Thursday, March 31

You may have noticed, but I haven't updated my blog for quite some time now and unfortunately it doesn't seem like my post rate will improve. With that said I do not plan on abandoning this blog, but you can consider it to be severely crippled.

Since I haven't posted in awhile I figured I would first make a title that from the recent trend of the horrible, but oddly catchy song, Friday. And then second, I will go on to talk about my recent activities with entertainment. If you want a review then you are sadly out of luck, but my next post will be a review for Starcraft 2.

For the most part my recent gaming life has involved basically two games, Lord of the Rings Online and Blue Dragon. However I have tried Dungeon & Dragons Online, Champions Online, Vindictus, and Dynasty Warriors Online. 

I can say right now to not expect Champions Online to be on the same level as Lord of the Rings Online as far free2play games go. Lord of the Rings Online can ultimately be a free game for life with the ability to gain turbine points just by playing. Champions Online is essentially an extended demo that will ultimately come to the end without you paying something. With that said it is an extremely long demo.

The other games are a mixed bag. Dungeon & Dragons Online is similar to Lord of the Rings Online in the way it is free2play, but obviously incorporates D&D. This game has some extreme class customization and is actually pretty fun. Vindictus is absolutly awesome. Tie great visuals, intense action, and the fact that it is free2play and it becomes one amazing experience. However, do not expect a real MMO out of Vindictus. The only part where you truly see everyone is in a town and once you leave it becomes an instanced affair with possibly up to four players together. However, the ease of getting a team makes this game even better. Only down side is that there are three classes (or characters) to choose from. And all I will say about Dynasty Warriors is to stay away. Think normal Dynasty Warriors but less fun. If the game had the ease of teaming up like Vindictus it would be a different story, but alas it doesn't.

Aside from games, I have jumped onto watching the various anime that made their way to Netflix. Really I've only watched one and just started another. However the one I did watch was Claymore and I will say right now that it is definitely worth watching. The voice actors are good, the style is good, the story is pretty good, and of course the action is fantastic. There are two things I can with certainty that you will experience if you watch Claymore. You will be disappointing and you will definitely see a lot of blood and decapitation so keep away from children. The reason you will be disappointed is because of the ending. First off the fact that it ends is kind of disappointing, but also the way it does. I mean when it ends everything really starts up, but we don't get to see that. I am sure you can find out what happens after the anime by reading the manga, but I would still love to see it in anime form... and also English (because reading a Japanese manga without being able to read Japanese would not be fun).

The other anime is much more light-hearted and casual affair, Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple is the anime in question. The first thing you will notice is that it is supposed to be funny and also that the only female characters, and main female character, might be a tad over-sexualized... and by a tad I mean a lot. I've only seen a couple episodes so I don't want to pass judgement over it just yet, but it is definitely a change of pace right after Claymore and that was exactly what I wanted.

Well that is all I really had to say so I guess I can put up a question now. First, if you have played a free2play game then what is your favorite and why? Second, if you have watched any anime then what is your favorite and why?

My answers would be Lord of the Rings Online, because the game can truly be free and is a blast to play. And I would say either Full Metal Alchemist or Outlaw Star are my most favorite. Reasons for this are good voice acting, interesting premises/stories, and a great style. If Claymore would have continued and not had such a disappointing ending then it would probably have taken the top spot.

Wednesday, February 23 

The title of this entry is entirely serious. I’ve always liked newegg.com because of some cheap games that it has, but also because it probably has the quickest free shipping I have ever seen. And this most recent story doesn’t disappoint on their shipping.

Recently, probably last Thursday or Wednesday, my graphics card decided it just didn’t want to live anymore, but it did want to show its affection by displaying pretty red dots and making my computer blue screen. It was a sad day especially since my laptop is about as fast as a brick. Surfing the web is slow on it so just imagine doing anything else…

Luckily for me, I was going to get a new graphics card and pretty darn quickly too. I looked around over the weekend for some good replacement cards, and ended up with a GTS 450 (Not a power house I know, but it does a great job on a budget). So on Monday I ordered the card from Newegg. Now the shipping was entirely free so I was expecting roughly 3 days, since that is usually how long their free shipping takes, but to my surprise I got it the very next day. Oh yes, I bought a card off the Internet on Monday and received it on Tuesday without having to pay outrageous next-day shipping charges.

Now I do need to add that it was shipped from Memphis and I live in southern Illinois so it really didn’t need to travel that far. But still normally items shipped at a cost from other sites don’t even take 3 days.

Anyway, I really wanted to write this because I didn’t write a sad post about how I lost my graphics card and the fantastic shipping story needed to be told.

And finally onto the question… Do you have any interesting shipping tales (could be good or bad) or just an interesting tale about buying something off of the Internet?

