Self Similar – Page 68 – self similar's personal gaming nonsense blog

Drum Damage

I was planning on having the Untitled Games Podcast crew over to my place to record and to potentially play some Rock Band a few weekends back. I struggle to justify exactly why but I hadn’t really played Rock Band in quite sometime so I pulled out my drums to practice a bit so I didn’t embarrass myself too badly in front of everybody.

“Odd depression?”

That’s when I noticed there was an odd depression in my yellow drum head and also a much less pronounced one on the blue drum. The yellow one also felt strange when I pressed in the center, almost like a button. It was as if somehow the rubber layer over the drum head had thinned out so now I was pressing directly on the censor. My friend mentioned to me that they had noticed some time before that it looked weird too. Odd. Still, I set them up and played six or so songs and they worked just fine. Hmph, weird!

The next night we recorded a two man down episode 3 and, afterwards, engaged in some Rock Band shenanigans. I was thrilled to discover that my yellow pad was now completely and utterly fucked – it’d only register 1 in 10 or so notes! Doh. Luckily we were using Rock Band 2’s “no fail mode” so it didn’t totally ruin the night.

The next day one of my compatriots called to tell me they had ventured to Circuit City during it’s going out of business sale and seen several sets of Xbox 360 Rock Band 2 wireless drums for 40% off. I had kind of been looking for a good excuse to upgrade to the Rock Band 2 drums – the removal of the cable wasn’t a big deal but I thought the add-on cymbals looks neat and the quieter, more bouncy pads sounded like a good upgrade.

“Cracks on the underside of the head after dismantling.”

After disassembling my old drums I discovered that the problem was that my two center pads were massively, massively cracked. I figured I could possibly fix it myself but nothing short of some sort of epoxy (which I didn’t have) would keep it from rebreaking the next time I smacked it a little bit too hard and I’m still not even sure the broken head was the only problem. I decided to simply opt for the new drums and headed off to Circuit City.

“Yup, it’s broke…”

When I arrived they only had 3 boxes of the wireless drums left and all of them seemed to have been curiously taped shut as if they were returns. I decided to take the gamble and grab one of them anyway. When I got home and unboxed it I was pleased to see that everything was in order – it didn’t appear that anything was missing or had otherwise been tampered with after all. Once I got the drums setup, however, they absolutely refused to connect to my 360. I absolutely can’t stand buying something and having it dead on arrival and thanks to the terms of Circuit City’s liquidation I couldn’t return the drums, not even for an exchange. Doh!

After browsing various forums and trying every suggestion under the sun it appeared that my only option was to RMA the drums.

I went through EA’s RMA process which I found to be way more painful than it should have been. The website didn’t work right in anything besides Internet Explorer (…and who the hell uses that? 😉 ) and even then it was poorly worded and not very easy to use. I actually found myself calling EA (and of course their number wasn’t easy to find) to make sure they had my correct RMA information because the process and it’s corresponding confirmation e-mail were so damn unclear.

Once all that was done with I had to get them a copy of my receipt with a date of purchase to prove that the unit was still under manufacturer’s warranty. On the bright side, once I was able to do that I received a UPS tracking number in about 20 minutes.

“New drums: Success! (5 stars, 99%, 344 note streak on expert.)”

A few days later and UPS showed up with my new drums. Other than trying to figure out how to put my old ones back in the damn box I had zero trouble with the new replacement drums. They connected right away as my previous ones should have and they performed well during another Untitled Games Podcast rocking out session, this time after the recording of TUGP episode 5.

All in all, while I was extremely disappointed about the original “dead on arrival” drums the RMA process was easy enough, very quick, and I’m satisfied. Now I just need to scrounge up some money for those cymbals and, of course, even more songs to play! 😀

Girls and Zombies

I had been looking for something new to play co-op with my girlfriend and it doesn’t seem like there are many good, local co-op games for the Xbox 360 that aren’t some sort of totally uber manly shooter games. Sure, I’ve got Rainbow 6: Vegas 1 and 2, along with both GRAWs, Halo 3, and Gears of Wars but she just doesn’t seem to be feeling those. To be honest I haven’t tried to get her to play them yet because I know they’re not her taste thematically never mind that she hasn’t really played many FPS or TPS games.

