Floating through my Saturday

I spent my Saturday doing a little of this and that.  Graev and I are almost finished with year 5 of Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7.  The graphics have improved vastly since the previous year.  I used to be able to tell what was supposed to be broken into pieces, but now everything is so glossy and pretty I just shoot my wand at everything hoping to break what needs to be wingardium leviosa’d.  Despite gameplay and graphical improvements, I still prefer the Lego Star Wars games over the Lego HP and even Lego Batman; That’s not to say we won’t be getting the new Lego Batman/DC game coming out this summer.

Graev finished The Darkness 2 yesterday.  That game is both loud and gruesome.  I watched him use his darkness nasties to rip people’s spines out of their backsides and cause a ruckus.  Obviously the overly violent games aren’t for me.  Graev isn’t phased by them; Actually, he beat Darkness 2 twice in one week -and- earned a 1000/1000 achievement score.  When I asked him if he felt he got his money’s worth out of the game he said he did, and then he went on to explain how “shooters” are often short games.  Interesting to contrast that to the 109 hours he it took to finish Xenoblade Chronicles — he was almost in tears when he finished.

I’ve been making adjustments to the blog’s layout over the past few days.  If something looks broken please let me know.  I added author images to identify the author of a post at a glance.  ‘Keen’ has the green shirt with a mouse (peripheral, not animal), and Graev has the mop of hair with the controller.  These should fit to the left of the title.  I’m struggling to figure out why Internet Explorer hates css floating.  In IE the images are sitting on top of the title, but in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari it looks how it should.  Anyone know how to fix it? Thanks to @aletail on twitter it should be fixed.

I’m anxious for Diablo 3.  I support the “I need a bridge to cross this chasm until GW2” school of thought.

That was my Saturday.

  • Many of us are currently afflicted with the “waiting for GW2” curse. I think we need to be careful though and not put it on a pedestal as something that is going to solve the current malaise that is infecting the entire MMO genre.

    GW2 will be a fine game but at the end of the day it is still a themepark MMO that cleverly disguises oft used MMO mechanics. If people aren’t realistic with their expectations regarding GW2 they will be very disappointed (again).

  • @Ano: Good advice. It -is- a themepark cleverly disguised. I think they’ve at least found a new disguise that hasn’t been used before. The WvW is very refreshing as well.

  • Playing ghost recon online.
    Lvl 18 right now need to get to lvl 20 fast to get the best closed beta rewards when game goes live.

    (if you participated in the closed beta and are not lvl 20 on a class you still get a reward wooo… some cashshop currency, a unique pistol and a icon next to your name.)

    Still playing super monday night combat as well.

  • Its pretty fun.. frustrating due to bad matchmaking at times, but fun.

    As far as the free to play portion is.
    If the rp gain stays the same as in the closed beta id say its quite fair.

    Game needs some more balancing done and some bugs fixed. (like sometimes you get shot while in cover.. I heard its a bug where it appears your standing instead of prone or crouched)

    I had a look at footage of the soon to be released game it is based on gghost recon future soldier and I have to say I like this free to play version better from what ive seen.

    Wishlist for ghost recon online:

    To add supression to machineguns, more sniper sway, easier to see recons that are cloaked while running.

    Game feels pretty sweet to play with strong emphasis om teamplay.
    Looks different then COD as well.

    I also signed up for the beta of… heroes and generals. Its a WW2 themed first person shooter. Free to play based and currently in closed beta. Looks pretty good.
    Hope I get an invite soon.

  • Btw in case you do not read the forums of GRO.

    Coupon Code: GR5Z-YWNO-KDJQ-ITGZ

    Redeem the above code and receive:
    20x M26 Frag Grenades
    4x Mark III inserts
    1000 RP

    Worked for me. You can redeem it while your in the game.

  • “Interesting to contrast that to the 109 hours he it took to finish Xenoblade Chronicles — he was almost in tears when he finished.”

    Out of curiosity were those tears of joy for being finally done or tears that it had to end?

  • @Coppertopper: Graev liked Xenoblade but he was really happy when it was over because it was too long. After 109 hours he says he had at least another 20 hours of sidequests, but he couldn’t do it.

  • I might have missed this, but what’s the deal with all the ads around here? Intentional or did some option run out on your blog?

  • @SynCaine: We’re running ads to help pay for the blog, ventrilo, and activities for our community. We’ve had ads on our forums for some time. Students with no jobs, and all that fun stuff.

    We’re working to ensure placement is unobtrusive and easy on the eyes. We also want the ads to be relevant to our demographic. Ideally, the ads would be all gaming related.