Halt!

Sure, I haven’t written anything in a while due to my gaming slump, but now there will be a halt to posting for at least the next month and a half. First thing that happened was the DOD nixing the use of thumb drives on all government computers including these net cafe computers. This basically means I can’t write my posts beforehand, and I also don’t always come in. The second thing is my laptop died on me, so I couldn’t write posts if I wanted to. I’m not too worried because I will be hitting this blog hard and heavy when I get home. I’m sure I will write random things when I can. Until then, later.

The Hammer Falls

I’m not out of my non-gaming slump yet, but I did want to address something that has recently developed with my friends and gaming.

My personal friends who I was looking forward to playing War with have decided the game is not as exciting as it was hyped up to be. This really doesn’t come as a shock to me. I have been reading a bunch of blogs and forums that have stated the exact same thing, so I don’t blame them. So, what are they doing now? EQ2. It’s rather amazing really. I have been toying with making EQ2 my secondary MMO for a while now, and this pretty much made the decision for me. The only difference is EQ2 will be my primary MMO now. My secondary is still up in the air.

I know I bought WAR with all intentions of playing it hardcore, but I really prefer playing a MMO with friends. I know for a fact I will still try WAR and may even like it, but as of right now, EQ2 will be my main focus. This isn’t so bad since I haven’t played EQ2 since the first expansion, and the newly released TSO looks pretty amazing. Also, my buddy –who apparently played EQ2 far longer than I realized- has two level 80 characters and a level 30 guild, so it won’t be like starting over again.

I’m really looking forward to going home for obvious reasons, but I am also looking forward to playing some EQ2.

Blog Block

Where have I been? What have I been doing? I often ask myself these very same things. The issue I run into while deployed is a sort of cycle involving my motivation and exhaustion levels. I go from being all ‘let’s do this!’ to ‘zOMG…I am le tired’. At this moment in time, I have zero motivation and am exhausted 85% of the time (the remaining 15% being the time I sleep). So, let me answer the two questions.

Where have I been? I have been here the whole time! I haven’t left or anything. In fact, I barely travel more than 100 feet a day. My posting on blogs/forums has been non-existent, but I do still read them.

What have I been doing? I pretty much get off work, work out, take a shower, talk to my better half, and watch a movie and pass out for 12 hours. Yep…wow. I then wake up, hygiene it up, go to work, and do it all over again. I define repetitive and mundane.

This downside usually lasts two or three weeks, and this is the fourth time it has happened this deployment, so hopefully, it is the last time. Unfortunately, I still have at least a week left. I apologize for my lackluster blog during this craptastic time, but I assure you it will pick up soon and more so when I am home.

Donate!

It’s charity time here in the military. They give us the big book of CFC, and we are asked to donate. Donating isn’t mandatory, but the military likes to put the pressure on. Well, I don’t take kindly to pressure, and I don’t donate through the military. However, I’m not saying I do not donate. I donate to various charities during the course of the year, but the one constant is always Child’s Play Charity. This charity is run by the folks over at Penny Arcade, and while I may not be a big PA fan, I do respect and support what they are doing with this charity.

If you haven’t heard of Child’s Play before, it is a charity which raises money for Children’s Hospitals throughout the United States/Canada and other parts of the world. You can either donate money directly to the charity itself, or you can use the map on the main page to pick a certain hospital. Clicking the hospital will take you to the hospital’s Amazon.com wish list where there are a bunch of children appropriate games, movies, books, and game accessories.

This charity hits home for me on a personal level since I have a brother who spent a few months in one such hospital when he was younger, and I remember that he enjoyed being able to take his mind off what was going on by playing games. This is a great charity and a great way to show the world that gamers and the gaming community are good people too, so go donate!

ChildsPlayCharity.org

LBP and ME!

Little Big Planet is amazingly addicting! So much so in fact, I have not played Fallout 3 for three days. I am only on the wedding levels at the moment, but the game is crazy fun. I love my little guy and being able to change his costumes. Right now I have him in the zombie boy material with the ringmaster’s hat, pirate hook, roman centurion cape, tuxedo shirt, and pirate’s pants. He looks pretty awesome in my opinion.

