The InGame Asylum

Future Sailors

2011-09-13T14:34:00.000-04:00

An interesting topic was raised on Empire Avenue by InGame reader and smart cookie extraordinaire Lyraxsis. Questions were lobbed in the original post, but the thought brought up by Lyraxsis that I zeroed in on immediately was this: “I hear people say that they want innovations in MMO (and other) game design but no one is ever very specific about what they want to see happen.” After some back and forth, I figured a blog post might be in order.

I think the first thing you have to look at is what makes any experience fun at all – novelty. New experiences give the human brain a unique playground within which to navigate. There are slides, those cool bars you can hang upside down from or hand-walk across. There're swings. There's a see-saw. The ground is made of lava. In your brain. That's where headaches come from.

And nightmares, maybe.

When MMOs first surfaced, what did we have? MUDs and their like, basically. Here we were, interacting with other living, human brains. Sure, the world was entirely represented in text, but that world was relatively MASSIVE and there were hundreds of others to share it with at the same time. Provided you could read and type, this was a magical playground unlike any other.

And then years passed. The magic faded. I'm simplifying here, but eventually the late nineties happened and we got graphics to replace our text, instantly transforming MMOs into something else entirely. The genre was new again, and beginning to resemble the MMO as we know it today. What was the next step? Well, regardless of what you thought it SHOULD be, Blizzard saw the future as being one of ease and convenience, and thus World of Warcraft was born. The “grind” as it was understood was reduced considerably and you even got rewarded for not playing at all.

This is you raiding.

For all intents and purposes, there has been a holding pattern since WoW launched. With unprecedented success came all the waves of copycats. That's understandable. There have been breakaways of course. EVE Online introduced players to a massive world (okay, a massive GALAXY) policed largely by the players themselves. The emergent gameplay that resulted – in-game corporate takeovers, developer condoned swindling of digital goods worth exorbitant sums of real world money and time, scandals involving developer wrong-doing – all of this was new and exciting. EVE is one of the very rare examples of a game starting small and actually succeeding, showing sustained growth of its subscribed playerbase over time.

I was going to make a metaphor or something then just realized sea monkeys were gross.

It's getting rarer and rarer to find a game release from a major studio without some sort of substantial multiplayer element. This trend is not going to suddenly reverse. With that in mind, I gave considerable thought toward what tactics I'd most like to see implemented to move the genre forward or see it take its next novelty-step into the future. There isn't really an easy solution. Perhaps something sort of free-form like EVE would be appropriate, with methods in place to assure a far easier learning curve. Something akin to how WoW changed the EQ-style of MMO into something far more palatable for a wider audience, so too can this mystery sandbox game do for the style EVE represents.

The other option, I think, would be to start looking at and designing MMORPGS on a more dynamic yet smaller scale. Through phased content, games like WoW and LotRO have already teased at creating environments and story the players themselves change. It is a thin veneer, however, and one with little real permanence. The game still exists in its unaltered state for some players, as it should be and the player DOES know this, thus ruining the illusion. It is the necessary evil of Massive Online games. I think if you reduce the Massivity of it all, perhaps by drastically limiting the number of players on servers or drastically scaling back the scope and design of the game itself to simply serve a smaller audience at a time, you open the door to so much more interactivity and Permanence Empowerment than can be achieved with trying to keep as many paying customers happy in your gigantic theme park as possible.

15 bux/moth bliz gg thx cu l8r shtlrdz

Is any of this possible? I think the more appropriate question would be to ask if any of it was potentially lucrative. I'm not sure, but maybe in the meantime we should all just dust off our D&D source books once more and try to find a DM worth a damn.

The Update About Nothing

2011-08-29T10:31:00.002-04:00

I'm gonna warn you...my problems sure aren't very serious when compared to those of...pretty much everyone else in the world. Since I acknowledge that fact, everything that comes after is TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE GRIPING.

I've been resisting for days the urge to cave in to the critical and popular acclaim and purchase Deus Ex. First, I saw the “Digital Super Who's It's What's Collector's Designer's Cut” edition for $59.99 and scoffed that way that I do when I see companies trying to sell PC games higher than the absolute maximum any PC game should rightfully cost.

I yield. I am ready to look like Park Bench Keanu Reeves.

Here's the thing: DVDs of movies with multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in budget...they cost about 20 bucks. You get a physical disk, a case, and probably some other paper ridiculousness. You know. Things cavemen use to build fires or throw at small creatures for amusement. Digital distribution gets rid of all this crap and yet I'm still paying AT LEAST $50 for a AAA title clocking in at, in most cases, a fraction of the production budget.

But I digress.

READ. MORE.

The point is there were these factors preventing me from buying Deus Ex and all my resolve finally washed away. When Something Awful offers a review lacking in derision AND sarcasm, you know you're on to something. I was gonna get this game if it was the last thing I ever did. It totally wasn't going to be the last thing I ever did. I fired up Steam and got ready to make my purchase.

I have a girlfriend. This is a recent development for me in as many possible ways as you can imagine. Often, when she's been staying over for a while, a non-trivial amount of clothing also gets left behind. Clothes that aren't mine. Occasionally, her schedule prevents her from coming over for a while so she'll collect the clothes she'd been leaving to do her laundry while she's at home. I leave my wallet in my back pocket a lot. Can anyone see where this is going?

Yes, Steam saves credit card info and crap like that so you can take part in the incredibly safe practice of keeping sensitive information in spaces where no one would dare infiltrate a la Sony and their PSN. I DON'T CARE, IT'S CONVENIENT. Except I had ALSO just gotten a new credit card and thus ran into the issue where I no longer have valid information in the system. DO YOU HEAR THAT? I'M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO PLAY DEUS EX UNTIL TOMORROW. Where do I even live? Zimbabwe? What is this third-world bullshit?!

We can't stop here.

UGH. Anyway. My roommate is probably going to be writing things for the blog soon. How exciting is that? He's even a Z-list internet celebrity of sorts so...there's that. More info to come, I guess!

Welcome back, Space Cowboy!

2011-08-19T13:48:00.000-04:00

I haven't spent nearly as much time as I'd have liked playing the games I discussed in my previous post. Bastion I was able to dip my toe into and I've waded into Age of Empires Online. I haven't even gotten started on From Dust at all yet, but I have a mostly free weekend to indulge so everything should be in its right place shortly.

At any rate, there's still stuff to talk about. There's the aforementioned which I'll get to in a bit but there's also a great deal of noise flying around regarding an upcoming release from those masters of cash shop shovelware (thanks, Joe), NCsoft. The game is called Wildstar and sports a suitably spiffy trailer which admittedly made my jaw drop. Then I watched gameplay video and couldn't help but shake the feeling that this is stuff I've seen before. Stuff I've BEEN seeing before. For seven years. From Blizzard.

