Entries from November 2007 ↓

Hack in the Box had a story posted late last night regarding MIT posting it’s entire course offerings on-line.  After browsing through the computer science section I found a couple that would probably be of interest to readers:

• Videogame Theory and Analysis
• Game Theory and Mechanism Design

Look over the course list page there were a couple of others but I did not take a close look at them.

It’s about time to pull myself out of the turkey coma.  During the holiday I was able to finish up the single player parts of The Orange Box.  Portal is an absolutely amazing game, as is Episode 2.  Episode 2 however, left me wishing Valve didn’t take so long with there episodic content.  I still need to put in some Team Fortress 2 time but the little bit that I did play was fun.

The rest of my vacation time consisted of playing Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings.  It was an odd choice since I’ve never played FFXII and had no idea who any of the characters where.  But, the game quickly grew on me and I’ve managed to get about 70% through the game so far.  Basically, the game is an RTS/RPG type thing but, either element overpowering the experience.  Battle are a bit simplistic, with victory being decided with how many melee combatants you summon.  However, there were a few battles where I did find that to not work and instead had to approach the situation with a more thought out attack plan.  Graphically, the game is very well done - the character sprites can become very pixelated in a few scenes however, the cut scenes are typical Square-Enix things of beauty.  I found the controls to be decent - I had no issues navigating menus, issuing commands or moving my characters.  The sound is again typical for a Square-Enix game, the sound track is great - so play with headphones.  Over all a great game - hopefully, I’ll be able to finish it some time soon.

Currently Playing

I’m starting to get a bit overwhelmed, trying to find time to check out all the games I want to play. Currently, I’ve got a few titles sitting on my plate that I’m going to focus on - not counting Guild Wars, which I may have to give up sleep for.

The Orange Box (Xbox 360)

It’s been a little while since it’s release but, I finally made it over to Target to grab a copy for the Xbox 360. Over the past week I put in around ten hours and beat my way through Half-Life 2 again. As expected I still love the game. My only gripe about is about the damn load times - I wish Valve had done something about that. It’s that way in all Source engine games, even Portal - which has a excellent area to mask loading during the elevator ride between levels - comes to a screeching halt. Maybe when Half-Life 2 Episode 3 comes out in a few years they will finally have taken care of it. The Orange Box is my absolute favorite game/package of the year.

Orcs & Elves (Nintendo DS)

Although it arrived on Tuesday, I did not have a chance to try it out until yesterday morning. Even then I was only able to put in about ten minutes before I had to put the DS down. It was just enough time for me to realize that this game is going to be awesome - an old-school-style turn-based 3D action-RPG hack-n-slash adventure is just what my DS has been waiting for! I was able to cram in another hour or so of play time before going to sleep last night. During that time I was able to clean out a couple of levels worth of monsters with my trusty talking magic wand. Orcs & Elves puts you in a 3D grid based dungeon where you move square by square hacking your way through enemies in an effort to save dwarves from some orcs and elves. Hopefully, during my Thanksgiving downtime I’ll be about to put in the seven or so more hours needed to complete it.

Fireteam Reloaded (PC)

Way back in 97 or 98, I was involved with a beta test for an awesome on-line only multi-player game called Fireteam. After the beta ended however, I lost touch with everyone I played with because I didn’t have the time, money or a stable enough internet connection to continue playing. I’m pretty sure it’s the first on-line arena style combat game I ever played. Fireteam did receive generally favorable reviews, if I remember correctly but, being sold on-line only at $59.95 limited it’s impact. About a month ago I received a press release for an upcoming game known as Fireteam Reloaded - and much to my joy it turned out to be a re-hash of the classic. It even has a couple of developers from the original game. The game is just entering closed beta - which you all should join - and since I haven’t read the NDA very closely that’s about all I’ll say for now…

Exteel (PC)

I remember hearing about this game a while back and then promptly forgetting about it. Well, yesterday while mucking about on the NCsoft web site I ended up over at the Exteel official site and noticed that the open beta had just started.

Exteel is in no way an MMO - it’s basically a third person giant robot arena combat game. Once the beta ends Exteel will join the ranks of free to play, pay for some item on-line games. So far it seems pretty fun, I’ve only played three deathmatch rounds so far but, I’m hoping to squeeze more in. This might be one to watch.

Upcoming - once I finish (or get bored) with something else

Assassins Creed (Xbox 360)
Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360)
Guild Wars: Nightfall (PC)
Guild Wars: Eye of the North (PC)

Earlier today Kris and I were discussing the upcoming Christmas season when she asked me what I wanted. My reply was along the lines of “A stack of games please!”. So, along those lines I was just browsing around the Internet and I ended up on the Guild Wars web site and saw that there is a new holiday promotion! It seems that with a purchase of Eye of the North you can get a second campaign 50% off! Which is right up my alley since I need Eye of the North and Nightfall. The offer is good from now until December 31 so, if you haven’t picked up GW:EN and one of the other campaigns now may be the time.

Now, all I have to do is get over my need for the physical boxed copy… I suppose paying the same price as a brick and mortar store can be over looked in this time since there are no subscription fees and there is the whole 50% off thing.

After spending some time last night in the wilds of Kryta working on finishing up the open quests I had in the area. I decided that I would stop at Lion’s Arch and board a ship bound for Cantha. It turned out to be a great decision! The handful of quests that I had been working on finishing up carried a reward of 500xp - while the ones in and around Kaineng Center dish out a monstrous 3000xp. Needless to say, within about an hour I quickly went from 14% into level 17 up to the level cap of 20. Now, it’s all about earning experience which will earn more skill points. Anyway, after hitting the level cap I traveled back over to Kryta so I could continue working my way through the Prophecies campaign.

I have so much stuff left to do in the game it’s not funny. I have 17 co-op missions and who knows how many quests left to complete before I move away from Prophecies and on to Factions. I’m thinking now that I’m going to tackle them in the order they were released - and hopefully finish up everything with my main character sometime before Guild Wars 2 comes out. I’m going to try and tackle at least a couple of the co-op missions over the weekend - also I’ve got to pick up the bonus objective in the D’Alessio Seaboard mission.