So I posted this a while back, but we bought a house. Anyways today was the day of the walkthrough and my wife and i took a video tour of the house. I'll put it here so you jerks can see too! So a note on gen y and home ownership (at least in America). If you think home ownership means nothing, I'd switch off now. But if you do agree, or can tolerate disagreance, I think home ownership is prett...
So I was thinking about what it must feel like to be a 16-30(something) year old if we were really thrust into a video game. Specifically what must the experience be like being who we as people actually are thrust into these non-speaking pseuedo-macho roles. Here's what I have (part 1): The Chronicles of Jimbo, Introduction Jimmy was just walking along the street when, boom. Motherfucker, a roc...
And not just an old one, a new one infact. Here's what we saw today when we went to visit the lot: I'm excited ya'll. Yeah. We're moving to WV (from MD), but I'm mostly ok with that. Actually totally ok with that. Anyways, we bought a house and did our part to help out the economy, so there's that!
Ok, so re-watching Lost has given me a lot to think about. Mainly the things that have weighed most heavily on my mind as I've watched have been the identity/role of Locke, and the religious/metaphysical nature of the Island itself. Now before I talk more, I'd like to offer up an initial apology. I frame a lot of the way I view religious ideas and allegorical identities in western Christian myt...
So Fucking Lost. That fucking show. Actually alot of shows, but now that show. First I finally got around to watching season one of Downton Abbey. I highly recommend that show. Its nothing more than a Sunday Soap (or whatever the fuck that and Mad Men are considered) but it's a goddamned good show. The high points for me are the period piece nature of the show, covering nobility in early 20th c...
I won't post this to the forums, because that makes sense and I don't know what to put in here for now, except hey if people want to go with this guy's (@ninja) meeetup plan, I will halp organize. Anyways, post here if this is your area or whatever.\ My suggested areas: Baltimore/Columbia MD Northern VA (reston/dulles area) Montgomery County/Frederick County MD (Frederick County is least likely...
Today, to commemorate me remember that goddamn Mountain Dew Rock song from Mellow Gold, I'd like to revel you in tales of two albums you need to go fucking buy right now: Mellow Gold, Beck and As Good As Dead, Local H. You will of course recognize the following three songs as soon as you buy these albums: Bound For the Floor, Local H Eddie Vedder, Local H Loser, Beck But once you've gotten past...
I promise (promise, for actual) that this is not borne out of drug use. It’s possible at some point my thoughts were clarified by alcohol, but not now, and besides, when I drink I usually don’t spend time in contemplation. In other words, I am not writing some sort of drugged-out essay and hope you can see that. The basis for me wanting to blog on this is kinda stupid. It’s a thread on reddit I...
So I have begun a journey. Of watching, no experiencing, the entirety of Lost again. And I want to write about it. Not in an episodic format recap type of way (though I suppose an occasional recap will happen). You can find those anywhere. I want to use my writing style (stream of conscious) and write as I re-experience Lost. Some notes: I did not originally plan to watch Lost. It began airing...
Edit 2: I have changed my analysis below. I think it's still a takeaway that GB and WM were balanced more on a knife's edge than not. What I changed were the rent assumptions and pay assumptions. Rent was off by a factor of 12 and pay may have been super low, so I changed the way that works. Also I made my spreadsheet more copy and paste friendly for scenario analysis. I put in scenarios showin...
So i think starting later this week I'm going to start a new blog series. I have no great name for it, but in general it shall be called the "Media Consumption Digest Series." That is to say, driving in to work today I realized I should probably do a digest of sorts of all the podcasts I listen to. Then I thought of the few television shows I am nearly hopelessly devoted to, like Top Gear, Top...
So here is how this happened: I wanted to play games on my DS. My daughter magically lost my Super Mario Bros DS cart at my Dad's house (or more specifically: Somewhere in this plane of existence). I didn't really want to play Scribblenauts, because it's kind of fucking shitty to control. So I heard that Super ScribbleNauts fixed this, and I heard the Layton games are also pretty good. So I ord...
