Star Wars: The Old Republic

There have been many new developments in my #1 must have game of the year.  We have had many, many updates.  Some have been amazing, while others have sucked shit.  However, one of those updates has been an official release date.  It feels as though December 20, 2011 is taking it's sweet ass time getting here.

I have actually had the pleasure of participating in one of the weekend beta testing sessions.  I will not disclose any juicy tidbits here because I am a good tester and abide by the nondisclosure clause I agreed to.  That being said, I will give a more detailed account of my experience once the NDA is up.  I will say that even in beta, this game has blown all my expectations out of the f'n water!  WONDERFUL!!!!

League of Legends

     First off, yeah, I am aware that I haven't been keeping up with things like I said.  I want to, I really do.  Hopefully after school starts, I anticipated plenty of time during computer classes to post regularly.

     I have finally caved in and begun playing League of Legends.  If you haven't played it, I suggest you do it, now.  Stop reading this and go download it.  It's a Defense of the Ancients style game.  You control your character and help computer controlled minions to destroy the enemy base.  It's like Warcraft 3, only you just control your hero, with 4 other players.

     It's a multiplayer arena style game where you and your team can face other players in 5v5 or 3v3 matches.  You can also play 5v5 against a team of computer controlled bots.  The action is face paced, and fun.  And best of all, it's FREE!!  Check it out.

EA Summer Showcase Coverage

     NBA Jam On Fire Edition will be released this year via Live Marketplace and PSN.  Adding new features and making it the same old gameplay that we have grown to love from the series.

     NCAA 12 will have 1,000,000 user created teams available for download at launch.  Pushing user created content.  New collision system looks great.

     Madden 12 not really mentioned.

     NHL 12:  1.) Anticipation A.I.  Increasing CPU A.I. to actually "think ahead."  Players will anticipate the plays, player will move to where he "thinks" the puck will be going to.  2.) New collision system, gives balance control through big hits.  3.) Dynamic goalies.  Goalies can now be taken full control of, even fought.

     The Sims Medieval Pirates and Nobles expansion pack.

     EA Origin is coming to mobile devices.  Origin is EA's answer to Steam.  It will be cross platform, across all consoles, PC, and mobile devices.  One username, one password.  Extra unlocks for games purchased via Origin.  Showing FIFA 12 on iPad, with iPhones being used as controllers.  Amazing!

     Risk Factions, a new game on Facebook.  Really pushing PvP in a Facebook game.  Demoing a game of Scrabble, that is being played from 4 different devices.  One on Facebook, iPhone, iPad, and Android.  Releasing on Android next week, price is free.  Also has a built in dictionary.

     Burnout Crash, download only game available on XBox 360 and PS3.

     The Secret World, new MMO from Age of Conan creator FunCom.  No levels or classes.  You play the way you want to play, and build your character the way you want to.

     Dragon Age II Legacy, new DLC available July 26th.

     Nothing about SWTOR or Battlefield 3 was mentioned.  I'm a bit let down that it felt more like E3 for mobile devices.  Overall though, I would give the showing a B-.

EA Summer Showcase

     The EA Summer Showcase is taking place at 4PM EST today and I will be covering their announcements right here.  Here's hoping for a release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic!!

Back!

     Okay, I know.  It has been a loooong time since I posted.  It's not because I have lost interest, just been busy.  Took on a new job, moved, podcasts, a death in the family, and a number of other things has kept me away.  Regardless, I am back.  I will not be able to post as often as I would like, but I will as often as I can.

The Last Straw

     We have been working diligently on getting The Last Straw off the ground and running.  In the past week we have make strides towards that goal, we have moved leaps and bounds closer.  After all the hard work, we should actually have something to show for it later this evening.

     Please stay tuned.  For information on The Last Straw, just click on the tab at the top of the page.

The New Hotness?

     There is a lot of hype surrounding the new Mortal Kombat releasing next month.  Now, I love MK just as much as the next guy, but that doesn't mean they have been good games.  Sure, they were a blast at first, but since I have actually become a fighting game player I have noticed horrible balancing issues with all MK titles over the years.  The new title looks to remedy those problems.

     The demo has been out for a few weeks now, if you are a Playstation Plus member.  I have had plenty of time to sit down with it and work on my own dissection of it.  At it's core, Mortal Kombat has never been a strong fighter.  The balance issues I mentioned before coupled with weak gameplay has made it only popular due to the gore factor.  But the new MK has fixed a lot of those issues.  They have devised a much better combo system, the game is faster, and it appears to be very balanced.

     They must be doing something right with the newest edition.  Evo, THE fighting game tournament, has opened it's doors to Mortal Kombat this year.  The newest MK is the first MK to ever be a part of Evo.  This means great things for the franchise.