I'm rolling as a pair of goggles.

More after the break, you dolts!

Yeah, it appears as though there have been incremental advances to the gameplay and I know that, inherently, there's nothing wrong with standing on the shoulders of giants. I get it. What I don't get is the fawning admiration and anticipation over a title when seemingly the best explanation for its sudden appeal is, “Yeah but space. And cowboys.”

Space and cowboys are REALLY cool. They also look like a gimmick. It's early days, yet. Maybe Wildstar will end up being really radtacular. I'm hoping it does! I'm not going to hold my breath just yet and would like to caution everyone into adopting a wait-and-see approach.

Age of Empires Online is probably the one title out of the two I've played this week I can give any sort of informed opinion on. It's certainly...Age of Empires with MMO elements. Instanced RTS quests, persistent gear upgrades, cosmetic stuff...and a chat window! While I'm not entirely convinced this is something I'm on board with, I nevertheless have had no small difficulty putting the game down in my free time. I think that means it's good so far.

Bastion. I feel like I've only scratched the surface here and even so I have no problem endorsing the game. Buy it and love it. $15 for the latest entry into the great Video Games as Art debate only it feels like it offers way more actual GAME than Braid or LIMBO managed. If you don't like this game, I have serious doubts about your ability to connect to a human being on any level. No offense.

Have You ever Danced with the Diggle in the Pale Moonlight?

2011-08-16T11:08:00.003-04:00

No, I'm not too ashamed to pick up where I left off as if I hadn't neglected to update the blog in half a year. In short, I left World of Warcraft again because...well...World of Warcraft. I could describe in great detail the trevails of the intervening period between then and now but what sort of fun would that be?

I've made a habit of picking up and talking about games that had already been out for awhile. This is largely due to the fact that these games end up becoming incredibly reasonably priced (or a downright steal if Steam is having a tremendous sale) and my day job doesn't exactly pay a great deal.

I'm not going to lie – I will still practice this behavior going forward. However, this week is one I've been looking forward to for awhile. Today sees the launch of two games I'd been keeping tabs on for some time: Bastion, making it's debut on PC after showing up on XBLA a month ago, and Age of Empires Online, the...well...you know. Age of Empires. Online. Tomorrow, From Dust hits Steam after trolling aimlessly around XBLA for a month as well. From Dust is a “spiritual successor to Populous” from “that dude that made Out of This World.” The price for this game could be several hundred dollars and I would buy it. Luckily for me, it's actually only fifteen bucks.

Thanks. Now. Should I be offended? Oh! I know! More like offenDEAD!

Oh! Dungeons of Dredmor!

Click "Read more", dudes (and dudettes)!

Last month, the Rogue-like Dungeons of Dredmor was released for both PC and Mac. I hate using the term Rogue-like. I'm old enough to know what it means but the type of game it describes is such a throwback and nowhere near popular enough to have any real meaning to the vast majority of younger gamers in the world. Anyway, Dungeons of Dredmor is a game where you find yourself deposited in a dungeon with very little in the way of story telling you why and you're expected to reach the very bottom where you will then hopefully slay the dungeon's owner, a particularly unpleasant fellow going by the name Dredmor.

Gameplay is very simplistic. You get a view of the proceedings from above it all and direct your character to move along the four cardinal directions and you beat up – or get beat up yourself – by the hundreds upon thousands of dungeon denizens. It's a dungeon crawl, it's an RPG, it's funny, it's difficult, and it's extremely addicting. There are also weird penguin things with drills for noses called Diggles. At least one of them will kill you. The game cost me a grand total of $5 and I've played it over 30 hours in only a couple weeks. Get it.

I'm going to be posting again after I spend some time with the bounty of products coming out today and tomorrow. I'll be doing that later this week. THIS I DO VOW. And swear. And promise.

Alright, already!

2011-02-15T16:17:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. I mean no one REALLY complained, but for the sake of convincing myself anyone cares, I'm sorry. I keep saying, "Oh, I'll update tomorrow" and then tomorrow comes and I realize "tomorrow" actually seems to mean in about a month and this has to stop NOW...ish.

A lot's happened in a nothing's-really-happened sort of way. I mean...the Native Americans won. Hiawatha is the new lord of our observable universe and also over 6,000 years old. This is how my grand Civ V game played out in which I initially intended on going into far more detail here but then I kinda felt "meh" about the whole thing. It worked great as a kind of sordid alternate universe that may or may not have been visited by the Doctor in his TARDIS.

How, White man...do you like your nuclear armegeddon AHAHAHAHAH!

Oh, I'm back in Azeroth.

Keep reading after the thing I guess.

So...yeah! Switched my LOTRO account to free-to-play. Reactivated my WoW account. After hitting the cap in LOTRO I wanted to wait a bit for the rest of my RL friends to catch up and slam into the cap at which point the plan was we'd...I dunno...do some sweet things together, who knows? One by one, people got there and then mysteriously disappeared. I was one of them. Way to go, me.

At any rate, the allure of checking out how Azeroth was changed by...what are they calling it? The Sundering or something? Mmph. Giant black armor dragon. To the best of my knowledge, that's not a new boutique brand of weed or anything. Deathwing is angry and is wearing armor. Ragnaros, something something. The point is there are goblins now and I love them so I rolled an adorable little bastard named Sqwonk, currently mastering some sort of Arcane energies on Llane.

I'm kind of angry because I'm having a great time at the moment and HOW DARE BLIZZARD. Also, I'm level 63 after two weeks. What.

Now that I'm actively doing something I can rip content from on a regular basis (read as probably addicted), expect more regular updates, okay? No really. OKAY SO HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE.

Goblin and God both start with G-O. Just sayin'. Oh that dude in the back IS YOUR BANK.

Okay, so...I'm lazy.

2011-01-19T14:46:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I feel super ultra terribly terrible about not updating in so long. There were holidays you see? Then holidays turned to buuuuuuhhhhhhhrrrrrrrgggggggg and suddenly you wake up and there's a new number at the end of the calendar and this is REALLY confusing for everyone. Especially me.

God, what even IS time?

Anyway. I'm updating NOW to let everyone know I'll be posting an update FOR REALZ soon. Like probably in a couple days. Exciting right? So I guess look out for that. It's going to have something to do with Civilization V or something.

Damn yes, Hiawatha.

