Pagoda of Gaming

I feel bad not posting about any video game related activites that have been going on. But there honestly haven’t been any - Apart from O.D.S.T. but there’s pleanty of Reviews and Video Reviews out there that say just about asmuch as I could. I played through it on normal and I liked it quite a bit, not as much as I will like it as I tackle it again on Legendary, but It’ll be a while before I try that. I haven’t played Champions becaue of the suicidal lag and incompleteness of the game (I’m going to enjoy typing that into the “why are you cancelling your subscription” box) and I haven’t been in the mood for any EVE/Comic time. So really there’s been little gaming going on at all.

Gaming news has been rather slow these past weeks and understandably so - games are coming out or are being delayed. TGS brought me no game-boners of any kind - but finally someone agrees with me, and that guy created Mega Man. And we’ve got over two weeks until Brutal Legend hits us mid-Rocktober, and hopefully that’ll be more than 6 hours long. So until then I suppose I can hit up some BF1943 until I exhaust the gamerscore from it.

Realtime Worlds continues to drip feed gameplay clips of APB like a cockteasing whore. The Fundee grapevine says they’re working hard on getting the Beta out before the end of the year - but I dunno, I’ll believe it when I login to it. Here’s said clip - Watch in HD to pretend that you’re actually playing the game!

I had a worthwhile time in Fundee at the weekend. It was all very usual - and that’s what I was hoping for. For all the stalkers out there my Twitter feed should fill in the blanks. I saw Surrogates on the friday night (walked all the way from the Travelodge to the Odeon dontcha know…) and it was a good show. I felt on edge throughout the film, and Bruce put on a great show. I’m a little annoyed that most of the movie is so far removed from the Graphic Novel - everything from the story to the character’s backgrounds to the way it ends was dimensions apart from the original story, and I’d have to say that the Comic was better, it provided more of a mystery and the characters were a bit more realistic. Props to the special effects people for making such an amazing “barbie doll” sheen for the character’s Surrogates, it had just the right amount of creepy.
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The Magic: The Gathering Section Of The Post
I got on rather terribly at the prerelease. I ended up with a hellish 3 losses to 2 wins. I should go commit harakiri for my failures. But it was good to play magic for the day and I got to see the new set in action. I could post my decklist from the tourney, but it changed so often. I had not a single colour that could stand up for itself and might’ve fared better at a three colour deck - but I didn’t want to take the chance. Most of my rares were trashy or fit for constructed play. Pyromancer Acension for example.

Zendikar is an interesting set, very experimental, full of powerful cards - but somewhat incomplete in my opinion. Maybe I’m just so used to Blocks that followed such a cohesive structure from recent years (Lorwyn’s Tribes, Shadowmoor’s Hybrid Pairs, Alara’s tri-coloured shards) but I get the feeling that the set lies incomplete, and yes, I realise we’ve yet to see the final two sets of the block.

The Ally’s seem overcosted and there are few that seem totally playable. The Merfolk appear alot weaker compared to their lorwyn counterparts. Red is all over the place, so much that I can’t even describe. What I notice the most is the Kor’s lack of Equipment. Their lord relies on Equipment and to an extent so do they, yet there are only afew good peices of equipment - only two rare (one focused towards the Vampires and another that’s rather high-costed), the best in my opinion being the Uncommon Trusty Machete.

The Vampires seem to be the best put-together of the set, taking up almost all of Black’s setspace. But I’ll get to them in a later post outlining what I’m going to do with them. I will say that over the weekend I pitted my Deck of Double Vampire Precons (hastily thrown together) overcame alot of rather powerful decks with an elegant ease.

On the plus side of the set, the incohesiveness and the splashes of theme should allow for some interesting rogue decks and aim to destroy the comfort of Lorwyn-Alara standard, and that sounds good to me. The last time there was a set like this was Timespiral, and that turned out alot of surprise decklists and combos.

I think next week I’ll either sit down and get the Vampire 2.0 post over and done with or wait until the set has had time to settle and go back to one of my other and older ideas - unless ofcourse, anyone has a suggestion?

