I stumbled across this today, I found it very interesting.  Vista did surprisingly well, but I’ll stick with XP and w7.

Micah

Awhile back I listed the different options that we have in Juneau for internet access.   GCI is the only real option for gamers and unless you want to be paying $150 a month you won’t get your unlimited downloads.  It finally looks like the folks down south are feeling our pain with Time Warner’s lock down on their service.

Here is the article I read, sweet deal!

40gb cap? Come on!

Micah

Left 4 Dead is a Zombie apocalypse kinda game.   You are one of 4 survivors with a mission to get from point A to point B.  You will find several weapons from shotguns, sniper rifles to fully auto weapons to slice through zombie bodies as they come running at you!  Its a lot like playing the movie 28 Days Later I suppose.

Cool thing about this is if you have no friends you can play with 3 computer controlled survivors, but if you do you have friends they can take one of the survivor roles.  Awesome right?

Versus mode is pretty awesome also, it puts the survivors against 4 special zombies with awesome powers.  I’m a big fan of climbing walls and make sounds over and over again to freak out the survivors…

I was really hoping this would replace our LAN game DOTA, but L4D isn’t the kind of game you can play over and over again, its pretty tiresome till you need a break, oh well.

Full review here.

I played the PC version, 360 version looked kinda bleh.

I’m pretty behind on my posts, but it has givin me some time to play WotLK.

For the most part its anther MMORPG expansion pack. Stats on items are pumped up, spells are pumped up. But we all expected this, there are a few new abilities and a new class called a Death Knight.

There are much more thorough reviews out there, so here’s my views and a summery.

Death Knight

Death Knight is known as a Hero Class, once you have a level 55 of any class on a server a single Death Knight will be unlocked for this server.

The starting area, quests and story line are just plain awesome.  I was level 58 in no time.  From there you go to outlands.

As your leveling for 55-58 your rewards will be talent points, exp, gold and blue gear which isnt exactly crap.

Leveling in the Outlands is very very easy, I am able to do things I could never do on my rogue, I rarely eat and just slaughter mobs left and right.

My favorate ability the Death Knight has is a grapple that will pull the enemy you are trying to kill to you, makes things easier.

Northrend

How BC opened up the Outlands, Wrath opened up Northrend

More and more quests yaya joy! I hate the exp grind, but its what you gotta do I guess.

I don’t really have much to say here.  Its fun?

Overall Wrath is worth the buy if you’re a WoW fan, if you play WoW and have not purchased it, I feel sorry for you.  Fred’s had multiple copies last weekend.

Opening day there wasn’t the largest line at Fred’s, but I found it odd how they did the Collector’s editions.  Instead of first come first serve they gave you a number and if your number was picked you got it.  Fair? I don’t know. Just sucks for the early birds. I did hear Fred’s sold out of there 150+ copies that day.

Wally world did a midnight release, I was told 40+ people in line but only 30 copies.

~Micah

Spore, what can I say? The game was released last Sunday(9/7/08) and last week I was mildly interested in buying it.

But after talking with my buddy Trevor friday night got me stoked for it. Fredy’s said they would have several copies of the game Sunday. So I did what every responsible gamer does, get up at 6:30am and run over to Fred’s to pick the game up. Unlike the morning WoW:BC came out there was no line, just Trevor and some of his buddies.

Driving home I was just going to flop back in bed and Wendy would be fast asleep, but to my surprise she was awake playing some WoW, so I jumped on my computer, popped Spore in and Installed.

Man, what a game.  Every other game out there you have predefined models, clothing, ect.  But Spore pretty much everything is customizable, I’m sure you can play the game for days and never see any one race that looks exactly the same.  You can change everything from how many arms, legs, how fat, how skinny, how the spine is angled! You can be a carnivore, omnivore or herbivore.  Now this game isn’t a MMO by any means, its more of a MMOSPG, thats right Single Player.  Every character you make can be broadcasted to the central servers and everyone else will see your character there. But they are computer controlled.  Still, really awesome concept.

My only gripe about this game is the bugs, many people have reported crashing and freezing.  Trevor, that lucky little shit has not had any problems.

If you are a gamer, and love unique game play with heavy customizing this game is for you.

Hell, even if you don’t play very many computer games, I honestly believe you can get into this.

Oh, I should mention, this game will be in some form, on the iphone/ipod touch.

~Micah

Warhammer Online(WAR), next WoW killer? Probably not. But Blizzard(makers of WoW) should be a little worried.  To cover everything that WAR would take a while, and theres great resources online.

I do know Juneau has a huge WoW population but how many of you will switch to WAR?