EVE-Online - Still Pretty, Dangerous, Complicated

2010-12-23T14:54:00.001-05:00

I've dabbled with CCP's hasn't-quite-been-underground-anymore-for-awhile-now EVE-Online from time to time over the past few years. At its best, it's a gorgeous looking piece of software with what amounts to the perfect soundtrack for what the game is going for, even when it's not.

Ahh. Space porn.

Isn't that nice to look at? Now imagine some Swedish guy falling asleep on a keyboard and you've got the perfect recipe for a low-stress ride through one of those peaceful lazy river things at those fake fancy hotels only in space. So it's like a space hotel lazy river you navigate with a mouse. So you're buzzing along, happily riding the mood-high of a...

...

God dammit. Someone turn that god damned music off. DO YOU SEE WHAT IT GOT ME? Last time I ever listen to your new age John Tesh knock-off bullshit while I'm trying to find a god damned wormhole to investigate and NO that wasn't a euphemism, alright?

*Sigh*

No big deal. Let's all just relax. I'll just...I'll just get a new ship. I'll just stroll back to a starbase and take a look in the market and see what we've got going on. Let me just open up my definitely-easy-to-navigate menu system and...

Oh FFS.

You know what? On second thought I'll just set some random skills to train and come back tomorrow.

Tecmo Super Bowl is the Greatest Thing Since Ever

2010-12-20T13:01:00.002-05:00

I don't really need a ton of excuses to talk about Philly-centric sports, even at The InGame Asylum. Thanks to people with ~~too much~~ time on their hands and Tecmo Super Bowl, I have all the excuse I'll ever need. Or rather I would but here's a handy dandy video of the closing moment's of yesterday's game instead:

Awesome.

Digital Distribution is (not) Taking Over

2010-12-17T14:18:00.003-05:00

The NPD group recently released their 2010 Games Purchase Drivers report and revealed that 29% of video game purchases over the last three months are delivered to the consumer via digital distribution. What this means, of course, is that 71% of video game purchases are still ~~done incorrectly~~ boxed copies from brick and mortar establishments.

Pictured: the right way to get games.

Let's stop delaying progress, people. Sure, there was a time back in cave man days where going to a special building to acquire <item> was like...what you did. Now machines are connected to other machines by ~~lightning wizard magic~~ the internet and we have things like sunglasses and toasters and stuff and you don't really need to bang a couple rocks together anymore for fire.

There's also this nauseating nugget of unjoy from the report:

"...nearly 10 percent of buyers report using a trade-in to fund their purchase."

Tear down the brick and mortar after the jump.

Now, I don't really take a stance on the whole software piracy thing. I buy my games...but I also understand that front-line AAA titles cost $60 nowadays on consoles and around $50 on PC, not counting ~~scams~~ Collectors Editions and their ilk.

How is it that software piracy by the end-consumer is illegal while that of stores like Gamestop and Play-N-Trade, etc. goes unpunished and even rewarded? How is it that a person sitting at home stealing a game for their own personal use is somehow WORSE than a company paying for a game and distributing it to multiple consumers at a price greater than cost for each sale?

On the surface, it looks like there's no reason for the consumer to switch to digital when they can get copies of used games on the cheap just by doing ridiculous things like driving and interacting with other human beings. The fact is, for the games you "want" you generally have to wait a significant amount of time before the jerks who bought the game the day it came out take it upon themselves to trade the product in. In the cases of some popular games, having enough trade-ins for used copies to become readily available can take months. By this time, prices for the same games on digital distribution platforms have already been slashed 20% or more.

Just think what would happen if developers and publishers didn't have to rely on 71% of their customers traveling to stores to purchase physical copies of games. There would be no more shipping costs. No more boxes. There would be countless numbers of trees saved by there no longer being a need to print instructions no one reads anyway. More importantly, the need for games to be priced what they are to offset all these costs would drop leading to lower prices for games (presumably).

This is a gigantic win-win. We're just waiting on you jerks still comfortable enough with social situations to deal with other humans to come down to Earth and join the 21st Socially Anxious Century.

Be Decent AND a Nerdy Indie Hipster

2010-12-15T13:26:00.001-05:00

For those of you who missed it the first go-round, the Humble Indie Bundle is back! If you have no idea what that is, or why you should care, it goes like this:

The bundle is made up of five pretty rad indie games: Braid, Cortex Command, Osmos, Machinarium, and Revenge of the Titans. Sold separately, you're looking at $85 worth of stuff here. With the Humble Indie Bundle, you get to name your price for the whole shebang. Yup, you can be a disgusting cheap skate and get all 5 games for just a penny if you really wanted to and could live with yourself afterward. Extra cool points for the fact that you can split up your payment so that it ends up in the hands of up to 4 different entities: the developers of the games themselves, the Humble Bundle folks, the excellent digital rights group EFF, or my personal favorite, Child's Play.

If that's too philanthropic for you, then just get the Bundle on the cheap because the games are good, you bastard.

Especially Braid.

OGINTWA (Oh God It's Not The Weekend Anymore)

2010-12-13T14:39:00.005-05:00

Normally, you see those back from the weekend catching up posts thrown up places early Monday morning because I guess that's supposed to be a good time to do that. I know better. First, I know for a fact that I can't string a coherent thought together until roughly 11 AM and I definitely can't translate that into text until sometime significantly beyond noon. Also, I would expect a vast majority of my readers to be of the gamer persuasion and I know gaming is being embraced more and more by the mainstream but, come on, <insert no-longer wholly appropriate stereotype about gamers not waking up before the afternoon>.

Amirite?

More, post-jump.

Speaking of mainstream, the 8^th-annual Spike Video Game Awards show took place Saturday night. Normally I hate awards shows. That's why I didn't watch. Also, it was on Spike and, while I can appreciate the occasional bro, I'm way more of a dude. Anyway, it was far more entertaining to read the coverage and reactions the show was getting via the Twittersphere. Mass Effect 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim were announced which is cool. Guillermo del Toro revealed, for some reason, that he's working on a new game called Insane. I have too many jokes for the latter that I can't actually put one solid one together. It's like if I wanted to make a cake and add something fun to it and had Butterfingers, jellybeans, ice cream, Oreos, and chocolate eclairs at my disposal and I tried to use all of them. Yes, that would be the best cake in the history of the world but I'd also never be allowed to make cakes again.

You have to choose your battles wisely is what I'm saying.

Pretty much the most excitement generated during the evening's events was that Neil Patrick Harris both hosted the whole shebang AND won the award for Best Performance by a Human Male for his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Superhero Game: Part That Comes After the Colon.

No one's a Post-Colon fan.

