Not been on here alot and a bit burnt out trying to blog at multiple sites I have been trying to get everything on my DA page and focus on it.

http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/

Also started a fundraiser project to help keep me afloat.

http://fnd.us/c/3KwW3

OnLive begins all you can eat, $10 subscription
By Ben Kuchera | Last updated a day ago

Onlive has released its game-streaming microconsole to consumers, and we've taken a long look at both the hardware and the service itself. We found some good things and some bad things, but with the client being free and most of the games offering limited demos, the best thing to do is to try it for yourself. OnLive has made the service a little more attractive as well: starting January 15 you can subscribe to the the all-you-can-eat $10 a month subscription program.

What does your $9.99 get you? Unlimited play time of over 40 games on the service. So instead of renting games or purchasing games you want to play, you can play as much as you want for one price. The lack of a commitment is also a plus; I could see people paying for a single month or two just to beat a few games and then getting out.

Our main concern continues to be the smallish selection of games on the service. If there were a few hundred games to choose from, instead of a few dozen, this would be much more attractive. Still, there are more than enough games to get you through a few months. OnLive is a neat idea with solid execution, but there simply needs to be more games.

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ALl I can say this is great, mabye they will get most of the bugs worked out in 5 years and you can play it anywhere in HD in 10, for now price is worth the cost.

Thought I'd blog a bit about CV: Lords of Shadow and Resistance fall of man as I have just finished them thismonth.

Just finished off res and CV a few days ago so here are my rants.

Res is such a safe game it goes from an average of 5 to a 4 just because its that's bland, sure you can call it a Gears of war clone it's not so much hurt be copying its themes of monologue by non of the main charatcers for the main narrative, enemy coming from the ground,ect,ect,ect, a bit of mutant biological and hitech,ect,ect,ect but it just comes off being aseptic and placid the more you play it, kinda like Damnation only without the wired levels and more weapons to kill things with(why dose the hail strom only have 150 ammo? It should have 500 Gdmanit!!!!).

I do like health system you get 5 health bars and can rege3nerate only a health bar that has health in it otherwise it put me to sleep more than once.

Average gamer(through zippys eyes) :7-8

Zippy score: 4 to 5.

Now for Castelvina Lords of shadow….. ung I do not know where to start with the assumption that changing the theme from anime/ European to realism infested/ European changes the default mechanics of Castlevina sure this game is a God of war clone with smaller levels BUT the last 2 games had pretty bad level design as well, sure they were more open but still pretty blocky and bland.

And that is one of the 3 pillars to castlevina level design, fighting mechanic and pacing of skills/items. From the stand point of the current CV games CV is a action adventure game that is platform game inspired but you can see other games evolving the genre like Metroid prime or Zelda. Its my opinion that CV should be done on the same scale as Zelda and not a generic action game of the month type of thing. You take the scale of Zelda ad palce a CV world within that not trying to place a CV world into God of war.

But back to the game at hand its story is essentially Lament of Innocence the 2nd attempt at a 3D console CV game only with more plot development and a bigger twist or 2 along the way. Sure it might be "better" but I had more fun in the more generic "of Sorrow"(aria and dawn were good to ok the rest not so much) 2D generic fantasy games they called Castlvina and they were pretty bad but seriously I had more fun in Soylent Comando despite its major issues and fail of a story.

Still I can barely give it a 5 there is a dissonance between gamepaly and story/plot(coughcoughholy coughcoughwatercoughcough) sometimes the controls cannot change camera angels sometimes blocking is off he should have twice as many daggers make the werewolfs regenerate faster to offset it maybe, how about toss a enemy in a direction you press…. Also the enemy AI is so cheap with unblockable attacks… they should show up one in 10 not one in 3…. And only bosses and sub bosses should have them…. Unleash there is a real charge for it.

Combat is not bad a tiny bit more sloppy than GOW and once in a combo it should be hard to be knocked out of it.....

Still the worst thing is the level design they are even tighter and on the rails than God of wars and you can only use the whip for grabbing a hook only when the game wants to even when you can see the damn thing….. *sigh* I'd like to a cross between Castlvina 64 and LOI/COD with a heavy Zelda design/mechanic influence in it but line Capcom they are much too cheap to do that…..

Average gamer(through zippys eyes) :8-9(shudders if this is a 9 we have fallen so far so fast..)

Zippy score: 5 to 6.

http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/thought-i%E2%80%99d-blog-a-bit-about-cv-lords-of-shadow-and-resistance-fall-of-man-as-i-have-just-finished-them-this-month/

Ok have a thought process I need help un sticking.

I want a name for a mutli dimensional universe, the best I have come up with is "Existence" I thought maybe meta'verse would be better but the definition leaves me cold, quada-verse sounds wrong... and painful.

Anyway creation is of course life,energy and stability where things can grow at a steadily controlled rate. Outside creation is where Darkness has infected and warp things slowly dismantling space and time.

