Pagoda of Gaming

Mid-Weekery: Street Fighter IV And Continued Ponderings On EVE Online

February 25th, 2009 by TheMissingNin

There’s some great faggotry going down with Seth - Street Fighter IV’s “Final Boss”. Infact, it brings me back to yet another february, where I spent too much time getting angry with DoA4’s ALPHA-152 - who shares many similarities with Seth: They’re both blue, they both can teleport, they both have mondo-hit combos that take gigantic chunks out of your life bar, and they are both made up of the compiled moves and data of many world fighters.

They’re also both cheats. Intentionally. I finally beat Seth last night, but it took a helluva lot out of me - so much that it made the 15 second process of lose - accept continue - re-choose character - show flashy me vs boss screen - skip animation, near unbarable. There are droves of players out there on the net that are feeling the hurt of this and it’s extremely unacceptable - especially in a game that’s built on it’s balanced fighting system and legacy of honorable combat.

Though, that’s really the only thing I can see wrong about Street Fighter 4. It’s the most master-crafted fighting game I’ve ever played. And after my bouts - to the extreme plural - with captain wankery, my Ryu is pretty strong and as such, I’ve actually been winning fights on X-Box Live. It’s a Delight.

As a sidenote, I’ve been using my regular 360 controller instead of my SFVI Fightpad for most of my playtime. I’m actually more used to the analogue sticks than the weid floaty d-pad I got with the new controller. I find I play better with it. And at the end of the day, my thumb hurts less from constant Hadokening.

DoW2 Early Impressions
The other big game of last-weekend is Dawn of War 2. I didn’t play so much of it as I planned, but what I’ve seen so far has returned my faith in the RTS Genre. I think I’ll save my thoughts for when I have more to say. I was surprised to see that there are Achievements, like proper Microsoft Achievements, of which I already have hundreds of. List HERE. It’s a pretty decent list too, nothing too ‘out of reach’.

Eve Online, is a funny game for me. Whenever I see a trailer, it makes me want to re-download the game and re-subscribe, only to login, set a skill to train, and subsequently logout. My problem with the game is that I instantly lose my sence of direction whenever I login. I always said that I’d come back when they get the walking in stations stuff implemented (so I can open a virtual Bar ofcourse), but I think I’ll get in early for their next expansion. The prospect of them both revamping the character creation/new player experience and adding an epic overarching quest-line that will span the galaxy should in theory give me some of the direction I crave.

So yes, tonight I will download and install, then login, set a skill to train and then logout.

Today’s video is a small teaser for the new expansion set to hit on the 10th of March. (interestingly, wikipedia says that after this expansion, CCP will be stepping up production on the long-expected World of Darkness MMO. You don’t know how much I want that game)

I left a note on my twitter, but I should reiterate - Quake Live is Live. It’s Quake. It works through your browser. It’s free. That’s all you really need to know. Can’t get into the servers right now though, they’re totally getting raped. But you should hit up the link to register your account and whatnot. There’s a nice intro movie-tour that takes you through the features - and there’s some nice X-Box live kinda stuff in there - dynamic friends lists and awards.

This weekend the rents will be not within my area of space for somewhere between 24 and 48 hours. This will be awesome - I’ve already bought the nachos and cheeze and dip. Gathered an assortment of Rockstar Energy drinks. And got enough cash out of the machine to blaze a Chinese Takeaway Trail. In addition - I’ll have Killzone 2 and Halo Wars to play, along with SFIV, DoW2, EVE, and maybe a Hint of Quake Live. I’ve honestly been hoping I’d get the house to myself for a couple of weeks now - so I’m determined to make the most of it.

chicken supreme

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

Simply Checking In - Engage Hermit Power!

February 20th, 2009 by TheMissingNin

It’s been a bit of a dull week - moreso than usual. Games have come out, in glut, and it appears that the gaming press are too busy dealing with the likes of Lost and Damned and Street Fighter 4 to get riled up about something - the same goes for myself. Well, there was THIS, but I never played the first one, through lack of age I assure you. I Acomplished last all of last weekend’s goals with little hassle, though, I didn’t play asmuch games as I wanted to. This weekend, I aim to fix that.

Goal #1 - Finish GTAIV: Lost and The Damned - main story atleast.
Goal #2 - Podcasts and Army Paintin’. Just under 6 Hours worth of ‘casts this week.
Goal #3 - Play alot of other games.

I’ll be using “power of hermit” tactics to accomplish these goals - Because I really don’t need to leave the house for the next two days. And I’ll maybe post something up - though I know I’m brimming with games to talk about, nothing has yet spurred my mind to squeeze out a paragraph or two. And I am going into undiscovered country here - fighting games and RTS’s - so when I get angry because I’ll lose all the time, a rage-post might appear.

I got ahold of Incredibad earlier on in the week, and it’s been a blast. I’ve literally spent the past 4 months listening to anything from the Nine Inch Nails Discography - my ears welcomed the change. Enjoy “I’m On A Boat”:

shit on debra’s desk

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

Weekend Confirmed! World Lonely Shinobi Day Tomorrow!

