HDO

Diablo 3: Release Night

Keiya — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:40:52 +0000

In summary, if you did not receive your copy of Diablo 3 until Tuesday afternoon or evening, you did not miss out on a whole lot, given how utterly slammed the servers were (general rule of thumb: don't really ever expect to play online games of this popularity immediately after release).

I was actually able to login without any problems (seemed to get in before Error 37 was an issue), but got stuck on the character screen in and endless timeout loop. Apparently though, the characters were created, given that my account was full of level 1 monks when I had logged in briefly the next morning to check my account. I have heard that a few folks were able to not only login immediately, but also create characters and play with little to no delay. All of those people are bastards lol. There were a couple more major server outages (servers were down effectively all of Tuesday evening and then for about one hour Wednesday evening immediately after I had arrived home from work lol...). Otherwise, I have been able to play lately without any real connection issues. I have been enjoying playing my monk; Currently level 21 in act II.

New Computer Build: End of Q1 Edition

Keiya — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 01:57:09 +0000

We ended making a gigantic Fry’s run to build a new a computer a couple of weeks back because old faithful had been in the process of giving up the ghost for a about a year and some change. for those who are curious: It was a combination of 0x124 BSODs for hal.dll (hardware abstraction layer), random restarts, and lockups; BSODs most often with no discernible pattern other than it always occurs when I am doing something and never idle (albeit minor tasks like clicking on a link). It would choose to crash/restart about once every hour or two at the rate of about one day out of every two or three months (and then be fine for another month or two and then repeat the cycle).

As of late, the cycle has become more frequent (it was happening about once a week). I have narrowed the issue down to some piece of hardware, either the PSU or the motherboard (extensively tested everything else). I am pretty sure that it’s the motherboard that was going bad based on other issues this machine has been having. But, long story short: New computer toy time \o/. This build is what I ended up going with. Several compromises were made in interest of being able to pick everything up at Fry’s in one trip (and not having to deal with package delivery and pickup):

Component	Item	Price (approx)
CPU	Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz	$299.99
Motherboard	Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 ATX LGA1155	$179.99
Memory	Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory	$45.00
Graphics	XFX 1GB HD 6870 (from old PC)	N/A
Storage	Primary: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM	$129.99
	Data: WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM (from old PC)	N/A
	Optical: SAMSUNG SH-S223B (from old PC)	N/A
PSU	Corsair 850W ATX12V	$189.99
Case	Antec P280 ATX	$130.00
Cooling	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO	$29.33
Sound	Asus Xonar Essence STX (from old PC)	N/A

I am reusing my video card, soundcard, optical drive (HTPC has a Blu-Ray drive, don’t need one for this machine), media HDD, and two of my case fans. It is kind of tempting to pick up another HD 6870 to go crossfire because those cards do not cost too much (and just for the sake of running with two VGA cards). Overall though, I know that I am probably better off going for a single card solution. The 680 looks nice, but I don’t feel like dropping half a grand on even more computer parts independent of the fact that it is effectively sold out everywhere.

I am a pretty big fan of Antec’s Performance One case line; My previous two cases being the p180 and p182. They are great at dampening fan noise among other things but anyone who has ever worked with these cases probably knows how much of a pain in the ass they are to build with in regards the the general lack of able routing options in combination with the chamber partitioning (routing all PSU cabling through one or two holes without the benefit of a modular PSU is a small nightmare).

The p280 on the other hand was so much easier to work with. It is first of all, way lighter (by about 10lbs) due to changes with the internal design (no more partitioning or drive cages). It is a bit wider and deeper than the 183; Roomy enough to fit a long video card and route wires without any issues. For example, the SATA ports on my motherboard are located along the right edge, which would be hard to reach in most cases but easy in the 182. Also there are, at long last, cutouts that allow you to route cables behind the motherboard.

Speaking of which, I really do wish that the CPU power hookup wasn’t located at the way way top of the board. That is fine for most cases, but since the p280 has a bottom loaded PSU (though without the partitioning, good riddance), it was impossible for me to route that one cable behind the motherboard as intended.. Eyesore.

