Friday, January 14, 2011
Changes They Are A Coming - January 14
Really the changes have already happened. I've decided to move my blog over to Wordpress. I don't have a problem with Blogger and the only reason I'm changing is that Wordpress lets me add categories to my posts. As someone who likes to keep things fairly organized (although those who have seen my room might beg to differ) this is important to me. This short run has been fun while it lasted, but I'm on to, hopefully, greener pastures at this website: http://rickfrech.wordpress.com/ Join me there if you want to, hopefully I'll see ya there. See next time, some time, some place.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Ten influential Books In My Life - January 12
Earlier today I was bored in an Intro to Film class and started browsing the internet on my Ipod. I stumbled across this gem on Mike Schramm's Blog . I found this to be an interesting read and even though it's almost a year old it made me want to try out the experiment on my own. So without further adieu here's ten influential books from my life. As a note these are just off the top of the head and won't cover everything important I've ever read.
1) The Animorphs Series by K.A. Applegate: I honestly can't think of any other book or series that's had near the impression this series did. The adventures of the Animorphs were the main reason I started to like sci-fi, which in turn brought me to the world of video games. These are obviously kids books, but I think they still hold up for adult readers. The humor and drama are top notch and I based my own brand of humor after the sarcastic wit that one of the characters, Marco, used. Not only that, but Marco's sage wisdom got me through my parents divorce. After his mother was "killed" his dad went into a state of depression and Marco was left to care for his dad and himself. When asked how he could keep laughing after the death of his mother Marco responded, "When something bad happens you can either sit around and mope about it or you can laugh your way through it." That probably quote probably isn't anywhere close to what it actually is, but the message is the same.
2) All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque: Before this book I'd never really read a book that was required in high school just because they usually couldn't hold my interest since all I read was sci-fi. This book changed my world and made me realize that I could branch out from my usual reads and pick up books from other genres. Not only that but it ignited my interest in books about war, which continues to be my second favorite genre to this day.
3) The Bible: Much like Schramm I would argue that this book has had an impact on everyone even if you're not religious. For someone who is fairly religious like myself this book has a major impact. Regardless of whether you believe or not this book teaches you the value of being a good person, which really is what everyone should be trying to do no matter what your religious preference.
4) Virtual War by Gloria Skurzynski: This is another book that's written for younger audiences, but has had a major impact on my life. This was my first book that was really about a post-apocalyptic world and when I look at my book shelf I notice that more than half of them share that. Even from an early age I could never get enough of seeing what would happen after the world ended so to speak. When I was looking up the author of this book I realized that this was actually a four part series and now I can't wait to pick up the other books, even if they were written for 12 year olds.
5) Choke by Chuck Palahniuk: The less popular, but much better Palahniuk book. Most people have read/seen his insanely popular Fight Club, but I will argue up and down the street that this one is better. Throughout the book one's jaw is sure to drop to the floor multiple times. It's simply one the most well-written books I've had the pleasure of reading. This book made me look at everything I believe in and reevaluate what I believed in. I'm not saying I lost all faith in the things I hold true, but it forces you to step back and examine your life. Sometimes you find good things and others your find bad, but no matter what it will make you think. Plus, it has my favorite quote ever: "The unreal is more powerful than the real. / Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. / Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die."
6) Bored of the Rings by The National Lampoon: I've always been very interested in film-making, but could never really come up with great ideas for movies. Then I read this book and my world changed. I realized that my sense of humor directly lended itself to making parodies of famous movies. Since that day my friends and I have made hour long productions of films like Harry Potter and the The Matrix. All of that work stems from this book and the movie Spaceballs. I'm sure there are better parodies out there, but as my first this one has been the precursor to my many film-making projects.
7) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling: Many of these books seem to come from my childhood, but considering that I'm only 22 it could be because that's where the majority of my life was spent so far. The first book came out when I was eleven, the same age as Harry in the books. From then on I was hooked, I never missed a mid-night release and usually would get the book and then not sleep until I had finished the whole thing. I can't think of any other book that I was quite as obsessed with than this one. The character of Ron holds a special place in my heart because, along with Marco from Animorphs, he helped to shape my personality in those crucial teen years.
