Procrastination Domination

Verry Technical Is Born!

2010-12-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I promised you that I was working on something big... and today I am here to deliver!

I have been hard at work on my new technology centered web site: www.timverry.com.

If you have enjoyed reading this blog, I encourage you to take a look at my new website and consider following my posts there as my postings here are likely to be sporadic at best.

Thanks for your time, and happy holidays everyone! :D

Steam Recommendations

2010-11-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

As I was browsing around the Steam store for Christmas gift ideas, I noticed that the Store tab now has a new recommendations section. As far as first impressions go, it was not that accurate, for me; however I'm sure that their algorithms will improve over time.

Steam also lists the games that your Steam friends play most and any personal recommendations they have made.

Speaking of personal recommendations, you are able to recommend games from your Steam games list that can either be open or a recommendation to a certain friend.

What are your thoughts on this feature? Do you think the recommendations are accurate?

PHP and Such

2010-10-05T15:37:00.000-07:00

So I promised a non-digital lego related game, and I'm here to deliver. I haven't had much time to post anything new due to school, work, and attempting to code a website. I say attempt as I haven't done this since the Writers Hall website, which needless to say, was a while ago and I'm a bit rusty. Like a 50 year old nail next to both an oxygen tank and a nuclear reactor.

I've been reading a great article by Enrique Ramirez which has been helping immensely. Especially with all the CSS stuff that i had a tough time getting straight when it was fresh in my mind! :P You can find the article here, and I encourage you to give it a read if you're at all interested in HTML 5.

2010-09-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hold LMB. Walk. Click RMB, move and click RMB again. Rinse and Repeat.... O wait, wrong strategy!

The strategy I want to utilize here is to write a blog update, not finish my city in the sky in Minecraft! Ooops!

Needless to say, I have been playing a lot of Minecraft. I thought BrickBreaker was addicting, but this... this is a whole new world of addiction. Hardly an excuse for the lack of updates, I realize; however, it's the best excuse I've got :p

In tech related news, I will soon have my own domain. More updates soon, I promise. I can't promise; however, that they won't be Minecraft related! :p

Minecraft!

2010-09-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

It is now 11:48pm as I am writing this blog post. After a rather long day at work, finally getting home, and now relaxing I decided I wanted to jump into a game of Minecraft!

Interestingly, I was greeted with this page:

Basically, it states that the developers server has gotten so bogged down with requests that he's had to disable portions of the website! I suppose I'll just have to wait to register so that I can save all my crazy buildings :p.

For now, the developer has announced a steam-esque "free weekend" for the normally paid for version of the game. If you haven't already, now would be a great time to check it out! Just head on over to the website.

As always, happy gaming!

Comcastic!

2010-09-01T19:32:00.001-07:00

So I am (finally) switching my ISP. And I'm going with Comcast, not ATT. The funny thing is that ATT keeps sending me flyers advertising that High Speed Internet is available in my area; however, my address is still not available to sign up for High Speed Internet on their website. Needless to say, I’m a bit jaded at that.

Now that I’m back in school (taking classes on campus and online), and attempting to publish more media to the web, I am in need of a faster internet connection. Also, since I am sharing this connection with someone who watches entirely too much bachelor-themed shows than I can keep track of online, it helps to have more bandwidth available.

Monday morning Comcast came to install the internet. Naturally, they were late :p. However, Comcast offered me a $20 credit to my first bill. As they showed up about 10 minutes after the latest scheduled time, it was more than sufficient a gesture. Since I own my modem, and had used it before it was, I’m told, considered a re-connect to their network. It was mentioned to my girlfriend that they don’t get credit for reconnects so they weren’t too happy about that. Not that it’s my fault, I did tell them I owned my modem when I signed up. Anyway, I have my desktop computer and my router in a corner of the living room by the balcony entrance. There is a coax jack in that same corner; however, Comcast no longer uses those lines as they are ran through the outer wall, and they stopped using them last year. Instead, the coax jack is across the room from the computer along the opposite wall. So, for now, I have a white coaxial cable running across my living room. At some point I’m going to get a longer cable and run it along the baseboard. Until then, I have a nice reminder that I have a much faster connection to the internet. :)

How much faster is it though?

