Gaming

I’ve pretty much given up on PC Gaming about 2 years ago, a few months after I got my 360. The need for constantly upgrading my rig just for the satisfaction of cranking up a game’s video settings on high, coupled with hunting for workarounds should bugs arise and playing on a desk instead of a couch, eventually pushed me to become an occasional PC gamer.

I do miss the depth that a lot of PC games have, the Total War series is emblematic of this. Empire is the latest in the franchise, and its as epic, strategically rich, and gorgeous as always. :)

Work’s keeping me too busy to post again (and no posting at night isn’t an option, post-nukelar DC won’t explore itself!), so here’s an awesome stop motion video of some retro game that I spent time with back in the NES days, should keep my 2 readers entertained. :)

Oh, and two more things, The Flag module for Drupal is all kinds of useful, and I want Mirror’s Edge despite its mixed reviews.

If you value your free time / social life / mate / dog, stay away from Fable 2. It’s an all consuming game that will swallow hours of your life. The game’s depth and charm is just too much for me and I keep coming back to it every chance I get. I’ve neglected Rock Band (which I excitedly purchased a few weeks ago after finding out the Asian version was out in Singapore), Guitar Hero: World Tour, Far Cry 2 (another potential timesink) , just to return to the world of Albion and grind away at Bartending so I can afford to buy out the bar and blacksmith in Bowerstone. Hell I even snuck in a game over the lunch break.

Any RPG player worth his gamer badge would acknowledge the Fallout series as one of the genre’s all time classics. The post nuclear setting mixed with 50’s era vibe, the memorable characters , the SPECIAL system, and the way you could turn your foes’ torsos into chunks of flesh when using the Minigun (the splatter sounds were glorious), all woven into a deep and open RPG experience.

Never knew about the precursor to videogames til now. Game|Life’s latest video features the Musee Mecanique, a place with a large collection of mechanically operated games and thingamabobs:

The first screenshots of the new Prince of Persia has just been released, and they look absolutely fantastic. 5 years ago these screens would have passed for concept art. I’m a fan of cel-shaded / stylized games (I played through half of Eternal Sonata despite the boring as hell combat, oh and that reminds me, No More Heroes and Okami are still waiting to be finished), and this illustrative style takes it to a whole new level.

I’m not too sure with seemingly angst-ridden emo prince though. I hated the second PoP (Warrior Within?) game. Here’s hoping for a protagonist that’s at least half as likeable as the one in Sands of Time. More shots at Shacknews.

It's a shame Viva Pinata didn't do so well commercially, it was a solid game with fantastic visuals that made the title one of the more memorable launch games for the 360. It sat awkwardly between casual and hardcore gaming, but that's a topic for another day. Anyways I loved how the game stood out with its vibrant environment and saccharine filled inhabitants.

Gamasutra's got an article detailing the initial design of the title and how it morphed from a mobile game (!) to what it is now. There's even a photo of a real Rashberry Pinata that Rare made, sweet! (Alright, enough stupid puns)

Check it here.

Despite being flooded with Triple A games that should last me until the end of the gaming drought that follows the holiday season, I'm still inexplicably craving for some Rock Band to come my way. Region-lock loving EA has seen fit to keep the US version of the game out of the Asian (and European, Australian, etc) market, and with no set release date for the NTSC-J version I'm left to silently cursing them while scouring the interwebs every hour or so for information (some rumors point to a March 2008 Singapore launch, ugh...). Baah, I'm pretty sure that when I do get the game, there'll be something else I'll be wanting profusely, gamer habits never die. :(

Vern's comment on posting an entry regularly not being all that easy was spot on. Finding something to write about isn't really an issue, it's the writing and finishing-what-you-started part that's giving me problems. I have around 4 entries here that are half done, and countless others that have been deleted. In hopes of remedying this, I've decided to write shorter posts. Will this work? Hell if I know, but it's worth a try.

Count my Xbox 360 as another casualty of teh 3RL, after 2 minutes of rocking out to "Carry On Wayward Son" on Guitar Hero 2 the console crashed. Turning it on again didn't even get me past the welcome screen. Not good. As I sweated profusely, silently dreading the possibility that my X360 was dying, I gave it another go. And there it was, blinking at me, shades of the frigid bastard HAL 9000, three red lights. F#%K..