What amuses us and other ideas
It’s got some amusing ideas. But on it’s own it’s not worth my 60 bucks. It’s all Multiplayer FPS, no single-player story. The “Campaign” is a military campaign as you fight back and forth.
Some people have called it CoD which may or may not be fair to either game. Regardless it’s not for me.
Oh, i’m back to updating. Time and Attention has recovered properly. Let’s talk about some other games, eh?
Comments closedI’m not deep into FPS games. They get old and tired.
Titanfall has shown promise since i first saw it and then forgot about it last year. It’s one of those rare gems I might buy at Retail Pricing.
Comments closedHere we have a new game coming upon the horizon. Wildstar catches my eye almost immediately for t he tongue-in-check characterization and evil villainy. I swear I watched this cartoon some years ago.
Bundled with the bright colors World of Warcraft was known for will be action-combat, secondary class mechanic choice and <gasp> player housing. I’ll touch on a few of these points, what so we’re sure to be on the same page later when I say “OMG, this is AMAZING..”
Action Combat is new variation in the approach in gaming. Where you can dodge the big red ring of “OH CRAP”, you can sing and dance your way through combat as you wish. Where you’re not arbitrarily locked to one place to finish casting your magick spells. It’s there in Guild Wars 2 and some other games where it shakes up the conventions nicely. The downside in some games is that you -have- to move a lot to avoid getting trounced in combat. It remains to be seen how bad Wildstar will be but in exchange for quality character animation I’ll happily endure the never-ending Dodge’em Up.
Class mechanics are an animal I study in every game I play. It’s almost scientific study with the subtle variations in character development having their own nuances and offshoots. Here in Wildstar you’ll pick a basic class what dictates how you trounce monsters and a profession that dictates what kind of quests and content you’ll encounter. If you go soldier, you’ll see a lot of combat missions and very few exploration, or so I’m reading. An interesting system as they’re tying in armor rewards and abilities to people who delve deep into their profession missions.
All in all an interesting sounding experience. The two great questions arise.. How Much and How Soon?
Comments closed
I liked Minecraft. A lie, in it’s simplest form. I love Minecraft. There are times I like nothing more than to roam and explore and Minecraft does that perfectly.
Cube World was being built as a “hey, this is fun but here’s something slightly different” at one point. And then Mojang brought that guy/team in-house. They’re still building it and it’s in Alpha but it’s very playable and from what I hear and see very amazing. Like.. “I totally don’t see why this isn’t released yet” good.
There are a lot of videos out there, I suggest you pull one down and watch it. If you liked Minecraft you’ll probably love Cube World.
A word of caution, they were under a DDoS for a bit and the site/store had a realm of problems staying up.
Comments closed..and I look forward to it. I never played much of the original. It was too early in my cognitive development, bedecked in details and structure and mechanics that I wouldn’t be able to grasp for nearly 10 years. By then it was too late. But I remembered the level of detail like scraps of legend about Manticores dwelling along a mountain road.
Procedural map, changing trade lanes and a detailed first person control schema. It was hard.
I haven’t read into it heavily now that they’re rebuilding it using new computers and bringing us a quality successor to the classic game. But i have my hopes.
Elite: Dangerous is to be a first person game with multiplayer where you can fly the galaxy, see strange new stars and get shot at by pirates while hauling precious alien brandies.
Comments closedI quested for a night among the snowy tops of the Shiverpeaks, a land I despise for the piercing cold. I have places I would rather be, but I have a task at hand.
Durmond Priory has a way of poking their nose into business better left for Warriors. I found many of their encampments dangerously close to Dredge excavations, some of them right in the middle and all of their researchers eager to ask for assistance in securing their lines. I helped as best I can but I left them all with the same advice: Move. I’ve known Dredge to expand excavations aggressively and all I could think of was how many people would die all for the pursuit of ancient knowledge.
I managed to find an aged Dwarven Key what i tucked into my pack. It’ll come in handy some day, i’m sure.
My contact in the Order of Whispers met me at Spearhaunt Bane, a welcome shelter from the biting wind and the howl of battle at Black Earth Coalmine nearby. Orders in hand I took shelter among the ruins for the night before returning to my journey.
I woke in the morning to the sounds of battle. The Dredge had taken offense to the camp so near their mine and were staging an offensive to capture the ruins. Seeing little chance in fighting off a concentrated force I made my way to the Asuran waypoint and translocated out of Dredgehaunt, leaving the biting wind behind me.
Comments closedI practice The Mirrored Way. I practice The Shattered Visage. I am Lyssa’s reflection.
I am the Shattered Mirror.
