From “The Dynamic Trinity” by Matt Burlingame. I especially love the guy from Dig Dug.
(via who killed bambi?)
Archives for December 2007
Comic Watch – Wondermark (new webcomic)
In my never ending quest to find high quality web-comics, I present one I recently came upon: Wondermark. The video game references earns extra bonus points, but that’s just icing on the cake. You should be reading this one if you aren’t already.
Mass Effect [360] – First Impressions
As I usually do, I’ll keep this short and simple, in bullet form. Since the missus wanted to watch The Biggest Loser, I get to blog. So here are a few impressions I’ve had. For context (generalized to avoid spoilars) I recently got my ship and started exploring planets. I think I’m about five hours in and have already explored three planets.
What I like:
- I’m not usually distracted by shining objects, but Holy Moses eating a Twinkie, this game is beautiful. It feels like space.
- The music. It fits perfectly. I hear a little Terminator and other sci-fi influences.
- The character customizations, the RPG elements, the ability to control what your squad has equipped and the skills they use.
- Exploring space. I’ve been ignoring the main missions, I’m just flying around and checking out new planets.
- The story and all the lore (especially the narrated information). It is really engaging and almost overwhelming. I’ve been listening to everything, reading everything and really enjoying it. It’s worth the time to read and it’s really well fleshed out.
- The combat. I actually didn’t like the shooter elements at first (along with the cover system) but it’s growing on me. It works well and being able to pause whenever I want is perfect.
What I don’t care for:
- The conversation wheel. While it is really cool and fun to control a conversation, it’s actually a source of consternation. I am always conflicted with which way to go with the conversation. I am guiding my character to be a “renegade” (there are two “alignment” paths: paragon (goodie two shoes) or renegade (ne’er do weller)) but I struggle constantly with choices. The “renegade” choice doesn’t jive with my personal moral compass. I want my guy to be the renegade but I feel guilty doing the “mean” thing. It doesn’t feel right.
The conversation wheel also stresses me out because I feel like I’m going to miss something if I don’t make the “right” choice to move the story along. Sometimes options disappear after you’ve got done a particular path. The obsessive in me wants to see it all!.
- The acting. It can be absolutely wooden at times. It doesn’t always work. We have not entered the Uncanny Valley quite yet in Mass Effect.
- While I do like the control they give you over the squad customizations, I don’t actually care for having a squad most of the time. The path-finding is horrible, too. Can you please step aside, dude? You’re getting in the way and you’re about to get lasered.
So yeah, the good outweighs the bad by a huge margin. Mass Effect has been very food thus far.
How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take in A Fight?
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I don’t normally pass this stuff along, but this was just too funny to pass up. So how many could you take? Assassin edit: and I have one five year old I can barely keep up with.
Weekend Update
We had a crazy weekend of winter weather here in central Ohio (if you caught a glimpse of the Browns/Bills game on Sunday, that’s a little glimpse we had here on Saturday) but there were lots going on at the Casa Buttonmashing.
Even with the horrible weather conditions, my brother-in-law (here on referred to as the BIL) and I still braved the nasty roads and made our way to the theater to check out I am Legend. I recently finished the book last month (in preparation for the movie, of course) and was very excited about the movie. I enjoyed it. Will Smith does a great job of playing Robert Neville, a man all alone. People are giving the movie bad marks, saying it isn’t like the book. This isn’t fair. The movie, in my mind, is a reimagination of the book. There are a lot of similarities, but things happen in the movie that don’t happen in the book. That is not an indictment of the movie, though. It still explores many of the same concepts the book does: solitude, companionship, despair, horror. They’re all there and they’re done very well. Maybe a little heavy on some of the CGI and some of Will Smith being Will Smith, but it all works in the end. I wasn’t a huge fan of the way the movie ends, but it was still somewhat true to the overall theme of the book.
I give I am Legend a thumbs up
I got an early christmas present from the Sis and BIL, hooking me up with Age of Empires DS. I had played it previously but never made much headway in the actual campaigns. It’s great turn-based strategy goodness and I’m looking forward to some more time with the game.
I’m still playing Mass Effect – Impressions will be up soon. I am loving this game.
Finally, a hand update: I am able to play games now, (obviously) but I haven’t braved anything fast-paced (read: Halo 3 on Live). I’ve been training my hand with Geometry Wars but I really want to get back to some Halo 3 multiplayer. I was really enjoying it before the “incident” and was having a pretty good go at 2v2 matches with n0wak. Now that the BIL will be back on Live, I should be back and fully operational rather soon.
On a side (and perhaps gross) note, I was instructed by my doctor to begin doing some therapy on my fingers, so scar tissue doesn’t build up or my tendons tighten up. Well today I was working my pinkie finger, which wasn’t bending very far before it got tight and painful. The therapy consisted of bending the individual fingers until it got uncomfortable and then holding it at that point for a ten count. Well today, while doing said exercise, I felt and faintly heard something tear. Actually, it felt more like something gave out. The sound it made is hard to replicate, but it didn’t sound normal and I got a pit in my stomach, thinking I had done something bad. I can still move the finger just fine, but now I’m nervous to do my stretching again.
So, how was your weekend? Any torn tendons? 🙂
To Burnout or not to
I haven’t downloaded the Burnout Paradise demo yet (Mass Effect is too good, must not neglect it for some little demo), but two separate posts showed up today in my feeds that are conflicting, to say the least. I’m a huge Burnout fan (have been since I played the heck out of Burnout 2 on the Gamecube and haven’t missed one since). I have been looking forward to the newest iteration of the series. The newest addition is an “open world” type of racing game. The 1UP Yours guys love it. So does N’Gai
Matt Brett, not so much.
Have you given the demo a try yet? What do you think? Me, I’m going to play some Mass Effect. I’ll give the demo a try in a couple weeks!
Comic Watch – Sally Forth
Sally Forth is one of the few comics that “gets it.” I got a good chuckle out of this one. Good old Ted Forth, the hero of the Slacker Generation.
In my hands
(One broken hand, one whole one):
Nintendo DS 3.0?
Some people seem to think it’s already done. Does it look like this:
Of course these are not super seekrit drawings stolen from Nintendo’s HQ. They showed up in some random guy’s Flickr feed. Still, it’s fun to speculate and wonder what the new DS will look like and if Nintendo will be going the PSP/iPod Touch media player route. Not that that would be a bad thing.
GameBook
MEGATONik has a humorous look at some of the “casual” games offered on the Social Super-Network, Facebook.
Of the games they reviewed, I’ve only played WarBook. Probably for a sum total of about eight minutes. It’s a horrible and boring clickfest. One game they didn’t list that I have actually (and tragically) played was Pirates, which I was tricked into playing by WarBook. It’s more confusing and less fun than WB! No thanks.
If your looking for casual gaming or time-wasting (that’s redudant, right?), Kongregate is the place to be.