I got inspired to post on rpg.net today after someone started a thread about everyone’s favorite epic dungeons and dragons campaigns, and I got all nostalgic about years gone by and the campaigns I had played in. Anyway there’s a thread covering the topic if you’re interested.

I’ve been completely engrossed with the new Zelda game on my gamecube ever since I got it. On the surface it looks like a child’s cartoon and the dialog is definitely aimed at someone around 14 years old, but despite this it’s completely captivating. The graphics are done in the cell shading cartoon style and they’re just perfect, I really feel like I’m running around in a well-animated saturday morning cartoon. The difficulty level is just right, which is to say probably too easy for some, but since I don’t have the time to spend on games that I would like, the fact that I don’t have to repeat sections endlessly in trial and error/learning is great. My only concern is that it will be over too quickly. I only started on Saturday and already I’ve completed 2 of the major dungeons. If it holds to form with the previous games there will be maybe 6-8 dungeons total so in theory I am a good way into the game already. I haven’t finished one since Roy and I beat the second game on the original Nintendo way back in like 1991 or 1992, or possibly even earlier than that, we’ll see if I manage to beat this one. I just got the boomarang last night and man is it cool.

More impressions after I’m further into it. BTW if you have kids between 6-14 my bet is they would absolutely love the game, though you might have to control it if the kids skew towards the younger ages.

For those of you who remember huddling around a table in Scott’s basement or Pat Leighton’s attic or Mike Lord’s living room or my dining room, imagine if we had had this baby to huddle around instead! Gaming nirvana!

It cracks me up that these guys built it. On the one hand I admire their ingenuity, and on the other I wonder if they aren’t obsessing just a wee bit.

So anyway, now I am daydreaming building one with improvements, like monitors and a keyboard at each workstation so you can stream multimedia and messages to the players privately without resorting to the ‘billiard table’ approach these guys are using. What do you think andrew, can you score a half dozen LCD’s from dead machines?

😉

(I’m kidding of course, though if I had folks to actually game with, maybe I wouldn’t be).

I beat Unreal II this weekend. It’s funny, I played the game almost non-stop the weekend that I got it, got pretty far along into it, then stopped playing as other games distracted me. This weekend I fired it up and finished the game in like 10 minutes. I had no idea I was that close to finishing it, though I did know I was near the end.

All in all the game is a big letdown. I solved the first unreal and while it was something of a mixed bag, all in all it was a solid FPS in solo play. Unreal II is way too short, suffers from stupid-plot-itis, and a lack of compelling mechanics. The game is absolutely beautiful to look at. This is it’s most compelling feature, along with a couple of cool missions (most notably the ‘defend the ship while I fix some stuff’ mission in the mountains, but the poor quality of the enemy AI detracts from the enjoyment. Additionally, the game is a complete system hog, it’s the first game to really make me feel like I need to upgrade.

Overall I would give the game a C+. It’s gorgeous to look at and has a few cool missions, but it’s a system hog, it’s over before you know it, and they stripped out the multiplayer so as not to compete with UT2k3. If you find it for $20 it would be a maybe – at full price, skip it.

Nintendo started offering a deal on the Gamecube – buy one and get a game free. They also dropped the price of their bundle pak to $159 – comes with Mario Brothers, a memory card and a controller. So I decided to take the plunge and sold off a bunch of ps2 games to cover the cost. I go into Best Buy and conclude the mario bundle is the better deal because it comes with a memory card, so I pick that one out. I go to ring out and the guy at the counter says ‘you know you get a free game with this’

PSYCHE!

I already had my free game in the box, so I managed to score 2 free games. I even told the guy I wasn’t sure that was true and he rang it in and ta da, free game for me. Woohoo!

So I spent the entire day Sunday playing gamecube games. I got Mario, Super Metroid, and two other games. Super Metroid is by far the best of the lot. Mario is well executed and has good graphics, but it’s basically just like mario 64 from the nintendo gamecube days. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, it’s the best platform game ever made, but it’s mostly more of the same, a small evolution from the last one. Metroid meanwhile has made the jump to 3d, has spectacular graphics and a great mix of exploration with combat (emphasis on exploration mind you). It’s engrossing, I probably spent about 4 hours playing it yesterday and I can’t wait till I finish work so I can go home and play some more. It’s a great game to play with the lights turned down low.

I never seem to talk much about games on here so I thought I would take a moment to run down what I’ve been playing. It’s been the season of the PS2 for the most part. The system is at its absolute peak, with a ton of A+ games being released and enough of a lifespan on the shelves that many quality games are now in the bargain bins for $20 and sometimes even less. I’ve gone a little nuts as a result, buying all kinds of games to play with.
Continue reading →

I love life’s little ironies. The PC gaming market is in its slow period this time of year. I’ve been playing a lot of Neverwinter Nights, and I am anticipating Battlefield 1942 (the demo is awesome), but not much else has come along now in about 3 months. So I started picking up Playstation 2 games to feed my jones. They’re in a great spot now; similar to when I got my original playstation, the system has been out long enough that games have started dropping into the $20 range. I picked up….
Continue reading →

In case anyone’s interested, I’ve got a new weblog running here:

NWN Adventures

Which I’m using to track the adventures we have in Neverwinter Nights. The game completely rocks. The same cannot yet be said for the weblog but I have my hopes 😉

Plus there’s an account, somewhat pathetic, of our first full adventure there to check out.