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The Scimitar of Baron Slaying +3

Best part are the augments:

Know-It-All     Learn all the rules. Even the really obscure ones.  +30% Sense of Self-Importance.
Space Geek     Memorise quotes from fictional science plays.      +90% Damage vs Space Elves
Oh, The Irony  Try desperately hard to make fun of stereotypes. -50% Self Awareness.

Originally published here.

Oh, blog… I owe you a post. After all these weeks (months even!) of neglect it should be the best post ever, crafted with love and attention and care.

But that’s not what you get.

Instead you get a hella weak “what I’ve been playing” post because I’m tired and I want to make sure I write something even if it’s not very substantial.

So if you’re still with me, here it is:

  • Fable III – those of you following me on twitter or FB have already heard a few things about this. I’m having fun with it but it’s incredibly buggy (always rage inducing for me as it feels like work has followed me home or something) and I think there are some significant flaws in the writing. The “non-menu” menu system is interesting and not quite as annoying as I’d feared. However, if their purpose was immersion, their little popups telling you where you rank in comparison to your Xbox Live friends definitely undermine it.
  • Bastion – sadly I’ve only played a few hours of this. It’s a clever and beautiful little game and lack of time and energy to devote to it have caused me to neglect it even though it may be one of the best games in my collection that I haven’t already played (yes, I know, why am I playing Fable III instead? Because when tired and stressed, I’ll go for the familiar and mindless every time.)
  • I had a brief fling with Kingdom Rush (and by brief fling, I mean I played it endlessly and obsessively for about 3 days straight and haven’t touched it since). I blame Felicia Day.
  • Terraria – I plan to go back to this one. It’s fun and mindless, the sort of game I can play while listening to an audiobook or something (ie, my idea of the perfect escape).
I won’t promise that the next post will have more substance than this but I do intend to write more frequently than I have been. New job and all, my brain’s been kinda eaten by that.
Oh, also, if you have any interest in working in the industry, you should read The Trenches.
Originally published here.

Obviously I checked out a few upcoming titles at E3 (playing demos of some of them, looking at trailers and gameplay for others); here are a couple of the highlights.

Star Wars: the Old Republic
This one I was really looking forward to and I waited in line for about 3 hours for the 10 minute video and 15 minute playable demo. I played a Sith Inquisitor Assassin (I was more interested in the Sorceror spec but that was already taken) and honestly, it felt like playing a magicky sort of rogue in WoW. I am disappoint; the game feels very much like WoW with a Star Wars skin, and as I’ve said before, I’d rather be playing a Mass Effect MMO, so if it’s gonna be WoW with an SF skin, it should be Mass Effect. Maybe the story and content will make up for my disappointment with the gameplay, but we’ll see. For now, though, I agree with this guy.

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I’ve had my breakfast and my coffee and my shower, so I guess it’s time to get my E3 wrap-up under way.

We didn’t go for the full day because we had a long drive ahead of us. Probably a good thing we left early anyway, as I heard there was some sort of bomb threat or something (but I can’t find any news about it now so I don’t know – just something one of my travel companions reported to me as we were driving up I5 heading back to the Bay Area).

I will do more of a write-up on my thoughts and impressions on the various sights when I’m feeling less tired/more coherent but for now you get picspam.

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E3 Day 2

Day 2 ended up being a short day. We decided to drive because we were thinking of staying after for the WIGI Mixer, but left kinda late so had trouble finding parking. Very frustrating. After waiting in line for a couple hours at the Capcom booth, I had the beginnings of a migraine so I headed back to my hotel early. But I did pick up a bit of swag.

The badge holder I had trouble posting last night

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Crossing the street to pick up our badge holders
Looking at the convention center

I have a pic of the badge holder that should go here but for some reason it’s failing to upload. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Inside the convention center waiting for the show to open
We came back to our hotel to find that someone had tagged our mirror.
Originally published here.

