"These aren't the games your looking for..."

I want to start this point out with a small fact that I found out last night.  While doing some research on the Droid phone as that seems likely to be my next phone purchase (the scales are swaying between that and the iPhone that will hopefully be on Verizon in the next year).  I came to see this statement:

"DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies. Used under license."

What the hell?  Anyway...
Star Wars is my favorite series of movies and despite what feelings people have about Lucas and his movies, they hold a special place in my heart. But today were here to talk about the goods and bads of the Star Wars game franchises.  To cover them all would be a huge task and time consuming, so right now I am just going to focus on the RPG realm of games, mainly of the MMO brand.  Now I already mentioned this in a ealier post while talking about Bioware how the two Knights of the Old Republic games were some of the best, fun, and re playable Star Wars games, let alone RPG games, that I have played in years.  When I found out that Bioware would be helming a MMO based in the KoToR universe, I nearly wet myself.

The reason I got super excited about this was because I played Star Wars Galaxies.  If you too have played, you will understand where I am going with this.  They sucked.  Sucked big time.  You would think a Star Wars MMO where I can go and see such famous places as the Mos Eisley cantina or help Han Solo and Chewbacca on a mission?  This is going to be the best thing ever.  Oh how wrong we were.  I ended up getting picked to help beta test the game before it went live, and at the time it was the first MMO I had ever played.  I knew of Everquest and UO and had watched numerous people play both, but I had never experienced one myself, so when I found out that Star Wars, my favorite franchise ever, was making one, I had to delve into it head first.  I was happy to test the game, I got to play for free and before 100's of other people storm(tropped) the servers on release day.  At first glance the game was fun.  I had played RPG's so I understood the basic's of skills, combat etc etc, but this was different.  The way you learned skills was odd.   Now I played this game almost 5-7 years ago so I'm a bit rusty on the info so bare with me.  You would find a trainer, say a Smuggler trainer, they would give you the ability to be a smuggler and then from there it would break off into four trees.  Each tree a subset of the class.  Smugglers had pistol fighting, spice mining/making and some other crap that I didn't care about.  But to learn new spells, you would basically have to master that block of skill, by using it over and over and over again.  So to "rank up" in pistols I would have to stand outside a mynock hive and shoot for 10 hours.  It was terrible.  Even worse was any of the hand to hand combat techniques for the lack of weapons.

The classes in the game were diverse to say the least.  The hardcore PvP players could join either the Rebels or Imperial Army and don Storm Trooper armor and engange in battles.  There were crafting professions for people who wanted to thrive and make money on the virtual market.  Spanning from armor/weapon crafting to builders who could make vending machine shops or even houses.  For the more casual player who wanted a RP experience there were classes such as hair/make up artist, musician and bartender.  You were not locked into any one class, and could drop your current one at anytime to pick up and learn a new one.  This is where the game fell apart.  The first nail in the coffin was there was no Jedi/Sith.  For a Star Wars game, thats what everyone wanted.  Thats what made the Jedi Knight games so fun, taking up a Lightsaber and blasting through enemies with crazy flourishes was so much fun.  The game developers had a good reason to not include them which I agree with, there would be to many.  No one would want to play any of the other classes.  It would just be Jedi and Sith everywhere you look.  It breaks the mythos of the universe.  Jedi were not plentiful like they once were.  But again, falling to what people wanted because no MMO would be complete without whinning and crying, Jedi's were introduced.  And not via patch or anything, one day someone killed a Dark Trooper and happened to find a holocon in the loot.  When opened up it said something like "The path to blah blah blah is through blah blah blah"  picking one of the numerous professions as a hint.  That person dropped whatever class they were and started grinding out whatever the holocron told them.  Once finished another message came up telling them the next profession to master.  The problem with this is it was TOTALLY RANDOM.  Each person was different, and no two paths were the same.  Once the "path" was unlocked, it still counted and could then be dropped to learn the next one.  Thus began the Great SWG Grind.

Everyone stopped playing the game as a game, and basically set up macros to auto level skills and max everything out, drop class, restart the game.  Mind you again on first release there were almost 15+ classes?  When I got bored of combat and PvP I made my way to a small cantina on Tatooine and settled down as a musician.  As a musician there was no real way yo make money other than if people who came into the cantina tipped you, which caused a lot of spam word bubble messages asking for tips.  What I came to find was that after an hour of playing I had made no money due to the fact that 90% of the people in the place were auto-macro set up dancing or playing music on loop.  The game had become a shell of its already crappy self, and I decided to quit.  It wasn't fun anymore, not that it ever was, but still I spent about 1 1/2 running on foot out to Obi-Wan's hut out in the middle of nowhere just to see it.  I had good memories of the game, when I wasn't actually playing it, IE sightseeing and decorating my house.  That was the other thing that I really liked, player housing.  More MMO's need player housing.

I tired my hand at the game again a few years later when they basically restructured the entire game from the ground up without making it a new game, and introduced Jedi as a starting class.  The game was still the same POS game that I had played all those years ago, so after my 30 free days, I walked away for good.  Now in the months past, as well as to come, we are finding new information daily about a new game, one that will stay true and faithful to the Star Wars universe.  Granted we will not be graced by such characters as Darth Vader and Leia, but the trade off is fair in my eyes.  I really like what Bioware did with the KoToR universe and the character's in it, and think that this setting is a great one to work with.  And while there is four "Force" based classes in the game, I still would rather play a Smuggler or Bounty Hunter as well because they look just as fun as the rest.  The game looks GOOD.  Finally.

With the advent of The Old Republic almost ready to enter its beta stages, and which I am sure most of you will be happy to know, I had quit WoW, again.  This time is probably for good.  Maybe Cataclysm might spark some intrest again, but I doubt it.  I'm moving on WoW, there are plenty of fish in the sea for you.  Anyway I have deleted my WoW specific blog, and and now switching focus of set blog to The Old Republic.  Right now since the game isn't out, it will mostly feature news and other information about the upcoming game so look for that in the near future!

May the Force be with you,
- Nerdsbeware out    

Strategic Planning

As a fan of all things from music to movies and video games, I like to stay on top of whats coming out and when.  And since I generally like to know, I'm sure you readers would as well.  I'm going to try and do this at the start of each month, and if efforts to not make this a huge list, only highlight the stuff that seems worth posting, but I'll link to full lists just in case. Without further ado:

Theatrical Film Releases 
Dec. 4th
nada.  Go see something from November, Fantastic Mr. Fox maybe.
Dec. 11th
Princess and the Frog (Disney's foray back in the classic fairy tale animation)
The Slammin' Salmon (new Broken Lizard movie!)
The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel)
Dec. 18th
Avatar (James Cameron's return to sci-fi epic after 10 years)
Dec. 25th
Sherlock Holmes (Guy Richie directing Robert Downey Jr & Jude Law)
Full list can be found here.