Lets compare:

My previous ISP was Xanadoo, which is a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) in my city that uses, i believe, some of the previously released 700 mhz spectrum to deliver internet to cities in the Illinois, Oklahoma, and Texas areas. I was using their prepaid plan which involves purchasing a wireless Xanadoo modem (which includes 14 days free) and then paying for service in advance. The packages range from 7 days to 90 days. Their rates can be found here. I paid for the 30 day packages, and got 30 days free on my second purchase (so I paid for 30 and received 60 days of service), along with free speed boost, which increased the downstream to 1Mb/s (the default connection speed is 512Mb/s. I never used that tier so I cannot comment on it.) The good thing is that when it worked, it worked well. I generally saw slightly over 1Mbs consistently. The bad news is that it was prone to disconnect. This was solved by power cycling the modem until it worked again :p. Sometimes the outage would be a few seconds, and other times it could be a few hours. 0Also, this is not a connection that will allow you to play online games. Especially not FPS’s. The ping time is simply too high, and the connection too flaky. A turn based game might be possible, but anything requiring real-time action is going to be at best a pain in the ass, and at worst un-playable. Just a heads up to those wondering. When reading forum posts and reviews, I noticed a lot of noise is made over a hard bandwidth limit of 10gb per month and then their connection being severed; however, I used more than that each month without repercussion. It was easy to get started using the service and as far as prepaid plans go, they are worth consideration if you live close to a tower and are well within their service area.

The highest speedtest.net (download) result that I achieved was:

Also, I believe the highest upload result was .62Mb/s.

While I haven’t had nearly as much time to put Comcast’s line through it’s paces, so far it seems much more stable. I was able to play through a campaign of Alien Swarm with my little brother with also using Google’s new VoIP feature in Gmail allowing you to call inside the US for free. So far, customer service has been good, the reps were friendly. I hope the level of service continues. As far as speed goes, the fastest I’ve measured the connection was:

As you can see, it is much faster both in objective speed tests and in how fast it “feels”. Browsing the web is a much more instant experience, and watching videos is much more gratifying.

In short, the transition went smoothly, and I couldn’t be happier.

Unlocking my Blackberry

2010-08-23T04:46:00.000-07:00

I finally found a new home for my old Blackberry Bold 9000. I originally stopped using it as I was running out of memory for music and videos and the trackball stopped working. Well in the sense that i could scroll every direction but up, anyway :p. After reading forum posts and talking to my friend i tried cleaning the trackball unsuccessfully.

Apparently, however; it was just my bad luck combined with my once trusty blackberry giving me a good excuse to upgrade as when i got the phone out of its box and charged it up the trackball worked perfectly.

I was a bit jaded at that. It would be my luck that the trackball works as im selling the phone.

But that quickly subsided as my friend was in need of a phone upgrade (their old phones batter was nearly shot and their charging cable was frayed), so i was happy that the trackball was working for them.

Since she is a T-Mobile customer we hit a small snag in that my blackberry was locked to ATT's network, so i would need to unlock it in order for it to work on T-Mobiles network.

After looking around the internet at forums, i decided to go with BlackberryMEP.com. Surprisingly, the process was easier than i had expected.

It was a simple matter of heading over to blackberrymep.com, clicking on the "Unlock Now" nav bar button, entering my blackberry's IMEI, my email address, and paying with paypal. I received an email within 3 or so minutes informing me that I would also need to let them know the MEPs version of my 9000. They handily included instructions, and after I provided them with that they were able to give me an unlock code.

I thought that the unlocking portion of getting her a new phone was going to be the most difficult. I soon realized that transferring all her contacts, pictures, videos, and music from a non-smart and locked down Samsung Comeback to a blackberry that will happily send anything over Bluetooth but for some odd reason refuses to receive anything over Bluetooth. To make matters more complicated, some of each item was stored on the phone memory and some on the SIM card. Also she had so many contacts that it took several times of taking the battery out, swapping the SIM card, copying over another section of contacts, rinsing and repeating to transfer all her contacts. Needless to say this ended up taking at least 45 minutes to do!

In the end though, we were able to get her all up and running. After spending time playing around with the phone, she commented "I think you've created a monster." A monster who does nothing but text constantly, that is ;-).

What Is Your Classic Gaming Moment?

2010-08-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

It's taking awhile to upload the video, unfortunately. So, in the meantime, I'd like to share a classic gaming moment with you.

More after the break.

Does this bring back any memories or nostalgia? I remember playing this on my, at the time, brand new computer rocking Windows 3.1 and MSDOS 5 (iirc). Way back when i was in elementary school, and before I had the Internet. A long, long time ago, in other words. When id software had their big Quakecon pack sale on Steam, and I noticed one of the games on sale was Wolfenstein 3d, I really could not pass it up. I had long ago lost the floppy disk of the game, and so now having a digital version that I can still play on my much more advanced system (with mouse support! And all the audio bells and whistles :D) is a great thing indeed.

