Sunday, December 31, 2006

In case ya haven't seen it before, here's the best machinima I've seen. Counter-Strike: Militia 2. They need to remake it for CS Source !



Sunday, December 24, 2006

YOU ARE AWESOME!!!

http://you.youaremighty.com/


wtf. lol. :P Love the music, haha.

PS - Rainbow Six Vegas is my new god.

Friday, December 22, 2006


Heh. My work on a NWN2 module has begun. First, I molded boobies out of mountains using the terrain editor. Then, I created a lake full of red Jello. And now.. BEHOLD! GIANT RABBITS!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Woot! I won this Creative Labs BF2142 screenshot label contest. Got a free copy of 2142. Gonna give it to my friend, Kellogg. :-P

As you can see, my label wasn't that funny, but fortunately... everyone else was less funny! Hahaaaa!

Sunday, December 10, 2006



Haven't uploaded a new Game Score selection in a looooong time. I apologise!
This track clip is from the PS2 game, Shadow of the Colossus, and is by Koh Ohtani.
It's my fav track of the game.

Click here to listen to Koh Ohtani's The Opened Way

In other news... I'm enjoying my 360 but they really need to put the mouse/keyboard onto it ASAP. Games like Gears of War and Rainbow Six Vegas work fine with the gamepad, as much of the gameplay is not so much interested in your accuracy with a gun and more with your ability to use battle tactics. Tactics doesn't require joystick finesse.

But Call of Duty 3 multiplayer has been essentially kept in its PC format roots. You run around, you aim and you shoot. This requires joystick finesse. And ohhhh is it frustrating! The multiplay gameplay also feels like it's been given a more "deathmatch arcade" feel than previous CODs. So I don't recommend COD3 for it's multiplay.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

NWN2 is now $35 at Amazon.com. I think that's with free shipping, too. I'm really enjoying this game, but it's extremely, extremely easy, to the point that it's not really a game.. but an interactive novel.

Then again, if you have no understanding of the D&D rules whatsoever, don't read the manual or anything, then this game might pose some sort of challenge. Hehe. If you click the link below to make your purchase, I get like a few cents in commission. So yeah, gimme a few cents!

Me and Dogar (online friend) hope to tweak the game's difficulty using the Toolset. If we can do that, I think this game would be an instant classic.


Saturday, December 2, 2006

Gears of War online is awesome O_O And the Rainbow Six Vegas demo is pretty great, too!

Assuming the 360 doesn't die on me in a few months, this is a great system that I recommend to everyone :)

Now if it could just get mouse/keyboard support...

Friday, December 1, 2006

Bought an Audigy 4 SE soundcard from Buy.com for $40. I bought this card solely for BF2142, which is kind of embarrasing. But I think it's worth it in the long run. Afterall, I'll be playing 2142 for at least another 300 hours. Heh :-P And shoot, I can always reinstall BF2, too.

Being able to enable EAX effects really enhances the game's sound in quality and in placement. When stomping around in a mech, the footstep sounds boom from the rear of me, recreating the fact that my mech's legs are behind me. The only downside to the soundcard is that there's no joystick port! I guess non-USB joysticks are too old fashioned, but I was still using my Microsoft Sidewinder for X-wing Alliance play. I guess I'll have to keep my old soundcard in there if I want to continue playing the Tie Fighter Total Conversion for X-wing Alliance.

I got an Xbox360 recently, and have been playing Gears of War and Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Gears of War is pretty fun, but I dunno why I got Splinter Cell. I don't even like stealth games that much! I guess playing multiplayer Double Agent back at the Gamespot After Hours event compelled me to buy it. Ah well, I should be able to get most of my money back through Ebay.

When I first started playing Gears of War, I thought it overrated, but I've warmed up to it since then. The way gun reloads work is pretty cool. Pressing the reload button a second time at certain times will bring a different result. If you time it correctly, you reload quicker. If you time it perfectly, you get a boost in damage. If you screw up your timing, you reload far slower than normal. Doesn't sound like a big deal on paper, but I find it a really fun twist on the shooter genre. In most FPS games, you reload your gun and it's a completely passive activity from your point of view, despite the fact that a real gun does require quite a bit of manual dexterity to reload quickly, especially under fire. So the reload feature of GOW kinda brings that experience to the player for the first time.

I'm also expecting Call of Duty 3 to show up in the mail, soon. I've enjoyed all of the previous Call of Duty's, so I feel obligated to play COD3, even if I am really tired of WW2. If the multiplayer isn't that great, I'll be Ebaying this one after I finish the single-player campaign a couple times.

Can't wait for the semester to end. Lots of games to play, and others to replay (Resident Evil 4 PS2 in 480p with 5.1 Digital Dolby Surround should be awesome!). Heck, even NWN2 has turned out to be a great game.

Hopefully I can get some exercise, too ;)

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Most expensive winter ever?

I'm thinking about buying an HDTV, Xbox360, PS3, and Wii in the coming months. Yoiks! That's like ... $1800 bucks at least.

The Xbox 1 was such a huge let down that I'm kinda wary bout the 360. But Gears of War and GRAW look so cool. I wish I could be excited about Mass Effect, but IMO Bioware makes terrible games. They craft good stories, is all.

The PS3 seems to have weaker graphics than the 360 right now. Hopefully that will improve. Still, if it has weaker graphics now.. do I really want to buy it right away? I guess I won't have much of a choice anyway since it will be sold out everywhere for at least a couple months. But that Resistance: Fall of Man game looks really fun.

The Wii.. that's a no brainer. I've rediscovered my love for Nintendo properties recently, thanks to my DS. Zelda Minish Cap, Metroid Zero Mission, Star Fox. So definitely getting a Wii.

