Simon Dufour

TF2 has something special

2011-07-28T16:03:00.000-04:00

I played a LOT of games in my life. Yesterday, I was bored and had only a few minutes left to play games. I decided to boot TF2 and have a quick match. I didn't really wanted to play the game.. I simply wanted to play "a" game to pass time. Well, it soon changed. After a few minutes playing, I was laughing out loud and waving around having fun. I could have continued for hours.

There's something in TF2 that makes it better than other games. It's a team game but players don't have to talk constantly to have fun. It's strategic but simple at the same time. It's easy to grasp but hard to master. I don't know what makes TF2 that different but there really is something unique about the game that makes it easy to come back to, even if you didn't play in months.

I can safely say that TF2 pass the test of time and, for me, is truly a masterpiece. An Achievement.

Lord of the Rings Online - Endgame and fun

2011-07-18T09:16:00.000-04:00

Hello fellow readers, I thought I'd make a little "State" of my LotRO playthrough. To begin with, as I post this, Rise of Isengard is still a few month away. So I'm talking of the endgame pre-Isengard.

This weekend, I had one of the great moments of MMO gaming. Here's the context. I've been searching for appropriate endgame content for a long while. I don't want to mess with stuff too hard for me to handle. There's not much point anyway since in two months, the level-cap will switch to 75 and all our weapons and armors will be outdated. I don't fear that, I simply want to anticipate it. I won't run full followship instances for weeks, simply to get an armor I'll outlevel right off the bat. So, my goal is to get decent stuff that is not TOO hard to get. Have fun doing deed and getting Kindred with the different faction and then, I'll be ready to take off to Isengard. That's my plan anyway.

So, after reading a bit and deciding what me, my brother and father could do to get this stuff, we decided that we wanted the Annuminàs Armor set. The set is especially good for Guardian and it can be worked on with a 3-man party pretty easilly. So, back to my great moment of gaming. On Saturday, I asked in the SKAL alliance chat if anyone wanted to work on School and Library of Tham Mirdain challenge mode. I wanted to learn them. Doing these, we'd get Superior 3rd Marks wich are used to get the Annuminàs armor. We'd also get Third marks and can be used to get Symbol of Celibrimbor. Using those, we can craft level 65 second age legendary items.

Anyway, a guy ended up showing every tricks of the instanced to me. We did both the challenges pretty easily and everything worked really really well. We got 5 Third marks which I could already exchange for the Symbol of Celibrimbor. Now, I need to do more skirmishes in order to give my soldier some skills. Otherwise, we're in for quite a ride!

Our plan before September

Level-up my father to level 65
Try to make the School and Library a few times a week until we get enough Superior Third Marks to get all our piece of armors.
Get taken to a few Annunimàs fellowship instances or 3-man parts of Ost Elendil to get a few. We need only one per pieces or armors, it's not bad.
Do skirmishes in order to get enough Skirmish marks to get our armor. About 1000 marks per piece of armor. Quite a lot but it seems we get about 500 per skirmishes so it's really not that bad.
Craft some 2nd Age Legendary level 65 until we get the weapon we wants.
Get Scroll of Empowerment to boost the legacies of our items
Get new jewelries
Get deeds and reputation

That's about it. We might also run a few of the Mirkwood 3-man and maybe some of the Moria ones too. Just for fun.

Battlefield 3 used as a bait to take us away from Steam

2011-07-18T08:31:00.000-04:00

You know what? They can go fuck themselves.

For YEARS, game companies complained that making a game on PC was hardly worth it. Pirating was too rampant (even though you can also find tons and tons of console piracy everywhere) and that people were simply no buying the games. They've been hundreds of games I would have like to try but were never brought to PC.

Now, the tables have turned. PC works, thanks to Steam and its millions of users that buy more games than they ever bought before. It's great, isn't it? For us, it is. Doing a game for the PC is worth it again. It's worth enough now that big publishers like Electronic Arts and big retailer like GameStop decide that it's worth investing in creating ANOTHER game store and start piling shit on Valve.

