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Showing posts from September, 2010

Gaming Time/Skill

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 Image via Penny-Arcade I suck at Halo Reach.  I'm not a bad gamer and I do fine in the campaign, but compared to everyone else in matchmaking online I am not good.  Penny-Arcade summed up my feelings perfectly, so I couldn't resist using their strip from last week. Why do I suck at Halo?  I've been playing video games for something like 20 years now, so it's not lack of experience.  I like FPS games and I play them often, so that's not it.  I'm 23 and my reaction times are still good.  I think the problem is my lack of time. To get good at twitch games like Halo Reach a person needs to spend a lot of time with that particular game.  It all comes down to execution, which can only be improved through playing.  I don't have as much time to devote to any one game as I used to.  I have work, taking care of my newborn, spending time with my wife, and other adult responsibilities.  Also, I like trying a lot of different gaming experiences instead of confini

Halo Reach Impressions

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Halo Reach is out and I like it.  It's a pretty sweet game.  I don't think it's the be-all end-all of first person shooters like a lot of reviews have made it out to be, but I certainly can't bash Bungie for the level of polish they put into their games.  Overall, Reach is Halo refined, with a few new features thrown in for good measure.  It doesn't revolutionize the Halo series but I can say for sure that if you liked any of the previous entries in the Halo series you will like Halo Reach. The first thing I noticed when I started the campaign is that I got to play as my own Spartan.  Since the main character doesn't have to be Master Chief the player is free to create their very own Noble 6.  The armory options lead to a lot of personal touches on your Spartan.  I felt that I was more connected to my character as I played through the game simply because he was mine and not some pre-determined entity.  Many of the cutscenes play out through the eyes of your

My Newborn Gaming Partner

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  Very baby friendly. With the newborn's crazy schedule I haven't been able to play games as much lately.  I was completely expecting it, and I'm fine with it.  I know her sleep schedule will even out and I'll have more time to myself soon.  This doesn't mean I haven't found any time to play games. A few weeks ago my game of choice was StarCraft 2 multiplayer.  Multiplayer is much more difficult when taking care of a baby, because she could need attention at any time.  Instead, I switched back to single player games that let me pause and save at any point.  That pause button means that I can game and take care of my daughter at the same time.  It's wonderful. I gave in and bought Halo Reach because I wanted a new single player game.  I beat the campaign and I'm going to go back to play through it on Legendary.  I also picked up Civilization V this morning and I'll dive into it this afternoon.  Civ V is a turn based strategy game that should le

How Far We've Come

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The past week was Mario's 25th anniversary as well as the original Playstation's 15th anniversary.  It's pretty amazing that gaming has come as far as it has. The original Super Mario Brothers is the very first game that I remember playing.  I can remember when I was 4 or 5 years old and played it on the NES at daycare.  I have the game, the room, and the people around me firmly entrenched in my mind forever.  It's the moment I got hooked on gaming.   Toad was still disappointing in those days. When my uncle gave me his NES a few years later I was as thrilled as a small child can possibly be.  I couldn't believe someone would give up the magic of gaming and hand it over to me.  I still owe him for that. I also remember how big of a deal the Playstation was when it came out.  I didn't follow gaming news as much as I do now (I was 9) but a console that had 3D games was unheard of.  It was so amazing!  It ushered in a new era of gaming.  The Playstation wa

A Shift of Focus

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My posts have been less frequent this week because my wife and I had our baby!  I'm not giving up the blog or anything, but I probably won't post as often for awhile.  A brand new baby takes a lot of time to take care of, but that's ok because she's the most wonderful thing I've ever seen. In the meantime, might I suggest a few of my former posts to check out: Pedigree and the Importance of Developers StarCraft 2 Newbie Guide Game Marketing Fail Jumping into the Action Innovation Trumps Graphics  I hope to get a couple more posts out this week, but our little newbie is my number one priority at the moment.  For the foreseeable future I'll be playing a little game called parenthood.

Pedigree and the Importance of Developers

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I love to see innovation , polish, refinement, and new gameplay experiences in gaming.  But it's hard to find games that do these things well.  One of the things I always take into consideration while looking at new games is the game's pedigree.  Which is to say that I pay attention to the developer of the game. Halo 3 developed by Bungie When I look at the developer of a new game that hasn't been released, a lot of the time I can tell if it's going to be good based on previous games the developer has made.  Take my post the other day on Halo Reach .  I'm debating whether I'm going to buy it, but I can guarantee that it will be a highly polished and well executed game.  I know this because I've played all the other Halo games that Bungie has made and they're all examples of high quality games.  Bungie has proven themselves to me. World of Warcraft developed by Blizzard Entertainment I know a lot of other developers that I can count on to make great

Halo Reach Thoughts

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Halo Reach is being unleashed on the gaming community in the near future.  Somehow it's kind of fallen off  my radar, but the release date is coming up so it's time to figure out if I plan on buying it. You see, I own all the Halo games and have gotten most of them on release day, but this year I have a baby on the way and money is a little more tight, so I really need to consider a new game before I go drop $60 on it. My main concern is that Halo has already been done to death.  Since Halo: Combat Evolved (the first game in the series) Halo hasn't changed all that much.  They designed the Golden Triangle of melee, guns, and grenades in a first person shooter and each iteration of the series from that point on has only introduced minor tweaks or graphics upgrades.  Besides breaking multiplayer balance in Halo 2 the games are all very similar. For the most part Halo Reach looks like more of the same.  The improvements this time around are more units in the environmen