Hopeless Gamer

A lot has been happening in my life at the moment,will be posting on a more regular basis soon….

promise…. : )

 Not long after I bought my first mp3 player I started listening to podcasts,after casting about for awhile  trying to find stuff to listen to, I stumbled across the Virgin Worlds website run by Brent. The site struck me as slick and functional and amazingly free of flashing ads. Here I found a  site and podcast that was all about massive multiplayer online role playing games, the people and companies involved in making the games as well as the people who actually play the games. 

One of my favorite podcasts is Short Attention Gamer .

They were saying on a recent podcast how they liked to receive listener mail, so I banged off a missive saying how I enjoyed the podcast.

 I gave a brief description of myself, you know, married, old, with kids, got into gaming late, and I mentioned the blog.  

Todd emailed me back saying thanks for the email and asked if it was ok to mention the letter and blog on the podcast!

  Why did I mention the blog in the letter I asked myself?

 What if he reads it and thinks it shite? 

It is a funny sort of conceit to think you can type stuff about things that interest you and people will find it interesting enough to read. Then I thought, why not mention the blog? I kind of think it is a pointless exercise if I’m the only one reading it.

 I bit the bullet and replied to Todd “sure, no problem”.   With baited breath, I waited for the show and before long; it downloaded itself into my Ipod.

 I’ve bought one of those Ipod attachments that plug into the cars cigarette lighter and transmits to your FM radio; so on the way into work, I listened to the latest SAG episode.  Todd starts to mention listener mail and I thought, “Here we go” In the email, I mentioned how old I was and Matt remarked how Todd and I were as old as dirt. Todd and Matt had a bit of a chuckle over my mid life crisis, how I chose gaming over a Ferrari and then Todd dropped the big one.

  And it was good.

 He said he liked the blog and said some very kind words about it, I was over the moon, a bit of validation from a well-known podcast I enjoy and respect meant a lot to me.

 When I got to work, I tried to impress on my work colleges how famous I was, after explaining what a podcast was four or five times, I gave up.  Still, as I mentioned on the SAG forum, you gota take what you can get.   

I have a aging PC and a Xbox 360 ,more and more I’m faced with the dilemma, do I buy the latest game for my pc or my 360 ?

 Some games aren’t released on both platforms, I’m talking about games where you have a choice, I’m not an ironclast for either system, hence my dithering. 

I guess it depends on the game.

Two years ago when I bought my 360 I also bought Oblivion, even back then I doubt my  PC rig would  have come close to looking as nice as on my Xbox. Burnout Revenge I think is way better on the 360 as you can steer the car fine even with the Xbox controller and the car crashes look great on the big screen.  

Twitch based games are always preferable for me on the PC because of the mouse/keyboard control, I’m happy to dial down the graphic settings for the sake of gameplay,however,its hard to guess sometimes how a new game will run on my old beige box.

Now as to the Orange box from Valve, I did a system check at YouGamers and it seems my pc will cope with the game, also I’ve not had any experience with STEAM, but hearing what the guys on the GFW radio  podcast have had to say both about STEAM and Orange box, they almost have me convinced,PC is the way to go.

Almost.

Then I start thinking, hopeless gamer right?

Did I buy my 360 to play games on it?

Team Fortress 2 that’s included in Orange Box sounds like fun, and I’m going to suck at it anyway, might as well suck at it in the comfort of my own lounge room,eh? 

What to do? Which version to buy? I’m one conflicted gamer. 

My guilty secret ?

Never played Half Life 2

*kill the heretic!* 

Just a quickie, there is a website where you can share your embarrassing moments, it’s called Loosr.com.

Ahhh, I couldn’t help myself, I submitted a story, its entitled “my first date”

Its all true.

The bit I did not include was how the date ended.

And ,being the gentleman I am, I wont include it here either ; )

I’ve been playing a bit of the  Tabula Rasa Beta and I must say its quite a bit different to the elves and dwarves staple that I’m use to in MMO’s.

Basically its set in the future on a variety for different worlds, and rather than controlling a knight or wizard, I am an armour wearing soldier firing a laser rifle/shotgun/bazooka ect.

My opponents are  a horde of alien monsters that spawn from dropships at various locals on the map, its different and fun.

Not so different is the interface and mission structure’s, anyone that has played a MMO in the past will feel right at home.

The story line is cool also, the three tier character progression looks interesting and the inclusion of Logos (upgrades to customise your character, sort of like magic) adds a nice little bit of depth to your toon.

I think I’ll be playing this one when its released.  

Maybe I was in a bad mood when I downloaded the client and patch and installed VCO on my pc.

Granted it is a free MMO, but sheeet, what a crappy newbie tutorial, lasting about 2 minutes and explaining very little.

VCO’s opening 20 minutes illustrates yet again to me how slick and noob friendly World of Warcraft is.

VCO rated 8.2 at MMORPG.com so the game must have merit I guess.

Me ? I’ve not got time for it when there are so many other good MMO’s out there.

Before I start my discourse on Halo 3….a short cautionary tale.

When you pick up your pre ordered game from a large department store, if you hear a rattling sound from its metal busty innards, open it up immediately and check the discs.

What happened with me was weird, the original packaging for the Halo 3 “limited edition” I bought was all in place and untampered with, however the foam inner lining was missing and the game disc had been rattling around and had been scratched.

I took the game back and of course the inevitable “well, we have run out, we don’t know when we are getting more In” line was trotted out, I thought “bugger it” and got a refund, went to a another store in the same mall and bought the game again.

Second time around I opened the game and found the foam inlay and realized what was missing before.

Strange

On to Halo 3 

I didn’t play Halo 2 very much so starting Halo 3 was a bit like back to the drawing board for me, you are into the action pretty much strait away and well…it’s a shooter so you kill aliens in various locals.

It looks great and the intuitive halo interface is easy to pick up.

Speaking of easy, that’s the mode I’m playing on at the moment,I’m the type that jumps into play and reads the manual later so I’m starting to get use to the various pick ups and weapons available in  game.

You also have “equipment” that you pick up that’s new to Halo like a energy shield that  blocks weapon damage but lets you walk through, I think using this stuff will be fun in multiplayer

I am going to hop into a bit of multiplayer soon to get a thrashing at that, looks like a few late nights coming up.

Well, my blog is called hopeless gamer so its no shock I am getting my arse kicked in the Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Beta.

You start out with five default classes each with a set weapon load out and three default Perks per class and as you rank up you unlock more perks and customizable classes, the details can be found here.

Some of the things I like are the rapid leveling up pace and also the look of the game, very shiny.

I’m not sure I like the call in an air strike when you have a player get seven kills in a row, seems to punish the opposition a little too much.So far, there have been virtually zero lag problems even as a lone ozzie playing with my British and American comrades.

Apart from the strong language I have been pleasantly surprised at the lack of arse hats playing the game, maybe when the game is fully released that may change.

The holy grail for someone of my skill is to one day have more kills than deaths and it nearly happened this afternoon when I had my best ever score of 6-6.

Usually the score is more like 2-10 or worse and I often  wonder why I’m subjecting myself to this type of online vexation, the mavens I’m playing against are so fast, I’m only just able to bring my gun to bare before I’m dead as a doorknob.

Still, all in all ,I will keep playing,mavens or no mavins