Oh also: Modular PSUs are nice. (Build photos are included below in the full post)

Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer No Interactions Bug

Keiya — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:21:51 +0000

This happens to other people, right? Every once in a while (one out of every 8 to 10 games) the game will glitch out in such a way that I will not be able to interact with anything on the map. As in, unable to resurrect downed players, damage enemies, climb ladders, receive ammo or cap objectives. It doesn't happen too bad in this video since it eventually seems to go away after dying and being resurrected. Most of the time though, I end up quitting out of the match. Unsure if it's a glitch or just dodgy ass netcode. I had assumed that I was joining a game with a host on a bad connection, but we were hosting this game and the bug was inconsistent.

The Apple Magic Trackpad & Windows 7

Keiya — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:09:03 +0000

Just in case anyone else was curious, here is all of the collective knowledge that I was able to gather in regards to getting the Apple Magic Trackpad device to work in Windows 7 (64-bit in my case). It’s not really that hard, but the device seems to be somewhat finicky and just about every guide I read left out at least one critical piece of information. All of the one finger gestures and most of the two finger gestures will work on Windows 7. A compatibility chart can be found on this Apple KB Article.

I have seen two separate sets of instructions: What I typed below and another set that told me to rename the .bin file to an executable. I was able to install the drivers by renaming the .bin, but the trackpad would only function as a basic mouse without any gestures or any tapping. Anyway, the instructions below worked flawlessly for me.

Download, but do not install the Boot Camp Software Update. Here are the download links for 32-bit Windows and 64-bit Windows.
Extract 'BootCamp_3.2_64-bit.exe' with 7-zip. Doing so should create a file called 'BootCampUpdate64.msp'.
Extract or navigate into the MSP file and find the 'BootCamp3200aToBootCamp3200' folder.
Look for the 'Binary.AppleWirelessTrackpad_Bin' file which is in itself yet another compressed item. Decompress the contents of this file into a folder.
Look for DPInst.exe and run it.

Several things:

I don't think that the trackpad will work with anything but the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. So, if you have 3rd party drivers installed, consider removing them. If you are having trouble getting the Microsoft drivers to install, this program is supposed to work: Bluetooth Driver Installer.
If you have the Motionjoy bluetooth drivers install, you may have to delete them manually out of the Device Manager since the drivers remain even after uninstalling the software itself. For some reason, the trackpad would only pair as a motionjoy gamepad so long as said drivers were installed. All of this by the way was occurring while I was attempting to install the trackpad on the third party bluetooth drivers, so I don't know if there is actually any conflict at all.
The pairing code for the trackpad is '0000'.

If you wish to customize the trackpad, this program works pretty well.

Tribes Ascend Beta

Keiya — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:50:51 +0000

I have been playing Tribes Ascend a lot lately, or more accurately: a lot pre-Mass Effect 3 (forgot to publish this entry :P). Admittedly, for whatever reason, this game is my first real descent into the Tribes series. The game itself is a free-to-play class based science fiction themed multiplayer FPS. It is currently in open beta with a slated release date for early/mid April (the 12th I think).

Tribes’ unique movement system is what sets it apart from the standard fair of copypaste shooters currently available on the market. The game experience has a whole is literally almost constant high speed movement. If you are new to the series, it isn’t a bad idea to run through the movement tutorial to review skiing and jetpacking basics before jumping online. It’s not difficult or anything, but the game doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you do not have a grasp on the movement concept. If there is a downside, I guess it is that almost every other online shooter will seem like a slow speed camp fest in comparison.

I had the beta sitting on my computer for quite some time, but started playing quite a bit after the big update in early February which more-or-less overhauled most of the interface and added an assortment of interesting new things (classes, weapons, and the like). The skill trees were nixed in favor of a more straightforward linear upgrade system and the interface looks just way way way less of a clusterfuck. As a whole it feels like a much more polished game.

Vehicles at the moment, unless this has changed, are purely call-in perks. As such, they really aren’t utilized all that much. Basically, it’s pretty rare to see anyone use a vehicle which is a kind of a shame because they are cool. Learning to lead shots takes some time to get used to. It’s fun, it’s (mostly) free, it’s fast paced and a breath of fresh air. Random video footage below:

On The Raid Finder

Keiya — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:53:24 +0000

Two weeks of Dragon Soul runs since returning to WoW after a two month Skyrim/whatever break and I manage to snag 5/5 pieces of Tier 13. Nice. This almost makes up for 6 years of bad rolls. Also, if you were in that one run with me where I broke the one item per run rule and won two of the armor tokens, I'm sorry :(, trigger happy.