I don’t plan on going any further until I can 100% the other two levels. I am missing one sticker in the Gardens and the Savannah. I guess I have to do some massive searching if I want to get this done. I’ll probably run through some of the building tutorials as well and try my hand at building a level. I always like creating my own levels for games, so this will be a pretty cool thing to try out. I’m looking forward to being able to go online and try some other user created levels.

That’s pretty much it on the gaming front for me. My schedule has been a little busier than usual, so that is the reason for the lack of posts lately. It’ll pick up when I hit the states!

When Will It End?

The PS3 pain just won’t end! As I posted previously, I have a new 80 GB PS3 that has been working fine until now. Out of the blue, the sound decided to not work. Well, not exactly. It works perfectly fine for Fallout 3, but when I tried to play a Blu-Ray, I could only hear music and not voices. I tried playing a different game and it’s the same issue. I guess I’m lucky with Fallout, but this is ridiculous. I connect my PS3 to my TV via HDMI. A bad cable doesn’t make sense since Fallout works, but I am up for any ideas. I did read on some forums that turning off linear and DTS in the audio settings may solve the issue, so I will have to try that after work. I hope this isn’t a sign of some future PS3 troublesome times. I really enjoy the system and would hate to have to abandon it due to shoddy manufacturing and my bad luck.

The Wasteland Series: A Journey Unfolds

Warning: May contain spoilers

The world of tomorrow must have been an amazing place, but alas, I look out now and see nothing but ruin. The rubble that was a house, the uneven cracked blackness of a former road, and in the distance, the shattered dome of the once grand capitol building are the things I see. My, what a place this must have been.

I feel the sun; a thing so warm, so great yet so cruel. My shoulder aches from my escape, and I feel the weight of the things I carry. I must find this town Megaton and find my father. But first, I must rest.

So, after emerging from the vault, I made my way down to some ruins of a town called Springvale and then headed off to Megaton. Megaton is a rather interesting town which gets its name from the unexploded atomic bomb in the center of it. Wow… an unexploded atomic bomb. The town is circular and rather easy to find things. My first stop took me to the local saloon where I was trying to gather information on my father. It turns out the owner knew his whereabouts but wanted 100 caps (Fallouts currency). Of course, I didn’t have that, so I decided to get some quests to help the locals.

I headed to the general store, Craterside Supply, to sell some stuff and met Moira. She offered me a quest to find food and medicine at a nearby store called the Super Duper Mart. After gathering supplies and resting, I headed out. The Super Duper Mart is a pretty decent size place, and it was crawling with raiders. I had a lot of good fights and got my character a sawed off shotgun and a SMG. The V.A.T.S. system is really fun to use, and the results are always graphically amazing. I found the food and medicine and headed back to Megaton.

My next little side adventure was delivering a letter for Lucy West to her family. I spent a lot of time wandering through The Wasteland and eventually found the town of Arefu perched on what seemed to be an old highway bridge. After a brief talk about some local troubles with the local mayor, I found the West’s house and went inside. There was blood everywhere, and it looked as if one of the bodies had had their throat ripped out. I informed the mayor and he told me it was the work of The Family and that they most likely have the West’s son, Ian.

I knew I had to do something, so I went out looking for The Family. I eventually found them in an old subway station, and wow, these guys are weird. At first, they just describe themselves as a gang, but their leader, Vance, told me what they really were. He started talking about cannibalism and transcending the desire of flesh and simply drinking the blood of their victims. Basically, they are the 23^rd century version of vampires.

Well, after a nice conversation with Vance, I found Ian and convinced him he should leave. I then talked to Vance and proposed the idea of the town of Arefu donating blood to the “vampires”, and in return, The Family would protect them. He took to the idea nicely and said I was welcome anytime. Vance also offered to teach me the ways of the vampire which I accepted (come on…), and my character is now able to regain 25 HP from blood packs. Good stuff.

I’d like to note that I had a bunch of in between mission encounters, but it would make this entry way too long. This game is amazing. I have only completed the very first part of the main story line, and I am not worried one bit. I love being distracted and exploring and fighting.

So much for the world of tomorrow…

The Vault: Prelude to The Wasteland Series

Warning: May contain spoilers

I’m going to be posting a lot about Fallout 3 (PS3) since it is a game I have been looking forward to for a long time. There may not be a post everyday, but I will document my journeys through The Wasteland often. I won’t really be posting a through the eyes of type of thing. It will be me playing a game and what I am doing in it, so I will use I or my character interchangeably.