And none of you can fly the transport chopper. All of you. Well, there was one exception, but in general, this is a feat you don't seem capable of. This is sad. People are still making the same mistakes as transport pilots they should have learned not to do 5 days into the game. So in summary, here is my idea of how to fly a transport choppa: When you get below a certain unit of measurement, I...
So what I'm not going to say here is that these are my goatee for 2011. There are games coming out this year that I want to buy that I might like more than games I've played already. Alright? Alright. Anyways, I was cataloging my favorite games this year, and the two that have engaged me most have one interesting quality: Both sport what has been called 'bad gameplay.' LA Noire and Deus Ex are...
So last night I had to pause a cutscene. My wife was watching me play and the Illuminati were first mentioned. I had to explain how when Deus Ex first came out, building a conspiracy around the Majestic 12, FEMA and the Illuminati was not yet hokey or played out. And I myself was impressed that in HR, this is not treated ironically. It's as if the developers forced themselves to forget a decade...
Ok, so I've been having some... interesting ... experiences with Deus Ex HR, to say the least. I really like this game (that's a preface so you know what you're getting into), and think I probably should try and catalog some of my thoughts and experiences so far. So first some prefaces and warnings: I will spoil things revealed to me up to where I'm at. Also, I have played Deus Ex and am very f...
Ok, so another little rant-post on tech support. Not the standard 1-800 number kind, but I'm talking about the kind of support developers probably should lend to consumers after they made a game and said game has gone to market. Over the past month or so I've hit a few things: 1) a wage of nostalgia for certain games 2) regret I had not played other games 3) game spending sprees on steam and ot...
So truth be told I don't understand how this site's karma works. Except when I see a spam post that's just sitting out there and click flag- I can't. not sure what I did but I definitely fucked something up so that my Karma doesn't allow flagging. Meh.
So I have no clue why- maybe it was the four hours it took me to get bioshock running (turns out the game's audio engine doesn't work with the weird creative audio usb sound card I was using- stupid me, and also doesn't work with realtek sound if another game installs a virtual driver on your computer- like Dirt3 does) or maybe it is the summertime, but I've reinstalled Deus Ex. I've applied th...
Damn good old games and their interplay sale until July 4th. Of course I'm also relieved this actually lasts until July 4th because I'm currently in a re-run of Deus Ex with all the crazy upressed textures and levels of some of the neat mods out there. Trying to fix a bloom problem atm, but having fun. So damnit you old games service and your convenient pricing and your ability to sell games th...
So last night's trainwreck of a ustream for battlefield 3 got me thinking. This year is really the first year I've been able to see lots of live E3 footage, thanks in large part to ustream and livestreaming in general. It's interesting because livestreaming isn't all that new- GiantBomb has done it for a while actually. I suspect others have too, but now livestreaming is so prolific- like it's...
Ok first, to preface. Please do not take my title or blog as an understanding that the IMPORTANT shooters coming out this fall are Battlefield 3 and MW3. As far as I'm concerned Deus Ex HR is the single important shooter coming out this fall. Rage has potential to be one of the important shooters. The two I'm talking about are somewhat window dressing (for me). Ok that being said lets talk abou...
Ok so I have finished the game, watched the whole credits and watched some more. So if you are reading here, and don't want to be spoiled because you haven't finished the game, stop. No seriously Stop. Last warning, because I'm not planning on hiding things because my observations require specific (not general) observations, or may, and in the process of doing so I may ruin the end of the game...
Ok, so this game I think is very soul crushing. Here's why: As has been brought up already, side missions don't seem to help mission performance. I've done two side missions thus far and in both cases my suspect was killed (by me) or killed himself. Both felt like how the side missions were supposed to play out. However, both times I did these I arrived at my next destination 'late' and in one...