This fervor was shocking to me because everyone seems to really dig NPH (I learned that abbreviation from TWITTER) non-ironically whereas I would have been thinking "Heh, Doogie Howser" the whole time. About the only hint I had previously that NPH (now I just don't know how to refer to him casually so I'm going with the acronym) was still relevant was the fact that a pretty big deal was made about a double rainbow thing (OR SOMETHING) that I only knew about because I go to roflrazzi once a month to look at still frames of drunks (they're WAY more dangerous in motion). I don't know anything about this How I Met Your Mother business, but Starship Troopers was pretty cool.

The "Two" is for Rainbows

Aside from that, I spent my time finishing up Mass Effect for the umpteenth time, transferred that save over to Mass Effect 2 for another playthrough, thought about but didn't actually play any LOTRO (sorry Lindsay Rohan!), and altogether lazed it up. How was your weekend? What did you guys get up to? Hey! This is a gaming blog (arguably), what games did you play?!

A Faithful Re-Creation of Events that Happened

2010-12-09T11:41:00.008-05:00

(I apologize ahead of time, I've been replaying the Mass Effect series)

Like any real dork, I'm pretty pumped about the fact that, just yesterday, SpaceX launched and landed their Dragon capsule after a couple orbits of the Earth, making them the first private company to ever accomplish such a feat. I'm pretty sure privatization is the way to go in the field of space exploration, and it's only a matter of time before we're beyond the Termination Shock (honestly, this is probably one of the few times in my life I'll get to type Termination Shock with any sort of relevance to anything, extra pleased about that), fighting demons materializing out of unearthed (unmarsed?) teleporters, and fighting queen aliens in sweet power loaders.

Hopefully next Wednesday

In celebration, I'm reenacting what I can only imagine as being some sort of last minute briefing with the pilot of the SpaceX Dragon, a pilot I will for confidentiality purposes call Commander Shepard (neverminding that the flight was in fact unmanned).

Accuracy, post-jump.

Elon Musk, awesome-named CEO of SpaceX: Commander Shepard! This is the big day? Ready to pull some serious Gs up there? Ha ha.

Musk: The Dapper Chronicles

Commander Shepard: You're trying to make me laugh. You think I'm here to amuse you. To make funny sputtering noises when you offer an insult instead of a reward.

Elon Musk: Uh, what? No, you know you're getting paid and I was just...I dunno, it's just a lot of Gs, right? I mean...spaceflight and all that.

Commander Shepard: If you don't stop nagging, I'll turn this ship around and drop your ass back in that volcano.

Do I look like you're not going into a volcano?

Elon Musk: I didn't mean to...that is to say I'm not...

Elon Musk, looking incredibly confused despite his incredible wealth, glances around nervously.

Elon Musk: There are no volcanoes in Florida.

Commander Shepard: Nothing is ever simple, is it?

The Musket shakes his head grimly. If he wasn't so high-class, you could easily imagine him spitting through his teeth onto the floor.

Elon Musk: 'Fraid not. Beats me why we're still bungling about with chemical rockets when electromagnetism is inherently stronger than gravity and in the long run would save untold resources and...

The official term for negotiations in space is "Spacegotiations"

Commander Shepard: I've had enough of your snide insinuations! (Punches reporter in the face.)

Elon Musk: First of all, I pay the bills around here. Don't you ever interrupt me again. Second...did you...

Musk points an uncertain finger at the good Commander.

Elon Musk: ...did you just SAY parentheses?

Commander Shepard: I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the citadel.

Elon Musk: That's...all well and good but we call it a...

Elon graces the conversation with air quotes.

Elon Musk: "Launch Center" and...I mean I guess you're talking about the gift shop? It's not bad. I dunno, it feels kinda cheesy doesn't it? This could very well be the main hub of Space Tourism and all we're selling out there are miniature Eiffel Tower keychains. Now, I don't know what country I'M from, but I don't think John and Jane Q. American Public are ever going to want to-

Commander Shepard: I should go.

Commander Shepard stays rooted in place, his lifeless eyes seeming to stare through Musk. For his part, Musk uncomfortably clears his throat.

Elon Musk: I...yes, I guess that's...I guess that's for the best. Godspeed, Commander.

Commander Shepard's robotic gaze lurches violently to his left...before awkwardly turning his head in the same direction. Jerkily, unnaturally, the rest of his body follows and he strides woodenly away from the filthy rich owner of SpaceX who watches the intrepid pilot depart. He shakes his head.

Elon Musk: I don't know who that was.

The Pre-review

2010-12-07T13:44:00.003-05:00

Meat mEat meAt meaT

I haven't played Super Meat Boy enough yet to offer a proper review. Instead of that, a pre-review, edited for dirty words, conducted over Google Chat:

me: it's ... hard

but it's amazing

it's like...

if you were able to make joy a physical object then turn it into a concentrated fluid like red bull or something

then injected it into your eyelids

Vindictus

2010-12-06T14:54:00.002-05:00

More and more, it seems it's becoming both increasingly common and easier than ever for the MMO-playing populace to split its affections over multiple titles. No, the economy hasn't recovered yet, contrary to reports that the recession currently harshing the world's collective buzz is over. With so many titles converting to or launching with a free-to-play model of some kind, the entry point for the MMO genre is arguably more accessible than any other in gaming.

I've mentioned previously that LOTRO is my current pay-to-play MMO of choice. As a lot of my readers would probably already know, Lord of the Rings Online was another title to embark down the "free-to-play" route this year. Trust me, I didn't goof. I maintain my subscription because it's damn convenient and I really like what Turbine has going on over there. At any rate, I decided today I would write a bit about what I'm playing on the F2P side of things and when I started hashing it out in my head, I had a half-blown review on my hands.

Many, many creatures get harmed during the course of this game.

More, post-jump.

In late October, Korean MMO-giant Nexon released Vindictus here in North America. Called Mabinogi Heroes practically everywhere but here, Vindictus serves as a lore prequel for anyone into that sort of thing and this point is really driven home at character creation. As of this writing, only three characters are available: Lann, a dual-wielding dervish of destruction, Fiona, a sword-and-board tank-type character, and Evie, the game's resident wizard/healer/gravity/time lady. You can customize names, physical dimensions, coloring and, for those really interested in jiggle-physics, underwear. There are two more characters in the release pipeline: Karok, a giant of a man who can do some really, really cool things and Kai, a "druid" who will be renamed so many variations of Legolas that whoever decides to roll him up as a character should probably come to terms now with the fact that no one will take them seriously ever.

That's as far as customization goes in the traditional sense. If you're dead-set on a gender, you better like the characters linked to those genders. I don't personally have a problem with this tack. In MMOs, I like to do one of two things: tank, or blow stuff up in dramatically ridiculous ways. I'm secure enough in my masculinity that, for my first character, I went with the latter and selected Evie.

