Pagoda of Gaming

Little Bit of A Blog Update, Plus A Shite Load of Fallout 3 Gameplay

August 30th, 2008 by TheMissingNin

Two little updates: I’ve basically signed up to twitter, so I can do tiny updates without stealing the glory of bigger posts. The other thing is that I’ve asked the nice folks over on MindOnTheNet to see if they will update the PoG’s version of Wordpress to the latest one. If all goes well, I should get to make some minor changes to the blog that I’ve been after doing for a very long time. Like putting something like this in the sidebar:

follow TheMissingNin at http://twitter.com

Keep an eye on that thing, since I’ll be shoving updates in there for the little things I’m doing this weekend. Other blog updates may include putting my XBL Gamercard in the sidebar, maybe change the banner at the top, that kind of shite.

Kotaku also uploaded a bunch of gameplay demos for Fallout 3 that are certainly stoking my game boner. Check out the first one below. Or don’t if you don’t want any spoilers, since there are a couple there. Though nothing out of the realm that Bethesda’s talked about before, like the vault and the town of Megaton.

New Max Payne Movie Trailer, Spore Civilization Stage, And Interior Crocodiles…. As Opposed to the Exterior

August 29th, 2008 by TheMissingNin

Just a couple of things for this pre-caturday post.

Here’s a newer Max Payne movie trailer. Slightly added on from the previous incarnation. Though from the footage, it’s looking more like a movie interpretation of the original game, and not set before or after 2. I guess we won’t have long to wait to find out, since it’ll be ready for us on October the 17th.

'Max Payne' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

If plans go as plans go, this weekend will be filled with CoD4 campain mode, on Veteran. And maybe a little bit of Castle Crashers in-between. As for tonight, It’s Sweeney Todd on Blu-Ray and Chinese from Tangs. I think I’ll order Tongan Ninja and Spore tonight too, just to make sure I can get it for next week. Yeah, I’m starting to count the days til spore’s out. It’s starting to look like an actual game now! Take a look at the following video to see what I mean.

I know it seems like I get all my news from kotaku these days, but truth be told, there’s only 6-8 sites I purposefully check every day, namely: Kotaku, Giant Bomb, The Official Magic Site, Penny Arcade, Pure Pwnage and EZTV. With additions of WAR Europe since we’re getting near the warhammer launch, and MTGSalvation since we’re getting near Alara Rumour season.

Speaking of, Have you seen the new Official Magic site? Yeah, I have a couple of complaints. Mainly the shite I have to tread through to get to the news section, and that for some reason it takes them a whole fucking week to randomise a couple of boosters for a virtual booster draft. Oh, and flash websites still suck.

I leave you with a new, soon to be epic, meme. Use it to annoy your friends!

EDIT: Turns out that there’s news on the WAR front. The full Beta Test client is available for download, just go HERE, so you can be ready for when the beta test starts. And the Live game head start for the Collectors Edition will begin on the 14th of September, and boring old regular editions will get access on the 15th. All before the game goes live on the 18th. I thought we’d all get a week, but hey, 3-4 days aint bad at all

certain as the moon

more prozac 80mg

Posted in Film, Magic: The Gathering, PC, Video Gaming | No Comments »

The Tongan Ninja

August 25th, 2008 by TheMissingNin

An e-mail in my inbox has compelled me to post this. It’s a trailer from a super-funny movie I saw fucking years ago, back when I watched DVD’s on a X-Box, when the only DVD player in the house was in my room. I must try to track it down with the power of my internets.

Also, scroll down a bit so I can tell you, in just over 1500 words, why Warhammer Online is better than World of Warcraft. OH SNAP!

chitosan capsules

Posted in Film | No Comments »

The Caturday Night Adventures of Beardyweirdy, The Dwarven Engineer

August 24th, 2008 by TheMissingNin

I was going to call this post the “Why Warhammer Online is better than Warcraft” post, but I thought that might cause some greifing, should anyone magically hit this page via google or something. It would be wrong for me to dismiss my years in Warcraft outright for another game, I just feel that when WAR hits, in about a month’s time, people are going to be asking “why should I be playing this instead of getting another couple of months of WoW”, and I think I know some people who might be asking that question. So let’s analyze.