She’s actually usually a very quick study when it comes to games and tends to be a bit better than me at most of them. Perhaps that’s another good reason not to introduce her to one of my favorite genres – it’d really hurt my ego to get smashed by my noob girlfriend at a tactical FPS. 😛 Then again, it’s fun to daydream about us going online and working as a deadly duo. It could open up a whole new world of possibilities! She could finally play something other than World of Warcraft or The Sims 2 on her PC and I could have a permanent partner in crime. Probably just a pipe dream though…

“Come on, you know you wanted a screenshot of a bag vendor!”

We’d dabbled with a lot of different games in the past but the only ones that had ever really hooked up were World of Warcraft, Rock Band 1 and 2, and Carcassonne. The latter two we still play on a fairly regular basis. We could probably still be playing WoW if I didn’t start playing it with her well after having a main to max level and multiple alts scattered around at various level ranges. In other words I feel like I had exhausted most of the pre-expansion content and, in general, was pretty burnt out on WoW. We both felt a brief resurgence in interest after The Burning Crusade came out and ended up rolling some new Draenei characters which I was enjoying quite a bit at first but, again, burnout hit me.

I’ve been seriously considering going back, especially since Blizzard has bumped up lower end experience gain a few different times since we last played. The most frustrating thing is that I’m absolutely sure we could play and enjoy other MMOs together, ones I’d be slow to become exhausted of – hell, it would have been cool to have her along the ride with the rest of my guild in Warhammer Online. The main problem there is that her PC is somewhat outdated and she can’t really afford to stay in the hardware race at the moment. Maybe in a few more years!

I ended up dusting off my copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I actually got it for free, bundled with my Xbox 360 alongside Forza 2. Neither of them are games I was particularly interested in but both are pretty well respected and reviewed and nothing I necessarily object to owning either. We had played Ultimate Alliance a little bit when I first got my 360 but tired of it quickly and, for no particular reason, never picked it back up. Our save was literally a year old!

“Mission accomplished: We’ve looted Valhalla’s entire supply of beer.”

I quickly remembered why the game didn’t grab me. The graphics are decent, the game is pretty polished, generally, but it just doesn’t do anything for me. My top two complaints are probably that I find the combat to be far too button mashy and chaotic and the RPGish elements (character advancement and customization, for example) to be less than intuitive. I actually remembered having similar complaints when we rented a copy of one of the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance games years ago. Regardless, for the time being it is getting the job done without my having to step foot or cloven hoof back into Azeroth.

Speaking of co-op games I had mentioned in a previous entry that I was annoyed about trying to grab the Xbox 360 Left 4 Dead demo as I thought it was something my girlfriend and I could potentially play split screen. It would have actually probably been a great introduction FPS game for her – pure co-op, fairly simple, and in a theme she could probably better appreciate. I also mentioned that a lot of friends had been trying to talk me into buying the PC version but I figured time zones would be a major issue so I resisted temptation. Well, that has changed.

“Da plaaaane!”

Some of the guys from The Untitled Games Podcast and I grabbed the game during a 50% off Steam sale on it. We definitely don’t have the time zone issue as we’re all local and as an added bonus it gives us something common to talk about on the show. We haven’t played together much yet but so far it’s definitely worth 25 bucks! Now I’m wondering if a second copy might not be worth it as it would surely run on her old gaming rig. Maybe I should rent the 360 version for us?

Marvel Ultimate Alliance screenshot lifted from somewhere else since I can’t easily take HD console screenshots.

The Tale of Garn Chapter 4

Again, apologies for the crummy screenshots. They’ll return back to being a little better setup and shot with the next update.