8) The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks: Let's be honest here, if you've read this book you're going to make it through the zombie apocalypse if you haven't...well then I guess one of us will blow your brains on the pavement. Seriously though this book was what started the modern zombie craze and I pride myself on reading it before the phase hit. If that makes me a hipster so be it, I'll just take solace in the fact that I knew what the most effective zombie killer was before it was cool.
9) Vertical Run by Joesph Garber: It wouldn't surprise me to hear that not many people have heard of this book. It's basically about a guy who has a team of killers chasing him through his 30ish story New York office. Its the most pulse-pounding, visceral story I've ever read. The reason it makes this list is because it's the one book I sit down and read at least once per year. Most of the books in my library have more than one read, but none have upwards of twenty.
10) Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls: Being from Oklahoma I feel like I pretty much have to include this book on a list of books that have impacted me. That's not the only reason though, no other book has ever made me cry, something this one has managed to do more than once. The story about a boy and his two dogs is touching and has given me a life-long love for man's best friend. If your heart doesn't move while reading this book it must not be there because this is more heart-warming tale than anything else I've ever read.
This list got a little difficult after five or six (except for ten because I knew I wanted to end with that one) because it was hard to decide between some other books. Some other books that came to mind were: Orcs, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings, and A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I'm sure those aren't the only ones I missed, but that's all for now. See ya later, some time, same place.
1) The Animorphs Series by K.A. Applegate: I honestly can't think of any other book or series that's had near the impression this series did. The adventures of the Animorphs were the main reason I started to like sci-fi, which in turn brought me to the world of video games. These are obviously kids books, but I think they still hold up for adult readers. The humor and drama are top notch and I based my own brand of humor after the sarcastic wit that one of the characters, Marco, used. Not only that, but Marco's sage wisdom got me through my parents divorce. After his mother was "killed" his dad went into a state of depression and Marco was left to care for his dad and himself. When asked how he could keep laughing after the death of his mother Marco responded, "When something bad happens you can either sit around and mope about it or you can laugh your way through it." That probably quote probably isn't anywhere close to what it actually is, but the message is the same.
2) All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque: Before this book I'd never really read a book that was required in high school just because they usually couldn't hold my interest since all I read was sci-fi. This book changed my world and made me realize that I could branch out from my usual reads and pick up books from other genres. Not only that but it ignited my interest in books about war, which continues to be my second favorite genre to this day.
3) The Bible: Much like Schramm I would argue that this book has had an impact on everyone even if you're not religious. For someone who is fairly religious like myself this book has a major impact. Regardless of whether you believe or not this book teaches you the value of being a good person, which really is what everyone should be trying to do no matter what your religious preference.
4) Virtual War by Gloria Skurzynski: This is another book that's written for younger audiences, but has had a major impact on my life. This was my first book that was really about a post-apocalyptic world and when I look at my book shelf I notice that more than half of them share that. Even from an early age I could never get enough of seeing what would happen after the world ended so to speak. When I was looking up the author of this book I realized that this was actually a four part series and now I can't wait to pick up the other books, even if they were written for 12 year olds.
5) Choke by Chuck Palahniuk: The less popular, but much better Palahniuk book. Most people have read/seen his insanely popular Fight Club, but I will argue up and down the street that this one is better. Throughout the book one's jaw is sure to drop to the floor multiple times. It's simply one the most well-written books I've had the pleasure of reading. This book made me look at everything I believe in and reevaluate what I believed in. I'm not saying I lost all faith in the things I hold true, but it forces you to step back and examine your life. Sometimes you find good things and others your find bad, but no matter what it will make you think. Plus, it has my favorite quote ever: "The unreal is more powerful than the real. / Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. / Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die."
