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Posts Tagged ‘thoughts’

So after a nice little hiatus with the game programmy project its back to work on the behemoth that’s been hogging up the kirchen for going on a month now. 

I really didn’t want to do this, which is why it probably took so long.  You see, I didn’t finish the background first… and you always start in the background and make your way closer to the viewer.   That way.. you don’t wind up having to paint over large swatches of the stuff you’ve already painted.  

Which I did.  Which sucks and isn’t a lot of fun knowing you’ve got to do something you were happy with all over again. 

I actually fudged over the planet area fairly well so there’s just a couple small things that are going to need reworking.. so in all reality it could have been much worse. 

So After that I started re-refining all the shade transitions on the gearwork and after I slopped a little shading on the planet guide beam thing I made up my mind to actually render out the gear works instead of the flat blue shapes.  

The base color for 2 of them done and some simple shading on the smaller one and a little detail and it’s a good stopping point.

So at this point Warhammer thoroughly has its claws in me.  Little time to play any of the other things (like The Witcher which was getting really interesting when I got distracted).

The new Brothers in Arms came out last week and my pre-order activated, maybe got 2-3 hours with it so far.  It’s very pretty and the gameplay is just as involving as the previous BiA games with awesome ingame cinematics and storytelling.  Very nice for a Tactical FPS fix.

The world of Goo releases today.  It has been getting spectacular reviews across the world, looks like it’s this year’s Portal.  And it’s supposed to be beatably short and a joy throughout so that’s definatly getting picked up this week.

But the Xmas release avalance is definatly getting underway.

Here’s a few highlights:

• Oct 17: X3: Terran Conflict
• Oct 20, Dead Space
• Oct 21, Far Cry 2
• Oct 28, Fallout 3
• Nov 11, Call of Duty : World at War
• Nov 17, Left 4 Dead
• Nov 18, Tomb Raider: Underworld

Yup… I was weak.   Warhammer Online is out and available online at EA’s web store.  Hmm I guess the downside of instant gratification online delivery is that I’ll never ever ever be bored again… or wealthy  

Overall they’ve done a great job with the in game systems, maps etc.  Pull up your map and quest locations are indicated in a faded red, so you always know where to go.   Quest rewards seem to be fairly varied with public quests being really cool and fun.  Yeah the whole public quests and open group concepts really go a long way as to breaking the ice and meeting people to play with.

The PvP parts of the game (which can give XP) are a blast and full of adrenaline.  I can’t wait to get to start doing the keep sieges etc.  

Class variation is pretty cool and at least the chaos classes are a lot of fun with unique playstyles (duel sword wielding melee healers anyone?) and runor has it they’re looking at putting some of the cut classes back in over the next couple months.

So how it’ll play out in the long run is anyone’s guess but the outlook is pretty good.  If my interest in the game plays out like DAoC / WoW  then I’m in for about 6 months or so before it just gets boring.  Guess I’ll find out.

Ok, so the initial download is 14gb… ouchy… so that took most of a day.

Wow.. this does not feel like the old Neverwinter Aurora engine. (or look like it for that matter) 

Just about an hour into it, the first 15 minutes were intro videos and cutscenes and some in-game cutscenes.  I didn’t skip any of them, very well done and felt like either a solid introduction to things or tied into the game seamlessly.  Combat is more diablo than NWN but then again I’m not all the way throught the tutorial part so that may change.  

Its pretty, very pretty, and architectually things feel more authentic than most western rpgs’ attempts at a ruined castle. 

If the story is half as good as the reviews make it out to be the enhanced edition is going to put up on hell of a fight for RPG of the year.  (Fallout 3 has got it’s work cut out for it.)

Hmm, so spore is out.

Played it a bunch for the last couple days and still kinda not sure what I think about it.  Which is, well, kinda weird.  Some parts are good, very good in fact. Some parts ..eh  not so much.  But the exploration factor.. wow.. just wandering around and seeing the other critters that exist, if you at all enjoy a trip to the zoo you’ll be well pleased.

A small ookiness factor, and I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it.  Just by sigining into the spore online world (as prompted to do so at the game startup) it turns out everything I create winds up online for other people to see..  Which is.. a little invasive.. in my opinion.. http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=srch-drakkheim

Anyway, It’s a nice little toy that Im sure to play with for a long time.