Friday, February 11

I guess I should probably explain what power gaming is, or at least what I think it is and how I am going to be using it. Power gaming, in my eyes, is essentially to spend a lot of time playing games and in my current case, finishing them. Now if you don’t know, or aren’t from CheapAssGamer.com, there is something some gamers like to call a backlog. This is essentially a list of games that these gamers have either not played yet or not beaten yet. Well during the 2010 year I decided to rid myself of a lot of my backlog by power gaming. By this I mean that I ran through and finished a lot of games. Anyway, lets get into the details…

Last year is represented as starting from January 1^st 20010 to December 31^st 2010 and all of these games were completed in that time frame. Another thing is that all of these games but three were actually started during this 2010 period. I added these three games because I felt that I completed the majority of them during the duration of 2010.

So now onto the number of games completed, or stories finished, during 2010. In total there were 52 games completed, which means 49 games were started and finished in 2010 by myself. You may be wondering if I truly mean finished and I do. None of these games were halfway completed and then thrown away. But I would like to make clear that on average most of these games took 8 hours to complete. There were some oddities like Mass Effect 2, 20+ hours, and King’s Bounty, 40+ hours.

Here is the list of games completed in order…

-         Darwinia

-         Trine

-         Castle Crashers

-         Shadow Complex

-         Universe at War

-         Mass Effect 2

-         Little Big Planet (Started in 09)

-         Star Trek Legacy

-         Defense Grid: The Awakening

-         Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood

Saturday, January 22

Enough Plumbers is a flash game made by Glen Forrester and Arthur Lee. It is hosted on various websites for free. If you want to play Enough Plumbers, Click Here.

Enough Plumbers is essentially a puzzle game in the Mario world. It uses many similar sounds and even has a character very similar to Mario and somewhat similar to goombas. What makes this puzzle game unique is that instead of gaining points for every coin gathered, you instead gain new plumbers that appear instantly on screen.

The presentation of the game is actually pretty darn good. You are literally playing on a tv screen, much like the old Marios games and have the sound option in the top left and the channel (level) in the top right. Also when you die or switch between menus the screen goes to static and then returns.

For many of the beginning puzzles most of your clones just move where you do and they are not necessarily difficult. The game eases into the difficult stages where you must have multiple clones on separate levels trying to do two things at once, sometimes even moving in different directions.

With this game it won’t get old fast, but it will eventually get to the point that it will be so frustrating you just have to take a break or go to a walkthrough (yes… there are walkthroughs for flash games). But even after being frustrated you will still come back fore because the game just has a certain charm and is fun.

Play Rating

-         Must Play

 

Friday, January 7

I am writing this right after “finishing” a multiplayer session of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for the PC. And this is actually being written because of that multiplayer session.

I was playing a game of conquest and I joined it at the start of the round, pretty sure tickets were set to 500, if that doesn’t mean anything to you then oh well it isn’t that important. I was playing as an Engineer and kicking some butt, trust me I was definitely the top player. And the game was reaching the end. We were losing and only had about 50 or so tickets until the end of the game. I was sitting at roughly 60 to 70 kills and about 30 to 40 deaths with about 7000 score prior to post game awards. Well right when I running to one of the three points on the map my screen blinked black and then blinked again and was sitting and the main menu…

Imagine this but with more sad feelings... and different info in the box.

I was apparently kicked to make room for another player, a VIP. Now I just want to point out that when a round finishes the best player is given the VIP award, which gives you an extra 200 points that goes toward your player level. That isn’t the only reason being kicked made me sad, but also the fact that the game lasted maybe a good 40 minutes and it was possibly the best game I had and definitely one of the most fun; and it was cut short to make room for someone else. Not only that but to make room for someone that would only be playing for maybe a total of 5 to 10 minutes before that match finished.

Anyway all I can really say is that it made me sad. And actually this outcome made me sadder that another one. Normally when my screen blinks when playing Bad Company 2 it usually means my game decided to crash back to the desktop. But alas what happened made me sadder than that because had I went back to the desktop I would have known it was just some random fault then kicked me from the game. 

The left one is the true BSOD to me.

Now that I am finished ranting about how that made me sad I want to get more onto the bigger picture. What has, and I am sure something has, made you sad whilst playing games? 360 go all RROD on you while you were playing? PC got a BSOD while you were doing anything? PS3 get the YLOD while you using it?

Really Microsoft? Why are your failures such common knowledge? Two different systems both with failure acronyms... shame on you... or... congrats?

Not sure if there are anymore acronyms I can use without making any up (and yes YLOD does exist)… But what I want to know is has anything happened to you while your were playing games or going to play a game that has made you sad. For example someone turning off the console while you away even though you paused it during one of the hardest boss battles ever? Or your really late game save files got corrupted or deleted?

Because I can definitely remember those awesome moments from my gaming past, but who cares about those?