Today, a GameStop representative said that "Given Steam's dominance – and insistence on users downloading a Steam client application – publishers are likely to be receptive to a competitive alternative,"... And that's the reason why they say Battlefield 3 WON'T be on Steam.

How is that a reason not to be on Steam. I WANT to be on Steam. Go away.. let me buy the game where I want. I don't want another shitty store. I WANT to download an app because I simply can't manage my game collection without it. It's THAT simple. I don't want to buy the game overpriced on Origins. Oh and I don't want to use Impulse anymore.. sorry GameStop. Oh.. Impulse also have an application don't it?

Anyway... It seems Battlefield 3 won't be on Steam and personally, I don't give a fuck. I'll play other games and I'll wait for another Valve multiplayer games to play online. As much as I like Battlefield, I feel that it's golden age is gone anyway. I won't let a company use it as a lure to harm PC gaming the way they're trying to do it.

I'm almost there!

2011-07-08T08:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I leveled my Runekeeper to level 64. This is just one step away from the current max level! We're still having tons of fun and I can't wait to see what we'll do once we're done with this. We still have a few months before Rise of Isengard (and the rise of the level cap to 75). The idea will be to casually get new gear and traits. This should be interesting!

State of June!

2011-06-21T13:30:00.000-04:00

I have been silent for a long time. I simply feel that I should only post important inner-thoughts. Fortunately, it's not the case. So here I am.

Back into LOTRO for real. I'm having a blast with my brother and father fighting through Moria. We still have a montain of stuff to do before the Isengard expansion-pack. We're having a blast though which is all good!

Approaching my 500th game on Steam. I'm not sure if I'm proud of that but let's just say that I love gaming on PC. I can't wait to play all these games!

Gaming on my android is still not that fun. In fact, I feel that gaming on a phone will never be fun. Single-button games with no directionnal button of any kind is NOT ENOUGH for a fun gaming experience.

I'd actually prefer a fully-fledge comic reader right now.

That's it people.. what do you think?

X³ Terran Conflict - Shielding.. my precious!

2011-04-27T14:47:00.000-04:00

My exploration have took off. Here's deal. I was right. The other day, I successfully captured a Fujin Raider. It was already geared up with a Triplex Scanner so I don't have to buy another one. I gave him my Explorer Command Software which will allow me to jump him in unknown sectors. I've also bought him some Navigation relay satellite so he will be able to place them around all the sectors.

Anyway.. that is done. I fear for him however because he has absolutely no shielding. Nowhere around the Argon's core sectors could I find any shielding. I don't know where the factories are but it's my goal now.. find shieldings for my ships. I therefore sent him to explore anyway. I hope he can outpace any of his potential ennemies.

I have a couple of ships now. I bought a Nova Buster Raider for cheap (that's a good M4 fighter from what I've read) and I also captured a Pirate Kea which is an (M3+) ship. It's a really slow ship though and I wonder how I could use it. I'll see how much is worth.. I might sell it so I can buy more trading ships. Same thing for the 2 Xenon L I got.

I need to get automated trading soon. I need more money.

X³ Terran Conflict - The universe is a big place

2011-04-26T15:07:00.001-04:00

X³ Terran Conflict (XTC) is a really deep game. After ~20h in my single-player game, I'm still in the ship I had when I started playing, my Terran Sabre, an M4 Medium Fighter with 3 Electromagnetic Plasma Cannon. It can use 4 but it drains way too much power so I stick with 3. I used my forth as a turret on my future Sector Trader. I still have a lot to learn. I think what I lack the most right now is knowledge of the world around me. The universe is huge and I have very limited time to explore it all. My goal is therefore to set up an automated ship that will recon the world for me.