DVD & BluRay Releases
Dec. 1st
Terminator Salvation
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Snatch & Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (BluRay Releases)
Dec. 8th
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Ultimate Edition
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Ultimate Edition
Public Enemies
Julia & Julia
Dec. 15th
Inglourious Basterds
The Hangover
Robot Chicken: Season Four (DVD)
Dec. 22nd
District 9
(500) Days of Summer
Family Guy: Something Something Dark Side
Dec. 29th
9
Jennifer's Body
Full lists can be found here and here.

Video Games
Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - Dec 7th I think(?)
Full list here.

There is nothing good coming out on CD, what else is new...

So yea, December looks like a decent month for movies, everything else sorta falls to the wayside.  Hopefully I will remember to do this next month, and the following and so on and so forth.  Thanks to Dark Horizons, High-Def Digest, VG Releases, and IMDB. Keep watch readers!
- Nerdsbeware out

Cutscenes

I hope you all come to this blog to catch up with me and my rants about gaming, but gaming is not my only passion .  Since probably the first time I saw Star Wars when i was like 11-12ish the world of film has just captured me and enticed me.  If you ever listened to our ill-fated podcast, or read my first blog, most of those were about movies and TV.  Again this blog is primarily a gaming blog, but every now and then I feel the need to breach off, which is what I'm going to do today!

I'll start by saying this, I HATE TWILIGHT.  I  bring this to attention first because last night was the midnight showing of that awful piece of trash known as New Moon.  I'm really not going to go much more into it, other than the first movie was just horrible, and the books are probably not much better.  Before you flame me know this, I tried reading the first book...yea let me explain.  So I'm not a vampire fan, I mean I like certain movies with vampires in them, good movies like Lost Boys, Once Bitten (lawlz), and From Dusk til Dawn come to mind from my list. Also I am a HUGE fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, both TV show and movie.  It started out cause I thought Sarah Michelle Gellar was beautiful, but then the show got awesome so I stuck with it.  Now I also like werewolves too, again a few movies that come to mind are American Werewolf  in London and TeenWolf.  When I heard about a movie (because even though I worked in a bookstore for 3 years I only slightly knew they were books first) that had to deal with vampires fighting werewolves (Underworld?)  but was aimed at more of a teen group, with the dude who played Cedric Diggory, I said "alright...I'll bite"...ug no pun intended...I really knew nothing about it. My girlfriend had the book and I asked to borrow it just to see the source material, and she assured me that I would hate it.  I foolishly ignored the comment and took the book.  I sat down to read it, and no joke within a few pages in, the book was across the room.  I'm not a girl, and the book is told from a girl's perspective, so reading it did nothing for me.  This has already gone on to long so in the end, the I hated the movie and the story and the actors and actresses and everything about it.  But hey to those who do like it, cool I'm not knocking you for it, it's just not my bag.

The big movie I am really looking forward to this holiday/winter season is Sherlock Holmes.  Strange, this post is about movies, but oddly movies based off books for the most part...Now there's a definitive line on this movie that I've seen from talking to people.  There are the people like me who are uber-excited to see the movie, and then there are the people who just have total hate for it.  I have never read a single Sherlock Holmes book in my life, not because I thought they were bad or anything, I just never got around to them or anything.  I've seen one or two of the movies, or shows or some incarnation of it though.  Most times, and I assume this is why the haters are hating on the new movie, Holmes seems to just be chasing the bad guy, solving crimes with his wit and pipe.  Thats cool and shit, its the reason I love shows like CSI (the original Gil Grissom 4 lyfe) and other reality shows on the crime networks.  What I like about this movie is it looks like we are looking at a very visceral, careless, unrefined Holmes when he is first starting out.  He's not the wise older man that we have all seen before.  I like that, I like the fresh start, a new look at a character that we have grown to know so well.  There's a few other factors here such as first and for most Robert Downy Jr.  Iron Man is one of the best comic book movies to date, and Iron Man 2 is my most anticipated summer movie.  I've always enjoyed his movies, and hes making an awesome come back now.  Jude Law and Mark Strong kick ass as support cast, and with Guy Richie at the helm?  Awesome.  I loved Snatch and RocknRolla, they were both great London gangster movies.  Holmes just has a crazy vibe to it, the style, the look, everything about it makes me excited.  As I said above I think people are starting to dislike the movie already though because we don't have the Holmes of old.  Which again I don't know how he was in the books or anything, I can only speak from what I've seen of this new movie.  Either way I think it looks good, and damn the critics and what everyone else says because if I like it, I guess thats all that matters.

Theres a few other spattered movies here and there that I want to see.  Princess and The Frog from Disney drops on December 11th.  It's Disney's first animated effort since 2004.  It's good to see them going back to basics and working with the classics again.  Not that the movies of late from their animated line have been bad, but they just weren't the Disney movies I grew up with.  Aladdin is one of my favorite movies and the recent BluRay releases of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White have just looked phenomenal.  They also have Rapunzel and one or two other classic stories lined up for release in the new few years.  Avatar is the only other movie that I am psyched for.  Its the first movie sci-fi master and genius James Cameron has done since the epic (epically LAME) Titanic.  But hey the dude broke every record in the book with Titanic so he makes bank.  Put that aside for the simple fact that we have a huge budget, epic sci-fi movie written and directed by the man who brought us: Aliens, True Lies, The Abyss, Terminator and what could be the greatest action movie of all time Terminator 2.  I don't think I need to say much else.  The internet buzz on this movie is huge, the geek fan base for this is overflowing.  In August they held what was referred to as "Avatar Day" in which you had only a limited amount of time (because it sold out so damn fast) to get tickets to watch a 10-15 min scene and some behind the scenes stuff in 3D IMAX.  It was huge.  I am hoping Cameron will be able to crush his own records here, but I highly doubt it.  While Avatar looks great and everything it's not universal like Titanic was.  That movie played to everyone young and old, Avatar is Cameron giving back to the geek/sci-fi community that helped movies like Terminator 2 and Aliens become as big as they are.  I have a good feeling it will be huge though.

