For anyone who cares, I have a new blog up at http://dnd.sargonas.com which follows the adventures of the D&D 4th Edition campaign I am partaking in, with blogs from the point of views of the characters. Check it out if you are into that sort of thing.

No, no.. not the PBS childrens show about math from the late 80’s and early 90’s… Im talking about how I am back to square one. My xbox 360 has a fried hard drive. Its tossing up a single red ring segment with an E 67 error. Microsoft’s KB article on it states this is one of the three possible hard drive errors. This particular one is the worst.. and its accompanied with a grinding, scratching sound when the system first fires up. In other words, 2 years of saved files, game data, and 7,000 gamerpoints worth of work are gone. (well i still have the gamer points, but the WORK is gone) the only thing that was on the memory card I have was my profile, and my Mass Effect and Rockband info… I am so sick I could throw up over this.. it really is heart wrenching. I know this is somewhat laughable that I could be so upset over something like this, but from my point of view, this is two years worth of hard work and effort I have put into my biggest hobby.. *sigh* and I was going to buy a new 120gb drive soon and port all my data over.. guess I waited too long huh :\

I’m taking up a collection for donations to buy a new 120gb drive… I need to collections cause quite frankly at the moment I cant afford one.. *sigh again* if you feel generous, click the link below… I’m going to sit in the dark and cry now.

So… another post about guitar hero 3. You know, the game I ranted on endlessly about for two or 3 posts and several twitters?

Hm yes, well you see, when the gleeful joy of the early adoption lust has worn down, and you have a moment to sit back and reflect on what you just did, things always take on a new light. As they say, hind sight is 20/20. I for one kind of wish I had been wearing my glasses when I first took at look at Guitar Hero 3. To be honest I did give it a few low marks, well I should say, I made a basic attempt to tone down my praises with a few counter comments at best. In either case, in reflection I didn’t do that enough. I beat the game on Medium, which was for the most part easy. However now I have gone back and taken a stab at Hard and Expert, and let me tell you, here is where they fucked up. Guitar Hero 1 and 2 flowed when you played, even when you worked up in difficult. When you played those songs, even the ones that were tweaked for maximum concentration and dexterity, you still felt like you were playing a guitar, with a natural flow to it. Medium on GH3 felt the same way, so in reality, it was nothing I was looking for, or comparing. It was all a subconcious understanding that I was happy. However now that I took a stab back at Hard and Expert I have learned something, Neversoft said fuck that noise, and just decided to stick notes wherever it looked like it would cramp your fingers and be considered harder.They gave no thought whatsoever to the concept of music and flow.

These are base instincts to Harmonix, a dev studio that has an entire employment roster engaged in one or another personal band. Not a week goes by in the Cambridge area where SOMEONE from the studio is playing a show with their band. Neversoft I think simply does not have the innate understanding Harmonix did to get this concept. It is most evident in the expert songs. You do not feel like you are playing a more complex version of a song, trying to really rock it out like a pro. You feel like your fingers are playing a torturous version of DDR in a futile attempt to keep time with a pack of drunken riverdancers. These are not words based on my inability to beat these songs, just because its hard I dont feel this way. Even the hardest songs for me on 2 and 1 i felt like i was playing real music. This simply restates the obvious, this is an unproven, and unwelcome genre for Neversoft to dabble in, and that Rockband, when it hits the stores next week will triumph over all. (Well goes on sale that is, as it is already in stores, and I set eyes on my own copy of the bonus bundle in person at my regular Gamestop today, although the Manager, in awe as much as his staff and him are of me and my job, had no desire to loose his job by letting my have my copy early, heh. In any case, I sincerely apologize for leading my select few readers who care about my blog astray into thinking the game was a triumph of success for the franchise. It is more like the Episode II:Attack of the Clones of the series. 

