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steam sales will be the death of me.

By Lungford July 6, 2010 3 Comments

Hello, fellow Bombers. I have an admission to make. I have a problem. I am an addict. I am addicted... to buying games on Steam.

I'm sure I'm not the only person suffering from this horrible affliction. I am one of many. The unfortunate thing is that many people who have this problem don't know it until it's too late. This morning I woke up and decided to check my bank statements online, and boy was I surprised when I looked at my credit card balance. My wallet is starting to hurt from all these downloadable games on Steam and XBOX Live.

In the past week or so of Steam Sale shopping, I've bought a few games, but the two that I'm most excited about are Dragon Age: Origins (Deluxe Edition, including the expansion Awakening) and Red Faction Guerrilla. Add these atop the already long list of other downloadable games I've yet to complete (including Perfect Dark XBLA, 'Splosion Man, Left 4 Dead 2 PC, Torchlight PC), and I've accrued a lot of downloads to play through.

Let me start with Dragon Age. I'm in love with it. When it first came out, I never really had any interest in it. I suppose Mass Effect 2 had me completely enthralled (and still does every few days) at the time. But last week I saw it on sale on Steam bundled with the expansion for around $56, and I couldn't help myself. I've been playing non-stop for the past few days. I've got a level six elven rogue. I've also thought about starting again to try an archer or mage class, and also to see one of the other starting stories. I think one of the reasons I love Dragon Age so much is because I love the Knights of the Old Republic games so much, and this is basically the same game in a different setting. I especially enjoy the conversations in Dragon Age, because they've gotten rid of the clunky Good/Evil dialogue choice system. It's still fairly obvious which response is the encouraging one and which is the violent one, but it makes it easier to explore a less black and white morality for the character. I've been playing on Normal difficulty, and I find some battles really easy, and some brutally hard. But I suppose I just need to pay better attention and work on my micromanaging a bit more.

The only thing I can say bad about the game is that my laptop can only run it well on low settings. I suppose this also adds to the difficulty when the FPS drops during large skirmishes. The game still looks good enough that the quality isn't distracting, but I'm sure the game looks brilliant on a more powerful machine. This leads me to my next project: getting the desktop back up and running. Since I bought this laptop, I've left my tower at home, simply because this thing has a better graphics card. Now that my laptop can't really keep up anymore, it's time to seek new options. Another reason why I haven't used my tower is because it got a virus and my OS died. So if I can re-install XP on it and get it up and running, I'd consider upgrading the graphics card. Right now, that thing has an ATI Radeon X1600 in it, which was excellent back in the day, but I'm not sure how it'll stand up right now. I could run WoW at max settings though, so I should be able to run Dragon Age at a similar setting. I also know it already has more RAM. P.S. I haven't started Red Faction Guerrilla yet, but I did get as far as watching the opening cinematic. I had to leave as soon as control was handed to me, but from what I saw in the opening cinematic, I'm pretty damn excited. It also looks like it'll run pretty well on my laptop.

I've also been spending quite a bit of time on my 360 as well. As I mentioned, I've been playing a lot of Mass Effect 2. I beat it first on my imported Vanguard on Veteran. Now I'm playing through it on Hardcore with an Infiltrator. I'm actually finding it a lot easier though the difficulty is harder. The Operative skill that slows down time when you scope in on a sniper is so key. Get yourself a +10% headshot damage visor from Omega, and you're set. The other disc I've been swapping with that is my Red Dead Redemption disc. But I've already spent an entire blog post talking about that game... not that I couldn't talk more. That game's gooooood.

Last (I hope), but not least, me and my good friend and fellow GiantBomber Scheds have been playing through The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena together. We're about 5 or so hours into it, and I really like it so far. I'm a huge fan of the Riddick universe and I think that's where Vin Diesel fits best.

