Pagoda of Gaming

Let’s Talk About Some Goddamn Videogames…

October 4th, 2009 by TheMissingNin

I think I remember writing somewhere that this website is about Videogames, and the worship of such. And yet all that I seem to be able to talk about is Deckbuilding and whatnot. So consider this post somewhat overdue, and you’ve probably heard about half the shit here by since it’s had enought time to make its way round the web. So as to not appear spiteful to my soul embued Deckbuilding Articles HERE is the link to this week’s offering, or you could just scroll down. The point is I’d really like it to be read since they each take about a week of planning and writing to accomplish… but I’d totally understand if you just straight up didn’t want to look at it.

Where was I? Oh yes, videogames. I haven’t really played much since my last non-TCG post. I did hop into the new Left4Dead campaign, dubbed “Crash Course”. Whilst I was somewhat dissapointed with the Length (only two chapters) I was delighted with a new piece of Vavle-made content for the game. I also hopped into a couple of games of Survival and I was blown away. I had to pry myself away from the Nintop, else I would’ve kept going all night. The relentless death that game mode throws at you is amazing.

I’m really happy to hear that Realtime Worlds is launching the APB Beta next week - maybe then the veil will be lifted and we’ll finally know what the hell is going on with that game. They continue to drip-feed their gameplay videos via their Podcast Feed. I just hope that there’ll be a spot in the Beta for me, and I’ll find a Key sitting in my inbox sometime next week. If that happens, not only will Christmas have come early, but also it will confirm that Dave Jones is infact Santa Clause. (Dave, dude, you really need to get a better picture into Wikipedia, srsly)

An amazing new look at Heavy Rain was released last week, and it continues to blow my mind. The sheer detail in that game astounds me. There were points in that trailer, where I glanced at the video and for a moment I thought it was all real. Check it out HERE, and I urge you to watch it in the highest quality possible.

The following is a trailer for Gyromancer. Tycho described it as something like Pokemon + Puzzle Quest * Final Fantasy, that alone is an interesting concept. What is moreso fascinating is that the game is being joint developed by Square-Enix and PopCap and is being published on Xbox Live Arcade. I don’t know how to continue this paragraph, that just fills me with so much reverence and excitement. To get Square Enix to even touch an Xbox is an amazing feat in itself, but knowing that the makers of Peggle…. Fucking Peggle is sharing a table with the Final Fantasy guys is just…. I don’t know what to say. Watch the trailer:

I felt kinda bad about missing Battlefield Bad Company, I contemplated getting it the other day via the XBLM Direct Download thingy. But then I rememberd that there’s a sequal coming out and MW2 is just round the corner. The Sequal is hitting sometime next March and I figure that’s enough time to extract most of the joy from Modern Warfare 2, and is a nice time to be getting a new shooter in time for the summer. Some would bring up the similarities between Modern Warfare and Battlefield, but for me they are completely different games. Simply involving Vehicles and sprawling environments is enough to differentiate it. Bad Company 2, with additional environmental Destruction should be a blast when it hits. Check out the following Trailer:

THIS looks amazing.

On the non-gaming front I’m happy to be submerged in the american fall TV schedule. Out of all the shows, this new season of House has been a joy to watch - especially the opening dual-episode with House in the Asylum - which left me feeling rather emotionally fulfilled. Fringe is off to a nice start too, as is the Mentalist. On the opposite of the spectrum, Heroes seems to be epically failing. Noah and Peter seem to be the last surviving grounded characters of the show, and hopefully we’ll see alot of them in the rest of the season. Also, the ink thing, with the carnival people, is pretty retarded.

Musically, I’m happy that the new Dethklok album is finally out, and it’s blacker and brutaller than the last offering, and whilst still being utterly a treat to listen to, it has lost some of the comedic quirks that the first album had. I still aim to have Mermaider II to the top of my most listened playlist by the end of the weekend. Lost Prophets have a new Single out soon - and I’m not sure where I stand on it - I’ll wait for the album to save my judgement.

Finally, Electric Six are making a mark on Rock Band next week with three songs. The somewhat Expected Gay Bar will be available along with “Dance Epidemic” and “I Don’t Like You”. It is listed as “Track Pack 01″ which leads me to believe, and hope, that there will be more from the band to come soon, hopefully from their more recent albums. All of this music game business, with DJ Hero and all the talk about Rock Bands upcoming improvements, is really stoking my game-boner. So much that I’m considering grabbing those extra plastic instrument monstrosities sometime.