HERE is Zendikar’s Visual spoiler. I suggest you load it up and take a look at this amazing new set and get proxying right away, before the prices get extravagant.
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I’m going down to Edinburgh in about two weeks time (oct 10th - 17th) and I’m not sure what I’ll be up to. It’ll be nice to get away for a while, especially when everyone else is working. I’ll maybe trip to Fundee for the day, for magic and the peeps, and alot of long lies are in order, as is delicious foods and many many cinema trips. This holiday will actually mark the one-year anniversary of my Employedness, and I don’t know what to think of that. It certainly doesn’t feel like a year, my internal clock still thinks it’s March. A year ago I failed epically, and a while after that I failed some more. And the downward spiral continues…

a lifetime of fucking things up

It was a usual Fundee Affair, I ate deliciounormous Tonic Burger, I played cards, I ate delicious Clarke’s food, I bought cards, I ate delicious Chouse Breakfast, I played cards and then I had a Pizza. Sadly I didn’t get the chance to draft, but that was more than made up for by seeing the glimmer of as I told them magical tales of how to give yourself infinite turns or kill someone with a beautiful Phage without swinging her to the face. It is a glimmer that I hope to nurture and mold into that of a competant player.

Speaking of Magic, let’s get that business taken care of. The UK Nationals were last weekend, and I was happy to see the variety of decks that made the top-8, as opposed to the US’s 5-colour Ordeal. The Winner’s Deck was a pure, tried and true, WU control deck sporting Baneslayers and Cryptic Commands with the most simplistically effective Mana-Base I’ve seen since before fucking Mirrodin.

And today we got our first glimpse of the Planechase rules and even a couple of plane cards. This looks like proper good fun and I can expect myself to be on a train down for the set’s release events in less than a month!

I haven’t really played enough of the Champions Online Beta to say anything solid - well not to mention the whole NDA thing. I will say that I am not as sold on the idea as I once was, but with more time into the beta I’ll maybe get to understanding it alot better. When it comes to MMO’s - WoW is my point of reference and Champions strays quite far from it, just with the overall structure of the game. I’ll keep you lot posted, and I’ll definitely have my say after the NDA drops.

When I returned from the Fundee, I near-immediatly sat down and played through Mothership Zeta. It’s not the best of all the Fallout DLC’s, but I feel it is worth it’s buck. I do have one major problem with it though - on the ship there are abductee interview recordings kicking about (ala Bioshock) and finding them all nets you an achievement. I’ve voiced my opinions on this collection bullshit before, but the real kick in the balls is that once but yet upon successful completion you can return to the ship, but you can’t enter most of the parts of the ship. What the fuck is up with that? Now I have to go and play through it all again, and I will loathe the day. This is supposed to be the last DLC for the game but I certainly hope that it isn’t. I’d love to play a new chunk of Fallout every 2 months from now until New Vegas’ launch, and I’d pay for that too.

I’m extatic to see that Pure Pwnage is up on it’s feet again. The mysterious project (Project-X) that the team has been working on is a 10 part Series of PP that will be broadcast on the Internet, and more importantly for their careers, on Television. Extreme details are unknown, but after the HUGE break the series has taken, and the awful events that happened since the last episode, we might have a Pure Pwnage Reloaded scenario on our hands, or even moreso a reintroduction to the show. I’m all for anything ROFLMAO Productions is up to and I hope they succeed in their global domination. Check out the Announcement Video below.

Marty McWhyte linked this to me the other day, It’s pretty self explanatory. Sighted at last week’s Comic Con. I’m currently in a state of excited apprehension.

Today’s Epic WTF Video stars none other than Ice-T (see Law and Order) and…. His wife? In it we get to see the Ice-T Gamer in it’s natural habitat, then call up Cliffy B. and threaten him. The interesting thing about this, is the interviewer. It took me about an hour (without googling) to realise that all those years ago he was in the preview videos for The Matrix Online, the ones you can see on your Blu Ray copy of the Matrix Trilogy today- apparantly he Owns Monolith or something.

My iPhone has yet to arrive. I am quite pissed off about this, considering that O2 have sent me my first Bill and that the package has been sitting in DHL’s Aberdeen Depot since Last Wednesday. Infact I’m waiting for a callback to find out what the hell is going on. Had it arrived I would be able to review an iPhone app for you. I’ve been looking for something proper to write about for a while now, and rather than bore you with tales of high level MTG or review a game you’ll never play I figured that an iPhone app is a well enough rounded thing for me to tacke. This should also prevent impending app-addiction, since there are quite alot out there that are so wonderfully cheap apart, but wallet raping together. So when the shit turns up, and I’ve sent my Rage-mail to the company I’ll be posting “An App A Week: The Giant Bomb App”, and I’ll be trying to round it to the Kotaku style of review, if that means anything to ya.

