Review: Rock Band
So folks know I'm a big fan of the Guitar Hero series. When I first heard of Rock Band, I was pretty interested. For those who don't know - Rock Band expands upon the Guitar Hero concept by letting up to 4 people play at once. Two guys play guitar, one does drums, and another sings. I got Rock Band (thank you, you know who you are!) a few weeks ago and I've finally had time to play it a bit and share my experiences.
Forget web development, I'm becoming a gold farmer
After many years in the web development business, I've decided it's time to move on. Why? Because I think life as a World of Warcraft gold farmer will be much more lucrative and fufilling. I mean just look at the facts:
- In all my life as a web developer, I've not gained one level. After a month of WoW, I'm level 30 (half way to 31)
- How many murlocs do you get to kill when working on web pages?
- In web development, I have to deal with difficult clients ("Can you move this 5 pixels left? Now 2 pixels right"). In WoW I just kill my problems.
- ColdFusion may be rapid, but nothing is as quick as a few warrior skills (shouting and cleaving) and a good mace.
- And lastly - it's not like World of Warcraft is addictive. I can stop playing any time I want to. Really.
So that's it. No more silly "Ask a Jedi". Now it's "Ask a Warrior." No more presentations on Spry or ColdFusion Ajax support. Now I'll present on how quickly I rose through my first 20 levels. If you want personal support, just meet me on Alexstrasza. I'm Romana, the hot warrior night elf!
Review: Burnout Paradise (Lost)
When it comes to video games, one of my favorite genres are racers. I tend to divide racers into two main categories. On one side you have "serious" racers like Turismo and Forza. These games require serious skills. Every turn requires planning and you try to memorize courses and proper lines.
Review: SimCity DS
I've played many video games throughout my life, but I can think of only two that caused me to play until the sun rose. One was Civilization, in just about all it's incarnations. (I need to find a good Mac version I think.) The other game was SimCity. For those few people who don't know what SimCity is, it is a simple city simulator. You lay out various zones (residential, commercial, or industrial), lay down basic utilities, roads, etc, and then sit back and watch your city grow. If you place homes next to industries, your population will suffer. Take that along with a thousand other obscure rules and you have an amazingly fun, and addictive, little game.
When I heard that SimCity was moving to the DS, I was pretty impressed. SimCity was known to really tax a PC, especially in the later stages when your city had grown to a large size. I knew there would be some compromises, but I decided to give it a try.
Review: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
One of the most surprising things about the XBox 360 console is not the "big" games, but the fun little games you can play via XBLA (XBox Live Arcade). These games typically run from 5-10 dollars and are simple games. They may not have the graphics of Call of Duty or the depth of Bioshock, but they can be quite good for the price. About a month or so I finally listened to a friend who told me to check out Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. I knew it was a puzzle game, but it was also - get this - a RPG. Now frankly - I like RPGs quite a bit, and I like puzzle games a bit, but I thought this would mix like beer and oatmeal. Turns out the game is great and easily one of the best purchases I've made on XBLA.
So how exactly do you mix a RPG and a puzzle game? The basic idea of the game is that each battle is done via a puzzle. The puzzle is simple - mix 3 or more of the same color gem. But the RPG aspect kicks in when you are look at what matching gems get you. Some gems given you a form of mana (magic points) which are distributed among four different types. Some gems give you gold or experience, and some gems do direct attacks on your enemy.
You have a few basic character classes, including your typical fighters and mages, and you can customize your name and picture. Your character also has multiple skills that affect your magic ability and fighting skills. You also have an inventory of weapons, armors, and magical jewelry you can add as well.
But wait - along with basic combat you also have a citadel (I called it my crib) that you can customize. You can capture enemies and learn spells or train them as mounts (my sexy female knight spent the game riding a giant rat). You can even craft new magical items. Oh - and you can even lay siege to cities. Once a city is captured, it will give you money once a month.
And oh yeah - there was a plot to the game as well. Something about killing some big undead dude. I'm not intentionally trying to downplay the plot. It was ok. But frankly, I just enjoyed playing the game and increasing my character stats. In ways it reminded me of Diablo. Diablo had a plot - but really it was just a fun RPG to play.
Anyway - check the game out. You can download a demo for free and the game even includes multiplayer. By the way, the screen shots below are from the PSP version. My source for screen shots didn't have any from the XBLA version which is definitely better than the ones you see here.
Review: Mass Effect
Mass Effect, the latest release from BioWare, is an interesting game. In some respects, it is one of the top games of the year, which is saying a lot with the likes of Bioshock and Call of Duty 4 out, but on the other hand, it has some pretty big flaws as well. Let me explain.
