the final showdown with Bowser.

- Little repeat content. The content is very fresh throughout the game. The scenery was always changing, and you didn't feel like you were doing the same thing over and over, even at the end of the game when you need to find 100 purples coins in several different levels. Some you had to hunt for the coins, some were speed levels with a timer, and others were different still. I never felt like I was just grinding away at a repeating experience.

-EDIT: The music! Thank's Bill. I completely neglected to mention the music. So many of the levels use music from older Mario games. There are new themes, but hearing some versions of the old music was really quite great. Trying to remember what game the music was from was enjoyable in and of itself. I can't believe I forgot about the soundtrack - truly a good point.

What I didn't like:

- Vertigo. With the changing in gravity so much, I often experienced dizziness, or just got confused with where I was and where I was going. Sometimes I was flipped upside-down, and up would be towards me, and other times it would be away from me. It depended on the circumstance. Overall this wasn't a huge issue, but it turned some areas into frustrating ones.

- The ending. I beat the game to completion. To beat the game to completion, you need to obviously defeat Bowser. But at that point, you unlock more levels. That was kinda cool, I admit. But then when I beat those levels, it required me to beat Bowser again, without any change. Then, after I'd completed every level in the game, I unlocked Luigi to play with him. I just beat the game, it's a little late to play with Luigi.

- Flight Mario. There was a flight power-up that I unlocked along the way, but you only use it in one level. That was disappointing...I wanted to fly in more levels. Bee Mario just wasn't doing it for me.

- Two player mode. It says that you can play with two players. All the second player can do is pick up star pieces, and fling them at enemies....something the first player can do as well. It was neat at first, but it got old. It's more of a child's thing. If you wanted to play a game with your son or daughter (or in my case, little sister) it's a neat, challenging experience for both parties. My sister enjoyed it. But when I was playing the second player, I was bored as hell.

Who I think would like this game:

Honestly, anyone who's played Mario 64. It's reminiscent of that, but with so much more. The puzzles start out at elementary school level, but they get pretty hard by the end. I actually stopped playing the game after the first two galaxies, because I thought it was boring. But by the time I got to the end of the third galaxy, I couldn't wait to see what challenges lay ahead. The controls were fun and creative, making good use of the Wiimote. I enjoyed beating the game, even if the ending was slightly disappointing.

I'd recommend at least trying the game. The very first level (after the intro) shows you how the gravity and world structure works, and how neat it can be to have levels on round planets, instead of flat surfaces.

(Here would be where most reviews give a rating, but I suck at those, so I'll leave it to your own conclusions from what I said about the game.)


Please give feedback if you thought this was interesting, or if you feel that I left something out. Add your own comments as well.

After two months...

...he returns!

Happy New Year everyone...a month an a quarter late.

I have to wonder if anyone actually still looks at this, so be sure to comment if you do.

Obviously, I have gotten over my WoW addiction, and I know for certain that I won't be coming back. I can't afford to put that much time into one game ever again. Why is that? Because there are too many good games out there, and not enough time to play them!

I've decided that if people are actually interested in me rating games that I'm playing or have played, I would start doing that. I'm playing around one new game every two weeks or so, because I actually try to beat them. Please note, that most reviews won't give games a _/10 rating, because I'm not into that. Some people will rate your favorite game as a 6, and a game that you hate as a 10. It depends on the types of games that you like. So instead, I'll give you a little of what to expect.

Please comment this post if you still actually read my blog. If at least 3-4 people will read this, then I'll start posting about games that I play.

By the way, anyone playing Team Fortress II should join our newly founded clan, the Kamikaze Sprinkles. Your only requirement is to append your name with [KS] at the beginning. Spread the word!