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April 24, 2006
Oblivion
Where have my weekends gone? Where has my after-work time gone? Oblivion. Not since the early days of EverQuest have I really been this enthusiastic and devoted to a game. I'm well into 110 hours in my primary saved game and that doesn't count the hours lost to stupid mistakes, roll-backs, occasional bugs and crashes, failed experiments, other characters and more. I'm easily looking at another 100 hours of enjoyment from this title.
DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) was fun for a while. The graphics are nice. The game is as faithful to the pencil and paper version as a persistent world massively multi-player online game could be. There's just a major short-coming. There's a severe lack of content. The entire game takes place in one city and a few remote locations (with insta-travel, yay!). But more on that later.
Interestingly, Turbine has more-or-less solved the Chinese Farmer problem in two ways. First, loot is not rare at all. It's not uncommon to see people giving away a decent magic item just because someone in the group wants it. Second, there's no indivual level grinding. The game has a modular feel to it. You and your group go through a specific adventure for a (somtimes predetermined) reward. There's no mob farming. There's no item camping. There's no point in buying anything on IGE with real money when it's so easy to get something in the game. Of course, this also means there's no player economy.
This module system, however, is exactly what turned me off from the game. The modules themselves are by and large good, interesting and entertaining. There are so few modules, though, that most of the game is spent repeating the same modules over and over again with diminishing returns on experience and eventually loot. What's more, groups tend to repeat the most rewarding (loot) modules over and over again so that effectively reduces the number of modules further. I mean, the Water Works series is fun--just not the 18th time I've run it.
DDO was definitely worth checking out, but it just can't hold a candle to the diversity, complexity and endless entertainment that Oblivion (and its thousands of mods) promises and delivers.
Posted at 11:40 AM | Gaming/Roleplaying | Comments (1)
April 07, 2006
Magic Boot Camp
Boot Camp [Apple] was recently released as a beta. It's slick! It's easy! And yes, it's only if you have one of the new ICBMs (Intel Chip-Based Macs). If you have an old G4 or G5, you don't get native Windows running on your box. I did a little testing of my 20" iMac (2GHz Intel Core Duo) and my main PC (Shuttle box with 3Ghz P4). The dual core smokes my old Windows box. OMGWTFBBQ!!!1 [UrbanDictionary] My Apple pwns my PC in its own arena!
I copied my Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion saved games to my ICBM and now enjoy a lovely widescreen, faster gameplay experience. I also tried out the Star Wars: Empire at War demo and it played well but didn't natively support widescreen, so the field was a bit stretched. The Apple MightyMouse is a terrible mouse for gaming. With a simulated two-button single button, there's no way to press both the left and right buttons at the same time--something crucial to PC gaming. I'll have to pick up another Logitech laser mouse for my Mac now.
I've also been voraciously watching all of the Cyril Takayama videos on YouTube. He's a French-Japanese, American-born street magician with tricks on par with David Blaine and Chris Angel. Truly amazing stuff. He also has an interesting Japanese accent. You can find many of his videos via a search for "japanese magic" Japanese Magic [YouTube].
Here's a video to whet the appetite, tho. I've watched this a gazillion times and it's still fun.
Posted at 10:57 AM | Gaming/Roleplaying | Comments (0)