Pagoda of Gaming

It’s Weird That I’m Posting So Often - Wednesday Edition

January 21st, 2009 by TheMissingNin

Going by calculations, I haven’t spent a penny in about a fortnight. This town just isn’t built for spending anymore. Hell I can’t even get chips and cheese on a sunday afternoon - a time of great hungering. Atleast I’m saving some money - and since I’m in a perpetual mood of impending personal apocalypse it certainly helps to know that there’s not alot going out. I’m thinking of upgrading the NinTop soon too - and that’ll cost me.

It feels odd to not spend my initial paycheck on something rewarding. Because work without real reward is truly disheartening. I plan to rectify this somewhat with Street Fighter 4 - the buying of. Amazon presents a number of combinations.

I’m 90% sure that I’m ditching the collectors edition, and trading in the cash difference for one of these…. or this one, or this sexy one.

For a longtime 360 owner, the prospect of a functioning D-pad for a game genre that seriously needs it, brings for whatever passes as a smile to my face. Plus the general look of the thing just screams to me Mega Drive. Hopefully it’ll work with other games too - mostly arcade games - that also sorely need a decent pad. I’m thinking Pac Man.

I think my infatuation stems from missing the boat last time round - I’m talking about Street Fighter 2 for the Mega Drive. The tales of my noobishness from way back in the day is something for another day - but it is like an unwritten law that a gamer should know how to shoryuken, and to shoryuken well. It’s time for us to go to school.

Kotaku reports that Gears 2 has finally been patched. And what a patch it is - Like fixing a bucket, when the bucket used to be a seive. The patch notes, HUGE. It always made me not to want to play that game online - the amount of former bugs in there. But it deserves a second shot, and I intend to do so this weekend. Along with some Left 4 Dead.

The Conflux Pre-release location list hut the web the other day. So stage one of Operation Fundee-Face is complete. That stage is finding out if they are actually having one. Stage two involves me phoning and booking a spot.

Speaking of Fundee, it’s nice to see some epic games development happening there. A bunch of ex-Realtime Worlds, ex-Lionhead etc. guys have put roots down under the guise of Ruffian. Rumor has it that they’re the ones developing Crackdown 2 - since the studio has some lineage there. But all we really know is that they are making something awesome and have a major publishing deal - so they say.

You have no idea how much I’d rather be in Fundee right now.

Part of me is happy that 1up got destroyed. Because now, I get to trade in one site for three awesome ones. Eat-Sleep-Game is host to the RebelFM podcast, Geekbox strays a little from gaming - TV, Comics, Movies etc. And now, finally there’s Area 5, the reincarnation of the 1up Show. I’m watching it right now and they’ve done a spectacular job of it, especially with their currently limited equipment.

And if you don’t get the name, you’re a faggot because you’ve never played Rez.

Before you go, I have two things - First, you must witness Roberto Rodriguez’s cooking and film-making prowess

And now you must listen to an awesome song.

To go with the title, yes, I have. I also have seen a steep increase in my use of the “-”. I’m a man that needs parenthesis. Parenthasees. NFN.

The F is for Fucking.

Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!