I'll also need a surround sound system for all this. o_O

Saturday, November 11, 2006

I bought, used, and returned a 22" widescreen monitor over the past week. It was great seeing Half-Life 2 and Call of Duty 2 in widescreen format, with the widescreen field of view. It really increased the immersiveness of the game. In real life, when you look at something, you have a lot of peripheral vision going on. But on a standard 4:3 monitor, the game screen only occupies the center of your vision, and your peripheral vision is mostly filled with the real world. A widescreen monitor (16:9 or 16:10) changes that, and it's a really cool experience that all FPS gamers should try at least once. It was also gorgeous exploring World of Warcraft and Guild Wars in widescreen.

So if it's so great.. why did I return it? Well, I had no idea LCDs worked the way they work. In order to display the screen correctly, I *had* to increase my game resolutions to 1680 x 1050. Unlike CRTs, LCDs can't scale up resolution without a performance hit. Not a big deal for most people, but for frame rate watching gamers it's a different story.

1680 x 1050 was such a big drain on my PC that widescreen gaming was mostly unplayable, outside of HL2 and COD2. DOD Source and CS Source had crummy frame rates. And BF2142, my fav game at the moment, didn't support widescreen gaming at all. So yeah.. if you're interested in trying widescreen gaming, be sure you have a powerful enough PC.

In other news...

The PS3 and Wii are coming! I'm going to try and pick up a Wii on launch day. While I'm not too excited about any of the launch titles, I figure I'll be getting a Wii eventually, thanks to Smash Brothers Brawl.

The PS3 is a must have.. some day. The launch line up is getting bad reviews so far, with Genji 2 getting a crummy 6.5 from Gamespot. Bummer! I enjoyed the first Genji even though it scored poorly, so I'll probably enjoy Genji 2, too. But with a score of 6.5, I'm not in any hurry to play it.

Besides, I'm drowning in games anyway. Final Fantasy 12, Okami, Xenosaga 3, Neverwinter Nights 2 (which is dissapointing, by the way!), Metroid Prime Hunters, Phoenix Wright, Trauma Center, BF2142, Zelda Minish Cap.... yikes. Can't wait for winter break :)

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Been playing BF2142 like mad in the past few days. Great game. The Gamespot review was positive (score of 8.2), but it didn't really mention what's been improved and fine tuned since BF2.

2142 comes with tweaks such as:
In BF2, dropping anti-vehicle mines on the ground often resulted in Teamkills. This is no longer the case in 2142, as mines have been replaced with EMP and Motion Mines, and both of them only trigger when a hostile target is near. The same applies with the Claymore. In 2142, the Claymore only detonates against hostiles.

Commander artillery has been replaced with "orbital strike" ability. Orbital strike damages a wider area, however it is much weaker than BF2's artillery. It rarely kills anyone instantly, instead dishing out damage over repeated strikes. In most cases it's best for seriously injuring enemy groups, or finishing off wounded. At first I thought this change was for the worse, but it's much more enjoyable NOT being killed instantly by these strikes. Feels less cheap.

Medics are no longer the uber class, as their medkits now heal people gradually, instead of instantly. Their defibrillator's still revive people back to 100% health though.

2142's a great game, but at the same time, it verifies the accusation that EA/DICE ignored many of BF2's problems in order to make another game. Is there no more money to be made anymore from a further patched BF2?

Tuesday, October 24, 2006










http://www.ultimategamechair.com/

o_O Raptor chair. I want it. I think? For $300, it's pretty pricey. But the idea of rumbling along 2142's mech footstep sounds is pretty cool, and the press impressions are very positive so far.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Went to the Gamespot After Hours event last night. My first impression of the PS3 was incredible dissapointment. They only had two games on display... a racing combat game and a Gundam game. The racing game was OK, and it definitely felt 'next-gen'. But the Gundam game was terrible. The graphics were poor, the frame rate was abysmal. Ugh. I've got Gundam games for my PS2 far better than that. Really bad first impression of the PS3.

I went to the event thinking I would be blown away by the greatness of console gaming, but ironically returned wanting to upgrade my PC. After seeing Battlefield 2 and 2142 being played on top-of-the-line Dell PCs and widescreen LCDs, this computer of mine is looking a little long in the tooth. I plan on buying this 22" widescreen HD LCD monitor now (I need it's HD for PS3/X360 play anyway), but do I really want to upgrade my computer just for Battlefield? And maybe Neverwinter Nights 2? Hmm.

Got to play Call of Duty 3, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and Lost Planet for the X360. COD3 was fun, as COD always is, although the new rag doll death effects need some work. Splinter Cell was incredible, and playing that alone makes me want to buy a 360 within the week, as Splinter Cell releases on Tuesday. The graphics were great, and the multiplayer versus gameplay was pretty fun. Lost Planet was only setup in multiplayer mode, and it seemed OK. Graphically great, the gameplay seemed a bit too shallow and sluggish, but it was a free-for-all deathmatch mode after all. Also saw a demonstration of BioShock.. which was... "O_O" cool. Eye-poppin'.

Still, I dunno if I want a 360. The biggest problem to me is that many of the games I want for the 360 are shooter games (Gears of War, COD3). And playing a shooter on a console controller is blasphemy, IMO. (Where's my mouse and keyboard support?!) Even if these games are lovely to look at, playing a shooter without a mouse just ain't right.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Battlefield 2142 Impressions

I got into the 2142 beta test which just recently ended, and here are my impressions. If you're on the fence about whether or not you want to buy it next month, this might be useful.

I'll be getting 2142, even though right now I prefer BF2/SF/POE2 over what I saw in the 2142 beta. But it's still a fun game. The single map we got in the beta was kinda crummy. But hopefully we'll get some Sharqi/Karkand/Maashtur style maps in the full game.

Pros:
-less dolphin diving. When going prone, your crosshair takes a while to stabilise.
-Support MG weapon now useful/accurate. The gun actually gets more accurate as you shoot it longer, similar to how the HWGuy's machine gun worked in Team Fortress. Cool!
-No instant-healing from medkits. Kits gradually increase your health as you stand by it.
-Aircraft are easier to fly for people without a joystick.
-Cool things that encourage people to form squads. Many special items are not available for use unless a squad has 4 peeps. That's cool.
-Landing an "Aliens movie"-style hover craft onboard the enemy Titan once its shields go down. Sweet.

