Papers Please (Steam)
Here I sit in this small confined well guarded room, people are standing in a massive line waiting to pass through so they can conduct their business. It's almost 8 am and I just walked to work from my small apartment that I share with my wife, her mother, and our son. I only have $5 to my name and my son is sick because we can't afford to heat the house. I calculated last night that I need to process 20 people today so I can afford medicine. I quickly read over the new instructions that I receive each day from the head office, since we had a terrorist attack yesterday that resulted in one guard being killed, new arrivals will need to have an entry ticket as well as their passport. Two minutes till 8 so I get out my guidebook and turn to my bookmark so I can quickly assess each person. I click on the switch and the cold iron gate slides up slowly revealing behind it the dull gray brick wall that is my backdrop each long day. I press another button that turns on the microphone and I speak the words everyone is waiting to hear.......Next.
It's 9 pm now and I've had a long day, I sit cuddled next to my wife under many covers, the house is freezing. I was able to earn enough money to buy medicine but turning on the heat will have to wait for another day, I sure hope nothing else unexpected happens.
A new day, new instructions, they've upgraded the entry tickets to an entry pass, just one more document I need to check, this is starting to get complicated. The first group of people had all the proper documents, but then I one person had an entry ticket so I had to turn him away, I could hear him curse me under his breath and mentioned he paid a lot of money for that ticket. The next one had Female listed as his sex but I knew it was a man, I questioned him about it and they had no response so I sent them away, man I hate my job. After lunch I see Istiv, he's crazy, I wonder what he has for me this time. He steps into the booth and just stands there I smile then ask for paperwork, he apologizes and then slides me a passport that he clearly made himself, it's drawn in crayon and at the top it says pre-approved, the face does look like him though. I press the decline stamp and tell him to try again another day, I wonder how long he waited in line. It's getting close to 4 so my eyes are getting weary so I quickly glance at the paperwork and stamp approve and let them go, almost immediately there is a knock on my door and I receive a paper stating that I just let someone in with an expired passport and that my pay will be deducted at the end of the day. Man I hate my job..........
This game just showed up on Steam yesterday and I glanced and passed on it and purchased Spelunky and Guacamelee. I then visited a couple of websites and saw the Giantbomb quicklook and immediately returned to Steam and bought the game. The game is about a mundane job but it's suprisingly fun and stressful at the same time. There is a story mode which is what I wrote about above and an endless mode that opens up after you've completed the single player game. The story mode has something like 20 different endings so I'm curious as to what they are. I highly recommend this game, it's only $10 so give it a shot.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Cardhunter, Dragons Crown, Rise of the Triad
Cardhunter Beta
I've been in the beta for awhile and I've put in about 3 hours and I've had a great time. It is a CCG, but it's focus is more on the single player campaign than multiplayer. The card game uses a grid board where you place your characters and battles feel similar to the combat in Heroes of Might and Magic.
I have some beta keys if anyone is interested.
LWHF-NTCC-ZPHK
DQSC-WNHN-MJZL
Dragon's Crown (PS3)
Put in roughly two and a half hours last night and would have played more but I was exhausted. The game was developed by Vanillaware who are known for their beautiful 2D hand animated games and this one is no exception. It plays like Castle Crashers where you have up to 3 AI players fighting enemies with you. There are different character classes with different weapons and abilities plus loot drops so there are some RPG elements. The artwork is extremely detailed, the animations are very fluid, and the backgrounds look amazing, it's one of the best looking 2D games I've played. The combat can get hectic when there are 4 characters plus enemies on the screen so it can be tough to find your character sometimes. You can choose to just play by yourself and not have any AI companions if that does bother you. Once you play to a certain point in the game multiplayer opens up which has you going though similar dungeons from the single player but added pathways and extra enemies as well as bosses. From most of the reviews I've read the multiplayer is the best part of the game. I haven't reached that level yet, which I think is around 8-10 hours, so hopefully I'll get to try it soon. The game does support couch co-op so if you are looking for that type of game. There is also a Vita version that I almost got instead but I felt the graphics would look better on a bigger screen, the game does support cloud saves so you can share saves between platforms.
Rise of the Triad (Steam)
I remember playing this game years and years ago, it was different than the dooms and quakes as it had platforms that would send you soaring into the air and rocket launchers that would reduce enemies to a thousand pieces, I think it coined the phrase ludicrous Gibs. I'm not sure it reached the sales of Doom so I was surprised to see a remake. This game is probably the fastest FPS that I've every played. The camera movement speed is insane on the default level, I had to turn it almost all the way down to be able to hit what I was aiming at. The graphics looks pretty good but I've had instances of slowdown. They did include all the elements of the original even the coins that you collect make the same sound and of course there are ludicrous Gibs. I'm not sure that even at the $15 price point that it's worth it. The AI is very simple and the game has checkpoint saving so you will be replaying some long sections.
Stuff
Xbox One - Will include a headset. Game recording and sharing does require Gold membership. They did increase the clock speed of the graphics chip. There is a video of the launch version unboxing so the release should be soon.
PS4 - Game recording and sharing does not require PSN+.
John Carmack founder of ID and creator of Doom and Quake is new CTO for company creating the Occulus rift headset.
Rockstar did have an add for a PC programmer so maybe more of their games will come to PC, I'm hoping for Read Dead Redemption.
I've been in the beta for awhile and I've put in about 3 hours and I've had a great time. It is a CCG, but it's focus is more on the single player campaign than multiplayer. The card game uses a grid board where you place your characters and battles feel similar to the combat in Heroes of Might and Magic.
