buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Tony

Catching up

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I’ve mentioned a couple times that I have a stack of games. I’ve had a chance to break open a couple of these games and wanted to mention what I’ve played.

The first one I played is R: Racing Evolution. I’ve never played other Ridge Racing games (which I’ve heard are great) but I was pretty disappointed with this one. Sure, there’s the pretty protagonist and a decent story mode, it just didn’t do it for me. The racing wasn’t that great. Controls felt soft and the physics didn’t feel right, either. I’ll probably give this one another try but I wasn’t that impressed.

The other game I played was XIII. This game has a little more promise the R:Racing. I’ve played for a couple hours and I really like the comic book-ish, cel-shaded look. I’m looking forward to making more progress with this one. It seems like it was another game released at an unfortunate time. I picked this one for a song, so if you see it at your favorite second hand store cheap, I recommend picking it up.

I’ve got a few more to play out before family comes to visit this weekend, when most of the gaming time will be devoted to NCAA 2005 and Mario Party. I’ll update those later.

Hail to the Victors…

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… Hail, Hail, to EA Sports, the owners of all Licenses!

I saw this first over at Evil Avatar (I’ll avoid referring to them as EA for a while) and then saw pretty much everywhere else, but EA has scooped up the NCAA football rights. Big surprise.

What does surprise me, though, is this “Collegiate Licensing Company” that EA has made this deal with. A quick look at the list of schools the CLC represents will make an Ohio State Univeristy Buckeye fan wonder… They’re not included in the list. Neither is the Big Ten. Or the PAC 10. Or USC. So 2 of the last 3 National Championship teams aren’t included in the list of schools that fall under the CLC’s umbrella of schools. Interesting.

So does that mean that EA shelled out millions for this “right” and then had to go to each individual school/conference not included under CLC’s holdings and pay even more? I sure hope so.

I had hoped that, with ESPN 2k Sports losing out on the NFL license, we would see an ESPN College Football offering. I thought they could do something special there but now we’ll never know. I’m not as indignant as most people are about this news but it doesn’t really surprise me. EA makes good business moves, what more needs to be said?

Cheaters are dumb.

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Like me rephrase that — the guys who figure out the cheats, not so dumb. I would imagine it’s no small task figuring out how to beat the system. That takes guts and brains. But the ones who use it after everyone knows what’s going on — dumb.

Last week, three of us from the Halo 2 clan were playing on Live, trying to stay alive in some clan matches. We meet up with three of Halo 2 best and brightest and have a go at a Multi Flag CTF in Colossus (one of my favorite maps, which makes for some good CTF). You can view the game stats here.

Anyway, once the game starts, things seem normal. I was sniping like a mad man in previous games, so I make a bee-line for the Covenant Sniper. I hustle over, get it before Red does and I get in position for some head shots. Then things start acting screwy. The alert pops up that the Red Team has grabbed our flag. I pull up the scope, zoom in to our base and see something peculiar – Red Teammate #1 one is running into a corner. What’s he doing? Is he going to take a quick leak on our base before he bolts? No one pisses on my flag. I line up his pretty little head and whamo! I pull the trigger. Strange, nothing happens. Whamo! Another shot, deadnuts. Nope, still jogging in place, in the corner. Then everything rushes around and I’m the one running into a wall as he scores. Uh oh. Immediately we know what’s going on. Smarty-pants Team Red is using the “Lag Cheat” to score one for the bad guys.

Over team chat we contemplate quitting and not give them the satisfaction of cheating us, but we’re upstanding Live citizens who never quit, so we decide to wait it out. As you can see, six minutes later they had scored on us thrice and the game ended. Now remember, cheaters are dumb.

On the score screen after the game, I fully expected them to bolt, nary a word. But they don’t. In some sort of retarded reverse psychology, Red Team starts complaining about lag. “You guys must have been lag cheating us!” they accuse. What? The purpose of cheating is to win by any means necessary. So if, as you accuse, we have cheated, we should have won. Makes sense to me. “No, no lag cheating going on here,” we reply. “Whatever, it was lagging like hell, you guys are cheaters,” is their retort. “Again, we didn’t cheat. In fact, it’s blatantly obvious that you guys were cheating and you’ll be promptly left feedback accordingly.” The logic simply baffles the mind. Here’s were it/they get dumber.

