buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Archives for 2004

Lets play some games!

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I haven’t had much time to play many games this week, I played a little Fable Wednesday night and some Advance Wars last night (I finaly beat FF:TA!) so I’m looking forward to a little gaming. That should happen this weekend.

Finally, I’ll get some time to play some video games this weekend! We’re going to the in-laws house this weekend, to visit with Greta’s older brother and his family. Same guy we visited out west last month, so there will definitely be a lot of NCAA 2005. Her other brother will be there, too, so we’ll have some 3 players vs. the CPU. It’s always good fun. The girls will want to get in on the gaming, too, so we’ll play some Mario Kart and some Pac Man Vs. Should be a good weekend.

Spectator Mode on Xbox Live?

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I saw this tidbit over at Kotaku today, talking about a spectator mode on Xbox Live. I don’t have an Xbox Live account (I’ve thought about it numerous times) but this idea just doesn’t resonate with me.

For one thing, I work full time and have a 20 month old daughter. When I do get a free moment to play some video games, the last thing I would do is fire up the Xbox to watch someone else play. Just doesn’t sound like a good time to me.

Now, on the other hand, I can see where this is going – Xbox Live Leagues. There’s talk of a ticker of scores while you’re watching/playing. Again, I don’t think I’d tune in to watch an online match of NCAA 2005 when I can fire up ESPN and watch the real thing. But I know many people want professional gaming here in the USA and this could be the first step towards that.

Gaming Blogs

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Hopefully this is a trend to come: more gaming blogs. There have been a few “gaming blogs” (if such a thing exists). Penny Arcade has been a sort-of blog for a long time, Game Girl Advance is another site that has some great insight into this world we call gaming. Now sites like Joystiq and Kotaku are starting to garner more of a wide spread audience for gaming blogs. There are a few sites I’ve got bookmarked as gaming blogs, and I’ve started a list in the sidebar of gaming blogs I read.

So how did ButtonMashing become a blog? I began thinking about starting a gaming site back in January when I was a SAHD (stay at home dad, for the uninitiated). I was looking for something that was productive and fun to do while the baby slept. The idea of ButtonMashing was born. At first I thought of making a site that would be an aggregate of reviews of video games, but GameRankings does a pretty good job of that. Then I thought about a site for links to gaming news and announcements, but GameTab and Evil Avatar do that much better than I could. So I there went that idea, too. I finally settled on using simple blogging software (Blogger in this case) and simple blog about what gaming I was doing and what I thought about gaming in general. I had the best of intentions, but then life happened and I got a full-time job. That not only reduced my video gaming time, but my online time in general. Now that things have settled down, I can finally get some good gaming in and some good blogging. While I’m still working on garnering an audience, I do appreciate those of you who stop by and read whatever I’ve jotted down. Hopefully it will be worth something.

Now I’m on the look out for new and old gaming blogs. If you have one, or know of a good one I’m missing, let me know. I’d love to hear from fellow gaming bloggers. Hopefully we can build a community similar to other “blogospheres” out there.

Blogshares

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ButtonMashing.com is now listed on the Fantasy Blog Stock Market at BlogShares.com. Go sign up and buy some shares of ButtonMashing while it’s cheap! This site will be going through the roof, as will its share price! You’ll want to get in on the ground floor. When you sign up you’ll get 500$, invest some of it in this site!

Start them when they’re young!

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I always thought I’d still be playing video games with my grandkids. While the kids in the picture aren’t my grandkids, one of them is mine. The little girl on the left is my beautiful daughter, Corinne. (The others are my niece and nephews) This picture was taken in February a week or two before she had her first birthday. She is the best!

I think video games will play a part in my children’s lives, just a minor one. They will get to play games but they will earn their playing time. No mindless time wasting, I hope. I started playing games when I was seven or eight years old but I don’t think I ever over did it. Sure, I’ve had my marathon sessions of gaming but I never played so much that it was unhealthy. Hopefully my kids will like video games to some degree and come to appreciate them like I do.

More Fable

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I did have a chance to play a little more Fable and I must say I’m beginning to see flaws become more apparent.

First and foremost, the game purports to be open-ended. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In each zone there are multiple paths you can take to get places but they really don’t let you go anywhere else. No exploring off the path, no random encounters in the woods, nothing. It’s just getting from point A to point B and doing X. Nothing open-ended about that.