So with that I tip my hat to you readers and always,

Thanks for reading!
   -Nerdsbeware out

MGS

It's something that seems to plague most gamers, on a daily basis it lays claim to so many without warning.  It is Multiple Gaming Syndrome.  Maybe you have it?  Maybe someone you know has it?  I am here today, to come to terms, be open, and let all of you know that, I, Nerdsbeware suffer from MGS.  Think of MGS like this scenario:

You are placed in an empty room except for a large 55in HD-TV, nice comfy couch, snacks, fridge full of drinks (whatever kind you desire for purposes of this experiment) and unlimited high speed internet. Next to the TV is entertainment stand containing a Wii, Xbox 360, PS3.  Next to the couch is a DS or PSP(your choice).   Behind the couch is a desk with a top of the line gaming PC.  On the desk is a book with all the newest, top rated, games for all the platforms.  You are instructed to pick 10 games for whatever you want.  You are given all the games at once.  You get yourself set for a nice long gaming session and a voice comes over a loud speaker letting you know that you only have 6-8 hours before the console systems go on lockdown, the internet is cut, and the batteries on the portable devices die (this is all hypothetical but).
What do you do!  You go into a panic trying to decide what games come first, which has the most priority, which games are casual or hardcore.  What can be beat in an hour, what might require more time?  Yea sure you can pick the best game out of the 10 and just play it and enjoy it, but what about all those other great games?  Its a terrible situation to have to live with.

Thats how I am most of the week.  Now I'm exaggerating obviously here.  It's not really a tough decision to make when you have a couple of games to play, it's just a matter of balancing time to get to all of them.  But there does seem to be some sort of ranking that comes into play when deciding what  games to play on a daily basis.  I have two games that I am decently "hardcore" into right now, a few casual games that I play when I am bored, and one or two that are always fun to just throw in and play.  I break it down like this.  First comes World Of Warcraft.  It's sad that it is on the top of my list (granted it's value has dropped greatly and as much as I joined back up, I am ready to quit again), but the only reason it is right now, is because of the $15 a month I pay for it.  I feel like its wasted money if I don't log on, run a lap around Dalaran, sell some shit, get kicked out of a raid because theres to many DPS and then log off.  All these reasons are why I should just cancel my account and wait for Star Wars: The Old Republic, but I wont for some reason...

My  time is now pretty much being split (sorta..more like 70/30) between Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins.  Borderlands if you didn't know is a great RPG-Shooter made by Gearbox Studios.  For all you people who loved the loot hunting, quest gathering fun of Diablo II, this game offers that up but in a new style.  The game can be played single player or multi, but honestly the difficulty scaling in single player is so low that it's to easy.  Plus the game was built to be played by you and three other friends, so why not take advantage of that?  You play as one of four classes set forth to go find a mysterious Vault filled with treasures and sikk weapons.  All we found was that if you happen to crash during the final cutscene, you'll never see the final boss nor the PHAT LOOTZ that dropped.  The game is addictive fun making you want to go back to the same zones just to light a midget on fire or drive your car off a cliff for fun.  The classes are simple enough, to understand and each is fun in their own way.  Right now I am playing a Siren which kicks ass, and I plan to start a Berserker soon since we are in stasis since our Roland was the victim of the crash mentioned above and we don't want to get to far ahead of him in Playthrough 2.  For a better, more in depth review, check out Spectre's review here, since my post already run long enough...

As mentioned above, the other game I dove head first into was Dragon Age: Origins.  A new fantasy single player RPG developed by Bioware (makers of great games such as Baulder's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series, Mass Effect series and countless other great RPG games).  You play as one of three races (dwarf, human, elf ) and either a mage, warrior or rogue.  Each class/race class combo has their onw "origin" story that serves as the intro to the game and with each class getting four different specialization trees (you get to pick one at level 7, and another at level 14) there is a ton of ways to play this game.  I'm really green in the game so the story is still forming but you are set out to join a group of combatants called the Grey Wardens, set with the task of hunting and killing Darkspawn (the enemies in the game).  Again I am keeping this really short and simple because the game is huge, and there is a lot going on and I just don't have the time to really go into huge detail about it.  Either way, the game plays like the Knights or Mass Effect games, but with a few new tweaks that really make these type of party based group games fun and effective. Since WoW is a sinking ship in the ocean of games I want to play, I was thinking of changing my WoW blog over either a Borderlands blog or Dragon Age blog.  Any thoughts?

Aside from those two games that I am totally loving right now, today was a huge day for gaming.  Assassins Creed 2, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Left 4 Dead 2 all dropped.  So once again, here I sit in that open room with just mere hours to choose what to play...My name is Nerdsbeware, and I suffer from MGS.

Guitar Zero

I went to Best Buy for my normal Tuesday pick-up and upon walking in I saw a grand display of white with pretty colored pastel lines and a font that looked all to familiar.  As I approached this monolith the words began to come into being.  BAND HERO (in the Guitar Hero font mind you...) stared me back in my face.  I turned the box over and at it puzzled, like I was trying to read something written in Chinese.  What could this be?  Another music and rhytem game with a full band set up?
Drums? Check.
Mic?  Check
Guitar? Check
Clone of another franchise that has gone way to overboard?  CHECK.

Here's what really had me stumped.  The game is put out by ActiBlizzard or Blizzivison, whatever you please.  The same people who put out the Guitar Hero series.  Oh now I get it, thats why the font looks like Guitar Hero....but not on a GH box.  What the hell is the meaning of this I exclaimed in my head.  Why would this company who just put out Guitar Hero 5 in September, Guitar Hero 5 that includes a full band set up, put out Band Hero, a game that includes a full band set up?  Is it exclusive to the Wii?  Is that why the box is white? No, no that can't be how would one of the richest companies out there stay afloat if they didn't go multiplatform.  Perplexed and head hurting deep in thought as to why I was looking at a game that was pretty much Guitar Hero 6 (but not) was being sold for $199.99 full band or $60 for just the game.

Back at the office I decided to go see what this hubbub was all about.  I was quickly brought to the best place for information, Wikipedia.  Upon reading this is what the Band Hero wiki page had to say:
"Band Hero is an expansion game to the Guitar Hero series of music video games, released by Activision on November 3, 2009 for the PlayStation 2 and 3, Wii, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS consoles. The game is structurally similar to Guitar Hero 5, and will support full band play (lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals) including the drop-in/drop-out and in-song instrument and difficulty change menus, and additional multiplayer modes as Guitar Hero 5."
Ok?  What the hell?  So again I ask...why isn't this just called Guitar Hero 6?  It's essentially the same GOD DAMN GAME.  Thats right, people wouldn't buy GH6 because GH5 just came out a month ago and it needed to be rebranded it so people will think it's a new game.  Oh wait here is the the shocking truth to show why we needed a new game that is based off and already exisisting game, and will spawn 100 more sequels of shit: "Band Hero for consoles will feature 65 songs from "mainstream acts" ".  Oh it also features more "in game models" of famous artists too.  That's it?  Mainstream bands are really the reason you want me to pay $60 for 65 songs?  Ever hear of DLC?  It's this awesome new technology where you can put groups of songs in an online marketplace where people can pay real money to download them and play them in their already pre-existing game!