Now then, Assassins Creed. I know I said I would reserve judgement untill I have completed this game, and I still intend to, but I will tell you this.It is a rental. It will be the first game ever for the 360 that I intend to trade in when I complete it. I never trade in games, under any situation. I simply deny the fact that such an option even exists to me at a store level. However this one, is being sent back in for sure. If I ever wish to revisit it, I will bring it up in my GameFly queue. The game is NOT bad, and I AM finishing it however I see little to no replay value in it at this time. The rest I will save upon completion, unless I return it to Gamestop before then, and apply its credit towards something more substantial. 

Lastly, there is a copy of Mass Effect at this time sitting at our house awaiting Dan and I. Ok, well, mostly Dan in the beginning, but in either case, don’t hate us too much, we cant help the fact we know people.

5 years ago this week (today actually) Xbox live launched. Since then it has evolved a lot, a WHOLE lot, but its still Xbox Live and the are still gamer tags. Everyone comment and share a memorable live moment, favorite feature, or how about the turning point where you realized your soul was irrevocably sold to Live, or to the advancement of your gamer score

So today I think I have been over indulged in awesome geek stuff! First off Assassins Creed came out today, more on that later as I go into a preliminary first impression on it. 

As to the other piece of hotness, today our first half of our new computers from corporate arrived today. This was, in my opinion, the better half of the batch. Brand spanking new Apple iMacs! They are the 20 inch systems, decked out with all the options on that level and 2gigs of ram. They are HOT HOT HOT. I finally have an apple system to use on a regular basis and I love it. The only downside is that I am going to need to do some serious work to get used to this keyboard it has. Its sexy as hell but I almost have to relearn how to type all over. It shouldn’t be to bad though.Now then, Assassins Creed… With any game hyped to the degree that AC was, you almost accept it defacto that the game is going to be less than stellar. To be honest, as much as I was looking forward to it, I was also equally expecting to be let down, although fully anticipated enjoying the game none the less. Now granted, I am only about 3 or so hours into the game, so I will be the first to state that I have little grounds to bash or even support the game at this point. Consider these ‘preliminary’ thoughts on the game at best, and not my final review. I think Gabe from Penny-arcade said it best with his comment in yesterdays front page blog “Untill you have sat though the credits and watched it all.. you aren’t qualified to say SHIT about this game.”They were very closed lipped about the allegations at this game taking place in the future, AND the past. These sayings, which grew as time wore on, and Ubisoft seemed hesitant to confirm, but also refused to deny, became a known fact, albeit an undetailed one at launch.  I wont ruin the surprise for you, but I will say this. Having kept the plot, and the ‘future story arc link’ in the dark was actually a cool thing ™. It added a little bit of a twist that made you go “well damn, thats neat” in a day and age where major surprises like that in games are rare, and generally only used in the ending, as everything is over advertised in order to sell product these days.

The game does indeed fall short of some of the hyped expectations, but when I say it falls short, what I am saying is, it is your average, standard “holy shit this is awesome” blockbuster hit, rather than the end all gaming experience to solve man kinds problem once and for all, that Ubi made it out to be. They game starts off as well with another unique feature. In most games as you progress you learn new abilities, get new gear, and work towards being the ultimate badass that particular game builds you up to be, that of which you generally don’t even know 100% what you will become until you get there. In AC you start off the first 15 minutes of the game fully geared out with all your abilities. They give you a seductive taste of what you CAN be, and eventually will. Then you are stripped of all of this, knocked down the ladder of progress, and have to work your way back up. To me, I feel this is a novel and refreshing approach at the whole progression concept.  I can see peoples fears that the game may become repetitive in later stages, and I have yet to play enough to reach that point, so I am reserving judgement for that until such time. However as of right now I think I, personally, will not be affected by this issue, from my initial experiences. Then again however, each person will look at this game differently, and I could very well be a deviation from the norm. In either case I will withhold any judgement on that aspect until such time as I am worthy of it. 

