Friday, April 30, 2010

What I'm Playing

Assassins Creed 2! It has stolen my heart and mind. As talking heads float in front of me IRL, I'm dreaming about running along the rooftops, so realistically, athletically, and fearlessly (but with a good deal of skill and attention required) that I feel like I'm flying. I love love love this game, it might be my new favorite game but I refuse to make such a dramatic statement impulsively.

L4D2 DLC - FUN FUN! No different than the rest of L4D2, except, a few more minutes of unplayed fun!

Splinter Cell Conviction - YES YES Yall! This game is awesome and the 2 player is SO fun. More on this in the Podcast.

FUN WHEEEEEE!
http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Family games update

It has been a while since my last family boardgame posting; we have been playing games, I've just been bad at posting about them!

Castle Panic has had a few sessions, and I'm really enjoying it. It is another cooperative boardgame (which I find my 6 year old really enjoys - Pandemic being the current cooperative king), but the theme evokes some of the crazy dungeon hack-and-slash games I used to play.

Basically, you all play cards from your hand to stop a horde of monsters from attacking your castle in the middle of the gameboard. The monsters comes from all sides, and have various strengths. Once a monster reaches the castle itself, it becomes MUCH more difficult to stop them, and they slowly destroy the castle.

It seems easier to win than Pandemic (that's not saying much - it took us, I think, 8 plays before we won our first session of Pandemic, and that was with only 3 Epidemic card, IIRC). And I like the art.

We have also played one session of Harry Potter Clue. The theme is nicely done, they have added some new mechanics like moving secret passages, doors that lock and unlock on their own, and an attack/defense system with additional cards. But in the end, it is still Clue. If you like that sort of thing. Too much luck for our family right now.

I try to have a 'coming next' part of each post, but I'm not too sure what our next family game will be. I'm intrigued by Kill Doctor Lucky (inverted Clue), Mr. Jack (similar to Scotland Yard, but two-player), and Smallworld. Don't what will be next.

Boardgames this week

I've started playing boardgames again, semi-regularly, with a friend or two about once every two or three weeks. We've already tried a bunch of new games.

Last Wednesday we played a session of Red November (Play This Thing! review here). In Red November, you take the roles of up to 8 Gnomes in a Gnomish submarine where everything has gone terribly, horribly, wrong. Your only hope is to stave off complete destruction until help can arrive and you are rescued.

The game claims to be for 3-8 players, but the BGG page says 1-8, and I can see how that would work. It is a cooperative game, so solo you would take control of several Gnomes trying to save the sub. However, this didn't occur to me when we played, so the two of us just each took one Gnome, and the gameplay was stilted and uneven. Next time we'll each take more than one Gnome, or we'll only play with more people. I would dearly love to play an 8-player session! It would be a chaotic, tense (no downtime, due to the cooperative nature of the game), groggy, smokey, wet, noisy, crazy mad scramble!

After one session of Red November, we played an uncounted number of 2-player Dominion games. With two of us very familiar with the cards and mechanics, the sessions went very quickly. We've graduated to "level 2" play of Dominion (according to this thread). Level 3 can't be far off now! The trick is going to be trying to introduce new players into the mix. For those that don't play Dominion, the initial play is very fun and enjoyable. However, there is a strategy that generally works in most games, so once a player hits on that strategy, they become very very hard to beat, and the games become less fun. Once every player adopts that strategy, then the game becomes fun again because you now have to focus on not dropping that strategy (hard to do), and finding the quirks in that session's card mix that will give you the edge.

Very much looking forward to Race for the Galaxy next time!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

What I'm Playing

This week I pretty much spent money I shouldn't have but these games were all SUCH BARGAINS!

I've been playing:

Dark Sector - this game is hard, but I have my glaive now at least. I should switch to 'easy' but my pride keeps saying, 'wait a little bit longer...' It's a gorgeous game and worth spending some effort getting through.

Dead Space - *wild applause* see FOGcast 006 for details.

Assassins Creed 2 - so hard! I can't get past the darn roof races! I think I'm on medium, and should kick it down a notch... for the acrobatics section, at least.

Star Ocean - not sure about this one yet...I just started though.

Velvet Assassin - /sings "I enjoy being a girl..." I LOVE playig a girl! A stealth assassin girl! Boosh!

aand, The Darkness - starring MIKE PATTON as the darkness! Oh this is a dark and fun game. Dual pistols and tentacle creatures wrapped around you that eat men's hearts. Yes!

Feel free to add me, username: RupeeGroupie

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Stop. GamerTime!

My friend, associate, and fellow FOGcaster Greg and I went to the store GamerTime yesterday, in Mill Creek, WA, on the way to repair 3 XBoxes ;)

What an AWESOME store! Games, comics about games, books about games, periodicals about games, walls and walls of cheap used games. I picked up "The Darkness" and "Dark Sector" for XBox (which now works thank yew).



Heyo!
Whazzagoinon

Sweeeet



<3










If you're in the north-of-Seattle area, go check them out! You will probably walk away with more than a few things.


Thursday, April 15, 2010

Oh My!

http://blog.games.com/2010/04/15/memoirs-of-a-pet-society-geisha/

After a grueling few hours getting her hair molded with hot wax, Gretchen returns to her okiya for a quick snack before a lunchtime appointment. No sashimi for you today, Kitty!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Gamepocalypse Now

Rad rad, remember Jesse Schell's super thought provoking DICE 2010 Talk? In case you don't, check it out, it's awesome.