I really am just at a loss about this one.  The commerical for it features Pete Wentz, Travis Barker and Rivers Cuomo doing the standard Risky Business slide into frame with "Old Time Rock and Roll" playing.  But this time Taylor Swift walks comes in and starts singing something that I don't really care about.  Same advertisement that GH has been using since probably GH3.  I just don't have words to describe how stupid this game seems.  Not to mention DJ Hero just came out a few weeks ago and I can't think of anything more boring that that game.  The market is over saturated with these games now.  It's just one after another and with each one they get worse and worse.  Jokes have been around for years now about what's next.  Accordian Hero? Tenor sarrusophone Hero? In all honestly I'd rather just play SkinFlute Hero than buy
another one of these stupid games.  You know what we play every time I go to my friends place? Rock Band(2).  The original game that introduced drums and mic to the mix.  The game got it right on the first try and only made it better by having an amazing DLC structure.  With the RB DLC my one friend has spent well into the hundreds on songs, and it never gets boring.  I know each person has their own tastes and while the Console Wars still rage on, one of the smaller battles being fought on the side lines is the Rock Band vs Guitar Hero series.  Will they keep making more games?  Will we get a new trend in gaming soon that will put a stop to these?  Who the hell knows, and if a white box with crazy lettering and colors on it confuses me, I'm not the one to ask.

See you on stage folks,        
- NerdsBeware out

PS:  Everyone should go listen to the band Between the Buried and Me, mainly the albums Colors and The
Great Misdirect.  Amazing.

Price Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

The full trailer went up on line for the movie yesterday and hot damn does it look promising.  I hate the fact that I have never really played any of these games because I heard they were really good, fun games, most of them at least.  I assume the movie is based off the game of the same name, but I don't know where they are taking lore/story from.  People are going to rag on the movie reguardless because its a "video game movie" but in the end, it looks better than half the other vg movies that have come out in the past.  You really kinda have a powerhouse team working on this movie.

First you have Jerry Bruckheimer producing the movie.  I really like what he picks to put his money into, since he just doesn't dump money into any pieces of crap movie that comes along.  Yes, Disney is tied to the film with Bruckheimer, but they also paired on the Pirates movies which were generally good, fun movies, as well as the two National Treasure movies.  They weren't the greatest but they were fun, goofy "lets go on an around the world adventure!" type of movie that you just don't see anymore.  Mike Newell is directing, and directed my personal favorite Harry Potter movie (Goblet of Fire), and can do action well and I generally like his movies.  Rounding out the cast is Jake Gyllenhaal who I am kinda indifferent to.  He might be good, he might be bad, I don't know yet.  Playing our villian is Sir Ben Kingsly who with the exception of a handful of bad movies (BLOODRAYNE WTFFAIL??) is a class actor and I find him to bring something good to the movies he does.  Gemma Arterton plays our female lead, and I just absolutely love her.  She's a British actress who has only done a few "main stream" movies such as having a small part in Quantam of Solace and RocknRolla.  She will be in the upcoming (and AWESOME looking remake of Clash of the Titans too).  Finally we have Alfred Molina who we all know from Spider-Man 2.  He's another great, timeless actor who brings so much to the screen.

So again all in all the movie looks really good.  I'm sure people will still complain about something because they always do, but for what its worth, I'll be seeing it.  Check out the trailer below:

Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

Battle for the world!

With the fact that going out and doing things on weekends tends to cost a pretty penny between eating out and/or going to the movies it can run you in the area of...well a lot.  Our Saturday nights as of the past two weeks have consisted of board games, beer and movies.  The first time we tried this experiment in non money spending fun, the monolithic box with World Of Warcraft sprawled across it was drawn forth from the closet .  It's a pretty fun game if you love WoW, but don't feel like dealing with Barrens chat, kids, WoWHeroes Scores and other various BS that comes from playing it in the internet.

Anyway a few weekends ago I picked up Risk which I haven't played in YEARS.  It was the bookshelf edition so it was really old school with wooden pieces and everything.  Now if you have played Risk before you probably know the rules, if not heres a quick cliff noted version of it.  You pick your country, place some armies in zones indicated by cards and then the battle begins.  Each round depending on how many countries you own, you can place a certain amount of armies.  If you want to take over someone else's country, you have to go into combat against them.  Based on how many armies you have, you can roll 1, 2 or 3 dice against the defender. You then match the highest die of the attacker to the highest die of the defender, whoever is higher, wins and knocks out an army.  IE if I roll two die (3,1) and G rolls one die (2) I would win, but if he were to roll a three as well, the defender always wins a tie.  Each time you capture a country you get to pick up these cards that have either a cannon, solider or guy on horseback.  Match a combination of sorts with those cards (indicated in the rule book) and each time its your turn you get X amount of more armies to place on the board.  The more armies you have, the more die you roll, the better chance you have at crushing your opponents!  Now yes, I needed to explain the rules somewhat quickly because they become the backbone of our story.  Our players battling for control of the world on that night would be me(Black), my girlfriend(S - Purple), my roommate(G - Blue) and our friend(R - Green) (who I will refer to by the letter after just so I don't use names for now but)  We each picked our respective colors, cards were dealt and our armies were sent marching to their battle zones.  I was to the left of G which meant I started and went right for the throat. War had begun.

To war!

So with the rules now in play, the troops given their marching orders and the generals ready to die in a blaze of glory, we fought.  The first couple rounds were slow.  Small skirmishes taking place in Africa and South America led to early victories by myself and G.  The battle raged on and after the first hour G's blue warriors,   had conquered the America's as well as parts of Great Britian and forced out the combatants of S and R.  S was losing the battle quick having a few small groups to the North in Europe, most of her original troops dead in on the plains of Africa.  R had built a stronghold within the Asia countries and sat watching from the East as everyone else faltered under the Blue Regime.  With my grip tight around Africa and Europe I bolstered my forces and waiting for the on coming storm that G was ready to send across the Atlantic.

The Blue Wave of Death

The next few battles to take place raged for hours, days even (not really more like a few rolls but hey I'm trying to build atmosphere here...)  as I was pitted against The Blue Regime.  When G would roll against R or S, 75% of the time it was a no contest that he would win, until he faced me.  I held steadfast dealing impactful blows to G's army left and right.  I was the opposition, I was the immovable object.  G would march in with 6-7 armies against my small huddle of troops, and one by one, roll by roll, he would fall.  But as Optimus Prime once said "One shall stand, One shall fall."  and my time had come to fall.

  

The first to fall.

With each county G took over, he would be constantly picking up cards, and constantly putting down sets of three ever increasing the size of his army to insane amounts.  Now that I was out of the game, I figured I would lend a small hand and be advisor to the Blue Regime.  I helped G rearrange his armies fitting to take over the world.  We moved troops fast out of the Americas for there was no opposition seeing as G was moving west to east gouging chunks out of everything he could.  Armies were put into more strategic points in an effort to better conquer the last remaining vestiges of fighters.  The home stretch was here, it was time to decimate the weak.

