News and Notes: 5/7/09

It’s been awhile since my last post, so here’s what’s up.

• I’m still hyping Unreal Tournament III to anyone who’ll listen now that it’s been upgraded with patch 2.0 (and now 2.1), as well as the Titan Pack. This is what Epic intended the game to be, I believe, and I love it.
• MLB 2K9 for PC got patched a while back, and more then anything it seems to have all but fixed the first baseman bug. That was far and away my biggest complaint, but it wasn’t everything. I still want to see the other fielding gaffes fixed as well as the Quick Play mode expanded to allow changing the other team’s starting lineup and pitcher (although that may be out of the realm of a normal patch).
• Would it make sense for me to review World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, now that everyone who will buy it has had it for months? I’m not sure. I’ll give it some thought.
• I’m toying with in-game browsers like PLAYXPERT, XFire and Steam’s in-game browser, and so far I like XFire’s the best. Steam’s works very well, but obviously only works on game’s that run through Steam. XFire, on the other hand, seems to work with most anything, and the in-game app includes taking video and pictures as well. PLAYXPERT seems to take too much in the way of system resources so it’s not running 98% of the time on my rig. Naturally,I go by Alphasim on XFire (as seen at the bottom of this page). Look me up.
• I bought a new cell phone recently, a Motorola Krave, and I love it. The interface is slick and it works like a charm. My only potential complaint is the flip-up plastic screen that protects the touch screen when not in use is a hindrance when using the touch screen QWERTY keyboard. Other then that, no complaints. I definitely recommend it.
• Betasim graduates from the University of Illinois at Chicago this weekend. Congrats, Beta! Now you can get back to work on the site…  I mean, relax and take it easy! lol You know which one I really mean.
• I recently re-installed and patched back up TESIV: Oblivion. I installed a couple item mods to expand the gear and loot tables, primarily Armamentarium and it’s related mods. It works great and I’m enjoying the game again. My big complaint when I uninstalled it was that I’d seen no new gear in 30+ hours, and now that’s been fixed. I’m looking to install  a couple graphical overhaul mods to improve the slightly aging visuals now that I’ve got two more gigs of RAM since I last played, plus and that GeForce 8800 GT I reviewed back in September of ‘08.
  

I’ll post more later. I’ve got allot of minor updates to post here that don’t warrant a site update, so look forward to that.

Checking In

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here, but I’ve been hard at work. Gaming. Yeah, hard life. Here’s what’s on my mind right now as far as gaming in general, my favorite titles at the moment, and other miscellanea.

• Spore: Galactic Adventures slipped past it’s once-presumed March ship date, leaving me rather disappointed. I still like Spore to an extent, but it needs this new expansion to suck me back in. My favorite phase is still Creature Phase, and Space Phase is too monotonous for me, so I’m looking for this expansion to change that.
• If you own Unreal Tournament III but haven’t tried it with the new patch and the Titan mini-expansion, I implore you to do so. In my opinion, many of the flaws that made it a good-but-not-great game have been ironed out, with the menus getting overhauled and features/modes/gimmicks added to bolster the experience. I’m back in the game and it’s finally approaching UT2k4 in my heart.
• I finally bit the bullet and picked up Left 4 Dead. I’m not a gore-and-guts guy, to be honest, and the thought of this brutal game turned my stomach. I kept hearing great things about it, though, so I tried it and I am very, very pleased so far. I’m having more fun mowing down the undead than should probably be allowed without a prescription. Another home run for Valve Software. Review forthcoming.
• I’m still trying to convince myself that I can enjoy MLB 2K9. I can’t seem to get a decent game out of it with all of it’s bugs, and I’ve not heard a peep from Take Two about a patch for PC gamers. For shame!
• I bothered to pick up Neverwinter Nights 2 and it’s expansions this month, and it’s about the worst $70 I’ve spent on a game in a long, long while. I can’t find anything redeeming about it so far, and I’m seething that Direct2Drive lopped about $20 or so off of the price of the pack after I bought my copy from them. It’s been a bad month for me, purchase-wise.
• This is a little off subject, but as long as I’m calling out the worst gaming bargain I’ve had, let me share the best: Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy, for $20, is the best gaming value I’ve ever had. For twenty bucks in 2004 I got hundreds of hours of fun, made a ton of friends, and got to taste minor ‘net fame with my AON Bot Wars video series that’s still a hit on YouTube. Unlike most bot building games, you have just about absolute creative freedom to place parts where ever you want. And, if that’s not enough, you can use external tools to make your own parts, making for an endless experience. I actually got my RA2 break while posting Robot Wars replicas on the old AceUplink forum, getting me invited into a mod team to make a Robot Wars AI pack. My work on RA2 is still some of my finest to date, in any field. You can still buy a copy, I believe, through Trymedia, so I recommend everyone try the demo at least.

