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!
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