Well Then…

So, I have been very inactive with my blog as you can see, but it is time to start back up again. Aions headstart begins today at 2pm Central, and I plan on hitting that game pretty hard, so look for some heavy blogging to come.

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!

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.

I Think I’m Going Japanese

Today I received the DS game ‘My Japanese Coach’. Yes, I am learning Japanese. I bought the Auralog program for it, but the problem is I just can’t seem to focus on learning a foreign language while I’m here. So, I bought the game. It’s pretty cool. It gives you a little test when you first start to see where you are at and you go on from there. The test put me on lesson four, but I decided to start at the beginning. The lessons are pretty easy (so far), and they accompany each word with a spoken bit, an option to practice pronouncing the word, and an option to practice writing the word. There are also games (of course!) to help you master the words in the lesson. So far, I have done a whack a mole style game, word search, and a multiple choice game. I only did up to level four because I had some work to do, but I am excited about getting back to it later.

Oh, The Horror

What a day. My PS3 decided to die on me. Well, it didn’t exactly die. It merely stopped reading any discs. I started browsing forums to see if there was a fix, but I got nothing. The PS3 Restore function didn’t work, so now I am stuck with a broken PS3. I called SONY and they said they could take care of it if I have the receipt, so I just need to find it. I’m pretty sure I kept it in the box, but then again, I could just as easily have thrown it away. I’ll end up sending it back to get fixed and have it sent to my house in the states. This really puts a damper on my whole gaming thing and perhaps this blog. I cancelled my Little Big Planet preorder but wasn’t able to cancel Fallout 3 since they were preparing to ship it. I thought about buying Fallout 3 for PC, but that was stopped when I noticed it had SecuRom on it. Jeeze… I know it’s just a disc check, but I have no way of getting online at the moment with my laptop.

That brings me to another point: the internet. We are apparently getting internet in our “rooms” for $75 a month. Yea… I hear it isn’t even worth it. I can email and add blogs using the net cafes computers. I’m not paying $75 for shoddy service. Oh well. I’ll be home in less than three months anyways, and hopefully, things will turn around. I’ll be able to play WAR, GW, TF2, BF 2142, and whatever else catches my fancy. I have even been thinking of picking up EQ2 again. I don’t know. It really depends on how much time I have and how much I like WAR.

Weekend of Un-Gaming

Most gamers love the weekends. It allows them to either A) Clock massive amounts of hours into a game or B) Get away from gaming and enjoy life. Not me. I don’t get weekends where I can clock time or get away. I am stuck working ten hours a day every day so we, as a country, can force our way of living onto a country that wants nothing more than for us to leave. But, that’s enough of that…

I actually did have some time off on Saturday where I was going to put some massive time into Dead Space, but we were in the midst of a thunderstorm and the power was finicky. It’s okay though since I did manage to hit Chapter 10, and I must say Chapter 8 was insane. I mean, I’m on an elevator and five of those things drop from above, and I am stuck fighting for my life until the thing stops. Wow… It was definitely an intense moment. I’d also like to point out some disappointing news I found by reading some PS3 forums. Once you beat the game, you are locked in to that difficulty mode? Man that really sucks. I had elaborate plans of how I was going to do a second play through on easy to get the One Gun trophy and build up my weapons some, so I could attack a third play through like I was Rambo or something. Oh well, good on EA for thinking about nerds like me who want the easy way. Hmmm…maybe I will just One Gun through Impossible Mode!

My other gaming adventure as of late is Baldur’s Gate II (yea my laptop sucks that bad). I’m not complaining though; the game rocks, and I got it for ten bucks (with expansion) off Amazon. I play this at work since there really isn’t much to do for ten hours at night. I’m only on Chapter 2, and I’m getting unmotivated from having to walk through the city and do all these “urban” quests. I like the outside world environments for my fantasy adventures. I’m sure it will pick up eventually, and it is a nice break from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 which I have been playing off and on since it’s release.

Jedi Madness Online!

I, of course, am talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic. I like Star Wars and Jedi, but man, this game is going to be swarming with them. Maybe that’s the point? I know Bioware says there is going to be other classes besides Jedi and Sith, but who is going to play them? Here are my concerns:

• Jedi/Sith overpopulation – Honestly, who is going to pass it up?

• Variety – Are there going to be multiple types of Jedi/Sith, or will we be stuck playing a very base class?

• World – This better be huge. I mean, it’s freaking Star Wars…

• PvP – Jedi and Sith are in the game. There better be some hardcore PvP

That’s pretty much all I have on the subject. The last Star Wars MMO was such a let down it is almost hard to believe it can be done right, but Bioware knows how to make a good RPG, so there is hope.

*Note: I’ll be all over this. I’m such a fan boy nerd…*

Lost in (Dead) Space

I’m not really lost in the game since a simple press of R3 shows me the way, but I totally lost track of time while I was playing the game for a mere three hours. Dead Space, so far, is amazing! The whole HUDless feature really adds a sense of immersion to the game. The graphics are great with shadows having you wonder if that’s an “alien” around the corner or just some object projecting a shadow. Sound…OMG. The sound is extremely intense! There are moments in the game when I hear the ‘oh man, something is coming’ music just to realize it was the lights turning on. I constantly find myself expecting to be pummeled by some baddie only not to be, and in turn, I’ve been attacked when I thought I was perfectly safe. Plus, I have been playing in a completely dark room since I live in a metal box void of windows, so you can imagine the craziness going through my mind when I hear some noise from outside.

I’ve only gone through two chapters and have collected five trophies so far (possible spark for replay?), but the game and storyline are all looking very promising.

The Glorious Arcane…

Priests of Fire store your power and bring me the effulgent beauty of Armageddon! Oh how I dance in joy amidst your 9+ Fire power of damage to my opponent and all his creatures. The battle shall be mine… Oh… I was just having a Spectromancer flashback.

After my stint on how I can’t game online while deployed, I happened upon a little demo on Greenhouse called Spectromancer. The game is similar to and, if I am not mistaken, developed by the creator of Magic: The Gathering. So, basically, it’s a virtual trading card game. The amazing thing about it is its simple graphical interface which allows me to play it online off my thumb drive! This is a big deal. You see, I can’t take my laptop to the closest, free net café here, so being able to play it off my thumb drive allows me to use it on the provided computers.

I played the demo version online for about an hour, totally losing track of time, and I felt hooked like I haven’t been since M:TGO. I also sat at work last night playing the sneak peek of the single player campaign and have decided it’s definitely worth the 20 bucks to unlock the whole game. Spectromancer has its downfalls such as will there be more cards or campaign options, but it is a fun little time passer that at least allows me the social aspect of playing online.

Maybe I’ve been out here too long and have lost touch with coolness, but IMO, the Spectromancer demo is worth the download.

On a side note, I added a review for Ninja Gaiden Σ.