I have some beta keys if anyone is interested.
LWHF-NTCC-ZPHK
DQSC-WNHN-MJZL
Dragon's Crown (PS3)
Put in roughly two and a half hours last night and would have played more but I was exhausted. The game was developed by Vanillaware who are known for their beautiful 2D hand animated games and this one is no exception. It plays like Castle Crashers where you have up to 3 AI players fighting enemies with you. There are different character classes with different weapons and abilities plus loot drops so there are some RPG elements. The artwork is extremely detailed, the animations are very fluid, and the backgrounds look amazing, it's one of the best looking 2D games I've played. The combat can get hectic when there are 4 characters plus enemies on the screen so it can be tough to find your character sometimes. You can choose to just play by yourself and not have any AI companions if that does bother you. Once you play to a certain point in the game multiplayer opens up which has you going though similar dungeons from the single player but added pathways and extra enemies as well as bosses. From most of the reviews I've read the multiplayer is the best part of the game. I haven't reached that level yet, which I think is around 8-10 hours, so hopefully I'll get to try it soon. The game does support couch co-op so if you are looking for that type of game. There is also a Vita version that I almost got instead but I felt the graphics would look better on a bigger screen, the game does support cloud saves so you can share saves between platforms.
Rise of the Triad (Steam)
I remember playing this game years and years ago, it was different than the dooms and quakes as it had platforms that would send you soaring into the air and rocket launchers that would reduce enemies to a thousand pieces, I think it coined the phrase ludicrous Gibs. I'm not sure it reached the sales of Doom so I was surprised to see a remake. This game is probably the fastest FPS that I've every played. The camera movement speed is insane on the default level, I had to turn it almost all the way down to be able to hit what I was aiming at. The graphics looks pretty good but I've had instances of slowdown. They did include all the elements of the original even the coins that you collect make the same sound and of course there are ludicrous Gibs. I'm not sure that even at the $15 price point that it's worth it. The AI is very simple and the game has checkpoint saving so you will be replaying some long sections.
Stuff
Xbox One - Will include a headset. Game recording and sharing does require Gold membership. They did increase the clock speed of the graphics chip. There is a video of the launch version unboxing so the release should be soon.
PS4 - Game recording and sharing does not require PSN+.
John Carmack founder of ID and creator of Doom and Quake is new CTO for company creating the Occulus rift headset.
Rockstar did have an add for a PC programmer so maybe more of their games will come to PC, I'm hoping for Read Dead Redemption.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Ramblings
Ramblings
I've been in a strange gaming mood the past couple of weeks. I've had a hard time playing one game for more than an hour at a time, they mentioned this on the Giantbomb podcast, that they were feeling this as well. With all the immediate content coming our way are we getting to the point where if something doesn't keep us engaged continuously we become bored and move on to something else?
I've read a couple of books recently. Yngwie J. Malmsteen's autobiography Revalations is a decent book and has some cool insights into his guitar playing He started in the late 80's and early 90's and was amazing, he brought in a whole new sound, classical metal guitar. He wrote that he wanted the guitar to sound like a violin where you hear every note no matter how fast you were playing, and he was successful. Some of the book talked about him trying to achieve that sound that he wanted and he went into detail about creating his own pickups which was interesting. He didn't have too many wild stories like I've read in other biographies but it was entertaining and I read the whole book in about 5 days.
The second book I got was This is Gonna Hurt by Nikki Sixx. I really liked his first book, The Heroin Diaries, which told of his decent into heroin addiction and at one point being declared clinically dead. The book was very stylized and each page had a mix of text and pictures so it was visually unique. His second book is about his photography, and it's a little weird as you might expect. The theme is that beauty is dictated to us through media and how that view is a lie, it gives us a warped view of people who don't fit that model. What makes something beautiful? The book wasn't as good as his first but it was a decent read and had some interesting stories. Each book also has a soundtrack that has songs that go over the various topics of the books and both albums are great.
New Releases - A lot of releases this week. A couple of buys for me.
PC
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (download)
Divinity: Dragon Commander (download - $40)
Guacamelee! Gold Edition (download - $15) - Awesome game that I will double dip on. The music is great.
GunCraft (download - $15) - Build all kinds of guns?
Megabyte Punch (download - $15)
Papers, Please (download - $10)
Spelunky (download) - Awesome game that was free on PC, then updated on 360, now re-released on PC and has daily challenges.
The Sims 3 Dragon Valley
Xbox 360
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (XBLA - $15)
PlayStation 3
Dragon's Crown - Awesome looking 2D beat 'em up.
ibb & obb (PSN - $10)
Superfrog HD (PSN)
Tales of Xillia - Another Tales games. Tempted.
The Red Star (PS2 Classics)
Wii U
Disney's Planes
Spin the Bottle: Bumpie's Party (eShop - $9)
Wii
Disney's Planes
Tales of Xillia and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
Vita
Dragon's Crown
Superfrog HD (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Disney's Planes
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - Gotten great reviews, all the RPG's have been good.
Nintendo DS
Disney's Planes
--
Shon Holland
Middleware
501-376-5198
I've been in a strange gaming mood the past couple of weeks. I've had a hard time playing one game for more than an hour at a time, they mentioned this on the Giantbomb podcast, that they were feeling this as well. With all the immediate content coming our way are we getting to the point where if something doesn't keep us engaged continuously we become bored and move on to something else?