“No, you guys were cheating and we’re reporting you!” they lash back. “You know what?” they consider, “if you guys don’t report us, we won’t report you. Deal?” Right. They promptly exit the game and the three of us just start laughing. Feedback is left and we go on our way, satisfied knowing an update is coming and all the frauds out there will be exposed for what they are:

Dumb cheaters. Dumb, I tell ya.

Strong all along

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311 logoLike Adam over at render, I seriously considered picking up a new PSTwo so I could play Katamari Damacy. He took the plunge but I have resisted. With such a HUGE library, I know I am missing out on a lot of good games. But I don’t have an unlimited gaming budget, something has to give. So I doubt I’ll ever pick up a PS2, which means I probably won’t experience some of those great games. With respect to Katamari Damacy, though, I feel a little vindicated after I read this! It looks possible that we might get Katamari on the Gamecube. Excellent news.

It got me thinking about the life span of a video game console. The PS2 is going on five years old and the Gamecube and Xbox are both going on four years old. Safe to say they’re all in their prime. And the games (like Katamari Damacy) show it. In the past year we’ve had the fantastic Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube, GTA and KD for the PS2, and Halo 2 and the game I’m currently playing, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for the Xbox. I still think there is a lot of life left in this generation of consoles.

[Read more…] about Strong all along

Extreme Makeover

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Buttonmashing is going through plastic surgery (a little nip here, tuck there) so things may look wonky as I make changes. With a new theme (that obviously isn’t in English) there’s a lot to do here, but things are starting to come together.

Update – Since the anesthetic hasn’t worn off, we’re going in for a second pass. I really like the way the dimension 2k theme looks but it doesn’t completely work and I’m too lazy to translate German so I’m hunting for a new theme. Hopefully it won’t be too hard to get everything looking the way I want it.

Update 2 – I think I’m sticking with my current theme, I like the way it looks and while I’ll be making a few changes, I think I’m pleased with the looks. At least for now.

Update 3 (4/13/2005) – I’ve finally added my blogroll to the sidebar along with some Google Ads. I don’t have to pay for hosting just yet but my free hosting will be ending soon, so any clicks on the Google Ads would be appreciated. I would still like to replace the header graphic, but I don’t have time right now, time to go play some Halo 2 online.

Mutually Assured Destruction: Corante > Got Game? >

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Mutually Assured Destruction: Corante > Got Game? >

Everquest, it appears, still has a thing or two to teach us about online worlds.

This is a great read by Andrew Phelps about the eminent merger of EQ servers. Very well thought out and welll written. While playing Neocron, I often wished they would merge servers since there were about 400 players on average per server. On a Friday night the most populated server (the one I played on, the Saturn Server) would only have about 800 players. I wanted a merger of all the servers but after reading this it could have been a bad idea, moreso with a smaller number of players.

MMOG players are a fickle bunch.

The Games we Play

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I have pulled myself away from Halo 2 this weekend long enough to give some new games a try. I’ve got games I picked up on sale at Toys R Us in a pile, which are being neglected, I traded some of my games with a friend and got a handful of games from him, and I have a free rental at Hollywood Video every month that I have to use. I don’t want anymore new games until I play the ones I already have. I try to avoid the list of weekly releases, just to avoid temptation.