6) Bored of the Rings by The National Lampoon: I've always been very interested in film-making, but could never really come up with great ideas for movies. Then I read this book and my world changed. I realized that my sense of humor directly lended itself to making parodies of famous movies. Since that day my friends and I have made hour long productions of films like Harry Potter and the The Matrix. All of that work stems from this book and the movie Spaceballs. I'm sure there are better parodies out there, but as my first this one has been the precursor to my many film-making projects.
7) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling: Many of these books seem to come from my childhood, but considering that I'm only 22 it could be because that's where the majority of my life was spent so far. The first book came out when I was eleven, the same age as Harry in the books. From then on I was hooked, I never missed a mid-night release and usually would get the book and then not sleep until I had finished the whole thing. I can't think of any other book that I was quite as obsessed with than this one. The character of Ron holds a special place in my heart because, along with Marco from Animorphs, he helped to shape my personality in those crucial teen years.
8) The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks: Let's be honest here, if you've read this book you're going to make it through the zombie apocalypse if you haven't...well then I guess one of us will blow your brains on the pavement. Seriously though this book was what started the modern zombie craze and I pride myself on reading it before the phase hit. If that makes me a hipster so be it, I'll just take solace in the fact that I knew what the most effective zombie killer was before it was cool.
9) Vertical Run by Joesph Garber: It wouldn't surprise me to hear that not many people have heard of this book. It's basically about a guy who has a team of killers chasing him through his 30ish story New York office. Its the most pulse-pounding, visceral story I've ever read. The reason it makes this list is because it's the one book I sit down and read at least once per year. Most of the books in my library have more than one read, but none have upwards of twenty.
10) Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls: Being from Oklahoma I feel like I pretty much have to include this book on a list of books that have impacted me. That's not the only reason though, no other book has ever made me cry, something this one has managed to do more than once. The story about a boy and his two dogs is touching and has given me a life-long love for man's best friend. If your heart doesn't move while reading this book it must not be there because this is more heart-warming tale than anything else I've ever read.
This list got a little difficult after five or six (except for ten because I knew I wanted to end with that one) because it was hard to decide between some other books. Some other books that came to mind were: Orcs, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings, and A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I'm sure those aren't the only ones I missed, but that's all for now. See ya later, some time, same place.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Mother 3 Review - January 11
Before I start my review of this game I want to give it a little bit of a background. This is the sequel to the SNES game Earthbound. A game that wasn't hugely popular in it's day, but does have quite the cult following, which is the main reason this game can even be played in the United States. A few years ago Japan released Mother 3 aka Earthbound 2 on the Gameboy Advance, but didn't port it here for many reasons. Fortunately, the people at Starmen.net spent the last few years developing an English translation patch so that we can finally play it here. Now you will have to get the Japanese ROM, which can be hard to find legally, but once you get it you can just go to Starmen.net and grab the translation patch and your game is magically in English. With that out of the way let's start the review.
Story: If you've played Earthbound (and if you haven't you should get out and buy it right now) then you basically know what to expect from this game. A great story that is jam-packed with laughs and great characters. There isn't a character that's on par with Poo from the first game, but all the characters here are awesome. I can't tell you how many times this game had me laughing out loud at the ridiculous dialogue and hilarious combinations that served as the enemies. I'm also a huge fan of Duster and his grandpa, easily the best two characters in the game. And one of the big villians of the game has one of the best names in gaming history.
Design: Not too much differs in this game from the last one in the design portion. I can only think of a few that really changed how the game was played. First is that you seem to change between controlling the different characters much more often than in Earthbound. If I remember correctly you control someone other than Ness four times throughout the entire game. In Mother 3 you'll find yourself playing as different people all the time, from Lucas, the main character to Duster to Lucas' dad, Flint, to a monkey named Salsa. Another huge change is that they added a run button. I didn't really use this very much unless I was trying to run from monsters, but it did add something cool to the game. The only other big design changed I noticed was that enemies tend to always stay in their same place. In Earthbound if you walked off the screen and walked back then you often find new combinations of enemies or they might not even be there. This came in handy if you had time to kill and were close to death. You can kind of do this in Mother 3, but it didn't work as often in the past, which I liked because it forces you to fight more things and better prepare you for boss fights.
