Gamespy got the scoop on the next big MMRPG coming to us from Microsoft. Titled Mythica, it takes place in a Norse inspired world…or afterworld, perhaps. You start the game having just died, and Odin enlists you in his army of immortal heros and… oh hell, just read the lengthy preview at Gamespy!
Official site (just placeholder stuff right now)
Gamespy preview
Here’s a laugh. ZDNet actually posted an article based on a survey done by Logitech, makers of cordless mice and keyboards, about desktop cord clutter. I mean, could anything be more self serving for Logitech? Anyway, setting aside the fact that its bad journalism, there are some fun factoids in here. Stuff like “Lay all desktop cords in the US end to end and they’d reach half-way to the moon.”
Just stumbled onto the Rubies of Eventide site. It’s an online RPG now in open beta. There used to be a pay-to-play MUD with the same name, but this one is graphical and from a brief glance, looks good! No clue how it plays, but I mean to find out!
This is old news, but I’m way behind in my gaming reading. At the DICE Summit there was a panel of game developers talking about doing sequels. Check out this excerpt:
…the panel was asked how the designers go about building a sequel; if they follow their own vision or if they try to cater to fans. Interestingly, most of the panel admitted that it’s hard to actually gauge the likes and dislikes of the fans, because focus group testing isn’t always efficient and the opinion of the vocal minority that tend to dominate message boards may not necessarily represent all the fans of the game…
My heart sang when I read the bit I’ve put in bold. The idea that the screaming arses that populate most busy gaming boards aren’t being taken at face value…maybe gaming has a prayer of growing up, after all.
Check out this Honda ad.
Then go read about how they did it.. It apparently isn’t CGI and it isn’t trick photography.
Anarchy Online got a patch today, re-invigorating the in-game mission system. From the patch notes:
The auto-generated mission areas have received a major upgrade in looks and layout, and should now be both more varied, challenging and visually pleasing.
New dangers in missions include proximity mines, cameras and gun turrets. The “Map Reader Upgrade – Machines” will help somewhat against some of these hazards, and you might be able to locate a central control unit for them. In addition, more variation has been added to creatures found in missions. In fact, some completely new creature variants will only be found in missions. Watch out!
Some other changes with missions Continue reading “Anarchy Online Update”
I don’t usually bother talking about net virii and worms, but this one is so reprehensible that it bears mentioning. The I-Worm Coronex is being spread in an email with various subject lines referring to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). People are understandably concerned about this disease and so are more apt to fall for the attached virus and run the exe.
Pretty damned low, eh? Don’t let the scumbags get you. Practice safe computing!
Subject lines include:
I’m dividing my “review” of Star Wars: The Clone Wars for the XBox into 2 parts, one covering offline, the other online. Here’s the smack on the offline mode. Rather than rewrite stuff, I’m just going to post a couple of rants I left on an XBox message board.
The solo game is, to me, more annoying than fun. It’s very much a “you against the world” twitch fest. I thought it’d be slightly more simulator-ish with a bit more strategy to it. But its really a straight forward thumb-numbing shooter. Now, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I was just expecting something slightly less arcade-style. I also hate games with whiney wingmen. 🙂 And ones where, if your wingman gets his or her self killed, its game over for you. And enemies spawn behind you. OK, enough grumping… 🙂
On the plus side, Continue reading “Clone Wars review, pt 1”
Finished the audio book version of Ursula Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore today. Another Fantastic Audio production, technologically and aurally it was another fine product. Scott Brick did a fine job with narration, giving characters enough personality to make it clear who was saying what, without falling into the trap of over-dramatizing things.
As for the book itself… I know The Earthsea Trilogy is considered one of the classics of fantasy, but I’d beg to differ. I enjoyed A Wizard of Earthsea quite a bit, but I found The Tombs of Atuan started very slowly and only really got going in the second half. This last volume starts slow and ended slow. It was a classic quest story but, really, the questers never met with much in the way of obstacles, beyond the sheer distances needing to be travelled. The end result was a book that was more mood-piece than story. A very good mood piece…Le Guin can really paint a picture with words, but I wouldn’t enjoyed a bit more action/adversity.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars for XBox should be in stores today. Normally this would be No Big Deal since the GC and PS2 versions were fairly lackluster, but the XBox version has XBox Live! support, and all us XBL’ers are so starved for new content that we’d buy a Kate and Ashley game if it was Live! enabled.