Lunarwrit

And tomorrow, I'll be heading home. Definitely been a new experience for me, but I'm not sure if I'll just go ahead and do it again. If I do, I will definitely take a different approach to it.

Anyway, I have seen a good number of cool things at the GC and the GCDC. The sessions during the developers conference varied a lot in quality. Some were great, others not so. Most of only interesting to developers , so I will skip that for now.

The confention itself was huge. 3.5 halls filled with booths, and an outside area with even an impromtu-made "beach" (ie: a bunch of sand with a podium next to it). Each hall had it's own focus, and the booths varied in size from a small wouldn't-fit-ten-people area to huge booths where one could almost get lost in. (You could definitely get lost in the crowds though!)

Some of the games I played on the floor:

X-Blades

One to-watch. This is a fast-pased hack-and-slash game that definitely became one of my hidden gems. Due to a number of cancelations, the booth where they shown this was located all the way in the back, rather than in the center of the hall. Even worse: the entrance to the area where they were showing off this game was now facing a back-wall, which ensured very few people in this area.

Anyhow, on to the game itself. The gameplay feels very fast pased, and quite often requires you to beat a good number of enemies before continueing. With the heroine carrying two gunblades (havn't seen those since Final Fantasy 8!), you can slash your way through enemies, shoot them, or use some of your various magics to take them down. The magics in this game are fueled by a rage system, rather than your usual magic points. Your rage builds up through various means, such as slashing your enemies, getting hit, or just charging it manually. Magics are there in most of the usual forms: buffs to yourself, damaging one or multiple enemies, status-effects, and combinations here-of.

The art-style of this game is very anime-ish, which really comes forward in the cut-scenes. This does not take away from the fact that this is an HD title, and looks very good a big screen.

Try it out, I know I will!

Guitar Hero: World Tour

Pretty much Guitar Hero's answer to Rock Band, as they now too have the drum kit and the microphone in the package. It's definitely good, and the songs arn't shabby either (though they were only showing a small selection at this time. I played some drums for the first time, and some bass. If you like these types of games, you'll definitely like this one also :)

They also announced that the instruments from Rock Band and Guitar Hero would become fully compatible in the near future!

Mirror's Edge

This one leaves me kind of in a spot. On the one hand I have to say, yes it's a pretty good game. On the other hand, the level I played didn't feel all that spectacular. The style of the game is very clean, perhaps a bit too clean. The gameplay is interesting though, you run through the level, jumping, balancing and doing all sorts of acrobatics to get through to the end. Attempting to avoid enemies, especially in groups. That doesn't mean that you cannot go up against them, especially lone enemies can be taken on.

The level was only a first look, and I could not find much story behind it yet. The story, I think, can make or break this game from here on out.

Aion Online

Out of all the MMOs around the floor here, I thought this one had some good things going for it. It is a fantasy styles MMO that for once is not with elves, dwarves, halflings, humans, and the likes. Instead there are only two races, one dark, and one light. Both of them pretty much thinks the others are the bad guys (which directly forms a basis for PvP combat) at this point, even though they once where one people.

Now, the reason why I think this MMO was pretty good is because they had a couple of thing done very well. The graphics looked fantastic, the animations fluent, the gameplay natural, and flying. I have not yet taken an extensive look at the story, so I'll leave that one in the open space for now.

While the first two are easy to understand, the other two might need some explaining. The gameplay of this game is much like most other MMOs, however a good bit of it is reaction or chain based. When these come up, it is instantly recognizable on the UI, as the icons for the skills that can be used as reaction or follow up are marked in the center of the screen in a clear way. Mind you, not obnoxiously big, or hiding other parts of the UI, but clear, and once they are gone, they are fully gone.

In flight, you use a different (though similar) skill set than on ground. However you never really notice this until you start checking the skills themselves. They naturally switch over in your UI, without having to worry about sorting another skill bar. The flying in this game is not made for traveling, btw. It is made to add in a tactical element, and you can only fly for so long before your wings need a rest.

Sonic

There is a new Sonic game coming out, and it was playable at the GC. It's very fast pased, I'd say faster than any that I have played until now. They showed us one level that looked pretty sweet. As such, it looks like the little blue hedgehog isn't quite dead yet, and this 3D Platformer will show us all how fast he really can go.

Others

I played a lot more, but I couldn't possibly remember all of them. I did however want to mention Fairytale Fights, which I cannot truthfully say I am unbiassed about, but if you like a sarcastic look into various fairytails, feel free to check it out. It's a mature hack-and-slash game about fairytales, peaked your interest yet?

- SG_01

Well, today I was at the GCDC, and I must say I learend a lot, and saw a lot. I went through a bunch of sessions, which were mostly very interesting. Especially the keynotes about Gears of War 2 were great. Especially because we got to see a live demo of the game, which looked great! I also got a sneak peak at Lego Universe, which looks very nice as well.

I'm not going to be going into too much details about the developers side of things here, though I may publish some stuff on the convention itself.

Laters!

- SG

Well, it's been a while since I last wrote. Things are going well, and I've been busy with work a lot. Tomorrow morning I depart for the Games Convention in Germany! Going to be a blast, I'm sure.

Aside from that, Selinye posted some neat quizzes I thought I'd take as well :)

What Planet Are You From? this quiz was made by The Autist Formerly Known As Tim

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Gamer/Computer Nerd   You enjoy the visual stimulants of a video game, chatting on AIM, or reading online comics. Most of these types of nerds are considered dirty who lack hygeine, of course they always end up being the ones who make a crapload of money. And don't worry, that's just a stereotype; I'm not calling you dirty. ^_~ Science/Math Nerd   Anime Nerd   Literature Nerd   Social Nerd   Musician   Drama Nerd   Artistic Nerd   What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

I'll post some stuff while I'm at the GC, if I can find some internet connection, and time around! - SG

Soo, I have decided that I'm not going to SOE Fan Faire this year. Even though I would love to go, I don't see that working out this year.