I’ll be heading down to Edinburgh on thursday for the game festival. I’ll be sure to post up tales of my shenanigans, and if iPhone is in hand, I’ll be tweeting my way along, and maybe even some photos or video. I also have an appetite for sushi that must be satisfied. But right now, I’m going to attempt to make a standard legal Vampire Tribal deck…. yes that is as stupid as it sounds.

Also, John Hughes is dead. That is pretty Gay.

dancing you know it baby

So let’s start with a funny video. It’s been a while since I’ve heard of any awesome anti-scientology raids via our anonymous friends. This video, uploaded in January of this year, is a masterpiece of disruption and lulz. The concept is simple - take a willing operative, dubbed ‘Brave Agent Pubit’, strip him of his shirt, lather the motherfucker in vaseline and then spread upon him hairs from the netherest of regions. Then set him loose upon the reception area of a nearby Scientology base. Accompany that with recordings of prank calls and a heartfelt ballad and we’ve got some luls, I urge you to check it out:

Next up is a look at Halo ODST, which showcases the cast of the game. Indeed, there is about half the cast of Firefly in there, including Nathan Fillion’s facial likeness. The game looks like it’s going to bring a much needed boost of emotion and personality to the franchise Not that the Cheif isn’tThe ‘Cheif is more of a pure Icon.
Fat Princess came out last week for the low price of £12. I got my mitts on it and played through the story mode (which I highly recommend to new players) but I haven’t really sunk my teeth in due to being very good-TV-less this past while. When I’m moved back into my room - when it has curtains again and the TV doesn’t face the burning rage of the sun - I’ll give it a better shot.

A new trailer for EVE Online has hut, and it’s probably the best 2-minute explanation of the game CCP has ever given. Watching it made me almost re-sub, but then I remembered that Ambulation, their future patch that will let me open and run my own “Barcadium” has been put on hold. Here’s the trailer.

Speaking of MMO’s, my Beta Key for Champions Online has arrived and I’m currently downloading. I’m oddly excited for a round of super-heroism, after reading Superman Red Son the other night, I’ve found more substance in that side of the Comic genre than I thought I would. I’ve always been a batman guy, but beyond him I’ve always thought it was a little too much. Consider me surprised, though I’m not going to run out and grab me some Green Lantern, that dude’s just silly. Ryan Scott, of GFW fame, has a good preview up of Champions over HERE, if you’re interested. And I’ll be posting my non-bannable impressions as I play along.

The Matrix Online is officially dead. I was very interested in playing it at launch all those years ago, but after seeing the grind the game presented and the cryptic gameplay mechanics, I shelved it. It’s a shame because it did have some pretty good ideas. You can see the last hour of the game’s life HERE over on Giant Bomb. The final message broadcast from those running the game was a simple and respectful “Wake Up”. I think alot about how a Matrix Online game, one bigger and better than before, could be brought into existance - and maybe sometime in the future someone will pick up the property again and give it a propper stab.

There isn’t much to say about this next video, chances are you’ve probably seen it. It’s a tiny snippet of gameplay for Modern Warfare 2, showcasing the custom kill streak loadouts. Ahem. Custom Kill Streak Loadouts. This is going to be amazing.

And the final peice of news I found is THIS. DJ Jazzy Jeff is going to be in DJ Hero. Now that might mean very little to the uninitiated, but allow me to define. “Jazz” as he is otherwise known shared the screen with a young william all those years ago in what may be the best television series of all time. Now if you’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, watch this video in Awe.

But as awesome as that is, I’m fucking not paying £120 for a DJ game. No Fucking Way.

I should admit that I have seen the Twilight film. It was horrible, but in a delightful lulzy way. Marty McWhyte linked THIS to me the other day and it’s a hilarious read, or a professional troll depending on your point of view. Personally, when it comes to the film, I have never seen a worse source of vampire lore - at points it eludes to the characters being more Generic Werewolf in origin, and yes… Vampire Baseball.

I think I said somewhere that I was going to talk about the mighty MTG in this post, but honestly I can’t be arsed. I’ve been building decks the past couple of days and I think I’ve got what I set out to build initially, save a couple of extra cards that I’ll pick up next week.

