How an Angry Gamer should sound

Earlier today on Slashdot this delicious RANT was posted. Now he may contradict himself a time or two, but the angry shithead's got a point. What is the world of gaming coming to? I myself am starting to fear the new consoles. Sure I'm excited about online gaming as much as the next joystick jockey, but these aren't gaming machines. They're computers with gaming emphases. Why would I want a game machine that can rip MP3's to begin with? Unless of course the ripped MP3's can be put into the game. I.E. Xbox's custom soundtrack. A utility that was never fully taken advantage of if you ask me. Anywho, check out the article and beware of gaming monotony.

Conflicts amongst ranks

According to an article at Megagames Bill Gates was put in his place by Robbie Bach, chief xbox officer, when Gates, in a Time magazine article, hinted that Halo 3 would be ready to release in time for the PS3 launch. My personal thoughts are that if Gates actually tries to push Halo 3 for a release in time for the PS3 he'll ruin everything and completely destroy the franchise. Hell, it took Bungie 2 years to get Halo 2 done and now they've also been working continuously with the online portion of the game. If Gates wants to give Playstation a run for their money I think they should revamp Halo 2 and include updated graphics and all of the updates and new maps in a package for Xbox 360 whenever PS3 releases. That should make things interesting.

Halo. Half the whiners. All the fun.

Halo 2 (1.1) : Xbox Live

Tonight I played some Halo for the first time in awhile. Surprisingly the games were good. Yay! Hauz, Llama, and I did some rumbles, which I shocked myself by doing surprisingly well. And here I thought I sucked. Then we moved onto Team Preview. I had low expectations for this, but wanted to dabble in it anyway. The last time I did Team Preview it was awful because the scores had just been reset and everyone was @ lvl 0. EVERYONE. You could cut the competition in the air with a knife. However we did meet a cool guy who was laid back and didn't care if we died here and there. We did fairly well. Even got to play a couple of lvls in Turf. By the end of the evening I had lvled from a 6 to a 7. So, I was fairly pleased with the experience. I'm not all about the ranks, but it is a bit satisfying to see your rank go up. Well, that's all from me. Time for some mac & cheese.

P.S. here's a little article form OXM that I find to be all but true sometimes.

Next Xbox 360 2 One More Time!!!

Lord, oh lord. Why? Why? Did anyone watch the MTV Xbox 360 launch party and not puke? I hate these demographic promotions yet I can't stop from watching. It's like a train wreck, you just can't look away. However, this train wreck was exceptionally horrible and oh did I want to look away. I kept peering on though, hoping to see that one mangled body at the very end, and you know what? I saw it. In the form of Frodo Baggins presenting The Killers, and there was some talk about a game box or system or console or whatever it's called. The reason I was watching in the first place is because I was hoping to get a glimpse at some upcoming games and more descriptions on the hardware specs, i.e. controllers, headset, cam. Although they did show the many prototypes they went through. That was kind of cool if you can put up with MTV's directorial style of flashcuts and shaky zooms. No wonder all the kids have ADD. I know I should have just waited an hour or so and checked all the game feeds online for pictures and information that I wanted, but how often do you get to see a model stroll out on the catwalk with xbox in sidebag, and pull it out to hundreds of paid clappers? Not that often, and if I was smart not at all. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Worldwide Halo 2 Tourney

That's right! All you Rumble Pit nuts out there could be winning swag for your efforts. Gamestop is hosting a worldwide Rumble Pit tourney. All you do is register and for the duration of the competition they record your games via Bungie and at the end calculate the winners. Check out the details and register here.

Next XBox 360 2

So, here it is folks. Someone snapped some pics of the Xbox 360 at microsoft's launch party last night. The guy snapped these with his camera phone and somehow no one noticed. At the bottom you'll see the controller, to the left is the new headse, to the right is a cam for for Xbox 360, and on top of the system is a seperate hard drive for the box. It's hard to see, but that's what it is. The Xbox 360 is due to hit shelves in the US sometime in November. Don't forget to check out MTV Presents: The Next Generation Xbox Revealed.

What the fuck is the internet?

Web Games

Don't have a game and need a fix? Have the internet? Then you're set! Here's a couple web based games that are sure to please.

• Kingdom of Loathing A hilarious RPG with the best graphics around!
• Like penguins? Like yetis? Like yetis hitting penguins like baseballs? Then this one's for you!
• Adventure Quest May be one of the best web based RPGs ever.

Well, that's all I got for right now. I'll keep you posted if I come across anything interesting.

Snorting Phantom Dust

Phantom Dust

Ok, so I rented Phantom Dust from Gamefly about a week ago, and I must say it caught my eye. And since the price was right, I went ahead and bought it. There's many things about this game that I like, and many things that need work. I think if it had been modified a bit here, and tuned and tweaked a bit there it could have been something spectacular. Right now it's just something different. Plus it has a post-apocolyptic setting, and that's one of my FAVORITE settings of all time!