First off, I put Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 in to give that a fly. I loved 2004 2003 but never played it much past the first handful of challenges. 2005 looks and feels pretty similar, but as with other EA sports games, the enhancements and polish are noticeable. The most fun I’ve had so far with Tiger Woods is the character creation part (called EA SPORTS Game Face II). I sat there for a half an hour with my mom and wife crafting my electronic counterpart. What better people to keep me honest while I made the mental projection of my digital self. (or is that the other way around? The Matrix is so confusing) Anyway, my golfer looks so much like me it’s scary. I’ve only played two rounds so far, but I am really enjoying TW 2005. Unlockables in a sports video game are like heroin to me, so I can see myself playing this a lot. There are thousands of unlockables. I have already been offered a sponsorship for Maxfli products (in the form of what? an unlockable!). What a game! I’m shooting for that TaylorMade sponsorship. I didn’t try out the online aspect of the game, I need to find someone to play with first. I haven’t seen announcements for the 2006 iteration of this game, so I may look to pick up a copy of this game. Great video game golf.

I’m late to the party, but I’ve finally tried Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. So far I’ve only played about an hour into the game but I definitely see why this game was on the top of most 2003 Game of the Year lists. I’m liking what I’ve played so far.

Anything D&D always has a place in my heart. My brother-in-law and I gave Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes a try this week, as well. D&D Heroes wasn’t super well-received by the reviewing community, but I give it a multi-player thumbs up. The story isn’t going to grip you but the mindless hack-and-slash is fun enough to give it a shot. It’s basically Gauntlet in D&D clothes (which certainly isn’t a bad thing). I doubt I’ll play this much by myself but whenever my bro-in-law is in town I can see us throwing down, saving whatever world or universe or plane we’re trying to save. I told you the story was forgettable.

Looking ahead to next week, I’d like to get some more time in Metroid Prime 2, finally give Viewtiful Joe 2 a try, and get to some other games in the unplayed-queue. Also, after reading gatmog’s review of the free trial for Everquest 2, I may give that a whirl, too. He doesn’t resoundingly endorse it but doesn’t condemn it, either. I want a new MMOG. I’m intrigued by EQ 2’s crafting system. I like that it isn’t a particular class that specializes in crafting. One of things about Neocron was that the Constructors (crafters) were usually weak fighters. I was a pretty good constructor but I couldn’t take down the big baddies by myself. I always needed a Tank which was frustrating since they had the good parts needed to craft rare items. I’d like to see how EQ 2 handles crafting. That’s my bread and butter.

I haven’t abandoned Halo 2 yet, I’ve got to support the clan, but I’m not playing it exclusively anymore. I hope it doesn’t get jealous.

Busy week

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I know it’s a blogging no-no to apologize for the lack of posts, but that’s basically what this is. I have been busy with things (including hours of Halo 2 on Live) which have prevented me from my blogging duties. And now I that I have time to actually write something I’m headed out for a night on the town with the buttonWife. But I appreciate your patronage and your daily visits (even you, Ted Jr.) so I don’t want this week to go by without me offering something. (As if a regular post from me is anything, anyway)

With that in mind – if there are any buttonmashers out there that need a Google GMail account, let me know. I’ve got invites out the yazoo. Drop me an email at buttonmashing at gmail dot com or leave a comment here. They just recently increased the size of their mailboxes to 2 GB, so if you don’t have one already, now is your chance!

Halo 2 Expands

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I posted this submitted this earlier today to Evil Avatar but I haven’t posted here since I’ve been watching March Madness all evening. So I’ll just quote myself from EA’s site:

Bungie.net’s weekly update gives us the lowdown on the upcoming “expansion” pack. From the update:

  • We’re releasing a total of nine new multiplayer maps.
  • All nine maps will eventually be available as Live downloads and as a normal boxed game disc – available at retail for $19.99 (US).
  • The release on Live will be staggered, some paid, some free!
    The first two maps are free and coming in a few short weeks. (late April)
  • The same day the 2 free maps are released, 2 additional maps will be available for purchase.
  • The remaining 5 maps will be made available as a paid download on the same day the retail package goes on sale.
  • The retail disc will contain extras, including a documentary, a cool project from our cinematic and animation team, every Halo 2 update released so far and possily one or two other little treats.
  • By late summer, ALL the maps will be available for free.

It goes on to describe some of the new maps and includes a FAQ for all your questions. I was a tad disappointed that there won’t be a Hang ’em High translation but the new stuff definitely looks spiffy. I’m holding judgement on the whole “purchase the new maps now” vs. “wait until late summer”. I think it’s gonna cause major headaches for match making. Get used to playing with the same people who will pay for the new maps.