Posted in Fraserboring, Video Gaming | Comments Off

The Fixing Of Far Cry 2, And Other Lamentations

January 17th, 2009 by TheMissingNin

It’s very cold today, as it is everyday - physically and spititually, in this forsaken town. As I sit writing this, in my double shirted ensemble, I’m ever perplexed where I should go for breakfast. Rather, the question isn’t where, but if I should bother at all. I do realise that it is about mid-day, but my choises would’ve been limited regardless. Somewhere outside is the only option at this point - but as I said before - it is very cold. My hunger must be satisfied for a sucsessful caturday to commence, and getting some decent food in this town, that is not prepared by an overzealous relative, is like a rubix cube left in the hands of a 5 year old.My goal this weekend, the overarching one, is to finish Far Cry 2. Since my last hate-filled post, I’ve managed to “fix” the game. Ashamedly, I lowered the difficulty level to Easy. This has certainly streamlined the experience. Whilst it still takes a near-full clip to down a foe, their oppressive nature is less noticable, and guarded positions can be ran through, as it is an actual possibility now, rather than a death warrent. I played a bunch of the game last weekend and I must say - the story is getting very good. I want to see it to conclusion.I also tried out the multiplayer, and they nearly nailed it. It is certainly their intention to seek out CoD4 as a target (as it should be with many games), and from that they’ve made a rather enjoyable experience. The problems come from the things that carry over from the main game - cumbersome gunplay, control problems, etc. My personal problems stem from idiot game hosts. Who know neither how to shuffle teams or know how to use the map selector - so that the majority of the matches are played on the same fucking map with rediculously imbalanced teams.This week, surprisingly, I managed to play some more Fable 2, with it’s new DLC - “Knothole Island”. I’m very impressed. It gives a new, beautifully crafted, location. A Main Quest to go with it. Alot of super-items. And at an acceptable game length. Using my mega math skills, it cost me only about 6.50. It really got me back into the game too, as I spent most of last night going about getting some more achievements I missed when I finished the game a month or two ago. I hope that Petey continues to deliver more expansions like this to the game. This also makes me more stoked for the Fallout 3 expansions - and with that, their frequency. Each month, to sit down and get re-introduced to that game is somthing magical to me - akin to how people come back to play WoW everytime there’s a major content patch. This could be a proper prospect for true episodic gaming. First you sell the people the movie, then get them to come back for the TV Series -i.e. Get them with a proper full-price game, then each month after it’s release add on a sizable chunk of gameplay for a minimal fee. The problem occurrs with the need for frequency. Something that, hopefully, Bethesda’s figured out.As a side note, I don’t think WoW is a valid prospect this weekend - something is very wrong with my net connection, and I do not wish to get in uTorrent’s way. Slowly but surely, it is acquiring important data.I’ve been after an excuse to go back to Fundee for a while, for a couple of days atleast, and I think I’ve finally got one. The Conflux Pre-Release is happening in about a fortnight. Consider this expedition in pre-alpha stage - meaning I haven’t done anything about it yet, I’ll keep the blog informed when I actually do something. The trick however, is to keep the ‘rents as far away from the decision making process as possible - rendering their interference in my epic trip of nostalgia, nullified.Work is a bit of a non-comment this week, considering what it is I did everyday this week could be considered “Fileing”. I guess when he started out, even Darth Maul had to take out the trash.Needless to say, whilst I did get payed, it was pretty boring. Which has made me think of some things to do, some personal projects, to make life a little more meaningful (see - not throwing myself off a bridge*). So far I’ve got two Ideas. The first is to finally get round to getting the blog more up to date. Meaning - version of wordpress, banner, layout. Just some little things that I’ve wanted doing, but seeing myself needing alot of time to get it done, as to not accidentally delete my entire website. The second is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and actually make something game related. I remember having good times back in the day with the Unreal Editor for 2K4, and I think that the GECK might be a more modern equivalent. It’s just that aquireing a collectors edition of Fallout 3 for the PC is proving a little difficult. So I should probably aim to get idea #1 into motion as soon as possible.But not today, for today is Caturday.Please enjoy the following video - if you are a WoWfag, circa Burning Crusade - I suggest you search out it’s meaning.(*wait…there aren’t even any fucking bridges in failserboring)a place with the failed and forgotten