Gameplay: The gameplay stays about the same as it was in Earthbound. If you've ever played a Japanese turn based RPG you've basically played this game. You get to choose between using a normal attack, using an item, or using PK, which is basically different kinds of magic. When you get four people in your party this can make for some devastating combos. One of the two major updates is that if you time your button presses to the music you can get combos up 16X on your normal attacks. It's kind of hard to get used to and it's not really a huge game breaker, but it's always cool to get a 2 or 3X pop up on screen every once in awhile. The last big thing I've noticed in the combat is that every character has some version of special attack. In Earthbound you had three characters that could do PK attacks, but in this one only two can. Fortunately all of the other characters have their own special attacks to use. Duster has some spy tool kits that he can use to lower defense, make the enemy cry, and many other things. Salsa can do different dances for various effects and your dog can smell the enemies weakness. Non of these are super big attacks, but knowing how to attack things and throwing smoke bombs at them to keep them from hitting you is very helpful.
Presentation: Visually this game is much like it's predecessor. This isn't a bad thing because those graphics are really colorful and wacky, which means you will always leave the game in a good mood. The best news is that, unlike some N64 3D graphics, these stand up today so that it's not a eyesore. Don't dismiss this game because it looks to "kiddie" because it is one of the best games in a long time.
Overall: I won't call this game a step up from Earthbound because it doesn't improve on it too much and the story isn't quite as good. However, if you can find the time to place this game it's an absolute gem. If you're a fan of old school RPGs you simply must play this game. I honestly can't really think of anything bad to say about this game and hope that at some point Nintendo wises up and releases it in the States along with the sequel.
Score: 10
Just because I've given out a perfect 10 score to the second game I've reviewed, don't think that I'm always going to be giving out high scores. This game is just amazing and deserves to be played by everyone. That's all for now. See ya later, some time, same place.
Story: If you've played Earthbound (and if you haven't you should get out and buy it right now) then you basically know what to expect from this game. A great story that is jam-packed with laughs and great characters. There isn't a character that's on par with Poo from the first game, but all the characters here are awesome. I can't tell you how many times this game had me laughing out loud at the ridiculous dialogue and hilarious combinations that served as the enemies. I'm also a huge fan of Duster and his grandpa, easily the best two characters in the game. And one of the big villians of the game has one of the best names in gaming history.
Design: Not too much differs in this game from the last one in the design portion. I can only think of a few that really changed how the game was played. First is that you seem to change between controlling the different characters much more often than in Earthbound. If I remember correctly you control someone other than Ness four times throughout the entire game. In Mother 3 you'll find yourself playing as different people all the time, from Lucas, the main character to Duster to Lucas' dad, Flint, to a monkey named Salsa. Another huge change is that they added a run button. I didn't really use this very much unless I was trying to run from monsters, but it did add something cool to the game. The only other big design changed I noticed was that enemies tend to always stay in their same place. In Earthbound if you walked off the screen and walked back then you often find new combinations of enemies or they might not even be there. This came in handy if you had time to kill and were close to death. You can kind of do this in Mother 3, but it didn't work as often in the past, which I liked because it forces you to fight more things and better prepare you for boss fights.
Gameplay: The gameplay stays about the same as it was in Earthbound. If you've ever played a Japanese turn based RPG you've basically played this game. You get to choose between using a normal attack, using an item, or using PK, which is basically different kinds of magic. When you get four people in your party this can make for some devastating combos. One of the two major updates is that if you time your button presses to the music you can get combos up 16X on your normal attacks. It's kind of hard to get used to and it's not really a huge game breaker, but it's always cool to get a 2 or 3X pop up on screen every once in awhile. The last big thing I've noticed in the combat is that every character has some version of special attack. In Earthbound you had three characters that could do PK attacks, but in this one only two can. Fortunately all of the other characters have their own special attacks to use. Duster has some spy tool kits that he can use to lower defense, make the enemy cry, and many other things. Salsa can do different dances for various effects and your dog can smell the enemies weakness. Non of these are super big attacks, but knowing how to attack things and throwing smoke bombs at them to keep them from hitting you is very helpful.