Cons:
-First-person Muzzle flashes for many of the weapons/turrets are extremely large and obscure your view. Very annoying!
-Aircraft aren't fun to fly anymore. They hover around in a clumsy fashion. As a flight sim fan, this was a huge setback to me.
-Very slow weapon/item unlock progression. In BF2, you begin the game with 6 primary weapons, grenades, smoke grenades, and so forth. In BF2142, you start the game with just 4 primary weapons available.. and it will apparently take a VERY long time to get any more primary weapons. AND you need to unlock standard grenades! Blech!
-Infantry experience feels like a big step backward from what we saw in Special Forces. Where's my grappling hook? Zip line? This is 2142... shouldn't someone at least have a jetpack or something? For a sci-fi game, 2142 is very ho-hum on its take on the future.

Sunday, September 3, 2006


The point of your existence is to play Point of Existence 2. POE2 is an incredible mod for Battlefield 2 that any fan of BF2 absolutely *must* play.

POE2 adds new gameplay modes, sound effects, music, weapons, vehicles, maps, textures, and more. It's practically a whole new game, as the BF2 formula is tweaked in a number of ways that produce a very different, and mostly superior, experience. The website of POE2 doesn't do the mod justice, so read the following to see why this mod is so great.

All of the weapon kits have been rebalanced. Medics no longer have grenades, making them less of a combat force and more of a healer as they should be. Support kits don't have grenades either, but their machine gun has been made much more effective: you can actually fire accurately while prone and hit targets at long ranges. The Spec-Ops weapons now come with silencers for stealth killing. And every single gun in the game is completely unique to POE2.

Besides the standard kits you choose when spawning, you can also find special weaponry lying around on the battlefield. Anti-tank rifles, anti-infantry bazookas, and even anti-air weaponry (Stingers!) can be picked up.

Vehicular combat is much more interesting, as the armor on tanks behaves more realistically. Attacking another tank head-on can be a chore, as the armor can shrug off or bounce incoming shells away. You need to flank your target... attack their sides or rears for maximum damage.

Nearly every vehicle in the game is new to BF2. Many of the gunner positions on vehicles now allow you to control the turret through an internal camera system. So you don't need to worry about getting sniped out of your turret anymore.

The aircraft in the game are cool, especially the Mi-24 Hind. This Russian helicopter was featured in EA's Special Forces expansion, but it wasn't very good. Hard to control and lacking any troop transport abilities, it didn't really represent the Hind well. But POE2's Hind is great. It can seat 6 (2 crew, 4 passengers). The new jetfighters (MiG-25 Foxbat, Tornado, Eurofighter, and Su-25 Frogfoot) are fun to fly, and none of them feel overpowered. The MiG-25, in fact, seems too weak as it's weaponry consists entirely of medium- and short- range air-to-air missiles. Finally, aircraft can be much more easily countered by ground forces than before. Instead of horribly inaccurate SAM missiles, infantry can hop into powerful anti-air gun emplacements which can rip apart aircraft.

There are some downsides to the mod, however. The commander assets, the UAV, radar scan, and artillery guns have all been removed from the game entirely. This leaves the commander with not much more to do than to spot enemies manually, which is a pretty tedious process, and drop supply crates (can't drop vehicles anymore, either). So it's not uncommon to see teams without a commander. The lack of a UAV is mostly a great thing, IMO, as the element of surprise is back in the game.. and infantry battles are far more exciting. But with no commander assets on the map, the Spec Ops' C4 feels far less useful.

Artillery is still in the game, however the artillery comes in the form of a single mobile artillery vehicle that must be manned by a player. This artillery controller must also work in tandem with an artillery spotter out in the field before targets can be hit at long distances. It's a very complicated process that only highly coordinated squads will enjoy, so most people aren't getting much enjoyment out of this new system.

To sum up, POE2 is an excellent mod that surpasses the original BF2 in most aspects, and should be considered an unofficial "expansion pack" to the game. Highly recommended!




Saturday, August 19, 2006

I have returned!

Yesterday was my last day working at EA, as I'm returning to school on Tuesday.

Let's see... where to begin. EA had me sign some confidentiality agreements when I got hired, so I can't spill the beans on what I worked on. But I can tell you about some of the cool perks and events I got to see while working there.

All employees at EA get free access to the "IRC", a media library where you can borrow movies and games of all sorts. The idea is that this lets the employees see what EA's competitors are up to, and just plain have fun after work . So I got to play Meteos, Nintendogs, Nanostray, Castlevania, and Mario Kart for the DS. Onimusha 2 and Darkwatch for the PS2, and Thief: Dark Shadows for the PC. You can see the IRC in this Gamespot video tour of EA campus (look for the 7/13/06 show).

EA employees also get some great discounts at the EA store when buying EA published games. All console games, no matter how old or new, are $20, while all PC games are a mere $10. Battlefield 2 Deluxe Edition (BF2 + Special Forces) was just $10! I picked up Battle for Middle Earth 2 PC for $10 as well. Yum :)

Probably the most exciting event was the mid-July press event. Here, EA revealed Sims 2 Pets, Need for Speed Carbon, and demonstrated Battlefield 2142. I got to play Battlefield 2142 and even got some gameplay tips from the producer. I don't think I can say too much about the game besides that it was farkin' awesome :). Many BF2 fans feel that 2142 may be nothing more than a sci-fi "mod" of BF2, and thus not worth a purchase, but I thought it was incredible. I got to play against the EAUK game testers of the project, and I was stabbed to death by 7 of them at once. Best death ever.