CRUSH THEM ALL!

The time had come to deliver the final blows.  TBR would strike first to the green armies of R, dealing heaving damage quick and silently moving closer to the East.  It was at this point that G would come into his final set of three matching cards, now giving him a total of 25 EXTRA armies per turn, on top of the armies he got for each county he had control over.  He ran out of armies and soon representing 20 armies would be a candy corn, and candy corn pumpkin for 30 armies.  It was insane how many troops he had in battle at this point.  Battle was fought sparingly for the next few rounds, but not wanting to take any POW's G and The Blue Regime finished off every last bit of the other armies for a clean sweep.  At one moments in the last wee hours of battle G attacked the green army and with much EPIC FAIL, rolled three 1's against R's one 1.

Critical failure FTW

All in all the game was a blast.  We had a lot of fun playing.  Overall game lasted about 2-2 1/2 hours I would say which is pretty short for a Risk game.  G and I will be starting our own 2-player game in the coming weeks, and with a new army at my side, I have a good feeling that The Blue Regime will not last long...

To war!
-Nerdsbeware out!

XBox DLC Watch: Now with more Zombies!

This weekend I had a small bit of downtime while my girlfriend was doing her fishing dallies in WoW so I sat down with my 360 and thought I would check out what was new in the world of DLC. I went straight to the XBLA arcade game section and grabbed the Zombie Apocalypse trial game.

Think Geometry Wars but instead of wrecking face on shapes, it's zombies.  The controls are almost 90% the same where your right analog stick automatically shoots in any direction you point, your left and right trigger buttons throw "zombie bait" which makes your character toss a pink teddy bear filled with C4 and all the zombies run towards it and boom goes the dynamite.  You basically start out with a machine gun and unlimited ammo, as well as a chainsaw.  As you run in circles avoiding the hordes of zombies, new weapons will drop (such as a grenade launcher, minigun and flame thrower)  Every now and then a survivor will come out and you need to keep them clear until the helicopter gets them.  All the while each different level (noted as "Day 1, Day 2, Day 3...") has what are called "hazard traps."  If you have ever played MadWorld for the Wii, these will seem familiar.  Basically they pre-existing hazards of the level that give you bonus points.  Such as on the Airport day, there is a crashed plane but one of its engines is still spinning and you can shoot and knock zombies into the blades.  The objective of each level is just to survive, as you have a limited number of lives to do so with.  It has local and online multiplayer which is really cool.

This probably sounds A LOT like another awesome game named Left 4 Dead, and yea it is.  You get to choose between 4 characters (a black business looking guy, a girl, a film geek type guy and a grizzled redneck war guy.)  You get different weapons each level, you get a bomb that attracts all the zombies to it when thrown etc etc you get the point.  Now I love playing L4D, but only on my PC, so playing this game was a nice fun little version of the game.  I love playing Geometry wars on XBLA and taking that into a zombie setting just adds a whole new level of fun. 

If anyone else has the game or ends up getting it, come find me (Gamertag: Nerdsbeware) and well slay some zombies!

See you at the apocalypse,
             - Nerdsbeware out

Liferuiner

WOW

Three small letters.  Know the world over as one of the most addictive substances know to man. A agent of chaos bringing forth death and destruction in its path to whatever it touches.  Relationships ended, families broken all because of three small letters.  To most of you who read this blog, you know what those horrid letters stand for...for those who don't, shield your eyes.

World. Of. Warcraft. Oh Yea.

**DISCLAIMER: If you don't play WoW or games in general, this post might as well look like kanji symbols, but please read on!**

I apologize the dramatic intro, but really for those of you who have played the game, that statement above slighty, sorta, maybe makes sense to you or you have heard/seen a story about someone else who it has happened to.  Thankfully, it hasn't happened to me...yet.  Actually my girlfriend played quite as much as I did.  A couple that raids together, stays together...unless shes the same class as you, and takes your loot (yes were both rogues, no she never ninja'd shit from me).  Needless to say, Warcaft is a sink (pick your poison: time, money, life etc etc.)  If you read my review of PAX '09 I think I talked a bit about my WoW life.  If not, I "beta tested" by that I mean I was jobless and using a friends account while he was at work (Thanks again BK).  After beta I jumped in on release day starting a rogue, but soon learned that in our group of friends we only had DPS and no heals.  I had played a priest in beta and enjoyed it so I said I would change.  Thus Dolomite the troll priest was born.  I climbed my way to 60 with a shadow spec, switching over to a holy/disc at 60 because I wanted to raid, and at that point in the game, raiding as a SPriest was blashpemy.  I raided Molten Core, Ony and BWL snatching up my early tier gear and undertaking the most unholy quest in the game I have ever had to do for the end result of carrying Beneditcion/Anathema.  This was the holy grail for priests, hunters had a similar item, and warriors had a cool quest for Quel'Serrar.  Soon after I dropped off a bit, returning months later with a new account and a new char.  Here is where I began the 2nd phase of my WoW career.  I made an undead rogue named Chinzilla, and tore my way to 70.  Joined a guild or two, raided Karazhan a bit before WoTLK release garnering some awesome gear and making a bunch of cool friends.  Not to long into Wrath and hitting 80, sites were set on taking down the floating necropolis known to all as Naxxramas. 

It was at this point where I really learned my class.  I spent a lot of time actually reading boards and posts on good rotations, the BiS gear and weapons to have, and learning how each one of my individual stats worked with the other.  When I raided with Dolomite, I was a healer, and healers are ALWAYS in need, so yes I was taken 90% of the time, but I was good at what I did.  I kept people alive, knew the fights and didn't screw up.  This time around, it was totally different.  I was DPS, and one of the major sources of DPS no less.  I knew the game had been stepped up.  No one would want to take me along on raids if I could barely break 2K dps on a boss.  Within months of hitting 80 I was decked out in the top pre-Naxx gear, hitting the top of the DPS meters in most 5/10 man instances.  Hell even on 25 man runs I placed in the top 10 which is great.  I had finally hit the point I wanted to.  I considered myself to be in that somewhat upper echelon of player.  I didn't let it go to my head like most people do, I knew my place.  I knew I wasn't the best player out there, but I knew I could hold my own.  My guild backed me as one of their top DPS players, always including me in their raids over others, and soon honored me with being the guild Rogue leader.  As for raiding, I knew the fights, I watched videos, read breakdowns and lead a few OS10 runs myself that went pretty well.  I was loving the game.  To much to a fault.

