Me likey. Me really likey.

Its running buttery smooth on my machine, plays nicely, and works with my 360 pad. I don't htink I can ask for much more (Aside from a remake of the original Need for Speed on the 3DO). There's nothing quite like getting into that zone where you're trying to scrape off another .25 seconds from your prevoius lap :)

No, really. I was at -6 comment rating when I checked.

"chikahiro94 Posted Jun 24, 2008 11:17 pm HST (does not meet display criteria. click here to view"

My horrible comment? It was in reference to the rumored Fable 2 release date for the 360:

"Nice. When is the PC version coming out? I can wait a year."

Sorry, but given the track record of high-profile XB/360 games to PC, that is a reasonable question! Add in the fact that Microsoft has done everything possible to make PC/360 development easy? C'mon. Let's think about this: Mass Effect, KOTOR 1 & 2, Fable, Halo 1 & 2, Jade Empire, Gears of War... what else am I missing? And that's not counting titles openly developed to be console/PC, either.

Getting a year lead isn't unreasonable. And I don't see the problem about one of this year's hottest 360 games being released next year when its cooled off and we're all drooling over the next year's hottest 360 games.

*shrugs*smirks* Oh well.

I'm wishing I had subscribed to Gamespot like I had planned to - its a big download, clocking in at 1.3 gigs. Anyhow...

Minimum:
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3GHz
RAM: 512MB (Windows XP), 1GB (Windows Vista)
VGA: GeForce 6600 with 256MB of VRAM (SM3 Required)
HDD: 8GB Free
OS: Windows XP
MONITOR: Resolution at least 640x480

Recommended:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM: 1GB (Windows XP), (2GB pre Windows Vista)
VGA: GeForce 8600 with 512MB of VRAM
HDD: 8GB Free
OS: Windows Vista
MONITOR: Resolution 1280x720

I'll let you guys know how it goes. My machine almost meets the recommended specs (got a GF 7900 GS instead of a GF 8600), and I've got a 360 pad on top of that. Nicely enough, it'll be $40 vs $60, won't complain.

I downloaded the Impulse client a few days ago from www.impulsedriven.com, installed it, and saw they had Penny Arcade's Precipice game. Fine by me. I made a note "That's where I'm buying it from" and left it alone.

This morning I went ahead and ordered it. I added it to my shopping cart, proceeded to checkout, and started filling out information. I liked how I could choose if this was for me or for someone else. Nice, and something NCSoft doesn't do. However, what NCSoft does that I sorta missed here was that whole "can you read this image?" thingie (whatever its called) whenever you order stuff as part of their security process. Give and take, there. I finished the checkout, got a confirmation email, and that was pretty much that, I thought.

Even though I got it for myself, it didn't automatically add the game to my list, or automatically register it, or offer to download it. I was a little dissapointed in that. Additionally, what I needed to do in order to do all that wasn't immediately clear to me. I looked around at some icons and other things, and eventually saw "Click to edit registrations." I went there and entered it in there, choosing publisher, game, inputing email address then registration code. However, the code I had been emailed didn't work at first. I looked it over, removed an errant question mark at the end, and it worked fine. Now downloading.

Does this have potential? Oh, loads. But they still have some work ahead of them. Part of their interface reminds me of iTunes, but its not iTunes easy just yet. I'm looking forward to seeing Impulse grow from here.

Just went full time at the paper.

Just got my first full-time check.

It felt very sweet.

Then a fairly big chunk of it went to paying my balance with one of my Capital One cards (the one I use for gas and such).

Ouch.

And today or tomorrow I'll be taking another big chunk and making my car payment.

Ouch.

Still got other bills and such, too. Yay me.

On the flip side, next pay period I'll be paying off my other credit card completely. Considering cutting that one up. Plus I'll be enrolling in our 401K program, life insurance (how much will that cost? must read the paperwork), and hitting up Edward Jones again about my IRA/money market. Oh, and must hit the bank to start a savings account so I can nestle away money for big things like my car insurance and such. Oooh, better set some money aside for new tires, and I need to check when my car's service plan ends. Arg.

