Mashing buttons since 1984
VG Cats has a most excellent little video of the ending credits song from Portal, Still Alive. It’s the best one around.
(Mild spoilers for the twenty of you who haven’t finished Portal yet. But seriously, I think the Spoiler Statute of Limitations for that game is over.)
If MMO’s were girlfriends, I would be one no-good, lousy, uncommitted boyfriend. But I just can’t do it. I can’t commit. I try my darnedest to do my part: I get excited about patches and expansions. I join guilds and get involved in the community. I drag my friends into the game with me. And invariably, I fizzle out. After I pass the initial honeymoon stage I start thinking, “am I really going to be doing this (grind, craft, boring Fed Ex quests) to the exclusion of everything else? And pay for it, too?” Then I get that sick feeling that I’ve been hoodwinked and I’m wasting my time. Then I bail.
It’s happening again. Everquest 2 is on the outs. It’s nothing EQ2 did. Overall, it was an enjoyable game with fairly agreeable players playing it. I had fun playing a Barbarian as a Bruiser, even if I did spend the last few months in a wrestling singlet. The world was beautiful, the gaming was satisfying and the grinding wasn’t super “grindy.” But not everything was perfect. The crafting, a very large factor of my overall enjoyment of an MMO, in EQ2 (as a Provisioner) was the most boring thing I’ve ever convinced myself was “fun.” Spending two hours a day for over a week crafting the same five items, because “hey, I have the raw materials,” is not fun. I even out-sourced the crafting to my wife. I showed her how to do it while she was emailing or playing spider solitaire on the other monitor. I OUTSOURCED MY FUN. Except it wasn’t fun.
So my adventures in Norrath are over, at least temporarily. I say that everytime I quit. “Temporarily.” But it never is. It’s permanent, no matter what I tell myself. My character in Neocron, my beloved Constructor, is gone. My Planetside what-ever-they-were called, gone. My army of Guild Wars warriors, kaput. My EVE pilot is still docked somewhere in space, awaiting my return. While I’d like to think we’ll meet up again, it probably ain’t happening. Same with Odious, the big lug. I’ll miss him.
I am a console gamer at heart, PC gamer by convenience. I’ve loved me some great PC games, but my gaming started with a console and I can’t deny my pedigree. There are currently just too many good games on the 360 (and the Wii, which at some point soon I will get). That’s not even considering the DS. So something had to go. It was time to say good by to Everquest 2. It was fun while it lasted.
Farewell, Odious. I knew thee well.
I just started this “Month in Review” recurring post last month and I’m already posting them late. Procrastination has taken yet another victim.
With the Thanksgiving holiday and an unfortunate and violent encounter with my fist and the floor, November was fairly slow. While I was able to post a little more than October, we only had 23 posts this month. Not making excuses, but it is hard to type with a big splint wrapped around one of your hands.
Since my hand was broken, I did hardly any gaming. I played a little Pokemon on the DS and some old-school Tetris on my GBA-SP (the kids love to see the rocket take off when you score 100k+ in a game). The majority of my gaming took place over at Kongregate.com where I spent an unhealthy amount of time playing Onslaught2. Nat and I have been discussing how much we like that site. Maybe we’ll put up a post about it one of these days.
Nat got in more gaming than I did, playing Assassin’s Creed among other games. He also put up a great review of Stuntman Ignition for the 360.
So what posts got the most traffic this month? There wasn’t much change for the top posts from last month. Lots of people are still looking for Dead Rising’s Infinite Mode, MMORPG sports, Resident Evil 4 Translations and Halo 3 stats. So here’s a list of the top three posts for November:
3. November Releases
2. Broken Hand Update
1. Yeewouch
The broken hand heard around the bloggameosphere.
As always, people arrived here by way of some odd search terms. A few:
“is 9.68 more than 9.6?” – I weep for the current state of the American Schooling.
“button mashing is awesome” – I was thinking the same thing!
“bullet spam” – Some one must have been watching me play Halo 3!
“2007 orthopedic gadgets” – I break one bone and all of a sudden I’m a orthopedic gadget expert? I hope this person found what he was looking for, but I doubt it.
“bungie how come my stats don’t upload” – First of all, I’m Tony. Second, I have no idea. Try asking here.
“i’m very popular in the mmorpg community” – I’m not touching this one.