I like the raid finder; It's simple to use and gets people who wouldn't normally have the opportunity to raid (or like myself, don't have the time to participate in a regular schedule and don't want to sit in LFG all night), into the new content with minimal hassle and server drama.

Skyrim: Dragon vs Draugr

Keiya — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:21:24 +0000

Just clearing out, encoding, and uploading some of the videos that I have laying around in my FRAPS folder. If I recall correctly, this video was recorded at some point during Skyrim's launch day. I don't remember exactly what level I was at, but that draugr was way way hard. Conveniently, a dragon happened to spawn nearby. Ignore the inane running around and faffing about; This video is the clipped version. It took absolutely forever to bait the dragon over.

HTPC Build

Keiya — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:29:01 +0000

The build listed in the chart below is what we ended up running with for the HTPC that we built at the end of December. At long last, the dream has been realized. The ASRock motherboard that we had originally ordered off of Newegg arrived DOA, so it was RMA’d back and replaced with a Gigabyte mATX board acquired during an emergency run to Fry’s electronics.

The case we picked is nice looking, well built, and quiet, even with the dinky 70mm fans. Size wise, it's about the size of a large DVR or VCR and fits on our console/TV crap cart perfectly. There really isn’t a whole lot of clearance between the desk drawer and the floor so height was a concern.

Component	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-2120	$119.99
Motherboard	ASRock Z68 PRO3-M Micro ATX LGA1155 (Arrived DOA) GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3	$109.99 $124.99
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600	$29.99
Graphics	PNY GeForce GT 430 1GB	$55.98
Storage	Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM	$157.27
PSU	Antec 380W ATX12V / EPS12V	$44.99
Case	Lian-Li PC-C37B HTPC Case	$159.98
Optical	Samsung SH-222AB DVD/CD Writer	$22.98

I have tried most of the popular media portion solutions and honestly, all of them were either a pain in the ass to setup or didn’t really suit our needs. XBMC came close; I actually had spent a considerable amount of time configuring to play Blu-Ray Disks and ISOs (which it does not do “out of the box”), launch external applications and play Netflix.

However, loading everything using their respective normal programs ala normal computer usage works far better in our situation even though it is difficult to read small text on the TV from the couch. None of the media portals supported subtitles all that well, particularly if a video has multiple video or audio tracks. I don’t think anything other than the standard video players will allow you to easily swap subs and audio tracks (correct me if I am wrong).

We are using an Apple Magic Trackpad and one of those small Apple bluetooth keyboard to control the system. Both devices are nice looking and do not take up a lot of space, which is nice since both devices permanently live on the coffee table (certain things never get put away). Getting the trackpad to work in Windows 7 was interesting, I’ll make a separate post about that just in case anyone was having trouble getting it to work. I also have a Synergy server running off of my computer, which effectively allows me to use the TV as a third screen.

I was surprised but, that small-ass video card lets us play WoW at a relatively high video setting (my interface however, is not designed to be viewed or played from the couch, so I will need to work something out).. Most of those arcadeish steam games look and work fantastically with an Xbox controller. I need to find my ROM stash; I have about 10 to 15 gigs worth burried on an older HDD.

BlizzCon 2011 Photos (Better Late Than Never)

Keiya — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:36:28 +0000

And I post this two months or so later. Oh well. Long story short, BlizzCon, our self anniversary gift to each other was fun. So fun that we both started up WoW again after a 4 month absence, then kind of stopped playing again when Skyrim came out a month later. I kind of haven't logged in for patch 4.3 yet and I swear that I will one day if I can make it past the pile of games yet to be played. Speaking of which, it's probably already too late to buy it but the Humble Indie Bundle #4 is a fantastic deal.

I think I like the idea of playing WoW on a more casual basis. Should I decide to log on consistently, it would be nice to raid again at some point, though I am not sure that I am interested in another fixed weekly raiding schedule. I'll give Looking For Raid a try at some point. By the way, the cross-server Real ID friends dungeon running thing is a great feature. Being able to instance with my friends is again is pretty sweet, huzzah.