I had become so engrossed in the game.  I was writing up my own excel spreadsheets to compare gear to see which was better, full dps charts to see how I could maximize my damage and even grids for my low level characters showing me a all-in-one where to find the best gear at my level sheet.  I would work on these for hours, fine tuning the details so that I really could be the best I could at this game.  And yea eventually I got to where I wanted to be.  And proceeded to quit.  Once my guild moved raiding to Friday/Sunday nights for Ulduar with Tues/Thurs for The Eye (this is all in theory if people showed up) and that I still needed a few pieces of gear from Naxx25 which I would have had to PUG, raiding lost its flair.  I have a girlfriend and a social life so raiding on weekends just did not work for me.  Once I stopped raiding, the only thing left to do were dallies, which as well, lost their fun fast.  They were more of a chore than "I'm getting my rep up with them for a reason."  All these factors combined plus a ever increasing pile of Wii/DS/360 games going untouched, I had to step away from the one game I had truly become great at.  For a while it was nice.  I got a ton of good hours in of Team Fortress 2 as well as Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3 and Mass Effect. 

But then it comes with out warning.  Like a siren it the night it wakes me up so abruptly.  I'm getting the itch again.  It started with  the announcment of Cataclysm at Blizzcon.  I had been working on a WoW Machinima for a bit now (it's still in the works!) and made a trial account to go and take some pictures, video, scout locations to film.  I happened to start up  the launcher and I saw a giant dragon engulfed in flames and the big words, EXPANSION III ANNOUCNED CATACLYSM.  I wet my pants.  I wasn't even playing the game, yet I was still so goddamn excited.  I took a picture with my phone and sent it out to people expression my ultimate joy.  That sensation of something new coming to a game I loved.  The thought of how I spent my last two expansions rushed in my head.  They were great.  For Burning Crusade, my (now girlfriend, at the time not) and I went to the midnight release at the local EB (bleh shame), picked up our copies and stayed huddled in my bedroom for almost two days playing.  For Wrath, same thing, midnight release (we were 2nd in line) back to my apartment followed by a full day of playing.  PAX rolled around and I got my first taste of the new classes, trying out a Goblin.  It was downhill after that.  I was like an addict who feel off the wagon.  It started small.  Checking WoW's site for updates on Cataclysm.  Wandering slowly over to old haunts such as Shadowpanther and Elitistjerks, catching up on the rog community. 

Finally I couldn't take it anymore.  My disease was spreading, my roommate, my girlfriend.  The bug was hitting everyone else, we were all talking about it.  We all wanted to play.  So it is with a heavy heart that I gave in, and have signed back up for World Of Warcraft.  I logged on for the first time in almost 6 months on Sunday night, and it was honestly one of the stranger experiences I have had in a long time.  I stepped foot into a game, that just half a year ago, I knew this game like my phone number, inside and out.  I walked into a game that I knew nothing about.  Since I quit, two patches came out, two new instances, new weapons, new tier sets, new fights and new things to worry about.  My gear was outdated, noone would want a rog in Naxx10 putting out 2-3K dmg when most melee are putting out near double that I think I saw the today.   So just as I had did with Dolomite, I shelved, or will be shevling Chinzilla for the most part.  The character I had loved and gotten great at, now due to being gone for so long, is a character that I don't even know anymore. 

So now I move forth with my alts , a lvl 38 Warlock Carrots, a lvl 35 mage Elfphaba and the man who started it all, Dolomite (sitting in Howling Fjord at 68).  I will eventually go back to Chin, get her geared out and ready for Icecrown one day, but for now, if I am going to start this game back up until the next MMO **cough**starwars**cough** comes along,  For now I start a new adventure.  A new class to learn, master and hopefully take into the next expansion, to the next level.

For all those who want to join me, find me on the Gorefiend server (horde) under Chinzilla/Dolomite/Carrots/Elfphaba and also I'll be starting a Warcraft specific blog about my day to day adventures and stories, but on Wordpress, just to see how I like it.  For those interested:
http://destinationazeroth.wordpress.com/

See you at the respawn,
              -Nerdsbeware out

Scribblenauts: Part 2 In Review

Well, if you read my last post, and the comment following it, than sadly, no, poop does NOT work.  Yea it was the first thing I tried.  Now, again I didn't it for and with a purpose.  In a game where you can spawn anything and everything, I thought I would try the oldest trick in the book.  Spawn a piece of crap, spawn a bag, poop goes in bag, light bag on fire and see if someone would stomp it out.  For my own sheer pleasure I wanted to do this.  In no way would it be able to solve the puzzles, but it would have made me laugh, and laughter is generally equated to fun, and isn't fun supposed to be the root of video games anyway?  Circle of life folks.

Finally, onto the game! First thing is the game is not based on graphics, its more about the game play.  The start screen acts as a sandbox of sorts.  No puzzles to solve, no starites to get, just open. Here is where I began to test the limits of what this game could really do.  Again as I mentioned above, I tired the aforementioned with no luck and moved on.  I tested the basics first.  Made a car, drove around in it, spawned a bomb, blew up the car.  I was having fun.  I knew no brand or proper names would work but I still tried some.  As also mentioned in my first post I tired the age old pirate vs ninja (three times mind you just to really test my theory!)  Then just because the other duel to the death I had always wondered was who would win when Chuck Norris fought God...even though to some, they are one in the same.  Sadly when I typed in "Chuck Norris" all that came up was some nerdy looking guy with a beard that in no way at all the King of Kick Ass.  I did hear that Rick Ashley was in the game, so I plugged in "RICKROLL" and a small guy came up who looked slightly like him popped on screen, did a dance and just stood there for it bit.  I proceded to try various other forms of explosives suchs as bombs, dynamite, rocket launchers and nukes.  The nuke was sweet.  I set it up, went over and interacted with it, and BOOM the whole screen goes white, next thing when the screen clears is Maxwell lying dead.  All in all and almost two hours later, I hit that big star "Start" button on the bottom of the screen.  

So the way the game works is that for each level, there are two modes.  First mode is the puzzle part of the game.  Here the objective is to get the starite.  The star is pretty much in plain site, but you have to solve the puzzle at hand to get it using your vast imagination.  The second mode is the action mode.  Once again the objective is to solve the puzzle, but it's a bit different.  This time the star is not in plain view but you are basically put to the task of solving the puzzle to spawn the star.  The game has its own currency called "ollars" which you earn by completing the level.  You earn more ollars based on three things.  First is time, the faster the better.  Second is style which is a cool one.  The stranger, less obvious way, or sometimes the MOST obvious way will earn you some more.  The last is par, which I will get into in a minute.  Each level has a par, that par is how many items you can use to solve the puzzle to get the most amount of ollars.  After you beat a level once, you can go back and play it three more times in a row to get more ollars and new merits.  Merits act as somewhat achievements in the game.  So you earn these ollars so that you can buy new levels, avatars and music.  So that's the basics of the game.  Simple concept but the game really offers so much just on the fact alone that their word data bank is so huge, the possibility of solving a puzzle the same way is limitless.  Yea, you can just use jet pack or lasso to get the star every time but really what fun is that?