Presentation: Visually this game is much like it's predecessor. This isn't a bad thing because those graphics are really colorful and wacky, which means you will always leave the game in a good mood. The best news is that, unlike some N64 3D graphics, these stand up today so that it's not a eyesore. Don't dismiss this game because it looks to "kiddie" because it is one of the best games in a long time.
Overall: I won't call this game a step up from Earthbound because it doesn't improve on it too much and the story isn't quite as good. However, if you can find the time to place this game it's an absolute gem. If you're a fan of old school RPGs you simply must play this game. I honestly can't really think of anything bad to say about this game and hope that at some point Nintendo wises up and releases it in the States along with the sequel.
Score: 10
Just because I've given out a perfect 10 score to the second game I've reviewed, don't think that I'm always going to be giving out high scores. This game is just amazing and deserves to be played by everyone. That's all for now. See ya later, some time, same place.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Minecraft Monday - January 10th
Well, it unfortunately happened again. I was working on my library late one night when I got up to use the bathroom and flipped the switch on my surge protector with my foot. After losing my world for the fifth time I decided to look around on the internet and see if I could get it back. I found some promising things and decided to try one of them. It said if I saved my world to the desktop, deleted all the other files, reinstalled Minecraft, and then dumped my World1 file into the correct box my world would be there. So far I've yet to find my world in the this new world and I'm starting to think I'll never find it again. This is good and bad because it will give me a chance to try and do a Let's Play of me starting up a new world and building whatever I can. However, I've bought quite a few new games over the break (thank you Steam Holiday sale for being awesome) so I'm going to give it a bit of a break before I try to start over. Today's update is going to be a little shorter because the BCS Championship is on and I'm going to write a reflection slide show on it for Bleacher report since I haven't posted an article since before Christmas on here or there. That was basically due to laziness, but I also just didn't want to write anything after I lost my Minecraft world. Look out for tomorrow when I talk about one of the greatest games I've ever played, that comes straight from Japan. Well, sorry about the lack of new pictures, but get ready for, hopefully, my new video channel soon.
See ya later, some time, same place.
See ya later, some time, same place.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Minecraft Monday - December 13
Since last week I just gave a text run down of my house I thought I'd go ahead and use some pictures to get an idea of what I'm doing as well as give myself something permanent to look back on. By the way, if you're playing Minecraft and can't figure out how to take screenshots you just need to press F1 to take away your HUD and then hit F2 to actually take the screenshot. Then just go look under the "screenshot" folder and voila, you can keep a visual record of your world. Anyways let's get this thing started.
This first shot is the outside of my house. You can see the beginnings of an obsidian chimney there on the left hand side of it. Also you can see my papyrus farm in the foreground...more on that later.
As promised here's a picture of my papyrus farm. It's not too huge, but it gives me almost a full inventory of papyrus when I go to collect. It's also not really that nice looking, but it's just there to serve a purpose. I might tidy it up a bit later, but for now I have bigger things to attend to.
Here's three pictures of the three main rooms inside my house. The first is my main hall/dance room, complete with smiling pumpkins and a jukebox/CD holder combo. The next is my treasure room, it's pretty basic, but something every Minecraft player needs. The more boxes you have the more you can sort out your junk.The final picture is my furnace room. I haven't counted up how many are exactly in there, but it's over 100...some might call it excess I call it just right.
This one is a little hard to see, but it's the walkway over to my smallest mine shaft. It doesn't really serve a purpose, but I just think it looks kind of cool. As a side note, that cobblestone you see is a monster room that was exposed and only a few feet away from my spawn point. Needless to say I died almost instantly upon first entering the world.
