This is terrific news, though I think I would still rather see The Simpsons or X-x-x-x-x-men.
From Joystiq
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
NOICE! SCRATCH ONE PODCAST!
Today is Thursday, which is good, but tomorrow is Friday, which is better, because it will be the end of the week and there will be a new Joystiq Podcast with our childhood friends Chris Grant, Justin McElroy, and Ludwig Kietzmann. I have been listening to these guys for a while now and always enjoy their banter about video games. The subject line of this post comes from a "joke" they had a few weeks ago that I'm still amused by today (it doesn't take much for me, folks). So give them a listen!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Ulduar is NOT Too Easy
It seems a hot topic on WoWInsider, and I imagine many other World of Warcraft sites, is that the new raid dungeon, Ulduar, is too easy. The main argument for this is because the top raiding guilds in the world have already beat it. This argument seems rather pointless since it is basically saying that since the top 1-2% of players are able to clear the content, while most of the others are still working on it and finding it difficult, it must be easy. Okay, so since some Olympic runners can run sub-5 minute miles, running must be too easy, right?
My main is a Blood Elf priest on the Earthen Ring server (lulz I no, carebear server amirite?) in the Grim Determination guild. It is a raiding guild that runs three times a week. I enjoy it because I have real life friends in there, the people are nice and pretty knowledgable of the game, and the raid times are scheduled as such to accommodate human life. We plowed through Naxxramas fairly easily and I geared up fast in there, and I'd like to think I'm a pretty competent healer. So naturally since Naxx was so easy we'd run through this one in a matter of weeks too.
WRONG.
It's been a couple weeks now and we still haven't beat any of the bosses past Flame Leviathan yet, though we are real close! The difficulty has really ramped up and has made us all think about what we are doing more than ever before. And I love it!
I love that there are hard modes to most of these bosses. I love that there are so many achievements to try to work for, since I am a cheevo-whore. And I love that there's a challenge again. I'll be honest, I was getting really bored with Naxx. I was holding conversations in whisper while I was healing bosses and still finding myself in the top three for healing output. I'm glad that now I have to really concentrate and stare at those green bars so intently now.
Last week a smaller group of us started a 10-man Ulduar group to test our mettle on a smaller scale. It was a lot of fun. I definitely prefer it to the 25-man, because the smaller raid really lets you learn the fights a lot better when there are fewer people and thus greater accountability. We still didn't make it too far but we were just starting out. I believe we'll do much better tonight when we head back in.
So really, I don't think this is too easy at all. I'm sure the top guilds didn't one-shot everything on their first try then run to the internet to complain. And even if they did, who cares? Obviously that's not representative of the majority of the player base. But this is the internet, give the people a voice and they will use it to complain, I guess.
My main is a Blood Elf priest on the Earthen Ring server (lulz I no, carebear server amirite?) in the Grim Determination guild. It is a raiding guild that runs three times a week. I enjoy it because I have real life friends in there, the people are nice and pretty knowledgable of the game, and the raid times are scheduled as such to accommodate human life. We plowed through Naxxramas fairly easily and I geared up fast in there, and I'd like to think I'm a pretty competent healer. So naturally since Naxx was so easy we'd run through this one in a matter of weeks too.
WRONG.
It's been a couple weeks now and we still haven't beat any of the bosses past Flame Leviathan yet, though we are real close! The difficulty has really ramped up and has made us all think about what we are doing more than ever before. And I love it!
I love that there are hard modes to most of these bosses. I love that there are so many achievements to try to work for, since I am a cheevo-whore. And I love that there's a challenge again. I'll be honest, I was getting really bored with Naxx. I was holding conversations in whisper while I was healing bosses and still finding myself in the top three for healing output. I'm glad that now I have to really concentrate and stare at those green bars so intently now.
Last week a smaller group of us started a 10-man Ulduar group to test our mettle on a smaller scale. It was a lot of fun. I definitely prefer it to the 25-man, because the smaller raid really lets you learn the fights a lot better when there are fewer people and thus greater accountability. We still didn't make it too far but we were just starting out. I believe we'll do much better tonight when we head back in.
So really, I don't think this is too easy at all. I'm sure the top guilds didn't one-shot everything on their first try then run to the internet to complain. And even if they did, who cares? Obviously that's not representative of the majority of the player base. But this is the internet, give the people a voice and they will use it to complain, I guess.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Nice!
I can't wait for this!
Dead Rising 2 trailer that embedded is so large it breaks my formatting
From Kotaku
Dead Rising 2 trailer that embedded is so large it breaks my formatting
From Kotaku
Monday, April 27, 2009
IN-DE-STRUCT-ABLE!
Capcom just released the Street Fighter IV POWER UP PACK free download on Xbox Live and PSN a few days ago. The main update of this download is the new "Championship Mode", which adds more metrics that I am too dim-witted to figure out to online play. Maybe somebody can explain this to me, as I only spent a little time with it last night and it hasn't come together for me yet.