So, once again, I'm making more money than ever and its all spoken for. I need to rework my budget, obviously. But looks like no toys; no new game system, no new games, etc., this go round. Maybe next month I can think about those things again... Of course, now I have less time than I did before, too...

So, for all of you in school still, having fun with your 360's and PS3's. Have fun getting a new game or two every month. And when someone says they can't afford all that, don't tell them to get a job, because it honestly doesnt help!

Got some reading for you first:

Stardock: PC (gaming) Shortfalls "Not Microft's Fault" from Next-Gen.

Three Services, Three Stores: Analyzing XBLA, PSN and Wii Shop Channel from Gamasutra.

Done reading? Good. The Gamasutra one is a bit dry, I realize, but it is an industry site, not a fan site. Anyhow, those of you who've been reading my blgos know digital distribution is one of my pet interests. At anyrate...

PC: Brad Wardell is on the money again when it comes to Microsoft's issues concerning digital distribution, at least PC side. I have to admit it was a little odd not seeing something comprehensively comperable to Live for Windows, and now I see one good reason - anti-trust concerns when dealing with the EU (and while he doesn't say it, possibly the US as soon as the Democrats take control of everything). Its a darn pity that Apple, who's far more tyranical than Microsoft (and who's iPod/iTunes combo is far more a monopoly than Windows Media Player could ever be) has made no strides in this arena either that I know of or have seen. Thankfully, 3rd parties are picking up some of the slack, even if we're not seeing a unified, standard platform for distribution. I think that the competition/coexistance between the various online distributors is excellent and very healthy, though, so I'm thrilled. I would like to see more of the distributors offering legal emulators and ROMs, however - right now Gametap has that niche to themselves and there's no good reason for that.

PS3/PSP: I like how comprehensive Sony's plan is, but I'm rather dissapointed that there's not more coming out for the PS3 itself. It would be *nice* if you could play PSP games on the PS3 as well, but since that's not an option, I'd like to know why there isn't more PS3 PSN games coming out. While Sony has argued quality over quantity, I'm a little afraid they're also passing up a lot of opportunities this distribution method affords them (this is compounded with my general dislike of SCEA in general). I see no reason why, if nothing else, the PS1 game selection isn't larger - are there so few PS1 games that were so unique they couldn't stand the test of time? I don't think so - there really should be more titles made available. On top of that, how many unique PS1 games never came out in the US? Especially RPG's and the like? I realize translation isn't the cheapest thing to do well, but when the game itself is paid for already, a relatively small investment coupled with the lack of manufacturing costs could garner a decent profit (especially if the game was already translated!). Similarly, with the PS3's power, there's no reason why other, older hardware couldn't be emulated, including but not limited to the Saturn or Neo Geo (I'd love to see the Samurai Shodown RPG make it here).

Wii: Not surprising but I'm curious to see how the WiiWare carries out. Its a real shame that the DS isn't really part of this equation. Sony does have Nintendo beat in this regard, and I think Nintendo would do well to think about that in their next DS hardware revision. Nintendo and Sony really are set in different markets, and while Nintendo's market is arguably farther from the core market, they're also more like the market that has made the iPod/iTunes combo so successful. Nintendo's success has been in the "deep blue" marketing strategy they've followed; now they really do need to start expanding on the services they offer to that market. Just make it so easy a Mac user can do it, and they'll be fine.

360: Not too surprising. I wish they were more aggressive with their Xbox Originals program. There are a lot of games out there that would appeal to the 360's core market that are are hard to find now, some of which having online multiplayer. There's no good reason for Phantom Dust (a Microsoft Game Studios title) to not be on there, for example. Likewise, Panzer Dragoon Orta and Gun Valkyrie, both excecllent games, could well find a home on the 360. Similarly to the PS3, there's no good reason not to start going after games from older consoles like the Saturn, Dreamcast, etc. Panzer Dragoon Saga, for instance, would be successful no matter which system it showed up on, and paying $20 is a bargain compared to the $100+ the Saturn game costs on eBay.

