Archive for category Gaming
I’m Co-Hosting Press Pause
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming, Media, Work on October 7, 2009
Good news, everyone! It looks like I’m going to be the permanent co-host of Mevio’s video game show Press Pause. I’ll be talking games every week with the main host Carlos Rodela. Now, Press Pause is a fairly small operation right now, but we have some ideas to expand it. Still, you should tune in. It’s a fairly quick and painless show, and we try to keep it sort of lively. Yeah, I still have a lot of learning to do about being on camera, I’m working on it. So if you’re here, you probably have at least a passing interest in what the hell I’m up to. If you want to check out the show or help the show get better and more popular, follow the action items after the jump.
A Few Thoughts on Nvidia’s Fermi
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming, PC Tech on September 30, 2009
Today was the start of Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference. It’s really still just the NVISION conference, because it’s not much of a “industry-wide” conference if ATI and Intel aren’t there. The biggest announcement of the show is undoubtedly the unveiling of Nvidia’s next-generation GPU, code-named Fermi. I’m not sure why they named the chip after Enrico Fermi, who is best known for his work with radioactive substances and controlled nuclear reactions and stuff. But as code-names go, physicists are cool, so I’ll let it slide.
I won’t bother to summarize all the individual features that were revealed today. Tech Report has a excellent article on it, so does AnandTech. I’m just going to editorialize a bit with some of my thoughts based on what we know (and don’t know) so far.
Monkey Island 2 in 3D using Cryengine
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming on September 21, 2009
How cool is this? Someone took still screens from Monkey Island 2, projected them onto 3D geometry in Maya, and then used that as a basis to construct scenes with more detailed geometry and textures. Then they exported it into the Cryengine 2 Sandbox. The result is a truly spectacular living 3D world of Monkey Island that looks just incredible.
Is it just me, or is this world just a lot more interesting than the generic island of Crysis? Video embedded after the break. After you watch it, watch this video, and then this one, which are the artist’s previous demo videos and sort of explain how he did this.
Screw GameStop, Try SwitchGames
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming on September 20, 2009
There’s no love lost for GameStop among the core gamer demographic. My friends bitch about them all the time. The “exclusive” preorder deals, putting money down to reserve a game, and of course, the used game ripoff. Sell your game that came out two months ago for $15 in store credit, then go buy a used copy of some other game that came out two months ago for $45. What a deal! This is why I now buy all my games on Amazon. (Note to Publishers – if your super special collector’s edition of the game isn’t available on Amazon, you’re losing that sale on me. I’m thinkin’ about Forza Motorsport 3 here.)
So a friend recently turned me on to a pretty neat site called SwitchGames. It’s not officially launched yet – it’s in “beta 2.0″ – but I kicked the tires and it looks like it’s in pretty good shape and definitely usable.
Batman: Arkham Asylum Giveaway
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming on September 17, 2009
Giveaway is all done – thanks to everyone who played! See Updates below.
By some weird quirk of fate, I find myself in possession of not one, but two sealed boxed copies of the truly excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum for PC. This is the best game of the year so far. No joke. Just check out that Metacritic score! I’ve already played through it entirely on the Xbox 360, which is pretty much the same, except the PC version looks sharper at higher resolution and if you have an Nvidia graphics card, it has extra PhysX effects.
Since I have two of these, I”m giving one away! Here are the rules:
1. Go on Twitter and tweet the following:
@jasoncross00 is giving away a copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum for PC. Just retweet this! Go to www.jasoncross.org for details.
2. Sit back and wait for me to pick you as the lucky winner! I’ll pick the winner in a couple days. I’d send a direct message through twitter to the person who wins, asking them to contact me with their address so I can ship it off.
One final stipulation here: This isn’t any kind of official sponsored contest thing, I don’t have a lawyer or anything, it’s just something fun I’m doing. And I’m not made of money. So the winner will have to be from the U.S. Shipping it outside the U.S. starts to cost more than it’s really worth, I’m afraid. Even if you’re not from the U.S., feel free to do the twitter thing! 
Update:
After giving more than an hour’s warning, I just went to random.org and chose a winner. Tried to contact them via direct message on twitter, but they don’t follow me. So I sent a follow request and we’ll see how that goes.
So for now, the contest is over. If I can’t get in touch with the winner or if they for some reason can’t be a winner (if they’re in the UK or something) then I’ll pick another one. Either way, you all can stop tweeting now. I’ll announce the winner on twitter and update here after they get in touch with shipping info.