I mentioned in my first post that I was a huge fan of the Android OS so it seems only right that I should recommend a few games to my fellow Android fans.

First a few quibbles – the touch screen/OS is still not quite responsive enough (at least on my T-Mobile G2) for a lot of games. I’ve found that strategy/tower defense games are generally best, which is good, because I’m a total tower defense game addict. I haven’t played too many RPGs with interfaces that I liked, sadly.

Anyway, on to the games.

  • HexDefense is a pretty little tower defense game with a hex grid which is being invaded by a variety of geometric shapes (visually it’s somewhat similar to Geometry Wars) with a nifty techno soundtrack. There are 4 tower options – a basic shooter, a cannon, a laser and an aoe pulse tower – and the key to victory, generally speaking, is placement and utilizing and upgrading a healthy mix of these tower types.
  • RoboDefense is another excellent tower defense game (link goes to a review).
  • Tower Raiders 2 GOLD – yet another awesome tower defense game
  • Plants vs Zombies – one of the most popular tower defense games of all time, this awesome little gem is finally available for Android. When I saw this pop up on the Amazon appstore, I squee’ed so hard.
  • Gem Miner is a strangely addictive little game where you play a little guy who just mines his heart out so he can get ore to upgrade his pick so he can mine even more…
  • Farm Frenzy a simple little farming sim but lots of fun.
  • Angband for Android – okay, this one might be a little esoteric for a lot of you, but if you were ever a fan of rogue-like ascii dungeon crawlers, you might be familiar with Angband (one of the best of the lot, based on The Lord of the Rings setting). The Android port is not without its issues, but overall, it’s pretty good and they’re working on the interface all the time.

And that’s it for now. What about you? Any recommendations for me?

 

Originally published here.

There was a game giveaway at work today and I ended up with Dead Space 2 for my Xbox 360. This is awesome but it’s also a problem, in that I am still playing Dragon Age: Origins (rather slowly) and I have not yet finished the first Dead Space either.

This led me to wonder how many unfinished games I have on my shelf and to think maybe this will be my resolution for now – to try and finish these games before I buy any new ones.

The List:

  • Dragon Age: Origins – my character is in the process of becoming a Grey Warden so I’m still fairly early on in the game.
  • Dead Space – apparently I’m in Chapter 4: Obliteration Imminent.
  • Red Dead Redemption – in Mexico.
  • Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – I recently started a new game, I have an older save I think but it’s not very far along either.
  • Prey – I lost my save, so this one I’ll have to start fresh.
  • Halo: ODST – never really played it, I bought it mostly for Nathan Fillion but maybe I’ll finish it sometime.

I have a few other unfinished games that I’m not gonna put on the list because I don’t really intend to finish them.

What games do you have on your shelf that you’re planning to finish but haven’t gotten around to yet?

Also, should I keep working on DA:O or stop for a bit to finish up Dead Space so I can start working on DS2? I’m just curious as to your opinions, though I’m pretty sure I know what I’m going to do about it.

 

Originally published here.

I’m going to E3 next week for the first time. I’m pretty excited about it, though I’m not really sure what to expect. Obviously I’m looking forward to learning about the new Nintendo console. There’s apparently going to be some new stuff on Star Wars: the Old Republic, which is a game that I’m pretty excited about (though I do think a Mass Effect MMO would be far more exciting). Also CD Projekt Red (Polish developer of Witcher, a dark RPG I quite enjoyed though sadly never finished) is going to be announcing a new project, which should be interesting. And then there’s Bioshock Infinite.

Other than that I’m not sure what to be looking at/looking out for. If you want to, take a look at this exhibitor list and let me know if there’s anything you think I should check out. Maybe I’ll take my laptop with me and try to do some posts in the evenings, but I’m not going to be approaching this as a blogger primarily – this is as much about work and making connections (that dreaded “networking” thing) as it is anything else.

 

Originally posted here.