Straight Jacket Type Fun
4/29/2005
Sony's reply to my name challenge:
"Mama, Mother or variations are not allowed.. BadMutha is from popular media and also not allowed." *sigh*
I find it mind boggling that these screenshots could come from Age of Empires III. I'd guess you need a souped up video card to see that sort of detail however. I wish these review sites would show medium-high resolutions so us regular folk know what to expect.
Expansion for Rome: Total War has been announced but what I find more intriguing pertains to a rather rabid mod community making a nearly complete revision of the game. From Bluesnews:
The mod balances stats, cost, and upkeep of all units; removes and adds units; reskins most units; modifies some units' sizes and formations; adds many new territories; changes starting assets; changes game events such as marian reform; changes tech trees; adds new music and voiceovers; changes banners; adds ZoR (zone of recruitment) that changes what units you can recruit at freshly conquered provinces based on their original culture.
Basically, it changes everything; it will take you a good hour to just read through all the changes since version one. The upcoming 6.0 release that's planned for mid-may is incredibly ambitious.
In my mind, this is what RTW should have been out of the box; it makes vanilla RTW look shallow and poorly test in comparison.
[RANT]
First SOE changed my primary character's name in
Everquest 2. Sphinxster Backwash wasn't acceptable. Ok, I can kinda barely see that one
in terms of policy.
But now they forced me to change BadMamaJamma, a brawler who I made look like
Apollo Creed from the Rocky movies. I also asked if I could change it to
"BadMutha" to make him "BadMutha ShutYoMouth" and they said no on that one.
Obviously the people at SOE are not blaxploitation fans.
I wrote back asking to know exactly what the hell was wrong with either one. G'dammit who's running that place, prudes?!?!
I'm going to give them another name soon I suppose and I'm going to name it after the main character in the novel 1984.
"Winston Smith."
Failing that I'll give them a single character name.
[/RANT]
4/27/2005
There's a still rather vibrant/obsessed community for the Falcon 4.0 flight simulator. There's now also been a re-release of the game with updated stuff. Personally, I'm more of an A-10 flight simulator kind of guy. 100 feet above ground, 400 knots, and a 30MM canon under your feet.
GuildWars is set to launch. It's another massive online game like WoW or EQ2 but without the part of those games which is a pain in the ass: a monthly fee. Instead they'll release new chapters as time goes on to let you get your groove.
An 80-90 percent market presence is not saturation? Must be that new math I heard about recently.
4/24/2005
"Damn Sphinx, I could go for a screenshot or two from the next Serious Sam game since that's the only reason for mine, or your, existence. I couldn't agree more! Big guns. Yes!
"And Sphinx I could go for something completely tasteless and worse, an RPG!" Well here ya go! Columbine RPG. Stomach knotted in pain.
4/23/2005
You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!
Today a letter came to my mailbox saying that I needed to confirm my ID with my ISP. Curious I looked at the link and it points to: earthlink-security.net. So, I hit the WHOIS and found this information:
Domain Name : EARTHLINK-SECURITY.NET Created On : 2005-04-21 Expiration Date : 2006-04-21 Status : ACTIVE Registrant Name : Becky McElroy Registrant Street1 : 6739 Smeltzer Road Registrant City : Prospect Registrant State/Province : OH Registrant Postal Code : 43342 Registrant Country : US Admin Handle : BM54112 Admin Name : Becky McElroy Admin Street1 : 6739 Smeltzer Road Admin City : Prospect Admin State/Province : OH Admin Postal Code : 43342 Admin Country : US Admin Phone : +1.7404942145 Admin Email : unempire@post.com Tech Handle : BM54112 Tech Name : Becky McElroy Tech Street1 : 6739 Smeltzer Road Tech City : Prospect Tech State/Province : OH Tech Postal Code : 43342 Tech Country : US Tech Phone : +1.7404942145 Tech Email : unempire@post.com Billing Handle : BM54112 Billing Name : Becky McElroy Billing Street1 : 6739 Smeltzer Road Billing City : Prospect Billing State/Province : OH Billing Postal Code : 43342 Billing Country : US Billing Phone : +1.7404942145 Billing Email : unempire@post.com Registrar Name : NAMEBAY Registrar WebSite : http://www.namebay.com
Most likely a stolen credit card but if you get anything from that domain name, it's bogus.
Patches for demos is never a good sign. Of course the entire RTS genre will soon be at this level of absurdity.
Windows: It just works! Sorta, kinda, maybe.
A teenager, a TEENAGER decided to fake his BMW's death to get a Bentley. A BENTLEY. Why did I waste my high school years in a Nissan. Oh right, cause I'm not spoiled.
4/22/2005
Look to the right, do you see what I've had to do since no gaming sites or game publishers want to give me free stuff. I signed up for Google Ad Sense. Aparently, I get money just by having you saps click on links. So WTF are you doing reading this, get to clicking!! First you get ze banner ads, zen you get ZE POWER!! And isn't that clever of those boys at Google, the links are relevant to stuff on the site. In fact, let's just all go show our thanks by visiting Google right now and searching for something. As I add new reviews I'll probably include these banners. Great stuff.