Comments closedA jaunt into the Aetherblade Retreat taught me the folly of my hubris. I had begun to see the ‘dark’ Asura as childish and obnoxious. Their true danger had escaped me and it wasn’t until facing down specially designed golems and walls of burning light that I realized where I failed.
A lesson I hope I won’t have to learn again.
I finished my search in Mount Maelstrom, thanked my hosts as I packed up camp and departed for Dredge territory. I detest the Shiverpeaks and their snow and somehow I keep coming back to the mountain passes and the blinding blizzards.
Comments closedI ran amok with a band of fellow heroes in an Asura base, too close for comfort to Mount Maelstrom. The mountain being known for violent outbursts and volatile gases, the base was heavily shielded with Asuran magical technology, abominations of the Eternal Alchemy according to some friends.
My path of the Shattered Mirror makes me a uniquely powerful Mesmer. The only beast I encountered in all of the sub-aquatic base was a “Subject Alpha” who gave me a run for my money. We triumphed and parted ways, but not before smashing about every console and routing half the bases’ defensive response.
I’m still dwelling near the Mount, hopefully my journey ends tonight. I have a few more nooks to peer into.
Comments closedI never got into the first Sims, I only half paid attention to it’s plethora of expansions or the sequel Sims 2 and it’s additions. I had friends what played briefly and I never saw the attraction.
It wasn’t until my roommate was playing one day, the 3rd day in a semi seasonal binge, that I started paying attention. I asked some questions and soon found myself playing my own copy of Sims 3.
I can tell you some things about Sims. First… try it. It’s cheap now and if you like Simulations you might find yourself telling stories sooner than you think. But make no mistake, this is a Simulation. You can attain a level of direct control but many of the facets are randomly generated from the game itself.
Second, get the expansions. The core ones at least. The Stuff Packs are just stuff, naturally. The full expansions add content such as new careers, places to explore, venues to socialize.
Third, check out the forums or fan pages. You can download a disgusting amount of additional content for your game for free. Dresses, couches, house plans, makeup, etc. I only briefly skimmed one page and saw more than I would ever probably use. My roommate spends an hour or two there each month picking up new things for her collection.
As for the game.. You start with a single Sim during what we’ll call Character Creation. You can make this sim tall or short, fat or skinny. You pick traits like personality, favorite foods and life goals. You can expand your sim to a full family adding children from toddler to young adult, a spouse.
Gameplay focuses around tasks like cleaning up around the house, watering plants. A context sensitive menu appears on each thing you click on to offer you options. More options open if you have certain skills. I once had a sim who could fix the TV when it broke and managed to modify the Oven to be Self-Cleaning. Of course, this didn’t mean jack when he tried to fix the teleporter after a rigorous workout and wound up electrocuting himself and died.
On the Sims in your immediate family are within the range of your control, a green gem called the plumbob hovering over their head to signify focus. You can meet other sims, call them up for chats or invite them to parties. If you manage to woo them into your family as a married partner then you get them and all their assets to command as you wish. Similarly, if they leave your family you them and their possessions.
Sims have goals, dreams and desires, that they can sometimes complete on their own. “Gaze at the Stars” is easy if you have a telescope and the sim will accommodate themselves at their earliest convenience. In fact the games’ automation can make for an interesting ant-farm approach with you only having to perform a minimum of dialog choices. Chief among the choices you’ll have to involve yourself in are purchases. Sims go to work, they make dinner or order pizza, they’ll bath and clean but one thing you will have to do is buy them stuff. Couches, bookcases, Computers, etc. Sims will develop Wants about having a thing and you will have to involve yourself to buying that from the shopping interface.
That being said.. you might wind up spending a lot of time here. This same interface lets you modify the layout of your house, add rooms and decorate. A function that’s important as a house without a smoke detector is liable to kill a sim. Add a clock and a picture, raising the decor and relaxation value of the room. A sparse house isn’t very relaxing and your sim won’t want to spend time there.
This is a game where you can lose days playing and telling the stories to friends about your fake people. The ridiculous dramas and exaggerated reactions. I’ll leave you with my recommendation: Buy it, play it, see if you like it. If you do, get the expansions and drop me an email. I’ll link you to a website where you can get some mods i’m told “Make the game work.” I never had problem with the base unmodified game but I hear the mods make the game loads better.
–
My first Sim was a guy, technically apt and aspired to the Engineering career. He met his wife socially on the street and married her in short order. Their daughter aspired to be amazingly famous from day 1 and spent all her time after school playing guitar on the steps of City Hall. This went swell until Dad died one day and Daugher spent every waking moment in mourning for 3 days. Get out of bed. Cry. Go Pee. Cry. Take Shower. Cry. Make Sandwich. Cry.
It was barely over when mom died of old age and the process began anew..
Comments closed