Do you have any classic gaming moments you'd like to share? Post a link in the comments section!

Singularity Micro Review

2010-08-19T21:00:00.001-07:00

Lately I’ve been trying to come up with an interesting way to review games. I believe that I’ve finally found a way that not only gets straight to the point, but also fits with the vibe and spirit of Procrastination Domination.
After all, this is a website with procrastinate in the title. You as readers, and me as the writer of this review would much rather be playing video games than doing research; therefore, these micro reviews along with longer game play examples should be able to satisfy your research needs quickly so that you can get right back to procrastinating by playing said video games!
Enjoy, and as always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them in the comments section below!
The game has a very Timeshift like feel, but in a good way (I liked Timeshift, for what it's worth). The story could have been more developed; however, it was done well enough to get me to play the game and finish it so it serves its intended purpose well. The scripted corridor shooting brings some nostalgia of Doom 3, ect. And with the TMD and deadlock you are unstoppable at Normal difficulty (read: You become a total badass with little challenge from the opponents, but the game is still fun). I only tested and reviewed the game based on the single player aspect.
My Recommendation is for PS3 to rent and maybe buy and for PC to buy now as it's worth $40.

Procrastination Domination Podcast?

2010-08-19T17:53:00.001-07:00

I’m interested in starting a podcast for Procrastination Domination.

It will be a weekly affair with podcasts published every Friday, if not sooner.

Each weekly episode will run approximately 30 minutes, with every other week’s episode running an additional 30 minutes, which will allow for guests and answering reader questions.

More information will be available soon.

Episode 000 – Hi, This Is a Test.

Alien Dominion: Gameplay

2010-07-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is a short video showing off the gameplay in Black Fire Game's Alien Dominion: The Acronian Encounter.

An HD version is also available by clicking on the video. Enjoy :)

Think you can out-gun me? Head over to their website, download the demo, and give it your best shot!

Ubisoft's "DRM" translates to Damn the Retail Market

2010-07-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I tried once again to play a game I paid good money for, hoping against hope that Ubisoft would have patched the problems away; however, that was not the case.

I paid $50 pre-ordering Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction off of Amazon months ago, and yet I still have not been able to get through the first level.

To add insult to injury, this time, after a few months break, I can't even get the game to start!

My system exceeds every one of their recommended specifications, and this is an almost brand new installation of Windows, yet the game still refuses to work.

It really is sad that I paid good money for essentially a shiny plastic case with a small Frisbee inside. Ubisoft should be ashamed of themselves for releasing this, and quite frankly, if I was Tom Clancy I would be totally pissed off that my name is associated with this unplayable game.

I can only hope that it will be fully cracked. Heck, I don't even care about the multiplayer! I'd even settle for just being able to play through the single player campaign! Is that simply to much to ask of Ubisoft after giving them my money?

So yep, back to the shelf for Conviction :(.

On a positive note, Alien Swarm is pretty awesome for a free game :).

New Layout

2010-07-21T18:32:00.000-07:00

Either you like to use a text only web browser or you have been living under a rock, but lately Procrastination Domination has switched to a new layout. I felt it was time for a change, and that the site is a bit more intuitive. Further, the text is easier to read, and as this site is mostly about typed words (though video content may be coming soon ;) ), having those words be easily readable is rather important!

How do you feel about the changes? Do you have any suggestions? Let us know in the comments section below!

There’s Good News, and Bad News

2010-07-15T13:06:00.001-07:00

Being as the good news usually comes first, lets give the bad news a chance to be frontrunner.

So, the bad news is that apparently AT&T still does not want my money. That, or they are too busy worshipping the iPhone to do anything about their online ordering system.

I’m tempted to just go to Comcast and face the wrath of the girlfriend after the fact, but I’m unsure which is worse at the moment (no fast internet or having the girlfriend mad that I went to her sworn enemy for internet haha :p.

But that’s an internal debate for another time. You want to hear the good news, right?

Last night I beat Alien Dominion: The Acronian Encounter, by the skin of my teeth I might say. Needless to say, it’s challenging but well worth the effort as the ending was awesome! I can’t wait for the continuation of the story :D.

Steam's Awesome Summer Sale!