First off - if you haven't played a BioWare RPG before (like Knights of the Old Republic), you have to understand that their RGPs are not traditional RPGs. The best example of that is grinding. Grinding is when you take your characters out into the woods and spend a few hours raising their levels so you can beat some boss holding you back. BioWare RPGs don't allow for this because they don't have random encounters. This makes for the game focus much more on the story. You don't have "side trips" for grinding. For folks used to traditional RPGs, this takes some getting used to - but the story focus makes for a much better experience in my opinion.
Mass Effect continues this tradition and to great effect. The story (so far anyway) is incredibly interesting. I want to call it "Mature" - but I don't want to imply it is anything like GTA. It is M rated - but more than that - the story just feels like it was written by smart, older geeks as opposed to something written for 12 year olds. I can respect that. It is the difference between Star Wars and the new Battlestar Galactica. Different audience - different tone. You get the idea.
So all of this is great - but there are some problems as well. First off - the games control scheme is pretty complex. I tend to judge everything by the GRAW Scale. GRAW (Ghost Recon Advanced Warrior) was a pretty cool game - but within 5 minutes I had already forgotten half the controls and within 10 minutes I just gave up. Mass Effect makes use of every button and joystick interaction you can think of. I can handle it - but it really pushes it. The complexity extends other places as well. Consider this:
Your characters have 4 weapon slots. You can equip a different weapon in each slot. This lets you switch between 4 different types of weapons at a time. It also means you have to remember 12 sets of weapons for your party of 3. That's not including grenades. If one character is trained well in shotguns and pistols and another in assault rifles, you have to keep this in mind and ensure your characters equip the best weapons for their skill set. Oh - and don't forget skills. Up to 5 or so skills can be used by each character. So before going into battle, you get to choose between 12 weapons and 15 skills. It's a bit much in my opinion.
Another problem I have is with the conversation system. On one hand - it is really, really well done. The voice acting is the best I've seen in a game yet. Period. And the way you converse feels very natural. The problem is that it is a bit slow. This becomes really evident when you go shopping. It can take you 30 seconds just to get to an inventory. That may not sound like much, but trust me, you feel it. By accident - I discovered a button combo to fast forward the verbal dialog. This has made the game flow a bit faster now and I don't know why it wasn't documented. (Or if it was, I missed it.)
The last problem is the graphics. Again - this is both good and bad. The graphical design is great. But the actual implementation is a bit lacking. On my first away mission, I thought something was wrong with my TV. The screen was dark and murky. I fiddled around a bit but it didn't help much. I also see "popping" from time to time - where textures will load in slowly or things seem to jerk a bit. I keep thinking that I've not configured something right - yet my other games play just fine. Again - the actual design is awesome. I love the all the designs I've seen so far - but the resolution/engine seems a bit buggy right now.
So I know I complained about a lot - but trust me. This is a darn good game. I'm really happy to see BioWare in a non-Star Wars universe (I haven't played Jade Empire yet). I was a bit worried about how they would handle their own IP, but they did a great job. I would definitely recommend picking it up.
Late night XBLA question
I've got an XBox Live Arcade game that was purchased a while ago. After transferring it to the new XBox Elite hard drive, it shows up as a trial game. When I go to purchase it, it says I already own it (true), it offers to redownload, but even after it does, the game sticks in trial mode. Anyone seen this before?
Sending in my first XBox360
Well, looks like I'll be sending in my XBox 360 this week. A few weeks ago the back USB port died. No big deal. I can live with my wireless network hanging off the front of the box. But before that - and for a few months - my disc tray has been a bit... sticky. Tonight it finally died. I click the button to open the drive and it just makes a 'whirring' noise before giving up. I do know how to manually open it, but that won't do for day to day game play. I don't mind spending the 99 bucks to get it repaired - but now I have to figure out what to do about my saves. I have a lot of saved games on this thing, and I'm willing to bet Microsoft won't guarantee my hard drive will remain the same. Should I just pick up one of those memory cards?
Today's waste of time: WOW Commercials
I don't play WOW (Word of Warcraft) myself - I got addicted to MUDs in college so I can't even imagine how addictive a graphical one would be - but I have to say - these are some of the funniest video game commercials I've ever seen - especially the Mr. T one:
New WoW Ads Recruit Mr T and Shatner
Reviews: Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero 3
Guitar Hero and Call of Duty are as about as different as you can get, but as I played both quite a bit this week I thought I'd share my thoughts.