Yesterday, I believed I've claimed a Yaki Fujin. It would be a could choice as my explorer because it can be equiped with a Triplex Scanner (it required at least a medium Cargo). If I have no M5 with a medium cargo, I think I'll simply buy an Argon Discoverer with my hard earned money. The military missions I take are starting to ramp up serious cash. I still have 2 Xenon L I could sell and make 1,000,000cr really quick. Anyway. I'll equip my scout with the Explorer Command Software. That software will let me send my scout to regions that are still undiscovered. Pretty useful! Once in a new sector, I can tell him to map the region and it will spiral in the region until it's fully mapped. I'm not sure how it works but I'd also like if the vessel could deploy a satellite network so I can keep track of everything that's happening in sectors, even if I have no ship currently there. After that, it'll be way easier to study the map and find good commerce opportunity. I don't know how the vessel react when it enters a Xenon sector though.. I guess experience will tell!

The carthography of the universe will really help me. I don't want to check online for hints or tables or stuff like that because it kind of break the fun of the game. I think exploration is part of the fun and I can't wait to get my scout going. In the next post, I'll probably talk about my plan of getting a Hauling ship that can take up to XL goods. I need it to trade Ore and probably other awesome stuff. I also plan to build a couple of factories to pump up constant money over time. :D Stay tuned for more..

Oh happy days!

2011-04-21T11:45:00.001-04:00

A long weekend ahead and a lot of fun to be had. There was a lot of exciting stuff going on recently too which makes everything even more interesting.

Portal 2 was released

This week, Portal 2 was finally released. I've played a bit but I have not finished it yet. I'm having loads of fun and I can't want to play more of it. The game is the funniest game I've ever played and the puzzle are more interesting than ever!

My LOTRO familly-fun is moving forward

For a couple of weeks now I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online with my father and brother. We've been having some massive fun and we're moving forward quite a bit. We're now deep into Angmar and things are awesomely creepy. We'll soon be moving toward Moria, I can't wait.

X: Rebirth was announced

I've always been a fan of space games. I have never played them much for some reason but I love the idea, I love the graphics, etc. X3: Terran Conflict is sometime called Eve Offline because it's similar in some ways. I've enjoyed Eve Online quite a bit but I've been turned off by the amount of investment (in real money) that you have to put to get medium -sized ship. I can't afford this, there's too much stuff I need to do. Therefore, I plan to try to tackle X3:TC soon. I would still like to play Portal 2 and AC:Brotherhood more first though. We'll see. Talking about space games, I also bought quite a few of them in the past. Freespace 2 come into my mind. I probably should play it, I've read there's a few mods out there that pimp it up.

Witcher 2 is coming smoothly

I've read a few previews about The Witcher 2 and all of them are fantastic. I can't wait to see how it turns out and I'll definitely get it, probably on GoG because they deserves it.

What else? The long weekend is promising. I hope to have a lot of fun and to relax a bit. And you? Anything planned for this long weekend?

On n'a pas vu le même débat

2011-04-14T10:18:00.000-04:00

Commentaire intéressant de Richard Martineau sur le débat fédéral qui a eu lieu hier. C'était aussi mon impression.. qu'en pensez-vous?

Blogue de Richard Martineau - On n'a pas vu le même débat

The Sims Medieval - You sometime control multiple sims

2011-04-06T07:51:00.002-04:00

I was wrong in one of my earlier posts. In some of the quests, you have to control multiple "hero" Sims. Like the Wizard and the Merchant together. The adaptation period was pretty low. It seems to work well enough. I'll try to make a better review once I'm more familiar with the game.

Updated impression on The Sims Medieval

2011-04-05T10:15:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I had the pleasure to play The Sims Medieval a bit more. The tutorial was now done and the game was slowly taking shape. I must say I'm more than impressed.

