The Most Awesome Thing, Today

This is probably the most awesome thing I have ever seen, today.

A fan made a screenshot of a “Game of Thrones” fighting game. It breaks my heart that it isn’t real.

Oh intertrons, why do you hurt me?

Most awesome thing, today.

Source

Skyrim – Cancel Your Life

 

Skyrim is awesome, that is the first order of business you need to know.

 

Instead of going into how the graphics are great, the blanket snow falls are amazing, the random dragon attacks make your ass pucker, or how you can literally wander around for days and days on end I will instead list some of the awesomeness that is Skyrim

• You can climb any mountain with a horse. Seriously, these giant Clydesdales have four-wheel drive. Hop off the horse, lock in the tires, and make sweet climbing love to the mountain.
• Walk around the woods, minding your own business and get your ass ripped off by a saber-toothed cat.
• Buy a house and decorate it.
• You can fill an entire house with troll skulls.
• Fireball in one hand + fireball in other hand = REALLY big fire-ball. The dual-wielding combat system is awesome. You can dual-wield spells or weapons, this makes for more interesting game play compared to Oblivion.
• Fatality style kills scenes. I stared open-mouthed when I chopped a Falmer’s head off like something out of Mortal Kombat or when I punted a wolf in the throat and snapped its neck.
• Join the revolution, pretend to be Braveheart. FREEEEEDOOOOOMMM! If you are like me, magically inclined play style, I have been consuming the Imperials with fireballs from my eyes and shooting lighting out of my arse.
• Make a dragon crash-land. There is something gratifying about watching a giant winged fire-breathing lizard crash into the ground and skid 30 yards.
• Big ass scary dragons that will royally #%*@ your day up.
• Use your shout to send a group of enemies skydiving off of a mountain. Unrelenting Shout has to be one of the best d-bag moves to pull in a game.
• Zombie Vikings
• Fighting a giant is a quick way to learn if you can fly. There is a bug in the game the sends you miles high into the atmosphere when a giant tries to test his strength on your face. Even though it kills you, it is always entertaining.
• Stealth attack a bad guy standing shoulder to shoulder with another bad guy. You would think that when you picked off Baddie A, Baddie B would be like, “Where did Steve go?”, but no. If you are quiet enough they just stand there like idiots. I find it comical.
• Start a brawl, introduce somebody to Florence and Nightingale. Give them the ole one-two punch.
• Become a werewolf. Disembowel some people, play jump rope with their entrails, then pounce on the next helpless guy and rip his head off.
• Marry somebody.
• Get a pet dog.
• Explore that massive and vast land of Skyrim.

Skyrim is a great RPG. It has the same successful formula as Oblivion, but slightly tweaked areas that offer a different feel. The combat systems is robust, but by design. It pushes the player to strategize and think about how to approach an enemy. That is until the player is so damn powerful that one shots are a certainty.

The perk-skill leveling system is MUCH MUCH better from Oblivion’s. You aren’t as limited in how to customize your play as in the previous game, this offers more of a unique experience. While it is possible to reach 100 in EVERYTHING, you can’t have perks in all the skills. So pick your particular game play style and max it out.

Dungeons are more unique. This time the developers spent more time giving dungeons a more special feel and not a regurgitated theme. The quests are randomized; while basic elements might be the same, the NPCs, dungeon, and item/person is randomly selected. This offers a custom experience but plays victim to RNG (random number generated).

The depth in which a person can fully immerse themselves in this game is mind-boggling. The scope is large and that little whizzing sound you hear while playing is time zipping past. Blink and you spent 5 hours helping children and returning ancient artifacts.

Go buy the game, now. Seriously, go get it. You won’t be disappointed.

Modern Warfare 3 Ate My Life

 

Yes, it put a nice caramel glaze on my existence and shredded into cookie crumble shrapnel. I have played the game…. a lot.

So I am going to share my thoughts.

I have only played the multiplayer, which is 90% of the reason anybody would buy the game. Once the initial shock of ‘OMG GUNS PEWPEWPEW’ wears off I will probably move on to single player and joint ops.

But to the multiplayer!

I think some of the reviews have been unfair, calling it a waste of 60 dollars (being polite),  but I would agree with it being the most expensive map pack I have ever played for.

