Video Game Blues

It's official I have Quit World of Warcraft, for the second time. And what has been chosen as it's replacement, none other than Civilization 4. But, before that one thing needs to be fixed, my video card. It has been a nagging problem for months but now I am finally feed up with it. The constant lock ups and hangings during any 3D game have gotten out of hand. Luckily EVGA has great customer support, well they had better considering the price I paid for that card. My RMA has been approved and the card will be shipped out tomorrow. I hope i'm not without a computer for too long.

In the mean time Derek has inspired me to create my own list of my favorite video games of all time. I have thought about it for a day or so now and I believe that it is going to be a difficult list to generate. I have played a lot of games in my life and narrowing it down to 10 is no easy task. It's important to look at how the game revolutionized what was available at the time. How well it was programed, the story, the game play the graphics (wrt what existed at the time). Then there is the problem with entire series. If i picked Individual games I could easily put 3 Final Fantasy titles on the list and every game blizzard has ever made. I think I will limit myself to my favorite game from each series. Which FF will make the cut I wonder. You may be surprised which games are on the list and which don't make the cut. But, you will have to wait for a week to find out.

But as a teaser here is my list of the top 5 worst games I have ever played.

5. Doom 3 (PC)
Ah the disapointment of playing this game has never gone away. I have never wanted a game to bee good as I did with Doom 3 and the pice of shit that was released. Dark, Bugggy, Uninspired, basicly a remake of halflife with better graphics. In fact graphics so good it would not run smoothly on any computer I saw it installed on. Even with all the video settings turned down.

4. Stealth (NES)
What can you say about this game, your a stealth fighter killing other planes, and more planes, and more planes, and more planes and more planes, and more planes, and more planes, and more planes, and more planes and more planes, and more planes, and more planes, and more planes, and more planes and more planes, and more planes. I never did figure out why I was killing all those planes

3. Revolution X (SNES)
The best quote I found on the web about this game was.

"This game is biblically horrific. You're overthrowing an oppressive world order. With Aerosmith. And music is your weapon. That scream of terror you just heard was probably you." --www.seanbaby.com


2. Rage of Mages (PC)
It's like Diablo if Blizzard had been a bunch or retarded drunks (not very PC but the game just sucks so much). The graphics where average for the time so why did my computer lag and hickup so much when playing this game. It is simpely the worst codeing I have ever seen in a game. The game requited 3 times the computer resources it sould have. the Story was barely exsistant, the combat dull and the spells not all that impersive. All the characters looked identical in multi player except for a different coloured aura around the feet.

1. Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (PC)
I never though I would get tired or repetative hack and slash......I was wrong.

I recomend the PCgamer review Here as my complaining can not do it justice. The review in the magazine is better, If i remember correctly it had the line. "Normaly we allways try to finish a game before writing a review." Followed by a rant about his saved game being irreversably whiped out by a bug in the origional release. Did i mention the game was not installable with out a patch.

It's Funny Cause I Don't Know Them

Japanese gaming has always been an interesting topic for discussion. My first glimpse of it was when a friend of mine came back from Japan and talked about all the strange stuff he saw. Actually the word different is better not strange. First was a train simulator game which seemed to be very popular in which you played the role of an engineer. I can't see there being more than 3 controlls, forward, backward and brake. Really what would you do in it. I hope it's not real time like that Pen and Teller video game where you drive from Tuscon to Las Vegas for 8 h in real time. Oh you think that would be easy Except the bus veers slightly to the right so you need to be ever vigilant.

Anyway, after that he pulled out a large pad with 4 arrows on in and proceeded to load up a game on his Japanese play station. To my amazement a dancing may appeared on the screen and thus my fascination with DDR was borne. Since then we have seen guitar, drum, keyboard and other simulation games slowly make their way across the pond for our enjoyment and I have to admit they are some of my favorite games, they are just so different from the same old crap I had played for the last 10 years.

But actually this rant was started with a new Japanese Game show clip someone at work showed me not the discovery of a new game. I'm sure may of you remember Banzai the betting game with Shaking hands man. And, most of you have probably seen Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. With the birth of YouTube and similar sights we can now see into the world of Japanese TV not released into American/Canadian audiences. Erwin has already discussed this Japanese version of Myth busters that is quite entertaining.

Well here is a show called tongue twister you might enjoy.

If you have links to funny Japanese TV post it in my comments section.

Corn, It's What's for dinner !!!

I have been putting off writing a blog entry while on vacation, I just haven had time to sit down and writ something but I have decided to put something up today.

I have been enjoying myself visiting old friends here and their. One of the things I have discovered is that a lor more people read this blog than I initially though. One of the reasons I have been slow on writing blog entries is that I have been assuming only a few people read them but a lot of my old friends don’t seem to leave comments. Well I say this every 6 months but this time I may passably even mean it. I will try to update a bit more.

Well what to say today them. How about a comment on food west vs east. By that I mean Ontario vs BC. There is a lot to say here. I could comment on how may ethnic restaurants are in Vancouver so that I I can have Sushi whenever and where ever I want It as opposed to Ontario where I have to travel to another city to find a good Sushi place. But don’t you know when Im craving Spicy Chicken I cant find a Damn Wendy’s any where close to where I live In BC.

But I won’t instead let us talk of Corn and Cheese. First off Corn. I miss fresh corn when in BC as the stuff that we get there is expensive and bland. You have to
understand I Grew up surrounded by farms. Fresh produce, especially Corn and Apples is something I have taken for granted because in Vancouver almost everything is shipped in from far away, If we are lucky we can get Okanagan produce which is quite good but it’s not picked that day like I used to get. Well Im happy to say that since I have been home I have been eating Corn on the Cob at 4 of every 5 dinners and I still can’t get enough of it. I just wish I could put a bunch in my luggage but It does not look very feasible.

But what about cheese, you see cheese is my favourite food. When I was in undergrad I used to eat a block of cheese a week. You know the ones that are like a foot long. Well in Ontario on a good day you can get one for $4 to $5 and as high as $6 on a and day. In BC the Cheapest I can find it for is $9 and it is usually closer to $12. Why is this? Well if you turn over your freshly purchased block of BC cheese you find it was actually made in Belleville Ontario. So BC get’s it’s cheese from Ontario, no wonder it’s so damn expensive. What the hell are they doing in Alberta with all those cows, are you telling me there are no dairies. Are they seriously all beef cows, that’s a hell of a lot of steak.

Oh well I have slowly been leaning my self off of cheese and am replacing it with raw fish. It’s the proper west coast thing to do.

P.S. Geneva sent me this, it’s good stuff.

Hero Worship

I seem to be much busy than I used too. A variety of factors have caused this. Research is picking up, 2 D&D groups, a girlfriend and nice weather all conspire to take away from my World of Warcraft time. Now im not complaining, I enjoy the time I spend on all those things, especially item 3, but as WOW is pay per month I find you simply can not casually game at it. So as of the end of my vacation I am quitting WOW.

So what is going to replace the void WOW will create. I had a free weekend of City of Heros. A game I once played because I won a free copy. Ah well unfortunately as cool as designing and playing your own super hero was, it is also subscription based. Here is a Photo of last time me and frank played. Im the Fire Image on the right and frank is Unicron on the left.



So now I need to get a new game. The choice are
-Elder Scrolls:Oblivion
-Civilisation 4
-Heros of Might and Magic 5
-Tomb raider legends

Not sure who the winner will be yet.