     After weeks of play, I decided to go to a friends house the other day and he was playing it there.  We jacked the difficulty up to expert, and that's when the flaws started to really come out.  Now, I went back and checked with normal and easy difficulties just to make sure I wasn't crazy.  On expert, it feels like the game becomes less responsive, and combos are harder to do.  This isn't due to the computer being tougher, it just seems when they do open up and the combo is started, it is near impossible to finish.  Even using Sub-Zero and trying to freeze the enemy becomes tedious due to the lack of response.

     Then the characters, or lack there of, is starting to annoy me.  There are plenty, just not much info on them at this time.  Although, there was an image leaked out today showing the character select screen.  Enjoy!

     In the end, I feel the issues I have with it will be addressed, after all, it is just a demo.  Looking forward to killing all my friends and having a blast with this game!  Sorry the image doesn't fit within the page formatting, working on fixing that.

Finally

     I know, I can already hear you all muttering, "It's about goddamn time you posted again!"  I've been pretty consumed with a multitude of things and have yet to post anything new, and for that I am sorry.  But the last month has been so full of glorious things.  Marvel vs. Capcom 3, GDS, Minecraft, Dragon Age: Origins(again), and so on.  So, I will try to touch on as many of these things as possible.  So, here we go, in no particular order...

     On the topic of the internet sensation known as Minecraft, a new update was added.  It wasn't some insane, 6gb update, though it made me play it like it was an update that large.  The only elements they added, which are awesome, are the ability to create a bed, a new lighting system, new save system, and the ability to have more than 5 worlds saved.  The bed is awesome though.  It allows you to sleep though the night, just like a real bed.  Sleeping in the bed automatically takes you to the next morning, so you no longer need to stay awake and fight zombies throughout the night if you don't wish to.  A subtle change, but enough to suck me back in for several hours.

     Then we had GDC, and to be honest, I found this years Game Developers Conference to be a bit lacking.  There were some good announcements, and leaks, but overall it was a bit weak.  All the Battlefield 3 info was amazing!  And the leaked videos made me rejoice!  But Bioware really didn't reveal anything, and that makes me sad, though PAX East is this weekend, and they are supposed to be making some announcements, stay tuned...

     Dragon Age: Origins, my my.  I just recently picked it up again in anticipation of Dragon Age II, but this time I picked it up on PC.  I should have done this since day one, but then again, I did not have a PC that could run it at the time.  If you haven't played it, do yourself a favor and pick it up, it is an amazing game.  But it has once again been taking over my life, in addition to the other thing that has been keeping me from posting.  And that brings me to...

     Marvel vs. Capcom 3, holy shit!  Is this game anything short of AMAZING?!  It's almost perfectly balanced, which is a rarity in the fighting game world.  I hear many people bitching about it, saying it blows, but these are the people that are angry that they can't use the team of Magneto, Storm, and Sentinal to completely wreck everybody.  It's the best fighter Capcom has released in many years.  Now, if they would just work on a new Rival Schools, I would be smitten...

     Well, that pretty much has us caught up on what my month has looked like.  I wanted to get this posted before tomorrow, because Dragon Age II will most likely rule my life for awhile.  So, until next time...

The End of an Era

     Activision's announcement yesterday really came as no surprise to me, but from the things being released from EA as well, it seems this is the end.  Activision announced that they were no longer developing music titles. The have closed down 7 Studios, one of the studios responsible for DJ Hero, and announced there will be no more Guitar Hero titles either.  EA has sold off Harmonix and MTV Games is no longer an active studio.

     In all honesty, I am a bit saddened that there will be no more Rock Band titles.  EA has not announced that they are canning it, but judging from everything else going on, I'd say it's a safe bet.  To me, Rock Band, aside from Guitar Hero I and II, is the only title to get it right.  Every installment was better than the last.  Rock Band 3, I feel, is hands down the best music game I have ever played.  Though this dissolve of the music genre can be blamed solely on Activision.

     Activision has done everything they possibly could to pump out one shitty title after another with the Guitar Hero label on it.  At least one a year.  And then the even shittier Band Hero.  But that's not all, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: AC/DC, Guitar Hero: Green Day, I mean, c'mon.  Rock Band did it once, and with the most iconic band of all time, The Beatles, and furthermore, they did it right.  A friend of mine said it right about Guitar Hero, "They should have just released song bundles and albums from those other bands, instead of releasing shitty half games with only their music."

     Activision has encompassed everything I hate about George Lucas, but they have none of the redeeming qualities he possesses.  They are both money grubbing whores, but that is where the similarities end.  They have taken a genre that I once held dear to my heart, and they have destroyed it.  They killed it, raped it, and are now eating it's fucking costume.  Thanks Activision, thanks for nothing.