PROS:

• The proficiency variations that can be unlocked for a weapon coupled with the assorted attachments offer a more specialized playing experience. I can setup a gun to be more of my style or compensate for my bad habits and short comings.
• The different weapon choices is very nice. I am glad they put more guns into the game. In MW2 we had only four sniper rifles and now we can choose from six, which doesn’t sound like much but the differences are obvious when trying to shoot the nose off a dirty commie. Some have slow fire rate but sound like Thor himself farting, others are quiet but fast.
• The different kill streak rewards. This is now broken into three formats. We have assault which is the more traditional kill streak with new selections of murderous rampage, assault drone is always fun. There is also support, which lends your hard earned mercantile work to UAVs and some sort of aid that the entire team can benefit from. Lastly we have specialist which is essentially unlocking perks as you progress 2,4,and 6 kills until you eventually unlock all the perks at once. This is typically my killstreak platform of choice.

CONS:

• THE LAG! OH MY GOD…. I have pretty good internet and play lots of online games. I have never really had HUGE issues with lag before. This game is packed full of packet loss. I have had enemies shoot bullets out of their elbows. To be clear, I am coming around a corner, see a guy standing in a hallway facing to the side and suddenly bullets fly out of his armpit. On the killcam it shows him turning and putting his sights on me while I stand there like an idiot, VERY VERY frustrating. It had made it hard to know if I am actually sneaking up on somebody.
• The maps are ok, just so. I like a good scale of variation with maps. Some maps should be sniper friendly and others should be run-n-gun friendly. It seems all the MW3 maps are designed with the same combat flow and skill set in mind. This disappoints me because I like to do different things. It feels like the standard player with an assault rifle is rewarded more than using any other type of weapon.
• Hardcore [Insert Game Mode] is not fun at all anymore. In MW2 I lived and breathed for hardcore, now I play regular. Hardcore rewards cheap kills and camping more than before while regular feels more like MW2’s hardcore with the health of players and power of the guns. I am still confused how a shotgun blast to the face, sniper round to the chest, and grenade in the ass doesn’t kill a player but a throwing knife will regardless of where it hits.

 

Overall I think the game is good fun, but not flawless. There is certainly no shortage of issues for the developers to work on, some new features are done very well while some older aspects fall flat. Leveling doesn’t feel as tedious as before and rewards experimentation more than familiarity with weaponry, which I like. I am curious to see how the game will unfold with updates and  map packs, but I will continue to play it and neglect other aspects of my life, except maybe writing.

Which reminds me, writing post coming soon.

Skyrim Trailer…. This Time With Real People!

So here is the new Skyrim trailer. If it was a serious movie, I would say that the production value and general badassness is very high. Hollywood, I hope you are taking notes.

 

What Would They Say?

What would your video game characters say? If they all met in a bar and talked about you, what little nugget of insight and bastardization would they say?

Mine would vary.

My WOW characters would say I was epic or lazy ( I never really leveled and alt all the way up).

My Call of Duty characters would say I was a blood frenzied serial killer with unnecessarily perfect accuracy with RPGs and UMPs.

My Tribes characters would say that I talk too much, I made a soundpack for the game and spammed the unholy ba-jesus out of it.

…and it varies from pyromaniac, public exhibitionist, psychopath, defender of women, chicken slayer, pervert, idiot, etc.

Gamers – Unlimited Resource

 

So I was shown this on another website by some gaming buddies. I thought it was so awesome and interesting that I would show you guys.

Here is the skinny:

Researchers made a video game called FoldIt to simulate protein folding that would help solve some respectable scientific problems. Today it was reported that the players of the game have solved a problem revolving around an issue with the HIV virus. Just so you know, this is a big deal.

Taking complex problems and putting them in a video game to utilize human reasoning and problem solving is a relative new concept. By doing this scientists can take large problems that computer processing cannot necessarily solve easily. This is an awesome usage of community, unused resources, and technology that really shows what people are capable of doing when they work together…….. or in competition…… depends on where you stand on the idea. It also shows how far intellectual skills have come and can be used to achieve goals under wide-spread platforms. This really is amazing.

Source

 

 

My Favorite Video Games

I’m a gamer at heart. I enjoy a pixellated adventure just as much as the next nerd. So I thought I would share with you my favorite games as well as a trend I have noticed in gaming that is royally pissing me off.

