Monday, November 28, 2011

Gaming for the Holidays

Hello gang didn't you miss me? I know I didn't. Anyway I'm back here with another blog entry about gaming for these holidays. Its only November, but I already have a ton of gaming related crap to get caught up on (even in Skryim and I've done alot with that already!) My next two gaming conquest will probably be the much anticipated Zelda: Skyward Sword, and Saints Row  The Third. I am bound to play a mainstream Zelda console release no matter what, and I just have to see how wacky and all out they went with Saints Row 3 . I was a big fan of SR2 because it was a sandbox game that let you do what everyone wanted to do, and of course that is run around and cause needless chaos in everything from hot dog trucks, to flying saucers.  The game also does not take itself seriously, which is a somewhat rarity in the sandbox crime games these days.  Oddly enough I already know exactly what to expect with Zelda. ( Running around in dungeons one of which will be fire themed, a forest themed one, and probably a water one among others)yet I'm going to play it anyway, and I will most definitely enjoy it(my face when it overtakes Ocarina of Time (cue trollface.jpg)).

As an aside now that the semester is winding down and free time will start popping up sporadically I've been getting into several oldschool CPS2 fighters lately, which started with me and my old internet pal in crime Sabin playing some Street Fighter 3 online(which is yes I know a CPS3 game). One CPS2 game I'd love to see get an all new non rehash entry is Darkstalkers, as it seems as of late the only real attention it has gotten was that PSP version a few years ago.

Either way until  I get my hands on Skyward Sword, and Saints Row I'll be hitting up the excellent Skryim and some more Castlevania HD.

DO YOU VISIT THE CLOUD DISTRICT OFTEN? WHAT AM I SAYING OF COURSE YOU DON'T. 

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Skryim First Impressions

So in my quest to thwart Microsoft and play Skyrim I had a curious idea to use a friend's xbox to put the game on my hard drive and play it from that. No doubt when I swap the systems back out I'll be greeted with my old pal the E66 screen, but either way this morning gave me a little time  to try out Skyrim and see what its like for myself. 

Right away players will notice that the game world feels much much more alive than Oblivion. While Oblivion had a good bit of stuff going on, Skyrim blows it out of the water. Characters look a lot sharper and more refined, a far cry from the pudgy sometimes puppet like characters of Oblivion. Everyone's favorite beast races have also undergone several aesthetic changes, which will make them much more pleasing to the eye, and more fun to play. Now granted I am only 3 hours into this game (and pretty much just on the main quest), but in that time I've done everything from fight dragons and bandits, to see a ram get ambushed by a bear(which promptly turned its sights on me). The gameplay is all there so far, and the mechanics have been improved as well. So far I've been unable to find a hotkey system for spells, which so far is my only complaint. Oh yeah improvements. For one thing the HUD has been minimized to show only what you need at the moment. It really gives more of an epic feel to pop the game into 3rd person and see your character in his armor of choice scaling a mountain on an epic adventure to wherever you want to go! I'm sure I'll have more to say once I get my Xbox situation situated which will hopefully mean a new model in the coming weeks. I almost hate to buy a new one but with the holiday season coming I know they will be on sale SOMEWHERE.  This time I'm buying new. Never again will I buy a used console that I don't know the owner of. Its just screwed me too many times.  The new gneration of consoles has brought us so much but look at all the pitfalls. Never did I ever have to worry about picking up a new NES or Gameboy and getting home to find my console won't play it. It was just never an issue, but now for all our technology and big  business's concern for getting every dollar we quickly might be screwing ourselves out of the gaming of the old days.

You are Gamerborn! The legend says you can play games and complain about them on the internet!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

How Microsoft stole Skyrim.

Hello gang its your pal Torentsu here with another tale of disappoint me. So I pretty much have the best girlfriend ever. She got me a copy of Skyrim for my birthday and gave it to me early because she knew how much I wanted to play it. Anyway I got home just a few hours ago and excitedly turned it on to be slapped with the E66 error I had been previously given a few weeks ago. You see my Xbox is used, so whoever had it last obviously had a disk read error and the idiot (probably Microsoft) swapped the disk drive out without flashing it to the correct checksum. Thus when the new disk upgrade update came out I got slapped with an Error 66 and accused of being a software modder/pirate by the smug moron on the other end of the Xbox help line.  Thus they refuse to fix my xbox, and I couldn't get online cause of the stupid update.

Flash foward a few weeks my two roommates and I start messing around with the Xbox hardware. One roomate had an old red ringed xbox so we decided to swap the disk drives and see what would happen. Sure enough I was able to successfully install the update. I'd have left that drive in but for some reason the old one refuses to actually play games, only DVDs. Either way I was back in business. Fast foward several months to the release of Skyrim. If Skyrim is in my Xbox it instantly red rings with E66. I'm not going to bother calling them, I know what they are going to say. Essentially my only option is to get a new Xbox. This may just be what I get for buying used, but at the same time its utter BS. I've been googling around and this same error is happening to some people who are using an out of the box Xbox. Despite this there seems to be no help coming from MS. They are much too worried about combating the small percent of people pirating Xbox games (vs the amount they are losing from used game sales ) . Either way I can safely say Sony will be getting my purchase when the next generation of consoles has come out. I'll most likely pay a bit more down front, but considering al lthe crap I had to get for my xbox, the fees to play online, and the poor poor treatment from customer service I will gladly skip taco bell a few weeks and pick up a PS3 instead.