“…but I did stay at a Faregyl Inn Express last night!”

From Garn’s recollections:

After leaving Hircine’s shrine I needed to bed down for the night and decided to head back towards civilization. After a short while I found a road and soon came upon a small inn where at I purchased a room for the night. The next morning I chatted briefly with the locals one of which recognizing me as an adventuring type asked if I’d find some potatoes that had just been stolen from her. She claimed she saw the thief running away through the woods but didn’t dare to pursue him herself. A bandit, eh? No problem. Hell, I figured it was probably a hungry kid and I wouldn’t even need to draw my blade to get her stuff back.

“Take that, potato snatching pervent!”

I left the inn and headed west through the forest. After not having much luck I took a seat on a hill to catch my breath and maybe eat a little when I noticed a strange figure in the distance. I quickly threw down my half eaten apple, grabbed my sword, and began to cautiously work my way back down the hill towards it. Once I got a little closer I recognized the huge, muscular, grotesque creature instantly – it was an ogre.

Unfortunately I had little time to prepare. A twig snapped beneath my feet and the ogre spun around towards me. It was no time and charged towards me. Although the ogre possessed great strength it was no match for my speed and dexterity. After searching its corpse I was surprised to find the potatoes in one of his belt pouches. The people at Faregyl Inn were lucky all this ogre did was a little pilfering.

“Some people just REALLY don’t want girl scout cookies.”

After returning the stolen potatoes to the Khajiit at the inn I decided to continue heading west through the forest. As usual I picked herbs, skinned some wolves and even a few bears, made note of but steered clear of a few caves, ruins, and other bandit habitats.

I soon came upon a secluded house nestled inside of a small valley. The house appeared to be abandoned so I decided to take a closer look and quietly entered. As I took a look around at the sparsely decorated, dusty den I overheard a conversation coming from upstairs. Oops! I crept back towards the door but froze when I noticed the voices suddenly stop – had they heard me? The very next moment two bandits were rushing towards me, weapons drawn. As it was quite evident that these weren’t simply protective homeowners I did not hesitate to defend myself. After slaying both I looted their corpses and picked the house clean of valuables of which there were few.

“Ahhh, beautiful, scenic end-of-map.”

Next I wandered far south. So far south, in fact, that my herbs and prey seemed to dry up entirely. As night fell I was quite lost in this desolate part of the forest but soon spotted some far off lights and made my way towards them. I did not know if I was approaching friend or foe but as I got closer and saw the silhouettes of a massive ruined temple of some sort I began to suspect the latter. Luckily when I finally came upon the source of the lights, a couple of torch bearing travelers, they turned out to be peaceful pilgrims coming back from a visit to a nearby shrine. I followed them as they made their way along the path back to their town and soon found myself entering Skingrad.

“Off to see the wizard! The wizard… err…’s guild.”

I had heard of Skingrad while in prison. Many of the wines that are found in and around Cyrodiil originate here though I know little else about it. The city seems to be almost entirely walled and I quickly observed that there were an abundance of guards on patrol.

As I spoke to a few locals out in the street I suddenly found myself under attack as an arrow glanced off of my shoulder armor. Thankfully before I even spun around several of the aforementioned guards were pursuing the criminal and quickly slew him. I have no idea why I was under attack – was this an accident, perhaps a case of mistaken identity, or was I the target of a failed assassination attempt?

“Hot guard on guard action.”

I didn’t have time to reflect on this, however, as the guards soon started to turn on each other. What was this? Conspiracy? When the dust settled two guards had been cut down in the streets. I’ve no ill will towards the guards nor the people of Skingrad but opportunity knocked and I looted the downed guardsmen after the public grew disinterested in the scene.

Wow, I’ve only been in this city for few minutes and I’ve already stumbled across some strange, strange stuff.

As Elder Scrolls veterans might suspect the guards were attacking each other because of some friendly fire while they were trying to catch the thief NPC. Oops! Nice loot though.