Thoughts?

One of the unions around here posted a little a blog about how a certain game site is now "unbiased" and trustworthy in its reviews. The reason? Ultimately it was the perfect 10 the site gave MGS4.

I'm going to have to disagree. Not over MGS4's score, but over his assessment of the game site with that review being the sole given reason. This seems to happen whenever a big-name game gets reviewed. Such and such a site is completely-biased or is totally trustworthy. Anyhow:

1. This is one review and one review only. As the saying goes, even a stopped watch is right twice a day. A single review is simply not enough to evaluate the site's editorial staff. The writer said they always unfairly reviewed PS3 games; does this include every game up to MGS4? If so and all those games were unfairly rated, why are they suddenly "unbiased" with MGS4?

2. Everyone is expecting rave reviews for MGS4, simple fact. Some of the people who have accused the site of being biased in the past decried their high ratings of Halo 3, using it as an example for said bias. "They're biased! They're giving into the hype!" Supporters of Halo 3 dismissed these claims, naturally. The simple fact is gamers will accuse any site that goes against their own personal biases and expectations as being biased, especially when a review is lower than they want. As a result, bumping a review up so it meets what gamers are expecting is a way to maintain "credibility" with the hardcore niche that regular gaming sites. Appeasing the people who want high ratings is safer than satisfying those who want to see a game with lower ratings. Famitsu has been accused of this practice in the past.

3. Major game sites are ad supported. By having appearing "unbiased" in highly rating a major title that people want to see rock the charts, their credibility is boosted and they can expect to see benefits from that in terms of traffic/readership, which in turn benefits their advertising revenue. This is a clear financial incentive to rate a game well. Not so obvious is that game companies reward postive reviews (deserved or not) and coverage with more exclusives, previews, etc.; all the things people come to game sites for. Bad reviews have been punished with pulled advertising, no advance coverage or advance copies to review, etc.

Further reading:

http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2008/04/exclusive-revie.html

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080601-game-reviews-the-ugly-path-from-publisher-to-publishing.html

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/06/02/egm-metal-gears-solid-4-review-isnt

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/05/28/video-game-company-to-wii-reviewer/

So, all this doom and gloom - what to do next? How do you trust again knowing the deck is very possibly stacked? Its easy, but is also an ongoing process.

1. Look for consistancy. Not just with big-name games, but ones from small companies with no marketing to back them up. Are they fair? Are their complaints legitimate? Are their praises glossing over faults? If you can trust a site with small reviews, chances are you can trust them for big ones.

2. Look for perspective, both on your part and theirs. A 10 is a fantastic rating. But so is a 9. A rating of 8 is excellent. 7? That's still doing well. As a fan of some niche stuff, I don't expect all my favorites to get 8's, 9's or 10's. But 7? Perfectly fine. Very buyable. Just because your game "only" got a 9 isn't the end of the world or indicate a review site is utterly incompetant. Honest.

3. Remember that the product game sites have is their content. While no site will every be 100% "on it" in terms of reviews (and that's subjective!), they have to do their best to give a honest review otherwise their overall credibility erodes. If you find you're disagreeing with a site more often than not, go somewhere else for reviews. But this is the key; find a place that has biases/tastes similar to yours and recognize the fact. "I go here because their tastes are the same as mine, their biases are the same as mine." Do not declare them as being unbiased! I hate to say it, but your tastes do not dictate the "norm" anymore than mine do. You cannot argue that if enough people like something it must be right - that's so full of holes and flaws its not even funny.

4. Learn and account for a site's biases and, for a lack of better term, "specialties", and how they relate to you. If a particular site is always gung-ho or not into a certain genre, consider that when reading their reviews. If a review seems very in-depth about a game's mechanics and how they relate to the genre, they might well be affectionados of that genre, meaning their level of expectation might be notably different (and higher) than another site that keeps things more basic. As a result, the genre-gourmets and genre-casuals might have review the exact same game differently. Which site matches you better?