This is a series of pictures of Mine Station Number 1. The first shows off my Pyramid Sky Light, my own version of the X-Light 9000 from the popular X's adventure series. The next is a view from the top of the shaft that shows off my hard work and my river of obsidian that my chimney will come from. The final picture is an area I dug up to the left of the shaft with lave water falls. I've been digging out at the bottom of my shaft in hopes of finding Diamond. So far I've only hit 4 nodes, but I'm hoping digging 6 blocks up from the bottom in all ways will greatly enhance my Diamond stores.
Here's my final picture. This is the beginning of my personal library. The structure is 55 X 55 blocks, which means that it takes about 3,025 blocks to fill up the middle. Just this first foundation took me an entire Saturday. With the holiday coming on I'm hoping to get it finished soon.
Well, that's all for my world for this week. I'll keep updating my progress every Monday so check back to see how far I went. I'd also like to mention that Notch will taking the game to Beta on December 20th, so if you want to buy you have to do it now if you want to get it on the cheap and get every update from here on out for free. I'd strongly recommend doing this because even if you don't know if you love this game yet, an update he puts out might hook you on it and if you don't buy it now you'll have to pay extra for that update. Just something to think about. That's all for today. See ya some time, same place.
This first shot is the outside of my house. You can see the beginnings of an obsidian chimney there on the left hand side of it. Also you can see my papyrus farm in the foreground...more on that later.
As promised here's a picture of my papyrus farm. It's not too huge, but it gives me almost a full inventory of papyrus when I go to collect. It's also not really that nice looking, but it's just there to serve a purpose. I might tidy it up a bit later, but for now I have bigger things to attend to.
Here's three pictures of the three main rooms inside my house. The first is my main hall/dance room, complete with smiling pumpkins and a jukebox/CD holder combo. The next is my treasure room, it's pretty basic, but something every Minecraft player needs. The more boxes you have the more you can sort out your junk.The final picture is my furnace room. I haven't counted up how many are exactly in there, but it's over 100...some might call it excess I call it just right.
Well, that's all for my world for this week. I'll keep updating my progress every Monday so check back to see how far I went. I'd also like to mention that Notch will taking the game to Beta on December 20th, so if you want to buy you have to do it now if you want to get it on the cheap and get every update from here on out for free. I'd strongly recommend doing this because even if you don't know if you love this game yet, an update he puts out might hook you on it and if you don't buy it now you'll have to pay extra for that update. Just something to think about. That's all for today. See ya some time, same place.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Saturday's VGAs (My 5 Biggest Observations) - December 11
(Note: I just want to point out that when I first typed the title in I accidentally typed Saturday's VAGs.)
1) I can't wait for Mass Effect 3- We basically didn't get anything too big from the teaser trailer, but teased I was. The thought of bringing the campaign to Earth is interesting, but seems a little Haloish. That said, if what I've heard about it being the new multi-player mode that makes it a little depressing. Let's be real Bioware, Mass Effect doesn't need a multi-player mode. I mean this is a game that's all about it's story and the combat is secondary. Leave the multi-player to the likes of COD and Halo; games with terrible stories that rely on their expert combat gameplay. Even if they do bring that into the new game it doesn't make me want it less. I would honestly pay the 60 bucks for this game just to see what happens to three or four characters (those being Ashley Williams, Grunt, Thane, and Wrex...my personal favorites), so they've basically got me into it no matter what the product looks like.
2) Blizzard gets robbed fro Best Studio- As you can see from my previous bullet point, I do love me some Bioware games, but nobody is better than Blizzard right now. Starcraft 2 took the best RTS of all-time and improved upon it in every way, thus making the new king of RTSs. That alone should've won them the award, but they also just put out an enormous expansion to the biggest game in the world, World of Warcraft. Blizzard put out two of the biggest games in the history of gaming in one year is amazing and should've given the award running away. I mean Congrats to Bioware, but they have no chance against the juggernaut that is Blizzard.