2010-07-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been filled with staring at counting down clocks and watching download progress bars. And while this may sound rather tedious; it is in fact well worth the anticipation and tension as i have gotten some amazing deals on games! You have to love Steam sales, as there is always some games one cannot simply pass up! Best of all, the sales arent over yet! :)

What games have caught your eye during the sale? Do you now have an even larger backlog of games yet to be played (including all those titles from the christmas sale? :) ) Let us know in the comments!

AT&T Doesn’t Want My Money.

2010-06-28T20:09:00.001-07:00

I recently moved into a new apartment with my girlfriend. Needless to say, I have been quiet busy working and trying to get used to living with someone who isn’t family. I have gotten almost everything in order, but the internet remains an issue.

For the past two weeks I have been attempting to order AT&T’s dry loop DSL elite service; however, every day I’ve tried to order online I’m presented with an error message stating that due to technical difficulties I will not be able to order online.

Exhibit A:

The only other ISP available here is Comcast, and my girlfriend seems to have some sort of blood feud with them. Also, I simply can’t stomach the $100 “activation fee” that Comcast refuses to waive when I already have a modem that I own and all their technician has to do is connect one wire downstairs lol.

If I was AT&T, I would probably (hint, hint) be fixing whatever server database issue that is causing me not to be able to order, after all $45 a month is nothing to sneeze at when the cost of providing that service isn’t anywhere close to being as high as $45 a month.

Just sayin’…

In the meantime, I’ll continue to use a combination of the prepaid WISP Xanadoo and the grandfathered unlimited data plan on my cell phone (see AT&T, you could be charging me /twice/ for internet! Get your database programmers some coffee and tell them to get to work!) for when the WISP connection drops.

That’s all for this post. I apologize if my personal rant is less than professional; however, what better venue to complain to AT&T about fixing online ordering than a blog titled “Procrastination Domination”?

And on a more positive note: At least now you all know that I’m still alive thanks to this post .

Is it just happening to me, or is there ordering service down for you as well? (My google-fu seems to be failing me on this one.) Any opinions on their DSL Elite service from users in the Midwest? Leave a Comment and let me know .

Stuck In the Metro

2010-05-15T12:47:00.001-07:00

As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted recently. I completely blame Metro 2033 for my absence.

The game took me around 10 hours to finish, with the Library level taking up a good chunk of that time, until I decided to just run for it :p. Alternatively, don’t let go of the Helsing until after the library level, even if that shotgun with bayonet sounds cooler.

More to come, stay tuned :)

Metro 2033 DVD Install Issue

2010-05-08T13:58:00.001-07:00

Not to get unduly personal in this post; however, I must say that I’m lucky to have a girlfriend who is able to put up with my geeky-ness. I say that because, after her interview at WallyWorld (Walmart for those not in the know :p Or is it not just a regional name?), and I happened to spot Metro 2033 for $43 (before tax)… and then proceeded to buy said game, she just laughed and showed as much interest as it is possible for a non-gamer girl to show.

Anyways, it’s now 2 days later, and i finally get to crack open the game. I put the disc in the drive and hit Install. It first installed steam since I hadn’t gotten around to re-installing it after upgrading my computer and reinstalling windows. I then logged into my steam account (I was luckily able to remember my password even though I haven’t had to enter it in about a year) and entered the product code…

And then waited for the game to download whatever small update would be needed. However, looking at the download screen, I noticed that Steam was downloading all ~7 GB of the game from the internet while my DVD just sat in the drive.

Looking around the internet for a solution, I noticed I wasn’t the only one having this problem. If this happens to you, I encourage you to read this forum post by Cerebelum. I followed the quick 4 steps, and Steam was then happily installing from the DVD :).

Steam updating after installing from the DVD, much quicker than downloading all ~7 GB!

Happy gaming :)

Dominating Procrastination: They Don’t Make SD Card Readers Like They Used To!

2010-05-04T23:38:00.001-07:00

This is not to say that there aren’t good SD card readers these days, just that I doubt they would stand up to the kind of abuse I run them through. In fact, I’m quite unsure how the particular reader I have now has lasted as long as it has!

Take a look at the poor thing!

Not only has it lost it’s casing (about 2 years ago?), but now the USB connector is bent:

And yet, somehow, it still works (The photos of the reader in this post where transferred onto my computer using it)!

Although I most likely should buy another reader, since this one still works and I don’t use it all that often, I think I’ll stay in the spirit of Procrastination Domination and wait a bit longer :p :).

