Author Archives: Self Similar

Muh site!

Two Thousand Eight

Hey, it’s the new year!? Here are a few New Year tidbits:

Best 2008 game I played: Grand Theft Auto 4. I realized I hadn’t played nearly enough games this year, and of those, not many were 2008 games. In fact I was really struggling to come up with 2008 titles deserving of this accolade until I remembered that GTA4 was an 08 game. I’ve already talked about my experience with GTA4 a bit in past blog posts so enough about that. I will say, however, I can’t fathom why it has suddenly become so popular to hate on this game. Not as good as the previous ones and other, similar games in some ways? Sure… Heck, I had my initial complaints as well. But horrible garbage? Hardly!

Best 2008 game I didn’t play: Fallout 3. Yeah, I pretty much just made up this one but considering how much of the most interesting stuff that came out last year I haven’t actually played yet it seemed like a fitting topic. Being a big fan of open world, sandboxy RPGs, as well as Fallout along with Bethesda’s previous RPG efforts, I can’t help but predict that I’ll love Fallout 3 when I finally get around to playing it. I also predict that I’ll really, really enjoy Fable 2 when I finally pick it up as well.

2008 game that everyone tried to get me to play that I didn’t: Left 4 Dead. A lot of old gaming chums had been picking this up, I’d been hearing tales of it on podcasts and reading about how awesome it was in forums, but I just couldn’t convince myself to drop any money on it. I came VERY close a couple of times but the vast majority of opinions I’ve come across on the subject pretty much imply that Left 4 Dead is a game best played with friends. Most of the friends of mine who wanted me to play it with them are in fact in different time zones than I so I figured I’d never end up playing it not unlike Team Fortress 2. I had actually decided to check out the demo of the 360 version the other day with the intent of possibly trying some split screen co-op but for some reason Valve has already removed the demo from everywhere. Hmph, here I was not even slightly interested in the 360 version now considering buying it? Boo! One potential sale down the drain!

Most disappointing 2008 game: Age of Conan. Easy… So much potential! You can read a lot more about my feelings on the subject in earlier posts. Pirates of The Burning Sea was also a big let down for me as well.

Most anticipated 2009 game: I don’t know! 2009 feels very different from 2008 so far. There really isn’t a ton of games I’m dying to get my hands on though there are many I’m fairly interested in. I might have to go ahead and name Diablo 3 as my most anticipated game of 2009 but it is a little optimistic to even assume it’ll be out this year.

Gaming related New Year’s resolution:I need to play more games! Yeah, looking back over 2008 I’m surprised how relatively little gaming I’ve done. I chalk most of that up to being hooked onto MMOs, Age of Conan and then Warhammer Online, for a large portion of the time. I also let two lengthy Xbox 360 games, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Warhammer: Battle March, dominate far too much of my limited console time. I really feel like I need to spend more time beating and completing more games. I’ve got massive 360 and DS backlogs now and there are countless PC games, new and old, I’m pining to revisit not to mention titles I plan to discuss, log, and/or review for this site. What’s the solution to this problem? One great first step would be to stop sinking so much of my gaming time into these damn MMORPGs, all of which usually end up sucking in the end anyway. Hmph.

Site related plans: I’ll continue slowly working on Garn’s Oblivion adventure. It hasn’t even gotten too interesting yet, I know, but it’ll get there. I also hope to do some others as well. Some potential possibilities are Stalker, Fallout 3, and some one off ArmA missions. I’d also like to do some logs of older games, such as Master of Orion and X-com. Who knows how many of these I can pull off though. I also intend on putting out more and more retro PC and console game reviews. I only got one full review out the entire time last year which is really quite pathetic though I am currently wrapping up a playthrough of a combined 3 games in a series for my next review. Yes, there are a lot more old games I’m just ping to replay.

I was going to make this sort of thing my first post of the year but I’ve been busy and the 1UP thing seemed to take precedent.

1UP Theirs?

