Archive for the 'Gaming' Category

Mass Effect 2

Published on March 10, 2009 in Gaming. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

Oh man, I’m so looking forward to Mass Effect 2. I didn’t even know there was going to be a sequel to Mass Effect, but having read about it recently, I’m very much intrigued, although I hope they spend a bit more time optimizing it for the PC, though Mass Effect was one of the better Xbox to PC ports I’ve seen (certainly better than Halo 2 for Vista…*shudder*).

At any rate, the big news is the one minute teaser trailer. Have a look. (Spoilers abound after the break.)

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The way to make games

Published on October 12, 2008 in Gaming and Rant. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Let me preface this by stressing that I am not a game developer. But I am a gamer, and I know that there is a right way to make a game and a wrong way to make a game, as I have played many well-designed games and many poorly-designed games.

I recently purchased the game Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts. I had purchased the original Company of Heroes quite a while ago, but I had never finished it. So, I decided to re-install the original before dealing with Opposing Fronts. After a rather arduous process of patching, I was ready to play. Upon loading it up, it seemed that the patches had installed data for Opposing Fronts as well as the original, since the menu included the campaigns from the new game. I couldn’t play them without an Opposing Fronts CD key, but I didn’t want to deal with that right then. I played the game (picking up where I had left off) and finished the campaign. Now for Opposing Fronts.

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Good old games

Published on September 24, 2008 in Gaming. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I recently became aware of a website called GOG.com. It’s brand new and still in an early-access beta (it’s due to be opened up to everyone soon, I believe), but it looks freakin’ awesome. The idea is this: you can buy and download popular, classic PC games (think Descent, Fallout, Freespace 2), all guaranteed to work on Windows Vista or XP, and all DRM free. That’s right: no DRM. I suppose that’s not insanely attractive to most people, but to the people who hate to deal with installation limits (à la Spore), CD keys, or online verification servers, it’s a real kicker. I was able to wrangle an early-access key, so I’ve been checking the place out. I haven’t bought or downloaded anything, so I can’t report on how well that works, but I can say that the interface is snazzy, the selection is great (better than what you can find in the local gaming store’s bargain bin, that’s for sure), and the prices are very nice ($10 and under for pretty much everything).

It really looks like a good deal. I’m interested to see how much the game catalog there expands and how well things work out. Also, if anyone is really interested in scoping it out, I’ve got a beta key available to the first commenter who asks. Alternately, you can put your email in at the main site and hope they send you a key.

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Exclusivity sucks

Published on December 4, 2007 in Gaming and Rant. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I’m unintentionally continuing on my gaming post trend. I was watching G4 earlier and saw some stuff about a new action/role-playing game called Mass Effect developed by BioWare. It looks pretty interesting, and I’ve played games by BioWare before. They tend to have a big emphasis on story-telling, and I love games with an engaging story.

Unfortunately, the game was released only for the Xbox 360. What’s worse is that BioWare has no plans to develop the game for the PC. Another good game ruined by what I see as a lazy developer. I mean, the PC is still a good gaming platform. Why, then, do so many developers come out with games exclusive to certain consoles? I don’t want to buy a freakin’ Xbox. If that means I’m not going to buy a game like Mass Effect, then that’s the loss of the game developer. Ignoring an entire (and rather large) portion of the video game market is about the best thing you can do to get people to dislike you.

BioWare used to develop games for the PC, too. Even the most recent game they developed before Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was made for both the Xbox and the PC. Before that, they were PC-only, since no one thought an RPG could really work that well on a console.

I really don’t have anything against consoles. They have their uses. I don’t want to be forced to buy one, though. I already own a decent computer. Buying something else that only plays games is a bit…redundant. And to have to pay for multiplayer? Seriously, no thanks. But it seems like PC gamers are being left behind, especially now that gaming consoles can look better than high-end PCs without costing nearly as much. Of course, if you add in the gigantic HD television set needed to fully appreciate the look of console games, the cost can go up quite a bit. Realistically, though, the PC gaming market isn’t dead yet. It’s not even close. But when good games are made for consoles and not for PC, it can be just a little bit irritating.

Dammit, that G4 review is really making me want Mass Effect. It looks like a sweet game. Curse you, BioWare! You might make me buy an Xbox 360, but I won’t like it… I know, I’m weak-willed. Sometimes.

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Arcade games

Published on December 2, 2007 in Gaming and Rant. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I don’t know why video games today are popular. I mean, look at where they started. The original video games were all arcade games like Pac-Man and Asteroids. Boring and hard. When they got stories, the dropped the boring part, but some of them were still freakin’ impossible. A very good example of that is the game Dragon’s Lair. It’s an old game, but you can still find CD-ROM copies for the computer. I recently discovered my dad still had a copy, so I’ve been playing it. Well, trying to play it is more accurate.

Dragon’s Lair is seriously the hardest game I’ve ever played. When it comes to gameplay, it’s rather simple. You don’t always control the main character. You don’t need to know where to go. The trick is the timing. It’s a rather fast-paced game and if you screw up, you have to start over. You start off walking over a bridge. Your character falls through and these tentacle things start moving toward him. You have to mash down on the spacebar to make him swing his sword and then frantically push the up arrow to get him to climb up through the hole in the bridge while the tentacles are distracted. Easy, right? Wrong. If the timing is off by even a second, you’re dead. This sort of action does not stop any time soon.

It’s even worse that you only get 5 lives throughout the entire game. You don’t always start over at the beginning if you die within that limit, but once those 5 lives are up, you have to do the entire thing over again. This would make anyone go crazy.

I just don’t understand how games got past this point. In all honesty, I would have stopped playing after half an hour of a game like Dragon’s Lair if that’s all there was. Even Pac-Man can really piss me off. Games today can actually save your progress and have adjustable difficulty levels, but these old arcade games have nothing of the sort. They all had one difficulty level: impossibly hard. And yet video games survived. Boggles the mind.

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