Certain topics you just avoid in conversation unless you want to get into an argument with someone. Religion is one–I mean, why would you believe in a zombie who will save you if you eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you love him? Politics is another: let’s not even go there. Music can be a bit safer–but against fanboys, it’s probably worse than the other two. Some of my favorite witticisms include the hipster mating call, which is “I listened to this band before they were mainstream!” I saw this shirt on threadless.com: “I listen to bands that don’t even exist yet.” At any rate, music discussions are bound to bring up vicious debates as to what bands are talented, which suck, etc etc. → Who is that standing behind you?
posts by golden jew
It’s the end of Civilization as we know it, and I feel fine (I think)
There has been a recent hullabaloo about the pending Civilization Revolutions game. Having realized that the hardcore 4X PC gamer market is not as lucrative as say, every other platform, Firaxis has set about developing a new “made for console” version of Civilization.
Because a move like this smacks of “selling out” and “destroying the game concept,” and it coincides with what can only be described as criminal negligence of the Beyond the Sword expansion, the community has been at best, suspicious, and at worst, behaving like forum trolls at a n00b feeding frenzy. And they have every right to have this attitude.
For starters, Firaxis is cultivating as much ill will as humanly possible with the Beyond the Sword expansion. → Read Read Revolution: Disney Channel Edition
Deadly fists of deadly fury – melee imbalances in FPS
Because I desperately crave acceptance and attention from the “cool kids,” I’ve recently found myself playing immense amounts of Halo 3 with my roommate and various Xbox Live people.
A quick aside about my gaming habits (which you don’t care about but are vital to this post). I have never been a console FPS gamer. I’ve always been a PC gamer. UT2k and UT2003 were my bread and butter – annihilate people with a twitch of a mouse and a blast of the flak cannon. From there I moved on to Call of Duty, which was “slower” because of the WW2 genre, but still immensely fun.
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Controllers for FPS have always been my kryptonite. As a result, I sort of fell off the FPS gaming bandwagon. → What is word? Baby don’t read me.
Best Buy Hero
After recovering from a brutal hangover Sunday morning, I set out with my roommate obtain Guitar Hero 3. Now, due to past horrific experienced with Best Buy, I had first sought to order it from Amazon.com, but was told I would not receive said game until mid November. This was deemed unacceptable. So we headed to Best Buy.
Upon arriving, we found, to our glee, a fully stocked display of Guitar Hero 3 games. I quickly grabbed two copies for the Xbox 360 (one for me, one as a gift for a friend), and my roommate grabbed an extra guitar. As I walked away from the display, I was accosted by a Best Buy employee, who, seeing two of us, informed me that there was a one-per-customer limit. → All your posts are belong to us.
Review – Magical Starsign
Gummy frogs! Gummy worms! Pirate Otters! Saving Miss Madeline, our beloved teacher! The Book of the Darned!
The only thing missing from this game is puppy dogs and rainbows, and since I haven’t beaten it yet, I’m assuming there is a puppy dog and rainbow planet. Welcome to Magical Starsign, an RPG for the Nintendo DS made by developer Brownie Brown. Reading Tyson’s recent Heroes of Mana review, he mentioned Brownie Brown is a renegade group that broke off from Square. My guess is that Square rounded up all the people who they thought should be teaching preschool instead of making video games and fired them, but I digress.
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The setting for Magical Starsign is the Will o’ Wisp Academy, where a group of students overhear their headmaster talking to their favorite teacher. → Videolamer does what IGNotDoes.
Review – Civilization IV Beyond the Sword
One of my biggest critiques of the Civilization Warlords Expansion was that I felt Firaxis had produced just enough content to make the game worth buying, and not a smidgen more. Being a Civilization fanatic, I had no choice to buy it, but my hope was that the next expansion, when it came out, would be more satisfying. In the months coming up to the release of Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, I began to get giddy as a schoolgirl (I even found myself shopping for plaid skirts) that this expansion would deliver. I was not disappointed. And my new skirt fits really well.
I’ll breeze over the stuff you’ve already read elsewhere (or seen in the game): new leaders, new civilizations. → Guitar Hero III: Legends of Read
Quick Rant on Software
Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword is out. Unfortunately, I’m traveling and was unable to get it yet. But a quick swing by Civfanatics shows that there of course has already been an initial patch to the game, because the shipped version was buggy and terrible.
I know Firaxis is not the first (or last) developer to do this. I know that it’s a common practice. But it pisses me off that the internet age has led to such a terrible degradation in the quality of PC game QA. On the one hand, it is great that software developers can add content through patching. It’s nice that they can fix bugs that sneak through. But shipping what’s basically unplayable crap, knowing full well you can, and will patch it, is sloppy and inexcusable. → Actraiser Readnaissance
Fillet Mignon with a side of Pork Rinds: Awesome games and their stupid minigames
The average gamer supposedly plays 7.8 hours a week. That’s an ESA study so I think they rounded down to make gamers seem less crazy. Other studies show more like 20-30 hours a week, which makes more sense to me. For us hardcore gamers, I’m sure the number would be even higher.
So while we waste our life away playing video games, it has become painfully apparent to me that, like most products in our corner cutting capitalist society, video games have a lot of filler. A video game, especially an RPG or MMO, is graded on how much of your time it takes to beat. In most cases, a game with short playtime is over quickly and generally unsatisfying (much like sex with me). → I can has post?
Beyond the news – Civ 4 expansion musings
It’s not news at this point, but Civilization, Beyond the Sword has been announced and is due to hit shelves in July. And goddamn does this expansion look good.
It seems that despite a short development timeline, Firaxis is adding substantially more content than came with Civilization: Warlords. Warlords was a great expansion, don’t get me wrong, but it seemed that they were more focused on the minimal amount new content possible (yet every upgrade was so good you couldn’t not buy the game).
Beyond the Sword is going to add new buildings, new civilizations, new wonders, new units, new technologies, and even a whole new espionage system. Not a bad haul by any stretch. The new espionage system will allow spying to become a civilization wide effort, so expect new levels of cruelty in multiplayer games. → Arc the Post: Twilight of the Spirits
MMOs: Grinding away my patience
Lately, I have been playing Eve Online. For those of you who don’t follow my every move on this website (and for those two of you who do, you’re awesome!), Eve Online is a space based MMO. Unlike other games, the skill training system is based on real-time training, which continues when off-line. Therefore actions in the game: killing spaceships, trading, etc, do not yield experience. So while I have been only tepidly interested in the game, and not playing, my character has been training, basically at the same rate as an active player.
As a result of having a nearly six month old character, I can fly all sorts of awesome ships, which makes the game fun. However, because I haven’t been playing–just training, I have no money–money is only earned from those activities in the game itself. → Shining Post: Legacy of Great intention