Saturday, July 1, 2006

For my first week of work, I killed over five hundred people and saved the world by destroying a giant robot octopus. Being a video game tester is pretty sweet. Haha.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Today was my second day at work at EA Games as a Language Integration Tester. We're just training right now, but so far it looks like it will be a pretty fun job :)

Picked up a copy of Special Forces at the EA Store. Installing it now. Bloody thing requires me to install a 500 meg patch before I can get it to run, though. D'oh!

Friday, June 23, 2006

Officials at the US Pentagon recently confused a Battlefield 2 fan film for a terrorist recruiting tool.
Woops! Check out the ABC Nightline video.

Here's an interview with "SonicJihad", creator of the BF2 fan film. And here's SonicJihad's profile on BF2S.com (the video shows his game name as JihadJoe though, so that could be another SonicJihad). SonicJihad, if you read this somehow... you need a montage. Your k/d ratio is 1.0, not much better than Dogar's. For a guy who confused the Pentagon, you're not very good at BF2, dude. Hahaaaaa... ;-)

And hey, maybe we could do a joint mercenary auction together.

Monday, June 19, 2006








Check out this Half-Life 2 mod: The Hidden.

In it, players are split up into two teams: Hidden and IRIS. One player is The Hidden, a freak with superhuman powers of cloaking, strength, and tracking. This player is only armed with a knife and 3 pipe bomb grenades. He can pounce, kill in one strike, and generally scare the hell out of people by being nearly invisible. Using the Source engine's physics, he can also toss objects at people, or pick up dead players and toss them at their comrades. The IRIS team consists of the rest of the players on the server. They're basically your typical gun-toting commandos.

"The Hidden" is a great game. Unique, well polished, and professionally done. Fans of "stealth action" games should definitely check this out. My only gripe is that I have to lower the game's graphics to DirectX 8.1 to make it run smooth.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Funny combination of Team America's "Montage" song and some Battlefield 2 gameplay footage. Warning: has some obscene language.

I found this video after telling my friend Dogar that his k/d ratio for BF2 sucked (0.5), and that he needed some training from Master (Sergeant) Charlie_Six. All we needed, I told him, was a "training montage" to get him into shape. And so.. I stumbled upon this on Youtube.com. Hehe :-)

Friday, June 9, 2006


Bought the Armored Fury booster pack for BF2. $10 may seem too steep for a mere 3 maps at first, but the maps are really fun. None of them come close to Karkand/Sharqi quality combat though. Many of the previews for Armored Fury had the designer stating infantry combat was much more well balanced into the pack, but this simply isn't true. Most of the battles are centered around tank combat, and the "Armored Fury" part of the title is very apt. The most popular infantry class on these maps is the Anti-Tank kit, as there's few opportunities for the other kits to shine in. Karkand and Sharqi have plenty of areas where infantry can hide from vehicles, and these areas stretch across the bulk of those maps. But in Armored Fury, most of the flag areas are separated by long empty areas. These areas are usually full of tanks, and it's not that easy to bypass these tanks with another vehicle besides a tank of your own. Once you do arrive at a flag area, most enemy tanks will be assisted by their team's UAV. This makes it very difficult to destroy the tanks with Anti-Tank or C4 attacks.

So yeah.. infantry, which to me (and probably most BF2 players) should be the game's focus, is very much set in a supporting role with this booster. Much of this could be rectified if EA released a patch for the booster that removed, say, half of the available tanks on each of the maps.

I think one way to counteract the effectiveness of the tanks at the flag areas is to make sure the enemy UAV is kept destroyed as often as possible. This is mostly easily accomplished with the use of the new scout helicopters and Spec Ops troops. Right now, due to the position of the UAV trailers (deep within enemy territory, surrounded by tanks), enemy UAV trailers are rarely destroyed. If you fly a scout chopper, I encourage you to do as many commando raids on UAVs as possible, and not just focus on the highly entertaining act of machine gunning the crap out of fleeing infantry ;-)

My final complaint with the booster is that all of the original jets are absent! D'oh! Flying jets is one of my fav things to do in BF2, so their absence in the booster is quite painful. This "booster" is supposed to expand the game, not shrink it. Boo!

Sunday, June 4, 2006

Finished Genji for the PS2 last night. Great game. Very underrated IMO. Gamespot gave it a 7.0, but the user score is at 8.5. The game isn't very deep, but it's good fun and I think a good match for any casual gamer. Similar to the Onimusha games, you run around chopping up people for combo and critical hits. Unlike Onimusha, Genji actually has a decent inventory system. So you can drink health potions while in combat. Can't wait to see how Genji 2 turns out for the PS3. Looking forward to flipping giant crabs upside down and stabbing them for massive damage!

"X-men: The Last Stand" hit theaters recently and made a ton of money on its opening weekend. NPR has an interesting report on the film's social commentary. Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) mentions how the film's topic caused some heated political debate amongst the cast of the film.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Just finished the PS2 game, Ace Combat Zero. Pretty cool, although I think I got less planes to fly than I did in Ace Combat 5. Essentially identical to Ace Combat 5. The game has you playing the role of a silent ace pilot who quickly gains the name "Demon Lord." Here's a trailer for the game.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

School's almost over. Couple more days and I'm home free. I need to get some exercise or something, cause I have a feeling I'll need a lot of energy when work at EA starts next month.

Anyway, I recently bought Warhammer 40k Dawn of War and its Winter Assault expansion for $15 shipped on Ebay. And I'm really dissapointed. There's only about 100 people playing the game at anytime online, and with good reason. There's no real logic to the game, IMO. No rules, no sense or balance. For details, try heading to the Gamespot forum for the game. It's a bit hard to explain..



Then there's massive latency problems in every game I've played. Meanwhile, Warcraft 3 boasts something like 30,000 players currently. The single player campaign was fun enough though, and the battles are still a blast to watch. So I'm not surprised the game is getting a second expansion. People must be enjoying Warhammer, but it sure ain't for the multiplayer.