So now in addition to "Battle Points (BP)" there are "Championship Points (CP)" and "Grade Points (GP)" as well as some rank (I believe mine was G3-E or something, whatever you start with). You seem to get CP when you beat somebody, which seems to be based on their GP, which is added based on whether you win or lose. But then if you lose, you lose all your CP! So I think if you actually win a tournament, your CP is converted to GP! I have no idea! That would require winning, which I could not seem to do, since I haven't played for a week or two and have apparently forgotten how to play. My rank also increased somehow to G3-D despite losing most of my matches, so I have no idea how that is determined.
You're also always at some kind of "stage" in the tournament, but you don't fight them all at once, you just fight people who are also at your stage and move up from there. This is kind of a neat idea, as it seems to make one giant tournament, though I figured it would be some kind of 8 person lobby or something that makes a mini-tournament. I guess this way lets you have points and ranking systems to stretch it farther.
There is also a "double-blind" character select feature, not that it really matters, since everybody you fight is just going to use Ryu, Ken, Sagat, or Akuma anyway. Still, it does add a somewhat nice element of surprise, since you don't know which of these four you are going to fight.
All in all, it seems like a nice update! It's free, so there's no complaint there, and it adds to their already great online experience. I look forward to spending more time with it and hopefully actually winning some tournaments and getting some more GPs and CPs and BPs and HPs with Cammy, because I'm such a rebel like that.
So now in addition to "Battle Points (BP)" there are "Championship Points (CP)" and "Grade Points (GP)" as well as some rank (I believe mine was G3-E or something, whatever you start with). You seem to get CP when you beat somebody, which seems to be based on their GP, which is added based on whether you win or lose. But then if you lose, you lose all your CP! So I think if you actually win a tournament, your CP is converted to GP! I have no idea! That would require winning, which I could not seem to do, since I haven't played for a week or two and have apparently forgotten how to play. My rank also increased somehow to G3-D despite losing most of my matches, so I have no idea how that is determined.
You're also always at some kind of "stage" in the tournament, but you don't fight them all at once, you just fight people who are also at your stage and move up from there. This is kind of a neat idea, as it seems to make one giant tournament, though I figured it would be some kind of 8 person lobby or something that makes a mini-tournament. I guess this way lets you have points and ranking systems to stretch it farther.
There is also a "double-blind" character select feature, not that it really matters, since everybody you fight is just going to use Ryu, Ken, Sagat, or Akuma anyway. Still, it does add a somewhat nice element of surprise, since you don't know which of these four you are going to fight.
All in all, it seems like a nice update! It's free, so there's no complaint there, and it adds to their already great online experience. I look forward to spending more time with it and hopefully actually winning some tournaments and getting some more GPs and CPs and BPs and HPs with Cammy, because I'm such a rebel like that.
Develop Light, Develop Right?
As this is gaming related, I wanted to make a mention to my good friend's game development blog Developing Light. I know he's been talking about making a game for a while so now he's finally made a blog about it so people can pressure him into going through with it! He's doing it just with Open Source programming tools and in his spare time, so (hopefully) it won't turn him into a wacko like Bob's Game.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
IT'S MAHVEL BABY!
I just had to link this, since I've been repeating lines from it incessantly to my friends and wife since I first saw it. This is just the strangest and most hilarious trash talk I've ever seen, outside of maybe my drunk friend yelling Vegeta impressions into the microphone while he was playing Halo 3.
Welcome
Welcome to ULTRA EXTREME GAMING (Title inspired by Peggle, of course, and about three minutes of thinking of a name).
I've been kicking around an idea for a video game blog for a while that I didn't really want to put on my main blog, because I had a feeling I'd probably want to contribute more to this than personal stuff! So I just made this Blogspot account just for that purpose; to write about my thoughts and adventures in video gamery. I'll also include links to news I find on my favorite gaming sites and related Youtube clips that amuse me (I've got a few in mind already).
Nothing against blogspot, but eventually I plan on making a dedicated website for this as web design and programming are interests of mine and I'm interested in being able to extend the site with whatever features I feel like rather than searching through templates and configuration panels. So sit back, enjoy, and hopefully my ramblings will be entertaining!
I've been kicking around an idea for a video game blog for a while that I didn't really want to put on my main blog, because I had a feeling I'd probably want to contribute more to this than personal stuff! So I just made this Blogspot account just for that purpose; to write about my thoughts and adventures in video gamery. I'll also include links to news I find on my favorite gaming sites and related Youtube clips that amuse me (I've got a few in mind already).
Nothing against blogspot, but eventually I plan on making a dedicated website for this as web design and programming are interests of mine and I'm interested in being able to extend the site with whatever features I feel like rather than searching through templates and configuration panels. So sit back, enjoy, and hopefully my ramblings will be entertaining!
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