3) Neil Patrick Harris for Best Male?- I'm not saying NPH didn't do a good job as Spider-man, but this was a joke. As host he shouldn't of even been up for the award, let alone the winner. This just felt like a political thing that they gave out to give NPH more geek creed. On that note, even though I don't like Olivia Munn and think she probably fakes her way through geekdom; she has so much more geek creed than Harris and should've been this year's host.
4) No Minecraft for independents?- This was just crazy. There has never been a more popular independent game than Minecraft and it wasn't even nominated? The only reasons I can come up for this is that it's not a huge name brand among non-geeks and it's technically still in Alpha, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it was one of the biggest games of the year. If the VGAs wanted to help legitimize their awards shows they should've given this award to Minecraft and made all us geeks happy and get a deserving company some more publicity.
5) I'm going to be the blue guy in Portal 2- This one isn't really an observation, but just my opinion. Whenever I get to play some Portal 2 co-op I'm going to be playing as the blue guy...that orange guy looks like a total square.
I hope you enjoyed watching the show, I know I did. See ya later, some time, same place.
1) I can't wait for Mass Effect 3- We basically didn't get anything too big from the teaser trailer, but teased I was. The thought of bringing the campaign to Earth is interesting, but seems a little Haloish. That said, if what I've heard about it being the new multi-player mode that makes it a little depressing. Let's be real Bioware, Mass Effect doesn't need a multi-player mode. I mean this is a game that's all about it's story and the combat is secondary. Leave the multi-player to the likes of COD and Halo; games with terrible stories that rely on their expert combat gameplay. Even if they do bring that into the new game it doesn't make me want it less. I would honestly pay the 60 bucks for this game just to see what happens to three or four characters (those being Ashley Williams, Grunt, Thane, and Wrex...my personal favorites), so they've basically got me into it no matter what the product looks like.
2) Blizzard gets robbed fro Best Studio- As you can see from my previous bullet point, I do love me some Bioware games, but nobody is better than Blizzard right now. Starcraft 2 took the best RTS of all-time and improved upon it in every way, thus making the new king of RTSs. That alone should've won them the award, but they also just put out an enormous expansion to the biggest game in the world, World of Warcraft. Blizzard put out two of the biggest games in the history of gaming in one year is amazing and should've given the award running away. I mean Congrats to Bioware, but they have no chance against the juggernaut that is Blizzard.
3) Neil Patrick Harris for Best Male?- I'm not saying NPH didn't do a good job as Spider-man, but this was a joke. As host he shouldn't of even been up for the award, let alone the winner. This just felt like a political thing that they gave out to give NPH more geek creed. On that note, even though I don't like Olivia Munn and think she probably fakes her way through geekdom; she has so much more geek creed than Harris and should've been this year's host.
4) No Minecraft for independents?- This was just crazy. There has never been a more popular independent game than Minecraft and it wasn't even nominated? The only reasons I can come up for this is that it's not a huge name brand among non-geeks and it's technically still in Alpha, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it was one of the biggest games of the year. If the VGAs wanted to help legitimize their awards shows they should've given this award to Minecraft and made all us geeks happy and get a deserving company some more publicity.
5) I'm going to be the blue guy in Portal 2- This one isn't really an observation, but just my opinion. Whenever I get to play some Portal 2 co-op I'm going to be playing as the blue guy...that orange guy looks like a total square.
I hope you enjoyed watching the show, I know I did. See ya later, some time, same place.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Minecraft Monday - December 6
With the arrival of my new desktop (which is amazing by the way and everything I ever dreamed of as an eighth grading playing Diablo 2 until the wee hours of the morning) my Minecraft playing time has hit an all time high. Since I had to start a new world I thought I'd just start doing a weekly post of what I was doing in the game (hopefully I'll be able to add a video version of this to Youtube, but that won't come until Christmas break when I have time to figure it out). Anyways here's the basic run down of my current housing complex in Minecraft.