So the con: We ended up watching quite a few of the StarCraft 2 matches more than any other particular activity at the convention. Being able to attend the GSL finals was a real treat by the way ( both the main hall ad the RTS stages were packed). I really really wanted to stay until the end but since I was falling asleep in my chair, we ditched out at around midnight.

Here are a couple of photos. I suck at taking pictures by the way :/.

Proposed HTPC Build (AKA Merry Christmas to us!)

Keiya — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 19:17:39 +0000

Bah, long time no post. In short: Skyrim + whatever else I was doing was so fun and engrossing that I had negleted to do anything else including signing onto WoW and posting here. I also have BlizzCon photos from 2 months ago that I keep meaning to blog about or at least post. Anyway, let's just say that Santa was good to me this week so our self Christmas gifts year will be an HTPC a bit over my original budget ($400 to $500 originally). Using the PS3 and various software to stream videos to the TV isn't turning out to be all that great of a solution.

Component	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-2120	$119.99
Motherboard	ASRock Z68 PRO3-M Micro ATX LGA1155	$109.99
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600	$29.99
Graphics	PNY GeForce GT 430 1GB	$55.98
Storage	Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM	$157.27
PSU	Antec 380W ATX12V / EPS12V	$44.99
Case	Lian-Li PC-C37B HTPC Case	$159.98
Optical	Samsung SH-222AB DVD/CD Writer	$22.98
Total:		$701.17

I really wish harddrives would go down in price. Paying that much for a 1TB drive when they were going for less than half that price a couple of months ago kind of sucks.

October Errata

Keiya — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:18:02 +0000

Hello internet! We just finished moving and settling in to the new place, which would be half of the reason why there have been no posts made. Being lazy and not having much to play would be the other half of why no posts have been made; But that's another story I guess. BlizzCon is this weekend! As in tomorrow! I will try to post pictures and what not within a reasonable amount of time, but the gallery module on this site is kind of perma broken so we'll see. We are hoping to catch at least one of the big BlizzCon meetup events. I know that WoWInsider has one tonight; There was supposed to be a huge barcaft event after the con, but that was cancelled QQ. I am greatly looking forward to seeing the Foo Fighters live on Saturday. Was kind of sad that yet again, I neglected to buy tickets when they were touring in my neck of the woods.

So, several things that I have been meaning to post about:

The Battlefield 3 open beta was kind of lame initially, then significantly less lame when the Caspian Border map was released. I swear that at least half of BF is spent running from one interesting point to another. It was fun, but probably not my cup of tea. Actually, I may buy it if A. Is cheap enough and B. If the developers fix all of the dumb interface quirks.
Orcs Must Die is really fun. I downloaded the demo then purchased the full game earlier this week. It's not that cheap of a game at $15, so I was reluctant to buy it in lieu of the upcoming November game releases (and having just spent a shit ton of money on real life items). It's a tower defense and third person hack n' slash hybrid. Both the tower defense and action elements are fairly average in terms of gameplay, but it's a great combination. It's fun, it's polished and can get challenging as the game progresses.
The Deus Ex: Human Revolution DLC (Missing Link) is pretty fun, though again, fairly expensive for what it is at $15.
I've started playing Team Fortress 2 again on-and-off to quench a bad itch that I've had for an online shooter. It's still fun even with the hats and what not, though I can only play it for about an hour or two before getting bored. Either my tastes are changing or my attention span is shrinking...
My keyboard is starting to go. It will occasionally freeze up or stick on one key and I will have to reach behind my case to unplug and replug the USB cable to resolve the issue. I don't know if it's some sort of software conflict or if it is the keyboard itself. I think I am going to settle on a nice mechanical keyboard for my next hardware purchase.
We just finished watching Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica at the recommendation of several fellow anime fans with similar tastes. I detest magical girl shows so I had my doubts, but this series was actually very very good. It's one of the better shows that I have seen in quite a while.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Keiya — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 05:02:20 +0000

The original Deus Ex is legendary, it represents a turning point in gaming, offering a depth of gameplay, a scope of vision and a story telling method not seen in a medium of this type until that point in time. It is widely considered to be one of the best games ever made by myself and many other players. To say that Deus Ex Human Revolution has a lot to live up to is an understatement; I mean, how do you live up to the greatest game of all time? TL;DR: This game is a lot of fun (I'd say in my top three for this year: Portal 2, Witcher 2 and Human Revolution). It is single handedly responsible for me going to bed past 2am for an entire week, thus doubling my caffeine intake.