Lastly I want to take a moment to tout my buddies over at 360voice.com. Trapper and Steve (ChangeAgent and Fatty Chubbs) have been working hard on a new thing they rolled out, their new Gamerscore Challenge system. It allows you to build a “challenge” to see who can earn the most gamer points in a given number of days. You invite your friend whom you wish to partake, and once everyone in joined up, the initiator launches it, and off you go. At the end of that time the person who acquired the most gamerpoints during that time frame wins. Right now its purely in beta and for fun, but they have partnered up with Old Spice (the backers of the Xbox Live Challenge campaign) to provide prizes and awards for challenge winners in the future, so keep an eye on it. Also fell free to check out the challenge Stale, h2o Banana Hammock and I are in, which I am kicking ass in (as of the time of this writing, hehe). Check it out here.

So I finally got my hands on Eye of Judgement yesterday, thanks to the alert, watchful eyes of Stale. It is impressive, and I see great potential. However the inital mechanics were, clumsy, and I am still learning the proper flow of the game, as well as the true strategy of play. Once I pin down on the strategy, and my lack therof, and better understand the game flow, I think the rest will kinda lock into place and it wont be so bad. All in all im not really disappointed, I just need to give it some time.

Time however is something I don’t really have to give it… Assassins creed comes out next wednesday… I’m currently deep in the throngs of pokemon hunting on my DS, rock band hits stores a week after assassins creed, and mass effect lands at the same time.

And thats just November….

It has been weighed, it has been measured, it has been judged….

IM-FUCKING-POSSIBLE TO FIND!!!

Ok so Eye of Judgement came out today for the PS3. Its the first PS3 game ive been looking forward to actually. Hihgly acclaimed by the guys over at Penny-arcade, my personal heroes when it comes to gaming information. Its like any other CCG card game, but you play it online with your PS3 against others, using the new PS3 camera (included) on a special 9 square mat where you do battle with your creatures and spells on cards to take control of the board (5 squares wins).

The cards are made by the same folks who make Magic: The Gathering, and are recognized by the PS Eye using a special encoded barcode on them.  On screen the artwork comes to life, with a 3d rendering of the creature of your card appearing to stand on said card.

Needless to say, being the afficianado of card games that I am, I was psyched about this. This game was not preorderable, it seemed no one was taking them. 5 Gamestops, a wal-mart,  best buy, amazon.com, bestbuy.com and 3 google searches later I know why. Each retail store, no matter who they were, got ONE copy today… one… uno… everywhere online is showing backordered in terms for 4-8 weeks… I was devastated… until I found a copy on buy.com. They claim to be instock and shipping in 1-2 business days. So I ordered a copy… heres to hoping I have it in by next wednesday or so to satiate my yearning hunger

I’ts a day later and I am on the plane back to Atlanta, and to be honest it still hasnt fully sunk in.I just spent yesterday at EA’s home office, and it was as one of their employees.

The first dose of new-reality was  checking into the hotel. We were each given our own room, none of the sharing that I have grown so accustomed to over the years at work and Event travel. We left the hotel just before 9am and headed over to EARS (EA Redwood Shores) and signed in at the lobby. After waiting around a bit, the head of EA Partners,  (the guys who liason with all the non-ea studios that EA publishes)  who is a good friend of SCI, showed up and took us over the the 250 building, also know as the Studio Building.

Over at 250 is an awesome set of conference rooms, that can be combined to form one hall for 500, or 3 individual rooms each seating 100 or so people, in an auditorium style theater.We had a lengthy 4 hour meeting with the rest of the online groups in one of the rooms, the contents of which I obviously cant share. There were two awesome revelations at lunch: One was the now well publicized announcement of the aquisition of Bioware/Pandemic, theother was the fact that EA apparently has a standard for large conferences. Catered lunch from the cafeteria across teh quad, and cases of beer. Yeah, free beer at work for lunch, apparently the place thrives on its consumption of beer on a regular basis.