I’m oficially on holiday, though it hasn’t quite sank in yet. Tomorrow I’m hitting Fundee for a couple of days, to see the homies, maybe draft and whatnot. My usual Fundee hyjinks. Then I’ll be treated to my Driving Theory Exam next monday, which to this point I have done absolutely nothing to prepare - outside of a car. Then the rest of that week I’ll be tripping down to Edinburgh to savour the delights of the city and the Edinburgh Interactive Festival. There’s also the matter of the iPhone I purchased, that is currently on it’s way from O2, an experience I’m excited to share with the rest of you.

So here’s to the holidays. May my decks shuffle well, may the podcasts never end, and may I be moved into my room again by the end of the fortnight.

Je ne vous pense pas vous trust

So let’s get into it, M10 Prerelease analysis/reflection time…

I opened a semi-decent pool of cards. My Red and Blue sucked beyond beleif, my Green cards were ok (Fuck yeah! 2x Llanowar Elf!) but not worth raping the mana base for a splash. Therefore Black and White were my strongest choices. My saving grace was most likely my pulling of a Baneslayer Angel and a Liliana Vess to tutor for her. That Angel is beyond insane - A 5/5 flying with Lifelink and First Strike. She Won alot of games for me It’s a shame I never got to use her crazy choices of protection (from Demons and Dragons Wtf?). Vess was primarily used for her first ability, and then to find my angel if required - apart from that Other rares that I included in the deck was Magebane Armor - which at one time was totally gamewinner when equiped to a mere Drudge Skeletons. Cemetery Reaper was extremely useful in many cases both to hold off attacks, and to win the inevitable creature race.

Among other cards Harm’s Way is one of my new favourite cards. It won me a game once, though I cant remember what it was exactly redirecting. It’s the cost of the card that really makes it shine, similar to sunlance. Redirecting cards of the past have cost alot more and have only really been featured in red or blue. It’s one white to deal with 4 points of damage, and it can win games. On the flipside there’s Doomblade, and I understand the need for it with all the Esper going about, but to me it just isn’t as flavourful as good old Terror.

But back to the tournament - It wasn’t an easy rise to the top by any stretch of the imagination. My only regret was that I got manascrewed quite a bit in my final match, but shit happens, and that’s not to say that I would’nt have lost the match regardless. There were very few games in which the Baneslayer didn’t take to the stage, one game she netted me 50 life. But there were a couple of rounds where I went 2-1, including the final. My winnings included a sweet shirt to go along with my awesome Conflux shirt of pre-release past. And a couple of boosters, which gave me a second Baneslayer and also a trade of a rare dual land for a sweet non-prerelease version (which totally has better art) Vampire Nocturnus - which is by far my favourite card of the set.

I should be playing this game. Across my entire life Magic is one of the count-with-one-hand things that I don’t totally suck at. I forget easily how much I love the game.

So yes, the PreRelease went well. So well infact that I bought £60 worth of Singles last night to build new decks with. I don’t know when I’ll get to use these decks, but I’ve got a nice Grixis Zombie deck in the works for Standard play, and in Extended I’ll be doing up my Sharingan and ressurecting my W/B Control deck from the Ravnica-Timespiral days with some new card choises. This might not get done for a while, but I’m earmarking some time in the Holidays to sit down and sort out my cards.

Apart from the prerelease I did a couple of other things. The rotting carcas formerly known as Zavvi, now known as Head, had some utter bargains that I took advantage of. Viva Pinata 2 for £7, Saints Row 2 (PS3) for £12 and Blade Runner on DVD because there’s no reason I shouldn’t have it. I had an amazing platter of food - From the usual Pre-Third-Round Steak and Egg Roll from the Clarke’s Bakery to a delicious 8oz Texas Top Hat (Burger with Bacon, Cheese, BBQ Sauce and Hash Brown) at Tonic, which is my new favourite resturant of all time, for the simple fact that they have 52 different kinds of burger including “with Marshmallow” and “with Wasabi”.

And that’s the jist of it. I’m really tempted to hit Fundee again during my summer break, that is the two weeks I get. The logistics are a bit up in the air, and I haven’t really thought it through, but if I can put myself in dundee and subsequently Draft and eat Burgers - well that would make for awesome holiday.