Just an example that I like to use when I tell people about the game. The first puzzle style game is the star is in the tree and you are tasked with getting it down.  Well naturally the first thing you would think is chainsaw and/or axe.  So yea I did that, chopped down the tree, got the star.  Easy enough.  I wasn't looking for easy though, I wanted to challenge myself to see what I could think of and how I could solve something as simple as a star being in a tree.  So I started up the level again, and tried "beaver."  The little guy came out with an weird thought bubble emotion thing that is similar to the way you Sims would talk to you when they want something.  His was of a chicken leg, which meant he was hungry.  Bites the tree, tree falls down, I get star, we are all happy.  Also par was 2 for this level so I was trying to keep it low.  So I kept trying other various items, some worked, some didn't.  I tired blowing up the tree, burning it down but both ways only failed and I had to start over.  One funny way was that I spawned a tow truck, attached the hitch to the tree and drove off ripping the tree from the ground.  It tore out pretty fast and gave me a good laugh.

There are some faults to the game, albeit a few that I found so far.  The overall game play can be wonky at times with Maxwell's controls being a bit off.  There were a few times when I was trying to move a cow by putting leash on it and walking it, where Maxwell flipped out and wouldn't stop running until a butcher caught site of the cow and killed the shit out of it.  Yea that was funny.  Another thing that is really minor but some what bother some when playing is that with a data bank of words THAT big, the same models get used over and over again, so I might type in say "ray gun" then a few games later try "laser gun" (yes they are the same thing but its just an example) and you will get the same model, same effects.  Again the devs didn't want to kill them selves with this shit so I totally understand, but when I am trying to put in something specific and it brings up something generic its like wtf mate?  Other than that the game is awesome IMO.  The highest point I found was actually the music surprising enough.  It's goofy but at the same time really addictive to listen to.  Most times when I'm playing DS it's while watching TV, waiting to respawn or be rezzed so the volume is down.  Not this time, I played it with just the natural music, it's great.

The game really does offer so much fun stuff and I don't want to give away more than I have to because for anyone who has a DS, you should play this for yourself.  To me the game totally lived up to its hype and is still providing hours of fun when I get bored of various other games that I play.  When you need some mindless fun, just pick up the game, and see who would win between a zombie robot and a ninja shark.

As always guys, thanks for reading
                - Nerdsbeware signing off

Scribblenauts: Part 1 In Review

For years the battle has raged on, debate has come up time and time again, and countless lives are given to the age old question:  Pirates vs. Ninja's.  Well folks I am here to tell you.  Pirates.  Yes, I do tend to side with pirates (way before the movies but they were good anyway) and while you might feel the urge to call me a ninja-hater, I simply am stating the scientific facts that I have found.  You might ask your self what facts?  Scribblenauts.  Now you're probably just asking yourself wtf is Scribblenauts, and that's what I am here to talk about.

I have a friend who runs an amazing Nintendo fan site, found over at GoNintendo.  This is where I first heard Scribblenauts. It was probably around E3, or a bit sooner that GoNintendo started talking about the game almost every other day.  I knew nothing of it other than, it was by a company called 5th Cell, and it had something to do with drawing or writing.  The most fun drawing on the DS was had at PAX or midnight movie showings, would be to jump into a Pictochat (err DICTOchat) room...and draw dicks.  Like that scene in Superbad, dicks galore would flood the innocent chat rooms.  Ahh what fun times!  But moving on...

So again around E3 I started hearing the buzz, and finally got my first taste of the game.  The first video to pop up jaw dropped me.  No this game doesn't have stunning graphics or game play that makes you melt, but what I saw was FUN.  Pure fun.  The first video explained the game, how it works, and what the purpose of our main character Maxwell is supposed to be doing as he treks across the Scribblenauts universe.  But before I go into the video itself, I will explain how the game works, so that the later explanation makes a bit more sense. 

So each level has a goal (as most games do).  The goal is simple, in hindsight.  Get the star or "starite" as the game refers to it.  Sounds simple enough right?  And that is where the fun begins.  On the first stage, you can see it.  Sitting high atop a tree, waiting to be caught and brought to the next level.  But as you look around you notice that that is all you see.  The sole tree and the star.  In the top right hand corner you'll notice a notepad.  When you click on that notepad, you have just entered a very steep slope.  From this point you can pretty much type ANYTHING YOU WANT.  There is exceptions, no copyrighted items (things such as Playstation 3 the like) no proper names, no drugs/alcohol/sexual items.  They did include internet meme stuff such as icanhazcheezburger cat and other shit like that.  Other than those restrictions, anything that you can think of, you can spawn.  You in turn use these items to help our main character Maxwell get the starite.  Now not every level is just a star in a tree.  As they go on the puzzle's get more complex and more fun.  And that is pretty much the whole game.  I will get into detail in part 2 of this review about how big the word data bank is (rough number 20,000 I have read), really this first part is just to set up the game, and my experience with it thus far.

With that, the first video we were treated to was simple.  Creative designer Jeremiah Slaczka showed us a simple glimpse into what kind of fun you can have with this game.  So the star is sitting on top of  the tree, he types in something simple like "lumberjack."  Instantly on screen a little lumberjack pops up and is grabbed by the stylus and placed on the ground near Maxwell.  Next he typed in either axe or chainsaw, and explained how we shouldn't have to do it since we have a lumberjack here.  He drags the item over the guy, he glows blue, and a second later is off hacking down the tree.  Starite falls, Maxwell grabs it and all is well.  I thought ok that was pretty cool, lets see what else you can do!  What I saw next would make me laugh out loud at work, probably scaring the crap out of co-workers.  In a sequence of events, Jeremiah spawns first the Cthulhu.  This giant monster starts trouncing the level, taking aim at Maxwell ready to kill him dead.  In quick response, Jeremiah spawns "God"...and he actually appears.  I was like ok that is A.) fucking hilarious and B.) awesome.  He proceeds to put God on a skateboard, give him a shotgun and send him into battle with the Cthulhu.  Naturally he kills him.  What does this have to do with getting the star?  Well nothing, but it was hilarious.  It really was just to show us what kind of depth this game could have. 

Immediately my mind began racing.  What can I make?  What are they going to include?  Can we make elaborate ways to get the stars down with tons of items in a Mouse Trap style contraption?  He briefly explained that one person got the star down by spawning a Unicycle, board, ramp, hat and  glue (glue is a cool item that I will get into later).  He put the hat on, glue on the hat, glued the board to the hat, rode the unicycle up the ramp and head butted the star out the tree.  Once again the endless possibilites that this game could offer danced in front of me so close, but so far out of reach thanks to a lengthy time between my first viewing and its release date.