So are the boys over at Penny Arcade just clowning around or are they really having a lover's quarrel?
Scarface game coming out sometime in the future. Look at them pelicans fly!
Star Wars Battlefront from what I read was not a very good game. I will, however, give them this: they had a dedicated server component. Battlefront 2 announced today.
The Picard song? Please destroy Flash Animations now. Thanks
4/21/2005
It's like the sky opened up and sprinkled my world with candy and lingerie models things are going so well. Read and rejoice!
New York, NY – April 20, 2005 – 2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), today announced
Serious Sam II, the much-anticipated return of Sam “Serious” Stone to PC and the Xbox® video game system from Microsoft.
“Gamers have been anxiously anticipating a full sequel ever since Serious Sam: The Second Encounter was released back in 2002,” said Christoph Hartmann, Senior Vice President of Publishing for 2K Games. “The frantic action and lighthearted humor of Serious Sam really struck a chord with gamers worldwide, and with a brand new engine and greatly expanded gameplay, we think fans will agree that the return of Sam has been well worth the wait.”
“Our second generation Serious Engine allows us to create characters with over 100 times more detail than the last game,” added Roman Ribaric, CEO of Croteam Ltd, developers of Serious Sam II. “This has allowed us to create huge, lush environments and even crazier enemies than before, without having to scale back the gameplay in any way. Gamers can rest assured that with the capabilities of our new engine, we’re not only going to match the record we set with the first Serious Sam for the most enemies on screen at one time, we’re going to surpass it.”
Serious Sam II will be released for PC and Xbox in fall 2005, and will be showcased at 2K Games’ booth at this year’s E3 Expo. Look for the first details on the game in the June issue of Computer Games Magazine, featuring Serious Sam II as the cover story, on newsstands in early May.
Serious Sam II means two things: LAN Party and beer!!
4/19/2005
So yesterday I finished the Doom 3 expansion, Resurrection
of Evil. The developers, Nerve, have in the past also done a great job with other id-based engine games.
The highlight is the double barrel shotgun (of course). The reload time is a bit long but a little circle strafing or side to side down the hallways keeps the bad guys from hitting you too often. The clack-clack-BOOM of reloading and firing the weapon causes a certain bit of sadistic glee. I personally waited to find an imp before firing it for the first time and wasn't disappointed in the results.
There's a new creature called the Hunters which seem to just be white imps that go around on four legs rather than two and instead of red fireballs they shoot blue ones. The appear more often than any other creature in the game (sort of like the imps from Doom 3).
The saving grace of that though is the addition of the Half-Life 2 immitation gravity gun which allows you go grab the stuff they throw and hit them with it. There also is a nice visual effect when using the gravity gun where the visual area around the gravity gun appears to warp or bend as you use the weapon. This doesn't appear to be a graphical bitmap but actually using the physics engine to warp the visual area in front of the player. You can also grab barrels and toss them, grab smaller creatures and throw them, or even deflect rockets coming from those skeleton creatures with shoulder mounted rocket launchers. Sometimes they home back in on the creature itself.
There's another new creature who appears to be a a mixture of those massive rocket armed creatures (Mancubus?) and television parts. For whatever reason it has a TV monitor on it's front with a picture of teeth on it.
Maybe the American Dental Association snuck in a public service announcement
or something.
There's also an artifact weapons which as you kill bosses it becomes more powerful. It doesn't make the game too easy like the Soul Cube did but it does give you additional powers that stack up and you will need (slow down time, beserk, temporary invincibility) since the game's difficulty ramps up considerably after the second major boss.
Naturally, this being Doom there are some instances of creatures popping behind walls but it's been considerably ramped down. Often instead of walls flying open or creatures warping in, monsters will pop panels off the floor or off the walls and appear that way. I think it gives the experience a bit more atmosphere.
The biggest downside is that lack of voice acting. It was pretty heavily used in Doom 3 but is pretty threadbare this time around with most PDA messages being just emails rather than audio logs.
4/18/2005
Now personally I've never had a problem with either Gamestop or EB. They competed against one another and while they, like most gaming stores, have decreased their PC lineup, they still had what I needed and if they didn't then I could always go to Frye's.
But the merger between the two suggests an end to any sort of possible competitive pricing or maybe worse, the buyback program of EB which allowed me in the past to buy more games without feeling too bad about the $50 per game price tag.
I'm not certain what the two have in common, but Adobe also bought Macromedia today. Now I do love some Adobe Acrobat reader and I can tolerate Macromedia so maybe the two will get together and be happy with one another.
So that's about $6 billion in mergers today alone, what did you do that was worth anything?
4/17/2005
Having your place burglared is bad enough but when the thieves start taking your digital toys, well that justifies vigilante retribution.