I've read a couple of books recently. Yngwie J. Malmsteen's autobiography Revalations is a decent book and has some cool insights into his guitar playing He started in the late 80's and early 90's and was amazing, he brought in a whole new sound, classical metal guitar. He wrote that he wanted the guitar to sound like a violin where you hear every note no matter how fast you were playing, and he was successful. Some of the book talked about him trying to achieve that sound that he wanted and he went into detail about creating his own pickups which was interesting. He didn't have too many wild stories like I've read in other biographies but it was entertaining and I read the whole book in about 5 days.
The second book I got was This is Gonna Hurt by Nikki Sixx. I really liked his first book, The Heroin Diaries, which told of his decent into heroin addiction and at one point being declared clinically dead. The book was very stylized and each page had a mix of text and pictures so it was visually unique. His second book is about his photography, and it's a little weird as you might expect. The theme is that beauty is dictated to us through media and how that view is a lie, it gives us a warped view of people who don't fit that model. What makes something beautiful? The book wasn't as good as his first but it was a decent read and had some interesting stories. Each book also has a soundtrack that has songs that go over the various topics of the books and both albums are great.
New Releases - A lot of releases this week. A couple of buys for me.
PC
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (download)
Divinity: Dragon Commander (download - $40)
Guacamelee! Gold Edition (download - $15) - Awesome game that I will double dip on. The music is great.
GunCraft (download - $15) - Build all kinds of guns?
Megabyte Punch (download - $15)
Papers, Please (download - $10)
Spelunky (download) - Awesome game that was free on PC, then updated on 360, now re-released on PC and has daily challenges.
The Sims 3 Dragon Valley
Xbox 360
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (XBLA - $15)
PlayStation 3
Dragon's Crown - Awesome looking 2D beat 'em up.
ibb & obb (PSN - $10)
Superfrog HD (PSN)
Tales of Xillia - Another Tales games. Tempted.
The Red Star (PS2 Classics)
Wii U
Disney's Planes
Spin the Bottle: Bumpie's Party (eShop - $9)
Wii
Disney's Planes
Tales of Xillia and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
Vita
Dragon's Crown
Superfrog HD (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Disney's Planes
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - Gotten great reviews, all the RPG's have been good.
Nintendo DS
Disney's Planes
--
Shon Holland
Middleware
501-376-5198
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Planescape Torment
Planescape Torment
I've tried to play this game multiple times but never got that far as other games got in the way. This was one of the games that I bought my laptop for so I made a decision to finish it this time. The game is usually rated among the top RPG's in every list and so far I haven't been disappointed. The game has a half a million lines of text and almost none of it is voiced so you do spend a lot of time in dialog sequences but each one is full of descriptive text and really helps you to become part of the world. It plays from a top down perspective like the Baldur's Gate games. I turned down the difficulty as it only pertains to the combat because I really wanted to just enjoy the story. The main character is very interesting, he is a person who can't die with amnesia and you are trying to find out who you are. Sometimes a person or a place will bring back a memory so you do need to explore all the areas and talk to as many people as possible. There are times that you do need to "die" to forward the story so it's a unique game design that keeps things interesting.
The story so far has been terrific and you have companions that travel with you, the banter between them is great and funny at times. You do have an alignment which determines who can join you and if you do actions that go against that alignment you can lose party members and ultimately change your alignment. I made my character have a high wisdom attribute which allows me more dialog options and some of the responses are awesome. It's kind of like Mass Effect except the answers aren't so black and white. If you respond certain ways you can end up fighting and killing the person you were trying to get information from and then that makes you fail a quest you were on. I really like that dynamic and most of the game is that way which makes each dialog meaningful. Each person you speak to is described in much detail, they may not speak much but each person has a part in the world and just makes the whole story better.
I guess that I'm about 12 hours in and depending on how much you explore it could take between 20-40 hours to finish. The game is about 14 years old but there are patches that make the game work perfect on new systems and higher resolutions. It's a unique game and I can see why so many people love the game. There is a kickstarter for a spiritual sequel but really some games just need to exist uniquely.
New Releases
PC
CastleStorm (download - $10) - Bought. Just started the tutorial so far but looks like it will be a fun single and multiplayer game.
Cloudberry Kingdom (download - $10)
Narco Terror (download - $10) - No Idea.
Realms of Arkania - Blade of Destiny (download - $20) - Remake of the original, tempted on this one until I read the game is really unfiinished. It just released on Steam but they put the german release on the US store.
Rise of the Triad (download - $15) - Another remake that looks really cool.
Skulls of the Shogun Bone-a-Fide Edition (download - $15) - Already bought, cool take on an RTS.
Xbox 360
Cloudberry Kingdom (XBLA - $10)
Narco Terror (XBLA - $10)
PlayStation 3
Cloudberry Kingdom (PSN - $10)
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly (PS2 Classics)
Narco Terror (PSN - $10)
Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends (PS2 Classics)
The Last Bounty Hunter (PSN)
Rise of the Triad and Cloudberry Kingdom
Wii U
Cloudberry Kingdom (eShop - $10)
Pikmin 3 - Finally another game for the Wii.