5. And above all, do not let base your decision on a single review!

Anyhow, for all you PS3 owners, go out and enjoy Metal Gear Solid 4. I hear its quite excellent ;)

Story here.

My blog from March, 2007, speculating Microsoft and Netflix working together.

:)

Okay, its useless gloating. Am I an anylyst now? Or does someone have to pay me first?

Played for a while last night, even put on a level or two doing so!

Last I played I was in the Divide, another actual zone. Its a bit hard for me still, so I did what I could then went back to the Wilderness where I'm a little more bad-ass. Upon reaching level 12, I got access to a shotgun I had been saving (minimum level 12) that replaced the one I was using (minimum level 6? 8?). The damage is significantly higher, plus it uses plain ol' regular ammo which is quite a bit cheaper than the energy cells for the other one (2 per round vs 3). I also started using a laser chain-gun of a nice level, which goes well with my normal chaingun (which needs replacing). Two things:

1) Using the EMP chain gun to take down an enemy's shields/armor then switching to another weapon works very well for me. Very well.

2) The shotgun's cone is a thing of beauty. Like in COH with Assault Rifle, its really worthwhile to maneuver around so you can get two or more enemies lined up in it. The knockdown is great when it happens, but then I love soft controls. As soon as I get my firearms up to 5 I'll be quite the happy camper.

I did an instance (Caves of Do...something), and it was difficult to solo. The NPC AI isn't as bright as it could be (surprise), so one of them kept attacking dead bodies, and the other one was a bit passive. The zone chat had someone asking for help on that same instance, so I left, joined up with them, and it was metric tons easier. What was nice but surprising was that the turrents/mortars I had destroyed earlier were still gone. I'm NOT complaining. The PUG went nicely, the two other folks were nice (not one drop of l33t came out), and we finished it off, including the mission I kept failing involving rescuing some lost Foreans.

Sky came on later on that night and we ran around for a while doing Target of Opportunities goals. He's progressing pretty well, and I'm curious to see which way he goes when its time to branch off again. We both went Recruit / Soldier so far. I'm planning to go Recruit / Soldier / Ranger, but am still deciding between Sniper and Spy.

I got my XP multiplier up to 3x. That was thrilling. I'm also doing the overkills now too since they give a nice little bonus reward (wonder if that's affected by the multiplier too?). Given how range-orientated the game is at this point, its a nice incentive to close into melee.

Since I actually took Chemistry (on of the crafting skills) I fabricated some hand-grenades last night, passed them onto Sky. And I was right; it's like COH's crafting system which completely makes sense to me. Give the machine the schematic and the appropriate components, and after a few seconds you get your stuff. People who say the crafting system needs work, unless I am given a real reason why besides "Its not like WOW," are freakin' nuts. Sorry, but I do not want to have to make 20,000 rounds of standard ammo just so I can get to the second level of Engineering: Chemistry. While you still have to dedicate points towards advancing your crafting abilities, you're not stuck with a completely useless time-sink method of advancement, its consistent with everything else you advance in, etc. I am quite happy with the compromise between COH's skill-less crafting and the typical grind-heavy method other games use.

I also discovered the disassembling aspect of crafting, which is where you get the goodies you need to do item modifications. That makes me quite happy. Now I've got the Phase Shifter I need use the Modification: Armor Piercing's I've got (if only I could find one for my chainguns). Very, very nice, simple, and we all know that goes a long way with me.

Still debating on a clan name. I was thinking maybe Fawkes PMC or something.

Oh, and when I saw this? I can't think of a single MMO that shouldn't steal this idea, ASAP.
http://www.rgtr.com/news/latest_news/feedback_friday_5232008.html

When the interactions group started thinking about the Looking For Squad system, we wanted to focus on ways to make it easier to group up. While thinking about this, we realized that we first needed to solve a problem that kept occurring when we would play with each other. This is a typical scenario: Six of us would decide to run an instance together. Unfortunately, instead of just one person starting a group, I would start a group, then another person would start a group, and in the end it turned into this:

"Hey, you guys are in a group, you need to leave. I'll invite you."
"No, you leave. We have more people."
"brb – bio"
"Oh fine, we'll disband, but we'll need an invite."
"Um.. I think someone's afk, so you guys really should leave your group."
"Fine, I'll disband. Everyone disband now."
"Wait, did you guys disband too! OMG!!!! Epic fail."
"That's it… I'm coming over so we can work this out. Get a soda and leave your computers unlocked."