When I spawned in the this new world I happened to spawn right on the coast of what I call "The Sand Desert". This is basically a huge area that's only sand with lots of cacti. Since I've already played this game quite a bit in other worlds I already had a general idea of what I wanted to do. I started out by making a little 6X6 mine shaft all the way down to bedrock, just to get some raw materials set up. That took me a few hours, but wasn't really that big of a project. Then I went out and chopped down trees until I had almost an entire inventory full of tree blocks to make into lumber. After that trying three or four days of game time I started building up my house. It only has two side rooms and one large entry hall, but each room is at least 10X10 blocks if not bigger. One of the rooms is my storage room that holds about 40 chests that are all categorized with signs. The other room is my furnace and at last count it holds right around 100 furnaces so that I can smelt cobble stone into solid stone in huge numbers. Also in that room are three chests that are completely full of coal for the smelting I do. I also built a glass walk way over to my small mine shaft. The cool thing about this is that you walk across the walkway and under you it goes all the way to bed rock. I've thinking about hollowing out the entire area under my house, just for fun. After I did that I went ahead and starting on my first major mine shaft. This one is a 20X20 mineshaft that is topped by a glass pyramid. The mine shaft isn't quite finished even after working on it for about a week and a half.
That's because I apparently dug into the biggest cave system I've ever seen. It seems like every new layer I dig down I found a new little nook that turns into a huge cave. This hasn't been bad of course because that just means that I've found tons of iron, gold, and diamond. I've been lucky in that regard because it makes my picks last longer. During this building I've also built a fairly large papyrus farm out next to my spawn point. I'm using this to get enough bookshelves to build my dream library. I'd say I have about half the blocks I need for this and should be able to finish it fairly soon. I also added a huge roof to the top of my house. It goes up above the mountain that sits next to my house and has an obsidian chimney that I hope to soon build up to the highest point of the map and make my large sign post for when I go out on adventures.
Other than that I've only done a couple of small things like making a deck by my house and things like that. I'm planning a few more projects to hopefully show on Youtube, but we'll see how that goes. Well, that's all for now. See ya next time, some time, same place.
When I spawned in the this new world I happened to spawn right on the coast of what I call "The Sand Desert". This is basically a huge area that's only sand with lots of cacti. Since I've already played this game quite a bit in other worlds I already had a general idea of what I wanted to do. I started out by making a little 6X6 mine shaft all the way down to bedrock, just to get some raw materials set up. That took me a few hours, but wasn't really that big of a project. Then I went out and chopped down trees until I had almost an entire inventory full of tree blocks to make into lumber. After that trying three or four days of game time I started building up my house. It only has two side rooms and one large entry hall, but each room is at least 10X10 blocks if not bigger. One of the rooms is my storage room that holds about 40 chests that are all categorized with signs. The other room is my furnace and at last count it holds right around 100 furnaces so that I can smelt cobble stone into solid stone in huge numbers. Also in that room are three chests that are completely full of coal for the smelting I do. I also built a glass walk way over to my small mine shaft. The cool thing about this is that you walk across the walkway and under you it goes all the way to bed rock. I've thinking about hollowing out the entire area under my house, just for fun. After I did that I went ahead and starting on my first major mine shaft. This one is a 20X20 mineshaft that is topped by a glass pyramid. The mine shaft isn't quite finished even after working on it for about a week and a half.
That's because I apparently dug into the biggest cave system I've ever seen. It seems like every new layer I dig down I found a new little nook that turns into a huge cave. This hasn't been bad of course because that just means that I've found tons of iron, gold, and diamond. I've been lucky in that regard because it makes my picks last longer. During this building I've also built a fairly large papyrus farm out next to my spawn point. I'm using this to get enough bookshelves to build my dream library. I'd say I have about half the blocks I need for this and should be able to finish it fairly soon. I also added a huge roof to the top of my house. It goes up above the mountain that sits next to my house and has an obsidian chimney that I hope to soon build up to the highest point of the map and make my large sign post for when I go out on adventures.
Other than that I've only done a couple of small things like making a deck by my house and things like that. I'm planning a few more projects to hopefully show on Youtube, but we'll see how that goes. Well, that's all for now. See ya next time, some time, same place.
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