After the meeting we were given a private tour of the campus, after being given our new employee photo-id badges, starting with the building we were in. The main studio building has its own mini cafeteria, plus a Starbucks and “the library”, where you can checkout just about any game or movie ever made, sort of their own in-house blockbuster. The studio, as well as every other campus building, has a dedicated “game room” with consoles, pool tables, foosball, pc’s and more. We also had quick tours of the other 3 main buildings, the main offices, or Mission Control, the online building where ecommerce and online stuff is, and the final building. EA cares alot about its employees health and happiness, and this one reflects that. It has an awesome cafeteria with great, healthy food, a 24 hour gym, and a high school sized basketball gym complete with motorized bleaches built into the wall, and the EA Sports logo in the center of the court. The tour was wrapped up with a trip to the EA Employee Store, where we were given free run to snag all the swag we wanted for free. Also, all EA console and PC games can be bough there for $20 and $10 respectivel. (this is after you have used up your annual 10 “points” where pc titles cost 1 and consoles are 2).

After that we had a short sit-down with HR about our benefits, the usual crap, the moved on to the most surreal part of the visit. We went into the EA Partners office where they wanted to celebrate our joining the office, with shots of jack, and beer from an ever-stocked mini fridge.

We then relocated to “the garage” a small conference room that had been taken back to the studs intentionally, with garage band styled artwork on the walls, bar stools, and tables. You honestly felt like your back in highschool in your friends garage for band practice, and thats why were were here. In front of us sat an omninously looking ginormous HD tv with a 360 and a ps3 attached, surround sound, and a full array (plus extras) of Rock Band periphreals. For the record, Jesper sucks, and I rock.

And so that was our day at EARS, finally capped off down the road at Sushi Sams, a small hole in the wall sushi bar all the locals raved about, where we ate $200 in sushi on EA’s dime…

God damn this job has perks…

After months of details, various procedures, and all the hassle involved therin, all the work in secret is complete, and now I and the rest of my company no longer are SCI, but are the newest division in the Online branch of EA Games! Rawk!

So I have been playing a copious amount of Shadowrun lately. Its good peoples. The combat is fast, rounds are decently quick, there is a huge myriad of combat possibilities. Spells, weapons, tech.. which ones to use, which 3 to hotkey bind, which extra one or two to take and use as quick use from the bind menu (a tactic i use regularly for resurrect… its not worth binding to one of my valuable 3 slots, but i can hit b, right, and highlight it and pull the R trigger just as fast to make it useful.)

The maps are beautiful, and the public games aren’t bad, however the reason for this post is, I am looking for some decent friends who play that are interested in some nice, organized private matches. I can see where damn good times can be had by all if we can get a large private group together. If anyone is interested, my gamertag is up in the upper right box.

So some others and I have launched www.gaming-wiki.com which is intended to become a most excellent source of gaming info. Wikipedia has a pretty darn good selection of Wiki entries on games, from reviews, to walk throughs to background info. However nothing like this exists for JUST gaming. My goal, to make just that. Someone attempted this with gamingwiki.com and failed, hell that site hasnt been updated in well over a year if not longer. Ergo my new project. There are so many review and preview sites out there, but they only cover what their staff writers bother to cover. The goal of gaming-wiki.com is to cover EVERYTHING the readers want to know, by simply cliking edit, and adding in their info, after all, that is what a wiki is for!

The problem, is content. Its a wiki, open to the world to edit… the trick it, finding people willing to edit it. So far everyone who has seen it is all “Awesome!! cant wait for there to be content for me to look at”

Errr…. so put some in ? *sigh* so yeah, its needs content.. baaaaadly… help?

Err… well its on its way… slowly. Today anyone who owned a specialty marked copy of Crackdown for the 360 was treated to access to download the Halo 3 beta and play though mid June. The launch time was set for 5am PST, and so well hyped Bungie had a counter running for the last few weeks on their website counting down to the very moment… and when that moment arrived….. Xbox Live dropped the ball. The little button wouldnt light up and let you DL the beta. I dont blame Bungie in the least, for starters, cause I know some people there and Im biased, but mostly because lets face it.. Bungie gives the Ops engineers at XBL code and say “here you go” and its up to them to deploy it right.