What about you? Do you have old tech that you still use, or do you upgrade regardless if the old tech is still serviceable (no complaints here as I am rather partial to shiny things (inside joke) :) ? Speaking of upgrading, when this thing does finally die, what USB SD card reader would you guys recommend? :D

BlackFireGames.com: An Interview With Roberto Koci

2010-05-04T20:26:00.000-07:00

As I imagine you've guessed from my positive experience with the demo I wrote about earlier this week, I was psyched to purchase the full game and finish off those pesky invaders! I also had questions about the game and it’s developers. Fortunately, Roberto Koci, the CEO of Black Fire Games was kind enough to satisfy my curiosity.

The following is a short interview:

Procrastination Domination:

What can you tell me about the development of your latest title? How large is the Black Fire Games development Team?

Roberto Koci:

Black Fire Games, team of two dedicated people, were working hard for the past 8 months to bring you our first commercial title "Alien Dominion: The Acronian Encounter". It's a 3d space shooter with very high intensity action, nice graphics, silly voice-overs and weapons to shoot all day! It's a rail shooter so you need to take down all the targets to pass, with prioritizing the ones that shoot at you.

Procrastination Domination:

Do you have plans to move your game to other on-line distributors such as Stardock's Impulse or Valve's Steam service?

Roberto Koci:

Of course. It largely depends on the community's response and reviews that are yet to come. These distribution giants also have internal evaluation systems, so I hope we shall pass the tests there.

Procrastination Domination:

Is there any DRM in the game aside from a serial check?

Roberto Koci:

:)

(Note: I'm sure that whatever they are using, it's a million times better than the Ubisoft DRM which makes my brand new Splinter Cell Conviction game unplayable! But that's another story altogether.)

Procrastination Domination:

Will there be any modding supported in the future?

Roberto Koci:

We have not planned to support modding, however we are already working on some game enhancements based on comments we received on various sites. So, soon there is going to be a patch, a new installer, and an even better A.D. We are also working with the Linux community to be able to run the game using Wine on Linux.

Procrastination Domination:

Who holds the high-score for Alien Dominion?

Roberto Koci:

I hold the highscore. I used an EMP blast in the final section of the game (level 6) to clear out all the enemies before ending the game - that put me on top :)

Also, I was curious as to who did the voice overs, as they are quite funny :). The credits list both Roberto Koci and Budimir Mrkobrad. I'd like to commend him on the great work. My favorite line so far from the game is: "You have a fatal exception!" I can't help but smile at that, finally a windows error I can smile about! :) hehe. Roberto confirmed this in saying that "the voiceover was done by my friend, credited in the credits section in the game. He also did the music."

Do you have a question for Roberto about Alien Dominion? You can contact him from their contact page.

A New face of Procrastination Domination?

2010-05-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

It has been quite some time since PD has seen a graphical refresh; however, if you just so happened to arrive at the site earlier today... you would have seen quite the CSS mess! :P. Luckily, I learned my lesson not that long ago to backup even my backups of anything important, and so I was able to restore the site while I work on fixing those pesky coding errors :).

Exhibit A:

Oops! :P

While I'm working on ironing out those PEBKAC bugs, I believe now is as good of a time as any to ask for your input. What would you like to see from Procrastination Domination? Do you think a different color scheme would suit the site better? Not a fan of the background image (which, has been changed, just fyi :p)? Let us know in the comments section below :)

Thanks for reading!

Alien Dominion: First Thoughts

2010-04-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

April 14th 2010

Today, I heard about a new Indie game being released, along with a playable demo. In reading the short description by the forum poster (who's name I quickly would forget as I focused on kicking alien... tail; however, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here), it was described as an arcade shooter with hordes of spaceships (left 4 Dead in space? not quite, but close :) ). As you all surely have gathered from my rather lengthy previous posts, I am supportive of the free game demo as a beneficiary tool for both publishers and consumers. And so, with a demo being available, and the mention of spaceships and shooting aliens: "what could i possibly have to lose!?" was the rhetorical question on my mind.

I then headed straight over to blackfiregames.com to grab the demo.

I made it through the first few levels relatively unscathed (thanks to those seemingly magical insta-fix repair bots); however, the very next level the aliens turned me and the rather funny ship AI into space fly food!

The demo is a time-limited one, which can be annoying in trying to get a feel for some games; however, in the case of Alien Dominion, I think it was the best way to do a demo as after the extremely short 30 minutes, I was already hooked!

So, before you all run off into a dark corner of your computer room only to emerge until you have the highest high-score ever, let me conclude this post with a short list of my first thoughts and questions I had while trying out the game.