I said originally I was holding judgement. The more I’ve thought about this, the less I like it. Halo 2 sold millions of copies of Halo 2. Let’s just say 5 million copies. At 50 bucks a pop, that’s a quarter of a billion dollars. Now, from my previous findings, the publisher and developer get about 20 bucks a pop. (MS and Bungie in this case). That works out 100 million dollars. Wrap your brain around that number a little bit before we move on. Good. Now, let’s pretend it cost Bungie and Microsoft 30 million dollars to develop, test, market, and produce Halo 2. Let’s say it has cost Bungie a million bucks to keep Bungie.net (and all the terrific stats they maintain) up and running. That leaves sixty-nine million dollars in their collective coffers. That is a lot of scratch. I would think they could dip into those reserves and throw us a bone with new maps. Do they really have to charge for this? I also see this as giving game developers a “safety net” for delivering games missing vital elements, knowing they can always go back and patch them, but that’s a different topic all together. What I’m trying to say is Halo 2 earned Bungie and Microsoft a HEALTHY little profit. Isn’t 19.99 a little steep to ask for an update that will eventually be freely available? And what about buying the maps on Live? How much will they cost us? I don’t want to have to pay to get things I initially thought would be free.

“But,” you might counter, “if you’re patient, all the maps will eventually be available for free.” Ahh, but there’s an interesting tid-bit in the FAQ for the upcoming expansion:

By late Summer, with the support of Mountain Dew, all the maps will be completely free.

So it’s not even Bungie fronting this offering, it’s Mountain Dew. One of the maps not highlighted, but was mentioned in the update, is named “Backwash”. Will this map contain some form of a Moutain, covered with a Dew? Some Mountain Dew ads, perhaps? We’ll have to wait and see.

A stroll around the gaming blog-o-sphere

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I’ve been light on the blogging lately (having a new baby in the house has been keeping me a little busy). But I’ve been keeping up on my reading and I wanted to highlight a couple things that have tickled my fancy. So on to the stroll…

Gamers come in many flavors (which is a topic for another day) but game girl advance has a great post about how EA has appaled to the gamers that aren’t “hard core”. Call them what you like (sports gamers, frat gamers, whatever) but they are a force t0 be reckoned with. I would wager that the non-hard cores outnumber us more “committed” gamers 10 to 1. I love my sports games as much as the next sports gamer but I would wager they could care less about the beauty that is found in TLoZ:Wind Waker. People can say EA is doing a lot of things wrong but they sell games. When it’s all said and done, that’s what this business is really about. People can rail against the commercialization and “Hollywood way of doing things” but it’s all about making money.

I’m still torn on the PSP/DS debate. I will more than likely end up with a DS but I am so very tempted by the beauty that is the PSP. I followed Brian’s live blogging of his experiences with his “honey”. Good stuff. Looks like Mike at Pixel du Juor likes it, too.

I am rather jealous that render is going to E3. That would be such a mind job to attend that gaming mecca.

There have been complaints galore about the spotty (that’s being fair) reliability of WoW’s servers. But Foton puts it rather eloquently:

My point is this: you would not accept this kind of treatment with your car, or your cell phone service, or your cable service. If every time you went to a particular movie theater the soundtrack was mismatched, that would be entirely unacceptable, wouldn’t it?

Yes, it would. So the complaints are getting louder and Blizzard better start paying attention. But then again, I imagine complaints to your crack dealer would fall on deaf ears. He knows you’ll be back, whether your rocks are good or not.

I was impressed with Nintendo’s GDC Zelda trailer, but nowak brings up some good points. I, too, miss the cel shading. While the new Zelda looks amazing (and yes, I will be buying it) I wonder what beauty and art we’ll miss by not having the cel shaded look. At least there’s a chance for the next generation to have a cel shaded Zelda. Here’s to hoping.

So our stroll comes to an end. It’s a great time to be a gamer. So many possibilities. And so many things to complain about!