Farting and flirting is also starting to lose its initial fun. Interactions with the NPCs are good but still feel canned and unnatural. I suppose I really need to give the game some more face time and let my character develop and see how that really works. Seeing the scars appear and watching him grow is still cool but I am just not feeling Fable right now.

Games this weekend

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I didn’t have much time to play games this weekend, but Friday night the husbands got together while the girls went to the movies and we got some gaming in. We were going to play some one-on-one NCAA but didn’t get much football in. We ended up playing some Pac Man Vs.

The game was included in a copy of R-Racing Evolution I picked up for ten bucks at Best Buy. We played it while we were in Utah but this is the first time I’ve mentioned it. The game is actually pretty dang fun. It is simple and not very deep but it still holds our collective interest a lot longer than some games have. The concept is simple – one player is Pac Man and he uses the GBA and gets to see the whole board. The other three guys play the ghosts and only see a portion of the board. Pac Man then tries to clear the board while the ghosts try to catch him. Suprisingly, there is strategy and actual structure to the game. We like it a lot and it is a wife-friendly game, too. I highly recommend it.

Fable’s first impressions

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I didn’t update last night, I was too busy playing Fable! Before I get my second crack at it this evening, my first impressions:

Presentation is pretty sharp. The graphics definitely aren’t the best in the world but it still looks darn good. The character models look great, if not a little over-exaggerated. The big gloves and boots you wear as a kid look a little disproportionate but it works. My adult character has already done a couple quests involving battle and he’s beginning to develop scars. That is pretty cool. Music is great, as well.

The openness of the game has been great. A game that will let me fart, burp and flirt at will has been great. Character interaction is pretty well done, too. As a little boy I decided to punch a little girl looking for her lost teddy bear. She screamed and ran away from me. The next time I talked to her, she cowered in fear and pleaded that I not hurt her and would I please find her bear. Then I ran into a town guard who informed me that if I was an adult he’d have to rough me up. Then later still my dad said he heard I’d been doing some bad things and pleaded with me not to sully his good name. I like that.

The gestures are pretty cool. I’m getting some renown and girls are already swooning for me. It’s fun to flirt and watch her heart grow as she gets enamored with me, then fart and make a mean face and watch her run. I just learned the “I’m sorry” gesture and now I think I’ll go punch someone and then tell them I’m sorry. I’ll be interested to see how that affects things.

So far I must say I’m impressed. I think I’ve barely scratched the surface (I’ve only played for about 2 hours) so I really can’t form a coherent opinion just yet. I like it a lot and I’ll reserve judgement for later.

Video games aren’t all bad!

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For a while there, video games only received bad press. GTA-inspired shootings and murders involving an Xbox were the headlines. Now stories of what good can come of video games are starting to come out. There have been stories of surgeons who play video games have more success. Now, Wired News has this story about a “Games for Health” conference where game makers and health educators are getting together to talk about games. There are games that can be used for training –

Rosser, who heads the Advanced Medical Technology Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, knows how he’d like to see games used. Since 2001, he’s worked with games like Super Monkey Ball, for Nintendo’s GameCube console, to train doctors in laparoscopic surgery. What Rosser found was that students who had played video games for more than three hours in one week — even once — had 37 percent fewer errors during the procedure, and got the operation done 27 percent more quickly.

And for treatment –

… which has used video games and digital worlds to treat more than 400 people with anxiety disorders. Patients there use the games to face their phobias. People afraid to drive play Midtown Madness, a racing game; those with fear of heights use a custom-crafted level from the Unreal Tournament shooter game, which features pixelated skyscrapers 50 stories tall.

Neocron 2 Open Beta

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I’ve participated in a few open betas, most recently I played Planetside (which was okay but not worth picking up). So when I saw Neocron 2 was holding one I decided to give the game another chance. Maybe. My Neocron character, “I ain’t yer Pa,” is currently in a cryo-genic holding pattern since I cancelled my account last month. I figured I’d give Dome of York a chance, and now with an open beta I may just find out. If Neocron 2 is any good he may come out from his slumber.

I was a little confused, though, because I thought Dome of York was an expansion, not a new game, so I’m interested to see how that plays out. I’m currently Bit Torrenting my copy, but since this isn’t the WoW Stress Beta there aren’t too many seeds out there, resulting in a SSSSLLLLOOOOWWWW download. I probably won’t get around to it until tomorrow.

That presents a second conundrum. Fable is available tomorrow, too. I’ll give both a chance but since I’ll be paying for Fable I expect it will take more of my time off the bat. We’ll go from there.