Genuflecting with a torch

Posted in Music, TV, Video Gaming | No Comments »

The DS Experiment: Day 1 - The World Ends With Me, Rules And Regulations

April 11th, 2009 by TheMissingNin

Here’s The Rules:

Article 1: The Experiment will last from 11th April until the 9th May.

Article 2: The Only games I can play in that stretch of time are DS Games, unless given proper reasoning.

Article 3: Other Consoles can be used for downloads and other media only.

Article 4: I will post atleast twice a week on my findings.

Article 5: I will extend the experiment another two weeks if I want.

Article 2 Clarification: EvE online will be played because I pay a monthly fee for it. That is sufficiant enough a reason. I will play some Halo 3 today aswel - because I instinctively want to play some Haloes whenever Bungie put out a new podcast.

There, that should do. I should say that I technically started yesterday, but I think a saturday is a better day for blogging and rounding off the whole thing.

I started off good and proper with The World Ends With You. Which at face value wins the award for awesomest game name ever, second place goes to Sins of a Solar Empire. It’s probably a really good title to start off on, since it’s practically tailor made for the DS.

It’s an action RPG where you control two characters at once. One with only the touch screen and one only with the d-pad. It’s the most compelling JRPG I’ve played in a helluva long time. The story and setting has really sucked me in - Set in a modern day japanese city overrun with people, and underneath you’re fighting to basically return from the dead whilst trying to peice the whole mystery together. The game gives you access to chunks of the city every day, and each day you have a mission to unravel and complete within a certain time or it’s game over - a structure I haven’t seen in a JRPG. Each chunk takes less than an hour to complete.

I played through a healthy chunk of the game yesterday, past the first ‘week’. A quantity that only makes sense to those who’ve played it. And I think I’m in it for the long haul.

Eve’s getting pretty good now that I’ve got some decent ships. I spent some time yesterday shopping about the region for parts for the Echoplex, my mission running Vexor. I’ve kitted it out for a drone combat role. Now that I can use the heavy attack drones and the drone control range extender, I can sit 50-odd kilometers away from my target and let my Ogres mop up the targets. The cloaking device, is pretty awesome to have, but it’d be nice to control my drones and be cloaked at the same time. I can see the Cloaks usefulness, but it certainly doesn’t let you bird of prey it into battle.

I name my ships after whatever I’m absorbing at the time. My Vexor is named after a Nine Inch Nails song that I happened to be listening to at the time of it’s purchase - song HERE. I have an Imicus called ‘The Bentham’ because I was watching a particular episode of lost at the time. My Mining Barge, my Retreiver, is called “The Dice and Mirror”. I’ll leave that for you to figure out.

Now that I have a mission worthy ship, albeit a little tweaking of the railguns, I’m focussing on getting my Skills up to make use of my Covetor. 20 days - ouch.

So no-one told me that Electric Six had a new album. You Cocks.

The rest of my holiday plans, that is, the rest of today and tomorrow, will be like a usual weekend. Games, Chinese Food, and Movies. I’ll be on Halo 3 for a while this afternoon, checking out the new maps and getting down with the bungie podcast. After that, consider the experiment underway.

Photoshop and Tiger

Posted in DS, Feature, Music, The DS Experiment | No Comments »

Don’t Forget To Pull The Ripcord

December 19th, 2008 by TheMissingNin

When You Level Off…

Posted in Funny, Music, TV | Comments Off

Yes, I’m Posting This…

July 25th, 2008 by TheMissingNin

…And… I think I like it.

Aaaaaaaand then I found this, and I threw up a little.

Blog post tomorrow, Caturday Style.

Posted in Music | No Comments »

Of Bands, Heroes and Revolutions, Also - A Nationally Qualifying Experience, or Lack Thereof

May 27th, 2008 by TheMissingNin

I’ll admit it, as soon as the press blitz began, I was rather afraid, but I suppose I can think somewhat rationally now. I’m talking ofcourse about our favourite plastic space taker-uppers Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the newly announced Rock Revolution from Konami. Yes, the post you’ve all been waiting for, it’s time to pick a side, and I’m pissed.