Vita
PixelJunk Monsters: Ultimate HD (PSN - $15)
Puzzle by Nikoli V: Slitherlink (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Family Kart 3D (eShop - $5)
Kirby's Dream Land (Virtual Console)
I've tried to play this game multiple times but never got that far as other games got in the way. This was one of the games that I bought my laptop for so I made a decision to finish it this time. The game is usually rated among the top RPG's in every list and so far I haven't been disappointed. The game has a half a million lines of text and almost none of it is voiced so you do spend a lot of time in dialog sequences but each one is full of descriptive text and really helps you to become part of the world. It plays from a top down perspective like the Baldur's Gate games. I turned down the difficulty as it only pertains to the combat because I really wanted to just enjoy the story. The main character is very interesting, he is a person who can't die with amnesia and you are trying to find out who you are. Sometimes a person or a place will bring back a memory so you do need to explore all the areas and talk to as many people as possible. There are times that you do need to "die" to forward the story so it's a unique game design that keeps things interesting.
The story so far has been terrific and you have companions that travel with you, the banter between them is great and funny at times. You do have an alignment which determines who can join you and if you do actions that go against that alignment you can lose party members and ultimately change your alignment. I made my character have a high wisdom attribute which allows me more dialog options and some of the responses are awesome. It's kind of like Mass Effect except the answers aren't so black and white. If you respond certain ways you can end up fighting and killing the person you were trying to get information from and then that makes you fail a quest you were on. I really like that dynamic and most of the game is that way which makes each dialog meaningful. Each person you speak to is described in much detail, they may not speak much but each person has a part in the world and just makes the whole story better.
I guess that I'm about 12 hours in and depending on how much you explore it could take between 20-40 hours to finish. The game is about 14 years old but there are patches that make the game work perfect on new systems and higher resolutions. It's a unique game and I can see why so many people love the game. There is a kickstarter for a spiritual sequel but really some games just need to exist uniquely.
New Releases
PC
CastleStorm (download - $10) - Bought. Just started the tutorial so far but looks like it will be a fun single and multiplayer game.
Cloudberry Kingdom (download - $10)
Narco Terror (download - $10) - No Idea.
Realms of Arkania - Blade of Destiny (download - $20) - Remake of the original, tempted on this one until I read the game is really unfiinished. It just released on Steam but they put the german release on the US store.
Rise of the Triad (download - $15) - Another remake that looks really cool.
Skulls of the Shogun Bone-a-Fide Edition (download - $15) - Already bought, cool take on an RTS.
Xbox 360
Cloudberry Kingdom (XBLA - $10)
Narco Terror (XBLA - $10)
PlayStation 3
Cloudberry Kingdom (PSN - $10)
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly (PS2 Classics)
Narco Terror (PSN - $10)
Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends (PS2 Classics)
The Last Bounty Hunter (PSN)
Rise of the Triad and Cloudberry Kingdom
Wii U
Cloudberry Kingdom (eShop - $10)
Pikmin 3 - Finally another game for the Wii.
Vita
PixelJunk Monsters: Ultimate HD (PSN - $15)
Puzzle by Nikoli V: Slitherlink (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Family Kart 3D (eShop - $5)
Kirby's Dream Land (Virtual Console)
Monday, July 22, 2013
Asus G46 and Steam Sales
Asus G46 Laptop
I've been wanting a laptop for some time to play some older and indie games plus Phase Shift which is a Rockband like game on the PC that I will hook up to my drums. I've tried to play Planescape Torment a couple of times now but the PC hooked up to my TV isn't the best for this situation since there is a half a million lines of text and a small interface plus reading on a TV is not comfortable. I had an older MacBook Pro that I put windows 7 on awhile back but for some reason I couldn't get the fans to come on so the laptop got extremely hot, also I had problems with the battery so I started looking for a new laptop.
I spent a lot of time looking at different machines and all of them had Windows 8. I have it on one of my PC's and I'm getting used to it, it is really made for a touch screen though. Most of the new PC's use integrated graphics and for most indie games that would work fine but just to future proof a little I wanted one with a dedicated graphics card.
I first settled on an Samsung laptop that was around $380, it had an AMD A8 Processor and a Radeon 7000 series. I wasn't sure about the AMD processor, but at that price range is was the only laptop that had an integrated graphics processor and it was rated as decent for playing games. The laptop was pretty good, it weighed around 5lbs so not too heavy and I liked the way the keyboard and track pad felt. It did play almost all of the indie games I threw at it, I did notice a little chugging on CubeWorld and heavily 3D games I had to turn down the settings to low. The other downside was the screen, you had to be just about center to get a good picture and I didn't like that.
I then tried an Asus that had the new haswell processor, a touchscreen, Geforce 745M, and from the reviews an outstanding screen. I picked up that laptop and got it home and sure enough the screen was outstanding, it was clear and had great colors, and it was glossy. If you aren't aware glossy screens look great but they also have a ton of glare. If there is any light in the room you will more than likely see your reflection in the screen especially when the screen goes black. I really did like the colors it produced, but the reflections really annoyed me plus I read they do cause eye fatigue. The touchscreen was nice and did make moving around Windows much easier but then again you had to worry about fingerprints. The game performance was good but not too much better than the previouse laptop which was disappointing.
I had really wanted the Asus G46 as it was classified as a gaming machine and it was on sale, but every time I checked it said it wasn't available in the store. I finally called the store in Benton and they had one so I went an picked it up. They had the new G75 in stock which is a real powerhouse and I was a little tempted until I saw the weight, 9 pounds, that really isn't a laptop at that weight. I got the G46 home and I liked everything about it. The design was smooth and professional looking and the matte screen looked great. The game performance was outstanding, I was able to play Crysis 2 and Fallout New Vegas at high settings at 720P which is the screen's default resolution, so it should be able to handle older and indie games. It has two fans on the back that dissipate heat well. On the other laptops you could hear the fans on every game you played, graphic intensive or not, but on this one I could barely hear it at all on any game. I was really impressed with the performance and do recommend this laptop if you are looking for a gaming laptop at a reasonable price.