February 13th, 2009 by TheMissingNin

The big achievement I need to unlock this weekend, is that I need to put a theory into practice - Walking between the ‘rents and work each day is about the only time I thought I could listen to my weeky smorgasboard of Podcasts, this however tends to chop up an entire ‘cast into 10-20 minute chunks, and overall, takes me about 2.5 days to finish one. The point being, that I seem to have found a perfecter time to Listen - when painting my Warhammer models. A double dose of ultimate geekdom, each weekend, about 4-6 hours of podcasts and painting.

If you want a taste of what the aforementioned podcasts are, take a look at the links in the sidebar.

Secondarily, I want to get the old NinTop set up for the ‘rents, which could last as long as 10 minutes to 10 hours, depending on their brain compatibility. In addition to that, I’ve got final tests to do on Tensa Nintop (that is to call it, “Heavenly Chain’d Ninja Laptop”) that involve anything from testing it’s tollerance to Hi-Def AVI’s to getting my fat-gamer fingers used to the new keyboard.

I’ve been loving this new laptop so far, everything just works, and that’s on VISTA FFS. What little I’ve played of Left 4 Dead, has been above and beyond any experience I’ve had with the game - because there’s no lag. At all. And I’m not worrying that the next giant horde of zombies might make my graphics card want to kill it’self. It’s mad. I’ve never had a smoother PC gaming experience.

That’s not to say that there aren’t probelms, there’s two. One, that playing CS:S the other night was a little choppy, but I think I can remedy that. Two, that sometimes it takes a restart to get it to remember how to play a MP3 or an AVI. I’ve had worse problems in the past with lesser hardware.

So in addition to all that, I’ve got hella gaming to do. F.E.A.R. 2 popped through the door this morning, and I’m waiting until it’s the witching hour before I begin. I’ve got a bunch of PC games to go through, again, mainly for Tensa testing. And I’ve got two classic games to sink my teeth into. There’s Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, which I want to play because I landed on THIS neogaf thread, and it spurred my game-boner. Secondly, there’s the Call of Cthulu game which came out a couple of years ago. Why? Because Eat-Sleep-Game are using it for a Backlog, and I want to play along with them.(Backlog, being a podcast segment where the hosts play a chunk of an older game and talk about the experience on the ‘cast, for the purpose of critique, not so much review) I know I have a copy of it somewhere, I just need to find the freaking CD.

Today’s video is the Trailer for the GTA4 Expansion - The Lost and Damned - which should hit next week. Why do I keep forgetting that this is coming out?
oh fuck, that was FUCKING NICO!! Shit is going to be LEGENDARY.

And here, Giant Bomb’s Quick look at Killzone 2 Multiplayer, with the awesome Gerstmann.

Achievement 1: Podcast & Model Painting Session (80GS)
Achievement 2: Finish Laptop Set Up (50GS)
Achievement 3: VTM: Bloodlines, FEAR 2, Call of the Cthulu, and other awesome PC Games (20GS)

Dianetics, your butt cheeks is warm

Posted in Video Gaming, X-Box 360 | 2 Comments »

Tensa NinTop, Comics, Dead Rising 2

February 11th, 2009 by TheMissingNin

This just popped through my door today. I FINALLY finished reading the Watchmen last week, and I don’t want to give out on my reading streak yet. It was… certainly not what I was expecting, everything just comes together in the last 2 chapters and those are the ones I was holding out on reading. I chose “Y” as my next foray as I recall it being reccomended on GFW Radio last year, and the concept, (MANOCALYPSE) has certainly hooked me.

As always, any comic reccomendations are welcome. My collection currently consists of Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, WANTED, and now, Y: The Last Man. Anything that’s considered the best of the best I’d like to read, especially something current. like 2009.

I plan to be putting Tensa NinTop through her paces in the next couple of days, aswel as watching perpetual percentage bars filling with downloads and installations (as it is doing right now with WoW). All I know so far is that it runs Audiosurf to the best of it’s abilities and that the speakers are awesomer than the previous NinTops. I’ll working my way up the spectrum of graphic intensity, and also some odd games that have running problems, like Max Payne. In all possibility, it may be more powerful than the Ninputer, and that kinda freaks me out.

This may clear up queries on the whole “Tensa” thing…. Probably not.

At the same time I will be preparing NinTop 1.0 for her retirement. That is to say, getting it ready for the rents to take over. It should be an…. I dont know whether to go with “annoying” or “entriguing” experience. I’ll be there to pick up the peices regardless. Keep an eye on the twitter feed and I’ll be updating as I go with performance and problem info.

Nice to see that Dead Rising 2 has been properly confirmed. Is it? I dunno, I’ve always felt that the first game was waaaay overhyped. I fear that it will succum to the same problems every capcom game has, that it was made in japan. I’ll say right away, that they can shove the game up their asses if they have a save system that in any way resembles the previous game’s. That’s just not cool.

For todays video, I thought I’d give yous a glimpse of “How I Met Your Mother“, It’s like friends, but AWESOME. I recently just got caught up with the show, up to season 4.5, and It’s yet to lose any kind of momentum. Enjoy one of Barney’s memorable moments: