Mashing buttons since 1984
Not to make light of this sad story, but this quote made me smile:
Lee had recently quit his job to spend more time playing games, the daily JoongAng Ilbo reported after interviewing former work colleagues and staff at the Internet cafe.
Like I said, a gamer until the untimely end.
n0wak has noticed an interesting trend on Xbox Live.
Except for an occasional Halo 2 game, I haven’t been on Live for months. I’ve heard that NCAA 2006 is fun online but I have yet to give it a try.
Are they devolving? Matthew Sakey seems to think so.
“What do you mean by ‘devolving’?” asked one developer.
I mean they’re getting worse.
Read the whole thing. This was the first I’ve read of Sakey but it won’t be the last.
There are people out there that have a lot of time on their hands. A lot. (Trying hard to refrain from “I pity the fool” jokes). From Faces of WoW to Videogame Lookalikes. I’ve often been told I look a little like George Clooney, but that’s neither here nor there. He’s not video game character or anything.
Here at buttonmashing.com, we surf the net so you don’t have to.
From games.Slashdot, we get the head-scratching link du jour. It appears that the idea that teenagers playing video games can kill each other (digitally, not literally, although that’s happened, too) doesn’t sit well with the Chinese Government. What is this, communism?
“Minors should not be allowed to play online games that have PK content, that allow players to increase the power of their own online game characters by killing other players,” Liu Shifa, head of the MOC’s Internet Culture Division, which drafts policies governing the online gaming market, told Interfax. “Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their characters. They are harmful to young people.”
I’m a little confused here. What’s the “harmful” thing to young people? Being able to kill each other or having to grind hour after hour to “increase the power of their characters”? Of course both can be viewed as harmful, but let’s be honest. How bad can it really be? Let the kids play and let them beat up on each other. It’s fun!
Oh, and that sound you heard when this was announced? Thousands of Chinese gamers cheering when they realized that the days of being PK’ed by a 12 year-old who plays all day and has a character named Legola5.
I had plans to head to the Ohio State Fair yesterday. Unfortunately, the buttonDaughter has been afflicted with dual ear infections. It sucks for her but she seems to be on the mend. We didn’t make it to the Fair but we have plans to go soon. For now I’ll have to be content with The Carnival of Gamers #5 over at Unfettered Blather.
Update: Well down, Botswana, another Carnival has come and some good stuff has been posted. I don’t know if it’s the summer months, or what, but the submissions seem to be a little down this month. There were a few new faces, which is always good to see, but I had hoped for some of the old stand-bys to participate as well. No biggie, hopefully next months will attract a few more people, what with the summer winding down and Foton being the host. That’s gotta count for something!
I enjoyed every last one of the posts. I was surprised that there were only a couple GTA:SA posts. I guess people are just tired of it. I know I am (even though I submitted one of my GTA rants)! Personally, peterb’s piece on why consoles are better (which has been mentioned elsewhere) was my favorite.
Shortly thereafter, I stopped playing it. This week, I bought Myst III: Exile for Xbox at The Exchange. I had also bought Silent Hill 3 for the PS2, another game I already owned for the PC.
The reason is simple. I can play the console versions of these games from my couch.
True, that.
August is State Fair time in our beautiful state of Ohio. That means two things — the butter cow and fair food. If there is anything better than greasy fair food (served by greasy carnies) I don’t know what it is. Just behold the fried twinkie!
August also brings us the Carnival of Gamers #5! If you have a blog and you want to join, don’t hesistate! All your Carnival questions can be answered at the Carnival HQ. We’ve switched to the monthly format, which I think is more conducive to the submission of well written and witty blog posts. Hmmm, I guess that excludes me.
Oh well, I submitting something anyway.
I downloaded Fate a while ago, mostly because Bill at Dubious Quality was so high on it. I finally got around to installing it last night and I gave it about two hours of my time. If you haven’t heard of Fate, the long and short of it is that it plays like your average point-and-click slash ’em up. After my two hours of playing last night I thought to myself, “Meh, I’ve played this before. It didn’t offer me anything too groundbreaking or new.” Sure, I had a pet, I could fish, basically stuff I’d done in a dozen other games. I didn’t see myself playing it much more.
Then today, as I was eating lunch I realized I felt compelled to play some more Fate. I had some incomplete quests to fufill. There were townspeople counting on “McGee the Unknown” (Fate has a fame attribute that gives you titles as your fame increases). I had to go back. I thought about all the magic items for me to find, the fish to catch and the titles to earn and I wanted to play it. That’s a first. I haven’t felt this compelled to play a game since I first started playing Resident Evil 4. In fact, I think I’m going to return to Fate once I hit “Publish”. I will definitely be buying the full-version of this game. Check it out!
Where nerds, geeks and MMORPG freaks stop hiding behind their toons.
There’s more at RPG Faces.
Not really sure if that’s a good thing or not. A thousand jokes are swirling in my brain but I’m just too tired to throw any out there. Feel free to throw out your own.
That’s my first pass. I’ll elaborate on some of these after I’ve played a little more. I’m only a third of the way through my second Dynasty season as the North Royalton Bears. It isn’t easy being an Academic school in the MAC. We’re getting our butts handed to us each and every Saturday.