I had two posts about Borderlands ready... but I wasn't feeling them. In all honesty Borderlands is a good game. If you have 3 other friends that want to play pick it up. It will keep the 4 of you happy and entertained for a month or two.
The story is sort of weak but interesting. The voice acting is great but lacks variety. The game is very funny and all and all well done.
I recomend Borderlands but I'm honestly not so in love with it I can spend two days posting about it. It has very few things that one can complain about and given the amount of bad video games being released every week that is something to brag about.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
StarCraft 2
Last Tuesday my boss came in and asked me if I had ever played StarCraft. I was truly at a loss for words. How would I properly convey my level of experience with this game to him? StarCraft came out when I was 17. My two neighbors and I found a group of beta testers who had been floating around top 20 of the ladder rankings during the entire beta test. We played with them 4 or more hours every night upon release.
IGN hosted its first 2v2 tournament and we formed two teams that took 1st and 2nd place. The only people we ever lost to was one another. We sought out all the top ladder players and arranged matches with them. After launch none of us really spent any time trying to climb the ladder, we played for the fun of it. The competition and challenge of beating our friends what made the game fun.
StarCraft was the single most influential game in my life. Not the game it’s self but what the game allowed me. Four of my closet friends I met on Battle.net by chance. We happened to live a few miles from one another and met up. For 10 years now we have gamed together, lived together off and on, and hung out doing various things.
StarCraft also taught me that most people are bad at video games. I would overhear people talking about StarCraft in High School classes and how they “owned someone with a mass carrier” strategy. This taught me that my gaming was better left in silence. I would rather no one knew I played video games than suffer through ignorance.
When StarCraft 2 comes out all of my friends and I that met in StarCraft will be throwing a party together. This is like our High School reunion. I know since we have aged our skill will not be what it once was, however I know that I will never consider a mass carrier assault a viable strategy.
IGN hosted its first 2v2 tournament and we formed two teams that took 1st and 2nd place. The only people we ever lost to was one another. We sought out all the top ladder players and arranged matches with them. After launch none of us really spent any time trying to climb the ladder, we played for the fun of it. The competition and challenge of beating our friends what made the game fun.
StarCraft was the single most influential game in my life. Not the game it’s self but what the game allowed me. Four of my closet friends I met on Battle.net by chance. We happened to live a few miles from one another and met up. For 10 years now we have gamed together, lived together off and on, and hung out doing various things.
StarCraft also taught me that most people are bad at video games. I would overhear people talking about StarCraft in High School classes and how they “owned someone with a mass carrier” strategy. This taught me that my gaming was better left in silence. I would rather no one knew I played video games than suffer through ignorance.
When StarCraft 2 comes out all of my friends and I that met in StarCraft will be throwing a party together. This is like our High School reunion. I know since we have aged our skill will not be what it once was, however I know that I will never consider a mass carrier assault a viable strategy.
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Droid
The Droid does everything… almost. I’ve been watching a lot of Verizon ads lately for their new phone, The Droid. What’s interesting about this phone is that the advertisers are taken are more or less ignorant and sensationalist approach to promoting it. Obviously the Droid is directly competing with the iPhone by AT&T. Droid’s selling point has been that it does everything that the iPhone doesn’t without the plush “princess” prettiness of the iPhone. What I don’t understand is why it can’t be both? Why does Verizon feel the need to insinuate that I don’t need an attractive looking phone? What if I want a pink phone, that’s my choice.
Really if we are going on applications and ability to do various tasks I KNOW what an iPhone can do, and it pretty much does everything I would want in a phone. So that what does the Droid do that the iPhone doesn’t do? The only thing I can think of is a few small features that would be noticeable by less that 5% of the users.
The only reason I would get a Droid over an iPhone is ironically enough because of another commercial Verizon is running. They obviously have a much LARGER 3G network. If my new phone needs the 3G network to run all its features then I’m going with the largest in the country, as I do travel.
All this aside my work provides me with a piece of junk Sprint phone which is good enough for me. If I were to buy my own though it would probably be a Blackberry Touch of some sort.
Really if we are going on applications and ability to do various tasks I KNOW what an iPhone can do, and it pretty much does everything I would want in a phone. So that what does the Droid do that the iPhone doesn’t do? The only thing I can think of is a few small features that would be noticeable by less that 5% of the users.
The only reason I would get a Droid over an iPhone is ironically enough because of another commercial Verizon is running. They obviously have a much LARGER 3G network. If my new phone needs the 3G network to run all its features then I’m going with the largest in the country, as I do travel.
All this aside my work provides me with a piece of junk Sprint phone which is good enough for me. If I were to buy my own though it would probably be a Blackberry Touch of some sort.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Selfish Gamers
Tobold’s blog about soloing got me sort of riled up. Why is it that everyone feels they are entitled to play any game how they want? It’s infuriating. This is probably why I’m so anti-social. It’s not that I don’t like people, I love hanging out with my friends. It’s that the vast majority of the people I meet are selfish thoughtless morons.