The game would haunt me for a good while after that first taste.  I kept seeing other videos, other commentaries on what people thought of the game.  Was it too expansive?  Was it to big for a single company to take on?  Would the DS be able to harness the vastness of this game?  Closer to its release it became more apparent that the guys at 5th Cell had a hit on their hands.  The game won Overall Game of Show at E3, clearly showing up console games such as Mass Effect 2 and Uncharted 2.  The stage was set to be huge.  In both terms of its popularity and its data.




Thanks for reading folks!
         -Nerdsbeware out

  

Welcome to Character Customization

Welcome!


So as you probably know, I run another blog called My Three Cents.  I wanted that blog to be all about everything entertainment, IE gaming, movies, music, tv etc etc.  Well out of all of those topics, the one that I spend the majority of my time doing is playing games.  May it be video, board, card or table top, I love gaming plain and simple.  In an effort to keep clutter down, I took out the "gaming" part of MTC and started a gaming blog.  So with this, I welcome you to Spawn Point.


So a few topics I want to cover in this introductory post.  First of which being PAX or for those not familiar, the Penny Arcade Expo.  And for those few who some how blindly found their way to a gaming blog and do not know what Penny Arcade is (shame tsk tsk) well look no further than Penny Arcade. Web comics about gaming/pop culture for and by gamers. 


Every year since 2004, Seattle Washington opens it's flood gates for thousands of nerds to come be with other nerds, and engage in nerdy things.  Most of which pertain to gaming of all sorts.  I had the pleasure of heading out there for PAX '09 with a bunch of friends this year.  I was a PAX virgin, even more to the point, I was a convention virgin.  I had never been to such things, but only watched online or TV coverage and wished I was there.  I wont go into detail about the show itself other than it was amazingly fun and I can't wait for their first east coast iteration in March 2010.  For those who want a good overview of the 3 days of gaming heaven head over to EVE Newb (great stories from/about EVE Online).  I got to go hands on with a few games, as well as check out a few others and overall I was really impressed with what I saw.  But two games stood out amongst the rest.


Diablo III


Nothing was more rewarding, joyful, saddening and awesome as getting a total of 5-7 minutes playing Diablo III.  We walked past the Blizzard area numerous times over the three days that we were there.  Trying to get glimpses of Starcraft II or Diablo III as well was WoW: Cataclysm (that will be touched on in a WHOLE other post folks!).  Each time we contemplated waiting in line, thinking how great it was going to be to get our hands on DIII, we walked away.  There was to much to see, to much to do and not really enough time, even with three days, to stand in line for 30 minutes for just a sliver of playtime.  Finally on the final day of the convention, we said screw it.  I stood next to my friend, thinking I would just watch him play and we could both later muse over the cooler points of the demo, when like a shining ray of light, pointed straight from God's finger himself shone down on the line.  People got bored.  There was now only one person in between my friend and where that brilliant light hit.  Not soon after I was at the computer station, headphones on, choosing my character.  Barbarian...lets roll.


The small glimpse of the game that I got to experience was great.  First thing that everyone, even my girlfriend who has played all of 10 minutes of Diablo II, noticed was that the graphics were infinitely greater than its last chapter.  It's has been almost 10 years since II came out, so thankfully they have used the newest graphics/3D engines to improve.  Also thank god for no more 800 x 600 resolution.  Man was that brutal.  The game play mechanics are the same.  Still the same old hack and slash game that we all came to love.  I only got to play about five minutes of the game, but from what I can tell they have made A LOT of improvements.  Better use of inventory space, and now a new way to quick switch between attacks with the tab key are great.  Some of the things I didn't like...they are making the game a bit to WoW-centric.  Little things like the way the talent tree's are laid out and the way you pick up quests just remind me a bit of WoW.  I mean I can't complain, I like the change in how you get quests, its less cut and paste walk into town and get a quest and now more of as you happen to be questing, you pick up another quest on the way.  Again I am jogging my memory since PAX was 2 weeks ago and so much happened and 5 minutes of play just wasn't enough to really get a feel for the game.  


The feeling I do get from the game...it is going to be god damn amazing. 

Bioshock 2

Bioshock was the reason I got an Xbox 360.  The game was awesome.  I mean it didn't redefine the FPS genre, but it sure did give it a swift kick in the ass.  The way it mixed "special powers" along with normal weapons and guns just worked perfectly.  The mechanics in the game blew me away.  The first time I lit a Splicer on fire and he ran into the water to put it out...to which I blasted the water with electricty and he fried to death, was jaw dropping.  The setting of Rapture just pulled me in as well.  I remember walking through a cooridor, looking outside and seeing a whale swim past and actually saying to myself "holy shit...this is awesome." One encounter with a Big Daddy had me laughing and replaying the fight over and over for at least an hour.  I had set up a trap with the trip-wire explosive arrow things in between two poles kinda high up.  The Daddy came lumbering down the stairs and I took out my machine gun, fired a couple rounds into his face and here he comes.  On the ground is a gas tank.  As he passes the tank, I fire at it.  The explosion launches him into the air - more so into the trip wires.  Another explosion, this time its from the top.  The 2nd blast smashed him face first into the ground .  I couldn't stop laughing.  Needless to say as the release date of Bioshock approached quickly, I cleared my gaming schedule, and freed up space on my hard drive.  Bioshock, to this date, is the only game I have finished all the way on my 360.  I usually get bored with the same game, and seeing as I have a Wii/DS/360 and PC games I always have SOMETHING to be playing so my gaming attention span is short. 

There was no hands on game play of Bioshock 2, but we were ushered into a small tent where a video was playing.  It gave us some background on the game, like how you are playing as the first Big Daddy, and now work with the Little Sisters to get your Adam fix.  You got to see how being a Daddy has it's advantages such as using a giant ass drill to scare the crap out of Splicers, but still being able use your plasmids. And what would a Bioshock game be without crazy tough villains...The Big Sister.  From the video the Big Sister's look like super tweaked out, geared up Splicer out for blood.  As the video played and we got to see our first encounter with a Big Sister one of the developers voice played over explaining to us all about the new additions to Rapture.  They added more plasmids, newer enemies, unexplored areas of Rapture and more morality choices.   Again it was just a short video, but from what I saw, I got just as excited as the first time I swam to the abandoned lighthouse among the fiery wreck that was my plane.

So while I could go on for hours and pages more about all the cool stuff I saw, but I'm going to wrap it up.  How ever there was one game I really wanted to play aside from Diablo II, and that was Scribblenauts.  I got to play it, but since the game came out on Tuesday, I'm saving it for a whole other post.  There is too much going on in that game to try to put into a few paragraphs.  

So this brings our time to a close.  Once again, thanks for coming and reading, feel free to leave comments questions or anything else!