Halloween Time at e-AAGH.net

Hey all, happy Halloween! It’s spook-day here in Ohio, and Omegasim and I are getting together tonight to dish out the treats and maybe some tricks to the kids of our neighborhood. More importantly, though, is that it’s game night! Whenever we get together it’s game night, but this is special – we’ve been doing this every year on Halloween for almost ten years now, so it’s kind of a tradition. One year we were playing Quake III: Arena on the Dreamcast when a kid came to the door and saw my game systems lying all over the place. I had my PlayStation, PS2, Dreamcast and N64 all in front of the TV, and this kid nearly had a heart attack. Another year we spent most of the evening on the porch with Omegasim in a wolfman mask while we dished out the goods. One little girl wouldn’t go near Omega, so she carefully walked up my side of the porch. When she was leaving Omega pulled the mask off (so he could breathe), and the little girl looked back and said, “Oh, it’s just a guy in a mask.” We still laugh about that.

Tonight we’re playing some games we’ve not played together before. Best Buy was running a Buy Two and Get One Free sale on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii games, so I went up and scored Left 4 Dead and Borderlands for the 360 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for the Wii. Omega likely won’t touch the golf, but we’re both huge shooter buffs (for years, our game of choice on Halloween was Red Faction 2 for the Xbox, which Omega bought one year and left with me so he could play it). Last week we played Unreal Tournament 3 on the 360 for the first time. Here’s a quick transcript of what happened.

GAME ONE

(TDM, Deck, Co-op)

Omega took some time to get acclimated to the controls, which seemed a little odd. He’s usually spot on and we weren’t sure – well I wasn’t sure – what the problem was. We won handily, so next match we were turning the difficulty up a notch.

GAME TWO

(TDM, Sanctuary, Co-op)

We don’t often play versus, in case you didn’t notice, because we love to steamroll our opposition with our teamwork. It was here, though, that we figured out what Omega’s problem with the control was – he needed to invert the Y-axis on his right stick to be comfortable. No problem there, a quick trip to the menu and he was ready. He and I blew the AI to bits again, and he kicked ass like I knew he was capable of. Yes! Next stop, Warfare.

GAME THREE

(WAR, Torlan Classic Map, Co-op)

This was fun until an untimely end. I flew a Raptor at the start, but it took me a while to get used to the flying controls with the 360 controller (I’m usually deadeye with a mouse and keyboard). Omega started on foot, but toyed with the Scorpion and the Manta at different times. We had the opposing team’s core down to almost 30% when Omega went to check something in the menu and asked me what button to hit to get back out. I wasn’t sure, so I guessed, and I guessed wrong. I accidentally told him to press the ‘quit game’ button, and in a panic we told the game ‘yes’ to quitting. We both just hung our heads after that. Ok, no more Warfare – it’s time for our specialty, Capture the Flag, but with a wicked twist.

GAME FOUR

(CTF, Facing Worlds, Versus)

I started us up but didn’t join Omega’s team this time, so we were going head-to-head. I was on red, I believe, and he was blue. The match quickly broke down from CTF to killing each other. I started on the top of our tower sniping him, but I missed him once and he got in our base. I came down to kill him, but he turned the tables and killed me. Three times. I got wise after that, and since I wasn’t able to procure my favorite weapon on that map (the flak cannon), I picked up the rocket launcher, and devised a plan. I waited around corners for him and loaded up the maximum three rockets to unload on him each time he came around the corner to me. Boom-boom-boom – Omega-gibs everywhere. This went on for quite a while until my team scored a capture while we were dueling each other. I finally decided to join his team so we could win, but right as I did, my team scored another capture. We were playing to five caps, so we weren’t in imminent danger of losing, but Omega commented that maybe I had goofed and he should have joined my team. It didn’t matter, as it turned out, as we started a highly efficient flag capturing relay system. He’d nab the flag and I’d meet him half way to protect him while he scored, then we’d turn around and I’d go grab their flag and he’d protect me around the halfway point, and so on. Five quick scores and we won, 5-2. Don’t mess with us, AI.

It was allot of fun, and I hope to have more stories from tonight for everyone of our experiences in Borderlands and Left 4 Dead. Later, all.

Madden NFL 10 Under Review

I’m reviewing Madden NFL 10 right now, and it will likely get finished before my Champions Online review due to the difficulty in reviewing an MMO. Here are my early thoughts.

• The game does look better this year, but the framerate sucks. Too often the game will stop for a second during heavy action.
• I wish they hadn’t included the ‘chain gang’ for measuring the ball’s spot for first downs. Is it realistic? I suppose. Does it break up the experience? Hell yes.
• Superstar mode hasn’t changed much (again), and what has changed was changed for the worse. Why simplify the superstar creation feature? Was it too complicated before? I don’t believe so. I dislike the ‘dish out your own skill points’ option, and I have since Madden ‘08 on PC.