Most of my buddies are on preorder for the game, including myself. Of course I preorder pretty much every new MMO just to get a taste.

Warhammer has some good points that caught my eye.

20 unique classes

Fast leveling so you can get right into the end game pve or pvp.

Guild held castles

Realm vs. Realm

Just to name a few.

Let me know why you are going to play/not going to play WAR

~Micah

Soul Calibur(SC) has been out for a while now, and now with 4, will it just be more eye candy?

Probably but who cares! Pretty colors… oh so pretty… I’m a sucker for HD

After giving the game a go last night, thanks to my buddy Bush, I must say… amazing!  It’s not only pleasing to the eye but the gameplay is awesome!  Lots and lots of pretty colors and moves, LOTs of characters and quite a few levels.  While fighting you can “break” their clothes/armor.  I didn’t notice any shirts coming off the girls but the guys came right off, have fun with that girl gamers!

Online play is pretty decent. Match making system isn’t the best. But I got a few rounds in and did pretty decent button mashing… Ive never been very good at fighting games.

And and! You can be Yoda how cool is that! Well, only if you have the Xbox 360 version. PS3 version will have the one and only Darth Vadar. but Yoda > Darth.. sorry bud

But with that, on the 360 version you can download Darth Vadar.. at some point. PS3.. no Yogurt Yoda for you!

Graphic wise 360 version is upconverted to 1080p, PS3 is stuck at 720p.

One thing that will add a new angle on the game is more advanced customization, I’m very curious how far they will go…  I didn’t explore too far but seems like you can go far.  I’ll give it a couple days till my buddy Contortion beats it and I’ll check it out.

After getting an email from Amazon about the different game package options I had a good laugh.

Soul Calibur IV(just the game) for $59.99

Soul Calibur IV Fighting Stick Limited Edition! No game but good ol classic arcade fun.  $59.99

Now this is what got me.

Soul Calibur IV Premium Edition

Metal Case, pretty standard.

Art Book, again standard

Tournament Bracket card,  interesting

Soul Calibur T-shirt, now thats badass! XL size only… wait a minute! that’s BS! Do they honestly think all SC4 players are “XL Size”?  I wish they had some kind of rebate where you could send them $5 and they would send you a size of your choice.  But I’m probably asking for way too much.  Oh, all of that for $79.99.  I guess I need to drink more beer to fit into that shirt.

Will I pick up SC4? Probably, the amount of entertainment I’ll get out of it beats going to the movies.

But which one? 360 or Ps3… 360 still has superior online place, you get both characters anyway and supposedly better graphics.  I still want to see them side by side though.

Have fun

~Micah

Age of Conan(AOC) is a new MMORPG that was released late April 2008.

I played the beta before release and really enjoyed the combat & quest system. Now I am currently playing the full release and still cracking away at it.

Combat system is very different, many MMORPGs have an “autoattack” button where your character will automatically swing your weapon. From level 1 AOC has 3 buttons when in melee attack, left, overhead and right. The enemies you are attacking have symbols on any of the three attack points that show how they are “guarding” which shows where they will take less damage. So you have to pay attention while fighting!:)

I can’t really ask for a better quest system there is the standard quest log with a twist. You “select” a quest to be on, while on that quest there is a arrow in the direction of the objective with a nice X. Along with all that, every quest giver I have encountered speaks to you, the quest is also in text if you need it.  There is also a quest chain that occurs at night, you go to the inn keeper talk with her and she will fast forward to nighttime where the game becomes “single player”.

The game does feel a bit chunky then others but that could be my computer, it is beautiful even on the lowest settings.

AOC will probably keep my attention until Warhammer is released.

Thats a small touch of the game, if you have any questions feel free to ask.

~Micah

Last Wednesday Marlintinis hosted a Rock Band contest. There were a total of two set ups on the big rear projection TVs. My group was pretty pumped and had fun. Unfortunately there were only two bands competing, I am really hoping there will be more for the next round.

The scoring system was interesting and it is done in a way that people right off the street have a fighting chance. A group may be playing on expert but the group playing on medium can still win it.

There is a nightly prize for the winners then a grand prize after the 5 weeks, I hope to see you all there next week.

I am told the finalists will be playing on the main stage like a real “band” which will be amazing.

~Micah

What can I say, one of the best game series out there.

Rockstar Games have produced amazing GTA games in the past and I doubt this one will be any different.  What makes this one so good? Multiplayer. Yeah thats right.  Whats more fun then blowing your friends apart in High Definition.

The game isn’t set to release till April 29 so we will just have to wait.  But it’s well worth it.

~Micah