GG Sony, gg.

     Wow, I love when Sony sticks their foot, or feet in this case, in their mouth.  They did it when they announced the price of the PS3, when Kazuo Hirai said that "people will buy it because it's Sony."  Well, they have really done it this time.  In their new onslaught to destroy anyone who posts the Playstation 3 security key, they overlooked one critical detail, themselves.

     Sony's Kevin Butler, who's real identity is actor Jerry Lambert, mistakingly retweeted the security code this morning.  A nice write up on the incident can be found here.  It will be interesting to see how Sony handles this blunder.

WTF?!

Ok, seriously Google, wtf?! The first wtf moment you threw at us was the removal of H264 support from Chrome. You can try to justify it all you want, it's still retarded. But now you've really done it.

Starting today, Google has begun censoring bittorrent and other piracy related terms from their search tools. How do they expect to censor piracy? There are several torrent search sites already available. And even more members only sites. The Google Regime begins...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6

Hunger

     I have been so friggin' hungry today.  Cold too, damnedest thing.  Although I am about to tear in to a pizza while researching my next post.  I'm gonna tear that pie up like Beavis!

The End of an Era

     Many people are familiar with The Fantastic Four, even if they don't regularly read comic books.  Tomorrow the final issue of Fantastic Four hits the shelves.  The comic has been in print for nearly 50 years, and after 587 issues, it will come to an end.

     Now, the Fantastic Four are not going away, they are just ending the printing of the main run.  If you are a veteran of comics, then you know that this seems to be standard practice anymore.  Another staple in comics is for a character to die, and Marvel is delivering that in the final issue. Johnny "The Human Torch" Storm will perish in the final issue.  But don't fret fans, nobody stays dead forever in the Marvel Universe. Give it 2 years, he'll be back!

Announcement!

     I will be making an announcement regarding the podcast in the morning.  I will also, more than likely, be making a post covering the Oscar nominations.  But considering I didn't see many movies in the last year, I might not have much to say about the movies themselves.

Stay tuned...

Anime

     I've been asked if I will be covering any anime on the site. If I happen to see something OUTSTANDING, I will be sure to pass it on to my readers.  But the thing is, I haven't really seen anything really worthy of talking about in some time.  The last thing would have been Evangelion 1.0.  I could write about the anime that I love, but it's been done, time and time again, for years now.

     I do have friends that still watch most things, and some of them are heavy in to the AMV scene.  For those not in the know, AMV = anime music video.  If this sounds interesting to you, check out the home for all things AMV

Red State

     It seems as though film writer/director Kevin Smith is back to stirring things up in Hollywood.  He has vowed to self distribute his new movie, Red State.  "This is indie film 2.0," Smith said.  "It's not enough to just make the movie.  Because true independence isn't making a film and selling it to some jackass.  True independence is schlepping that shit to the people, and that's what I intend to do."

     Smith promised to auction of the rights to distribution after it's premiere screening Sunday night at the Sundance Film Festival, and he did just that.  Jonathan Gordon, the films producer, opened the bid and quickly closed it after Kevin Smith bid $20.

     "For me, the idea of giving somebody else five times the the amount of the budget for the movie that we all collectively made, worked our asses off real hard, to sell the thing just seems obscene."  He went on to mention that the box office sales would have to double what the distribution company initially invested to start turning a profit.  "I've got an audience, ladies and gentlemen, they come see the shit I do.  I was able to sell out Carnegie Hall without spending a fucking dime in advertising."

     Smith has stated that all of his advertising will be done through his website and his official Twitter account. Red State hits theaters on October 19, 2011, 17 years to the day that Clerks opened in theaters.

Space Pocahontas

     James Cameron, you have made massive amounts of money making shit-tastic movies over the last several years.  You are like Michael Bay, only you hide the shitiness of your movies behind historical epics or massive 3-D undertakings.  You have had your successes in writing with good enough reason, Aliens, Terminator and Terminator 2, and who could forget True Lies(screw you, I loved True Lies!), and The Abyss.  But to be honest, I feel as though those glory days are gone.

     You had your stinkers back then too.  Let's not forget Piranha Part 2: The Spawning.  Now you just cleverly try to disguise the hot garbage you are turning out.  For example, Titanic.  This flick had some serious potential.  A historical bio-pic about one of the worst tragedies in world history.  And it starts of well enough, Leo D gets on the boat to escape poverty in England and make a new life for himself in America, yay!  Kate gets on the boat, she's rich, and is a real snooty bitch.  Fine, they had those back then too!  But that's where his clever little ruse begins to fade and the crap starts bubbling to the surface.  Kate and Leo have an affair and fall in love, the boat hits the iceberg, the ship goes down, Leo dies and Kate survives.  There, I saved you  3 hours and 14 minutes of suck.