Besides Warhammer, I had been playing the City of Villains and City of Heroes trials. Really enjoyed my time with these games, which is surprising since I usually despise MMOs. But the over-the-top battle effects, animations, and superhero powers are really cool. Gaining the ability to fly at level 14 was a trip, and the PVP zones where heroes and villains clash in mid-air were incredibly cool.

The games are set in a comic book-style universe. It's a huge breath of fresh air since nearly all MMOs are set in a sword-and-magic fantasy environment. After playing these games, I'm convinced that the Comic Book setting is a much overlooked gold mine waiting to be tapped by the video game industry. We need comic book Battlefield-style FPS games, comic book Neverwinter Nights-style RPG games... heck, comic book The Sims... comic book Nintendogs. I don't know. Comic book everything. I cannot stress enough how cool it is to shoot frikkin' laser beams out of your eyes while flying through the air without any form of mechanical assistance. That is pure awesome. Another major advantage of the comic book setting is that it's usually set in modern times, which, to me, makes it easier to immerse yourself in the game world.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Just got hired by Electronic Arts! Charlie Six is now a EA game tester *and* a video game mercenary for charity! WOOT!

I hope I get to test out Battlefield 2142. That'd rock.
E3 has begun, and some pretty amazing stuff has been pouring out of it ever since.

Biggest shocker for me, though, was seeing a certain soldier appear at the end of this Smash Brothers Brawl video. :O


Wednesday, May 3, 2006

My "Battlefield 2 Mercenary for Hire" auction was featured on G4TV a long while ago. But I could never find a clip of the video... until now! So here ya go.

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Check out this hilarious live-action Counter-strike movie!


Friday, April 28, 2006

High Score - Jeehun Hwang's Track 16 for Mechwarrior 2.

I just loaded up some old action tunes from a CD I had laying around, and found a bunch of cool tracks I'll be presenting here.

This is Track 16 from the Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack. Mechwarrior 2 was released in 1995, and was one of the first games to feature 3dfx graphics, which would be one of the biggest leaps into 3d video gaming technology. The game won many Game of the Year awards, with its incredible visuals, audio, gameplay and music. This track was the most memorable for me, and I've kept hold of it for about 5 years o_O.

This track fit perfectly with the Mechwarrior game. Your mech would be lumbering across barren 3D battlezones, walking from waypoint to waypoint, watching the clouds soar past.

Thought this was cool. It's not an official Transformers video, but a fun taste of what's likely to come in the Michael Bay/Steven Spielberg live action Transformers movie coming in 2007.



This you may have seen already..


I love Transformin' robots. Sniff.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Best video in the history of mankind.

Zombies... zombie babies... machine guns....

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Video Games Live footage

Here's a video showing the entire Metal Gear Solid piece during the Video Games Live concert. Mentioned this a while ago.

Found here.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

This is a post of mine from the Game Audio Network Guild's forums..
Just thought I'd post it here for any Transformers fans.

Transformers was my fav back in the day. I loved the movie. I still think the best voice over work ever can be found in the Transformers movie. The sound effects are really cool, too.

For my Audio Production class, I recorded some audio clips from the film. Check 'em out !

"A ginormous, weird lookin' planet...!"
http://media.putfile.com/thisisjazz

Blaster, the Radio DJ Transformer. More battle effects. Try to figure out which sound is the sound of Blaster roundhouse kicking a Decepticon.
http://media.putfile.com/radios-57

Perceptor's such a dweeb, with a cool dweeb voice. Listen to the battle effects.
http://media.putfile.com/introbattle

This dude's voice is cool. I wish I could speak like this in normal every day conversation.
http://media.putfile.com/2005-26

Transformers Generation 1 (what the 80s version is called today) has a huge following on the Penny Arcade forums. It's a bummer that there haven't been any video games for it yet.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Download and play Savage retail version for free.

Apparently, you can legally download the full version of Savage, the RTS-shooter hybrid game, by going to the link above. Coooool. I tried the demo a long time ago and thought there was potential. Apparently Savage 1 flopped miserably, but the S2 Team is trying to correct that with the upcoming Savage 2. So, in order to build awareness of the Savage series, they're releasing the first game entirely for free.
Definately going to try this out. I hope Savage 2 is a success, as I really like the concept of RTS/action hybrids. Battlezone 2 was a huge obsession of mine, but it, along with Battlezone 1, was a market failure, too. Allegiance, the space sim/RTS/MMO hybrid published by Microsoft, also flopped. D'oh!

Spring Break has come and gone.. and school resumes on Monday. So my posts will slow to a trickle once again, I'm sure. :\

I tracked down one of the sound designers for the Xbox game "Jade Empire", and asked him some questions about the sound design field. He said that jobs are extremely rare for sound people in the game industry, which is a big bummer for me. But after thinking about it, I've decided I'm going to keep going with my Audio Production studies and hope for the best. Who knows.. maybe after two decades of QA testing at some game company, I'll climb the ladder, yeah? Heheh.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Corporation for Public Gaming editorial

A Corporation for Public Gaming (CPG) could be established that would operate on a model similar to its broadcasting equivalent, providing grants to develop a diversity of games for the public good. Like CPB, the goal of the CPG would be to provide high-quality games, which “inform, enlighten and enrich the public.”


I find this idea really interesting. IMO, PBS' Frontline is the best and most professional news program on US TV, far surpassing the "look! something blew up!"-style news coverage of CNN and FOX News. If similar results could be produced for gaming, that'd be pretty cool.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Warcraft Panel. Spiffy :D
The Peon's "Stop poking me!" just got a lot funnier. Hehehe.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

A regular feature of this blog is High Score, where I present some of my favorite film and game music to play games with. Each feature will come with an audio clip that will be in low-quality 64 kbps sound and clipped for length.