Deus Ex's "flavor" has always been that of variety and Human Revolution is no exception. The gameplay is fantastic and pretty much, exactly what I had wanted from this title. I really love games that offer a flexible range of experiences, particularly if there is a strong stealthing (straight up shooters are a dime a dozen, but stealth, not so much). I liked the first/third person hybrid gameplay. Though initially awkward to use, it worked out well in my opinion. Holding the right mouse button while behind cover will switch to a 3rd person view of Adam. Tapping and holding the space bar allows you to respectively roll to a new cover spot and round corners. You also have the option of blind firing. It is a good solution to common cover problems and works a hell of a lot better than repeatedly leaning to peek around corners in first person view.

As expected, Human Revolution provides a multitude of options for different gameplay styles. Players with a more subtle touch won't be forced to kill people if they do not want to. Similarly, if you aren't into hacking and sneaking, brute force works as well. Just about every single point in the game offers an alternative route for all play styles; All of which feel rewarding in their own way. I never really felt like the game was punishing me if I chose one method of advancement over another, and that's important. There's also fair room for more creative solutions. So if you want to cheese an area by spending an hour stacking crates or methodically collecting turrets, nothing is really stopping you.

The shooter aspect of Human Revolution feels fairly average and the mouse controls were reported as being laggy for some folks (the patch corrected that issue for me). Also, I didn't really like the take down animations. They were somewhat repetitive and awkward in the sense that, the game switches camera views every single time certain abilities were performed. It kind of broke fluidity. Otherwise, the normal flow of the game has a good rhythm.

There are a wide variety of augmentations available supporting the many styles of gameplay as mentioned above. As you play through the game you acquire experience for doing certain activities (killing, hacking, tranquilizing, etc etc). When you acquire enough experience, you level up and are rewarded with one Praxis Point to be used towards the redemption of various augmentations. Praxis Points may also be purchased for 5k credits from LIMB clinics. The Praxis Points really aren't that widely available, so you have to pick and choose carefully between upgrades as you progress through the story.

This point is kind of a nitpick but: Many of the augmentations felt a bit oddly placed to me. It is really easy to minmax out certain skills relatively early on in the game, trivializing certain challenges. Also, the energy bar upgrades were fairly useless seeing as how you can only naturally regenerate one bar. Since the candy bars were relatively rare I was reluctant to use them. Overall, the extra energy bars were only used at very few points in the game.

The hacking minigame, for once, was actually pretty fun. Though to be honest, it got a little old by the end of the game seeing as how I obsessively hacked just about every single door and every single computer in the game. The fact that the game does not pause when you hack adds a bit of urgency. You have to be quick or thorough enough to make sure that all of the guards along that pathing route have been accounted for (vending machine fort worked pretty well lol). Otherwise, you will be caught and shot at.

On top of that, it’s a game of risk versus reward. Without going into a long-ass explanation as to how the hacking actually works (just watch a YouTube video or something), most of the hacking screens have optional datacores that will yield extra credits, sensitive information or hacking goodies (stop worms and nuke viruses). Attempting to grab the datacores greatly increases the risk of you getting caught and also takes a bit more time.

Human Revolution has two main weak points: One, the boss fights and two, the cut scenes. Both elements to say the least feel like relics from the past. It’s also worth noting that the load times, though GREATLY improved after a patch are still plentiful and fairly annoying (especially for quick save abusers). But combined, these issues interrupt the game’s rhythm.