What was really annoying though was that it took them around 7 hours to find out what was wrong, and durring that time not a single update was given. Bungie made efforts to show they were trying to keep tabs on the situation for us all, but when they had nothign to share, it really didnt help. Finaly around 7pm they announced the problem was tracked down and that it would be fixed in about 3-56hours.

Naturally at the 2 hour point, I was logging back in once an hour looking to see if it was enabled. Finaly around 11 (right at the 6 hour mark) I logged in and WHAM I can download the 900 and some odd meg update… WEEE i was happy.. and now im sad…. 20 mintues later im at 2%.  Makes sense really….. 50 thousand some odd people are trying to download this rigth now, and knowing MS they dont have the server capacity to handle it.

Thats ok, tomorrow I can rock it and alls well. I cant wait though, I might have to go into the office a wee bit late, hehe. Soon I will be ajoy in haoley goodness… planning keggers and going to frat parties… studying for my finals with the guys and shopping for a jeep…

(for those that totaly dont get the reference, click the link, if your still lost as to why this 27 year old is making those references… well… I give up..)

We did it!! PlayLinc 2.0 web has gone LIVE in beta. Months of work since the holidays have paid off. Its still lacking a lot of features that are still in development, but they are coming. We have a long way to go, but we just passed our biggest milestone of them all, and its awesome.

If you want in on the invite to the beta, its easy, just let me know and I will send you an invite key. Im running the program, so its pretty easy for me to come up with them when needed, I just make new ones hehe. Seriously though, let me know and I’ll hook you up. This new 2.0 version is fully web based, and a working model of what will soon be embedded into live sites. For example, say we partner up with Lanwar.com and I log into there using my [lw]Sargonas[GumiBear] user name. At the same time, I will automaticaly be logged into playlinc in the background under the name ‘[LW]Sargonas[Gummibear]@lanwar.com’. If this aim name does not exist, it will automaticaly be created the first time on the fly for me. Then a skinned version of what the web 2.0 is will be meshed into the site, or in a seperate popup window, or in one of a plethora of other possible ways, its all up to the desires of the site owner and our design team. A way to bring all of the gaming communities together into one, it will be glorious… lol

Eat your heart out xfire. Everything you do we can do now, and we have 3 times that number of things on the boards to add… and some are already in place (like free dedicated servers to run some of the top 15 games).

The future of online gaming and online social networking is about to collide like never before, and I am a key architect in it…. its overwhelmingly awesome, truly.

On a side note, I hooked up the admin for mygamercard.net with a beta key… and lo and behold, I’m now listed on their “celebrity” leader board of 260 or so gaming industry celebs… hehe, rawk on. Phear my xbox live gamercard!!!

Now that we have a nice big widescreen HDTV at the house (52 inches of such, to be exact) I’ve gone hard core back into the 360 gaming, and loving it. The PC can wait for now, I have achievements to unlock

Most of my time this past week was spent on Guitar Hero II. I have completed the game with 5 stars on Easy and Medium, working on Hard now… and some day… maybe just some day… I’ll be good enough to say I’ve done the same on Expert.

Outside of that a lot of time has been spent on Oblivion, another realm im working in. I played a decent chunk of the game on PC a year ago, but really wanted to get back into it and decided if I was going to replay the whole thing, I may as well earn achievement points for it!! Ive done a 300 point gain since around 2 weeks ago, sounds good to me eh?

On a side note related to the 360…. watch out for Timeshift and Frontlines: Fuel of War. I know the Producer of the first and the Netadmin / Head of QA for the second very well, and have gotten to really know the games and I think they are really gona rock things hardcore… check em out.