Even for those who like to keep their avatar's genders a little more true-to-life in MMOs, I doubt too many people will have a problem with the current system. That's because while Vindictus IS technically a role-playing game, it has a lot more in common with action games than the genre is typically known for. Sure, there's your staple elements of crafting and story (a surprising amount of the latter considering the game is, indeed, a free-to-play effort), but you'll quickly find out (and Nexon has no problem promoting the fact) that Vindictus is all about the combat in a way the genre-savvy haven't seen in a long time.

Whatever you're about to ask, the answer is probably yes.

Simply put, Vindictus is a glorified beat-'em-up. My kneejerk reaction at first was to call the game's style hack-and-slash but that conjures up too many images of Diablo, Torchlight, and their related ilk to be useful. The closest game I'd say Vindictus resembles is Phantasy Star Online and even that's a bit of a stretch. Combat is conducted in real-time. In the default setup, you'll be left-clicking for basic melee attacks, right-clicking for stronger "Smash" attacks, and using a standard assortment of hot-keys for basically everything else. Players can grab opponents, drag them over to a wall that they slam them into before finishing them off with a satisfying kick, potentially shattering portions of the environment which can then be lifted and turned into makeshift weaponry in turn. Stray attacks can and will topple pillars which can then harm enemies and players alike by way of falling debris. This sort of dynamic battlefield squarely puts the fun in functional interactivity, allowing the players to creatively conduct carnage in ways that, no matter how many times you run through the same area, serve to never allow the game to grow stale.

There are quests. There are memorable NPCs. You can construct weapons out of the broken rare item drops of the foes you best. Make no mistake about it though: it's the combat that will keep you coming back over and over again.

...and over, and over, and over, and over again.

Were this a proper review site, I'd go into much greater depth about how easy it is to find groups, how the dungeon progression is structured, or detail the process of selecting challenges before each mission to earn points to unlock bigger and better missions and encounters (and so on, and so on). It's not really something I have the space for. Instead, I offer you this: a solid recommendation. Vindictus is free and you have nothing but time to lose. Go download it or something!

They nerfed it, now it sucks

2010-12-03T16:17:00.005-05:00

Special thanks to tvtropes.org for the passive inspiration for the title of this post and to my buddy Rob for the topic suggestion.

Something funny happened on the way to our adult years, and really all along the way to the modern day as a whole. We've all become very, very bad at gaming (relatively) since we were but wee lads and lasses. I can remember playing games like Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and (Mike Tyson's) Punch-Out!! at the tender age of 5 and playing them WELL. Now...I don't know about you, but I've seen kids these days (oh my god I just said kids these days non-ironically) playing games and, comparatively, they're absolutely horrible at it. You know what I'm talking about, right? Tell me you haven't watched a child playing a video game recently and witnessed them repeatedly screwing something up so simple in your mind that you get so irrationally angry you have to REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THE ROOM BEFORE THEY RUIN YOUR SUPER MARIO GALAXY SAVE FILE AND YOU'RE FORCED TO THROW THEM THROUGH A WALL.

That's not pressure, kid, that's drywall.

Then you sit there and think about how you used to blow through Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man or how you got so good you didn't even need the Konami Code for ANYTHING anymore. It was like you were some kind of 8-year old who had gained the ability to manipulate assembly with their minds, karate chop arrows out of the air, catch bullets with your teeth, and emit a strange golden glow from your skin. It's not every day I get to set up an image from Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon so you gotta go with me on this one.

I up-up-down-down Leroy.

More, post-jump.

What happened to us? What happened to the industry? At first, this might come off as an anti-EZmode modern gaming piece, but it's really not. There are enough suitable nods to the past still hanging around. Ninja Gaiden (for Xbox) was a throwback in difficulty as well as name. Platforming games like 'Splosion Man, Super Meat Boy, and the continuation of the classic Mega Man series are still being released, albeit as bargain titles, oftentimes even with graphics, effects, and sounds hearkening back to the 8-bit era and this is great. As I touched on in my previous post, the plethora of easy-to-use digital distribution platforms makes access to old school games perhaps even more easy and affordable than when those games were at the forefront of the gaming consciousness.

The gaming mainstream has moved AWAY from such titles while shifting to come more and more inline with the entertainment mainstream in general. Whichever side of the fence you're on, you have to admit it makes good business sense. In those early years, the motion picture and television industries vastly out-earned anything video games could hope to bring in. The solution? Grab some of that monetary pie by creating games that incorporated more and more elements of movies and TV as the technology progressed to allow you to do so.

Okay, so, your mileage may vary.

Where are we at now? In many ways, it's a total role reversal. Think about this: in 2008, Grand Theft Auto IV was released and earned a mind-destroying $500 million during the first week of availability, handily besting Spider-Man 3's opening weekend take of $382 million worldwide. In fact, GTA IV was expected to do so well at launch that rumblings got out suggesting Paramount was concerned its release would harm the numbers for Iron Man's opening weekend. The film industry had arrived at a place where they were scouring video game release schedules to reduce head-to-head competition.

It was a simple progression, slowed only by the rate of technological growth making possible the advances needed to tell a compelling story.

In short, I don't think it's a matter of the games actually becoming more easy. I simply think there are a lot MORE games out there and that the ones becoming insanely popular are those that skew more heavily toward the cinematic rather than gameplay elements. As for the lamentable erosion of our skills? We've fallen out of practice. When I was 6, I would play the same game hour after hour, day after day, until I got a new one. In that situation, it goes without saying that the specific skillset needed to master a particular game would improve to near savant levels.

Video games AND Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I'll take 240 hours, please.

Now there are limitless options. I'm okay with that. I like to think that I'm pulling a Switzerland in the debate. I could play nothing but Super Mario World, a straight-forward platforming paradise, for weeks straight. From the modern era, I have a great love and appreciation for the Silent Hill and Mass Effect series, two properties renowned far more for their story-telling and cinematic capabilities than anything else.

There's no right or wrong, just a lot of angry fanboys. But god damn, kids these days suck at video games. In MY day, etc.

I Want My XBLA

2010-12-01T16:01:00.003-05:00

If you can imagine "Money For Nothing" playing in the background while you read this, that would be pretty cool. Better yet, if you could just play it on some sort of device so you can remove the imagination equation, that would work even better.

Okay, just go here in another window and we'll be golden.

