Not Entirely Stable...

So Thanksgiving was eating, bad movies, and Dystopia.

Dystopia is fun, no joke. But it's definitely still in the beta stages.

Complaints that probably should go on their forums instead of here:
- My mouse gets "sticky" in-game. Movement is jerky, clicks are "lost," and then "found", etc. Makes for a real pain when someone's in your sights, and your rocket launcher doesn't fire. Then you die, respawn, and the rocket launcher automatically goes off in the midst of your team. This immediately increases your popularity with your group. It's not my mouse, I've tested it in several other games, with smooth results. It's just inside of Dystopia.
-Rockets get "lost." Fire a rocket into a room, and sometimes they just disappear. Dying also seems to disintegrate a fired rocket. Amazing. The minimum distance of "safe zone" for firing the rocket seems inconsistent as well.
-The heavy armor power glove attack is waaaay to slow. One attack every 3 seconds or so. I may as well tell my target that an attack is coming, and that they should dodge, quickly, or they might get hurt.
-Thermal vision is useless, since target recognition doesn't cooperate with it. You have no way to distinguish friend or foe with it on. It's supposedly the year what, 2069, and Sony couldn't get thermal and smart-gun tech integrated into one system? Sounds unlikely.
-Needs way more voice commands. Not robust enough. And lose the "I don't think so" .wav file somewhere. Geez.

There's a bunch more. This is going to be a -great- game once it's finished. But for now, it's still rough around the edges.

So what am I playing now?

Honestly, this blog was only started so that my buddies could see what I was playing and join in online.

Sometimes, that actually happens.

I'm very flighty in my gaming habits. I usually only stick to a game for a month or so, and move on. This doesn't mean I buy new games every month. That's actually fairly rare. I usually end up digging out one of my old games or downloading a new demo. Being married and a dad sort of puts me permanently in the bargain bin game market.

I'm okay with that. Delayed gratification is a good thing. Early adopters are suckers.

So, what I'm playing.

Half-Life 2 - Single player game - Okay, Steam isn't so great, but this game is. The focus on fighting fascist stormtroopers in a 1984-esque police state is a great change in tone from most recent shooters. The paranoiac atmosphere is what makes it work. Random house searches, random beatings, locked doors, retina scanners, rooftop chases... it just works. And Ravenholm is freakin' creepy. Good, good shooter.

Dystopia - Cyberpunk HL2 multiplayer-only mod. Free, if you already have Half Life 2. Cortex bombs. Stealth suits. Leg implants. Matrix hacking. If you're a Cyberpunk 2020 RPG fan like I am (drool), you'll probably dig this. Since no one plays Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory anymore (Nein!), and Natural Selection is still way unbalanced, this is my new favorite team shooter. Fun.

WebSudoku - For my lunch breaks. Because crossword puzzles suck.

Tell me if you're interested in jumping on Dystopia, I'm a Heavy Armor junkie. We can shoot people and stuff.

My beloved minigun...

URBAN DEAD

This game is the main argument for why graphics do not matter.

A couple years ago, I preached the virtues of Uplink (and I still do).

Urban Dead's the next great example.

Massively multiplayer, text-based zombie simulator.

Play a human. Or a zombie. Shoot undead in the skull. Or feed on fleshy brains.

I can't describe why this game is so engaging. It's a webpage. With buttons. And text. But it creates the same vibe that those old DOS rpgs created. No glitz. No booming sound effects or resounding soundtrack. No poly count.

Just a game, with good guys and bad guys.

Play Urban Dead.

I've started playing Guild Wars again.

It is fun.

The guild I started a few years back in Neverwinter Nights never really died after I left. In fact, they have more members than ever.

It's a very surreal experience, starting something and discovering later that it has flourished without you.

The other interesting thing is that Guild Wars only gets more fun as you go along. The difficulty scales up harshly, but it's not a grind. Missions take roughly the same amount of time. There's no real levelling treadmill. It's just good clean fun.