The first thing that struck me was the story; however, I'm quite biased towards most any sci-fi story in space. This game is by no means a story driven game, nor should it be. Still, it's nice to have a small story to drive the fast paced alien uh.. "tail" kicking :P
The AI announces we are approaching the "Stargate," and the classic Stargate fan in me can't help but grin and my mind drifts to future mods where I'm gunning down some Goa'uld with Jack O'neil or Shepherd voice clips :D

For an arcade game, the graphics are nice, and did I mention there are explosions? Lots of explosions!
This game has the potential to be very addicting, especially when combined with sibling rivalry (Though, I assure you, I will be the victor of that battle :) ).
The battles start to get very intense in the later levels, keep that trigger finger on the LMB!
The demo seems to end before it even begins, or at least it "feels" like that when really a whole half an hour has gone by!
When you die, you start back at the very beginning, which can be intensely aggravating :P.

All in all, the game is definitely something I encourage you to try for yourself, and is a game I wouldn't hesitate to recommend you buy if you enjoy this genre, or if you simply enjoyed the demo and have now found a whole new genre of games to like!

Looking at this collection of thoughts, it seems very weighted on good things; however, that's simply my experience, there simply were not that many bad factors, which is a good thing. Alien Dominion: The Acronian Encounter is a simple game that simply works (at getting me addicted to arcade shooter games :p hehe). Go check it out, and tell us what your experience and thoughts (or ask any reasonable questions you may have and we'll try to find an answer) are on the game in the comments section below!

Note:

There will be a bit more coverage of the game coming soon, so check back at the end of the week for a short interview with BlackFireGames.com where they answer a few questions I, and possibly you, have :)

Darkest of Days: No Regrets

2009-09-13T19:52:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week, I posted a blog concerning my thoughts about the Darkest of Days PC game demo. And while I did find minor issues with the game, I concluded from playing the demo that it was still worth buying.

So, on Thursday, I purchased the game from Steam. And after the almost dial up like speeds of my Comcast cable (I need a replacement modem but I’ve no idea how to go about getting one as the Comcast site is of little help; however, that is a topic for another post) it finished downloading, and I started the game.

I managed to beat it in two days (Friday and Saturday afternoon). I didn’t play it straight through mind you, which is why it took two days. I would estimate that i beat the game in less than 8 hours. One of the complaints by gamers on the Steam Discussion Forums, is the short playing time of this only single player game (there is no multiplayer component) results in one that is not worth $35. I would have to respectfully disagree, however. Even AAA titles like Doom 3 I am able to beat the single player in about the same amount of time (though, admittedly, the first time I played it, the game took forever b/c I was scared to keep moving ;P lol!). While Doom 3 did have a multiplayer component, I only played a few rounds and never really utilized it. However, I feel that the game was still worth paying for. I mainly buy PC games for the single player aspects. Really, I’m not much for multiplayer unless it’s with friends and/or family. There are some random matches I’ve enjoyed but the majority of random online gamers are less than respectful lol. That’s not to say that there aren’t great online communities, just that they can be hard to find for someone who’s not much into multiplayer to begin with.

Anyways, back to what I was saying :P. I bought Darkest of Days knowing it was only a single player game, and it was worth the $35. Now, gamers who are into the multiplayer aspects, have a valid point in feeling the game is not worth their time/money. I'm not trying to discount their opinion; however, I am trying to get out another opinion. I think that people need to decide for themselves if the (somewhat) short lived single player experience is worth it. I simply want to counter all the negativity propagating about the web by gamers who are discounting it simply because of it’s short play time. And now that the readers of this realize it may be worth playing, I’ll digress. i just wanted to get the option out there :P.

For me, the game was worth it. You may not find it worth it; however, and that’s okay. Do try not to ruin everyone’s fun though, please :).

As this is not a formal review (more a compilation of thoughts), I don’t have any benchmarks or formal overall score for the game; however, I would recommend you at least try out the demo and decide for yourself if the game is worth playing!

To give you a better idea of the game, here are some screenshots. The first are taken at default settings. The last two screenshots are taken at the highest in game settings available.

As you can see, the artillery cannon aiming glitch is fixed in the full game :)

This is one of my favorite screenshots. The Union army is gearing up for a large battle.

This is what your view is when you have taken damage. Your health will slowly regenerate.

See that weapon? That is one weapon that even your futuristic armor is no match for!

Dexter with the laser guided rocket launcher :D

This area is during the last mission. There is a glitch where the game will crash as you walk across the courtyard towards Dexter. To get around this, set your graphics detail to “low.” Then once you have talked to Dexter and left the courtyard you can reset your graphics detail to it’s original setting. Thanks to SFLegend for the tip!