As I picture things time moves forwards/upwards and backwards/downwards and dimension spreads out right to left. If you had a 3D holographic display it would be in a isometric view dimension is in tints and hues going side to side as far as needed while time up/down is saturation in color plus bloom for the past and grayscale for the future (or plaid but gray bars going forwards is not lulzy enough LOL ) .

Thoughts? Comments? Rotten tomatoes? And no this is my day job....prob why I haz no job :P LOL

Didnt take many pics to messed up from the trip and sht next year I take more.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v632/zippydsmlee/Dragoncon-10/

Going to do an outfit as well
http://fav.me/d2twn9z
http://fav.me/d1rlv33

Mabye have a new picture commissioned and get it on a tee-shirt even if my sht is shty I am going to try and get it out a bit.

A commissioned piece I had made.

LOP+SOD by skyraptor by ~ZippyDSM on deviantART

The 3DS is like the DSI only it has more cameras and a 3D function...god 3D is such a horrible fad ..........

I am stil hoping for TV out so I don't have to wait on a emulator to play the rare good games that come out on it...

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!! !! So I have managed to replace the biorifle in UT04..... tweaked the fire modes so they work...but the ammo refuses to work ammo max works fine but it can not use the ammo pick up its driving me nutters!!!

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-castlevania-lords/50687

Well..... lets see adventure inspired put under delivering semi chaotic designs of the N64 era(which are still my fav) to early 00's grind based action titles with wonkaly developed mechanics(thats LOI and COD). And now a modern action game ...er...... deviation?

Skepticism aside it looks good I bet it has bland level layouts like the last 2 CV games not to mention GOW 1 had rather bland and straight forward levels..... I hope they manage to keep adventure/RPG elements in it.

Fallout 3 how it should have been.

No this is not a rant about not making it a shooter, ect

I am not too worried about script/dialog,ect its good enough, plot holes and all.

First off the story mostly tries to get you to the main stops on the main where if you care you can explore out from there, they could refine this a bit and add more main spots and sub quests.

Now let's look at the AI lets base their field of view and what they can "see"(detect) on their level and stats. Have more options in a AIs retinue from walking around to walking around looking for you to getting to cover and such most of this is handled fairly well just perhaps the AI is a bit…short sighted and a bit dumb…could run in groups better, they can do this for all AI and take stealing, ect more challenging.

Head shots should stun more and I think leg shots trip enough, also with a crippled limb their speed should be halved.

Would be nice if you could use doctor skill/healing stuff on the AI

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Health, poison , radiation and player localized damaged

Health is more or less ok. Radiation needs to be something that affects everything I have noticed it only works on the player. It should be a tad harder to heal a crippled limb, it takes a week to heal a crippled location, you can quick fix with a medikit to get you up to 70%(without healing your speed/aim is halved, with healing it goes down 30% until you are fully healed)

Poison work like…well…. poison you get it for 5 minutes on first hit time dose not mulplie but damage dose, lvl 1 light poison dose something like 1-3 points of damage every 10 seconds , lvl 2 2-6, lvl 3 6-10, it either burns out kills you or you heal it with a antidote or with a rare doctors kill saving throw.

Heavy poison is 1-10 points of damage every 2 seconds , lvl 2 5-20, lvl 3 15-30

Moral of the story don't get hit by poison!

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Now let's look at equipment…… you need about 3 or so more levels of weapons you changed the game type and made it more action carrying around the same crap for 10+ hours is maddening. Basically there is 3 versions of everything from a taped up rusted version to a shiny less rusted or reinforced version with a hard to find shiny like new versions out there being randomly generated but are few and far between then you have the unique weapons and equipment .Really they made stuff to last the 10 hour main quest and nothing much else….

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Now let's move on to levels,skills and perks and god how do I hate them since they are made for the main quest and not the game as a whole, skills should go beyond 200 but over 100 the ratio is 5 points to 1 you non primary skills, at 150+ its 10. Skills are also lowered in their effect a 20 would be a 5. Perks could be tweaked some for this setup have the book skill multiplier start off as 1 then go to 2 then after 2 more levels it goes up to 5 per book. Levels also come a bit slower perhaps 30% less XP generated from events and kills.

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Items and vats

Weapons need to be more tuned to vasts having more varied ranges and to hit, critical ratios, jet and other heavy stimulants need to slow the world in real time and double your action points.

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Drug addiction

You need a at least a 10 in doctor skill, and it takes a medkit, a random drug and a random liquid to give you a 1 in 10 chance to get un-addicted to a drug, whatever other people charge to detox you its tripled.

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Work bench and weapon building

One word…..morrowind………….. You can take any stat/thing and put it on any weapon you can take most ammo types and put it in any weapon, it takes more crap and skill to do this and maybe even make a lvl 5 and 10 perk that makes building crazy stuff even more easy.

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Weapons, aiming and damage

Aiming is more of less right the longer you aim the better you can hit something near the reticule, as skill goes up aiming gets faster and tighter and damage potential goes up 2% every 5 points.

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Music

It should have been easy to add music tot eh music folder so you can easily customize the music.

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That's about all I got for now.