Some slightly depressing news dropped yesterday. Straight from the source it looks like UGO has bought 1UP, killed 1UP’s remaining print magazine EGM, and apparently canned most of the staff including almost all of our beloved podcast personalities. They say the intend to keep the site up and there are vague whispers from some of the few people that remain there about the possible return of some of the 1UP podcasts but, even if that is true, they won’t be at all the same without the same people being involved.

I had been listening to the 1UP Yours podcast on and off for a long time and catching it every week for more than a couple of years now and it was almost certainly my favorite podcast. Sure, it had it’s ups and downs with staff coming and going but as a whole I liked it a lot. Eventually, after hearing Jeff Green on it a few times and being familiar with him from CGW I supplemented my weekly 1UP Yours digests with GFW Radio/Lan Party, and later 1UP FM and the occasional 1UP Show as well.

This may sound pretty silly to some of you but after listening to the same guys for so long discussing a topic I love and given the casual atmosphere of all of the 1UP podcasts I really felt like I knew some of them almost as well as I know some of my other online gaming friends. It is definitely a blow to suddenly lose contact with them all at once like this and I of course feel for all of them losing their jobs, especially during these economically rough times. On the bright side I’m sure many of them be hired on by competitors or even start up their own ventures much like the guys at Giant Bomb did. In fact we’re already hearing rumors of a new podcast hosted by Nick Suttner, Philip Kollar, and Anthony Gallegos (the core of 1UP FM) called Rebel FM.

It might not be surprising that EGM was laid to rest given that Ziff Davis killed off Games for Windows (AKA Computer Gaming World) last year and the general decline of print magazines (particularly tech related magazines) in the Internet age. I myself had been a CGW reader on and off for a long, long time and thought it was one of the more mature and well written gaming magazines out there. When CGW died I started getting copies of EGM in the mail as a replacement and thought it was a decent read from time to time as well though it definitely wasn’t as good as I remember it being in the past. Still, listening to the 1UP podcasts for a while and starting to associate some of the names with real people made reading the articles written by the same guys much more interesting.

Yes, I know a lot of people absolutely scoff a the idea of print magazines these days given all of the great material to be found online but personally I still enjoy flicking through a magazine from time to time particularly when my eyes have had enough of staring into a monitor all day long. I really hope they don’t all completely disappear anytime soon but at the very least I’m sure we’ll continue to see the selection slim.

I really have a hard time trying to figure out what UGO’s scheme is with this buyout. For one, I’m not a UGO fan in the slightest nor do I really use any of their sites, while 1UP’s website and again, particularly, their podcasts have gained quite a lot of recognition in recent years. I get the impression that many gamers, at least the ones in the circles I follow, feel the same way. So UGO buys 1UP and kills off their biggest attractions and then lays off all of the talent responsible for it. OK, they still have the website but who is even going to come to the site without the podcasts bringing them in now? That’d be like some other burger joint buying McDonalds and immediately getting rid of the Big Mac or something. What do they really get out of this deal? Not only will the popularity of the website seriously diminish without the podcasts and print magazine and of course particular popular staff writers bringing in visitors but this whole deal is surely going to hurt the reputations of both UGO and 1UP. Did they just plop down a huge sum of money for some seriously negative publicity or what? I’m sure there’s a lot more to it but for now it boggles the mind.

Happy Holidays

It has been a long time since I’ve posted an update and indeed it has been a busy month for me without as much time for gaming as I had hoped.

First things first I have continued to play a great deal of Warhammer Online – Not only did I get my main character to 40 but my guild has recently had a bit of a revival with the release of patch 1.1 and the two new classes and our “leveling pact” in which a great many of us rolled alts and vowed to try to keep them at the same levels and play together as much as possible. I’m been playing a Dwarf Rune Priest which is unusual for me as I never play healers but I’ve got to say that I’m enjoying it. More details that in a later post, hopefully!

“Cry Havoc bravely running the hell away from a dragon.”

