reup / Member

Forum Posts Following Followers
45 14 0

reup Blog

Finally bought a Nintendo Wii

After lots of dilly-dallying and delaying the actual purchase I finally took a moment to purchase a shiny, new white Nintendo Wii. I've been playing a lot of Wii Sports and Play ever since and must say I'm extremely enthusiastic about this console. It's intuitive, the gameplay is new and different and it appeals to a lot of casual gamers as well. My father in law played some tennis and immediately was hooked and started Bowling like crazy :D

Next game on my wish list: Rayman Raving Rabbids!!!

My top 3 Free Online MMORPG's: 1. SilkRoad Online

To finish off this list (which I started a while back), my number 1 free MMORPG is currently SilkRoad online. The nice setting -Ancient China- combined with very decent graphics and a nice alternative magicstyle makes this an outstanding free game. The only problem I had so far is the amount of lag and server timeouts when playing at Europa-awake times. When I was in the USA, playing it never proved to be a problem and I could log on all the time. Back in The Netherlands, I hardly ever got to play. I've got to get back soon and see if they improved this situation!

My top 3 Free Online MMORPG's: 2. Anarchy Online

When I first played Anarchy Online I was really impressed by the maturity of the game. Even though it shows signs of age, the graphics still look good and the sheer amount of content, even in the free version, guarantees weeks and weeks of gameplay. The Science Fiction theme is also pretty nice and a welcome change from the drarvish/elvish Tolkienesque fantasy worlds a lot of MMORPGs are set in.
The developers have found a way to incorporate spellcasting of a sort into the game by allowing nano-technology to provide for mind-alteration, damage, healing 'spells', and a lot of boosts. There is a myriad of device you can buy that give different attributes a boost as well. Buying armour and laser guns is also pretty cool and the ability to have all kinds of crazy pets also adds to the fun.
I played the non-free version for a month and was amazed at the amount of new content it offered, but wasn't prepared to keep on paying the monthly fee (that plus I started to get addicted :|) I cancelled and opened a new free account immediately. It takes a little while to get acquinted with the game because of the huge amount of options, but luckily there are a lot of resources available. Soon, a new expansion for AO will be released, probably offering even more content, so it's bound to stay around for quite a while! Defintely worth playing!

Planeshift Pros and Cons

As said in my previous post, Planeshift is third in my top 3 of favourite free online mmorpgs. That needs some explaining, after all, the game isn't halfway finished. Still, it looks promising, even though the graphics lack the smoothness and lickity-spit quality of WoW or D&D Online. On the other hand, those games have a huge team of builders, modellers, developers and other artists behind them AND charge you plenty of money for the gaming experience. If you are a fan of role-playing games, you probably care more about the actual roleplaying and the storylines then about the graphics. I'd say this is the most important quality Planeshift has to offer. Due to the nature of the game, a lot of its players are serious about the roleplaying and (from what I've experienced) stay a lot more in character then in other games.
So, if you're the kind of roleplayer that likes pen-and-paper forbidden>

My top 3 Free Online MMORPG's: 3. Planeshift

There are plenty of free or semi-free MMORPG's around, but at the bottom of my top 3 is definetely PlaneShift, made entirely by a community of volunteers. There's no company behind the game that is actively developing it, producing it or mass-marketing it. The game isn't finished yet, not by a longshot, and it seems it will be in a perpetual Alpha-stage (much like the everlasting beta google's gmail is going through). That doens't mean it isn't playable. Quite the contrary: with a focus on roleplaying, an active userbase very frequently visits the world of PlaneShift.
The visuals allready look quite good, especially if you consider the lack of funding (the game can be considered as a showcase for the Crystal Space 3D engine). There's a lot of demand for artistic talent at the moment, and had I posessed any, I'd probably volunteer right away. On the other hand, seeing how busy I am without a time-consuming game project, that might not be a good idea :P More tomorrow... 

Replaying Morrowind...

I've started replaying Morrowind. This time as a BattleMage. I've only just begun (lvl 5 at the moment) but I'm allready enjoying myself again. I've added some cosmetic mods, such as TLM, some armour and face mods and the Unofficial Patch 1.6. I'm planning on finish the main quest and the Bloodmoon and Tribunal quests as well (plus as many sidequest as possible). I've allready joined both the Mages Guild and the Fighters Guild and am a proud member of House Telvanni! It's amazing how well this game holds up against the wear and tear of time. It still look pretty good and the gameplay is very, very good. Allthough I had gotten used to fast travelling everything in Oblivion ;)

Too busy for gaming

Now that I've got a new bigshot job and all, as a .NET-developer for Pete's sake, it seems it's gameover for gaming. I just don't have the time to play anymore. Sometimes I find myself sitting behind my desktop wondering where all my hours went... Probably into some wacky code, undoubtebly bug-riddles and poorly compiling :( My last hope is Gothic 3. One of my friend bought it and claims to have almost finished it, after which I get to borrow it. This might help me break the gaming impasse I've found myself in! :D

Oblivion has got me hooked...

My latest purchase, not at all old-school, is Elder Scrolls IV, Oblivion. I've had it for three weeks now, but since I was finishing up for my MSc. I've had to restrain myself. The day after the final presentation I eagerly ripped of the shrinkwrap and put the DVD in the drive. I was a little bit anxious because I wasn't really sure how my system would handle the little resource hogger...
But lo and behold, I'm able to play Oblivion at Medium with decent enough framerates... Awesome... Just awesome...
Don't have time to write anymore... have to save Cyrrodil again :D

I'm so going to buy a Wii

1) The Controller! Awesome game-play possibilities 2) Pretty sweet games lineup right from the start 3) Even my GF could like some of the games, finally bridging the gap between her and my other hobby :) 4) The pricing is promised to be very friendly, especially for cheap ass gamers who live of the bargain bin like myself :P wiiiiiiiiiiii

Shogun is frigging difficult...

The InfoCom IF-game I'm currently playing is damn difficult. I've yet to pass the first scene of the game which has 55 of the 420 points in the game, so you can imagine the long, long way ahead of me... I'll summarize the plot: you're on board of a Dutch ship trying to find a route to Japan. However, your crew is now suffering from scurvy, the water's gone, the food's all out, there's a huge storm raving, you're heading for a reef... total mess. It's quite amazing how they managed to actually get you stressed in a text-only adventure. You're in quite a hurry, running from one end of the ship to the other in order to get to land safely... I'm almost there, but to finish this game is going to take me forever :(