sargonas.com » Gaming

pax day 1 part 2

Sargonas — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 06:20:49 +0000

aaaand I’m back at the condo Its VERY rare for me to be at a gaming event and call it a night at 11pm, but when you factor in the time change, its 2am, and damn it I’m tired!

Today has been an absolute fracking blast. After getting in the hall early around noon (yay media badges!) I spent the two hours of media-only quietness trying things out before the lines got stupid, and saying hi to tons of people who would be otherwise busy the rest of the day. I finally got to meet Spyke, our Beta Producer for Warhammer Online in person, and ran into a random person in the food line who, it turns out, is our EA rep to Wal-Mart down in arkansas. After eating food while ignoring all the chaos around me I teamed up with BananaHammock and ran around to various things, and he introduced me to a handful of people I know but never met in person. After that I bounced around between hanging out with him and E and Kitty, and catching up on old times with The Girls, and watching V3nus destroy every single person who came up against her at the Plantronics booth in UT3. (Even I tried.. it was… tragic..) On day 1 the hall is only open from 2-7, so it wound down fairly quick on the show floor side. I got side tracked and missed out on the Key Note speech by Ken Levine, which made me a sad panda AND forgot all about the Final Boss/Freezepop/Jonathon Coulton concert… grrrr. Instead though I had just as much fun at the GamerDNA party at the hyatt.. Rockband FTW! (speaking of.. i saw rockband 2… OMG!)

Forgive me for the lack of insight into WHAT I saw, as I spent little time playing games and seeing new stuff today. I last was able to be social in person with my gaming community crowd in SEPTEMBER of last year, at WSVG Toronto, so I was really longing to say hi to a lot of people. Tomorrow I plan to “play tourist” and check things out, and flex my Media Pass muscle to skip a bunch of demo lines, heheh. I’ll upload some pics later tonight or tomorrow and link em here when I can.. however I shall be calling it a night now, my feet are absolutely KILLING me.

end of pax day 1 part 1

Sargonas — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:46:04 +0000

so day one is not over but winding down. Eating at Fox Sports grill with BananaHammock, Litheon (the poor guy who has to run major nelsons blog) and some others. Just left the Gamerdna party in the hyatt which was a rockband and free beer filled blast, and after this who knows. Day one at the hall was kick ass, a long recap will come sooner or later tonight methinks, once I get back to the hall and can use my own laptop. (I’m carying stales Air for the day right now since its light and fits in my messenger bag, hehe)

God I’m so glad I came on this trip… oh yeah got invited to E’s inafamous PAX Party sunday night, gonna be a blast, will be taking my suitcase with me and getting ferschnickerd, and catching a ride in the morning to the airport with one of the many who will inevitably have to do the same, lol.

New alt-blog!

Sargonas — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:24:42 +0000

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.

square one

Sargonas — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 03:21:36 +0000

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.

Guitar Hero 3 postmortem and a further look into Assassin’s Creed

Sargonas — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:17:09 +0000

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 later

Sargonas — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:15:03 +0000

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

the gods of geekdom have smiled upon me today

Sargonas — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:33:06 +0000

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.

I have been judged

Sargonas — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:00:38 +0000

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….

Eye of Judgement

Sargonas — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:49:39 +0000

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 have been to the Temple

Sargonas — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 02:47:39 +0000

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…