Before we begin, I want to describe my character game play style to you so you are aware of what to expect. My characters in these free roam type of games are usually played as ‘on the fence’ types. They aren’t evil, but they aren’t good, and they don’t just stand by watching. I basically play to maximize my characters experience, so sometimes my character may rescue a person from certain disaster to advance in level and then turn around and kill that same person to get his loot. I don’t incorporate this sort of thing in my personal life, and in fact am a very peaceful person. I understand this is a game and do not allow it to affect my real world judgment.

Let’s begin:

The Vault

What can I say? Fallout 3 has a very innovative character design system and tutorial. You are literally born in the game where you pick your gender and what you will look like when you are older, and you even learn basic game mechanics as a one year old learning to walk and interact with things. I turned ten and received my Pip Boy 3000 and messed around with that a bit, and I also received a BB gun where I learned simple combat mechanics and the use of the V.A.T.S. system. At 16, I took the G.O.A.T. which determined which three skills I focused on. For me, it was small guns, science and lock picking which is actually a good three to start with. You are also able to change them if you don’t like the ones given to you.

When my character reached 19, he was awoken by Amata (childhood friend) to find out his father has left the vault and they were after you. This is where the game starts to pick up action wise. I was supposed to meet Amata by the Overseers office, but I am an explorer and did my thing. Armed with a BB gun, 10mm pistol and a baseball bat, I headed down the hall and ran into a guard. I’m sure I could have run away, but I saw his helmet and his body armor and knew I wanted it. Using the V.A.T.S. system, I took him out with two well placed shots to the head. I must say the way that system works is amazing. I love the camera angles and the slow motion aspect to it. I looted the corpse and moved on.

Further down the hall I ran into Butch who is a bully that used to pick on me as a kid (that’s how it is made to seem at least). He wanted me to rescue his mother from some Radroaches, so I went in swinging with the baseball bat and saved his mother. Well, since he was so mean to me as a kid, I decided to pay him back (insert imagination). By this point, I was a danger. I was wildly swinging my bat at anything coming near me, and by the time I ran into Amata, the guards were shooting at me. I really had no choice since the Overseer was attacking me like a wild man, but Amata didn’t want to hear it. I left her alone and went into the Overseers office and hacked his computer. There were some interesting notes there but nothing ignited a quest of any sort, so I opened the secret chamber and headed towards the vault entrance.

I opened the vault door and headed through the tunnel. At this moment, I was appreciating the graphics. You open the little door at the end and the sun blasts you with light, and the game gets all bright and slowly fades as your eyes adjust. It was amazing. The game gives you the option to change anything about your character you don’t like (exactly like Oblivion) and then completes the tutorial stage.

I played further, but it will have to wait for the official journal to start. This was just a little taste.

Joyous Day

I received my PS3! It’s an 80 gig like my broken one, but it only has 2 USB ports, and there are none of the media slots like my other one has. Bleh. At least is works. I somehow decided to delete my PS3 backup from my external, so I have none of the data but it’s okay. I have Fallout 3 now and will be posting a sort of journal so all can see my adventures. I’m excited to have a PS3 again because my down time was becoming really boring.

Also, I wrote a review on Assassins Creed. Check it out.

A Quick Update

I have not written anything in a few days, and I am not happy about it. I’ve been busy with military stuff and getting less sleep than usual, so I have been pretty much relaxing with movies and books. It’s rather tough to write posts on a gaming blog if I don’t do any actual gaming. I’ll give you a quick run down of how things are progressing.

• My new PS3 should arrive soon along with Fallout 3 and LBP. I still need to finish Dead Space as well.
• My old PS3 is in the RMA process, but I need to send it back to the states to my parents so they can send it out via the Sony box.
• I’m supposed to be installing F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate so I can do an ad-hoc LAN with my chief and we can blast each other at work. (I’ll see how long I can get away with that)

That’s pretty much the update. Aside from WAR, I am starting to get into wanting to play EQ2 again. Maybe just as a side venture. I like to have two MMOs available for boredom/burnout purposes, and GW is usually my second one, but I may make an exception. I still have about 80 days left until I can even access decent internet, so we will see.

I’m going to do some PS3 review writing tonight to catch up. I still have about eight games I have completed but haven’t written a review on yet. Keep an eye out for those.