winneganfake | Entries tagged with gaming

2.5 hours of sleep. I am now keeping myself awake and non-homicidal via the "create and do lots of stuff to establish momentum" Like this post, in which I shall talk about what I've been doing to try and get some mental downtime lately. Specifically video games.

Since we traded up to the X-box 360, there's been just a few new titles I've been playing:

Like Bioshock. (Yeah, I know, I'm severely late to the party on a LOT of titles at this point) Already completed the game in easy mode, and I'm definitely going back in for a replay of it. That, and I'm just plain going to have to get my hands on the sequels as well.

Then, of course, there's my ever-favored franchise, with it's latest installment, Final Fantasy XIII. I am once more hooked- beautiful graphics, decent storytelling, and this time around, I don't actively have a hate-on for any of the characters (which is a bit unusual for me). Anyways, I'm now into the third and final disc of the game, and still definitely hooked into the storyline- can't wait for the finale of this installment and the upcoming sequel.

And of course, since it's an Xbox, there's Halo. More specifically Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. Beaten the both of them now, and I'd love to do some multiplayer on either, had I more friends on Xbox Live who were into such a thing. And I'm going to have to go back through the main campaign on 3 again, just to grab the achievements I missed by playing it on easy mode (yes, Xbox devs, you did your job right- they're utterly useless, but those achievement scores are like crack- must earn more! For no reason whatsoever!)

Beyond that, I've got some titles on disc I haven't even tried yet, and I've been exploring a bit of DLC, in the form of Portal: Still Alive (yep! Late to the party again!) and Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale.

Daggerdale's been the only HUGE disappointment so far- it's fun hacking & slashing... when it works right. the last time I attempted to play it, it took three attempts to even find my saved character, and then errored out half an hour into play. I could only hope that the multiplayer's less buggy, but again, haven't had the opportunity to try it yet.

SO, that's about that- any recommendations, folks? Stuff I should go check out or try?

Yeah, as we all do, I hit the games to get the mind de-stressed at times. Or just for fun, or because there's an hour with nothing to do, and I don't want to deal with the display I have to get built for the film festival and...

You get the idea.

So, today, I discovered this little gem- 99 Rooms. It's more art project than game, but it's this wonderful mix of atmosphere, urban decay, graffiti, ghostly effects, and such. There's a little bit of pixelbitching in finding what will allow you to move to the next room at times, but otherwise, totally a fun way to kill an hour.

In general, otherwise, I made the "mistake" of picking up Super Smash Bros. for our wii. And I will say this- there is nothing so satisfying as getting to beat the shit out of pikachu on a regular basis. Or as addictive as trying to beat the freaking 100-man brawl mode. GAH.

Right, so, in other news, on Saturday, I received a nice small package in from Canada, which of course, I promptly opened and then nearly squeed like a little girl.

What was it you may ask? Nothing more than my very own printed copy of The Cog Wars! It's weird seeing my name in print in a book as one of the writers again. Wow.

Anyways, definitely going to have to run a game of this sometime soon, and hopefully Levi or someone'll pop on here shortly with the direct link for the lulu.com page so I can point people there.

So, we got a Wii for giftmas over here, and so far, I've been hitting very few titles at best. Here's what's been getting playtime so far:

Wii Play- the family favorite- easy to pick up and use, and a good way to learn the controls. all in all it's good for some group fun. And Brenna's addicted to Cow Racing.

inaurolillium also picked me up a copy of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories which is downright awesome- love the game, and for those who understand this statement- it's definitely a Silent Hill game, just not a Silent Hill game. The psychological angle is well played, and everything else just works wonderfully to make it a nice vivid nightmare run through the town. Which is great when I'm craving that kind of thing, but it is nice to be able to actually take a swing back at the bad guys occasionally.

Which led to the next purcahse, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed- yes, people have nitpicked over this title, and I can see why in some respects, the camera angles suck at times, and it's horribly slow to adapt around you when you take a sharp turn. That said, it is so satisfying to be able to just thrust one hand forward and have a pack of opponents fly back from you in a force push.

And then, Brenna and I started looking at the demos on the Wii shopping channel... dangerous thing, that. She's now loving playing Pokemon: Rumble's demo (god, she's only five! they take them so young now!!!!!) and I discovered this delightful little platformer called NyxQuest- if you've got the spare Wii points to pick it up, do it- fun gameplay, and a good soundtrack at the same time. Of course, finding that gem leaves me wondering just what other bits of Wiiware might be good for a download, and wishing that more titles had actual demos available- so, aside from the virtual console titles (still need to get a gamecube control pad for those) anyone download or play anything good off the shopping network?

