Not that it was longer than the standard two days, but this did end up being a nice long weekend. I would tell you all about it, but my wife has already gone through all the trouble of writing it all out, so I will just ask that you go read the details at her site.
On Friday night I spent a little time finishing up the last chapter of American Gods by Neil Gaiman so I could start on a new book on Monday’s commute. I’d heard from a lot of people that American Gods was a good book and it definitely did not dissapoint. I’ve been a big fan of Neil Gaiman since the Sandman comics series first came what seems like forever ago. If you are a fan of his and have not read American Gods, I highly recommend it. I really can’t say much about it because I don’t want to ruin any of the details for anyone. I’ll be checking the used book store for Anansi Boys since it has a few of the same characters although I understand it’s not actually a sequel.
On Saturday, Muse had a nice long nap so I finished playing Bioshock on the XBox360. Considering all the hype and glowing reviews surrounding this game I have to admit that I had pretty high expectations for this game. Especially since the creators were some of the same people that created the classic System Shock and System Shock 2 games many years prior. For a lot of the game I felt kind of disappointed and even a bit bored with the repitition. However the mechanics are decent and the story is somewhat interesting so I kept playing and I’m glad I did.
I’m guessing that the reviewers that gave it the good ratings that they did had completed the game because it just doesn’t work until you’ve finished the game and seen the whole picture and the whole story (or at least as much is available in this game). Some parts of the game are tedious or annoying ( I lost count of how many Little Sisters died on my watch in The Proving Grounds) but the overall look and feel of the game is perfect. It’s not a flawless game though and I encoutered the typical errors that are found in most games in regards to graphics, AI and physics. It’s a good game and well worth playing all the way through but I don’t think it was deserving of all the hype that it received.
It has been mentioned that perhaps I need to take a break from playing video games because I seem to be getting jaded in my opinions of new titles. Which I think is untrue as well as impossible. Untrue because there have been a number of games that I have played recently that I have absolutely loved (or at least really liked). Impossible because video games are a huge part of my life and I can’t imagine life without them. That may change but not today.
Although I would really prefer a Warhammer 40K MMORPG be created for my entertainment, I’m not above being interested in the alternate universe of Warhammer Fantasy. It’s not as interesting to me but at least it’s something. The online game version, which has been in development for a very long time now, has been shaping up to be a pretty involved game. I’m still not sure how they will stick to some of the core conventions of the Warhammer table top games but maybe they won’t need to.
Some say that this is looking a lot like World of Warcraft but that is really unfair and untrue since Warhammer has been out for at least 20 years longer than Warcraft. Warcraft owes a hell of a lot to the Warhammer games in it’s races and designs. However now it looks like Warhammer is taking at least one queue from Blizzard. They are releasing a very cool looking collector’s edition of the game that is now available for pre-orders. Considering I bought a collectors edition box set for both releases of World of Warcraft so far, I am definitely their target audience here.
Yes this version will cost a lot more and no it’s not really worth it in the long run but dammit if I am going to buy this game I don’t want it unless I can have the collector’s edition. I am a sucker for cool marketing and this just looks awesome. Add to that the requisite exclusive in-game content and I’m sold. Yeah I know. It’s a sickness….
If you’re not familiar with the whole Gamespot fiasco late last year (where a premier editor was fired after giving a bad review to a heavily advertised game), this Ars Technica article shows a timeline of his firing followed by the departure of five more major Gamespot staff, many of which claim say has to do with the original firing. Gamespot can claim that the firing was unrelated to the advertising and the review, but somehow I doubt it.
While I was poking around in the user comments though, I noticed a link to a site called Giant Bomb. This is a new start-up games site by Jeff Gerstmann (the Gamespot editor who was fired) and other recently ex-Gamespot staff including Ryan Davis and Alex Navarro. I’d say it’s pretty likely that even more recent Gamespot retirees will start having their name show up on this site as well.
The Giant Bomb site has only been posting content since February but they already have some game reviews and news of the quality that I used to come to expect from the old site. If you’re interested in games and gaming news, make sure you bookmark this site as I expect it to become a major player very soon.
I’m back from Kuala Lumpur but I had to take a sick day today. It seems I ate or drank something that has turned my intestines into a juice factory. I had water at one or two restaurants and by the time I was supposed to be leaving for the airport, I was still worrying about where the next bathroom would be on the way out. I wasn’t late for my flight, but I was a little worried about half way to the airport that I might have to ask the taxi driver to stop at the next brightly colored mosque so I could pay tribute, so to speak.
Before dinner, I started playing Overlord on the XBox 360. I hadn’t intended to get it but the Broadway electronics store had a bunch of 360 games on sale for only $159 HKD (about $20 USD) which is dirt cheap. I haven’t gotten very far in it yet, but I think I’ll like it. I’m not sure it’s going to be as good as the classic Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2, but for current games that allow you to play as the bad guy, this is about all the choice you get.
Original tip off from Insomnic.
Here’s another article about it from the BBC. Considering the age of the actors that they’ve signed on for the likenesses and voices of the new Ghostbusters video game, it’s probably a good idea to continue the storyline after Ghostbusters 2 in a video game where age is irrelevant. Plus this a good way for Ernie Hudson to not play a traditional police officer as he ALWAYS does. Poor guy. He’s probably the most typecast person in Hollywood. Although technically I guess you could consider the Ghostbusters an elite ghost police force. Ah well….
It seems odd to resurrect this movie franchise after so long, but it least it makes sense unlike the recent game of Scarface where they had to change the story to even make the game possible. Although a zombie Tony Montana would have probably made for a more appealing game to me.
Books, Games, Reviews | cybrpunk | 
April 28, 2008 2:38 pm | 
Comments (5) 