Here's an archive of all the High Score features to date:

Batman Begins

Black Hawk Down

Dark City

Dungeons and Dragons

Ghost in the Shell: Innocence

GoldenEye

Gundam MS 08th Team

Henry V

Mechwarrior 2

Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor 2

Shadow of the Colossus

Star Wars

Thirteen Days
World in Conflict trailer

Check out this trailer for a 2007 strategy game. Best game trailer ever :-P
Hi-def trailers can be found here.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Just got back from Video Games Live in San Jose. It was really fun! All the tickets were sold out, so we had a packed house full of pale gamer nerds. I wish they had played more Medal of Honor music though. Ah well.

Got to hear Metal Gear music in full glory. They had a guy dressed up as "Random Bad Guy Soldier" walking back and forth across the stage. Once the music really started up, he flicked a switch on his chest and a bright exclamation point appeared above and behind his head, just like in the game. It was hilarious :-D. People loved the Video Game Pianist's cool solo Final Fantasy performance. Everyone gave him a big standing ovation. I wish I had brought a camera.. coulda gotten pics with the Metal Gear guy, along with a cool lookin' cosplay fan who came as Samus Aran. Samus Aran girl, if you read this blog, call me! Hubba hubba. Rawr rawr. You can scan me with your visor any day of the week, if you know what I mean.. heh heh heh... (wait, that makes no sense..)

update: Gamespot has an article on the VGL performance.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Battlefield 2142, coming Fall 2006.

*droooooooooooool*

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Haven't done this in a while...

Today's High Score is... Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's track for Batman Begins: "Molossus". I've recently tried playing this soundtrack while I play Warcraft 3, and it works great. In fact, it's the only game I can think of that the soundtrack works for. The soundtrack has a kind of.. menacing industrial undead sound to it, which fits nicely when playing as the Undead in the game. Pick the Dreadlord as your hero and you've got your Batman. :)



Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Selling my copy of Battlefront 2 for PC for $24.99. Buy it, you bastards!

Ahem.... that is all.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

This fan-made lightsaber duel film is pretty cool. It features the music from the film Dark City, which I put up a clip of a while back.
Midterms! ACK!

Not much new to report. Still an unemployed mercenary. Guess people just don't need much killin' to be done these days. Shame.

This month is full of games... crazy amounts of games. Just got Onimusha 4 for the PS2. The 2 player co-op mode is great fun, though the camera can be troublesome. Metal Gear 3 Subsistence, with online play, comes out this week. IGN gave it a 9.8. Then there's Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. If it's good, I may have to upgrade to a GeForce 6600 GT. Maybe I can "snipe" it off Ebay using this Auction Sentry program I just found out about.

I've also been watching a lot of Naruto episodes. I'm far too old to be watching such shows, but the drama and action of the show is really well done. It's a helluva lot better than what passes for entertainment in last night's episode of 24, anyway. Ugh.

Saturday, March 4, 2006

Those BF2 1.2 missiles are frakkin' accurate. Just a bit too accurate. FRAK!

Friday, March 3, 2006

OK, guess I'm not going to watch Ultraviolet. It has a 0% rating on Rottentomatoes.com, and it's apparently so bad that RT forum users have felt inclined to take pictures of their feces and post the pics on the forum, in order to compare the movie's quality to a tangible object.

Blech.

Thursday, March 2, 2006

Some TV reminders:
The season finale for Battlestar Galactica airs tomorrow (Friday, March 3rd) on SciFi channel.
And there's a 2-hour 24 on FOX on Monday. I think both shows can appeal to a great deal of the video game players out there, so check out these shows if you haven't already.

24 recently had a video game come out. Unfortunately, early reviews are saying the game is quite poor. Sucks.



In other news... I've been playing Super Dimension Fortress Macross for PS2, an import game from Japan. It's quite awesome. :)

Finally, tomorrow is the premiere of the film Ultraviolet. From talking to people at school, no one seems impressed with the commercials, and I guess I don't blame them. They look cheesy! But I'm probably going to see this over the weekend, as the creator of the film also made Equilibrium, probably one of the best action movies I've ever seen. This guy's movies are all about over-the-top action scenes, and hopefully Ultraviolet delivers what Equilibrium did.

Sunday, February 26, 2006




















Ack! Been a while since I've updated this, been busy with school and uhmm.... Warcraft 3. :-P

Also finished Ace Combat 5 on PS2. Really quite a good game, despite the weird "hippie" story and dialogue. You see, the game has a pacifist bent to it, which is very odd considering you're ace pilots flying state-of-the-art war machines, blowing up hundreds of people. Throughout the game, your wingmen state their remorse over all the killing they're doing.

Still, I recommend the game for the fantastic visuals, huge selection of planes, some creative and exciting missions, and spiffy music. I never managed to unlock the Super Hornet featured in the picture above, nor the Dasault Rafale (one of my fav planes from Fighters Anthology). But I did get to fly a lot of funky prototype stuff I didn't even knew existed, such as the Su-47 (pictured below).














The F-22, Typhoon, Gripen, and F-35 all make an appearance too.

Despite being on PS2, the game looks incredible, especially in Replay mode, which replays each mission from cinematic external cams. The game can be played in HUD-only view, cockpit view (very detailed and accurate cockpits, too!), and external camera view. Btw, the gameplay is pure arcade console action, so if you're looking for a flight sim experience, look elsewhere.




Sunday, February 5, 2006

How Not to be Seen

Funny BF2 Monty Python video ;)

Saturday, February 4, 2006

Blast!

I got my copy of Battlefront 2 in the mail yesterday, and was quickly let down by the experience.

First off, it was a pain in the ass just to run the game in the first place. I had to set the game to a Win2000 compatibility setting just to get it to launch. Apparently I'm not alone in frustrations with this game in regards to bugs... the Lucasarts tech support forums are overflowing with frustrated posters who claim half the people who bought Battlefront 2 for the PC can't even play the game. They're all clamoring for a patch that has been delayed, but should be out soon.

