Yeah… Unless you have been in a hole for the past couple days you have probably seen the new Star Trek trailer.
I.. can.. not.. wait…
Edit: And this comic is 100% true.
I played for a couple hours again last night. Not nearly as bad. While I prefer closed communication with the team, the opposing team (and teammates) we played with were not as retarded for this second run. Forcing players to ’stick around’ after the match is still pretty lame though.
One recurring complaint from players was the lancer is overpowered. If everyone can start with the gun, and it is littered all over the ground so you can get a new one at any time, I fail to see how it is a big deal. Everyone can have it. If you choose to use a different weapon, for whatever reason, well… too bad.
Let me start by saying matchmaking is 100% better from the original Gears of War. My biggest problem in version one was the inability to stay together as a team, and you know, actually play with your friends. Gears of War 2 has definitely fixed that problem and several other issues. However, they totally screwed up others.
Here is my number one problem.
Why do they insist on keeping me in a chat room with the other team for 30 seconds after the game is over? Do they really think I want to listen to some 13 year old (or 30 year old) scream obscenities at me? Don’t they think I may want to hurry up and get to my next game? It already takes a while to find a match, why make it take longer? It really, really kills the fun for me. Not only do you have to suffer through mandatory end of the game screaming, I also get to enjoy it before and between every single freaking round. Our group only played matchmaking for one night and unless their are improvements, I am not really looking forward to playing again.
When playing with friends, I have no desire for have voice contact with the other team. I enjoy having casual (or in depth) conversations with my friends during load time and game talk while playing. I absolutely hate listening to foul mouth adolescents. I would pay money to have some kind of switch for ‘team only’ communication in matchmaking.
Frankly, I will probably only play matchmaking a couple more times. I hate it that much. I played Halo 3 for a year, but GoW will be history after Left 4 Dead releases, for this reason alone.
I hope they change it, because I really like the game. I just hate most of the people playing it.
Crayon Physics is a wicked game and I encourage fellow gamers to support the creators effort. I am not even going to bother explaining the game. Just go to the site and watch the video.
I have been following the Kloonigames blog from the beginning. I cannot remember how I found it, but I was intrigued by a guy trying to release a game every month.
When I played the first version of Crayon Physics I remember the game has serious potential. With a full game nearing release he clearly saw the potential as well.
An XBox Arcade version would rock. Unfortunately it does not lend itself to console controls very well. I no longer enjoy playing games in my office anymore. Sitting at the computer all day for work and then trying to sit longer to play games is the opposite of fun. (I will suffer for Starcraft 2 though)
My only gripe is the background music. After listening for a few levels, it was driving my crazy.
I love seeing success. I hope he sells a ton of these games.
It is out, I will be playing it. I cannot wait to use Matt’s lifeless body as a human shield. I really hope they are not sold out at Game Stop when I manage to get away from work today.
Edit: I now have the game, and it lies there, mocking my inability to play it until this evening.
Another Edit: Ok, so I played it a bit at lunch. I could not resist. It is sweet. Annnd, in case you saw my gripe yesterday about Fallout 3 and graphic content, not only can you turn off all the extra gore, you can turn off any swearing. Now I can let my boys enjoy killings things without blood. Kinda funny how I do not mind them shooting things dead, but if there is blood and guts splattered all over the place… well that is just too much!
Fallout 3 rocks.
I was semi skeptical about this game at first, as I was not an Oblivion fan. Fallout appealed much more to me because guns seemed more viable with the Bethesda combat system. Using swords in a first person view was pretty lame. Although with the VATS system, it may be better.
Not to mention I love post apocalyptic settings. Something about surviving a nuclear war is freaky and wicked cool at the same time.
Here are my thoughts.
I loved
- The Story
As stated, I love post apocalyptic games. I love the possibility of multiple endings based on game play decisions. The story is a little predictable but still fun. I went hardcore good guy, helping out the weak and downtrodden while killing slavers and their ilk. I may go through the story again, trying to be as evil as possible. I really liked not being locked into a predefined story line. (This is why I encourage our producers to do the same when running events on our games!)
- The Art
This is what originally attracted me. I loved everything from the scenery to the creatures to the music. It is great. The game does seemed a little light on enemy types, but it did not really bother me. NPC faces looked much better in Fallout compared to Oblivion.
- The Radios Stations
This is such a cool mechanic, listening to the opposing sides and their views as you progress through the game. The 50’s music was entertaining is sweet, although they could have done with 30 more tracks so you do not hear the same one over and over.
