Ready Player One

Two days ago I was watching the Feedback podcast hosted by G4’s Blair Herter with his fiancée Jessica Chobot and two of G4’s editors as the hosts. At one point during the podcast Blair started talking about Ready Player One; a geeky, nerdy, quest-driven, 80s memorabilia riddled, romance, adventure story. That sounds pretty vague and I’ll admit it is, it was the first book the author ever had published and it was a unique style to read. Typically I stick to my action adventure espionage thriller genre type books (Vince Flynn/Lee Child) but I decided to give this book a try. 

Yesterday around noon I went to a nearby brick and mortar store to pick up the book, about 3 in the morning I had finished it. With exception to going to dinner with my parents and the occasional bathroom break I read it from beginning to end. Now don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not saying that it was so good I couldn’t put it down, it was a great book but that’s not the case. That is just how I usually read books. 

Without ruining too much of the book here is the gist of it. The main character is a teenager that plays in a virtual reality world like World of Warcraft but much much more immense and immersive. Most of the world played this game because the real world had essentially become post-apocalyptic (minus the apocalypse part). A world wide quest was given out to obtain a huge award for real world money; it was a puzzle quest of sorts. The trials and growth of the main character are what keeps things interesting, the main character develops relationships in this world but knows nothing of their true identities much like our own world of gaming. The book creates an interesting perspective between the friendships that exist in the real world and internet world. 

If you enjoy reading; and since you have suffered through this much of my own writing, then you will probably enjoy Ready Player One. It has an excellent way of reminding us of the 80s (which I missed by a couple of months) and the evolution of gaming, pop-culture, music, and the movie industry. 

If you are interested in the book you can find it here on amazon (SUPER NEAT LINKY)

Dungeon Defenders is the most addicting 3rd person action rpg tower defense you will ever play

So it has been awhile since I’ve posted now for a number of reasons I don’t really need to go into on here but I am going to try and start posting more regularly now. Instead of focusing of daily posting about the news I find for that day I think I will only post about what I am actively engaged or excited about. That said, since I’ve stopped posting I have played quite a few games that you guys might be interested in hearing about. I am going to abandon the numerical measurement system for video games because it is difficult to quantify everything and instead let you hear what I think about the game; its successes, failures, and how I think it impacts the gaming industry.

As a coming back to writing post, I think I will write about the game I’ve played most since I stopped writing which is Dungeon Defenders. Originally this game was made for mobile devices using Epic’s UT3 engine but the young company, Trendy Entertainment, decided to take its hit mobile game to the next level and make it a full PC game (and maybe Mac, I don’t really know). 200 hours into the game as of last night I can confidently say that I have experienced just about everything you can in the game.

As I said before Dungeon Defenders was designed for mobile devices turned PC, it was a 15 dollar game and I’ve dumped more hours into it than most games I get my hands on. In fact I have put more hours into this game in the month and a half it has been out than I have put into games like MW2, TF2 and Civilization V so it pretty much goes without saying that I’m addicted. Being a mobile game originally, it was plagued with little content compared to what PC gamers have come to expect but the developers (all 17 of them) have been adding content and patching their game at a rate I have literally never seen before. In Rift when a major patch came out and there were bugs they would come out with a hotfix for the patch in a couple days, TE would have a hotfix submitted to Steam within hours. Sometimes this doesn’t come without its own issues but as a young company trying to keep their fan base it was generally well received. 

Company, cost, patches aside and we are left with the actual game and if you are still reading this I commend you. The game itself is a third person (with the option of first person) action rpg tower defense, which may seem like a lot to take in. Think your typical tower defense game but where you control a character in the mix of the madness having an effect on each level. With 70 levels, 5 different types of armors for each of the 4 slots with endless prefixes changing the stats and tons of different weapons and even more stats, there is a huge amount of rpg to the game. Part of the reason why the game is so addicting is the rpg side of it but at the same time it’s the competition of getting your name on the leader boards because your strategy and tower placement is better than the rest.

With at least 250,000 players (this is an old number, I’d suspect closer to 500,000 now) there is a lot of competition on the leader boards. Last I checked I held the number 1 spot for 2 different maps/modes, but that is out of a possibility of at least 100 different rankings. Beyond the rush of rankings the developers are updating their game with new content and fixing current content all the time keeping the game very active and fresh.

There are 8 classes, 4 come with the original game and 4 are gender swapped dlc (with slightly different skills). They are always adding new maps and if you play on the open server even more because TE released their version of the Unreal Developer Kit with the games code so that you can mod to your hearts content. The UDK is actually pretty easy to use; with no experience at all I was able to make a simple level without much trouble. With it made I could technically upload it and let others play it but I dare not embarrass myself because the modding community is active and some cool maps are being made all the time.

This is the season for Steam sales, this is a 15 dollar game that I have spent more time in than most 60 dollar games and in this season chances are you will find the game and all of its dlc (a lot of it’s free but all of it together probably isn’t more than 8 dollars right now) on Steam for a great price. I highly recommend picking this game up this holiday season, you get a good game that is a unique style and very fun, you get to support a start up indie developer committed to its community, and you get to kill tons and tons of goblins which is always a plus.