It is clear that the goal of The Sims Medieval was to change the focus from the freeform aspect of The Sims 3 to a more story-based gameplay. At first, I was doubtful that it would really work. I felt that The Sims had already enough stuff happening and that adding another layer would be too much. The designers saw that too and found a way to balance everything so that it would work. The only need that your Sims have now are Energy and Hunger. Everything else has shifted to effects. Hygiene only boost your Happiness meter, now called focus. The more focus you have, the higher reward you'll get for your quest. A regular bath and stop at the claypot (which also include an awesome animation, and sound) will make your sim more focused and everything will be better. Basicly, there's A LOT less micro-management in The Sims Medieval. At all time, you only control a single sim. Once your story-based quest is complete, you choose another which might be played by another hero like your Merchant, Knight or King. I feel like it'll be easy to come to love our characters. Even though I played only a couple of hours, I already have an hint of a smile every time I meet one of my other heroes.

Everything is really entertaining. What I hope is that the Quests are varied enough to make it worth playing for a while. It seems that it is but I can't be sure before I get to play more. All I can say right now is that the game is terribly addictive. Yesterday evening, I had a hard time trying to stop playing.

It's usually hard to keep me glued to a game like that. I'll try to show the game to my girlfriend at some point this week. She might like, she might not. It's kind of the ultimate test.

The Sims Medieval is not The Sims 3

2011-04-04T08:46:00.000-04:00

I can't talk about this for very long since I've played The Sims Medieval for only an hour. However, I must say I'm surprised by how unique the game is. It is not The Sims 3, by FAR. The medieval outfits are awesome too. The idea of quest integrate well with the game. The game is MUCH MORE controlled by goal than The Sims 3. The game is also more story centric but I don't know how much different it can be from one game to another. My guess is that I'm in for quite a ride. The game look wonderful and I'm eager to start playing again.

The game look like worth playing.

My journey into simulation games

2011-04-01T11:12:00.001-04:00

Lately, I've been digging 2 really great simulation games: ArmA 2: Combined Ops and IL2 Sturmovik 1946. Let me break this up.

ArmA 2 is a Military Simulation game. Gear up and do realistic missions in realistic settings. The graphics are quite impressive and the immersion is beyond what I initially thought. The action can be sometime hard to follow but I suspect I will get better with time. I have not tried multiplayer coop but I will try it soon because I doubt I'll enjoy messing with the AI for a long time. The game feature an impressively packed keyboard layout. I've shared a Reference Chart in my previous post. The game also include vehicules like cars, trucks, armors, planes, choppers, etc. The community is quite large too. I hope I can get good in this game. I've been reading an awesome guide for newcommers to the game. The tactics showed in the manual are pretty close to some real military tactics. It must be really rewarding to successfully complete a mission like that.

IL2 Sturmovik 1946 is a pretty old game by any standard. It's basicly a WW2 air-combat simulator. A lot of the flight and ballistic physics are modeled. The game is not an arcade game by any mean. The distance you have to travel is usually pretty big and all. There's a bunch of campaign that you can try and even fan-made campaign online. My interest for this game grew with the annoucement of IL2 Sturmovik: Cliff of Dover, the followup game. I already had the first one but had never played it for long. I've been digging this since I've watch a part of a great serie of YouTube videos. In them, a guy play an hardcore (1 life only) pacific campaign. The series is glorious and contains moments of laugh and other really intense scenes of combat... and landing. I've started playing the game for real yesterday. It has been working for me and it seems my history of flight-simulator is helping me a lot. I can successfully land my plane on an airstrip on the first try. I know, it's not a carrier but I guess it's better than most. I'd be really glad if I could successfully play a carreer in this game. I've been having a few problems with the controls but I think I could make myself a reference sheet, similar to the one I found for ArmA 2. There's a lot less contrôls in IL2 though. My only problem is that the joystick I got earlier last month is probably too basics for the game. There's no way for me to trim my plain using sliders or anything like that. I therefore use some keyboard keys for that. It can be really confusing but I'm sure I'll be able to find a good setup for me.