For me, besides that Win2000 thing, the game works fine. The problem is that the game is just not that fun or deep. It's a very arcadey, simple, straightforward FPS game for the most part. Extremely simple. So simple, in fact, that I can't think of a professionally made FPS game that provided a more dull experience. The levels are vast and... bland... and empty. You have a gun, you shoot at your enemies while strafing back and forth. Not Counter-strike or Rainbow Six, of course. But, this ain't no Quake-quality deathmatch style exciting shooting match, either. It's just.... boring.

Even as a die-hard Star Wars fan, I can't recommend this game. Stay away! Especially if you've played any of the great Star Wars games, like the X-wing series of games, or Jedi Knight games, or Republic Commando. These all have excellent gameplay and do the Star Wars name justice.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Made a new gamer friend this week thanks to Neverwinter Nights. Runa's an interesting person. She's got a fun sense of humor and is hard to please when it comes to games. She demands tactical challenge from her games, and like me, is frustrated that NWN's combat is often so uninvolving.
To demonstrate her tactical prowess, she crushed me at online chess three times in a row. Ouch! Most interesting for any Battlefield 2 players out there, Runa's uncle on the development team of the F-35 jet fighter. :-O I wonder if I can get a discount on the retail price of the F-35 when it comes out....

After she stomped me at chess, we tried to find new games to play together. We tried Icewind Dale 2, but that didn't work for me, as I just couldn't get into the art style of the game. And the interface confused the heck outta me. Then she called me a "graphics whore". Boo! Then we played some America's Army, which I liken to a virtual chatroom, since when you are killed, you can be staring at the chat interface for 2-5 minutes before the next round starts up. Ugh, I hate round based gameplay. America's Army is completely free to download and play, but even with a price tag of $0, I can't recommend it. Why play that when you can play Counter-strike or Rainbow Six games? They seem superior to AA in pretty much every way.















In other news, I played some Gitaroo Man and Soul Calibur 3 for the PS2. Gitaroo Man is a funky music game, where you use the analog joystick and buttons to play a guitar. Oh and you're a strange guitar-playin' superhero robot dude with a robot dog. Really creative game, but also a bit too hard, even at the easiest settings.

Soul Calibur 3 is a "fighting" game, in the style of Streetfighter games. Except with big ass swords. Fun!

Monday, January 23, 2006

Howdy, folks! School's started up, so I've been using all my free time to play some games. The demo for the RTS Star Wars: Empire at War came out. It's not bad. It's made by some former Command and Conquer people, so if you liked those games you should dig SW: EAW. The space battles are pretty entertaining to play, and it's great hearing the pilot chatter audio. I found the gameplay kinda stale though, like the developers were just making sure it had all the standard RTS elements and nothing more or new.

Speaking of Star Wars...

------

Today's High Score is John Williams' Star Wars and The Revenge of the Sith.

John Williams is da man. Any self-respecting soundtrack appreciation blog would have to mention this guy. So here it is :-P

This part of the track plays during the opening sequence, with Anakin and Obi-wan flying their Jedi Starfighters into a huge space battle over Coruscant. The music kinda mixes the noble heroism tunes of the Jedi, usually seen as sword swinging monks, with the more militaristic and industrial nature of space warfare.

It's kinda hard to play this track with any game, though. First off, the space combat sim genre has pretty much died off, and with them, the whole "good vs evil.. in spaaaaace!" dynamic of those games. And you might have trouble connecting the heroic nature of the music with any flight sim that's set in modern or historical eras.



Tuesday, January 17, 2006






The following is a topic I posted on the Neverwinter Nights 2 forums. What do you think?
---------------------------------------------------------
Ways to make melee/ranged combat more fun?

I haven't played a pure melee class in ages, and recently just played a Fighter in NWN1. Holy cow is that one boring class to play. As a big fan of games like Return of the King, Genji, Onimusha, God of War, and Forgotten Realms: Demonstone, I find the melee and ranged combat fighting of NWN to be pretty boring. So I almost always play spellcaster in NWN. At least with spells, I'm trying to decide which spells to apply on which target. With fighter types, the combat is just not very stimulating or demanding of the player. I heard that in 3.5, there should be some more feats for fighters to use, but I'm still under the impression that fighters will still be pretty uninvolving to play.


What are some ways to make non-magic combat more entertaining? Please feel free to throw in some of your ideas.

Mine are..
1) This is my dream idea, and I understand that it'll never be in NWN2. But I think it'd be great if Obsidian could team up with Stormfront Studios some day (creators of the very first Neverwinter Nights game, and also creator of the Forgotten Realms: Demonstone action fighting game). Stormfront could bring their fighting mechanics to the melee/ranged combat to the game, and with Obsidian's help, they could create a hybrid of Demonstone and NWN in one game. Casting spells would function the same as it does now, but fighting with bow or sword would involve combo attacks and quick moving like in Demonstone. Of course this would require a lot of balancing to work it in correctly, but I think it'd be possible and pretty darn awesome if it'd worked

And this wouldn't mean that your combat performance would be completely dependent on your personal skill as a player. In Demonstone, players could outfit their characters with different staple D&D items. Rings of Deflection, Natural Armor amulets, +1 swords, etc. Like most action "hack 'em up" games these days, you can decide how to power up your character so that your stats can help determine your fate, not just your button-pushing and reflex skills. Finally, it'd be great if there was a an option to toggle AI control of your player. That way, players who want to let the AI do the bulk of the fighting can do so. This would revert the game to the standard NWN "click and watch" combat style, where the player just targets enemies and clicks feats and potions. The AI would not be as effective as if the player was doing the fighting, but it'd be an option for those who are not into Onimusha-style play.


