SONIC!!!!

Amazing, seems all the cool awesome people have their birthdays around June 24.

Today, june 23 is SONIC THE HEDGEHOG birthday!!!!
and we might be getting the presents:
http://blogs.sega.com/sonic/2009/06/22/sonic-citys-sonic-birthday-giveaway-tuesday-june-23rd-2009/

Happy Birthday to him :)

The little big gems of E3

E3 just passed and try to regain the relevance it once had.
Seems a lot of the gaming media was happy, but I didn't get the news I wanted. (PS3 price cut ... not that it matter, I just managed to save ~200 @ Sony Style)

Not all was bad news however. Among the onslaught of news about the battle of the motion controls, I got to see two little videos that got my attention and seemed pretty overlooked by the rest.

First, is the Modnation Racers news.
What it would seem a Little Big Planet take on karting:
Who would not love that?


Along those lines, for those of us not able to get Mario Kart, and who have love Sonic since 1991. We get news that Sonic and other iconic SEGA characters will be racing as well :D WOHOO!!!!!!


Last but not least. Something that the media did not overlook at all. Obviously since this small teaser contains the most amazing Star Wars action ever seen that surpasses all of the action scenes in its movies put together and multiplied a million times. IT IS THAT COOL!

More Star Wars: The Old Republic News & Previews

Soon, all will be covered

Guess in a few months I will have the extremes.
Guess I've covered best and worst case scenarios :P

Back to regular procrastination

Now that the prelim has passed, my conscience tells me it is ok to go back to procrastination.
I know that is not what my advisor would want, but, then again as a scientist she should know that almost nothing turns out as you expected it to be :P

First thing to take care of was: the purchase of BRAID and Fallout 3 for the PC. But now we have to move into bigger things, things like the PS3.

Interestingly this same day experience point posted this article reminding me how purchasing a PS3 will not be entirely used as a procrastinating tool, it has some scientific applications that would help my community. Therefore, the purchase of a PS3 would not just be a reward for the hard work, but a step forward into the path to become a better MUCH BETTER scientist.

So keep an eye for good bundles, let me know which one of the many versions since released should I be getting, and above all, what would be the best games to start with.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

US Democracy Server: Patch Day

Design of GOO

Posted on their blog.


Design Tour - World of Goo from David Rosen on Vimeo.

Probably you didn't watch the entire thing. But if you did, he forgot to mention the importance of "-the sign painter" .
It was a cute, hilarious mechanic to help you navigate and figure out the individual challenges.
Since I have no idea how to edit such good videos, just buy the game from their site and experience the wonderful GOO.

overdue post of the WoW expansion launch

Just a picture taken at around 10pm the day of Wrath of the lich king release day.
Even though I was playing this a year ago, I would never go to the midnight event! Its too cold

OH wells.

In a brief update: I'm BLOGGING ON PENNSYLVANIA WOHOOO!
More news later on.

World of Goo

Recently I've been playing WORLD OF GOO. This little gem came to my attention after the escalation of the DRM issue in gaming. It lacks any DRM, and if you purchase it from their site you get access to windows and mac versions (Linux coming soon) without having to buy a game individually for each platform.

But I fell in love with it because of actual gameplay and atmosphere. If you see the video from their site you will have a feeling about the music, and how it feels as if you are in some Tim Burton type of world. Some how odd yet familiar and a little bit magical.
Gameplay is fairly simple. Link the Goo balls until you reach the exit pipe trying to get as many of them through it; a little reminiscent of lemmings.

I've been having a lot of fun, the music and level design always have me smiling (The sign painter who gives you hints is hilarious), it is a really amazing game and you should give it a try. It was developed by an independent group, has no official publisher, it is only $20 (granted is a really short game, but re playability is quite high) and you will make the world a much much better place if you get it. Trust me.

SC II will be released over 3 years >.>

Starcraft II will be three games released hypothetically one/year. (read on IGN)
Advertise as following the dream of giving players choice, I know they just want to squeeze as much money from me as possible.
Well sorry Blizzard, I guess my RTS needs will be fulfilled by RA 3 until the last Protoss campaing of SC II comes out.

ITS COMING BACK!!!!!!

How come there is no official webstite?!?!
Another game to be added to the list of "If I had a Wii".

If you have an extra 30mins to remember the good old punch out days, here is an amazing youtube video:

The future should be IMPULSE

Penny arcade talks and jokes about SecuROM.
But as much as I like Steam, I prefer IMPULSE for the future digital distribution.

Now go help Stardock!!!

Still Alive ... yes it will never get old.

Specially when done in new artistic ways like:


Portal - Still Alive typography from Trickster on Vimeo.

short SPORE update

Just some news on the mainstream media:

Copyright row dogs Spore release
Did 'Spore' copy protections backfire on EA?
Spore And The Great DRM Backlash

The winner was BBC on how fast it published the news.