I remember muttering a sarcastic “this looks safe” as my team mates waited around for me to take point. The expression “This is quiet… too quiet” comes to mind.

And one last screenshot:

Avert the little children’s eyes please…

This is from the secret level, and the last confederate soldier. He snuck up on me. Except semi-auto pistol versus one shot musket at close range… well the screenshot tells how that battle ended.

Parents will be glad to know that this is the extent of the “gore,” of the game. No severed limbs or blood everywhere; therefore, the game should be easier for parents to feel comfortable with their young teenagers (yeah, I’m not using the “tween” word or whatever that expression is lol) playing.

Now that you have seen some screenshots, I encourage you to check out the demo for yourself. Then head over the steam forums to share your experience/thoughts about this new game.

Thanks for reading. If you wish to use any of these screenshots, please leave a request in the comments section and I will be happy to provide you with a full resolution copy. You may not use these screenshots for commercial use.

Darkest Of Days: Played the Demo, and I’m Sold!

2009-09-10T20:39:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week, I posted a blog lamenting the lack of playable game demos of recent PC games. Almost as if to answer my call to action, the very next day I was on gamershell.com searching for any game demos that looked interesting, and i came across 8monkey Labs’ creation “Darkest of Days.” The game is published by Phantom EFX, and was released September 8th, 2009. After downloading the demo (a 783mb zip file for those curious) from gamershell, I installed and played through it today, and I was impressed. Needless to say, after playing the game demo, I now know for sure what I’m spending my writing money on :). Without the demo; however, I doubt I would have purchased the game. Now that I’ve played through the demo, and gained a better understanding of how the game plays (I do have some issues with small aspects), and been hooked by the story (what happens!? No… wait, I want to find out for myself! :) ) I’m buying it :).

This makes me wonder what other opportunities and good games I’ve missed out on due to the lack of a (PC) demo.

(Which, brings me to an aside… if we PC gamers are getting the short end of the stick with many PC games being console ports, I think the least we deserve for having to put up with the spawn from the lowest-common-denominator-in-gaming-good-ness is a demo :P lol)

But back to what i was saying (I do apologize, I’ll try to stay on topic from here on out :P)

On the other hand, I’m willing to bet only a handful of titles (if that) would have been worth the money while most of the games I’ve looked at and passed up (due to lack of a demo) would have been “duds.”

Now, would those few titles be worth wading through the not-worthwhile games ideally? Yes, but unfortunately, I’m not made of money :P.

Darkest of Days is available on steam for 10% off, as well as the official demo, which I encourage you to check out :). The instructions for those PC newbies (I say that in a friendly manner, the PC gaming arena, in my opinion, should be welcoming any newcomers :) ) on how to get Steam games can be found here. Simply search for Darkest of Days instead of Left4Dead in the search box :). (Disclaimer: That is an article written by me.) If there is truly a need for a new article on that specific game, I will write one; however, it truly is simple enough to substitute the new search term :).

The demo starts off with your character being in a battle against Native Americans. You follow your NPC buddy to a large hill where you and your fellow soldiers make a “last stand” of sorts. Your position begins to be overrun. Suddenly a huge ball of… well it’s a “big honkin’ time bubble” (lol) as my friend Dylan would say if we were back in that century… appears out of nowhere, and you are “rescued” (I use parentheses because it’s a rather lose definition of the word, you're being put to work as soon as you step out of the time bubble by some mysterious futuristic woman who apparently doesn’t take “no thanks” for an answer ;P).

After this “rescue” (lol), you are put through a typical training course (typical in that many games employ such a scenario), where you learn to use various weaponry.

Speaking of which, If anyone is able to get the artillery gun to aim correctly, I’d be interested in knowing how :p :).

The Artillery gun in the Darkest of Days Training

But using the guns of the current century is not the only, nor the greatest, aspect of the game! Rather, being able to bring futuristic weapons (from that century's perspective) to bear against the “primitive” people of the past brings out a certain evil glee from this writer and gamer :P.

I kid, but seriously, it’s a “unique strategic advantage” to say the least ;P.

Something tells me this is not going to end well… for them anyways :P

Case In Point:

Single shot musket versus automatic assalt rifle…

Sometimes, sheer enemy numbers do outweigh the weapon advantage of your character.

You field of vision is reduced as you are wounded.

Let’s just say they got lucky (and I was not helped by the fact that I was trying to multitask at the time :P).