Battlefield 1943 is officially my shooter of the Summer. It’s all I’ve really been playing the past week and it’s just a total solid battlefield experience, which is something I’ve been after for a while. Fortunatly, I missed the highly publicised rocky start the game had with matchmaking etc, so I can’t say anything really bad about it in that regard. I can just sit down, hit play and have a really good time, the only hassle there seems to be is the squad system which is a little off-base in regards to organisation and finding a squad. If the game continues to be playable for a long time I would like to see a couple of new maps - the coral sea one was a nice addition but you’re screwed if you cannot dogfight, which again is another little sligh of the game’s design. A word of advice to all those budding pilots out there, never use 3rd person view unless on a bombing run - and just stick with it and you’ll eventually get the hang of it. I did.

I also squeesed in some 1 vs 100 into my schedule. The concept is pretty tight, it just needs a little polishing and in my opinion is screaming for a total set of videogame trivia for the extended play - because I’m already sick of getting asked fucking football questions. I gave the live show a go last night and whilst I was never a part of the mob or the one, it was a pretty decent time - though I think I must’ve lagged out of the show somewhat, because I never heard the ‘Host’ talking once past the intro. There’s another one on tonight that I might check out.

Whilst I was exiled last week, I played some Fallout 3 PC. It’s awesome, as the X-Box Version is, and my Laptop happily gets along with it’s graphical demands. I suppose if there was any issue, I’d have to take it up with the controls. They’re just a bit off for my taste - I can’t really put my finger on it. I’d like to plug in a 360 controller and see how that deals. I do however love the fact that I get two Fallout 3 entries on my X-Box Live Profile - and hence double the possible achievements.

Regretfully, I never sat down to play any Civ4 - to sink my teeth in. Maybe this weekend. I know from Rebel FM’s tales of Civ that it is a beyond time consuming game, and I’m afraid I’d have to pull myself away as a delightful obsession sets in. The same reason I have for not sitting down with Plants Vs Zombies over the past week.

This week’s video is a small intro, from Bill Roper, to the character creation and development of Champions Online. I’m actually looking forward to this game quite alot. I’m really after a different kind of MMO these days, and this seems promising - but I’ll see if I can get my ass in the Beta before I commit to buy.

And with that I’m back to the infinite cycle of depression that is eat-sleep-work. I am starting to see the upside of a driving licsence - the ability to just up and go to the fundee roughly any time I want. But now I remember the core of my previous stance - I neither can afford or wish to deal with the hassle of car ownership.

Also GIRUGAMESH!!

and slap your American face!

It seems that I’m not the only one that thinks a Fallout re-release isn’t a bad idea. Putting it on the DS makes it a brilliant idea. Hit the link for a mockup image of the game in action. Coincidentally, I found the post whilst googling “Fallout DS” just incase the preverbial they decided it would make them money. I still want to play the original fallout games, but if it were on a newer platform, with some modern a twists to the implementation, it would drive me to play it. Having it sit there, and it costing me something like £5 to own, doesn’t drive me.

whilst we’re on the subject, there’s some more info about Broken Steel, the last of the trilogy of Fallout 3 DLC. It’s basically a confirmation of what we already know. It’s nice to know that this expansion should have a more widespread effect on the known-wasteland, aswel as add a new out of the border location. I really hope that they make some more DLC for the waning summer months, another month-by-month trilogy would be freaking awesome, especially if it draws off some of the new Broken Steel implementations.

Whilst we’re on expansions, DLC, or whatever. It’s amazing to see that whilst Valve are seemingly gearing up to totally revamp and add to TF2, for free, the best sony can come up with is a couple of maps for $6.

There’s also THIS. I think it can speak for itself. Personally, I don’t see the appeal, and I think alot of weed was involved in the conseption.

Today’s video is the new Lonely Island single, if it even is a single. If it is, I certainly approve of the track.

This’ll probably be the last post before I head off to fundee, deck protectors and DS in hand. Everything is officially booked for my trip now, so there’s no going back. The Alara Reborn spoiler is now complete, and it’s clearly a set with no mono-colored or no-colored anythings. Not even land. Years ago we would’ve called this blasphemy, especially when you learn the facts that there are artifacts in the set, and yet there is only color. No planeswalkers - which is understandable. I think 5 is going to be our official ‘walker quota per block.

There is one last thing I’d like to talk about. I finished Y: The Last Man on monday and it was way better than I thought it would be, the story did lack a little at some parts in the middle, but it really came through. Just the way it ended really touched me, like emotionally, and when it comes to books - that hasn’t happened since I finished the Amber Spyglass. Which coincidentally both turned into a fucked up love story in the end. The point is, it’s really been stuck in my head since I saw the end of it, and few things really do these days.

you were wearing that dress