Luck be a lady tonight. Continue reading
Gaming
35 posts
If you buy ten or 100 tickets do your odds of winning the Powerball lottery get better? Sure they do, but let’s look at by how much. Continue reading
With South Park now taking on freemium (FM) (the -mium is Latin for “not really”) and free-to-play (F2P) gaming, it’s safe to say that the concept has officially entered the cultural zeitgeist. Considering the number of people I know of that play FM/F2P games, a quick primer on these kinds of games seems like it’s in order. Continue reading
That’s it America. You need to be officially cut off. No, seriously. You no longer know how to spend money wisely. Haha! Not that you really ever did. Now, though, you’ve taken your ability to spend money on the most ridiculous of things and upped the ante by allowing Kim Kardashian, irredeemable money goblin, to rid you of hard earned dollars through her very own game app. Continue reading
About six months ago I wrote an article detailing how to make a good Free To Play MMO. One of the games I singled out as what not to do was the recently released Marvel Heroes. Calling its launch a disaster would almost have been an understatement. However, rather than pack up my things and go to some other imaginary online universe, I stuck it out. I saw a huge amount of potential, and I’m pleased to report that my faith has been rewarded. There have been some growing pains, but I finally feel comfortable recommending Marvel Heroes, and here’s why.
Star Trek Into Darkness director J.J. Abrams was recently quoted blasting the movie’s tie-in video game, saying: Continue reading
I recently found myself with a great deal of free time and very little to fill it with, so I figured I’d take a crack at playing the entire Mass Effect trilogy back-to-back-to-back. I had played all three games when they released, and done multiple playthroughs, but never a complete playthrough from start to finish.
As I was working my way through the games, I began to pay more attention to the little things I missed working my way through playing them separately. Bits of conversation, foreshadowing, etc. that added to the experience in unexpected ways. After I was finished, I realized that, more than anything, what moved me the most was the music. Continue reading
I’m a gamer. Unlike the vast majority of gamers, however, I game on a PC. I’ve been gaming on a PC for nearly 20 years. I’ve invested hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars into gaming hardware over that span to run the latest releases at resolutions, framerates, and detail levels that would make your eyes bleed, and I’ve done it without a second’s hesitation; in fact, I usually do it with a smile.
So you’re going to have to trust me when I say that the consoles are killing gaming. Continue reading
Earlier this month Gearbox Interactive released their highly anticipated first-person shooter based on an original story in the Aliens universe, Aliens: Colonial Marines. The game is set between Aliens and Alien3, with the player taking on the role of Winter, a Colonial Marine sent to investigate the appearance of the U.S.S. Sulaco over LV-426, in a continuation of the storyline from Aliens.
I’m a big fan of the Dead Space series from EA. I loved the first two installments, so when I heard there was a third coming out, I was super pumped. As the game got closer to release, disturbing news about the game hit the internet: EA, Dead Space 3‘s publisher, had included microtransactions, allowing players to buy weapons, skins, and resources for the in-game crafting system. Developer Visceral Games assured players that they could still find everything they needed in game, and with some careful resource management would have more than enough resources to play and beat the game.
Having not played and beaten the game, Visceral wasn’t far off the mark; there were times where I was strapped for resources, but eventually was able to get most of what I wanted.
However, the inclusion of micro-transactions in a full-priced game is still disturbing, as it shows how a publisher like EA views it’s gamer customers: walking piggybanks. Continue reading