The game then takes a drastic turn. I won’t ruin it for you; however, let’s just say you are not the only one with advanced weaponry and a “big honkin’ time bubble!”

I mentioned there were a couple small issues I have with the game. The first issue, I alluded to above. The artillery gun in the training mission is buggy, and I was unable to hit the target (it was either over-shoot or under-shoot the target even thou i barely moved the mouse). I would guess this is a bug, and will be patched out. Therefore, moving on to the next issue. I am unsure (yet) whether this was simply a demo aspect, or if the behavior will be replicated in the full game; however, during the first real mission (the mission after the training course in the demo), when your character is moving through the cornfield the player controls are taken over. Your character has to move forward with the compliment of soldiers. Mouse look is still enabled, as well as your weapon; however, your movement is out of your control. I did not like feeling out of control in the literal sense. I would have rather been in control, it would have built up more suspense (imo) if I had been the one pressing onward towards the enemy. That it was forced, took away the fun for me. The last issue is the graphics, which are somewhat dated, and some gamers may find this a major issue. I bring it up now to prepare these gamers not to have too high of expectations for this game. That is not to say that the graphics are bad. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm simply stating that this game isn't Crysis, and in many ways that's even a good thing :).

Now that you've heard my take on the game, I’m off to buy it from steam. I encourage you to check out the demo for yourself!

Props to 8monkeylabs and Phantom EFX for releasing a demo! Keep up the good work!

I’d like to revisit what I was saying earlier, and to wrap this blog post up. I think it’s obvious that I am a hands-on sort of person, and I like it when I’m given a game demo to help sell me on the game. I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. So take note game developers and publishers: game demos work! The plot twist used by many writers… where “what we never knew we always wanted was right in front of us the whole time” is quite fitting here. I think game publishers need to come to this realization quickly. They (game developers and publishers) want the cure to piracy, yet more and more they are not realizing that the cure is right in front of them, and has been the whole time. Game demos are your cure to piracy!

There was still piracy when many game publishers released demos years ago, and there still will be. However, those relatively few cases shouldn’t be considered “lost sales” as it is (unfortunately) obvious that small number of gamers were never going to buy the game, regardless. But, there are a lot of lost sales to indecisive consumers like myself who are missing out on good games!

So, PC gaming industry, wake up, start focusing on your roots, and your most-loyal consumer market, produce innovate games, don’t abandon PC exclusives completely, and, please, release demos! :)

Okay, that wraps this post up. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comment field below. Thanks for reading!

No Demo: No Sale

2009-09-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

Section 8 was recently released for the PC and Xbox 360, and I have to admit the premise of the game sounds interesting. I picture Frontlines: Fuel of War mixed with some big honking sci fi guns :P haha. Unfortunetly, I won't be playing this game. Why? It's simple: the developers are not releasing a PC Demo.

What I think is funny is that PC gamers (in general mind you) tend to be more frugal and demanding with games, while the console gamers are (let's face it) easily impressed. That's not to say there are not great console games; however, console gamers are more likely to go out and purchase a game on a whim than PC gamers are.

Yet, the developers release demos to the consoles. To me, this basically invalidates any argument by the developers that it is not cost effective to produce demos for the PC platform. If they can throw money at console gamers who are more likely to see play and/or borrow the game from a friend and then decide whether or not to buy it than to play the demo, then the PC gamers who would actually use the demo to decide if they want to purchase the game, then the developers should have no issues releasing a PC demo.

Really it makes no sense. It's like the developers are just asking PC gamers to pirate their games lol. I swear the RIAA, MPAA, and now all the PC game producers are comprised of people who have logic that is the polar opposite of every other human on this planet!

Ah well, I'll stop myself before I get into some kind of unstoppable hulk-like rage. Still, I think I have a point.

An Open (and casually written) Letter To Game Developers:

People who pirate games are going to continue doing so whether you invest money in producing a PC game demo or not. By not releasing a demo you are only (pissing off) losing out on sales from honest customers.

Listen to me, if you want increased sales, invest a little less money in "combating piracy" and a bit more money into producing demos and convincing honest consumers that your game is worth buying! It truly is that simple. Step out of your "alternate dimension backwards logic bubble" (lol), and you'll see that it really is that simple.

Not that you will really care about losing my $50 (or whatever your cut is after the retailer takes theirs); however, you should care about all the honest gamers like myself. That is a lot of money you are losing out on. And not only are you losing our money, but our confidence in your company, and that is something worth more than gold.