That’s November. So what about December? I’d really like to continue to increase my posting frequency. There is always something fun to talk about. I’m very much looking forward to the snow, the holidays (along with a nice long vacation to get some gaming in) and seeing family and friends. Hopefully I’ve been a good boy and Santa has a Wii for me somewhere in his bag of goodies.
I haven’t mentioned much about the whole Kane & Lynch/Gamspot/Jeff Gerstmann thing, as there are better sources for that sort of information from people with more time than me to cover it.
Nevertheless, I’ve been thinking a lot about it, especially from the perspective of blogs. The idea (whether it’s true or not) that video game publishers can strong-arm “enthusiast” publications into providing favorable coverage (previews, media, reviews) has been around for a long time and has always been troubling. Something can and should be done. I have been mulling around with some ideas for buttonmashing.com that may or may not come to fruition, but it’s still something I feel strongly about. Maybe something we can remedy collectively.
However you feel about the whole situation should not stop you from reading N’Gai Croals piece today at his Level Up blog. It’s a must-read.
As always, the writers at McSweeney’s bring the funny.
B, A, X, Y, Y, DOWN, RIGHT Receive all weapons. Instantly gives you the complete Halo 3 arsenal, including the Mark V pulse rifle, covenant carbine, bouquet of flowers, chainsaw, plasma blade, flamethrower, gift basket with scented bath crystals, trip mine, magma cannon, some chocolates or something once in a while, submachine gun, wanting a foot massage does not make me “high-maintenance,” needler, missile pod, I’m not asking for the damn Hope Diamond here, railgun, and flak pistol. Oh, and the occasional-compliment-giver ray would be nice, too.
The gift basket with scented bath crystals absolutely pwns noobs.
Good stuff. (via Waxy links)
Dominos will be delivering Christmas joy with their pizzas this month to all the good boys and girls. And by Christmas joy, I mean Xbox 360s. Order a pizza between now and December 12th and then wish for the best! Your delivery guy may be bringing more than a double cheese pizza.
What would have really been meta is if you used /pizza in EQ2. I know that was a deal with Pizza Hut, but just imagine the irony. (Does /pizza even work any more?)
The best thing about this promotion? If you win, they won’t have to put your pizza in one of those warmer delivery bags — they can just put your pizza on top of the 360!
ZING!
Looking to get a Wii for someone special this Holiday Season? Like your favorite video game blogger? Here are some tips on “How to get a Wii.”
If lines like this make you want to rip your hair out, don’t watch the clip below:
“Detective, I’m 30 years old, I live with my mother, and I have a Captain Kirk costume in my closet.
Please, TV writers et al, stop doing this. You’re embarrassing yourselves.
(hat tip to my buddy Flamingsquirrel)
I was contacted by BS Angel earlier about joining in a sort of blog discussion group, something along the lines of the Carnival of Gamers and The Blogs of the Round Table. Since I’m all for blog interaction and finding new blogs to read, so I agreed to join in. I wanted to write a post to participate in this month’s “Banter” but just didn’t have a chance to get one together. Nevertheless, I thought I’d post the entries for this month’s topic. I also see this as a “passing of the baton” in terms of the Carnival. Interest has waned a bit with the Carnival and I just don’t have time to keep it going. So I think the Carnival will be going into retirement and I’ll be joining in with the participants of the Blog Banter down the road. Here’s a little blurb about it:
Blog Banter is a group of bloggers passionate about video games. We enjoy getting together once a month to write about the same subject. You will be amazed at the different viewpoints so many people can have on the same exact topic. If you are interested in participating, contact bs angel for more information. Enjoy our stories!
Blog Banter Articles :
Boffman22’s Memorable Gaming Moments (Boom Stick Brigade)
I love you Intellivision! (Boom Stick Brigade)
Just how much fun LAN can be! (Cat’s Blog)
Memoirs of a Young Gamer (Gaming with Baby)
Memorable Gaming Moments (Hawty McBloggy)
To Memory Lane and Back (Play Your Station)
Hit the Reset Button (Thoughts and Rants)
Memorable Gaming Moments (Zath Games Tech)
Becoming an Ace and Dealing With Minsc (Delayed Responsibility)
Old School, Middle School, New School (lukeshep.com)
What would go better with a nice tuxedo then some Nintendo Power cuff links?