Right off the bat, I’m going to say this: WoW PvP is fucking boring. You’ve got a choice of like 4 maps, and all you have to justify playing is Honour points that you can spend on armour and weapons so you can play more of the 4 maps over and over until your head explodes. And world PvP is somewhat broken since you’re either going to get raped by some guards or bothered by all the mobs that are patroling the areas. And that there’s barely an incentive for doing it out of getting a 5% boost to your stats for a dungeon run. Arena’s are…well, /Duels but with more people. WoW’s never been a proper PvP game for me, I think you can gather that.

WAR seems to have hit the nail in the head. Each area in the game will have a major zone for PvP, getting larger depending on the zone level. Open world PvP they call it, seamlessly going from your ‘PvE’ leveling content into a battlezone. Your rewarded with everything from gold to even experience points for taking part in battle. You even have a seperate leveling bar that adds to youe Renown level, which is sorta like your rank in CoD4. It gets you better gear, better stats, and at times extra abilities for your character to use, akin to a Perk in CoD4. And if you’re not into open world stuff, there’s a whole bunch of scenarios to play in each zone. In total there will be over 30 of these to play in, and in addition to gaining XP and “PVPXP” and gold for your kills, winning the scenario will give your side of the war a great boost in points towards controling the realm.

That’s what it’s all about. No more “let’s go attack Orgrimmar for no reason”. Each teir of PvP area in the game has a control bar that’s filling with points whenever anyone does something positive for their side of the war. Like capturing a battlefield objective or winning a scenario. Get enough points and your allies will have control of the zone. This will then further help the war effort by eventually pushing your enemies back to their capital city, turning it from a capital city into a warzone, as the attackers aim to control and pillage the city in aim of unlocking final encounters with the leaders of the factions and a final battle with the realm’s King. And ofcourse all this is in the name of glory, XP, ritches, “PVPXP”, Rare trophies (that can actually be displayed on your avatar) and sexy new wepons and armour for your characters.

Last night I ventured forth as Beardyweirdy, and tackled some of the Teir 4 (level 30-40 endgame) content. And it was fucking awesome. I aided in conquering the final Orc stronghold after fighting through 3 PVP zones to secure all the objectives with what must’ve been somewhere around 90-100 players from the side of Order. And after that I joined in the final push towards the Inevitable City, the forces of Destruction’s capital city. And after that I fought and pillaged through the Inevitable city itself. I was sooo close to capturing the city…but then I had to log off. Maybe I’ll get another shot tonight.

I hope, if you are a WoW PvP veteran, that I’ve sold you on this. Don’t worry though, if you’re not there’s also ample amount of “PvE” content dotted about, and most of these, whilst they are accessable by both sides of the war, are also tailored for each faction.

The best PVE innovation, I think, they’ve made for the game is all the Public Quests. The best way I can describe them is that they are short and sweet uninstanced dungeons that you literally just walk into. Each public quest has round about 3-4 parts, mostly culminating in a final battle against a boss character. Then at the end depending on your involvement, you’ll get some sweet gold and loot, and maybe even a trophy.

The PVE portion of the game is set out in chapters. You’ll encounter about 25-30 on your road to the end of the game. A chapter unlocks whenever you reach a major town, and tells you a story about what the current condition is with the area, along with telling you what rewards you get for participating in the area’s public quests (there’s usually about 2-3 in each area). I’ve found that it gives the game an excellent pace, especially if you stay in each area to finish everything off before moving on.

The chapter tracking and whatnot happens all withing your Tome of Knowledge. It is an amazing tool, it basically tracks everything you do in the game and links it all together like your own personal wikipedia. Everything from game achievements, to character titles, to how much you’ve killed of each kind of mob or character class, and how far you are through the overarching story of the game. You’ll get a popup whenever you unlock something new, and clicking it will take you right to the page, this can happen whenever you enter a new area or kill a mob for the first time, or even happen upon an interesting statue.

Lastly I want to mention the game’s classes. Each is geared for PvP, for example, if you want to be an effective healer via the Warrior Priest, you’ll need to be on the frontlines hitting the shit out of your enemies so you can cast your most powerful healing spells. It took me a while, but the main reason I played the beta is to find out what classes I wanted to play when the game hits retail. And I’ve found one for each faction that I’d like to play. Chaos Chosen, Dark Elf Sorceress, Black Orc, High Elf White Lion, Human Warrior Priest, And what I played last night, The Dwarven Engineer. And I’m sure that any MMO veteran will find a class that they’ll be familiar with, and maybe even a class they would’ve never considered playing. I’m not a ranged DPS kinda guy, but I really loved sitting next to my turret blasting the shit out of greenskins from afar.