Posted in Dundee, Fraserboring, Video Gaming, X-Box 360 | Comments Off

The Past 3 Months

January 5th, 2009 by TheMissingNin

I’m planning to do three posts, or rather I’m committing to do three posts. This one deals with the past, to fill in the blanks for the past couple of months, effectively breaking radio silence, even though there are no radios involved. Like a flashback from Lost. The second will be my annual year in review post, where I will reveal the ‘who cares’ 2008 Pagoda of Gaming Awards for Awesomness. The final will be 2009 Prediction post, In which I’ll also reveal on how wrong I was on last years predictions. So let’s get started.My job, was for the past 3 months, a sales assistant in John Lewis. In Aberdull. I don’t want to dwell on this for long. It was a pretty great job, and at times it sucked. If they had and opening at the end of my Christmas Temping, and offered me a position - I would’ve jumped on it so fucking fast. For a while in the middle, it was my dream to be a bum, living and working in Aberdull, via John Lewis. And there were times where the job made me rage beyond beleif. Mostly that rage went hand in hand with travelling back and forth every fucking day, effectively reducing the hours I could work by 2, and reducing the time I had to myself by another 2. Regardless, a permenant postion would’ve warrented a moving out.Sadly, A position was not available, so I had to go for option number 2 - To sell my soul to the corporate empire and become a Dark Apprentice. That’s my metaphor and I’m sticking to it. I’m pretty much scared shitless at what’s coming next. And honestly, since I start next monday, I really don’t want to talk about it in any capasity, and enjoy my final week as if I were plugged into the matrix.I’ve been playing almost anything you could think of the past triple months. Warhammer Online, Fable 2, Gears 2, Fallout 3, CoD4, CoD: World at War, LittleBigPlanet, Burnout Paradise, Halo 3, Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead and yes *sigh* World of Warcraft…. To name only afew. Some of those will be G.O.T.Y. candidates, some of them wont, and some of them…. Are Mirror’s Edge.Wrath of the Lich King is only something I really got into the past couple of weeks. I really held off as long as I could to jump back in, because I really wanted to take some time to finish the other awesome games I had to play. And even then, since before last week, I didn’t really touch the wrath content at all. I basically just leveled both my Druid and my new Death Knight all the way to 70, and only now am I just sinking my teeth in. And I was surprised on how fast it actually took me to get a DK from 55-70 and a Druid from 65-70. Part of that I’m sure is due to blizzard’s lowering of XP required to level. And the other part is due to “Jame’s Leveling Guides” on WoWPro. Not only do they spell out the fastest route to level, but it showed me alot of places and quests that I hadn’t neccesarily seen before. Like a guided tour of WoW.So here’s how it stands: Ichimaru, My Blood Elf Death Knight is currently level 71 on the Argent Dawn Server. Rin, my Blood Elf Shadow Priest, is currently level 71 on the Sporregar Server. And Hatake (The shapeshifter formerly known as Reito and further formerly known as Hatake) my Tauren Feral Druid is sitting at level 71, and is also on Sporregar. Notice the levels? Basically what I’ve done since I got to Northrend was to level one of my characters a full level, then refer to the leveling guide for the other two, which basically tells me how freaking wrong I was. I also have ran Utgarde Keep four times, and the Nexus twice. And all of this I managed over the past 3-4 days. The other thing I’m going to try and do is to take a couple of days break between levels, and enjoy some other game for that time. As for games other than videogames. /tg/ as some might say. I’ve done very little. The last time I played magic was… The Shards prerelease. I sold the bulk of my WoWtcg collection again (whilst keeping the two decks I set out to build in the fucking first place), and haven’t really sat down and even played a game of that yet. I haven’t been to the cinema either, since the middle of the fucking summer - to see the Dark Knight. TV, of course, has been awesome, and thoroughly watched - moreso than usual. I still haven’t finished reading the Watchmen. And when it comes to Warhammer, I’ve read 4 issues of White Dwarf (which I am now a subscriber to) and modelled/painted a couple of models. See Example Below, you can see my Tau Force Commander. (The two heads I got with the box, I thought, sucked. So I mutilated a Drone for the saucer-head) Tau Force Commander, Unpainted I think it’s all down to my lack of other-nerdly-contact. I have seen fucking No-one the past couple of months, which just goes to show. Mad props to my Fundee Homeboys, who I actually have been in semi-contact with. Just goes to show how fucking dead this town is I suppose.And that’s basically it. praying to the wrong peice of wood

Posted in Aberdull, Comics, Fraserboring, PC, PS3, Video Gaming, World of Warcraft, X-Box 360 | Comments Off

How to Stargate MMO, Moar Halo 3, and Gems of the Internet

August 3rd, 2008 by TheMissingNin

me kicking ass in team slayer (turret)

I actually have games to talk about for a change, that I’ve played, as opposed to speculating on ones I’ve not. This might be a long post too, I’ve got a backlog of stuff worth mentioning. There’s me wearing a different mask today, specifically a spartan helmet. Manning the manly warthog turret, kicking ass with my new american buddies.

Halo just seems to be getting better the deeper I get into it. Last night I finished off the week by nabbing the remaining campaign meta-game achievements, mongoose modown, and Marathon Man. That puts me at just 7 achievements left for a perfect list (6 of the random multiplayer 5-point’ers, and my Spartan Officer one), and I think I’ll spend most of the weekend working to wittle that 7 down to… less than seven. I just learned that there’s a team melee double xp weekend, so yeah, there goes the weekend.

I’ve played mostly Team Slayers for what must’ve been the past 5 hours, and I find it’s bringing me back to the periods spent back in the old Failserboring Academy, not doing computing work, and instead playing the UT2K4 Demo on the school’s network, on PC’s that can barely handle the game. Awesome. That’s how much I’m getting into it. I’ve actually had the need to use my freaking headset for a change. I’ve met some players (americans ofc) worthy of adding to my friends list, and round about my skill level. I dunno, I guess we just ‘clicked’, or that X-Box Live jerks seem less like jerks when they’re on your own team.

I also picked up Geometry Wars 2, which is everything you love about the old Geo-Wars, but with new interesting twists. They’ve effectively fixed the game, and added a depth beyond getting a higher score than your friends. If you can’t take my word for it, check out Jeff Gehrstmann’s review HERE. The game took up the portion of last night that I wasn’t playing Halo, and I’m afraid to play it incase it consumes my saturday aswel. Let’s just say that I played long enough to unlock all the modes and half the achievements. Beautiful game, I suggest sticking your eyeballs a foot away from the TV when playing.

I also suggest that anyone not a stargate fan of any level, scroll down a couple of paragraphs. I’m about to get all up in the Chappa’Ai’s Shit in a minute, and I’d like those not conscerned to fuck off down the bottom of the post and see the aforementioned Gems. If you’re staying, let’s begin with a video:

Watch THIS too.