So I told fellow Slutty Puppy, Hauz (who still hasn't signed up so he can start contributing to this wonderful blog), about my Phantom Dust purchase, and he responded with, "Eh, I'm not really into card battle games." At first I thought, "It's not a card battle game!" However, after some more consideration, I've come to discover it is a glorified card battle game with ACTION! But that doesn't mean it sucks. No sir, it's just a bit more strategic than most action games. You see you're loaded into an environment, which is fully destructable by the way, and you start out with no skills. Red spheres (attacks), blue spheres (defense), yellow spheres (special moves), and green spheres (effects, mainly power ups) appear on the map. You have to run over them and decide which ones you want. Then you assign the ability to one of your 4 buttons, X,Y,A, or B. Now you can use the ability. Some only have one use, some have infinite uses. They all cost ability points to use, and after using them your point tank refills allowing you to use more abilities. Once you have depleted the original set of abilities placed on the map. New abilities will appear in their place allowing you to change up the abilities you have. It's all random on what appears, just like how a card battle game works. The graphics aren't the greatest, but the story is kind of fun, and the atmosphere the game puts off is incredible!!! Imagine if you will The Matrix combined with the atmosphere of 12 Monkeys. Some bizarre mix like that. Plus, if you don't like the music you can customize all the levels with your own music from the xbox hard drive. I like this option, but I usually only see it utilized in racing games. By the way, if you're playing Burnout 3: Takedown The Faint's Wet From Birth was made for that game. Anyway, I'm digging on Phantom Dust. I've yet to take it Live, but I will eventually.

Diablo 3 a.k.a. Guild Wars

Guild Wars: Elementalist/Monk 11 Ekalb Egarehted

Guild Wars, Guild Wars, Guild Wars, why can't you be more like Final Fantasy XI? Why do you have to be so buggy? Despite what you may think warping 20 feet across the map, especially during battle, is not fun. And another thing when I press the "attack" key I would like to attack every now and again not just stand around with my thumb up my butt. Now let's bitch in list form!

PROS

• No monthly fee. That's right. You heard me. Nothing. You get to play this wonderful /cough bullshit /cough MMORPG and it won't cost you a dime but the price to buy the game. Although if there was a monthly fee I don't think anyone in their right mind, or left for that matter, would pay it to play this game.
• The interactive map while in a party. This thing is a blast to use, and if properly utilized can help organize some fun strategic attacks. Plus it's a hoot to draw penises and smileys/frowneys on it.
• The loads of emotes are a blast as well. We're talking games of strip paper, rock, scissors, air guitar, and my personal favorite NAKED DANCE PARTIES!!
• No loss of experience when you die. But instead you get downed 15% on your stats until you kill monsters and bring it back up. This is a big boner, and takes awhile to get back to normality. However it is easily remedied by walking/warping into a town. Then BAM! back to normal. Eh. Whatever.
  
• Switching your attribute points at any time so you can change what you're proficient in. This is fucking awesome!! I love this. If I'm tired of being a fire elementalist, at any time I could stop and switch all my earned attritube points over to water, and BLAMO! Now I'm an ice/water elementalist.
  

CONS

• I can't encounter players on the battlefield? WTF?!
• The story so far isn't very involving. I just completed a mission though. It was kind of entertaining. The quests are simply busy work that give you a nice chunk of experience. I don't even read what the NPCs tell me anymore. I simply click through it and then pull up my quest log and find out where I need to go. Ugh. How exhilarating.
  
• And while we're on the missions. I can't view completed quests & missions? WTF?!
  
• All of the ingame windows resize according to the bottom bar. WTF?! I'm constantly moving these stupid windows so I can see things. The interface is customizable. Meaning you can place practically everything on the HUD where ever you want it to be, but this resizing along the bottom bar shit has got to stop.
  
• And while we're on the HUD. The chat window. I have to push enter before I type and enter afterwards? EVERY FUCKING TIME! No matter if I just typed something, and i'm having a conversation with someone. I know it's not a big thing, but it bugs the Bee Jesus out of me.
• Having to deal with people to get items. Sure crafters have items, but how often do you find them? Anything good has to be found anyway. I shouldn't really bitch. Most RPGs are like that anyway. Especially MMO ones. Gives people incentive to keep fighting along. But most people in this game are dicks when it comes to selling stuff. I myself have ripped many a person off when selling items, but only because they won't even negotiate. It's their own damned fault. I mean seriously who pays 100 for common crafting materials. Poor saps.
• No day & night? WTF?! Ok, this isn't a big one, but when I was playing Final Fantasy XI I could sit and watch the sun set if I wanted to. It was a glorious sight.
  
• Voice, voice, voice. I can't emphasize this enough. I know this game doesn't have it, and I don't think any MMORPG on the market does right now, but ever since Halo 2 came out I want all my games to have voice chat and voice proximity. It's fucking genius! I know the markets and towns would get noisy, so that's when voice proximity comes in. Plus we could add filters to help cut down on all the clatter. Filters such as Public, Shout, Private, Team, and Trade (where applicable.) Llama and I use a 3rd party voice communication program called Roger Wilco to talk to each while in the game. It works out great. However, it's just him and I on it. No one else can join us, unless they have Wilco and we give them the host address to our chat session.
  

Well, there it is. My opinion of Guild Wars thus far, honestly, though Guild Wars is simply Diablo 3 in 3D. I've had heated converastions that have turned into dance offs and paper, rock, scissor matches over why they think it's nothing like the Diablo series. They're all idiots. However there are a few guys out there that see things my way. Glad to know I'm not the only observant one around here. I'll keep playing the Guild Wars for the time being, but before too long I may have to abandon it, especially once I cap my character's level off @ 20. WTF kind of level cap is 20 anyway? I'm already @ 11, and I've only played the game for about 2 weeks. Anywho, if you see me around Ascalon give me a /wave and challenge me to a dance off. I dare ya!