Category Archives: Life - Page 24

Farpoint 2010

Posted by on February 12, 2010 No comments

The snow is starting to melt and I only have a mildly high trench of a driveway to navigate.  Most of the time at home was split between Star Trek Online and Bioshock 2. (Rescued my first Little Sister.)  Believe it or not I actually reached a point in my cabin fever where I got up and could game no more.  Instead I went and watched the Star Trek Reboot on Blu-Ray.  Anyways, this is just a quick update to say that I won’t be posting anything this weekend, or even playing as I am off to Farpoint in Baltimore MD.  Also it is Sarah and my one year Anniversary!  So it’s a nice little get-away after a long internment at the house.  Should be some costumes and a few guests to visit with.  I’ll probably have an after action report on Monday-ish.

In the meantime, remember, Level up, and spend those skill points!!

Returning from the Alpha Quadrant, or, Shore leave on Hoth

Posted by on February 8, 2010 2 comments

Well, the snowpocolypse 2.0 has taken it’s toll on us, and the house.  We got about 20+ inches of snow and spent most of Saturday and Sunday clearing it off the driveway and everything else.  Some of my neighbors have drifts in front of their houses (mostly because of the plows) that measured up to about 9 feet tall!  This of course meant that most of the time, not spent shoveling snow, was spent inside playing games.  Sarah was on the Internets, until she picked up Overlord 2.  Andrew was on Mass Effect 2, after he finished with Uplink, and I was playing Star Trek Online, no after there, it was all STO.

Over the weekend I have managed to make it to the rank of Lt. Commander, I have 4 different ships to choose from, and I have 5 bridge officers.  (Also, I have at least 3 tribbles.)  The long arduous road to Lt. Commander was painful right at the end, mostly because of the lack of realization that I needed to spend skill points to earn the promotion instead of just earn them.  Made it all the way to Lt rank 11 before I figured that out.  Once I had earned the rank I ventured back to the Sol Sector and attended my promotion ceremony.  It was very touching.  After that it was off to claim my new ship.  I had actually been saving up energy credits for my entire career so that I could buy an extra ship so one Cruiser and one Escort.  Since I am still new to the heavier ships, I will hold off on the pluses and minus until later.  Instead lets go over some of the things I loved and hated about my time as a young Lieutenant

Things I loved:

Who needs friends with an away team like this? – Every time I had to beam down to a planet I always had an away team with me.  For starters it was just me and my Engineering officer along with a few security guys, (those poor red shirts) but after a while I had my science officer, my tactical officer, and my ferengi, ok so he is a engineering officer too but he’s my token.  Each officer has a special ability that they use on their own or by my command.  Even coming around and reviving me if I get knocked out.  It’s very helpful!

Autogrouping with Others. Now I know this may be a plus or a minus depending on the type of person you are but I found it to be very helpful.  If you and 3 other people are working on the same mission at the same time (as is the case in most missions), it will auto group you together and adjust the level accordingly.  The amazing thing about it is that without even sending a hail, everyone just worked together!  This avoids all of the Awkward conversations and ninja tagging.

Dead Klingon = New Mark II Engine – Everything that I needed for my LT Career was found in loot.  I had no need to spend credits on anything because it was all available in loot.  This allowed me sell anything excess that I had looted and didn’t need so I could have the money to buy the second ship.


Things I Hated:

Oh god more Patrol missions – To boldly go where everyone has gone before.  The patrol missions are really more of a love hate thing.  I love that there is a large variety of types of missions, but they start getting repetitive after a while.  Clearly they are meant to be filler around the other larger missions, so my advice….don’t run them back to back.  Run one system, go do a main mission, come back and do another system.

No, mister Klingon, I do not want to enter an chance enemy encounter. – Flying around in sector space I found myself automagicly sucked into enemy encounters, which under normal circumstances would be fine, but these are on a timer, and the timer is ALWAYS ticking down from like 5 min to start.  So I won’t be sitting around for 5 min for my “chance” encounter.

Still a tad clunky – Ok so this is an overall grievance.  Unfortunately the game is still a little rough around the edges.  There are minor glitches in the graphics, in the performance, in the interface.  BUT…  It’s a brand new MMO and it’s still finding it’s place and growing into some very large combat boots.  After wittnessing the launch of SWG, EQ2, AOC, LOTRO, WoW, COH, and who could forget The Matrix Online!  (Wow, I have tried a lot of MMO’s, and many of them from launch!)  I can easily see how things will get ironed out and the issues are really minor.  I have seen nothing that is a show stopper.

Final verdict: For a starter MMO, I give Star Trek online a good 7.5 out of 10 Tribbles.  But I reserve the right to change this score after 1: I play more since it doesn’t really end and, 2: Time mends all glitches.

