Life Outside PLT1

VIDEO GAMES - Only the negatives

Well ok, let me just state for the record that I play a pretty fair amount of video games. The good points of newer games is easy to find out because let’s face it – the way hype spreads throughout the internet can be mind boggling even when you take advertising out of the equation (which it hardly ever is).
As a service to everyone, i’m gonna go ahead and list a bunch of the games i’ve played this year and give a quick summary of the bad points about the games you may not have heard about or have had explained to you in detail.

In Alphabetical order:

Avalon Heroes:
• The voice acting sucks,
• Spelling, grammatical and language syntax errors everywhere indicate the development team is lacking an English proof reader,
• Poor localisation of servers leading to latency problems and language barriers,
• Match finding system is primitive and leaves you at the mercy of team “leaders” who might kick you because you’re not German/Turkish/Brazilian/level 999.

Clive Barker’s Jericho:
• No multiplayer,
• Horror element is extremely downplayed – I was hardly scared by any point in the game,
• Ending easily ranks among the top 10 most disappointing video game endings of all time,
• QTEs are annoying – this is not game specific; they are annoying in every game that has them.

Dragon Age Origins:
• Character models lack polish,
• Buggy engine randomly causes problems with loading times, CPU utilisation and in-game performance,
• No voice acting for player character.

Dragon Age Origins: Awakening:
• Game too short.
• Dialogue is poorly written in some places.

Heroes of Newerth:
• This game is pretty much the poster child of the rating office phrase “Gaming experience may change online” (NERD RAGE);
• The game is pretty close to a letter-for-letter DOTA: Allstars clone so it suffers from the classic fault that is inherent to the specific title – the game is significantly less fun if you’re not winning (NERD RAGE).

League of Legends:
• Rune system is extremely grindy,
• Importance of team composition makes solo-queue play frustrating at times,
• Gameplay imbalances,
• Choice of graphic and art style produces problems with visual clutter.

LOCO:
• Unintuitive inventory system,
• Account levelling and item collection is extremely grindy,
• Gameplay is shallow and not balanced.

Mass Effect 2:
• Storyline slows down completely around the middle which feels like nothing but poorly related sidequests,
• Plot is not very engaging – few emotional moments and connection between missions,
• Combat lacks difficulty while some boss fights are designed to be as annoying as possible.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty:
• Enforced online latency lowers playability for players outside server locales;
• Forced online multiplayer due to no LAN support,
• Without an ever-present anchoring point to the storyline the single player is at serious risk of feeling like nothing but poorly related side quests.

World of Warcraft:
• Graphical bugs and clipping problems that have existed since first release still exist,
• Endgame content encourages powergaming,
• Latency issues resulting from poor optimisation,
• Game is very difficult to stop playing (much like a psychological experiment where a lab rat is given a button that only sometimes releases a food pellet – the rat is compelled to keep pressing the button even when he isn’t hungry).

Events: Auckland Lantern and Hamilton Food, Wine and Jazz Festival 2010

Read Jawyei’s blog entry on Auckland Lantern and Hamilton Food, Wine and Jazz Festival 2010at http://jawyei.blogspot.com/

Gaming: Neverwinter Nights 2

Read Jawyei’s blog entry on Neverwinter Nights 2 at http://jawyei.blogspot.com/

Movies: Sherlock Holmes

Read Jawyei’s review at http://jawyei.blogspot.com/

Movies: Avatar

Read Jawyei’s review at http://jawyei.blogspot.com/

Movies: Surrogates

Went and saw Surrogates Tuesday (10/11/2009) evening with Alex Mason and Steve Biggins. Was looking forward to this movie as people of my outlook then to be people sitting on a comfy chair typing into a computer and being something more than their real life selves can be. Or maybe that’s just me. I can, however, say that this movie’s premise would appeal to all your WoW players out there and anyone that ever has ever donned an avatar persona. The trailer to the movie can be seen here.

Pros:
Interesting premise of exploring people’s fears of going outside
Properly paced story
Decent action

Cons:
Story was interesting but predictable and fell short
Continue reading Movies: Surrogates…

Gaming: World of Goo

World of Goo, developed by 2D Boy is a physic based game involving goo balls which you interconnect to reach a pipe. Essentially it is a puzzle game with that will test how well you know how things lean and what clever constructs you can build with these balls to reach the suction pipe. Yeah that’s right.

Pros:
Interesting gaming design
Colourful cartoony visuals
Un-intrusive music
Simple controls

Cons:
Game seems short
No save replay
Continue reading Gaming: World of Goo…

Events: Armageddon 2009

Armageddon 2009. A gathering of pulp culture - whatever that means - has happened again. This year they shifted the venue from the Aotea Centre in central Auckland to a bigger venue at Greenlane event centre. The rumour I heard was that the Aotea was over flowing with people that they needed a bigger place to contain all the fan boys/girls. This indicated to me that Armageddon has finally got better and it is finally time for me to return to the event that has disappointed me after years and years. Continue reading Events: Armageddon 2009…

Gaming: Golden Axe Warrior on Sega Master System

No, not the side scroller of fame but the birds eye, top down, action adventure version that maybe a lot of people haven’t heard of released in 1991 called Golden Axe Warrior. A simple way to explain it is, it looks like the original Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo Entertainment System. In fact, I have read from places it was Sega’s way of competing with the NES at the time. If you put a play the games side by side you can see they are nearly identical.

Pros:
Quite colourful and good use of colour.
Music match mood of game.
Easy to pick up and play.

Cons:
Repetitive.
Lack of world map.
Frustrating secrets.
Unimaginative monsters.
Continue reading Gaming: Golden Axe Warrior on Sega Master System…

My new Pelikan

My latest (and 2nd to last for now) pen arrived today. It is a German made Pelikan M400 Tortoise with a Medium Nib. I picked it up from Trademe for $113 including shipping.

The M400 (like all of the Souverän Range) is a piston filler and as such holds a lot of ink. The medium nib, which writes a fine medium line, is a dry writer compared to my other pens. That been said by no means does it not lay down enough ink. The nib is smooth, the smoothest of my collection and the pen is very comfortable in my hands.

Overall I am extremely pleased with my purchase, especially I didn’t really mean to win the auction. I know  it sounds stupid but I placed my bid thinking that I would be out bid. I am now very pleased that I wasn’t!

P.S. If anyone is wanting to get into the fabulous world of fountain pens, I recomend the $45 Lamy Safari (I have an Al-Star which is the metal version).