I'd purchased an Xbox 360 in early 2006. It was part of the first waves of the machines that came out. You know, the ones that didn't work. With that in mind, you can probably imagine both my surprise and delight at the fact that it took a whole 4 years for the machine to finally bow out (ungracefully) with a red ring of death. This isn't to say my 360 was without its share of problems. It habitually destroyed games and, about 15 DAYS into its lifespan, took an extended vacation (that lasted roughly 15 days shorter than 4 years) from determining whether or not the disc in its tray was a game or a DVD. Spoiler: Apparently every disc I own is a DVD. I don't know if I even own a DVD but the 360 was pretty much sure I did.

God. Whatever, it's just hundreds of dollars.

More after the jump.

Back to the destroying games talent, the 360 made a whole lot of terrifying noises apart from idling at something ridiculous like 100 decibels. There was an oft-repeated, gut-wrenching grinding sound that conjured images of that gigantic Indian dude getting sucked through that awesome rock-crusher in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The sound was very brief, and after a panicked grimace (from me...not the machine), all would normally be well and the next WHATEVER would load. After a few days of this (per game), disc read errors would abound and I'd notice upon inspecting the disc that there would be perfectly circular scratches in the disc itself rendering it little more than an extremely ineffective coaster.

Rock. Crushed.

Microsoft's official stance was that their cute little coaster-factory was working as intended and if I didn't WANT it to make coasters, I should have kept it more still while it was operating. Explaining that it was harder to make anything move less than "perfectly still" got me nowhere but hey, each game had about 24 hours of life until the etchings slowly and inexorably wounded it beyond any sort of meaningful repair so it's not like I couldn't play them AT ALL. In a way, it added a new challenge. Beat the game before the nebulous time limit is reached and try to make peace with the fact that you spent $60 plus tax on something you won't be able to enjoy any longer than a week of real time. I always failed the last part.

Don't worry about roster updates, you won't get that far.

This isn't to say that home consoles are completely useless...they're just useless for what they're designed and marketed for. I desperately want a new Xbox 360. I just don't want them to play incredibly overpriced generic whateverware that may or may not (may) get turned into functional furniture shortly after purchase. There are only so many 3rd person action games with RPG elements I can spend way too much money on before I start to get the feeling that maybe Gears of Halo Creed 2: Assassin's Resident isn't the best choice anymore for my entertainment dollar.

That brings me to the Xbox Live Arcade/WiiWare/PlayStation Store hydra, the a la carte meccas of choice for the disenfranchised gamer. Now, if you're reading this, odds are you don't need the service spelled out for you. For those less familiar, XBLA, et al. is basically a service where you can download bargain-priced games with (usually) much smaller budgets as well as demos and trailers of AAA titles and all that good stuff. There's more to it than that, but for the sake of this article, that's what I'm talking about. This is where you will find the best bang for your buck when it comes to the home consoles and inexplicably, none of the three seem to be a focus of any sort marketing-wise. You would think with the influx of casual gamers making heads spin playing games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, Lemonade Gangster 3: The Juicing, and whatever the hell else I'm getting flooded with Facebook updates about, the opportunity to kind of get the word out to this demographic would have long since been seized.

It hasn't. It's not like it's a pressing issue for any of the Big (read: Only) 3, but it IS an exploitable one. Nintendo started on this bent with the Wii when it launched and all their efforts accomplished was the fact that they're leading the pack by a wide-margin in overall console sales this generation. That momentum has since slowed. Why? Sure, motion-sensing as a means of gameplay is novel and novelty sells. Sadly, the Wii's motion-sensing capabilities aren't actually that great and once the new and shiny wears off, the casuals turn away and the "hardcore" that are left continue to purchase what LOOKS new and shiny. Right now, those games are found on the 360 and PS3 which are just now themselves venturing into the motion-sensing arena roughly 4 years too late.

Pictured: Praying for death in the digital age

Perhaps there is a fear that consumers, especially casuals, wouldn't be willing to spend $200-$300 to play 2D side-scrollers but if you were to tell me that every few months I'd be able to download a game like Shadow Complex or anything from the Bit.Trip series, I'd be chomping at the bit. Does that make me a casual. I half hope not and I half don't care. Anyway, if the brick can do anything else, it's a bonus. Thankfully, everyone loves coasters.

I got side-tracked somewhere in there. The point is someone buy me another Xbox 360 so I can play $10 games again.

RTS! OR, Premises and how quickly I abandon them

2010-11-29T19:38:00.004-05:00

I was all set tonight to write about how exciting the field of ARG or Alternate Reality Gaming is becoming but then I finished off Thanksgiving leftovers which reduced my brainpower to such a reptile-like state that I had to reach into my emergency topic pile and pull out something safe instead. Sorry, ARG fans, your day will come, I promise. Also, I now have an excuse if this post reads about as well as a steaming turd.

When you (I) Google Image Search Alternate Reality Gaming, this is what you (you still) get.

Instead, we're going to be talking about the incredibly popular genre of (primarily) computer gaming known as RTS. For those of you reading this who SOMEHOW also don't know what RTS stands for (which is actually probably going to be a substantial number of people since I'm mostly hawking this blog on Facebook right now), I grant you Real Time Strategy. What this means is that while you're sitting there and strategizing, planning your moves, the computer or other human players are also doing their own thing. You know, in real time. As an extension of that concept, this also means that, unless you're Korean (and no, not that one, I'm talking about the one with individual freedoms) you're probably going to lose almost every game you play. I sure do, anyway. This in no way means I'm just bad at RTS. I mean...it DOES mean that, but it also means you're all bad at it, too. I'm sure you'll dig up some "concrete evidence" or something to the contrary but this probably just means you hate me.

Micro after the jump.

I got my (terrible) start with the RTS genre with the sweet SNES port of Populous in 1991. I really loved this game and to this day there's still a bit of nostalgic warmth and fuzziness associated with the title. I was also 9 years old and stupid. At that age, it was an amazing concept. You play a god and you have to help your little villagers who worship the heck out of you prosper, preparing them for the day when they meet the Other God's villagers and then they start Rock 'Em Sock 'Eming each other to death. Do you know who doesn't read instruction manuals? Nine year olds. You know who had no idea there were even supposed to be enemies in the game until it was too late? Me, 19 years ago.

This is how I learned about religion and how to hate the RTS.

Despite all the joys associated with my memories of Populous, it never got better for me. I would run into the bad guys each time then start the game over so I could just play up to that point because that was all I had any sort of aptitude for, not really coming to terms with the fact that I was completely missing the point of the entire game. This would be a recurring theme for me forever.

