lazyhoboguy

@magzine: Yes but EA is notorious for shutting down servers extremely quickly while most other publishers on consoles keep the online up for at least 3 years. You are lucky to get a full year of server support for an EA title, even with them now charging people for online passes, which you would think would allow them to keep servers up longer. EA just wants as much profit as possible and its why their policy is shut down servers very quickly to force you to buy whatever new game they have out or might have out in a few years.

Yep especially for consoles all EA servers are bound to go offline 1 or 2 years after the game comes out.

http://www.museemechanique.org/

Its an arcade/museum that is free to walk in. You just pay for the machines individually. Has old antique stuff, competitive stuff like air hockey, foosball, etc, photobooths, and 90s arcade machines. I had a blast when I went there and the the machines are priced pretty cheaply.

This is an awesome wallpaper thread and I saved a few of yours so I felt like I'd contribute too.

Ones above are the favorites Ive saved over the years. I like wallpapers with dark backgrounds or landscapes as you can see.

And here are some weird pictures I made in mspaint to use as backgrounds if you want them ha.

@D_Bones Well the story wasn't amazing, but I thought the voice acting was pretty well done for a lotr game and the story was above the normal lotr game story. The fun gameplay is the best part of the game, so if you mainly want a good story the game might not be what you want. Its gotten pretty cheap now though so it's working checking out regardless.

@thedj93 Yea, I also liked the talking eagles ha. Raining down death from the skies with a giant eagle never got old.

@mtcantor Meh, I never really care about graphics all that much for a game if the gameplay is fun, and it was in this game. I don't remember thinking the graphics were too bad either.

@mordukai Well, I saw them in theaters when they first released and I loved them. But rewatching them this past year I could see a lot of flaws in the movies. They feel really dragged out in parts for no good reason. There is a lot of cheesiness in those movies that I didnt really recognize when I was younger as well. The parts where sam and frodo are all sappy and whining at each other takes up a ridiculous amount of time in the movie as well. There more why I didnt like the movies as much after rewatching them, but it's been about a year since I've done so, so can't remember everything. I still like the movies, but don't think they are as amazing as I remembered them when they first came out.

@crusader8463 For that price I think even if you are unsure about it, it's worth it.

@TooWalrus said:

People who watch soap operas are bad people. That's right, I just insulted my own mother, and Dr. House.

My mother is an overall smart lady, but she watches soap operas every day. When confronted about this contradiction in her level of intelligence/ watching of soap opersa she admitted they weren't good, but continues to watch them. I think chicks just like seeing ridiculous romantic and dramatic crap.

There' been a lot of garbage LOTR games released in the past, so was refreshing that this one was pretty great. Don't think it sold very well though sadly.

Even though I've been blogging less I still have been gaming a good amount. I recently got Lord of the Rings: War in the North on the PS3 and wow this game really surprised me with how fun it was. I couldn't put the game down for a few days until I beat it. It has its share of problems, mostly in the form of semi-unforgivable bugs because it was rushed by its publisher WB Games probably. There are a few bugs that are game-breaking, forcing you to have to restart your game due to you being unable to progress in the game. I didn't have it happen to me, but my friend did, and so have lots of other people when you search about it online. Also, It is marketed as a 3 player co-op experience for online play, however the game seems to handle lag terribly and is pretty unplayable online. That saddened me as I looked forward to playing this online with 2 other guys, but playing it in singleplayer was really fun even still.The computer controls the 2 other co-op partners in the game, but they have an acceptable level of intelligence for video game AI and you can order them around a bit and make them act slightly less dumb.

I am a fan of the Lord of the Rings world. I found the movies to be so-so after re-watching them for the 2nd time recently. I read the book The Hobbit when I was in the 6th grade but dont know how I would feel about it now and I never read the rest of the books because the movies came out and ruined the story for me anyways. My opinions about the movies and books doesn't matter though since I am just a big fan of the setting of the series. I like the whole middle age era with crazy magical sh*t going on thing the series has ha. The enemies and villains in the Lord of the Rings are just so awesome too.

The above paragraph, although a bit of a tangent, does relate to how I feel about the game. The game does a great job of making you feel like it's part of the Lord of the Rings universe. It feels like the quality of a movie almost in the story and voice acting. It tells a tale of a dwarf, sorcerer, and ranger that is supposed to happen at the same time as the main story of the Lord of the Rings. It was cool to go through a new adventure rather than the same one from the books and movies again.

I am a big fan of the Two Towers and Return of the King games on the Playstation 2 and Xbox. They had great combat systems, cool level design, and nailed down the feeling of the Lord of the Ring movies. Lord of the Rings War in the North surpasses those games even imo. The combat doesn't use button combination style combo's like those older games, but feels actually more like a beat-em-up. You mash light attacks on enemies until and indicator pops up that lets you do critical hits. I've been told that the combat system is similar to the newer Batman games, even though I haven't played those myself. This combat system has healthy amounts of gore in the style of awesome beheadings and limb severing though ha. You also can shoot projectiles with your crossbow, and as you level up your character you unlock lots of special attacks that you can do easily by pushing two buttons together. The pacing in this game is really good too. The environments and enemies you fight change right at the best moments, right when you feel like you are almost getting bored of things. One other thing that keeps the game interesting is that you find tons of new weapons and armor throughout the game. You are rewarded for exploring the less obvious areas in levels with treasure chests and other goodies that help you a lot in the game. There are tons of different weapons to choose from and they alter your play style quite a bit which is nice since it gives the game a lot of replayability.

I wasn't expecting much from this game as it had fairly low reviews and I knew it would be a bit buggy. Despite the bugs though I had a huge amount of fun playing it as a singleplayer game. I would highly recommend this game to play offline either alone or in split screen. YEP, this game actually has at least 2 player split screen and seems like it would be a great local co-op experience. If you are looking to buy this game to play online, I'd not bother as its online mode seems to not have been tested enough and cannot handle the slightest bit of lag before things get unplayable. It is a shame since the core game is really well- made.

@ShadowConqueror: Your avatar from an Agalloch album? If so, awesome. I love them.