Video #1 makes the game look terrible, #2 makes it look less terrible. I’m conflicted. Though swayed towards ’suck’. Now I’m a classic stargate fan (classic as in before they recruited the cast of Farscape and explained that Merlin was an Alien), and I don’t want them to go treading on my childhood memories. Right now, the game looks like Tabula Rasa with what looks like an attemted MMO cover mechanic shoehorned into a classic sci-fi licence.

Allow me to imagineer for a moment. Imagine a Stargate Online FPS (maybe like what they were going to make in the first place). The game lobby is the Stargate Command Gate room, all in pretty 3d, you get to run around in it, and invite friends into it, like a playstation HOME, you get the idea. You can choose from a variety of levels or scenarios, where you are automatically set up into a team of 4-8 friends/players and become a SG-# Team. Each level is a gate address. Once your team is assembled in the lobby, you all get to walk through the gate together to start the level. Each level has Left 4 Dead like AI, so the level is somewhat different each time you play, and is safely monitored to keep the game dynamic - not too easy/not too hard. There could be big levels or small levels, and not necessarily each one is a total firefight, there could be puzzles and classic style rpg stuff too.

Compared to what looks like some jumping on the 3rd person MMORPG bandwagon, I think my idea would be better. Not that my idea will ever get made or anything. The point is, they could’ve done ALOT better.

Long post is long, so I’ll make it quick. You NEED to see this, especially if you’re any kind of Buffy/Firefly/Angel fan. If you’re a super-fan, I’m sure you know about it by now. Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog is spectacular. If you’re retarded or have a 56k connection, you’ll have to wait til the DVD’s out. If not, there’s torrents and whatever going about, I’m sure you can use your intellect to acquire something. Here’s the trailer for your convenience.

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

I was going to start a page on Giant Bomb devoted to Energy drinks, I found that to be rather redundant when I found the TaurineRules blog. That is all. Oh, and THIS is my current favourite.

There comes a time in every internet nerd’s life that they need to experience the retardedness of mary-sue’s. It’s hilarious, trust me. HERE. Better Explanation - It’s a totally seriose Harry Potter Fanfic that’s about some stupid vampire emo girl who goes to hogwarts, and at some point someone tries to rape her. I guarantee you’ll laugh by the end of the first sentence.

Finally, I know I sing alot of praise for HD content, especially the PS3’s blu-ray functionality. I think I’ve had more Blu-Ray Movies in my PS3 than I ever have games. I would say that if you were to show off a Hi-Def anything to someone who’s never seen such quality, That Nine Inch Nails’s Beside You In Time Blu-ray is truly fucking spectacular. Trent’s sweaty high resolution head is something to behold, and possibly worship. It’s my current LoveFilm rental, and I think I may have to keep it for a while, just so I take in everything. That, and NiN are pretty fucking awesome. There’s a ton of tracks on there from With-Teeth and a bunch of their best old stuff. Audio quality is spectacular, make me hate myself for lacking a surround sound system in my inventory. Planet Earth is said to be a pretty good HD demo, and that’s somewhere on my rental queue for later. Another point to take from this, is that there should be more HD concerts on BluRay. Specifically Linkin Park, but that’s just for me.

It may be a while before the next post, unless something imperative comes up. Next week is pretty hectic, with the whole SURPRISE! HERE’S A RELATIVE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IN FUCKING YEARS thing about to happen, which I’m commited to thinking is going to be a disaster of epic proportions. I’ll also be going to see Batman next weekend, should all go well. No cards for a fortnight either, since they’ve managed to pull a format out of their hat that I can’t play in. And If I’ll be playing anything at all, it’ll be Halo 3 or hopefully Viva Pinata. Speaking of which, it’s time to pwn.

Also… The boat fire. yeah, I was there helping out, shit was pretty fucked up. Aparantly it’s within my job description. That and the transportation of dead bodies.

Posted in Fraserboring, PC, Video Gaming, X-Box 360 | No Comments »

An Explanation In Two Sentences

July 21st, 2008 by TheMissingNin

I know I haven’t posted anything the past couple of days, and I really should considering we’re currently in the E3 fallout period. But I think I can explain myself in a couple of sentences:

Work is being a bitch of a thing to wake up to, and to get called out to, repetedly.

Halo 3 on Legendary doesn’t play itself.

There, now Enjoy THIS link. I may ninja the Nintop with me to work tomorrow for some lunchtime catch-up posting, which would require further ninja’ing of a wireless connection, one that I’m not sure is active anymore…. and BBIAW.

this is how we like to do it in the murder scene

Posted in Fraserboring | No Comments »

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