Month: May 2016

Farewell, Blizzard

Warning!  This is long and ranty and link heavy!  [Links will open in new tabs]

I remember Silicon and Synapse.  You might not, but I do.  They weren't big enough to work on their own projects, so they did ports of other games to various other consoles.  None of these ports were particularly big, but they established the company as detail-oriented and good at what they did.  And a key element from those days has stayed with Blizzard:  they know how to refine.

Which is at least some of what I want to talk about.  But the other thing I want to talk about is how distant Silicon and Synapse are from the Blizzard we have today and why - after almost twenty five years of playing Blizzard's games, I am going to slowly start winding down Blizzard projects I'm still pursuing. Read more

… WRUP…

 

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  • Greywolfe (Twitter, YouTube): allllllll the king's quests! well, really just king's quest 6, but i'm trying to play a bit more of that after i've been neglecting it for weeks at a time.  gateway is done.  spore is done.  i need to figure out games to replace those.
  • Yoda0VGs (Twitter): Overwatch o.0
  • Thomas (Twitter): I’ve tried Overwatch… now I want to play more of it. Also: Pocket Card Jockey on the 3DS is great. Solitaire mixed with a horse racing sim from the peeps at GameFreak (Pokemon).
  • Scroo: Seeing Civil War this weekend. Also still rolling in Dark Souls 3. Finally finished my to-do list of preparing for new game plus, so gonna get that started. Hopefully I'll toss up some more videos on the LP channel as that progresses.
  • Dante: I've been playing Table Top Racing since it was given away as a PS+ title. I'll play that one and maybe the Overwatch beta too.

The Murky Rise Of Tabletop Simulators

I played a lot of Magic:  The Gathering when it came out.

Like.

A lot.

From 1994 onward, I attended weekly events, playtested in a group for competitions I would enter, played against the computer when the Microprose product came out and poured over lists of cards as they were released to find new strategies for old decks and to see if there were any interesting brand new plans I could utilize.

Before that, I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons.

Like.

A lot, too.

From 1985 until I lost my gaming group to the vagaries of time commitments [Exams, jobs, families and the like] I played the Red Box, made characters under the Second Edition rules, built up a campaign for friends that ended in hilarious disaster when someone lit a torch in an underground zone that was nothing but propane gas and tended my Beast in long-standing games of Vampire:  The Masquerade.

The point is, I really like board, card and role playing games.

The problem is, of course, that these games are difficult to play without friends.  I am primarily an introvert.  I have few friends. Read more

My Review of Dark Souls 3, and Why I Love the Series

I love Dark Souls

Maybe it's a latent masochistic part of me who likes this sort of punishing and unforgiving game play, maybe it's the fact that nowadays games are so full of assistance and hand holding that they basically play themselves, but there's something about this series that grabs me and won't let go. Admittedly the Dark Souls 1 PC port was a travesty that was only really even playable with a fan made patch, but I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to a series. When I started hearing about Dark Souls 2 I was glued to news sites trying to learn as much as possible, and even though it had a different director I loved it. I've been anticipating Dark Souls 3 since I first learned about it, and I'll probably play it for as long as it's up and running. I've never played Demon Souls and I don't have a PS4 so I haven't played Bloodborne, but I'd love to change those things as well.

I've been playing, and dying repeatedly in Dark Souls 3 now for over 100 hours and I feel like I can finally get my thoughts down. Continue further for my review and thoughts on the series in general. Read more

Calling all Space Marines

Some more Dawn of War badassery has been announced. Produced by Relic Entertainment, the same folks originally that gave us Space Marine (Now owned by Sega) this will be Dawn of War 3. The new installment claims to involve Orbital Lasers and various giant units. Just check out the trailer here on the official website. You'll have to provide some age verification to get in.

No release date yet, but by creating a Relic Account you can receive your own updates about the game, and there are even hints at rewards for doing so. Looks like a cool one I think. So far it looks to only be a PC title, but who knows? That could change.