     Then there is Avatar, Jesus Christ!  Now, don't get me wrong, the movie is beautiful!  It's worth the watch just to see how beautiful it really is.  But all it is when you strip away all the fancy bells and whistles is Pocahontas in space.  Have you ever seen the Disney version of Pocahontas?  Make her 12 feet tall with blue skin, replace Jamestown with a far away planet, and turn the horses in to Pteredons, and you have Avatar.  And now he has announced that there will be sequels.  The first one is to be released around Christmas 2014 followed by another sequel around Christmas 2015.  You are going to have to step up your game James.  Time to get original again.  I hope you can do it.  There are no Pocahontas sequels that I am aware of for you to rip off.  Give us some of that originality you once used for Terminator and True Lies, otherwise, just hang it up man, stop wasting our time and money.

Game of The Year 2010

     Yes, Game of the Year posts are usually done before the end of the year, or even around a week into the new year.  I am well aware that I am just a bit behind on time, but give me a break.  I just feel the need to do this.

     So, 2010 had some pretty memorable games.  Red Dead Redemption, Bayonetta, Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, Heavy Rain, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Mass Effect 2.  These have to be my top picks for the year, but not in that order.  I have finished all of the game mentioned except for one, but I have put enough time in to it to feel comfortable in placing in the running.  I'm not going to go in to detail about all of the games listed above, because I don't have the patience to lay it all out for everyone.  If you want the details, got to 1up or Gamespot, I'm just here to give my opinion.

     Now, this was quite a difficult decision for me, seeing how I found every last title I mentioned to be fantastic!  And Starcraft II holds a special place in my heart because I loved the first one so much, the 12 year wait was well worth it.  But this is not my choice.  So we will just get down to it.

     My pick for the 2010 Game of the Year is the game I have yet to complete, Mass Effect 2.  Now before any naysayers start their "How can you pick that when you haven't finished it?!" bullshit, stop now.  I have put 24 hours in to it already and it has already blown every other game in the running away, completely!  Bioware is second to none in the gaming industry when it comes to depth and story, and they have proven it once again with Mass Effect 2.

     If you played the first Mass Effect, the first thing you notice is the change in the combat system.  The combat system in ME was pretty rough.  It's what killed the game for me.  But ME2 made the change.  Bioware went above and beyond in refining the combat system.  The cover system works beautifully.  Combine that with the tactics system from ME and it makes for a flawless 3rd person shooter experience.  Then add in the RPG element and it golden.  The story picks up just after the end of ME and throws you in to an adrenaline rush inducing sequence.  Don't worry, I don't do spoilers.

     Graphically, it performs quite well.  I normally don't like to talk about graphics because that's the last thing on my list of what makes a great game great.  I have said it before, and I will say it again, I will played a text based game over a graphically superior game if the game play is better.  When you think about it, what makes a game is game play.  If the game play blows, no amount of high-end, eye-popping graphics are going to save the game.  All you have at that point is a beautiful piece of shit.  So, yeah, it's pretty, but the game play is better. Here is just a taste, I give you the opening sequence.

     Well, that is my pick.  If you haven't played it, do. Hopefully my weak review of an AMAZING is enough to get you off your ass and playing.  If you have played it, then you know what I'm talking about.

Changes

There will be a number of changes to the blog over the next few weeks, working on getting this thing going fairly regularly in conjunction with the podcast.  So, subscribe and enjoy.

Podcast

It looks like the old gang, for the most part, is getting back together. We are getting ready to start up a new podcast titled "The Last Straw."  We are hoping to actually have something up and fully running in the next 2 weeks or so.  Be on the lookout for this soon.  I will be posting links to the web page as soon as we launch.  Be on the lookout!

Preoccupied

Well, here we are, another holiday season. I have eat until I can hardly move. There has been turkey, ham, green beans, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, rolls, and enough dessert to send the country in to a diabetic coma. It's been a good Thanksgiving. But I've been a bit "removed."

For those of you who play World of Warcraft, you may understand. This past Tuesday, Blizzard released the 4.0.3a patch to their beloved game. This is significant because it is a complete reworking of the entire original areas of the game. This means a new look, new quests, the whole package. It is amazing so far.

I can't help but find myself wishing I was back home playing now. I love my family and getting to see them. Love seeing the inlaws, but I can't seem to get my mind off the game. It's like a whole new game, and it has once again captivated me. I think I may have a problem...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5