Legends of Zork, it was nice knowing you. After leveling up my character to level 42, I'm just plain realizing that it's not worth it anymore. It's grind, grind, and nothing but grind, with gleeful teases of story to it that culminate in nothing. Throw in the repetitive as shit graphics, the lack of well...anything other than the simple ease of click-click-click to play... and yeah. I'm trying to figure out why I spent this long with it. I mean seriously, is it really so hard for there to be an actual online game I'd fucking like? Is it so bad to want immersive storytelling? Characters with depth? Actual adventure instead of grinding my way through nothing but onslaughts of lemmingbeasts? This should not be tough, people. Hell, I'd love a browser-based experience that delivered. In fact, I'd willingly thank anyone who could recommend me a game that satisfies the following:

1. Doesn't require a video card. I has not one. Hell the graphics don't have to be much, just interesting.

2. STORY. I want a nice thick level of backstory, plot, subplots, world detail, all of it.

3. Characters- I want to interact. Better yet, I want to ACT. I want my character's actions in the world to actually mean something in the world of the game at large. Or at least to mean more than just ganking yet another brogmoid in the swamps for XP to level up again for NO REASON WHATSOEVER.

Is that really too much to fucking ask? Do I really just need to hide in my hole with my PSX emulation and a bunch of old adventure titles, and mourn the death of storyline in gaming?

Ok, so some of you may remember a good long time back when I was working on writing up a bunch of setting stuff for an RPG known as The Cog Wars. It's a great game- steampunk, youthful rebellion, crotchety old saboteurs, sentient clockworks, and the like. And

the_tall_man , originator, developer, and lead nutjob on this grand old project, has now released a gamma version of the corebook- ~~all the setting stuff, all the rules,~~ Ok, ok, damn near all the setting, rules, etc etc, you'd need to play- just a dire need for some light editing and playtesting. And I no longer have a regular campaign group to inflict it on.

So, those of you who're of a gaming mindset, please- go forth. Grab the FREE PDF. Play the shit out of it. Or just read it over and find the pure brilliance/errors of our ways. Let him know what sticks and what doesn't. All that.

Well, they haven't finished voting yet, but it looks like I may be getting the job on converting a big ol' stack of game setting notes into a workable PDF.

If so, it means I've got a good bit of work ahead of me. As it is, I'm probably going to be asking around for opinions on some general book design stuff- mostly issues of composition, rather than rules design, though some of that may come into play as well. Anyways, I'll be nice and keep that stuff on a filter, and while there's some people who probably won't escape being put on it regardless of what they say, (Levi, I'm looking at you here) I'm going to give you lot the chance to opt in if you want.

So, anyone want to be in on the new game design filter? (Also, please note- those of you in the industry/industries who cant see this kind of stuff due to legal reasons, please mention it now, so I make sure to leave you out of the filter.)

So, folks, speaking of projects, here's a question, especially for you console gamers out there.

16-bit generation: What if anything, especially defined RPGs for you guys on the 16bit machines when you played them? (Super NES, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, those systems) What elements did you feel were key to the games?

One other thing. Among more recent purchases before the whole "Nope, not gonna buy anything more!" resolution was a battered old copy of one of my favorite pieces of gaming nostalgia. Specifically, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, by Palladium. God, this takes me back. One of the first few RPG's I ever played, and without a doubt, one of the more fun.

part of me really wants to start up a compaign. Or a one-shot or two. Or something.

Two other things.

One: I want this watch. It's blocky, it looks like it came out of the Buck Rogers TV series, and it probably weighs a ton. MUST. HAVE.

Two: I now have in my possession a beta copy of The Cog Wars. Anyone wanna try for a pick-up game next weekish?

I just inherited a 2600.

It's true. My parents found it lying in storage, and dropped it off on their recent visit here. Along with a stack of cartridges. The thing used to work perfectly. At least, it did when it went into storage, I imagine the worst problem it has right now is dust-related if anything, I haven't yet unboxed it to check.

I'm just wondering what to do with the thing. Pick up an RF adapter from somewhere (I'm pretty sure there's no way to connect it to the TV otherwise, since our TV has no antenna out or anything similar.) and go for some all-out old-school gaming? Ebay it? (What's a functioning, original-gen 2600 worth these days?) Shove it into storage to torment my kids with when they're older? I need some opinions here, I think.

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Bastard's Notebook

Considering what kind of mask your hide would make...

Ah, that great pixellated teat of distractions....

Stuff I've been playing with.

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The return to the eternal gaming rant/whinge

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Project: LONG STAIRS, the project.

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October 2012

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