I will just outright say it: The cutscenes are god awful and distracting. What was the point of doing that and what was the point of pre-rendering them? The clips are short, about 30 to 60 seconds on average and usually occur towards the beginning or the end of a main quest sequence. In otherwords, you get a crap ass movie at every single pivotal point in the game. To top it off, not only does the game steal control away from you during these critical moments, but it completely abandons the game engine in favor of cheesy looking poorly rendered video

There are good boss fights and then there are bad boss fights. As I see it, boss encounters should feel like a natural climax to a storyline or a chapter; It should be meaningful to the game’s storyline or at the very least, original in terms of gameplay. The problem with many many boss fights is that they feel artificial and detached from the main narrative. They feel like an arbitrary and somewhat irrelevant end level challenge for the sake of having an end level challenge and not because they really belong there. That is my real issue with boss fights.

The boss fights were an interesting choice for Human Revolution, especially for someone who chose to play most of the game as a 100% stealth run (most lol). And especially since, if I recall correctly, the first Deus Ex offered non-lethal options or ways of avoiding boss encounters (I could be wrong, it has been over 10 years since my last playthrough). On one hand, they offered a change in pacing. On the other, I didn’t really like being forced into lethal action, though that my have been the point. It would have been awesome if the encounters offered a stealth objective or something more creative than running and gunning. It was particularly awkward seeing as how I had skilled most of my points into stealth and hacking.

I really liked Human Revolution’s graphics from a design standpoint. It is a stylized game, as in, not meant to be photorealistic like Crysis. The limited color palette keenly depicts a cold and narrow world. Frequent use of gold and black contrasts and accents important parts of the game (along with read and white serving as highlights). The colors also tie the game together as a central theme: Gold represents the golden age of cybernetic research whereas black represents its dystopic side. Revolutionary advances in biotechnology stifled by socioeconomic strife.

Some people don’t like limited color palettes (another “brown game), but in this case its fitting and represents good use of the intentional color palette limitation. After all, it’s not as if the dystopian near future is going to be painted with happy rainbow colors. From a technical standpoint, Human Revolution has several problems. First of all, as detailed as the game is, some of the texturing and shadowing do not look very good at higher definition. The overall city scenes, interiors and overall designs look quite nice, but some of the details, not so much.

Also, many of the character models look sub-par (screenshot comparison). For example: Compare anyone from the main cast (Adam, Sarif, etc) with less important characters. Some kind of don’t look too good to a distracting degree. The facial engines or lack thereof are notably rudimentary. Most of the soldiers, civilians and other non-main characters are grossly reused. It wouldn’t have hurt to include a bit more variety. Overall, nitpicks and what not aside, I was happy with Human Revolution’s art direction and style. It’s an overall very slick looking and well designed game.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the choice system. The Witcher 2 had spoiled me so I set my bar rather high. Along the sliding scale of choice systems, Human Revolution feels like it lays somewhere between The Witcher 2 and Mass Effect. It’s not bad or anything, but I really wanted the ending of the game to feel like the culmination of all of the choices that I had made throughout the game. I did not feel that was achieved. But that said, I was comparing game stories with several folks and was very very surprised at exactly how different each person’s game experiences were. May mission outcomes and game reactions are a direct result of your choices and actions.

(First mission spoiler). I didn’t realize that the hostages in the factory could be saved because I was never presented with that objective. So lo-and-behond, post action everyone in Sarif was pissed at me and I did not understand why. I mean, sure I didn’t save the secretary, but she had a gun pointed to her head. I did the best that I could given the urgent situation! You all are dicks! I did not realize that if you dick around headquarters for long enough, the hostages would be executed. I had been so damned focused on rummaging through emails and stealing shit that I had kind of blown off David Sarif’s irate message. My bad. Actually, to best honest, I had assumed that the hostages were scripted deaths. I made a point of saving everyone the second time around.

Deus Ex: HR - Taggart's Location in Panchaea

Keiya — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:25:42 +0000

I've been obsessively playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I am kind of sad that I am almost finished with the game seeing has how there's not much else that I want to play until November rolls around. This video/post isn't really a spoiler, but it does take place towards the latter part of the game. I had more trouble finding this guy and for some reason, could not find much help online. From the LIMB clinic do the following:

Go down the hall, up the stairs on the left and through the door on the right. You should now be located on the rightmost side of a fairly large area.
The door that you want to reach is on exact the opposite side of the walkway along the same wall. You can either stealth/fight your way through (the area in the video had been pre-cleared) or hop on the scaffolding to the right and climb onto the ledge (much easier but may require the jump upgrade).
Go through the door and down the stairs (the door will be partially obscured by a series of fallen black beams).
The next hallway is protected by two security cameras. If you wish to disable them, there is a level 5 security hub located in the first door to the right (beware, mobs inside).
Go down the hall, drop down off of the main walkway to the left. Go through the vent.