In the end, it would take us 30 minutes to get together… and this was with us all in the same building. That's just not a good sign.

In an effort to combat this, we decided that the first step in creating a looking for squad system was to introduce the concept of merging squads. What we've done in D9 is add new functionality to merge squads. To do this we've modified /invite and added a new concept of /join. The difference between the two is best summarized with an example.

Want. Oh. So. Want. Hopefully the COH team is looking at this particular goody :D

Thoughts for now, keeping in mind there's a "new and shiney" bias here.

I adore combat

* The FPS ****combat is a breath of fresh air.
* The Cover system is unique and makes me think a bit more about how I fight. Its a lot more interesting for me than the simple "do I have line-of-sight?" range game I play in COH and virtually every other MMO I've tried.
* Getting a bead on the guy you're fighting for an accuracy and damage bonus is nice and like the cover system smartens things up a bit for me. Combining the two gives a really good feel to mid to long-range game.
* Not all weapons require the bead! Short range feels good too, especially since I've fallen in love with the shotgun. Much like COH, positioning is important especially when dealing with damage cones.
* No rooting that I've seen thus far. While not a big deal in COH, its very important here.
* The fact that damage types matters is pretty cool. The giant hulking things that show up during control point fights are scary when you see "Immune" show up over their heads when using small-arms fire. Likewise, the Lightbender's (natural defense vs laser weapons is neat, but they perforate quite nicely with standard rounds (they're a little alien that can bend light to cloak or blind you, literally, with a flash so it can run away and escape when near death).
* Standardized ammo. While not overly realistic, the fact my rifle, pistol and shotgun all use the same standard rounds is awesome and makes life sooo much easier. Same with my laser rifle and energy shotgun thing (which I totally love).
* XP multiplier for multiple kills in a short period of time. How can you not like that?


Movement/Travel

* Teleporters. I love them. Also a great reason to make sure control point is under player control, not enemy control, since you can't go somewhere that's not friendly. Good reason to explore, too.
* Medical facilities. I love them. Same as above, really.
* You can actually walk.
* You can put the guns away and go full out.
* If you have adrenaline, you can Sprint.


Missions/world

* Targets of opportunity are kind a cool, and can be done while you're doing everything else.
* Directions given on the mini map, and can be toggled on or off.
* So far they make sense. I'm not collecting things just for fun here.
* Friendly and hostile NPC spawning actually makes sense. Transport zooms in and teleports them to the ground.
* Friendies and hostiles actually fight each other. The world is alive and things carry on without you.
* Looting is easy. If there's something for you, there's a sparkle. If there's a quest item? There's a distinct glow.
* All vendors have core staples you need and can repair your gear. You don't have to go searching around for ammo and repairs; anyone will do.
* Control Point battles are a lot of fun; nothing like having to storm a control point so players can use it again. Trying to defend it is crazy, as the enemies will take out the major defenses first (like the two big cannons), then go for the shield at the gate. They'll try to get you too, but there's a goal. There are assault and defense tokens to be earned, too, which can be traded in for stuff.


Misc

* Sci-fi. I'm shallow, so even if its ranged WOW in kevlar, I'm happy.
* Cloning rocks on toast.
* The gameplay is easier and more forgiving to me and my non uber-self than Gears of War or Condemned.
* Storage in your locker is per server, so any characters on that server can use that storage locker to get stuff; items, armor, weapons and money. Very Guild Wars-ish.


Misc quibbles

* COH's interface is better/easier but that might just be the learning curve.
* UI and FPS mode take some getting used to alternating between.
* The ring (hold control) takes some getting used to and seems a little redundant. Its not required, though.


Just my thoughts thus far. I'm really enjoying the hell out of this.