My Favorite Games:

5. Ghostbusters (360)

4. Diablo 2 (PC)

3. Tribes (PC)

2. COD series (360)

1. Legend of Zelda series (Multiple platforms)

Speaking of COD, did you see the new MW3 multiplayer trailer? It looks awesome.

 

Several runner-ups like WoW, Resident Evil 2, Dead Space, Chronicles of Riddick, FFX, Portal, Bioshock, KOTOR, Red Faction 2, and on are nice and extremely enjoyable, but don’t cross that golden threshold of life changing awesomeness like the five on my list. Each game has been/is such a level of fun for me that they have impacted my life in some way. I have made several friends from COD or Tribes that I keep in touch with or the others have been used as a means of great nerd conversations. I cut WoW from the list because the last two expansions have really been lacking and haven’t felt epic. It seems Blizzard is inclined to toss easy victories at the general player base, which makes sense but still sucks.

In fact, that seems to be a going trend among video game developers; Make it more of an experience rather than a challenge. I might be revealing my age here – prepare to get off my lawn – but I remember video games being so damned difficult that the end boss fight took hours of failed attempts mixed with trial and error strategies that sometimes resulted in a controller spiraling towards a wall. Oh sure I can just turn up the difficulty setting but I want that puzzle challenge that seems to be disappearing. Turning up the difficulty just means less health, more damage, and enemies with more health. That is fine and dandy, but has less to do with skill and comes across as a cop-out to me.

Granted I know the intertrons has changed some of this. People being able to share and watch other player’s strategies has made finding solutions easier, but I don’t feel it has been enough to take away from an overall challenge. The last game I beat that I felt was somewhat difficult was probably conquering hell in Dante’s Inferno. Seriously that last fight with the devil was kind of annoying, but I enjoyed it. Before that I would say the most difficult game or rather boss fight was Ganon in Windwaker.

I want a game to be engaging, fun, challenging, and well executed.

So what about you? What are your favorite five video games? Do you think games have become easier?

 

 

I Will Now Play Legend Of Zelda Through Interpretative Dance

If I saw this commercial as a kid, I would have been beyond confused and might not have picked up a Nintendo controller.

 

 

Then again……

Gamer Girls

I’ve been playing video games and writing a lot over the past few days, hence my absence. A few other things have gone on but I have tried to really reel in my writer functions and thought processes, a sort of self-evaluation of my mentality as a writer as well as execution. In my blind man journey off the map, I noticed something about the gaming community.

There are more gamer girls. I think this is awesome for several reasons, of which none are the obvious one. For one it means there is more acceptance across the board and with the fairer sex to indulge in video games. Being nerdy and having fun with electronics is becoming more common place, being more generally used, it leads to better pushes in video games as well as innovation as the demand increases. The second reason it is awesome is that girls get a chance to really show their skills and domination in the game market. A shift from a ‘boys only club’ is occurring and I for one think it is about time. However, I have noticed several things about my female gaming comrades, they can easily be divided into three categories.

1. The Magic Gamer – This is where a gamer girl spends 20 minutes saying, “Yes, I’m a girl and I’m a gamer. I know, cool right? I’m a gamer girl, we exist. I am a girl and I am a gamer.” I hear that over and over and over and over. I can’t hear my teammates over the constant crowing.

2. The Vixen– This is where the gamer girl makes flirtatious and dirty remarks to the hordes of gamer guys ogling over her. She says things to get attention or to better solidify her status as a gamer girl. This annoys me to no end because in World of Warcraft idiot guys get duped into asinine things just because a female said something off-color or sexual. It is sad that girls do this, but it is pathetic that guys fall for it over and over because the a voice they hear is female. Who is really the fool? The fool or the person that follows the fool?

3. Girl Gamer – This is my favorite type of gamer girl. They simply roll into a map and play. They do their job in WoW amazingly and none of the other situations above come up. The gamer that plays for the love of the game, that plays because they want to succeed and do well, then you find out randomly or after the fact it is a chick. They don’t play into their gender or reach for attention, they simply play.

With that said, the worst gamer is the 12-year-old boy who talks incessantly to no end, rpgs the entire map, team kills or doesn’t pull his weight in a raid because ‘ninja poop’ is the funniest thing he has had ever heard. Holy hell I want to punch every kid in the face who does this.

 

 

15 Minutes of Skyrim Footage

Behold, and watch the awesomeness that is Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.