In conclusion, it seems I'm in for quite a ride. I hope I can get in these games to become good and have fun. If I really enjoy myself, I might get a better joystick during summer. A Saitek X-52 perhaps. It'd be perfect for any flight-simulator game I'd try. Then, if I get the Cliff of Dover game, I'd be fully equipped. Another piece of equipment I'd like to acquire is a TrackIR 5 set. It's a kind of camera that track your head movement and translate them as action in the game. The peripheral is implemented in both ArmA 2 and IL2 Sturmovik. With slight head movement, you can look around in the game. Either to track a plane in your side windows or to scan a field for ennemies. I've been watching this peripheral since I've played Microsoft Flight Simulator X or maybe even 2004. It'd be quite an addon to my arsenal and it isn't THAT pricy. We'll see what my priorities are this summer before choosing. I don't want to be too impulsive.

Oh and.. before I forget. I'd really make videos of my playing either of these games. ArmA2 might be harder because it's really taxing on the hardware. It's be possible for IL2 though and since I've seen some wonderful attempts in the past, I'm sure it could be awesome! Stay tuned!

Nice keyboard layout for ArmA 2

2011-04-01T09:23:00.002-04:00

Here's an awesome keyboard layout from LoyalGuard of ArmA 2 official forum.

Source: ArmA 2 forum

PC Gamer Presents ArmA 2 / Ghost Recon: Island Thunder - Hidden Spectre

2011-03-30T17:49:00.001-04:00

These guys have skills! I wish they'd make move videos like that. Worth watching really.

Ohuh. Deus Ex 3 PC is a port

2011-03-24T17:15:00.001-04:00

Should we worry? Nixxes has a solid history of good port but I fear a Crysis 2 stunt. :-\

Deus Ex 3 PC Being Co-Developed By Nixxes - http://pulsene.ws/16iWm

Screenshots of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

2011-03-24T13:20:00.001-04:00

ACB is a really fun game. Here's two screenshots of me burning 2 towers of the oppressive ruler of Roma, the Borga.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for PC is great

2011-03-23T11:03:00.001-04:00

I haven't played much yet but from what I've seen, it looks pretty solid. I've been having a great time. Really. Some funny parts made me think of the old Prince of Persia. :-)

Revenge of the Titans mysteriously appeared in my library

2011-03-18T08:40:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, when I finished playing LOTRO with my brother, a game magically appeared on my Steam account, Revenge of the Titans. My surprise was complete. After a few minutes of searching, I discovered that tge game had been part of the Humnle Indy gaming pack 2. Well.. thanks! The game is really fun too btw.

Doug Church now work for a company called Valve

2011-03-17T15:42:00.000-04:00

You might not recognize the name but he's the guy who designed some of the best PC game out there. Among his best creations are Thief, Deux Ex and System Shock 2. Quite an acquisition for Valve and I hope they make tons of fun little babies together.

Follow the link for more details on the hiring and on Mr. Church history.
Valve + Looking Glass’ Doug Church = !!!!!!!!!!

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

YouTube is a mess and this post is a rant about that

2011-03-15T13:03:00.000-04:00

I like YouTube. The quality of content available there is astonishing. Game reviews, game shows, interviews, conference, etc.. everything is there. Some uploaders upload multiple videos per day! Most of them are probably interesting but there's no way I can watch them all.

I subscribed to less than twenty channels and I am already overwhelmed by the amount of video being pushed my way. There are no way for me to categorize, order or at least, skim through the updates. There seem to be no way for me to ignore a video that I don't want to watch. Actually, there's not even a way to make sense of all the mess. Every day, I open YouTube and I'm showed a pile of messy videos from all my subscriptions.

I might be doing it wrong. There might be a way to tag everything by categories and actually make sense of everything but I haven't found it and I'm not some random guy with no real computer skills.

There's four things I want to do in YouTube:

Thing #1
Watch a video and share it with my friends. If I find a video online, I want to be able to watch it, rate it and send it to all my friends in a really easy way. If I want, I'd like to be able to give some comments on the video.