Just in time too as tomorrow I will be venturing back to Rapture for Bioshock 2!

Snowpocolypse 2.0 or What do you do with a drunken Yeoman?

Posted by on February 5, 2010 No comments

So it’s supposed to snow for the next, like, 48 hours solid bringing around 24 inches of cold insanity with it.  I have finished Mass Effect 2 and have no Bioshock 2 to take it’s place.  (Yeah, I think I should have slowed down on that one.)  So what am I to do with all this time on my hands and locked indoors.  I guess I could spend time with my family…….yeah well We know I do that enough and Snow time is Game time!  Yesterday we had gone to the mall to take care of some appointments and I just happened to walk into the Gamestop, you know, by accident.  There I see it,  the Star Trek Online box, just calling to me.  The following is the conversation that took place:

Me: Ooooo  STO!  And Look at all the stuff  you get!

Sarah: So if you want it, get it!

Me: But…  But…  Wait a sec, why aren’t you fighting me on this?

Sarah: Am I supposed to tell you not to get it?  If you buy it, then I will get to play it too!

Me: I Love You!

So safe and warm did STO come with me home and get installed.  I managed to Create Captain Boothby of the U.S.S Wizzer last night and began my exploration of the galaxy (the other galaxy, not the one I just finished saving from the Reaper/Collector attacks, you know, so we can keep this straight.)  I am not sure I am ready for a good enough review at this point,  so here are a few key points that I have found so far.

  1. Upon loading into the game I noticed that the first Intro mission was Glitchy as all hell.  At first I thought my system wasn’t good enough to handle it, but when I got to the rest of the game it ran just fine.  The only thing I could think of is that That certain battle had WAY too much going on it it and it over taxed the system.  But I guess that’s a good way to weed out people eh?
  2. Flying your ship looks Amazing.  The graphics are outstanding.  I would put this about half way between EVE Online and the Space side of Star Wars Galaxies.  Your control over the ship is a bit more hands on and granular than Eve, but not as twitchy at SWG.
  3. The ground game is not bad.  It probably could use a little more polish, but it’s new so I will give it a chance.  Nothing has stood out as “bad”, but nothing amazed me either (unlike the space side)
  4. I have had the chance to do a variety of missions and it plays out like “Episodes” of the show.  You can do Diplomatic missions, combat stuff, and exploring and sciency type things.  So there is something for everyone!

I think that will do for now.  Feel free to message me in game if you would like and remember to stay warm!

To Boldly Have Gone. or Mission Accomplished

Posted by on February 3, 2010 No comments

Here I am, only minutes after finishing Mass Effect 2, and I am still processing all that happened.  I may end up actually replaying from my last major save point because I am not completely happy with some of my choices.  For now I am going to let them bake in my head and deal with the consequences.  (And mourn the loss of Jack, Grunt, Thane, and the Colonists.  In the words of Joker:  “Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit, What the Shit!?”

This also means that I am now un-distracted until next Tuesday!  A fact that I am sure Sarah and Andrew will be happy about.  (Or not.)  In the mean time I have to say that I have become increasingly tempted by Star Trek Online based on what I have seen about it online and the few friends who have tried it.  I am probably only slightly less of a Star Trek fan than I am a Star Wars fan.  (Which is to say, pretty damn rabid.)  Although I do not own any Star Trek costumes, and I am not sure I will any time soon, I have always enjoyed the shows and the inspiration they provide.  I loved many of the other trek games, even though they were widely un-popular.  I even have a copy of the Star Ship creator lying around here somewhere.  I am curious to the designs of the ships and to see the variants.  Ok damn, this is really not helping.

Maybe if I go read the Next Gen Tech Manual I can get my mind off it.

And yes, I have it.

And the Original series one.

The DS9 one too.

Oh God I need help.

Saving the Galaxy, aka, Wintereenmas

Posted by on February 1, 2010 1 comment

Wow so this weekend flew by at FTL through a Mass Effect Relay.  Sarah had to head down to Richmond for an appointment so that left me and Andrew at home for Wintereenmas!  Add on to that the snow all day Saturday and that sets up the perfect conditions to sit on the couch with Food and drink close by and focus attentions on what needed to be done to save the Galaxy.   Andrew was armed with Bioshock 1 on the upstairs and I with Mass Effect 2 Downstairs, I believe we saw each other once or twice through the day.  I think the only real break we took was alternating taking the dog out, Shuffling off to Dinner at Hard Times Cafe (Through the snow), and then of course getting the dog to throw up because he got into the chocolate (Not my Fault!  He is just really Nosey!)