A few years later, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans came out. This was the era where you could go to the store and buy a disc full of roughly 800 shareware games for about $2.00. Basically, it was the greatest time to be alive ever. Somewhere in the middle of playing 30 hours of DOOM per day, I stumbled upon Warcraft. Whoa, what is this map? Is this Populous II? It should be stated that at the time I had no idea Populous II had already been out for years and discounted the fact that I could plainly see the game was called something else. There was a green map and there were little dudes walking around I could tell to do things. Strategically. This was a lot of fun! I started having guys collecting gold and wood and building little houses annnnnnd the AI and it's awful terrible orcs found me and that was the end of that little experience.

It was about this time that I started to pick up on the trend. I was bad at whatever style of game this was. I didn't come close to getting fooled by Starcraft. That wasn't even clever. Blizzard replaced the "W" with an "S" and a "t" and I had developed the handy skill of looking at the back of the box in the store. Eventually, the 2000s came along with Age of Empires (the sequels anyway). Man PC graphics sure have improved since I last played and...whoa, are these research trees? This is...cool. I guess. Err, wait, who are those guys and why are their uniforms different colors than mine? Don't worry, my naivete DOES end up breaking long before my entire empire is in flames.

I'm not sure what shuts off in my brain. It just happens. Every new RTS that comes down the pike I take a look at and think, "Aha! This time...will be different!" I don't know why I think that. I think it's because I'm brain-damaged or something and this is just one overly elaborate methodology designed to eventually enlighten me as to my illness because it's way more fun for the doctors that way.

Anyway, by the mid 2000s I was firmly mired in the 4X genre of empire building games. The Civilization series and such. I'd been an adult for awhile and I was at peace with the fact that, you know, there were all these other types of games out there that it just didn't matter that I was bad at RTS. I could enjoy myself so many other ways without involving torture.

Then I ran into Dwarf Fortress. Dwarf Fortress married RTS with Roguelikes (explanation another time, I'm already running longer than I should with the level of carbohydrates currently circulating in my body. I'll show a picture and that will have to be good enough for now) with a liberal scoop of boundless insanity poured on top. I had been playing MUDs for a full decade and a half up to this point so getting me to sign on board was a mere formality. Somehow, beyond all logic, I had no idea what I was in for.

I love this game and I still have no idea what's going on here.

Dwarf Fortress introduced the most punishing and non-newbie friendly learning curve of all time. It's also probably the best game of all time if you can fully figure out the ins and outs of gameplay which would most likely require a Ph. D. in...I dunno, whatever it takes to make heads or tails of the above image. I spent a few hours trawling around this lovely little title and then goblins or something started attacking my industrious little dwarves and, since I'm not a nuclear physicist, I couldn't figure out how to make weapons and that was the end of my fledgling dreams of becoming king of all dwarves and their fortresses.

I don't actually hate the genre, to be honest. I'm just not very good at it. When I'm not very good at things I get jealous and catty and start saying things I don't mean or aren't true. It's the same reason why I don't get too far into listing the sports I like. I don't find basketball detestable because I hate rap (or any other unfortunate implications), it's because I can't dribble and move in any direction at the same time without bouncing my head off the ground and slipping in and out of lucidity for the next 12 hours.

I guess the first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem and boy do I ever. As much as I love games I simply can't deal with Real Time Strategy. I blame the adults in my childhood for telling me that I was supposed to take turns. Who wants to play chess? I DO BECAUSE I AM A GENTLEMAN.

No clue. Heat - Celtics?

Amnesia. A trope, yes, but also the key...

2010-11-27T14:13:00.002-05:00

...to self-inflicted heart attacks.

Big ups to M0RG0TH13, bane of elves, dwarves, and men across the entire breadth of Middle Earth (not to mention my first commenter). To be honest I was terrified that this early in the lifespan of my blog, I wouldn't get a single suggestion for today's article. One is a pretty sweet step in the right direction.

Anyway, the suggested topic for this post is a little game called Amnesia: The Dark Descent by Swedish developer Frictional Games, creators of the Penumbra series. If you look around the internet digging for reviews and details about Amnesia, you're going to see a lot written about the efficacy this game enjoys as a constipation aid. THIS IS MY ONLY REFERENCE TO POOP IN THIS ARTICLE. It's been overdone and I don't want to be that guy.

Fight or flight after the jump.

As you'll find will probably be the case often, I want to give a little personal background gravy which is fitting since...I dunno...something about Thanksgiving (note to self: find better words for this later). There are a lot of adventure elements in Amnesia. Make no bones about it though, this game is a survival horror title at its heart. It's a genre I have a love-love-hate relationship with. That is...I love survival horror. I love it again. Then I hate it because my psyche is so fragile and I get so terrified playing these games that I can usually only play them in one to two hour blocks at a time AT MOST before needing significant time to stop whimpering. It started with the incredibly awesome Haunted House for the Atari 2600. After I got my first Nintendo in 1986, Horror, video games, and myself sadly took a long break from each other but that was probably for the best because I was only 5 and I turned out messed up enough, thank you.

Shut up, this was nightmare fuel.

There were creepy games in the coming years, sure...Super Castlevania IV in particular I remember experiencing a profound sense of unease playing at night or during a thunderstorm. Give me a break! I was still only like 10 at the time and very delicate. It didn't help matters much that my sister used to terrify me in the interim by hunting me through the house with this hideously terrifying Halloween mask that scarred me for life. I swear, I would hide everywhere when she brought that god damned thing out. Toy chests, clothes hampers, under beds. Didn't matter where I went, she'd find me eventually, sniveling and blubbering and OH MY GOD WHEN MY THERAPIST ASKS, I'M BLAMING YOU SIS.

Anyway. Eventually we moved along to the Playstation-era and hello Resident Evil. I was blown away. Games like Silent Hill and Fatal Frame followed. Sure the controls were terrible, but we were breaking new ground in the 3rd person perspective in the 3D space and this was progress, dammit. Actually, in my opinion, this made the games all the more scary. Imagine trying to survive the zombie apocalypse but instead of being able to move like...you know, a normal person, you had to stand in place and rotate fully in the direction you wanted to travel before you slogged off on a given path. Those agonizing seconds of swimming-through-molasses-futility were a terror factory that didn't really get "better" until Resident Evil 4 decided people had enough with scary and instead wanted capability. Unfortunately, that's basically where we stood for awhile. Horror wasn't scary anymore because now the player had a fighting chance. Unless something new came along, the genre was dead.

Now, I'm not one of those hipster kids who claim the only products worth enjoying are those created by organizations or companies with the "Indie" label emblazoned proudly upon them. What I will say is that the great thing about Indie developers is that where the AAA companies are, as a rule (of successful business), risk-averse, these little darlings are all-in at the casino. When you already have everyone at the table like a Capcom or EA might, you don't want to alienate anyone. When your paying customers total few or less, the more "out there" your concept is, the greater your chance of grabbing some attention.