Play Guild Wars. And join my guild.

This is just too beautiful...

Sometimes the truth is just soooo much better than fiction:

Jack Thompson calls up Gabe and proves he's a raving psycho.

What a jerk. I just hope this guy continues losing credibility by the barrelful.

So I dug out Fallout 2 again.

What a great, great game. Waaay before GTA convinced everyone that amorality was the way to go, Fallout was showing folks how gritty an RPG could get. Think "Mad Max" with turn based combat and hilarious dialogue. Set in the distant future, Fallout 2 adopts the standard motifs of an apocalyptic wasteland and makes them a reality.

Those boys at Black Isle really knew how to build a game.

I've started from scratch (it's been years since I played it last) and I'm taking my time with it.

The amount of freedom Fallout 2 provided was terrific. Save your village from famine. Or don't. Just haul around the nuked-out husk of the Western American countryside in your trashed Chrysalis Highwayman. Make friends. Sell them into slavery if you need the cash. Become a graverobber. Become a drug addict. Become the Boxing Heavyweight Champion of the World. Get married.

Most of the quests had numerous solutions. Be sneaky. Talk your way out of trouble. Or go in with guns ablazing, wiping out anything that moves. Every NPC is targetable. Stray rounds will hit innocents, drawing them into gunfights.

While the freeform nature of the game was powerful, the writing was even better. The plot was well thought-out. Quests had a give-and-take nature, while helping out one faction, you may be guaranteeing the extermination of another. Helping out wealthy businessman may result in the enslavement of entire villages. Trying to consistently walk the Lawful-Good line that you're so used to from the normal range of RPGs can be very difficult in this game.

The combat mechanics were also a strong point. While a turn-based, hex-based RPG may drive some of you Final Fantasy nuts crazy, Fallout 2 really shines. Fighting a bad guy with a sniper rifle? Shoot him in the eye, and see how that improves his sharpshooting. Fighting an irradiated hellmonster that's charging at you? Shoot him in the kneecaps and see if that slows him down. Spearwielding tribals can't stab you very well if you blow their arms off.

Good times, my friends. Good times.

If you're getting the itch for an old-school RPG, go get Fallout 2.

Side note for the kiddies: Fallout 2 includes harsh language, ultraviolence (killing folks with automatic weapons look great. Also, get the Bloody Mess Attribute, it makes life more enjoyable), and adult themes.

But any game that uses Louis Armstrong's "A Kiss To Build a Dream On" in the opening credits can only be good, right?

So Bizarre

http://www.runescape.com

This game has the simplest graphics of any MMORPG I know.

But you know what? It's still pretty darn fun.
It's actually pretty cool, it runs out of your web browser and it's Java based. It's like the first worthwhile Java app I've ever seen. Sorry.

And it's Free.

Think UO without a subscription, and simplified. From what I hear, they've got like 250,000 users, which is huge for a non-off-the-shelf online game. Unfortunately, the idiocy of gamers still saturates this world.

My favorite experience in the game so far has been this:

When you die, you lose all your gear on you, and you have to run to pick all your stuff up before someone else grabs it.

So my guy, Hernia Bob, is fighting goblins. I'm not watching what I'm doing, and I get whacked.

I walk back to search for my stuff, and some kid starts taunting me, saying he stole my stuff and he's going to sell it all in town. I honestly didn't care, I'd only been playing for about 15 minutes, so I started replying in Spanish, like I didn't understand him. He followed me around for like 5 minutes trying to get me to beg for my stuff back, but my replies consisted of:

"?Que paso? ?Tienes mis cosas? ?Donde estan mis cosas?"

Eventually he told me I sucked and walked off.

I really want to learn a bunch of different languages now, just so I can play dumb when folks harass me online. They'll get mad, make sweeping stereotypical statements, throw some racial slurs my way, and leave.

When virtual life jacks with you, sometimes you have to create your own language barriers.

Nos vemos, suckas.