2) OK, this is my more reasonable idea and I really hope there's a way to implement this into NWN2 somehow. I'm hoping the content creators can design this system. The idea comes from the tank MMORPG called "Blitz 1941". In that game, when you attack a target with a click, a little guage/meter appears. This guage requires you to click a second time, when the needle in the guage is within the "will hit" portions of the guage. So there's a dark section of the guage meter, and a light section. A little needle rapidly goes back and forth in the meter. If you do the second click in the light section, stopping the needle there, your shot will hit. If you do the second click in the dark section, your shot will miss. Also, there's a small dark red section of the meter. If you manage to stop the needle on that red section, you get a critical hit on your target. I found this system to be pretty entertaining. Landing hits on your enemy is far more satisfying this way.

I think it'd be great if we could get a custom system made for NWN2's non-magic combat, something that resembled the above system. Would it be possible to develop such a thing through scripting and then put it in a HAK? Please tell me yes

Here's an example of how it might work: You're a fighter with a greatsword. You click on an Ogre, and your character is now in melee combat with it. A meter appears on the screen, divided into 20 sections. This meter represents the d20 die. A small needle rapidly travels back and forth within the meter. It's up to the player to click the left-mouse button at the right moment, which stops the needle on one of the 20 sections. The goal is always to click when the needle is at the higher sections, and ideally on a critical number. From here, attack bonuses are thrown on top of your d20 result as usual, and the hit is calculated.

I think players should be only asked to perform this action once per round, not once per attack. At level 20, a Fighter has 4 attacks per round. Rounds last 6 seconds, so asking a player to do this little meter process 4 times every 6 seconds would be pretty frustrating! So instead, just once a round, and perhaps this only makes a difference on the very first attack of the round. Subsequent attacks in that round would be handled the standard way. Also, if the player does not click the button at all, the needle will simply land at wherever it stops like in Roulette.

I think it'd be a good idea to give the needle's speed a randomised behavior. Sometimes it will be a bit slower than usual, sometimes a bit faster. Something that keeps the player on his/her toes at all times.

I think such a system could really make non-magical combat much more involving and fun for the player. One problem that you might be thinking of is that some players will be have such good reflexes that they'll be able to get high results on the d20 meter all the time. This is true of Blitz 1941, but I haven't seen it to be a big deal.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Been playing lots of Warcraft 3. What a fun game! Released in 2002 to rave reviews, the game holds up great to today's standards, thanks to Blizzard's top notch sound, gameplay, and graphics. There's like 50,000 people playing it worldwide at anytime, too.

I kind of dislike the Town Portal mechanic of the game though, where armies are teleporting around the map to defend bases. I wish there was at least an optional game mode where Town Portal scrolls were disabled or somethin'. It just doesn't feel right to have armies warping into battle like that. This ain't Star Wars, dangit! :-P

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Video Games Live

What is Video Games Live?
The first major U.S. video game music concert tour is finally here! Think music concert, theatrical stage show, and interactive video game all wrapped into one!

Video Games Live will feature the best music and video clips from the most popular games from the beginning of video gaming to the present.
On March 24, VGL will have a concert in San Jose. I can't wait to go. :) I wonder if I'll get to see any big name video game designers there, like Will Wright.

Click the link for trailers and more info. I'm especially looking forward to hearing Metal Gear Solid, Zelda, and Medal of Honor.


Monday, January 9, 2006

High Score of the day: Trevor Jones' There Can Be No Deals from the film "Thirteen Days". The film is about the Cuban Missile Crisis, primarily seen from the point of view of the Kennedy White House.



The track plays as two F-8 Crusader jets, outfitted with photorecon equipment, fly into Cuban airspace to spot suspected nuclear missile sites. In order to avoid being spotted on radar, they fly at very a low altitude.. straight through some anti-aircraft gun fire. It's a pretty cool scene and the music can go great with some BF2 air combat :)


Sunday, January 8, 2006

Get Paid 2 Play Battlefield 2

Recently signed up for this. Basically, you play a total of 12 hours a month on any of the servers listed on the site, and you are entered in prize drawings. The chances of you winning these prizes is pretty slim, but the site is cool in that it helps empty servers get players. Server ops pay between $75-150/month to keep their servers running, but this money can go to waste if no one joins.

The site is simple to use. You simply load a list of servers in your web browser, click "join game" and BF2 launches you into the server from there.


I'm hoping the custom map scene can take advantage of this somehow. The BF2 ranked server system has really kept custom maps pretty non-existant, since those maps can't be played on ranked servers, and everyone is only interested in boosting their ranked stats. As a huge fan of custom maps for all games, this has been a pretty depressing aspect of BF2.

Sometimes I wonder if DICE/EA intentionally created the ranked server system in order to boost sales of their expansion packs. By making sure community content is un-ranked, it lowers demand for community content and increases demand for EA stuff. Argh!

Edit: :-O Some of the players on the site have already logged in more than 4 days worth of play time. 100 hours+ in January so far, and we're only on the 8th day of the month! Sweet lordy.

Saturday, January 7, 2006

CBS 60 Minutes - The Echo Boomers

Historian Neil Howe, along with co-author William Strauss, has made a career studying different generations. Howe says all the research on echo boomers [ed: those born between 1982 and 1995] always reflects the same thing: They are much different than their self-absorbed, egocentric baby boomer parents.

"Nothing could be more anti-boom than being a good team player, right? Fitting in. Worrying less about leadership than follower-ship," says Howe. "If you go into a public school today, teamwork is stressed everywhere. Team teaching, team grading, collaborative sports, community service, service learning, student juries. I mean, the list goes on and on."

Howe thinks they are more like their grandparents, the great World War II generation -- more interested in building things up than tearing them down.

"When you ask kids, 'What do you most hope to achieve there?' Where they used to say, 'I wanna be No. 1. I wanna be the best,' increasingly they're saying, 'I wanna be an effective member of the team. I wanna do everything that's required of me,'" says Howe.
Does this explain the rise and popularity of team-based FPSs and party-based MMOs? *Shrug* Deathmatch sure seems to have completely lost all popularity in the gaming world.