Frictional has been working up to this for a while. The Penumbra series features some pretty terrifying locales and situations all from the perception-narrowing (and thus fear-increasing) first-person perspective. In Amnesia: The Dark Descent, they move forward by taking a step back. You can no longer defend yourself. Your only chance for self-preservation lies in trying to balance keeping your surrounding environs illuminated enough to keep your sanity and hiding in the shadows and cupboards whenever a shambling, awful body-horror rears its (very, very) ugly head.

Frictional takes an extra step, and it's a gutsy one, of adding ambient sound effects your brain IMMEDIATELY interprets as the presence of a threat behind you or on the other side of that door or just around the corner. That creak of the floorboard was CLEARLY a footstep, right? That thump sounded like someone moving something in the next room! Add to this the ability to manipulate physics to the degree where you can slowly push doors open, maneuvering yourself to cautiously peek through them, and the ability to lean around corners to present as little of yourself into the next corridor's field of view and you get some of the most intuitive, organic tension that's ever been seen in the digital world.

I don't mean this to be a review, nor do I mean to go on all day and turn everyone off with a wall of text. Instead, a salute! Here's to you, Frictional! Here's to your wonderfully terrifying work on Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Get it, love it. Be scared witless by it. You won't be sorry! Well you will, but in a good way. Thanks for reading!

http://www.amnesiagame.com/

-R

P.S. Prior to 2010, the most scared I'd been in a survival horror title was in Silent Hill 4: The Room (I know, boo hiss, amirite?). You escape from Otherworld and wind up in your bed. Oh god, safe and sound right? I sat up and suddenly heard a baby crying. Okay. Creepy. I get it. Unnerved, I turned to get out of bed. There, in the closet, was a shadow on the wall of a child. That's all. Nothing was physically in the closet. Just the sound of an infant's tears and the tenuous outline of a toddler emblazoned on the wall. Watching me. I almost had a panic attack. My home was no longer my castle, but a pathetic fortress since breached by untold horrors and spirits and reduced to a smoldering sad facsimile of its former self. I was broken. Amnesia beats that. In the first hour. Without having you encounter enemies.

Fishin' for topics and usin' apostrophes because finishin' verbs is UNNECESSARY

2010-11-26T22:06:00.001-05:00

It's Holiday Hangover time. In tribute, or rather using that as an unrelated excuse, I'm going to take suggestions on what to write my next blog post about. The deadline for topic suggestions is Noon EST Saturday, November 27th. Hopefully it'll be video game related, but it's not necessary. After I decide on the winning entry, I'll have the post up later tomorrow. Suggestions may be made in the comments section here or as a comment on my Facebook page.

Don't sit on your hands! Let me give you a shout out! Suggest anything, as long as anything doesn't include me not writing. Don't be a dick.

Genesis of the Emoticon

2010-11-24T13:59:00.002-05:00

Well, OK, not the FIRST emoticon. The one (my LOTRO guild and) I created and have tried to foster and nurture to prominence. The task is not an easy one.

Perhaps I should do some establishing first. We humans live a pitifully short time. The whole concept of legacy...creating something that lasts long after we're gone...be it a child, a novel, a legend, whatever...is, in essence, a feeble grasp at immortality.

Founding Wendy's after the jump.

Leaving a legacy is HARD. I'm conspicuously bad at sparking relationships, particularly the kind that could result in Punnett Square Live Action Actual Playing. I don't have the attention span necessary (and some would argue the talent needed otherwise) to pen some sweeping epic. The most legendary I ever got was either the time I futilely chased a shoplifter around a parking lot or the time I beat an 8 year old at chess (I was 17 at the time).

Sometimes...you just have to get creative.

INSTEAD of doing THAT...I was playing LOTRO, my current Pay MMO of choice, where there was a spirited and whimsical discussion in the chat channel of our kinship, Lindsay Rohan (you're welcome). One thing led to another and we were discussing how we wished there was the ability to tag the landscape with sprays similar to the functionality present in Team Fortress 2. At this point, my roommate recalled the Dave Thomas (yes, the founder of Wendy's) spray he enjoyed using in TF2. Bemoaning the lack of this feature in LOTRO, I blurted out that we might as well use:

d_t

Like this, only text.

It was as if a fanfare had sounded. It's like we were playing Periodic Chart Roulette and the ball landed squarely and emphatically on Au. Maybe I'm overreacting. We started using d_t after every statement to see where it fit best. We began using JUST d_t as a response to questions and ideas. We began going through permutations...capital d? T? Double underscore? Changes in font size?

Its level of expression is unparalleled and just as ambiguous. Is it slightly confused? Are its facial features a study in unsettling asymmetry? Does it have one too many chromosomes in its makeup? Was it a case where d_t's parents were a little TOO closely related to engage in textual intercourse without first thinking of the repercussions?

Needless to say, the beast evolved beyond the bounds of our initial parameters into something beyond our control. Use it. Embrace it. My immortality depends on it. Make d_t a part of your unnecessary discourse today!

Avast!

2010-11-23T15:02:00.002-05:00

A vast what? It doesn't really matter. Hey, my name is Roger. This morning at work, I was in an infuriatingly mind-numbing meeting where I resolved to do absolutely anything else later in the day as a step toward reaching the unlikely goal of doing something more along the lines of what I WANT to do with my life.* I want to write about video games. I want to write about the video game industry. I want to make people laugh. I want to make people angry. At some point, I would like several sandwiches.

Toward that end, I started a blog. Not just any blog, mind you...but this blog in particular. You know, the one you're reading (somehow). You see, at some point during my life I got it lodged in my head that I could write at a level dangerously bordering on coherence. I have a knack, sometimes, for making people laugh. My parents decided that one of the best babysitters available to them when I was but a precocious tot was an Atari 2600 modded to play pretty much every game ever released up to 1984. They were right about that last bit.

It's the perfect storm. I am the perfect voice. I have the perfect sideburns.

Some days, I'll probably talk about a specific game tickling my neurons. Other days, I might take a look at (and then type a bunch about) trends. Just as likely as either of those topics, I'll rant about something completely unrelated. Want to know what's hot in the latest pet cactus names? Gotcha covered.** Interested (for some reason) on where I stand in the F2P vs. Premium MMO debate? I can help you out. Looking to inflate the ego of a hack video game nerd with either ebullient praise or the vilest of infernal flames? Boy, have I got a comments section for YOU.

I hope you enjoy your time here at this one (of infinite) corner(s) of the internet. It is an honor that you wasted your time with me. Check back for more!

-R

*What a terrifying sentence. There will be more of these, I promise/warn you.
**The answer, as with most things, is Guy Carbonneau.