Update 2:
The new winner is MichaelBills, an artist. Check out his site michaelbills.com for some of his nifty concept art and stuff. Big thanks to everyone who participated in my shameless and cheap ploy to increase my totally anemic web traffic!
Really, DDO?
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming on September 9, 2009
So today is the official release of Turbine’s free to play (but supported with micro-transactions) massively multiplayer Dungeons and Dragons Online. I guess technically that’s “Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited.” I really don’t know if it’s the bees knees or not, but for the sum total price of $0.00 I’ll give it a shot and report back later.
What I do know is that when you go to the site you’re greeted with a very Evony-like marketing message (accompanying this post). Some demonic succubus or something with barely-covered knockers and some sort of demon-thong. All we need is a “Play now, My Lord” and we’re done.
Really, Turbine/Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast? With the absolutely enormous amount of amazingly good Dungeons & Dragons artwork at your disposal, this is what you go for? Ridiculous.
Anyway, I’m curious to see how this experiment in tiered, pay-for-content-but-not-playtime exercise plays out. Right now I’m downloading the client at a fantastic pace, and I’ll certainly roll up a few characters and give the free play a shake. I might even buy a thing or two. If you’re playing, drop a note in the comments and let me know what you think.
Guest Appearance on Press Pause
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming, Media, Work on September 4, 2009
Yesterday I went in for a guest co-host sort of appearance on Mevio’s video game show show Press Pause. Thanks to Carlos for having me on. After going over the news and upcoming releases, we chatted about digital distribution and how it’s messing up things like sales charts. It’s especially true on the PC, where you can download brand new hot AAA games the same day they’re available in stores, and those sales never get counted on the “charts.”
Anyway, I’m going to try embedding the episode after the break here. I have no idea how I did – I can’t stand watching myself on video, so I try not to do it.
Steal Your Art Now, My Lord!
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming on August 26, 2009
If the evolution of Evony’s ads wasn’t bad enough for you, and if the spam sent out by its creators isn’t enough, there’s this new little gem.
Evony apparently directly steals graphics from Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. You can find some damning evidence here.
I don’t really have a whole lot to ad to the discussion at this point except, you know, Age of Empires games are owned and published by Microsoft. I’m sure their lawyers will be cool with it. Microsoft’s lawyers are famous for letting stuff like that slide.
World of Warcaft Cataclysm Rumors
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming on August 15, 2009
I’ve probably played more World of Warcraft than any other game, ever. I’ve played plenty of MMOs, from MUDs to Ultima Online, Everquest, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan… some hold my attention for weeks, some months. WoW, for some reason, has kept me interested since the beta test before its release.
Oh sure, I take breaks. I quit for months at a time, play other stuff. Even now, I don’t play it obsessively. It’s one of the games I play, but I don’t play it more than all the other games. I have time for gaming, and I play WoW or I play other stuff. But when the expansions roll around, I just play the hell out of it. WoW effectively kills all other games for me for a month or two after a new expansion hits.
For a long time now, I’ve been saying that I hope the next expansion doesn’t go adding a new continent to the world. Give me a new reason to play through the existing stuff with a new character. Revamp the whole existing world, with the better graphics of the latest expansion, the new technology like vehicles and “phasing”, the better and more cohesive storytelling quest threads. Basically, bring the five-year-old stuff up to the level of the latest stuff.
If this post at MMO-Champion is to be believed (and they’re typically very reliable), Blizzard is giving me exactly what I wanted. I mean, the list of stuff they’re talking about is as if the company were directly reading my mind. Hopefully we’ll hear during Blizzcon. Please don’t disappoint me, guys!
XBLA, PSN, and WiiWare Quality Analysis
Posted by jasoncross in Gaming, Media on August 14, 2009
The other day I got to thinking…I wonder which console has the best downloadable games? No, I’m not talking about being able to download full PSP games off the Playstation Network or older retail boxed titles on the new Xbox Live “games on demand” thing. And I don’t mean downloadable add-on content for store-bought games. I mean games made for the download market: Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, and WiiWare.
I mean, I know which console I think has the best downloadable games. I mean, I love Fat Princess and all, but I generally find a whole lot more games I like on XBLA. That’s personal preference. What can we learn about the quality of the games on these services, statistically? So I headed on over to Metacritic (a site that averages review scores for movies, TV, DVDs, and Games, in case you’re unaware) and found the top 20 games for XBLA, PSN, and WiiWare. Here’s the raw data, with analysis at the end.