- Inventory Control
I have never really been a fan of inventory management. Why constantly deal with dropping, picking up, buying, and selling when all I want to do is play the game? Either Fallout 3 did a good job at making inventory control fast and easy, or I enjoyed the game enough to not care.
- Leveling and Skills
The rate at which you level seemed perfect. I only did a few side quests and hit level 15 by the end of the game. I really want to play up to level 20 to see the high end skills. Additionally, I liked how you can focus on a different skill sets, havinga totally different character and game experience every time. I am sure Oblivion players are used to this, but I’m not.
I hated
- Combat
I did not totally hate it, but having played a lot of shooters, it felt clunky. I know that Fallout is more RPG then shooter but why not make combat a bit smoother? My other gripe was that it seemed like you had to be right up next to a guy to do any damage or have any chance of hitting him. Although this improved later in the game, it seemed a little too much earlier in. It would have been nice to have been able to set the left trigger to a secondary weapon, such as grenades or a knife. The VATS system certainly helped make it more interesting.
- Swearing and Graphic Content
Ok fine, I am a family guy and I realize I am the minority on this. Once I uncovered the amount of foul language and exploding guts, I decided the kids could not play. I enjoyed after they went to bed. If people want that, great. It would have been awesome if there was a way to turn off ‘extreme content’ (Gears of War had this). With less blood and language, I could have let the boys play it.
As stated I would like to play this bad boy some more, but with Gears of War 2 releasing tomorrow, I doubt I will be.
Previously stated, I was not going to play Warhammer Online. I did anyways. Resisting the lure of the Warhammer universe is impossible. Played and enjoyed since released, my interest has waned and I will be canceling my subscription. Here are my brief thoughts.
I loved:
- Public Quests
These are brilliant. Players are not only interacting together, they are getting rewarded for it. Retention relies on facilitating relationships between players. Public Quests make this so easy, it is sick. Grouping in WoW was the bane of my existence. Looking for a group was so painful, I never did it. WAR had me doing it every time I played with no effort on my part. My only gripe was at higher levels, no one participated on my server.
- Quest Tracking
Basic quest tracking was not different than other MMOs. Pointing out on the map, the general area where you work on the quest, is pure awesome for a lazy player like myself.
- Realm vs Realm
Large areas made just for PVP, including objectives and reasons to fight, right in the middle of each tiered location. Participation happened almost naturally from the start of the game. Once again, another facet without much work from the player.
- Scenarios
One click of the button delivered you instantly into the scenario queue and right into yummy, group PvP action. Unless you did nothing you were guaranteed experience just for participating.
I hated:
- The Art
It just does not work for me. It feels like they had a few different art directors that were close in their thinking, but not quite. Of course, this has been my gripe from the beginning.
- World Layout
Coherent, logically connected worlds appeal to me. WAR does not do this, nor did they try. Progressing is like going from one level to another. Obviously this is a design decision allowing them to do things listed about much easier. I think they could have found a way, especially in a world based on real world geography. Warhammer is what it is because its sheer depth of history and background. World layout in the game killed it for me.
- Taxi Travel
Related to my previous gripe, I like getting on flying creatures and traveling from area to area across other areas, looking at them, etc. It just makes it feel more epic. With tiered areas, this was just not possible. In WAR, you get a lame flying away scene.
Reading through several older George R. R. Martin short stories I fell upon the gem, Sandkings. Short read and very entertaining. Without giving away too much, the book follows an exotic animal collector who purchases an alien, insect-like, life form. Living within a terrarium, they consist of four separate colonies, controlled by a hive mind queen. Building a castle, creating armies, and growing to a size that fits their environment, they fight for the entertainment of their owner, whom they view as a god.
Highly recommended and it only took a couple hours to read.
I am pretty much the worst blogger in the history of bloggingkind. Work and family has kept me quite busy. My days have consisted of get up, work, drive kids around, work, sleep, and repeat. Not that I do not love it. I love my job and I love taking watching the kids learn and grow. It just leaves little time for games and writing about them (sniffle).
Sports are slowing down for the winter so I will have more time. Here are a few of my favorite kid pictures from the past couple months.
I have also been able to get a little Fallout 3 time in at night, so I will post my thoughts on that soon as well.
Michelle at Center
Aidan as Iron Man
Aaron and Football
Summer the Cheerleader
By Jeremy | September 18, 2008
Building Tools = Cool
The Game = Pure Horrible
After so much hype, I cannot believe how bad the game is. On one hand you have these amazing tools to create anything you can imagine, but on the other, the game is so painfully boring that I cannot bring myself to make it though the tutorial for the space stage.
My 6 year old loves it, but I doubt that he was their target demographic.