Still, the last couple of weeks have been somewhat of a dry spell for me in WAR to the point where I’m afraid I may be approaching a classic Self Similar MMO burnout. I seem to always tire of an MMO, no matter how much I like it, for various reasons sooner or later – with WAR it has mostly to do with the lack of time I have to play games lately. I often feel like I’d much rather be playing through games in my massive Xbox 360 backlog, investing more time in some more of my favorite PC games, and revisiting some of my favorite retro titles than wasting so much time playing a single time sink of a game. Still, I was so hyped to get to level 40 so I could experience end game PVP that I’d feel silly not participating in it a lot more than I have so far, and I was still having a lot of fun with my alts, so who knows? I don’t really have any real good reason for wanting to quit but I feel like I’ve fallen off the treadmill somehow regardless. Yes, I think burnout is the best way to describe it.

“I’d hate to run into this guy in a dark, chaos infested monastery. Oh, wait…”

Speaking of my backlog it grew quite a bit bigger since last time I posted. Taking advantage of various “Black Friday” sales I nabbed a whole lot of new games. First I nabbed Frontlines: Fuel of War for the 360 for under 10 bucks new. I admit it wasn’t anywhere close to the top of my wish list but I thought what the heck, it looked nifty. I also grabbed a copy of Burnout: Paradise new for nice and cheap which has been rising up my wish list with every new patch Criterion brings out.

I also took advantage of Gamestop’s buy 2 get 1 free sale on used games and grabbed: Project Sylpheed – having been raised on Wing Commander and X-wing coupled with my love for Macross I’ve had my eye on this one for a long time but was holding out to get it for cheap. Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 – I’m a huge fan of tactical FPS games as I’m sure I’ve mentioned many times now and the first Vegas was decent enough to warrant my interest in the sequel. Battlefield: Bad Company – I’ve been a fan of the Battlefield games since Battlefield: 1942 and while I’ve more or less stayed away from the console titles the new emphasis on the single player campaign in this one and the positive reviews caught my attention. Plus this one seems like a concentrated effort to make an actual console game, where as the older titles, albeit quite different, seemed more like quick and ugly conversions Battlefield 2 for the PC. Overlord looked like a lot of fun to me since it was first released and I wanted something a bit different. Ninja Gaiden 2 – I absolutely loved the first Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox. I just hope I can stand the punishment this go around. Finally the first Saints Row game. I’ve talked about my interest in Saints Row 2 recently and decided I’d like to play the first one before picking up the second since the stories do indeed share continuity. All for the 360.

Also despite having no idea when I’ll get around to playing it but knowing without a doubt that I wanted it I nabbed Fallout 3 new for the PC for really cheap as well.

Posing at rank 34.”

With all of these purchases my Xbox 360 backlog in particular has ballooned insanely. Feeling like I really shouldn’t buy any more new games until I complete most of these new ones I decided to make a concentrated effort over my Christmas vacation to beat the game that has been more or less tuck in my 360 for months, Warhammer: Battle March, and I’m happy to say I succeeded! The last of the campaigns, the one added in the actual Battle March expansion on the PC featuring the Orc and Dark Elf armies, was consistently more difficult and frustrating than anything in the other two – if I had started with it I may have very well shelved the game long ago. Still, achievements unlocked and all of that good stuff. I’ll probably revisit Battle March in multi-player with my brother eventually but for now, taking the good with the bad, I’m quite glad to see it go.

“Explodicating a chaos spawn.”

As expected I got my new DS for Christmas and so far I’m really enjoying it. I’ve been sampling a lot of different games but so far the ones I’m enjoying the most are Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer – a brutal but relatively accessible Roguelike, Tetris DS which is… Well, Tetris? Club House Games which I’ve been a fan of for a long time now, and the first Phoenix Wright which has my adventure gamer senses tingling. So many more DS games to play, so little time, but so far it feels like it was indeed a solid gift.