Tag Archives: dead

What I am playing

Posted by on April 4, 2011 No comments

Wanted to toss up a quick “What I am playing” Since I haven’t done one in a long while.  My gaming has been a lot sporadic and varied over the last few months.  With the new job I, of course, lost a little bit of free time with the commute and new taskings so I have had to modify the gaming schedule to fit.  Because of this, my iPad has become very valuable to me as a gaming platform.  So I will break it down via platform….

iPad:

  • Angry Birds Seasons – Who doesn’t play this, really.
  • Carcassone – This is a great little board style game that we love playing while waiting for food at a restaurant or wherever.  The scoring being done by the system is a huge plus.
  • Catan HD – Same as above, we recently wanted to try playing Settlers of Catan and I found the iPad version.  It’s a great translation, but could use some updates.
  • Zombie Dice – It’s an iPad Version of Steve Jackson’s dice game about Zombies!  what’s not to like!  If you enjoy dice games, and playing with statistics, you should check it out.
  • Words With Friends – It’s Scrabble.  Sarah loves playing and keeps getting mad at me because I am beating her.
  • Galactic Empires – GE is a iOS port of the classing O-Game which is a Space Based conquest game.  It’s kind of addicting and fun in a weird project management kind of way.  You get a planet and you mine for resources, but the tasks can take hours to complete.  The draw is the investment that you put into it and climbing the ladders to research the best ships and build a great fleet.  The downside is that it’s kind of an MMO.  All of the other planets in the game are other players and they all can either help you…..or attack you.  As with John Gabriel’s “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory”, there are internet assholes everywhere.  If you can get past that, it’s a fun game.


Next up, XBOX 360!

  • Dead Space 2 – This is currently in the Tray and being played.  It’s creepy as heck and I am still just starting.  So far…. Love it!
  • Rock Band 3 – Picked this up at launch (of course) and managed to get teh MIDI adapter for the drum kit with it.  No more swapping of cables, my drum brain is wired into the 360 now for real feel of rocking!
  • Kinect, Your Shape Fitness – So when my schedule got re-arranged, I kind of lost my workout time as well.  I get down to use the Your Shape every now and then, When I do, I feel great, but I need to do it more.


Android Phone

  • CyanogenMod – ok, so it’s not a game so much as ROM replacement on my phone.  I recently upgraded my rooted Droid to the latest CyanogenMod running Android’s Gingerbread.  At first I was having all sorts of sluggish problems, then realized that I had some redundancy with SetCPU running.  It was bogging my phone down a lot.  After un-installing it, the phone runs amazingly now.


Lastly, PC.

  • StarCraft II – Working my way slowly through the campaign.  I love the SC games, but only the Single player side of it.  As a friend proved when we teamed up in a match, I suck at Multiplayer.  
  • Civilization V – I haven’t really played many of the Civ games but I picked this one up as a fun game to start on my new laptop.  I was so sucked into the first match that I think I lost a full weekend.
  • World Of Warcraft – Yeah yeah, I guess a lot of people could have seen this one coming.  I have re-joined the collective and re-activated my WoW account.  A number of my friends went back for Cataclysm and I caved to the peer pressure.  I have been impressed in many of the changes.  I like the phasing that happens on some of the quests too.  It really makes you feel like you are doing something in the game and not just grinding out an area.


So there ya go.  Now….what are you playing?

Red Dead Redemption

Posted by on June 7, 2010 1 comment

Yeah it’s been a little while since the last update, mostly because I have been powering through Red Dead Redemption, the latest open world game from Rockstar Games.  (There was also a little time spent down with friends in Fredericksburg, Aw Yeah GhettoCon!)  So after much playing and venturing back and forth from New Austin to Mexico, I have finished the game.  (and to those who know, you just lost the game)

One of the things I love about the open world games from Rockstar is that they know how to write a good story, and then they let you play it out as you like, when you like.  This happened with Grand Theft Auto IV as well.  The story was so engaging that I really felt for some of the characters and cared about what happened with them.  When one of the characters wronged me, I felt no compunction when it came time to choose to kill them or let them live.  I also became attached to certain characters and found myself wondering if there would be more missions with them or if I would even run into them again.

This happened in spades in RDR.  From the very start of the story I began to meet characters that made me want to work on the story more than the side missions.  I almost wish that there was some sort of random mission generator that would involve the storyline characters more instead of just standard NPC’s, but I am getting ahead of myself.

The story starts out with John Marston getting escorted into a train to the middle of nowhere in New Austin to Confront one of his old Gang Member friends Bill Williams.  John, not being all that smart, confronts Bill outside of a heavily guarded fort and gets himself shot.  Thankfully, a local Rancher, Bonnie MacFarlane, comes to your rescue and nurses you back to health.  As it turns out these Shady government types have kidnapped your Wife and Son and are holding them until you turn in your former game members.  The story has you venturing all through New Austin to hunt down these gang members. Along the way you learn how to ranch, hunt down other law breakers, fuel a Mexican Revolution, and explore a number of interesting characters.  So as to not spoil anything, I will stop there with the story and move to game play.

Rockstar is very well known for their open world games and with RDR they took it to the next level.  The setting was absolutely stunning.  Everywhere I went I found myself stopping for a moment to admire the graphics and the environment.  There is something about watching the sun set over the Mexican desert while sitting on the back of your horse who just saved you by outrunning the bandits that were chasing you down.  As I have stated before, the story is awesome.  It engages you, it pulls at your heart strings, and even enrages you at some points.  (I found myself exclaiming as certain points “Damn I hope I get to kill that guy!)

I actually had only a few issues with the game.  There is an aiming system that allows you to snap to a target, kind of like Modern Warfare of Bad Company, when zooming in.  This is a blessing and a curse.  I found myself accidentally snapping to the wrong target a few times and shooting Lawmen instead of Bandits, Stagecoach drivers instead of Bandits, etc.  This resulted in some unwanted bounties and loss of honor.  I didn’t bother to reload thought because. well, accidents happen!  Also, watch out for bears.  There is a reason why they are the Number One Threat to America.  My last complaint is a little bit of a spoiler so I will do my best to talk around it.  After the ending, which is very touching and I loved it, being able to continue roaming the world is great, but I felt very disconnected from the character after that point.  Through all the rest of the story you really start to identify with Marsten and his troubles, after the ending, Marsten just isn’t the same and I felt awkward playing as him.

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Overall the game is outstanding and well worth the many many many hours spent playing it.  I only wish there were more story.

Also….Poor Bonnie.


Red Dead Redemption and Hard Labor

Posted by on May 26, 2010 No comments

Just a quick post to let you know I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet (again).  The last few weeks have been spent diving into Rockstar’s new Red Dead Redemption and doing a bit of hard time demolition work in my back yard.  I hope to get a review of RDR up soon as I am probably about 50% through it now.  Initial reaction:  Amazing, go get it and expect to spend most of your free time wandering around New Austin.  Speaking of free time, in the back yard, I am tearing down the above ground pool that has lingered in all it’s ghettoness back there and it’s time for it to go.  So I bought a new saw (Dewalt 13 amp Reciprocating Saw) and I am carving it up like a turkey.  Hopefully I can take in the scrap metal and get some good cash out of it.

Also, we picked up a new car!  We traded in the Honda Fit and got a Ford Escape Hybrid model.  2010 with all the bells and whistles.  For a gadget geek like me it’s even got the Microsoft Sync stuff for integration with my phone.  I might even do a little bit about that later, but I wanted to keep this short.  So keep your eyes out for a full review of RDR and next on deck is Alan Wake! (which is sitting in all it’s shrink wrapped glory taunting me)