Now he's blogging about all the ways that games are part of every day life and compelling us to change our behavior while we're having fun:

http://gamepocalypsenow.blogspot.com/

I like this guy, he's pretty interesting. He's been a professional juggler, a Disney Imagineer, and a Carnegie Mellon professor. He has an interview in Game Informer magazine this month:

Well, it's kind of like George Orwell. But it's really more like Aldous Huxley and Brave New World. Orwell thought a cruel government would enslave its populace. But this isn't about the government. Huxley's premise was that we we'd be enslaved by entertainment. Entertainment would be so interesting and so compelling that we wouldn't think about anything important, and it would be corporations taking advantage of us.

What you give your attention to determines who you are; it determines who we are as humanity. It's a very meaningful question.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

More Sakuracon Amazement

I'll step off my hatebox for a moment to appreciate the amazing beauty of the cosplay at Sakuracon this year! Thank you Cliff Nordman for the art.





Social Games Hall of Shame

Oh Facebook Social Games, how you thrill me with your adorable graphics and instant gratification. And yet, your ads literally have NO SHAME. Maybe thats part of what I love about you, yes I suppose it is.

Now lets bring out the feminism constestants:






Do you "Like" this ad?
Thumbs up, they have nailed women's marketing on the head.




FINALLY SOMEONE HAS SEEN TO MY NEEDS, THESE AWFUL TINY wait, what?


This next iPhone Game one for Word-Fu is actually pretty good, heck it worked on me. But again, no shame. Really, my HONOR is at stake if I don't play this game? Harsh Realm.




Propaganda Posters for Arcade Games

http://superpunch.blogspot.com/2010/04/propaganda-posters-for-video-games-and.html

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

THE PINK FUR IS FLYING

Someone needs an IRL Referee Cow!

http://www.destructoid.com/don-t-fear-the-farmville-170067.phtml
Somewhere deep in the subterranean depths of the Farmville stronghold, a dark and forbidden ritual is taking place at this very moment. The game's creators, clad in jet black robes, stand in a circle in the server room, chanting gutturally in unison. The focus of their eldritch magicks is an obelisk of pure obsidian in the center of the room, pulsating with a menacing aura of madness and depravity.



Monday, April 5, 2010

Clash of the Cons

This morning on the bus I overheard pretty interesting conversation for a con lover of all things alike.

Norwescon happened this weekend, the same weekend as Sakuracon. The attendee said Norwescon lost most of their vendors to Sakuracon, and attendance flagged. Sakuracon is younger, hipper, and has more expendable cash, no vendor could resist. The other woman quizzed if the competeing dates were on purpose, and the Norwescon attendee said no, that Norwescon happens on Easter weekend of every year, and Sakuracon happens whenever the convention center has an opening, as they book about a year in advance.

Edit: I've since found out this wasn't the case, that Norwescon had a boatload of attendees and vendors as always, and gathers young and old alike, as always. Whew!

On the Sakuracon note, I leave you with the mind-blowing pictures from Sakuracon by Cliff Nordman, a photographer I noticed for his amazing ECCC photography.




Shoutout to my tweeps

I rely heavily on some twitters for my gamer news. Who are they, you ask?

http://twitter.com/BreakingGaming
just started following me and looks quite promising. "Tweeting only 10/10 ranked news." Whatever that means, it sounds elite.

http://twitter.com/courtines
Community Manager at games.com, insightful and on the scene.

http://twitter.com/VideoGameFeed
The ONLY video game feed you will ever need. KOTAKU - JOYSTIQ - IGN - GAMESPOT - ARS TECHNICA

http://twitter.com/mashable
The hottest Twitter news, Twitter tips and Twitter help.
       OMG TWITTER IS COLLAPSING IN ON ITSELF ITS A TWITTER HOLE!

Penny Arcade (by Kate Beaton)

Oh Snap guest spot by my favorite artist Kate Beaton! HUZZAH!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/4/05/

What I've Been Playing

I've been video gaming a lot of variety recently. To hear my thoughts on these games, tune into the podcast or just ask and I will pontificate away.

On XBox:
Final Fantasy XIII (RPG)
Dead Space (FPS)
Dragon Age Origins: Awakenings (RPG)

On iPhone:
Inotia 2 (RPG)
Zenonia 2 (RPG)
Zombie Farm (social)
We Rule (social)
Words With Friends (social)

On Facebook (browser)
Farmville (social)
Restaurant City (social)

What I want to play (XBox):
Mass Effect 2
Force Unleashed
Dark Sector
The Darkness
Final Fantasy VII
*Bayonetta
*Devil May Cry 4

*trial basis ;)

With iPhone and Facebook, there is no 'want to play' there is only buy/play!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Video Game Review in Comic Form

I hope to start doing more comic reviews of games. It felt good to pour out my deep frustration and anger at FFXIII into permenant ink :) Peep it at http://www.fansofgames.com/ (scroll down)!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

kekeke

OMG it is so on. Thank you Farmville for kickstarting April Fools!

I was like "OK OMG WTF" when I first saw this pop up:



I was thinking, is Farmville really going THERE now? Would I continue to use it if it did? Of course, but luckily I was not thrown into a moral quandry as it was just an awesome April Fools Day prank. Boosh!