So Micro Review time!  I have spent a lot of time in ME2 so far and have no collected all but 1 of my crew and done their loyalty quests.  I have scanned probably about 1/3 of the systems to 100%, and am trying to finish up every side quest on my way out to the Omega 4 Relay.  I would like to speculate that I am maybe about 1/2 through the whole game.  So lets just run down the list of loves and hates:

Loves:
This is only a small small selection of things I love about this game

  • The whole galaxy is yours to explore, and it’s Beautiful.  I could spend hours just flying around and checking out all of the different Nebula’s.
  • The Seamless Conversation trees.  This was a great part of ME1 and continues to be awesome in 2
  • Moral Choices out the Yin Yang! So many times I was faced with the choice of “Do I do what is Morally right, or Do what I need to keep my teem member happy so he performs well.
  • In Depth Story. Any time a story makes you want to sit on the couch ALL DAY LONG means they did everything right.  Big time Movie directors and writers need to take a serious look at how games like ME do things.  The writing for a 20+ hour game ends up be 100 times better than your standard movie.
  • Fun Mini Games. In Assassin’s Creed 2, there were Subject 16 mini games that got a little frustrating.  Their length and complexity detracted from the rest of the game.  Thankfully ME2 didn’t follow in that.  the Hacking and Bypass mini games are just right.  I can see that in the future they may start getting more complex but none of them seem like they would detract.

Hates (or maybe just Dislikes)

I wish I could say that there was no dislikes but there is always something.

  • Too Much Choice. I know this seems like a silly thing to dislike but I ran into it in Assassin’s Creed too.  When there is too much to do, you can easily loose focus on what needs to get done.  I know they are also trying to build the game so that there is some re-playability but with So many different team members, and only be able to take 2 of them at a time, I am missing out on interactions and dialogue that would be nice to see.
  • Mining Mini game. Mining sucks.  Pretty much any game I have played that had mining in it, it’s sucked.  It’s a way to get the player to sit and waste time to get the resources they need to continue.  Very rarely do I see mining integrated into a fun system.  Mining in ME2 takes forever (even with the upgrade) and I ended up with Way too much of one Mineral and not enough of another.
  • Glitches.  No game is without them unfortunately.  There was one point where I found myself walking through the geometry and out into a blank space. Had to reload.  Also the “Skip Conversation” button should never be tied to the “Select Conversation Tree”  Far too many times I went to skip a line of Dialogue because The Character speaks too slowly and I had read the subtitles faster and it selected the next default conversation piece.  Very annoying.

This is all very early speculation as I have not finished the game yet but it’s all based on what I have seen so far.  There will be much more playing.  Of course I only have about 1 week left until Bioshock 2 comes out.  I think that will be another Upstairs game so Sarah can watch along.  This will also give Andrew the chance to play ME2 downstairs with the DLC on the downstairs system.  In the mean time, I need to get back and play!

Training week…

Posted by on January 25, 2010 No comments

So I am in training all week for .  The training class is located in the Ballston Common Mall in Arlington VA, and is right across from the Gamestop.  The Gamestop of course has a metric F^%$ton of posters for Mass Effect 2 that are taunting me.  I have managed to avoid all the various advertisements and trailers (with the exception of print posters and the like).  I would very much like the experience I have in game to be un-spoiled.  With some of the big name games I have been trying to do that more and more.  It seems that lately some of the games are approaching “Avatar” levels of advertising and showing so many in-game videos and screen shots that it boggles me why I should even play the game any more!  I probably would have seen all the important parts.  (I know I haven’t, but still)  So with Mass Effect 2 and the upcoming Bioshock 2 (another sequel!) I have avoided it all.  I pick up ME2 tomorrow and will dive in tomorrow evening.

Wish me luck.

More coming!

Posted by on January 22, 2010 No comments

Ok so I have been working on a number of different reviews and posts to throw up here and just wanted to let you know that there is certainly more coming.  I managed to finish (most) The Saboteur, and I still want to give my impressions of the Verizon Droid.  Last night I took some time and tried out Plants Vs Zombies.  I am not sure if I want to write up a real review of it though.  It’s a game from Popcap, and I like most of their work.  I certainly have spent many many hours playing Peggle and Bejeweled, but for starters, I didn’t pull down the whole game, just the trial, and I don’t know how much more time I am going to spend on it.  It’s a tower defense game, and I like those well enough, add in the zombies and Popcaps infamous humor and cartoon polish and you have a good funny time sucking game, we’ll see.

This upcoming weekend is going to be spent writing and working around the house, with a Visit to the GPA Meetup (Greyhounds) in Fairfax at Wylie Wag.  Also don’t forget that next week is Mass Effect 2 Week!  Sarah, I’ll miss you, Please send the food down to the basement.