Steam Haul - I thought there wasn't much for me to buy but luckily I was wrong.
Full Games
Afterfall InSanity Extended Edition
Cart Life
Caster
Castle Crashers
Critical Mass
Duke Nukem 3D
Everyday Shooter
Expeditions: Conquistador
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes
Kairo
Kentucky Route Zero
Lone Survivor
Lunar Pack
McPixel
Retro/Grade
Shadow Warrior Classic Redux
Shadowrun Returns
Strike Suit Infinity
The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles Standard Edition
The Walking Dead: 400 Days
Thomas Was Alone
Toki Tori 2+
Trackmania Canyon
Trials Evolution Gold
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution
DLC
Borderlands 2 Psycho Pack
Borderlands 2: Assassin Madness Pack
Castle Crashers Blacksmith
Castle Crashers Pink Knight
Dishonored - The Knife Of Dunwall DLC
Sleeping Dogs - The Year of the Snake
Sleeping Dogs - Zodiac Tournament
New Releases
PC
Citadels (download)
Expander (download - $2.49)
Shadowrun Returns (download - $19.99)
Teleglitch: Die More Edition (download - $12.99)
The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief (download - $24.99)
Xbox 360
Mars: War Logs (XBLA - $15)
The Smurfs 2
Vintage Hero (XBLIG - $1)
PlayStation 3
Do Not Fall (PSN - $10)
Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational (PSN - $20)
Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark (PSN - $10)
The Smurfs 2
Zeno Clash II (PSN)
Wii U
Kid Icarus (Virtual Console - $5)
The Smurfs 2
Wii
The Smurfs 2
Vita
Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark (PSN - $10)
Nintendo 3DS
Picross E2 (eShop - $6)
Nintendo DS
The Smurfs 2
I've been wanting a laptop for some time to play some older and indie games plus Phase Shift which is a Rockband like game on the PC that I will hook up to my drums. I've tried to play Planescape Torment a couple of times now but the PC hooked up to my TV isn't the best for this situation since there is a half a million lines of text and a small interface plus reading on a TV is not comfortable. I had an older MacBook Pro that I put windows 7 on awhile back but for some reason I couldn't get the fans to come on so the laptop got extremely hot, also I had problems with the battery so I started looking for a new laptop.
I spent a lot of time looking at different machines and all of them had Windows 8. I have it on one of my PC's and I'm getting used to it, it is really made for a touch screen though. Most of the new PC's use integrated graphics and for most indie games that would work fine but just to future proof a little I wanted one with a dedicated graphics card.
I first settled on an Samsung laptop that was around $380, it had an AMD A8 Processor and a Radeon 7000 series. I wasn't sure about the AMD processor, but at that price range is was the only laptop that had an integrated graphics processor and it was rated as decent for playing games. The laptop was pretty good, it weighed around 5lbs so not too heavy and I liked the way the keyboard and track pad felt. It did play almost all of the indie games I threw at it, I did notice a little chugging on CubeWorld and heavily 3D games I had to turn down the settings to low. The other downside was the screen, you had to be just about center to get a good picture and I didn't like that.
I then tried an Asus that had the new haswell processor, a touchscreen, Geforce 745M, and from the reviews an outstanding screen. I picked up that laptop and got it home and sure enough the screen was outstanding, it was clear and had great colors, and it was glossy. If you aren't aware glossy screens look great but they also have a ton of glare. If there is any light in the room you will more than likely see your reflection in the screen especially when the screen goes black. I really did like the colors it produced, but the reflections really annoyed me plus I read they do cause eye fatigue. The touchscreen was nice and did make moving around Windows much easier but then again you had to worry about fingerprints. The game performance was good but not too much better than the previouse laptop which was disappointing.
I had really wanted the Asus G46 as it was classified as a gaming machine and it was on sale, but every time I checked it said it wasn't available in the store. I finally called the store in Benton and they had one so I went an picked it up. They had the new G75 in stock which is a real powerhouse and I was a little tempted until I saw the weight, 9 pounds, that really isn't a laptop at that weight. I got the G46 home and I liked everything about it. The design was smooth and professional looking and the matte screen looked great. The game performance was outstanding, I was able to play Crysis 2 and Fallout New Vegas at high settings at 720P which is the screen's default resolution, so it should be able to handle older and indie games. It has two fans on the back that dissipate heat well. On the other laptops you could hear the fans on every game you played, graphic intensive or not, but on this one I could barely hear it at all on any game. I was really impressed with the performance and do recommend this laptop if you are looking for a gaming laptop at a reasonable price.
Steam Haul - I thought there wasn't much for me to buy but luckily I was wrong.
Full Games
Afterfall InSanity Extended Edition
Cart Life
Caster
Castle Crashers
Critical Mass
Duke Nukem 3D
Everyday Shooter
Expeditions: Conquistador
Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes
Kairo
Kentucky Route Zero
Lone Survivor
Lunar Pack
McPixel
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Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Was on vacation last week and I went to Puerto Rico for a week for my 40th Birthday. I had an amazing time and a couple of adventures. I left on July 5 and the plane ride was around 3 1/2 hours so not too bad they made us watch the Incredible Brent Wonderstone which really didn't start the vacation off in a great way. We landed in the airport around 3:15 and finally got our luggage about 3:45, when I went out to look for the car rental shuttle I couldn't find it. I saw buses for other car rental places but not for mine. I booked it with Orbitz and when I called the number of the place they said that I had put down we would be arriving at 3:00 and when I didn't show up they labeled it a no show and went home and I'd have to wait until tomorrow morning to call to get a car. That was unacceptable so I booked another car with Dollar, I wasn't sure if the other place was going to charge me, luckily they didn't. They have toll roads so for 2.45 a day I opted for the pre-paid toll so I wouldn't have to mess wit it but a notice stated that if you went through a toll under the R banner it would be $150 fine.