That’s all for now. Alphasim out.

e-AAGH.net Xbox 360 is back on line

Well, I got my Xbox 360 back today from Microsoft after it's second bout with the Red Ring of Death, and I'm hopeful that was the last time I'll have to deal with that. While I can't buy a game to celebrate like last time when I bought Grand Theft Auto 4 for the 360, I figured reviewing GTA4 for PC would suffice. You know what I said last post about it being a 'riot?' It's more like, 'insights a riot,' because this game bugged to hell. Oh well, enjoy the review anyway.

Updates, News and Notes

I just wanted to post that updates on e-AAGH.net are going to be a little slower then usual for awhile as I work on that visual overhaul I mentioned in my annual editorial. Beta and I are conspiring on what look will work best, so stick around and see what happens.

In other news, my newest blog covers one of my favorite subjects: sports. Stop on by ASB (the Alpha Sports Blog) and take a gander at what I'm up to there. I'm striving for a newspaper-style appearance. Lemme know if it works for everyone.

Finally, and on a very somber note, my Xbox 360 is dead again. Stupid system. Ah well, Beta came through with GTA4 for the PC for my birthday a week or so ago, so that's a nice consolation prize, I guess. The game is a riot on PC, and I love the video editor. Maybe I'll post a clip or two sometime. Later, all.

Beta and Spore: Making Friends and Foes

Hey all. Beta's back in town for the holidays, and she's been playing Spore recently. Yesterday she built up her first predatory species, the Opochs. These things are some of the funniest looking things you've ever seen, with elephant like trunks and tusks and goofy eyes. She befriended a giraffe critter, and took it along with her on her conquests in Creature phase, and it was so funny to see this Giraffe killing things. It was like, "I'm a carnivore, really!" as it tried to kill other creatures. We grew attached to the silly thing as it tried so hard to fit in. It was a sad time when it finally got killed, since neither of us knew where to go back to for more. Also during this game, Beta was buzzed by my Enterprise UFO that I use in my main game, which proceeded  abduct Bluubies while she was trying to eat them. She eventually found my ship crashed in the ground (see pic), which honestly didn't surprise either of us. I mean, it was my creation, y'know?

Later last evening she set forth to get the achievement for befriending 20 species in a single game. She ended Creature phase with nearly 30 allies, which was impressive. I can't do that; I'm not patient enough. Later, all.

Retro Review on e-AAGH.net: World of Warcraft

I've posted my first retro review on e-AAGH.net today. Many of you may have seen the link to my retro/late section has been there since my redesign, but it wasn't until today that I finally stuck an article there. What did I review? World of Warcraft, of course. As in the original. My late section is for games from the last few years (during e-AAGH.net's life span or so), and the retro is for two console generations or six+ years ago. Naturally, WoW ended up in the Late section. Mentioning e-AAGH.net's life span brings me to my next point: In 2009, e-AAGH.net will be five years old. I hope to make that anniversary something special, so hold on tight and see what I come up with. I'm happy we've made it this far, and I credit all of the traffic I've gotten and the support I've received for it's success.

That's all for now. Later, all.

Wrath of the Litch King - Early Observations

I've been playing Wrath of the Litch King (WoW's second expansion, for the one person who somehow hasn't heard) only since last Saturday, and in reality, I didn't play at all yesterday, so this is really just my second day with it. Still, I have had a few observations that I wanted to pass on, review-wise. For more character and game-driven posts, see Alazar.

• The Death Knight class is cool, with a very story-driven opening series of quests, but are disorienting to me. I wasn't sure what I was doing with my powers or the talent points I was accumulating, so I had to wing it allot and hope I was doing the right thing. Fortunately, I visited WoWhead.com beforehand and had already planned out a map for my first 40 or so talent points, so I wasn't totally in the dark.
• The quests in that opening sequence involve several mount-based quests, such as a cannon and the Litch King's frost wyrm. This introduced me to a new vehicle interface, which promptly effed-up my Titan Panel add-on. I got the new TP build to fix that, but it was pretty frustrating at the time. The vehicle interface is pretty handy, though, and gives you a different feel for the game while you use them.

Again, for more detail on my experiences not pertaining to my review, see Alazar. I'll have my review up... eventually. It'll be a while, so don't hold your breath. Later.