That is it for now but there are a bunch of other games that I will try to post about soon (Skyrim, BF3, Orcs Must Die, Gears of War 3, Dark Souls and more)

Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011

I apologize for the lack of posting the last two days; I have been a little bit under the weather (despite how nice it has been outside all week). I had hoped to come back today with a happy exciting post about some game I found on my phone that I really enjoyed but last night I was informed of the passing of Steve Jobs the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, so I will dedicate this post to him.

A week or so ago I read an article written by someone at IGN that basically talked about the culture of gaming and who represented it (or in this case the lack of representation). They wrote about the direction of gaming and how there weren’t any faces that were recognizable beyond doubt that could move the industry forward with their influence and power and that got me thinking. Who for the past decade has been the face of technology? Steve Jobs, his influence in the world of technology is arguably more widely known than any other name. Not everyone uses or even likes Apple products, I myself am not a huge fan of them but I can’t ignore their importance to everything else I use. Apple hasn’t ever been the innovator but they have for a long time now taken an idea, done it the right way, and taken over entire markets. They have dominated these markets so well that others companies take Apple’s ideas and use them their own way because they see how good they are. They have done what they do so well that for years and years and even now companies are still trying to compete (and for the most part failing) with the iPhone and more recently the iPad.

Credit for the dominance in entire markets should be given to Steve Jobs, sure he had a team backing him but it was Steve that put his life out there to move the industry forward. Because of his work we can game on our phones while accessing our favorite videos, manage our calendars, and check our emails. Hell, our parents can’t even figure out how to do half of that but for our generation it comes second nature and that is because Steve Jobs has helped to make technology such a big part of our lives. You think PC you think Microsoft, you think Apple you think Steve Jobs, that is why I say he was the face of technology. It is upsetting to see a legend pass, but this won’t be the end of Apple, I’m sure that for all he gave to the company he set it in the direction for continued success.

P.S. If this was unbearably difficult to read or make sense of I apologize, it is a much different article than I normally write and I found it a challenge to convey meaning and purpose of another persons life.

Battlefield 3 open beta launched this past weekend!

Battlefield 3 open beta opened this past weekend. Anyone with an Xbox 360, PS3, or a computer (with the system requirements met) can get their hands on the soon to be released game. The graphics are excellent, the color palette is extensive, and everything looks crisp and vibrant. They added a lot of blur effects to the game (including a blurring of the screen when you’re next to someone firing a weapon) which added a sense of realism but it did get to the point where it became hard to focus on an object.

Battlefield 3

The gameplay: The beta offers one map and all four classes (medic, assault, engineer, and sniper). The map is an objective-based assault map with one side assaulting and one defending. The map didn’t have any vehicles, so we still don’t know anything about them outside of the officially and unofficially released videos. There are above-ground and subterranean parts of the map with the subterranean portion being in a subway. Each class has a unique ability such as ammo box, medic pack, repair (blowtorch), or radio beacon with the option to improve or change these abilities as you rank up.

Flaws in the beta: Naturally there are going to be problems in a beta, here are some of them that we found. There are various terrain bugs (such as not being able to stand still and glitches interacting with things like the floor or wall), it’s possible to get stuck in a few places, there are issues with guns going through walls, occasionally the screen will go black on a frame, and there are some minor audio glitches. The most annoying glitch of all is the inability to quit the game (apparently you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life playing the beta).

Gunning down those baddies

We are excited for the release of Battlefield 3 but it still has a long way to come, hopefully the purpose of this open beta isn’t to just test to server but actually catch some of the last glitches so that it may have a smooth release. Above all else we are most excited for one thing in this Battlefield game that takes itself back to its roots. We can finally lay on the ground again, something that I have missed for a long time and should have never been taken out of the Battlefield games. You can find the open beta Battlefield 3 in the Xbox 360 demo game section, on the PSN, and on the Battlefield 3 homepage for PC.

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It is Friday, The Onion, and SW:TOR

Calling it a day early this week everyone, I tried and tried to find something that wouldn’t just be random blabbering to write about but alas I never found that hidden gem. So to save you 3 minutes (but still waste 2) I will not be doing as most major news outlets do to fill space by posting a meaningless article.

The Onion sums up my thoughts on the subject completely. (NSFW language)

Yes I realize by posting an article dedicated to not posting an article I am contradicting myself but it gives me a reason to share the video which is all that matters because I enjoy it.

PS. A lot of people that are signed up to be in Bioware’s SW:TOR beta received an email last night. The email may have been sent early or to the wrong email group but it implied that the recipient was already part of the beta. Hardly newsworthy but it made me chuckle at how many people became instantly upset over it because they were still without a closed beta invite. Oh how I wish I could get permission to write about SW:TOR closed beta but the greater beings in the industry have deemed it wrong.