We finally got the car and headed out, all of our phone functions worked with no data roaming so I had full Internet and GPS access while I was there which was nice. I did buy a couple of different insurance plans because I heard that driving down there was crazy and my auto insurance didn't cover anything which seemed odd to me. The people of Puerto Rico do not know how to drive, even the cops, they vaguely followed the lights and signs so you almost always had to go slow and drive very defensively. Just about every car we passed had some dents or other damage so I was just waiting for them to crash into me. My dad went on a trip 2 weeks ago to Washington state and hit a deer and he got the bill yesterday for $11,000 not sure how much the insurance is going to pay but that seems very expensive.
I had us staying at 3 different hotels, for each one there were always more bad reviews than good so it made each stay seem like a gamble. The first resort was great and it had it's own mile and a half beach along with 3 different pools and restaurants. I had this placed booked for one night since it was close to the airport and I was hoping the others would at least come close to this experience. Every hotel that you stay at has a 9% fee attached to each nights stay that wasn't included on the room price so it is kind of a tourist trap.
The checkout time was 11 am and we couldn't check into the next place until 4 so we decided to kill some time around the beach and we went for about a 30 minute walk on the beach then sat under a palm tree for about an hour. We had our bags at the bellman's office so I didn't put on any sunscreen and that was a mistake. Later that night both my ankles were blood red and burnt on the insides so it was a painful rest of the trip, I did get some aloe and used that but it took until yesterday for it to quit hurting. It looked much like the last time I went on the Spring River, those pics still hurt.
We drove about 15 miles to the next hotel and this place was nicer than the first, it was on 500 acres and had over 1000 rooms, it was massive. It wasn't on the beach but it had it's own island that you took a ferry to visit. I unloaded our stuff and went to check in but they couldn't find our reservation. I was worried because I used my Best Buy Rewardzone card to make most of the reservations and they are bad(good) about suspending my card for a fraud checking. I use the card for everything and since most of my purchases are online it gets flagged often and some charges don't go through so I was worried about this one although I never got an email saying there was a problem. I had made it with travelocity and for some reason the confirmation code I had wasn't one of the hotels. We had to call travelocity and let the hotel use my phone for about 30 minutes before they fixed the issue and they upgraded our room to an ocean view for the trouble and after looking at the view it was worth it. The room did have one issue and that is frogs. They weren't inside the room but it sounded like they were, our door faced a little forest section and the frogs at night were so loud it was a little difficult to sleep.
In order to get to the island you had to take a tram down to the ocean and it was steep, it kind of felt like you were on the incline of a roller coaster, it took about a minute to get down to the docks. The ferry left every 30 minutes and we timed it perfectly so we only had to wait about 5 minutes and then we were sailing away. The island was nice and had a lot of activities, I thought I was going to do some horseback riding but it looked too guided so we decided to snorkel instead. They had quite a bit of coral close to the beach so we got to see a ton of cool fish. I was by myself for a bit and I'm pretty sure I saw a small shark about 20 yards away, I quickly jumped and when I looked under the water again it was gone, from then on I could only hear the Jaws theme. The island wasn't very crowded maybe 100 people so we got to choose a nice seat and got to relax without much noise. This is the off season for Puerto Rico, it was 88 degrees everyday with a nice breeze so it was close to perfect.
The last night there we went on a kayak bio-luminescent bay tour that was awesome. There are only 5 bays that have this feature in the world and 3 of them are in Puerto Rico. The trip was about 30 minutes each way in the kayak and some of the group had never paddled before so that was an adventure. I did most of the paddling and tried to get as close to the leader as possible to make it easy. The path there was pretty curvy and cramped so you did need to have some paddling skills, there were quite a few kayaks getting caught in the trees, we did see a big iguana in a trees above us. Once we made it to the bay we had to wait about 20 minutes for it to get dark enough to see the luminescent effect. Once it got dark you could put your hand or paddle in the water and move it around and then it would start to glow a cool blue color, it was basically some organism in the water that would put out the blue glow as a defense mechanism. It was cool to see but you couldn't swim or get in the water other than your hand, it didn't last that long and now we had to make the return trip in pitch black. If you ever go you want to take the earlier tour so you can at least see how you got there so you had some idea how to make it back. I wasn't able to get close to the leader this time and had to follow someone who didn't know how to paddle. All you could see was there glow stick that was attached to the back of their kayak, they were hitting just about every bank so I was trying my best to get around them and eventually did. It was a cool experience and worth the price.
On our way to our final hotel we wanted to see the only Rain Forest in America and we drove about 30 minutes and got up to the gate and saw about 4 other cars waiting outside and then we found out the Rain Forest was closed due to rain. Imagine that. There was supposedly a storm coming through and they closed down and evacuated all the employees and wasn't sure when they would reopen. We did get to see a brief glimpse of it on the ride back down another road, I tried to talk my girlfriend into parking the car and trying to hike into the forest ourselves but she quickly declined. We got to see 2 small waterfalls and the 4 dumpsters full of trash, the rain forest is a dirty place evidently.
