The State of ‘My’ Gaming

I’m still crafting a reply to Paul’s questions about the State of Academic Gaming so in the meantime, I’ll examine the state of MY gaming.   The first thing – one needs to play games to be a gamer and I have NOT played any video games in the last two months!  Frightening!  No specific reason other than lots of RL (that’s real life for you noobs) getting in the way.

So what was I playing?  Well, I’m almost through BioShock – and it was everything that Jerremie described it to be.  Rich texture, intriguing story and entertaining game play.  Challenges are pretty good and walk-throughs haven’t been needed which tells me that this is well-designed game.  My major only major gripe is about 3/4 of the way through – WAY too much exposition – completely destroyed the immersion.  Just too long.

I’m also working my way through Neverwinter Nights 2.  This took me some time to get into this since I had finished NWN last year.  The AI is almost too good and for awhile I had troubles adjusting.  Combat flows much more smoothly – not requiring the player to set ALL combat actions for the NPCs after each round.  There were times that I missed this but without it, it really does move the game along.  The story is interesting (big bad evil) but really does provide some interesting choices for the story.  These don’t ultimately affect the outcome but do change how future interactions might occur with the NPCs.   By the 3rd chapter, you get to manage a keep which allows the player to explore different styles of managing.  I’m always curious to know immediately what the future impact will be without waiting.  I have avoided looking through walk-throughs to see how the different paths turn out.  I’ve just started the third chapter so am in the midst of making alliances with a number of NPCs.  My major gripe is that the party is set to 4 (I know – there are cheats to change this) so I can’t always get the NPCs that I want into the party.  Sometimes the dialogue is a little long and in some places pretty lame.  Had a bug on a side quest – annoyed the hell out of me but didn’t really come into play.

I also have been playing Left 4 Dead, which uses Valve’s Source engine – the same one we’re using for Benevolent Blue.  This is a fun game and I love looking at the props and the layouts – very familiar.  Basic premise – kill zombies, and more zombies, and even more zombies.  Oh yeah, and more zombies (this does get tedious).  It mainly designed to be cooperative – four players can take on the roles of the survivors and fight your way out of the city.  You can also play multi-player with one group playing the zombies and the other playing the survivors.  http://l4d.com/

I guess I should mention that I also sojourned back into the land of the MMORPG – most specifically, World of Warcraft.  But I will save that for another post…  ct

Two Weeks, No Programming – Why?

I thought by now I might be able to post that the demos are cleaned up (large ERROR objects are replaced with real objects for instance) and ready for download.  I have had two weeks since LOEX, so why are they not done?  Partly just catch up on my other responsibilities (which are not actually caught up yet, from collections to a new online learning object) is taking a fair bit of time, then there are my liaison duties (which included a fair bit of basketball recently, the real type, no computers involved) and finally I have been catching up on my “reading.”  By reading I mean playing some important games.  I finished On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness (excellent game, very enjoyable) and I have been playing  Lego Indiana Jones (which needed more play testing) and Bioshock, I can hardly talk about Bioshock and story if I haven’t finished the game.  I am continue to really enjoy BioShock although the game play itself does remind me of System Shock 2, which o.k., as that was a fun game, and Bioshock looks great, and the story is interesting, I guess I just wish somehow it was less like System Shock.  I haven’t noticed in any major differences in play between which plasmids I have either, but that could be my own preferences.  Anyway, I should be caught up on my “reading” soon and back to the mod next week.

I have also just picked up Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures as I think it is worthy of some time, and there is always the Wii fit, looking for its 20-30 minutes a day.  I hope to post next week with an update on the Benevolent Blue. Have a good long weekend.

Jerremie