I want to blame it on parents but its society as a whole. Sure it takes a tribe to raise a child but it only takes a few idiots to screw one up. It isn’t even the younger people. In this politically correct over sensitive world we live in today everyone feels they are entitled to everything. The world isn’t fair and you don’t always get what you want.
That is a huge foundation for capitalism. If you don’t like something, make something better and sell it. People are just lazy now days, they want existing companies to cater to their every whim rather than settle or go out and do it themselves.
Most of my family thinks I’m a very strict parent. My the standards I remember I’m rather easy. I don’t spank my kids, I haven’t grounded them for more than a hour at a time (I was once grounded for 3 months). However because SOCIETY spares the rod now in hopes to spare the child everything is getting messed up.
Look at yourself. Do you like the person you are? Then parent the way your parents treated you. Repeat the steps and hope for the best. Change things, but don’t for one instance think you are being their friend. You are their parent.
I hate the vast majority of people. Not because I don’t like people, but because I don’t have time to waste on morons. It drives my wife nuts but I will not sit at some random event and wait for my turn to speak with strangers. That is not a conversation. That is the problem with society and as such video games. Everyone thinks they are their own special snow flake, when really they are just pompous clowns.
I want to blame it on parents but its society as a whole. Sure it takes a tribe to raise a child but it only takes a few idiots to screw one up. It isn’t even the younger people. In this politically correct over sensitive world we live in today everyone feels they are entitled to everything. The world isn’t fair and you don’t always get what you want.
That is a huge foundation for capitalism. If you don’t like something, make something better and sell it. People are just lazy now days, they want existing companies to cater to their every whim rather than settle or go out and do it themselves.
Most of my family thinks I’m a very strict parent. My the standards I remember I’m rather easy. I don’t spank my kids, I haven’t grounded them for more than a hour at a time (I was once grounded for 3 months). However because SOCIETY spares the rod now in hopes to spare the child everything is getting messed up.
Look at yourself. Do you like the person you are? Then parent the way your parents treated you. Repeat the steps and hope for the best. Change things, but don’t for one instance think you are being their friend. You are their parent.
I hate the vast majority of people. Not because I don’t like people, but because I don’t have time to waste on morons. It drives my wife nuts but I will not sit at some random event and wait for my turn to speak with strangers. That is not a conversation. That is the problem with society and as such video games. Everyone thinks they are their own special snow flake, when really they are just pompous clowns.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Been AFK
I haven’t Blogged in a month. It seems like Tobold is a curse for me. Everytime I ask his opinion of how my blog is going I lose interest in posting. Like everything in my life my passions change like the tides. One day I will love painting miniatures for my 40K Warhammer Army and the next I will want nothing more than to play my Wii.
Blogging is the same way. Some days I can’t wait to voice my opinion others… well it’s meh. I haven’t even been interested in reading blogs. The last few days I’ve slowly started reading Gevlon and Tobold’s blogs again. Keen will have to wait a little while longer before I’m ready for him.
I guess playing Borderlands has really rekindled my interest in games. Borderlands is one of those simple yet pure games. It’s almost a throwback of how games were made 15 years ago. It’s amazingly refreshing and I think if the game had more outside support via dedicated servers it would actually hurt the game. I really don’t know how to describe it. Borderlands takes our old fashion hack and slash RPG model changes it to first person view adds guns and puts it in a post apocalyptic fallout typesetting… all while being cell shaded.
The only down side is you can tell this games interface was designed with a console gamer in mind. Nearly everything is done from the key board when it comes to navigating menu’s. It’s annoying but if that’s the only compliant I have then it’s a good game.
If Borderlands can keep me playing until the end of the year I will consider it well worth the $50 I paid via steam. Even if it doesn’t keep me interested for more than another week I will still feel that it was money well spent.
Thanks Borderlands for making me care about video games again!
Blogging is the same way. Some days I can’t wait to voice my opinion others… well it’s meh. I haven’t even been interested in reading blogs. The last few days I’ve slowly started reading Gevlon and Tobold’s blogs again. Keen will have to wait a little while longer before I’m ready for him.
I guess playing Borderlands has really rekindled my interest in games. Borderlands is one of those simple yet pure games. It’s almost a throwback of how games were made 15 years ago. It’s amazingly refreshing and I think if the game had more outside support via dedicated servers it would actually hurt the game. I really don’t know how to describe it. Borderlands takes our old fashion hack and slash RPG model changes it to first person view adds guns and puts it in a post apocalyptic fallout typesetting… all while being cell shaded.
The only down side is you can tell this games interface was designed with a console gamer in mind. Nearly everything is done from the key board when it comes to navigating menu’s. It’s annoying but if that’s the only compliant I have then it’s a good game.
If Borderlands can keep me playing until the end of the year I will consider it well worth the $50 I paid via steam. Even if it doesn’t keep me interested for more than another week I will still feel that it was money well spent.
Thanks Borderlands for making me care about video games again!
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