Okay, I lied. One more thing. World Cup. I've been going football crazy for the past month, and right now I'm watching the Netherlands/Uruguay game. What a first half! Van Bronckhorst's early goal is definitely the strike of the tournament. A close second goes to Maicon in Brasil's first game. I'm cheering for Uruguay in this one. Netherlands definitely deserves to win the Cup once, but they knocked out Brasil so I refuse to support them this time. There's a cool article on Fifa's website talking about their luck so far, and I definitely agree (actually, it seems that article has been taken down. I can't seem to find it. Curious...) They were definitely an even match for the Selection, but it wasn't a very good win.

I need to stop talking about games and start actually playing some.

Thanks to anybody who read all that.
Lungford out.

3 Comments

Red Dead Redemption and the "Rockstar Fatigue"

By Lungford July 1, 2010 3 Comments

This was originally supposed to be a forum post on another user's blog on the Red Dead forums, but it ended up being too long, so I figured I'd post that here instead. You can find the thread here.

In my case, I can't seem to put Red Dead down. I've beaten it once, and I'll most likely play through it again. In single player I'd say it's about 50-50 for traveling by riding and fast traveling. I almost find it's more of a chore to fast travel because you either have to go to the nearest town for a stage coach, or set up your campsite (which can be a frustrating task in a most areas of the game, seeing as it's so fussy about where it allows you to do so), bring up your map and choose the waypoint, and then wait for the load, which can be like 2-3 mins.

Early on in the game I did more fast traveling because I didn't have a good horse, and I didn't know the map and the land well enough, but once I got to Mexico and West Elizabeth, I realized that it only takes a few minutes on horseback to ride anywhere you want, rather than fussing with the campsite. Also, When you fast travel everywhere, you miss all the random encounters, and all the animals and new vistas you haven't seen yet etc. The world's always changing. I always find new things to do, new places to go, new things to shoot. This is what makes the world of the game so compelling to me, and you miss it all when you travel from town to town my teleporting.

My only beef with the riding shotgun/riding to a different place before a mission type of thing is that, yeah, a lot of the conversations you have are the SAME THING, just with different people. Marston needs the location of Bill and Javier, but he doesn't trust the person he's working for. They tell him they've almost found them, and then Marston threatens them if they're lying.. blah blah blah. I mean, there are definitely a few characters that you talk to that actually have something interesting and thoughtful to talk about. The two that stick out the most off the top of my head are Bonnie, and De Santa. It's true, most of the characters after New Austin just aren't as well-written. Seth, West and Irish all had pretty interesting things to say from time to time, but Rockstar seemed to trade in the crazy character quirks from the first area for annoying political agenda in Mexico.

Honestly, I'm not a history or politics guy, so most of the stuff they talk about regarding civil war and revolution goes over my head. I just don't really care. It's not that I don't have an opinion. I wanted to choose sides. I thought they were gonna make me choose a side, but instead you're forced to play both sides, and there's absolutely no consequence for it. I feel like I would care about each character's political views if Marston wasn't forced to play on both sides. It's absolutely ridiculous that they make nothing of the fact that Marston is working for both the Army and the Rebels, massacring both army and rebel alike. I think that's the thing that really set Mexico off for me. Marston's supposed to be this reformed man with a new sense of morality, but throughout the game he proves exactly otherwise. Maybe this is a testament to the incredible endgame, but by the end I didn't really care about John so much anymore, as I did Jack. I also want to mention Ricketts. It's a shame that he doesn't have more screen time. Not to spoil anything, but he's certainly an important player to the story in the very endgame and I would have loved to see him involved a bit more with that.

So no, I haven't grown tired of Red Dead. However, this did happen with GTA4. I had been struggling with "Rockstar Fatigue" as I'll call it for most of the end of the game, and was really just finishing it to see how it ended and to get some points for it. After playing the last mission a couple times and dying from that stupid motorcycle jump, I just quit. I didn't care enough to finish the game, even though it would have taken like half an hour to finish it. I still haven't been able to figure out what happened. I just... grew tired of it. Was it the length? Maybe I could only take the repetition for so long. I doubt I'll ever figure it out. That game is long gone, and I can't see myself going back to it.