Our final stay was at a small B&B that was right on the beach and it actually had a restaurant that was on the Food network, Pamela's Restaurant. The room was small but nice and clean, we were about 15 steps away from the beach. The wind was blowing pretty hard because of the supposed storm that went around us, so it was making some pretty big waves that I was having some Jumpchair fun, not sure why but that was a lot of fun trying to ride the waves. I did see some guys doing some kite surfing that looked awesome, I didn't get to try this time because of my burns but hopefully will get to try sometime soon. The beach had about 10 leatherback sea turtle nests that were supposed to hatch while we where there but it never happened that would have been great to see. I had some Pork loin at the restaurant which was awesome, they did ask how I wanted it cooked which I thought was a little strange and the waiter mentioned that for pork now you didn't have to cook it well done anymore, I wasn't so sure about that, but ordered it medium and it was great. We spent the last day of vacation just relaxing at the beach and getting some awesome Pizza.
Our flight was at 11:51 but we wanted to make sure we made it in time so we left the hotel at 9. The car rental return was about 4 miles away and it only took us about an hour. It wasn't traffic though that caused the problem, the Mapquest app we had didn't have the exact location so we went down all kinds of wrong roads and even crossed a mile long bridge. We went all over and made a couple of complete loops around one part of the city, eventually we called the rental car company and they gave us good directions. I turned the car over and the attendant was asking questions to one guy about the car in Spanish that I couldn't make out, I thought they were going to try and pull something over on me but he didn't say anything to me and let us go.
On the plane as we were going to take off the plane started making some really strange noises. I sounded like someone had a hacksaw and was sawing off part of the plane. Others thought it was a dog barking from underneath, this went on for about 3 minutes until the steward said it was a hydraulic pump that was making the noise and that it would stop once we were in the air, that wasn't what I wanted to hear. The sound did go away once we were in the air and did come back once we landed.
The trip was great and I do recommend going to Puerto Rico, you don't need a passport and our summer is their off season so it really wasn't crowded. The only thing is if you stay at the resort the food prices are quite high. I think I spent about $600 just on food for the week. Parking at 2 of the hotels was $15/night and with the extra tax for each night it can be a little expensive.
Was on vacation last week and I went to Puerto Rico for a week for my 40th Birthday. I had an amazing time and a couple of adventures. I left on July 5 and the plane ride was around 3 1/2 hours so not too bad they made us watch the Incredible Brent Wonderstone which really didn't start the vacation off in a great way. We landed in the airport around 3:15 and finally got our luggage about 3:45, when I went out to look for the car rental shuttle I couldn't find it. I saw buses for other car rental places but not for mine. I booked it with Orbitz and when I called the number of the place they said that I had put down we would be arriving at 3:00 and when I didn't show up they labeled it a no show and went home and I'd have to wait until tomorrow morning to call to get a car. That was unacceptable so I booked another car with Dollar, I wasn't sure if the other place was going to charge me, luckily they didn't. They have toll roads so for 2.45 a day I opted for the pre-paid toll so I wouldn't have to mess wit it but a notice stated that if you went through a toll under the R banner it would be $150 fine.
We finally got the car and headed out, all of our phone functions worked with no data roaming so I had full Internet and GPS access while I was there which was nice. I did buy a couple of different insurance plans because I heard that driving down there was crazy and my auto insurance didn't cover anything which seemed odd to me. The people of Puerto Rico do not know how to drive, even the cops, they vaguely followed the lights and signs so you almost always had to go slow and drive very defensively. Just about every car we passed had some dents or other damage so I was just waiting for them to crash into me. My dad went on a trip 2 weeks ago to Washington state and hit a deer and he got the bill yesterday for $11,000 not sure how much the insurance is going to pay but that seems very expensive.
I had us staying at 3 different hotels, for each one there were always more bad reviews than good so it made each stay seem like a gamble. The first resort was great and it had it's own mile and a half beach along with 3 different pools and restaurants. I had this placed booked for one night since it was close to the airport and I was hoping the others would at least come close to this experience. Every hotel that you stay at has a 9% fee attached to each nights stay that wasn't included on the room price so it is kind of a tourist trap.
The checkout time was 11 am and we couldn't check into the next place until 4 so we decided to kill some time around the beach and we went for about a 30 minute walk on the beach then sat under a palm tree for about an hour. We had our bags at the bellman's office so I didn't put on any sunscreen and that was a mistake. Later that night both my ankles were blood red and burnt on the insides so it was a painful rest of the trip, I did get some aloe and used that but it took until yesterday for it to quit hurting. It looked much like the last time I went on the Spring River, those pics still hurt.
We drove about 15 miles to the next hotel and this place was nicer than the first, it was on 500 acres and had over 1000 rooms, it was massive. It wasn't on the beach but it had it's own island that you took a ferry to visit. I unloaded our stuff and went to check in but they couldn't find our reservation. I was worried because I used my Best Buy Rewardzone card to make most of the reservations and they are bad(good) about suspending my card for a fraud checking. I use the card for everything and since most of my purchases are online it gets flagged often and some charges don't go through so I was worried about this one although I never got an email saying there was a problem. I had made it with travelocity and for some reason the confirmation code I had wasn't one of the hotels. We had to call travelocity and let the hotel use my phone for about 30 minutes before they fixed the issue and they upgraded our room to an ocean view for the trouble and after looking at the view it was worth it. The room did have one issue and that is frogs. They weren't inside the room but it sounded like they were, our door faced a little forest section and the frogs at night were so loud it was a little difficult to sleep.
