As of this morning before work, Shadowbane’s login servers have been essentially down for 3 days now. Communication from Wolf Pack and UBISoft has been terse at best. If you’re thinking about picking this game up, don’t! If you’re reading this out of the archives weeks or months from now, please do your research before you waste your money like I did.
Month: April 2003
More PSO
Phantasy Star Online keeps getting better. I’m learning how to raise my Mag properly now (its a kindof personal defense robot) and have seen some of the deeper (?) levels. Even watched a group kill a dragon! Very fun, especially with the XBox’s voice chat.
One drawback though, is there’s a long lag in the voice chat for this game. Haven’t noticed it on any other XBox games, though, so I think its some kind of glitch specific to PSO. Hoping they’ll patch it…
Phantasy Star Online
OK, addiction of the moment…. Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2 for the XBox. Play it over XBox live with voice support, and go and hack up stuff. Basically the game feels like Diablo or even Gauntlet, only in a 3rd person, over the shoulder format.
Why is it so fun? I think its a combination of the very basic gameplay, on the surface, with a lot of hidden depth that you can dig into as you get more into the game. Even things like how you name your character have an impact on its development. Plus, its a collecting game. Y’know how in Diablo you were always looking for a good drop off some monster? Same kind of thing here. Lots of looting, selling, buying…trying to make your character stronger while levelling him or her up.
Lots of fun, ONLINE. If you play it solo, it gets kinda dull. Oh, you can also do it split-screen with your friends.
Sony MDR-V300 headphones
Best Buy is evil.
I went to buy Spirited Away and wandered past the headphone display. Now, I have some cheapo headphones I use at work to try to block out the chaos, but after a while they hurt my ears and I have to take them off (they sorta hang on my ears..not buds, but no band either).
Well, to make a long story short, $50 later I walk out with a set of Sony MDR-V300 headphones. These come in a traditional format. Full ear cups, band goes over the top of my head, rather than the oh-so-trendy round the back thing that bugs the bejesus out of me.
And..oh my! These things are wonderful! I’m no audiophile so maybe the sound is shite, but it sure sounds better than my old ones. They’re also very comfortable and do a great job of blocking out the incessant nattering of my co-workers. Sound is crisp and very clear; listening to an old favorite live soundtrack (CSNY 4-Way Street) I’m hearing little details I never noticed before.
Here’s an Epinions review page to back me up a bit. They got 4 stars based on 12 reviews, and the lowest price they show is $35.
I’m groovin now!
Computer Gaming World
OK, let’s get back in the saddle and get this blog moving again.
Having some down time over the past few days, I dug out my backlog of Computer Gaming World magazine and leafed through them. And you know what wisdom came out of that exercise? GIVE IT UP, CGW!!! In fact, why in the heck are we still getting paper computer gaming magazines at all? What’s the point? There’s nothing in this mag that I didn’t already know from the internet. For instance, the April 2003 issue had a review of DAoC: Shrouded Isles. When’d that come out? December, yes?
But speaking specifically of CGW, which was for years a decent rag…all I can say is, ick! The magazine now has the maturity of, I don’t know, EGM or GamePro or something. The Letters to the Editor section illustrates this most clearly. Among the “You guyz suxxors” letters is the odd person trying to get a point across or a question answered. Invariably, rather than addressing the issue, one of the staff just spouts off some rude comment at the letter-writer. That’s nice, eh? You take the time to write a serious letter to these bozos and they lip off at you.
My advice to Ziff: Put CGW out of its misery, once and for all. That, or just punt the current staff and get in some journalists who have a dash of respect for their readership. But even then, with the lag time of printing and distribution, your reviews are going to be horribly outdated, and your news ain’t gonna be new.
Quiet Blog
Quietness of the blog due to:
1) Haven’t come upon any gaming news worth talking about, though I’m hunting down some Priest info.
2) Shadowbane wrapping its tendrils around my brain. Which is actually blog worthy, since the big server patch Friday does seem to have helped the game. Must write that bit..
3) Helping out with an apartment remodelling has been sucking the energy out of me. I can barely get up out of a chair I’m so stiff
4) My grandmother passed away so been dealing with family stuff a lot
I haven’t forgotten Dragonchasers, though! I shall return!
Just go there
http://laacz.lv/f/swf/hestekor.swf
WARNING: There’s sound involved, in case you’re at work. Click on the heads…
The Dead Zone
Have I rambled about The Dead Zone yet? If not, I’ve done this show a great disservice. It’s on USA on Sunday nights at 10 pm et, currently. USA has a pretty nice website for it complete with the kind of ‘extras’ you’d get on a DVD. Very cool concept.
The show itself is based on the Stephen King book of the same name. The first few episodes followed the book pretty closely, and then things diverged. The protagonist is a guy that was in a coma for 6 years, and when he comes out, he has visions of people’s past and futures. It’s a concept that they could easily go cheese with, but they don’t…they keep it rather understated, really. The episode I watched tonight, Zion, was a kind of “It’s a Wonderful Life” kind of treatment that actually followed the book more closely than the series has done. Kinda clever, showing us both paths this way. Another episode put the protagonist in a place where he felt he had to choose between the lives of two of his friends. The episode title was Playing God and, well, it didn’t turn out like it would’ve on most TV shows.
Really a first rate show, and sadly not widely watched, at least among people I know. Do yourself a favor and Tivo a couple of eps. It’ll take 2-3 to get a feel of who is who since you haven’t seen it from the start, but its time well spent, trust me.
Shadowbane
Bane is right. This game is killing me. It’s driving my blood pressure through the roof and making me all around angry and irritable. Why? Because the damn thing is BROKEN, that’s why! The servers are so sluggish and laggy as to be unplayable!!
But a glimmer of hope…there’s supposed to be a big patch tomorrow to address lag and such. We’ll see. For now, here’s my pro’s and cons of Shadowbane: Continue reading “Shadowbane”
Board games making a comeback
The New York Times has an article about the come back of boardgaming (The PC Generation, Back to the Board (free registration possibly required) with the 30-something set. Call me an old softy, but any article that mentions The Compleat Strategist gets my thumbs up. I remember riding the LIRR from East Hampton to Penn Station (~3 hours) just to go to TCS to check out the latest wargames.
My personal nostalgia aside, it’s a pleasant read for board game fans (or wannabes).