So let’s get the obvious loser out of the way. Rock Revolution, from initial impressions, as 1up Yours put it, Konami’s late to the party that they started. Huge fucking 7/8 pad drum kit, no vocals, songs all cover-versions. GTFO. To be honest, for me it’s the culmination of current Japanese design. Fuck innovation, let’s just ramp up the difficulty level. I’m sorry, but it’s a something I realised lately, that personally, I’ve been avoiding typically ‘japanese’ games, because I’m simply bored with the same old shit over and over. And don’t get angry fanboys, I’m sure some of you are about to cite Okami, and I’ll agree with you there. And I’m sure some of you are going to bring the Wii to the table. Let’s not go too far, I’m sure you all know how I feel about that gamecube with a SIXAXIS.

Getting back on topic, next to the block is Guitar Hero 4, which seems to be doing it right. In other words, they’re copying Rock Band, but shoving a music creation thingy in with the package and adding cymbals to the drum kit. Sure whatever, apparantly, it might be more expensive than Rock Band. This immediatly brings to my mind the question: “Why did Harmonix Sell Guitar Hero?” They actually made a competitor for themselves with their old established name. That’s a Question that a simple google search can’t answer.

Then there’s Rock Band. I’m sure that this whole conundrum has already been answered for most Americans - Aslong as Harmonix can supply a steady stream of songs, who cares about an Activision knock off? But here, where Rock Band was released under a week ago, and isn’t exactly flying off the shelves? It sure as fuck matters, especially when news reached us that a shinier, well established version of Rock Band would be hitting shelves at christmas time, I’m sure gamer’s Europe-wide paused and pondered.

Me, I’m still backing Rock Band. I’m hoping and praying for a Price drop, atleast mid-summer. And I see the current Library of DLC very alluring, considering it’s chance to double in size before the release of Guitar Hero 4. But there certainly is a problem when Harmonix’s target European audiance, namely students both pre and post tutelage, can’t even afford a bunch of chinese plastic instruments. There’s only one entity at fault for all this, and that’s Harmonix. They set the price, they sold the franchise, they created the Activision beast. They forced us to split our wallet between Heroes and Bands, and what can they do to make up for it? Simply, a price drop, one that may never come.

Why is game itself £50? Considering you need Peripheral support in something Harmonix already sold you, shouldn’t it be something like £30? Regardless, I’m searching for a solution to the Rock Band Problem, I could pick up the Game by itself and play with my old 360 Xplorer, that’s £50. Add another £20 for a USB microphone, that’s £70. Add another £70 for Drums, bringing it to a total of £140, which equals the current online price for the complete Rock Band Package. So really, the choice is, buy seperately or buy it all and get a shiny new guitar.

Maybe I’m just being bitter because I’m poor. Maybe as soon as my first summer-harbour-job paycheck arrives, I’ll feel less annoyed and more incentivised. Only time will tell.

As a final thought on the matter, my heart goes out to the PS3 crowd, who don’t actually get to make this choice. Remember why they call it the Playstation 3 kids? BECAUSE IT HAS NO GAMES.

Now onto my other obsession of late, the National Qualifier. I dissapointingly landed 16th out of 22 players. And I could make excuses, valid ones, but I’m sure you’d scoff at me. It was certainly a learning experience. Next time, atleast two month’s preparation will be required, and I must learn not to try and recycle old decks to save money. Therefore I’m making it my duty to officially return to the Magic The Gathering scene, to pween some much needed asses.

These happenings spurred me on to watch the tail end of Pro-Tour Hollywood, which I conveniently caught as soon as I got back to Fundee. It was a rather interesting tournament, surprisingly only a single Faerie deck got into the top 8, and didn’t win! I say this happily after a sunday torrent of bitterblossoms aimed directly at my head. Check out the full tourney details HERE. It also spurred me onto buy some cards for use over the summer months and beyond. £30 netted me a complete Merfolk Deck, modeled on PT-Hollywood’s 2nd top deck, and a bunch of cards to fix up the Mono Black Control deck I played in the Qualifier and make a start on my upcoming Mono Black Multiplayer deck. And I got it all from mtgmintcard.com /productplacement

Well that’s that. The cards should arrive by the weekend so I’ll maybe do a MTG centric post this weekend, mostly on deckbuilding shite. I’m off to the super-final screening of Doomsday in Fundee, and to dread over whatever shite I’ve got/going to get myself into over the next couple of days. Seem’s like my hayfever’s back too, I guess that means it’s finally summer. shit.

Here’s some YTMND LOLZ for you, catch you later.

And if I had the choice

Posted in Guitar Hero, Magic: The Gathering, Music, PS3, Rock Band, TCG, Video Gaming, Wii, X-Box 360 | No Comments »

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