In order to get to the island you had to take a tram down to the ocean and it was steep, it kind of felt like you were on the incline of a roller coaster, it took about a minute to get down to the docks. The ferry left every 30 minutes and we timed it perfectly so we only had to wait about 5 minutes and then we were sailing away. The island was nice and had a lot of activities, I thought I was going to do some horseback riding but it looked too guided so we decided to snorkel instead. They had quite a bit of coral close to the beach so we got to see a ton of cool fish. I was by myself for a bit and I'm pretty sure I saw a small shark about 20 yards away, I quickly jumped and when I looked under the water again it was gone, from then on I could only hear the Jaws theme. The island wasn't very crowded maybe 100 people so we got to choose a nice seat and got to relax without much noise. This is the off season for Puerto Rico, it was 88 degrees everyday with a nice breeze so it was close to perfect.
The last night there we went on a kayak bio-luminescent bay tour that was awesome. There are only 5 bays that have this feature in the world and 3 of them are in Puerto Rico. The trip was about 30 minutes each way in the kayak and some of the group had never paddled before so that was an adventure. I did most of the paddling and tried to get as close to the leader as possible to make it easy. The path there was pretty curvy and cramped so you did need to have some paddling skills, there were quite a few kayaks getting caught in the trees, we did see a big iguana in a trees above us. Once we made it to the bay we had to wait about 20 minutes for it to get dark enough to see the luminescent effect. Once it got dark you could put your hand or paddle in the water and move it around and then it would start to glow a cool blue color, it was basically some organism in the water that would put out the blue glow as a defense mechanism. It was cool to see but you couldn't swim or get in the water other than your hand, it didn't last that long and now we had to make the return trip in pitch black. If you ever go you want to take the earlier tour so you can at least see how you got there so you had some idea how to make it back. I wasn't able to get close to the leader this time and had to follow someone who didn't know how to paddle. All you could see was there glow stick that was attached to the back of their kayak, they were hitting just about every bank so I was trying my best to get around them and eventually did. It was a cool experience and worth the price.
On our way to our final hotel we wanted to see the only Rain Forest in America and we drove about 30 minutes and got up to the gate and saw about 4 other cars waiting outside and then we found out the Rain Forest was closed due to rain. Imagine that. There was supposedly a storm coming through and they closed down and evacuated all the employees and wasn't sure when they would reopen. We did get to see a brief glimpse of it on the ride back down another road, I tried to talk my girlfriend into parking the car and trying to hike into the forest ourselves but she quickly declined. We got to see 2 small waterfalls and the 4 dumpsters full of trash, the rain forest is a dirty place evidently.
Our final stay was at a small B&B that was right on the beach and it actually had a restaurant that was on the Food network, Pamela's Restaurant. The room was small but nice and clean, we were about 15 steps away from the beach. The wind was blowing pretty hard because of the supposed storm that went around us, so it was making some pretty big waves that I was having some Jumpchair fun, not sure why but that was a lot of fun trying to ride the waves. I did see some guys doing some kite surfing that looked awesome, I didn't get to try this time because of my burns but hopefully will get to try sometime soon. The beach had about 10 leatherback sea turtle nests that were supposed to hatch while we where there but it never happened that would have been great to see. I had some Pork loin at the restaurant which was awesome, they did ask how I wanted it cooked which I thought was a little strange and the waiter mentioned that for pork now you didn't have to cook it well done anymore, I wasn't so sure about that, but ordered it medium and it was great. We spent the last day of vacation just relaxing at the beach and getting some awesome Pizza.
Our flight was at 11:51 but we wanted to make sure we made it in time so we left the hotel at 9. The car rental return was about 4 miles away and it only took us about an hour. It wasn't traffic though that caused the problem, the Mapquest app we had didn't have the exact location so we went down all kinds of wrong roads and even crossed a mile long bridge. We went all over and made a couple of complete loops around one part of the city, eventually we called the rental car company and they gave us good directions. I turned the car over and the attendant was asking questions to one guy about the car in Spanish that I couldn't make out, I thought they were going to try and pull something over on me but he didn't say anything to me and let us go.
On the plane as we were going to take off the plane started making some really strange noises. I sounded like someone had a hacksaw and was sawing off part of the plane. Others thought it was a dog barking from underneath, this went on for about 3 minutes until the steward said it was a hydraulic pump that was making the noise and that it would stop once we were in the air, that wasn't what I wanted to hear. The sound did go away once we were in the air and did come back once we landed.
The trip was great and I do recommend going to Puerto Rico, you don't need a passport and our summer is their off season so it really wasn't crowded. The only thing is if you stay at the resort the food prices are quite high. I think I spent about $600 just on food for the week. Parking at 2 of the hotels was $15/night and with the extra tax for each night it can be a little expensive.
Monday, July 8, 2013
RIP Ryan Davis
On vacation this week so not many posts. Just wanted to quickly say how sad I am that Ryan Davis from Giantbomb passed away this week at the age of 34, no details yet of the cause. He just got married last week so some real sad news. Even though I never met him personally I felt that I knew him, I've listened to him for about 8 years, from gamespot to giantbomb I always thought he was professional and a really funny person. When he was missing from the bombcast it just wasn't the same, he was a great host and knew how to include everyone and keep things moving.
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