Archive for the 'Gaming' Category
Thursday, January 8th, 2009
Happy New Year
I could have sworn I wrote an entry in December, however I recently upgraded the database, and upgraded to WordPress 2.7 so that might have gotten lost in the update. So it is a new year, new database and now a new update. December was just a amazing month for me, this year I started backcountry ski touring and over the holiday break I got so amazing days of skiing in. All my time was spent in the West Kootenays, hitting up hot spots such as Retallack, Kootenay Pass, the Bonnington Range, and Whitewater. Good turns, good company, good life. January isn’t shaping up to be a great month for skiing with the avalanche danger being high due to unseasonal warming and rain.
With the lack of skiing I finished off Fallout 3 which turned out to be a awesome game. I had some doubts about it at first but I stuck through the beginning and really enjoyed the experience. I have now started on Dead Space which is looking to be amazing with a great atmosphere and sweet graphics. The awkward camera angle started out as annoying, however it leads to some very scary oh crap moments. Dead Space is defiantly a game that needs to be played on a surround sound system, in a dark room alone.
I’m looking forward to 2009 and what the New Year will bring and I wish everyone the best in the New Year.
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
Fall Update
So I haven’t updated the blog since I got back from Montreal and for good reason. My 1st day back in Nelson I sprained my wrist on a bike ride, a week later I left for Kelowna where I resided for the last 2 months. While in Kelowna I had limited access to the internet having to go into town to PC Bang to get online. While there I got a chance to play the new game Left 4 Dead which was great fun. Defiantly a game I’d pick up if it goes on sale but for $50 I think it’s a bit steep considering I paid that for the Orange Box last year which had way more gaming material in it.
I have update the Now Playing / Reading section as well as fixed a link to the GFW podcast, which changed in the last couple of months losing some key personalities and gaining some new ones. It is still a great podcast to listen too. In Kelowna I had an old laptop that could play some older games and I started playing through Grim Fandango, I’ve almost finished it and have to say it truly is one of the greatest games of all time. Games really aren’t made like this anymore. Old adventure games made you really think about the puzzles presented to you, and some just don’t make any sense. The last time I had to use a walkthrough was Zelda: Oceania of Time another older game that is awesome. Now that I’m back home I need to finish the last chapter in Grim Fandango, and get started on some new games that I’ve been looking forward too such as Fallout 3, and Dead Space.
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Orange Box Modding
Not much new to report in my life but I wanted to write about MINERVA: Metastasis. I’ve been trying out some mods since I bought the Orange Box and so far Minerva is by far the best. Offering the same style of gameplay and feel that Half Life 2 does, it feels like a side story with HL2. You can download it here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/5803/minerva
Another mod of note is ZombiePanic: Source. Filling the void of a zombie shooter until Left 4 Dead comes out, it is very funny and the people I have meet playing it are great. Everyone is into the zombie feel, and the slow speech of zombies looking for braiiiiins… over voice chat from people is great. Gameplay I feel needs some tweaking to balance out the survivors and the zombies and some maps are pretty poor, but it is a nice break from TF2.
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Review: The Witcher
So I recently finished playing The Witcher by Polish developer CD Projekt. It’s a RPG in the same style as Neverwinter Nights, it even uses the same engine that was used in Neverwinter Nights 2. Luckily I played this game using the 1.2 patch and didn’t have to deal with the retail release version of the game. Because the game was released a bit premature, the reviews suffered and I’m sure the sales did as a result. Having never seen sales numbers released or never seeing it in a weekly top 10 sales chart I believe it hasn’t down all that well which is really too bad because with the 1.2 patch this game was very enjoyable and deserves more recognition. Early reviews harped on long load times and game crashing bugs. 1.2 addresses the crashing and the load times, but every time you enter and exit an area you are presented with a loading screen which slows down the game play a lot.
Friday, January 18th, 2008
UT3 Goggles SDK
A new set of goggles for UT3. Tested with the Hurin model, will work for other models but won’t be placed or scaled correctly. I included the XSI scene file as well as the original Photoshop file for you to check out and modify if you wish.
Saturday, January 12th, 2008
Bender
I made a quick Bender model for Unreal Tournament 3. Modeled, textured, and imported into UT3 in the time it took to watch Bender’s Big Score (2 hours). Theres a couple issues with the character but it was done quickly to see what limitations there are for importing custom characters into UT3. (Right click the picture to download)