That’s all just the tip of the iceberg, and if you’d like to learn more before the game’s release, there’s already a ton of sites on the web devoted to the game. Hammer-Wiki is the best resource for all the general info on the game, like what renown is, or what’s a Lair. Aswel as some intro articles to the lore of the game. WARDB, from the infamous curse-gaming network, has all kinds of maps, quest info, and npc locations much like Thottbot. Most interesting is it’s interactive map, that shows you up to the minute info on the current state of each server’s RVR. So you’ll know when the forces of Destruction are knocking at Altdorf’s door. And finally, the Official Site has a tonn of general info and will ofcourse be the main source for when stuff is happening.

If all goes well I should get into the game’s head-start, so I get to play the game a couple of days before the game’s actual release. At that point I’ll post my server and character names, should any of you wish to team up. I’m also looking to start, or join, a guild, hopefully with some people I know. Take a look HERE, and you’ll see why. The guild-system looks awesome.

I’ll leave you today with a look at the game’s opening cinematic, that hut the web a couple of days ago. I hope it get’s you pumped.

In other news, the final part of the two part Pure Pwnage we’re-actually-releasing-an-episode-within-a-month-of-our-last-release extravaganza hut the web last night, and I think I speak for all when I say it was a freaking awesome episode. And can I say, the best cliff hanger the show has had for a while. Check HERE for the site and HERE for the downloads.

I’m also loving the Watchmen. I just finished chapter 6 last night, which puts me at half way through. Consider me to officially be excited for the movie.

CYOTFS.

We can watch the world devoured in its pain

Posted in Comics, PC, Video Gaming, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | No Comments »

Oh Hai! I didn’t See You There…

August 22nd, 2008 by TheMissingNin

OHHAI

Comic books, and I’m specifically not talking about Manga here, I’ve never really gotten into. My only real exposure to the medium came in the form of sonic the comic when I was about Eight. So the other day, I thought to myself “I’m losing some serious Nerd-Points here, I should fix this”. Then I forgot about it. Then about a week later, I get an email through my inbox with a link to THIS.

That was a Que for you to go and check out the link, even if you already have, DO IT ANYWAY. Hell I’ve done it like five times already.

So yeah, some fucking amazing shit there. Then I saw the latest episode of the Game Overthinker. And he cites the Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as two of the most influencial graphic novels ever. And though his opinions are often radically apocalyptic, (Watch Episode 11, and maybe you’ll see what I mean), I was swayed enough to buy both novels. I’ll get to reading them during my lunch breaks, since I’m quickly running out of podcasts these days.

Speaking of, GFW’s main rule for Comic Buying is to never buy anything that hasn’t been recommended to you from a friend. So if anyone out there has some decent recommendations or anything that I should read because it’s like the fucking Godfather of the Comic world, drop me an email. If you’re not retarded you’ll figure my email adress out.

It’s been over a week now since I saw batman, and alot of it is still fresh in my mind, and if that isn’t a glowing praise for the film I don’t know what is. My mind being my mind after all. Let’s not over-analyze it, It’s worth the price of admission and the time it takes to watch. So why the hell should’nt you go see it? I have no reason to give you. Heath Ledger’s Final and Greatest performance ever, Best Batman film ever, Best use of 12A certificate (use it to freak out your kids!) there’s your boxquotes.

Though I do have something to say, just a little nit-pick. You would think that Bruce could afford himself a voice changer, so he didn’t have to make that laughable smoker’s-voice every time he donned the lycra. There…. And that he looks like he’s wearing lip-stick somtimes. But apart from that, 5-star performance, quite possible TheMissingNin’s Film of the Year.

The State of X-Box Live Arcade has been fucking awesome these past weeks, shame I haven’t had the time to indulge so much. I got Braid and Geometry Wars, but I haven’t sunk into them an awful lot. I think that’s a goal for the weekend, to finish Braid atleast, I hear that something happens at the end. That’s all I know, people have been very respective of spoilers for the game, I think that’s a good sign. On the other hand, In Geo-Wars, Wax off is the bane of my existance.