Thing #2
I want great relating videos. YouTube does a good job at that. That way, I might discover some better stuff and this is what make YouTube stand appart IMO.

Thing #3
I want to Subscribe to the people uploading/linking to good content. I want another way to find interesting stuff. Searching and outside website are not enough. I want a way to find new and interesting videos directly from the viewer/uploader.

Thing #4
I want to filter all my subscription because a good bunch of the stuff I subscribed to are probably not things I want to see. Let me tag the channels. Let me split them into categories, etc. If I subscribed to 20 channels, I can't possibly go on each of them every day and watch everything they uploaded/liked.

Google, you have to do something. Let us arrange our dashboard so that we get some useful information! A simple list would be good with me! For now, I'm going to try to find a way to grab the RSS directly from the Channel and drop them in Google Reader or something. We'll see how it goes.

Lord of the Rings Online is still a good MMO

2011-03-15T09:02:00.000-04:00

I've been a lifetime LOTRO member for a long time. At the time, I was mostly soloing and playing by myself. I loved grouping but it took a lot of time to get a group organized and start playing. Now, it's a free to play game and even though you do have to spend some money at some point to really have fun, it's probably the best demo out there. My brother and father have started playing with me and now they both spend some money for us to continue up to at least 60. It'll be a really fun ride. We're all between 35 and 40 and we'll soon be moving to Angmar. I remember there was a lot of stuff to do in that area, especially for small groups.

Evendim is really pretty. Picture from Ow...shitz!

We're having a lot of fun and I am really happy. It has been a long time since we've had that much fun togheter as a familly. It reminds me of the time when we fought for Albion in Dark Age of Camelot. Probably better than the old days because we are NOW. I don't want it to end! I want to fight in Mirkwood and save villages in Rohan with them. I hope we're in for the full ride!

Samsung Transparent LCD [part 2] (with picture and cute German woman)

2011-03-10T11:31:00.001-05:00

Another picture of Samsung transparent LCD. Cute German woman not included.

Thanks to Inhabitat

Samsung demos ambient light-powered transparent LCD

2011-03-07T13:05:00.000-05:00

This thing is awesome! It fits with Corning's "A day made of glass" video I shared this weekend. I'd be awesome to watch RSS, Twitter and Facebook while I shave. Add a voice interface and it'd be even better. Love this. Samsung is really on the wave.

Awesome post of eternal lovin'!

2011-02-11T13:57:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow will marked the beginning of my 9th year of love between me and my utterly awesome fiancée, Caroline. Even after all these years, her glittering presence brighten my days, my moods and my nights. But, you know what.. Let's be serious for once.

Caroline is simply the most amazing person I know. Even after 8 years, she's still able to get along with me.. which is quite a feat. It might seem cliche but I decided I'd do a list of everything I love about her. Keep in mind that I made my best to keep this list safe for work. Therefore, I might had to omit certain qualities that I won't elaborate on.

- She is intelligent enough to have an interesting discussion with, even on subject completely foreign to her.

- She has a lot of empathy. Call me a monster but I need her to guide me on that.

- She's an hard-worker. That's for sure. She can litterally lose herself in work. I definitely respect that. I simply hope she can manage her priorities correctly. I personally would have broke down with only half her responsabilities.

- She's comprehensive and patient. I know I'm not the easiest person on earth. I'm passionate on everything I do. It's one of my quality but it can also be a nightmare to manage. I'm not even mentionning the way I keep.

lol wut? Only that!?!

No you stupid reader! It's not the only reasons. There's tons of them. I thought I was clear enough that Caroline was awesomely perfect, yet you still try to win me over. Forget it! She's miles ahead of you whatever the category.

For all these reasons and many others, I can safely say that Caroline is the most awesome people on earth.. and by FAR! Sorry folks, it's not you.. I guess this title cannot be shared either so you're definitely screwed on this one.

I love you Caroline and I will always do!