Archives for 2012
Weekend Gaming
The fall is upon and the deluge of good gaming is about the crest over the breakers and flood us with warm gaming goodness. But for now, it’s the calm before the storm.
I’ll be entertaining family visitors this weekend, but that hasn’t put a cramp in my gaming style before so this weekend shouldn’t be any different. I am getting really close to the end of Mass Effect 3 and have, above all obstacles, managed to avoid any spoilers to the ending. So with it this close, why did I download the latest DLC? And why does it always seem to be voodoo magic to get the DLC to actually be recognized in game? Either way, ME3 is my focus this weekend. That and whatever else Steam tries to sell me.
What will you be playing?
Guild Wars 2 – A good different
Yo Buttonmashers!
I have a little more free time than usual this week and it has allowed me to make this post about Guild Wars 2. Here are some of my thoughts on my experience in the first hours of the game.
First things first, the people at ArenaNet have their stuff together. Anyone who has played the first Guild Wars or has seen some of the beautiful concept art will know what I mean when I say video games can be considered art. I feel that the art team on Guild Wars 2 should be the winners of every award they can get for their wonderful work – regardless of the game itself.
Lets get to the game already!
It plays great. Currently it feels like an MMO without the subscription fee and that isn’t bad in my book. Something different from the first is that your weapon will determine what the first half of your skills will be. When you switch your weapon (2-handed, dual-wield two weapons of the same type, dual-wield weapons of different types) the skills will change and you will need to work on unlocking them by using the skills in line prior to them. Then the other half of your skills will be skills of your choice that you can unlock with skill points.
I have found that the easiest way to get skill points is to use the skill point events out in the world. One of these skill point events was as easy as clicking on a fountain of power and boom, you get your skill point. A second one of these was to kill a group of three bandits – one of which was named – and then you get your point. Its pretty straight forward but, rewarding regardless.
There are 8 professions and 5 races.
Races:
Official Name – My translation
Norn – Barbarians
Asura – Gnomes
Sylvari – Elves
Humans – Humans
Charr – Dogmen (they are one of the unique races that Guild Wars introduced)
Professions:
Warrior
Guardian
Engineer
Thief
Ranger (my choice at the moment)
Mesmer
Necromancer
Elementalist (Current champ! – I can summon elementals!)
I will say that the best thing I have found so far is the random events in the world. You could be running along minding your own business and out of nowhere there is an event. Luckily in writing this post I logged in to look for some awesome scenery to show everyone and low and behold I encounter an event.
This first picture is me running into an event where people were taking down an Oakheart,
After checking out the battle and throwing a few arrows into the mix, I continued on to find a better screenshot for all of you.
I guess I should warn you, if you don’t want to have part of the game spoiled for you by reading the rest of this post.
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SPOILER!!!!
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OK!
That’s when I happened upon the swamp and noticed something through the trees that began to roar in the voice of the Balrog from LOTR.
I decided to grow a pair (mostly because the death penalty is minor – repair some gear and start over at the closest waypoint, plus events like these are like akin to, ” a moth to a flame” to quote a friend) and venture into the madness. Needless to say the ‘Shadow Monster’ was NOT happy.
The fight continued for a good 4 – 5 minutes, I even got knocked down once. Thankfully, ArenaNet added the ability to be revived by anyone – effectively removing the need for a “Cleric/Healer” class and makes the game flow a lot better in my opinion then the standard MMO fare. Even shadow monsters go the way of the Earth and it was defeated!
To my surprise, as this was my first BIG BOSS world event, there was a huge chest left where the monster had stood and it was waiting with treasures all for me!
The PvE (Player vs Enviroment) has not disappointed me in the slightest. The world is huge and there is plenty to do, you can look for vistas, quest, grind, event hop, etc. that I think I’ll be busy for a while. I haven’t even scratched the surface of PvP (Player vs Player) or WvW (World vs World) where three servers are pit in a battle against each other, fighting for control of forts, with siege weapons, hot oil to burn attackers from the turrets, etc.
I’m just starting out but, let me know if you’re in-game! Dragonbrand server.
You know what…I think I’m going to hop in now and get back to it.
See you inside!
(More to come – Next up:Rock JUMPING!)
September Releases
It’s that time again, the long list of monthly releases. Now that we’re hitting September, the big guns start showing up on the release lists. For the next three months there will be multiple day-one purchases for a lot of people, starting this month with Battlefield 3 and Borderlands 2. And things only get better from here.
Week of September 11th
NBA Baller Beats – Now that I’ve got the Kinect, I’m already paying attention to more Kinect games. Not necessarily this game, but I’m watching nonetheless.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
NHL 13
Battlefield 3
Week of September 18th
Kinect Sesame Street TV
Kinect Sports Ultimate
Zuma’s Revenge! with Bejeweled 3 and Feeding Frenzy 2
Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set – Here’s an entry to really make you feel old — Street Fighter’s 25 years old and you’re gonna die eventually! Enjoy these 11 discs worth of soundtracks! All I need is Guile’s theme and all 294 remixes.
F1: 2012
Borderlands 2 – Here’s what I’ll be picking up, sight unseen. I’ll gladly let it joy melt my face off.
Week of September 25th
Phantom Breaker – Special Edition
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes
Dead or Alive 5 – I play it for the articles…
FIFA Soccer 13
Angry Birds Trilogy
Week of September 11th
Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition
Week of September 25th
FIFA Soccer 13
Wow, not a great month for Wii owners!