While I'm not expecting it to be in June, at this point, since SOE still has not been able to come about with date and location make it about impossible for me to make propper plans for this summer if going there. On the other hand there's this little money issue as well.

Instead, I'll be heading to the GC and perhaps the GCDC this year. And though I doubt it'll be as fun as Fan Faire will be, I'm sure there'll be plenty of interresting and fun things there.

Soo, for everyone who is going to Fan Faire, sorry I won't be there this year, but hope to still see you around next year, if I can go then :)

- SG

So, at recommendation of Cyanbane of EQ2-Daily, I went ahead and tried PMOG, and I must say, it has an interresting concept. PMOG, Pasively Multiplayer Online Game, is a game that works by firefox-plugin. As you surf the internet, you encounter various things that other players have left behind.

So, while you surf, you play. You can drop mines and crates, place lightposts and portals, which each have their own use. Further more, as you browse various domains, you gain more and more datapoints (DP), which is the currency of PMOG. With DP you can buy more tools to use during your online journey.

In this game, mines don't kill ya, they just make you lose some of your DP. However, do be careful after dropping a mine, as you too can be hit by your own mines! Crates are containers in which you can store tools and DP for other players to pick up. Portals send players to other sites, if they so choose. Lightposts are like bookmarks, which are used in the mission system. Armor is there to prevent you from losing your DP when you hit a mine. Finally, St Nicks are nasty little buggers which you can attach to other players to ensure that their next mine-laying attempt fails!

The quests in this game are in the form of missions. Missions take you accross the internet and are intended to show sites related to a subject. All missions are player created, by using the lightposts which you can drop on sites which you wish to use. Currently most missions are just a walk through some web-pages, however they are working on allowing for puzzle-missions and the like to make the missions more intellectually challenging.

Overall, it's a very interresting experience. And if you decide to try it out, feel free to add me as aquaintance in it. Just hit my user-page at http://pmog.com/users/sg_01.

Have fun!

- SG

Soo, still without laptop here, but at least I managed to get me some wireless internet. I've borrowed a laptop, and am posting this from the train. Overall it's working pretty well I'd say, and when I get my own laptop back, I'll try and game some over it.

Anyhow, development on the project I'm working on is proceding pretty well. And hopefully in a couple of months I'll be able to actually post about it.

What am I gaming? Well without my laptop it's been a bit less of the usual, and a bit more other stuff. Some Ethernal Sonata, some Lord of the RIngs online, and some Guitar Hero III. Oh, and at work some TF2, which is really fun to play over the LAN. :D

Unhappy SG today. My laptop has to be going in for repairs, again. This weekend it was working just fine, then I went it turn it on in the evening, and it was dead. Lights come on, but no display at all. Of course this all comes at the worst possible of times, with things like my paper to write for school, while being near a deadline for work. Aside from the fact that I just decided to subscribe to a UMTS service for my laptop. I guess it's all Murphy's Law.

Ah well, it will all work out eventually, but right now I am pretty annoyed!

- SG 

As Selinye posted this on her blog, I decided to see what would happen. Though I am pretty sure she wasn't over here last night *ponders*

Today Sony Online Entertainment set up a preliminary poll for their next Fan Faire. Now, as anyone can guess, I can hardly wait! Unfortunately though, there are three options in there for the month of June, in which I am scheduled to graduate, so I would not be able to attend. Soo, all vote for Vegas!  (Well, if you really don't want to, I guess I can't blame ya if you choose otherwise.)

Aside from all that, I'm sure it's going to be great fun once again. I know it was last year. If you've never gone to a Fan Faire of theirs before, I can definitely recommend going. It's both interesting and fun!

So, everyone, please vote!

Soo, I have been bussy since the last time I blogged here, but I figured I would make another post to give you all an idea about what's going on.

Mainly I have been playing EverQuest 2, in the new expansion Rise of Kunark. I managed to get to level 73, and go around a couple of the zones. I must give kudos to the EverQuest 2 team, as this expansion is awesome! Very well done. Lot's of new quests, including some big general quest lines, and quite the faction game around it. So far I have managed to do nearly every quest in the Kylong Plains. Some of which were very funny, cool, or otherwise interresting.

A rather long quest I have been working on the last couple of weeks was the quest line which starts with "A Fistful of Metal". The first quest has you run around the Kylong Plains to find and destroy a number of items, and enemies. The second quest is a little more interresting, as you are accused of a murder you did not commit. As you fight your way through to prove your innocense, you find the real murderer. The last quest has you run around the Fens of Nathasar in an attempt to get a big bounty. The result of the quest line is a fabled jewelry piece, and quite some coin earned in the process. Definitely a nice quest to do.

On the Vanguard front I have not done too much, since for a good three weeks I had to send my laptop in for repairs. I did get some pieces of the winter celebrations in there, however. Though it felt a bit empty compared to EverQuest 2, it did have a nice touch to it. Especially the free flying mount was fun to ride about the world of Telon with.

On the more real life front, I have been busy, working an internship with Playlogic Game Factory, a Dutch game development studio. A lot of fun, overall. Unfortunately though, the commute time is rather long, leaving few time for me to blog, and do other things. In the weekend I still game and do stuff. I picked up Guitar Hero 3, which has been a blast. So far I am working my way through hard. (At work though, we have someone playing on Expert, mad I tell you!)

And nop, I don't do new years resolves or any of that stuff. Though I do hope to finish my Bachelor this year, move somewhere closer to where I work, and such. No need for any resolves there though ;)