You would think I would have time to finish them, but most of my gaming time has been taken up by the one and only Viva Pinata. FINALLY I have finished the fucking thing. After about 15 Pinata Genocide’s on my part, I netted all the achievements, which is something I’ve been after doing for a long while. The new game is out in a couple of weeks, Trouble In Paradise, but I think I might hold off for a while on buying it. Last week was enough Chewnicorn for a long long time. A major tip for any Gardener: Don’t get attached to your Pinatas. Be ready to envoke genocidal rage against your garden’s inhabitants, like a nazi to a jew, whenever they become obsolete.

A break for a moment before I go on to talk about some future games. If you enjoy this, go watch some Pure Pwnage.

So it’s nice to hear that Remedy are still making Alan Wake…. Which is pretty much all they said. I’m really jonesing for the game now, It’s THE game I’m really waiting for. Sure there are other games, that I’m about to mention, but Alan Wake is going to be, and apologies for my bad referencing, the new Bioshock. I don’t want to hear about the game, I don’t need a demo, I don’t need a billion trailers. I need a release date. Or if failing that, a finished copy of the game in my hands RIGHT FUCKING NOW. -_-….

The Wrath of the Litch King Cinematic hut the web, all the way from leipzig. You’ll see it embedded below. I think it’s pretty Meh, there’s nothing there that makes me excited for it, though that’s down to bad trailer-izing. For good Cinematic - see Burning Crusade.

I’m at the point that I really have to dredge some care from giveafuck bay when it comes to WoW. The less-hardcore denziens of Failserboring, who buy their PC’s from fucking Tesco, are really gay for it, and I’m getting a bit sick of their banter. I had WoW for over two years, and Loved nearly every minute of it. But all I see from this new expansion is more of the same. More abilities, more levels, more zones, more dungeons, it’s a formula that’s not appealing to me right now, especially when we’re seeing alot of innovation in the MMO space. I’m not even sure Blizzard will ever have to change the formula, since they’ve got enough Wowfags to fuel their coffers for years to come, in that case, I’ll be done with Warcraft for a very long time. I’m more interested in other MMO’s.

Star Trek Online is one of those other MMO’s. I watched the trailer over and over, and all I see is a game brimming with potential. I want to command a spaceship, I want to explore the cosmos, I want to exploit transporters. I also want to see a continuation of the Star Trek universe. I am a fan of the Trek, but it doesn’t come up much these days, so I rarely get the chance to say so. Since the shows somewhat just demise the only think people are talking about is the new movie, and that’s really just because it’s being done by the lost guys, or that Simon Pegg’s in it, or that Zachary Quinto’s in it. You get the idea. But back in the day, Deep Space 9 was THE SHIT. And I guess I miss it.

As a seperate point, there are few Sci-Fi shows that actually embrace Humanity acceptablly surviving, and thriving as a race, until the 23rd century or whatever it is. Think about it. Maybe that’s what makes Star Trek unique……. Next paragraph.

I played the Star Wars: Force Unleased demo, about 30 minutes ago, and I’ve come away with a single point - That a good Star Wars game has yet to exist. I don’t really need to analyze this game, other than to say that the only game that game close to acceptable was KOTOR, and that was the only game to not be made by Lucasarts. Really - check out THIS list, ALL BAD.

I was going to talk about another fucking awesome MMO that’s not WoW, specifically, Warhammer Online. The NDA has lifted now so I can talk about specific things. But I think I’ll save that for another post, that might be written this weekend. There will be blood and Warcraft hating all over the place and the world can only be better for it. Yes, this game is Thoroughly stoking my Game-Boner.

Looking at the release calendar, we’ve got a busy month ahead. Spore and the new Viva Pinata will be hitting in a mere 2 weeks, I think I’ll care more for Spore at that time, and then a week and a bit after that, I’ll be in the WAR early start preorder bonus thingy. So to fill in the time, I’m going to focus on getting more of my 360 games finished. Currently, I’ve been thinking of finishing the Oblivion expansion. I also picked up Burnout Paradise on the weekend I went to see batman. I wanted to check out the new (free and huge) expansions that are being released for it, specifically the bikes and planes and new real estate that’s coming in the next updates. £15 for a game I traded in for £25 back in February, not a bad deal at all.

I have nothing to say on Magic this week. Which is odd. I think I’m just starting to loathe my opponents, since I’ve only got like 8 of them. And half of them aren’t worth it. ZING!

Nin Out! Enjoy some fucking awesome music!

This is actually available in Rock Band now, Fucking Awesome Bass Track.