Wizzer 2.0 is Up and Running!

Posted by on January 16, 2010 No comments

Welcome to the new Wizzer 2.0 site, aka Wizzer’s World!!

My Billy Mays costume

The main reason that I decided to re-do the site is because there were a ton of changes, both in my life and with the tech, and since I love new tech I needed an upgrade!  So lets get you all caught up on stuff shall we?

First lets go with some personal life upgrades that have happened.  If you were an avid follower of my blog before you may know some of the smaller details.  Sarah and I tied the knot back in Feb of 2009 and we decided to stop donating a ton of money to other people and invest it in ourselves instead, and by this I mean we bought a house!  We moved in back in July of 09 and have spent the rest of the time updating, and renovating.  Our latest house change has been new windows.  Sadly we had to leave the Fairfax area for Manassas, but it’s not all that far of a move.  We also have a new addition to the family, Husker, our retired racing greyhound.  He is a great dog and Charlie has just started to tolerate him.  While we are on the subject, Charlie is doing great as ever.  He loves the new house.  Andrew is now a Junior in High School and working on getting his License.  He is still struggling to catch up to my gamerscore on Xbox of course.

Now, for tech stuff, there have been some upgrades around here as well.  You probably have noticed that all of the old parts of the website have been redone, turns out that some of the web apps that I was running have never been updated so it was either scrap them and start over or spend hours upon hours trying to upgrade.  I opted to scrap.  WordPress over Blogger, and even the Gallery is updated (though it may change again).  Around the house we have done some tech upgrades.  I now have a full “Man Cave” with my various gaming systems.  There are two Xbox’s, one PS3, one Wii, and the full Rock Band Experience. In the kitchen I added a Chumby. I upgraded my phone from a crappy LG Env2 to a Blackberry Storm, and then again to the new Motorola Droid.  Now if we can just invent the automatic laundry folding machine!!

So there you have it!  In the works I plan on adding quite a few reviews, I recently finished a few games like Assassin’s Creed II, The Saboteur, and I am working on Uncharted 2.  I also wanted to add some words on my Droid phone and a few of the latest movies like Avatar.  So make sure you come back for a visit!

Wizzer 2.0 is Coming

Posted by on January 16, 2010 No comments

A Major overhaul to the site is in the works (if you couldn’t tell).  So stay tuned to see what’s coming!

Confused in VA a Story of Adoption attempted gone wrong.

Posted by on September 4, 2009 1 comment

My Wife loves Greyhounds. She has for many years. Over the last few years our living situation has changed and I had always told here that I never felt right having a dog while we still lived in an apartment or in some place we would be moving out of soon. I didn’t feel it was right for the dog. Still, we would attend meet and greets with some of the local Greyhound owners and she would buy books on Greyhounds.

2 Months ago we bought our first house together. It’s a nice single family house in Manassas with a big yard and lots of space. She lit up when I told her that we could look into getting a dog finally.

We contacted the local group, VAGA, and submitted an application to adopt. Shortly afterward we had our initial phone interview. In the phone interview we were very upfront an honest about anything we felt could be considered problem areas. Things like the fence that surrounds our back yard was only a 3 foot chain link fence, but that we had planned to replace it with a full privacy fence. We mentioned that until the privacy fence was in place all outside time would be supervised. Also she and I both work about 20 min away from the house so during work hours we would be gone, but I have a 17 year old son who arrives home from school by 2:30pm. The phone interview went very well and we were told that we should expect to schedule a home inspection soon.
This evening my wife came in very distraught. She had been contacted by a woman on the board for VAGA who, very rudely, told her that “You say you are going to supervise outside time but you really won’t do it” and “We have been told that before and the dog jumped the fence and got hit by a car”. She then went on to say that my teenage son was too Irresponsible to be trusted to take the dog out for a mid day walk. She said we should re-submit when we have the privacy fence in place and have hired a dog walker.

Now, what strikes me as odd was that we NEVER had a home inspection, not one of them has met us in person or seen what our fenced in back yard looks like, yet we were told that 1: We were liars about supervising the dog, we were not to be trusted to walk the dog regularly, and that my teenage son was irresponsible. Did I mention that they had never even met us?

My wife has been dreaming about owning a greyhound for far too many years to let this one go and was extremely upset after this woman berated her over the phone. Is there anyone that could lend some insight on how to handle this situation? Since we just purchased the house, we just don’t have the money to build the fence right now, it’s something we are planning for with the budget.

I really feel like this woman would rather let a greyhound be put to sleep than let a loving home take care of it.

Help?