As far as EA responds?
None really

However Red Alert 3 will have 5 installs and no CD requirements to play.

I'm definitely getting that one. Previews are hilarious.

SPORE: it has begun

Yes, the uprising to the stupid Copy protection/management policy that EA has enforced upon customers of SPORE.

The People Have Spoken: ‘Spore’ Is Ruined By Its Own DRM
EA's Spore hit by DRM backlash
Spore losing the DRM Fight
Customer Reviews (Keeps adding 1 star reviews, but pretty sure to change soon, since there are not REAL reviews)

Now, unfortunately I'm not sure EA will actually listen. A similar thing had happen to BIOSHOCK, which introduce the incredibly stupid 3 installation rule also used in SPORE, and yet given how good Bioshock was, it hurt sales very little. (2K was brave enough to leave on their forums a "If you need to have your game refunded, here's how." topic for this issues)
I'm guessing SPORE might have the same effect. Though plenty of people will go ahead and download a crack version of it, the game will be good enough to make enough sales to keep EA from removing the insane rules. (I hope I'm wrong and EA will change on a later patch, but I'm not holding my breath to it. I am holding my purchase for now though)

Meanwhile good news from my favorite Game developer Stardock who knows how I like my games.

I'm in BETA

Given my extraordinary knowledge of the game mechanics and having leveled up three of the different style of classes in the game. (TANK, HEALER, DPS) It was just naturally that Blizzard ask me to participate in the Beta for Wrath of the Lich King.

Or so I would like to tell myself.

Important thing is that I get to play for free the upcoming expansion pack.

Wohoo!!

SPORE on National Geographic

Damn you NGC for not giving me a quick code to embed your video.

The greatly anticipated SPORE game (that I've managed to avoid pre-ordering given its annoying copy-protection rules) will get some air time on National Geographic.

Or you could get the Galactic edition, but I don't think it will be worth it.

WWII as told by game chat.

TOO FUNNY!!

Tears shed for video game charachters

WARNING: BUNCH OF SPOILERS IF YOU FOLLOW THE REDDIT LINKS.

This thread on reddit had me trying to remember which game had me so involved in their world and story that they actually toyed with my emotions.

I loved to see I wasn't the only one that was sadden by Shadow of the Colossus and the horse... it is amazing since I only played for 10mins but still the ambiance in that game made it so perfect that I was immediately attached to those in game.

Another of the comments I relate as well was the ending of Half Life 2 episode 2... which hopefully Stynky will finish one day so I could say more about it.
I'm not sure if it would have the same effect as shadow of the colossus, cause I think you really have to play through the first episodes to really get the most of it... so Stynky stop procrastinating and finish it.

Finally I had to add a comment for Baldur's Gate... for some reason I seem to be the only one genuinely enraged by the death of my dear friend Khalid. The game did great on creating party members who, given their unique personalities, you would actually end up caring for.

Any games that managed to do similar for you?
I wonder if adding Rome Total War after the death of Kanmi The Conqueror is valid.
After all his memory leaves on through my name in this Blog... I really honored such an amazing Leader that manage to take Elephants into the streets of Rome... how Hannibal should have done so.

Intro video to Empire Total War

Total war is a respected and well known series of video games that fuse Real Time Strategy with Turn based strategy gameplay.
Although I've heard the series, it wasn't until ROME Total War that I fell in love, or should I say fell into the addiction, of the game.

The Real Time Strategy part of the game, where you could control thousands of units while in full 3D environment able to zoom in and out to quite and extense, made the wars (battles fell short to describe what the experience was like) feel pretty epic.
The leader of the army will give you a speech at the beginning of each battle.

During this battle you can pause but the real Turn based part of the game lies when you have an overview map of all the lands/empire/nations in play, which in the case of Rome was Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. In here you not only move armies, but have to deal with the economics and politics of your mayor cities, while moving spies and diplomats to wherever they are needed.
Battles are very large scales, having different parts of your armies dealing with entirely different situations.






Rome was incredibly addictive and the creators later came on with Medieval Total war II, a game which although looked amazing; given the expansion moving on to the Americas without an army I would like to support (I would like a south american faction), never managed to make me buy it.







The latest installment which you can see the intro video below, has got my interest again. We are introduce to the new Naval battles while still maintaining the epic open battlefields in land, and the political/economical management that might lead to revolts.



The video does a great job at giving you a glimpse of how it will be and what has me intrigued for quite a while... it will be the first of the series where the entire world is in combat...as seen on the end of the movie.

Given the time period I will have some conflict on which faction to play and support, but this video and some news that will be coming from E3 have definitely got me thinking about the series again.

I hope you do so as well now :D , there is a lot LOT more in the total war series than what little details I've mentioned above.
Definitely worth checking out sometime.

NWN Nostalgia

I don't even remember how I got to this page.

I felt like re-installing NWN, download the patch... but mhe... too long.
I think I'll just use the wallpaper for a while.