If you go straight down the vent, you will reach a ladder that will drop you straight down into Taggart's room (easiest way). Alternatively, if you turn right you will be lead to an area with both a level 5 locked door as well as a weakened wall. Both will lead you directly into his room. Here's the map location if it's easier.

Bastion (XBLA)

Keiya — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:05:50 +0000

I was itching for a cheap new game a couple of weeks ago and turned to Steam to satisfy my need. Bastion was at the top of one of the store lists, but unfortunately wasn't out yet for the PC so I bought it off of XBLA instead. I don't know how the PC version compares, but I assume that it is of the same/better quality as the console version since it has received fairly high marks all around. Bastion is a fantastic isometric action-RPG. At heart it is a fairly basic game both as both the gameplay as well as the story or more-or-less standard fair for an action RPG. Just about everything about it though works out very well. It's polished, the mechanics are tightly controlled and it's fun. The graphics and sound are both a treat.

In short, the world was destroyed during an event known as "The Calamity". It is up to you, The Kid to rebuild it. Action RPGs are a dime a dozen; So what separates Bastion from the rest? For one, the excellent narration. The entire story is live narrated by a gruff old wise-man known as Rucks. By live narrated I mean, everything down to minute actions are beautifully narrated. It adds a lot of depth and flavor to each section of the game.

There are a good range of weapons and upgrades. You are permitted to equip a total of two weapons and one special attack. There's a weapon that will cater to just about every play style. As you level, you unlock slots that can be filled with various potions that will add passive modifiers to your abilities. I do wish that the enemies were a little more varied. As you progress through the game, higher difficulty usually equates to either more enemies or more AoE attacks. It works, but it's a little uncreative to say the least.

It's a fairly short game at around 8 hours of gameplay for a single playthrough. After you complete the game, a new game plus mode is unlocked, allowing you to retain all of your weapons from your original playthrough. Bastion isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it sticks to it's roots and presents a neatly package, extremely polished game. There's a demo of Bastion up on Steam by the way.

Diablo 3 and Real Money Trading

Keiya — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 06:24:01 +0000

Diablo 3 was discussed over the weekend and the Internet exploded in rageful concern when these three main changes were announced:

Diablo 3 will require an always-on internet connection ala Starcraft 2.
No modifications will be allowed
There will be a real-money trade auction house.

I am assuming that the need for an internet connection to play at all, (as well as the modification ban) stems from security issues associated with the including real-life currency in the game. Or perhaps, it could be thinly veiled DRM plus Blizzard pushing their real ID social networking bit. If I recall correctly, the Diablo franchise has never been all that big on modding, certainty not in comparison to their other franchise (Warcraft and StarCraft). It's worth noting that I have a reliable internet connection (knocks on wood) and had only ever intended to play Diablo 3 online (yay co-op). Thus, I could care less about needing a persistent internet connection since it does not affect my style of play. That said, what's wrong with having an offline only mode ala Diablo 2, as lon gas players are sufficiently warned that the offline-mode characters can never be ported over to bnet?

Blizzard has been fighting the good fight against gold selling/trading and I guess if you can’t beat it, you may as well legalize and tax it. This announcement wasn’t all that surprising. It’s not as if RMT did not exist in Diablo 2; It was fairly rampant and to be honest, had a low to non-existent impact on my gaming experience (from what I remember). They may as well offer a legit channel for real money transactions as a legal alternative to any number of shady 3rd party sites (that may result in a ban or being outright scammed). If you don’t like it, then ignore it.

But that said, I wonder how RMT will affect the game’s atmosphere and culture? Any drama with loot gets ugly fast; I imagine real money magnifying the drama by at least 100 fold. *shudder*. I can’t put my finger on it, but real money trading feels sleazy. There’s nothing explicitly wrong with it, but it feels taboo and dirty. Part of me feels as if it moves Diablo 3 one step away from being a game and one step closer to being an occupation. Despite what I have said, I kind of still don’t like it.