Week of September 25th
ThunderCats – There’s only one DS release this month, but it’s a doozy! Thundercats, HO!
Week of September 25th
Angry Birds Trilogy
Boulder Dash-XL 3D
FIFA Soccer 13
Week of September 4th
The Sims 3 Supernatural
Week of September 11th
Battlefield 3
Week of September 18th
F1: 2012 Windows
Borderlands 2
Week of September 25th
FIFA Soccer 13 [Download]
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
Jagged Alliance: Crossfire
Week of September 11th
Mugen Souls
Battlefield 3
NHL 13
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Week of September 18th
Borderlands 2
Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set
F1: 2012
Week of September 25th
FIFA Soccer 13
Dead or Alive 5
Angry Birds Trilogy
Week of September 25th
FIFA Soccer 13
LittleBigPlanet
Week of September 25th
FIFA Soccer 13 – This is the only PSP game for the next few months on the horizon. I think this might be the last time we list the PSP releases here.
What are you picking up?
(Note: As always, all Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission. It’s appreciated.)
In My Hands
(Image from here)
Yeah, I’m a couple years behind the curve on this one, but I never felt there was a compelling reason to get a Kinect. Yes, I knew the kids would love playing on it, but we had the Wii already and the Kinect just didn’t seem necessary. Then grandpa decided it was time for the to have their own Kinect and delivered us our hardware last week.
It’s already got the kids sweating and that’s a win in my book. I’m just not yelling Skyrim Dragon Shouts anytime soon. The other stuff? Can’t wait to try it…
Weekend Gaming
I’m a little late getting this one out, but this weekend is the first weekend of college football. Which means my gaming will be pretty sparse. But, I hope to get a little gaming in this weekend. I realized after posting the Borderlands 2 trailer, that I still have not beaten the original Borderlands. So I have a couple weeks to rectify that situation. I may get some Borderlands in this weekend if I can pull myself away from college football.
I’ve also been playing a handful of games on my PC and iPhone that I’ll be posting about soon. They all involve one thing: Towers.
Also, I’ll be mentioning this in a post real soon, but we’ve also added a new peripheral to the video gaming rig. So the kids will be wanting to play that whenever they can this weekend.
What will you be playing?
Borderlands 2 is almost here!
I’m posting this again because: A) I am super pumped about Borderlands 2 next month and B) I unironically love dubstep.
Give Up
Weekend Gaming
So, after I transformed into Albert Freaking Einstein and fixed the color wheel on my TV, I am back in business when it comes to the console world. I had a little workaround while my TV was out of commission, using my PC monitor to connect to the Xbox 360, but since my monitor’s resolution was 1920×1200, things looked a little muddy. It will be nice to get back to my normal operations, though, because I had made a bit of progress in Mass Effect 3 and I really want to finish that up. I don’t like leaving the galaxy in the lurch like that!
But, with the Xbox not being an attractive option these past couple weeks, I’ve also taken to a bit of “snacking” from my Steam Library, playing a bit of Age of Empires Online and Defense Grid: The Awakening.
So now my weekend gaming battle station is again fully operational. So I’ll be doing a little bit of everything this weekend.
What are you going to play?
UPDATE: I just noticed that Hero Academy just launched on Steam, so I’ll be adding that to my weekend gaming, starting: NOW.
August Releases
August is a holiday for a certain group of sports gamers that await the yearly release of their Super Mario Brothers, Madden NFL Football. While I’m an NCAA kinda guy, Madden will always hold that special place in my heart as one of the first sports games I ever played on the PC. That was A LONG time ago.
There’s also Darksiders II, the sequel to the cult favorite (apparently) under appreciated adventure game. I may have to give that one a looksee one of these days.
On to the releases:
Week of August 7th
Persona 4 Arena
Week of August 14th
Sleeping Dogs
Darksiders II
Week of August 28th
Port Royale 3: Pirates & Merchants
Harry Potter for Kinect
Damage Inc., Pacific Squadron WWII
Madden NFL 13
Week of August 14th
The Last Story
Week of August 28th
Madden NFL 13
No notable releases for the Nintendo DS
Week of August 14th
New Super Mario Bros. 2
Week of August 28th
Rollercoaster Tycoon – I thought this game was supposed to come out last month, but either way, I still think this could be a killer 3D game.
Planet Crashers
Week of August 14th
Disciples III Gold
Legends of Pegasus
Sleeping Dogs [Download]
Darksiders II
Week of August 21st
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron [Download]
Week of August 28th
Port Royale 3: Pirates & Merchants
Damage Inc., Pacific Squadron WWII
Guild Wars 2 – I know I’m not the only one here that lost countless hours to Guild Wars, but I have no desire to play this game. Maybe that will change after I see reviews or give a demo a try? I’m not sure.
Week of August 7th
Persona 4 Arena
Week of August 14th
Darksiders II
Sleeping Dogs
Week of August 28th
Damage Inc., Pacific Squadron WWII
Journey Collector’s Edition
Ratchet & Clank Collection
Madden NFL 13
Week of August 21st
Ragnarok Odyssey
Week of August 28th
Madden NFL 13
No notable releases for the Sony PSP
What are you picking up?
(Note: As always, all Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission. It’s appreciated.)