A recovery of 20 percent more Greek/Latin literature, which means a 200 percent increase in students going to philosophy until, y'know, they can like figure out what they want to do and besides the world and their parents don't understand them anyway.
Poor crybaby Verizon CEO doesn't like the idea of municipal Wi-fi. Me thinks he doesn't like the idea of another competitor.
4/15/2005
Someone likes us today. Quake 4 news released!
QUAKE 4 Updated Info.
Earth is under siege by an alien race. The Strogg are cybernetic warriors--a mechanical frame and decaying body parts stabilized by flesh consumed in a systematic annihilation of other species and civilizations. In a desperate attempt to survive a Strogg attack on Earth, an armada of Earth's finest warriors is sent to take the battle to the Strogg home planet. Earth's initial assault force is nearly annihilated immediately, but one marine manages to infiltrate the base, bring down their planetary defense systems, and kill the Strogg's collective brain and leader--the Makron. Earth assumed the destruction of the Makron would end it all, but it didn't.
That's where QUAKE II leaves off and QUAKE 4 begins.
The Strogg are quickly regrouping. However, with the Strogg’s planetary defenses still destroyed, Earth's forces can deliver a full and final assault. This time, you're not alone. You are Matthew Kane, an elite member of Rhino Squad, and part of Earth’s next invasion wave. An army of soldiers are fighting with you and an arsenal of weapons and vehicles are at your disposal in this heroic and epic battle between worlds.
Quakecon registration for the BYOC and general floor activities begins tonight at 8 PM CST.
Are you people in the real media stupid? You still fall for this craptacular lie, hook, line, and sinker:
"As with Windows XP Service Pack 2, security remains at the forefront of Microsoft's development efforts."
4/14/2005
Get caught up in things and you forget about your site. Woops
If you're a Star Wars geek, you need this link.
How can a movie be called "Doom" if (a) it's not on Mars, (b) it's not full of demons from hell but instead a virus takes over a facility, and (c) the BFG is not called the "Big Fucking Gun." This won't be Doom, it's going to be some bizarro Resident Evil rip off. Screw that.
Everyone goes crazy about how executives about big companies will take $1 in salary but the rest of it is in stock options. While there is a risk, you'll notice that the only execs who do this are either already obscenely rich or their IPO went skyrocketing into the heliopause of the sun. Well guess what not only are they obscenely rich from the stocks but by not taking any salary the only tax they have to pay is dividend taxes which are about half of what normal taxes on income are for a person making millions.
404, site not found
4/9/2005
Enemy Territory is in again at Quakecon this year. I'd like to think the petition I started last year may have had something to do with this but I'm not that naive. Besides, there appears to be quite a few others who made petitions.
4/8/2005
Half-Life 2, after it's huge development time turned out to be a fantastic game. Now there's an expansion planned for release this summer. However, my theory holds true that we won't see a NEW game from Valve for another six years.
Matrix Online delayed again for European release. Reason for this of course being that no one plays the US version.
Took a little blowback from my recent KoTOR2 review but cooler heads prevailed once again proving that I'm right and most everyone else rides the short bus. To expand on what I said, someone was nice enough to provide links to what I was referring to in my review about missing dialogue and releasing that dialogue for public consumption:
Some peeps are hard at work at creating a Mod that restores all the cut content from the ending, it will actually FINISH the HK47 vs HK50 plot, and quite some other stuff.
The ending of KotOR2 is the horrible suck, but it was apparently all LucasArts' fault, as Chris Avellone stated in an RPG article recently "I'm NEVER doing an 'Empire Strikes Back' type of ending ever again."
So I think it's fair to say he wasn't happy with it either.
Here's the website for the "Restoring the Ending" Mod
http://magestrix.com/K2End/
Here's a website that shows what all was cut from the planned game / ending
http://tubertarian.com/kotor2missingcontent.php
It's basically a summary of a 50 page thread on the obsidian forums about the same issue.
Your party members could / would have, based on your influence with them, turned against you, sided with you, turned on each other, sacrificed themselves for you. And now, nothing happens.
Bah. Fuck you LucasArts.
(on a sidenote, it's pretty much a certainty that there will be a KotOR3)
Damn well better be a KoTOR3 and it damn well better have a REAL ENDING! BAH!
4/7/2005
Much like most game review sites sleep in the same bed with the game publishers, now hardware review sites are getting taken to task in this article. So my question, mostly to myself, is "What am I doing wrong to not be bribed by these game companies as well?" I'd gladly and cheerfully whore my site to those who want good reviews. Your game has EGA graphics? Nonsense, it has a "retro feel!"
The craziness of World of Warcraft just gets more bizarre as a recent article points out how two guys bought out an entire auction house then resold the goods. Imagine buying out an entire Wal-Mart in a small town then reselling the goods at inflated prices.
4/6/2005
Back online and look!! I bring a review of Knights of Old Republic 2!
Also, have you tried Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil? Well you should. Made it about 20 minutes into the game and it's pretty dang good. But I still can't find the double barrel shotgun (or as I've named her over the years: Betty).