I'm sure I could keep talking, but I'd probably just be repeating myself at this point. I love RDR. It's got the most immersive world of any open world game I've played, and the most character as well. I won't be getting rid of this game for a while.

Thanks, Bombers.
Lungford out.

3 Comments

Longtime user, first time writer...

By Lungford June 29, 2010 4 Comments

So here I am... standing on the precipice of something that could be long-lasting, or simply a fleeting notion my bored mind is entertaining because yet again I can't seem to sleep.

My name is Nathan Leung. I'm 21. I live in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. I've been visiting GB since its inception (in blog format) back in March of '08. What can I say? It's the best game site out there, I love it, it's my homepage (along with screened.com and fifa.com, temporarily. I catch football
fever [yes, there I go calling it 'football' even though I'm Canadian] every four years. Go Brasil!) blah blah blah that's my relationship with this establishment. It's simply the best. I don't really feel I need to explain, we're all here for a reason.

P.S. Look at me, my first blog post and I'm already using brackets within brackets. I swear my writing will get better the more I do it... P.P.S. Note to self: learn how to put hotlinks in a post.

You may notice that my account was only created tonight. Previously I have slunk along the dark corridors GiantBomb (I use the black layout, easier on the eyes, easier on the environment) as "Socks", sporting Calvin and Hobbes skanking in a prompt and timely manner as my avatar. Why the new account? I suppose it was initially for the name change. Lungford identifies more with my actual name (Leung = Lung, etc.), and it's also my Xbox Live username. I like it more. But it was also about starting fresh. I figure it'll help give me motivation to spend some more time on the site posting and writing. The only downside is that I have to redo almost seventeen levels worth of questing. Minus the limited edition ones that are no longer available. Ugh.

I guess it might be pertinent to mention that I am a musician. Music is the biggest part of my life. Video games are up there. I also have a girlfriend of a year and a half-ish (who usually takes priority over video games...). What else can I tell you about me? I own a PC, an Xbox 360, and everything Nintendo has released up until and including the Wii and first generation DS. I do most of my gaming on the 360, but I have quite a few games on the PC as well. Those Steam sales are irresistible...

I have an idea! To show you who I am as a (I almost typed "gamer") video game player, I'm gonna do my list of the top ten games that I have the strongest emotional or nostalgic connection to. These are the games that I have the fondest memories of. The games I play over and over. They may not be the best game, but they are the games that have shaped me as a video game lover today.

1. Ocarina of Time (N64)
2. Counter-Strike (PC, since 1.5, baby)
3. Freedom Fighters (GCN)
4. Super Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)
5. Chrono Trigger (SNES)
6. Age of Empires II, and the expansion (PC)
7. Blizzard Games: SC, WC2, D2, WC3, WoW (I feel I can lump them all into one game. We've all spent good days - and I mean days - of our lives playing these games.)
8. Both Golden Sun games (GBA)
9. Tales of Symphonia (GCN)
I just thought of two more so I'm amending the list to include eleven entries!
10. Half-Life 2 and Episodes
11. Beyond Good and Evil

There you have it. Shooters, RPGs, and action/adventure/platformers. In the near future I plan to talk a bit about what games I've been playing in the past while, and what I'm most excited about in the future. But for now, I think I need to go get started on those quests... and find an avatar picture.

I think I shall leave you with one of my favourite quotes (damn you American Firefox spell-checker. THAT 'U' BELONGS IN THE WORD). I'm not sure if it is relevant in any way to this post, but it makes me laugh, and though it is spoken by an incredibly disturbed, incredibly fictional little boy... I tend to agree.

I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - from Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson

Good evening, Bombers.
Lungford out.

4 Comments