Ok, so if you're in college but don't eat in the student cafeterias all the time and/or don't just order takeout, or if you're an adult I think you'll get what I'm getting at. Otherwise, maybe not. Self checkout. Now people presumably smarter than me will say here that people who use self checkout are deluding themselves and the grocery store cashiers are ALWAYS quicker than doing it yourself....
Ok, so I really liked Dragon Age: Origins. I did, however, play it on the xbox though really just because I was in a mode where I hadn't played games on the computer for years. And I didn't have a computer that could run the game. So I played it on the xbox, and other than some texture muddiness, I thought the game was fine. I guess I could see the gripes people had to an extent, but alot of wh...
Ok so I was reading a roundup of some of the latest Mass Effect 3 details and had this crazy revelation. First, relating to ME3 here is a spoiler: SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content. Supposedly ME3 is bringing back all main characters and has no new romance options Ok so if you read that above then the rest here will make sense. Otherwise, it might not. Ok so I was thinking ab...
Ok so another day of reflections on PC gaming. As an aside, the odd thing here is I spent ages 10 to about 20 being mainly a PC gamer, and took a break over the past few years playing the xbox- now I have to consider if I want to play a game on a gamepad or on a mouse and keyboard. And I do consider that a significant choice- so far none of the games on the PC I've played that support my gamepa...
Ok so I went ahead and built the Tested 1500 gaming Pc And it's awesome. Actually I didn't just build the 1500 gaming pc. I used the 2600K i7 processor instead of the i5. I bought 8GB of 1600Mhz DDR3 instead of 1333Mhz DDR3, and I bought a 1 TB Caviar Black drive instead of the 2 TB. I bought everything else right down to the specs they're using. And like I said, it's awesome. I'm mainly intere...
Ok so I'm thinking outloud again. Shit. Anyways- I've been consuming content from this website since sometime around 2008 (I think), and it's been good. I like it. And of course- eventually I liked it enough to check out the forums and create an id an all that nonsense (something I rarely do). And it's been good. Of course, now I'm 26, gainfully employed, maybe a little bit wiser, but older and...
Ok so first let me preface what I'm about to say with this: I am not talking about the psychological motivations. We could debate that until blue in the face- though I'm willing to bet the simplest answer (they're not that bright) is the easiest answer. I'm asking of the people who post threads that get locked (excepting delete/combine requests- that makes sense), what are the user statistics?...
So will 2011 be a personal Renaissance year? It might just be. Right now I'm looking at four main first-week purchases this year: Bulletstorm (check) Rage Duke Nukem Forever Deus Ex: Human Revolution Secondarily, I will probably pick up ME3, but other games I'm somewhat interested in (Skyrim and Da2) will probably wait until 2012. So for starters, I'm pretty much always looking for that game th...
Ok so to start a couple notes: 1) I was going to like this game. Apart from controls just not working, Deadly Premonition level production issues, or an unplayable game, I was going to like this game. And I do. So that will color everything I say and have said about Bulletstorm. 2) I played five hours of the campaign last night. I just met the general dude. Don't know what percentage I'm done,...
So if I were in charge of this marketing campaign/reveal/whateveryoucallit, here's what this Bioware Announcement would be: A post ME2 ending DLC for ME2. Just that. It wouldn't be like the Shadow Broker where you can start it whenever. You'd have to finish the game first, and then this would continue the main story. That's what I would be announcing. I don't think it's time for ME3 yet, tbh, a...
(Note: This is what I am thinking of as the beginning of a log of sorts, of my adventures in this crazy LOTRO world. I don't play MMO's as a rule, got sucked into Eve once and swore the whole thing off. Fantasy MMO's tend to turn me off. But something about this game, the license, the good press, and the freeness of it drew me.) Thus we begin with the tale of Ugos, a human Champion descending f...
So starting with the second to last E3 and leading up to now I have been increasingly frustrated with 'exclusive' promotions. I understand that there are developers and business deals to think about which results in some games being released only on one console or before/after it's release on the other console (The timed exclusive). Thing is I don't get angry because I can't play Some of the Me...