That’s all for now. I’ll have the full review by the end of the week (I hope).

My Champions Online review is lagging, but it's coming. Don't worry! lol

Anyway I'm continuing to play the NBA Draft Combine game for Xbox 360, as well, so maybe I'll review that too. It makes ne mad though... I'm not real happy with it.

Lastly, it's quiet here at e-aagh.net due to lack if new games so it'll be slow here for a while. Later, all.

Latest update

I recently bought an iPod touch, which I feel will be handy in keeping this blog updated. That's actually what I'm posting this with. It's a very handy device, honestly. I wish I'd gotten one sooner. Oh well. In any case, I'm working on my Champions Online review. That will be up soon but until then here's a summary; it's fun but has some fundimental flaws that need addressed before the game really takes off.

Anyway, that's all for now. Later all.

Dungeons and Dragons Hooks Alpha

I’ve been tooling around in the Dungeons & Dragons Online: Lamannia Free to Play beta recently, and I must say, it is a whole lot of fun. Budster Richards, my human cleric, roams from dungeon to dungeon, clearing them on the much welcomed ‘solo’ difficulty. I recently completed the Sacrifices quest in the ruins of an old Cannith Aqueduct. I was able to rescue the mayor’s daughter, as well as 10 other villagers and I also defeated a skeletal mage. The mage was a trick to find, and I found him on accident while following my natural curiosity. All in all, this game is quite the contrast to my usual World of Warcraft. It’s more action oriented, surprisingly, yet still has the heart of D&D. I recommend either joining the beta or signing up when the full Free to Play build goes live August 6th. Look for me there!

Nintendo and Demo Play to Pamper Non-Gamers this Fall

Ninendo’s gone and done it. Or rather, they will go and do it (if that makes any sense). They’re introducing – with New Super Mario Bros. Wii this fall – Demo Play, or as a I call it (censored, of course), Sucky Player mode. This will allow players to pause the game, enable Demo Play, and let the computer AI take over for parts that are “too hard.”

Please.

What’s gaming coming to, when players are going to need the game to play itself for them? Hell, why sell controllers? I can see it now, the next generation of consoles will be used thusly:

• Push a button on the system and the game will boot itself up, saving the user from having to figure out how to do it themselves
• The game will then promptly beat itself, removing that unnecessary burden from the gaming experience
• Once beaten, the game will shut the system down for you, so you don’t have to stick around and wait for the game to be done to shut the system down yourself

Unbelievable. Look, if you think your gamers are that freaking stupid, just put a damn “I win” button on the controller, a’ight? Push that, and you win. No need to even play the game.

Nintendo, you’re better then this. See the light, and scratch this concept. The world will be better off for it.

Movies, Moose and More

This has nothing to do with e-AAGH.net, but I want to share it anyway. I’m a huge fan of B Movie review sites, such as JABOOTU The Bad Movie Dimension and badmovies.org. One of the reviews I like re-reading is the review of It’s Alive on Jabootu by Ken Begg. I’d never seen it, though. That is, until last night.

Beta and I were wrapping up watching the Cleveland Indians beat the Kansas City Royals on a last-at-bat fowl ball (I’ll explain in a minute) when I noticed that It’s Alive was on the Independent Film Channel. I flipped to it during Bella’s rant about how Greely had tortured her. Beta and I immensely enjoyed ripping the movie apart, with Beta commenting that Greely was just a stupid old man and that the whistle he blew to wake up a sleeping Bella was more annoying then ‘cruel,’ as Bella called it.

“What’s he going to do next? Throw a water balloon at her? Light a candle and let the wax melt on the floor? Oh no, that’d be terrible! He’s just so evil!”

We laughed until the end, when the monster showed up. Upon seeing the titular beastie, Beta just sat there, stunned. I tried to ask her for her opinion of the monster, but she seemed in a coma. Finally she simply said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. That is so sad!” That about sums up the movie, I feel.

Back to the Indians game. The Indians won when right fielder Shin Shoo Choo hit a ball up the middle in the bottom of the 10th inning that hit one of a gaggle of sea gulls sitting in center field, interfering with Coco Crisp’s attempt to field the ball. This allowed Mark DeRosa to score the winning run for the Tribe. Beta, upon seeing this, said, “Couldn’t they call that a technical foul?". I cracked up as it dawned on her the unintentional pun she had made. Beta’s the best I know at unintentional comedy. One day a year or so ago she was rambling about how bad a day she was having, and wrapped up by saying, “and on top of that, my mousse died,” meaning that her hair mousse had lost it’s ‘puff.’ That didn’t stop everyone within  earshot of saying something to the tune of , “aw, poor moose!” As a matter of fact, after it occurred to her that she’d made a foul/fowl joke, she added, “yeah, and my moose died, I know.”

Beta has a hard life.