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Yesterday I logged onto Steam with the intention to try to play Left4Dead today. In doing so I noticed you could look at the history of people on your friends list. I looked at one of my friends history and noticed he had been playing Defense Grid: The Awakening. He had in fact been playing it quite a bit (could see lots of achievements). Since it seemed to be a tower defense game I bought and downloaded it to give it a try.

12 hours (and an episode of BSG) later I was still playing! (basically all of Sunday)

The game starts of simple, introducing a few basic towers and keeps your options limited so that it is fairly easy to win. As the game progresses you gain access to more interesting towers and more upgrades and options. The game then gets much harder, with many different aliens to kill and more options to create paths for them (which you will need in order to have enough time to kill some of the harder enemies)

All the way through the game you have a guide, some sort of AI who was transferred from a human brain into a computer. He gives advice early on, and starts to get a bit emotional as the game progresses. The voice over certainly adds a portal-esque feel to the game which makes it all the more enjoyable.

This game is definitely worth the money (20 euros) and while I have almost reached the end of the story, there are also challenges for each level and a leaderboard so you can see how well your friends did and try to beat their score.

Super Mario Galaxy was released this week. The game was delayed quite a bit but it was definitely worth the wait. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but once the reviews starting coming in I could see it was going to be so much better than I could have imagined.

This game is so incredibly well polished in every way. It is definitely some of the most fun I have had playing computer games in a while (multiplayer olypmpics games don't count :P). It is so full of life and makes you smile every now and again. The levels are varied, the challenges sometimes easy, sometimes hard, new funky mario power ups and some of the bosses are so cute you feel bad when you beat them up!

The part that I like the most though is the music. It is without a doubt the finest video game music I have ever heard. Everything is orchestrated, there are new tunes to be heard and wonderful new version of old mario classics. I NEED this games soundtrack, the japanese are lucky enough to be able to obtain it, I hope to do so even if it means ebay!.

Everyone who owns a Wii should have this game. Yes that includes you Tim!

[11:53] <hendry> why don't you guys Kam Xiven blog any more?

Lots of good stuff happening this year. Going to Essen next week to visit the games convention (and buy Starcraft the board game). World of Warcraft sees patch 2.3 appear on the test realms soon and then hopefully very soon onto the live servers (tis a very important long overdue patch). Metroid Prime 3 and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is out towards the end of October (been looking forward to these games for ages). Portal is released tomorrow (along with half life 2 episode 2, meh).

In very recent news, Fire Emblem was announced for the DS (yay) along with a Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game for WiiWare next year. Sonic has been revealed to be in Smash Bros Brawl much to the delight (and despair) of many fans. And Mario Kart is to have bikes (WTF?)

There is also a rumor going around that I may in fact be getting a mobile phone. Sadly it is true but I would prefer to call it a PDA that happens to be able to recieve phone calls. ok?

Well not really since I wouldn't be around to play Starcraft 2 then!

This weekend in Korea Blizzard announced Starcraft 2, the long awaited sequel to the best RTS game of all time, Starcraft. There were rumors about what game it was they were going to reveal, Starcraft 2 was a hot favourite and World of Starcraft was also considered a possiblity.

Of course Starcraft 2 was what I wanted it to be, I was worried it would be something else so I tried to convince myself it would be another game. Chances were high it was Starcraft related because it was being announced in Korea (the country of professional Starcraft gamers) and even though it was hard to relate it to an MMO there was definitely a chance of it being a Starcraft MMO.

Luckily it was Starcraft 2, and it looks exactly like what I would have expected. 3D graphics but still a 2D game at heart, the 3 races are back with an assortment of new units and old units getting new looks and abilities. Not much has been revealed so far but it is apparantly very far along in development so I would hope it is possible it might come out at the end of this year.

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Last weekend my old (but newish) graphics card sort of went crazy and it had random lines all over the picture. This occured after a game had crashed and caused the monitor to go off. So seeing as I wanted to play games and not go back to my even older GFX card (which isnt dx9 compatible) I just went out and got a new one from a shop down town.

So I got back and inserted the graphics card and happily started up Titan Quest. Worked fine, but had random artifacts that I wasn't too fond off, I played it for a bit and it wasn't too bad. I messed around with drivers and settings later but could not get rid of the artifacts.

So after searching on the internet for similar problems, most people claimed it was my power supply. Mine was only 350W and the gfx card recommended 400W so I figured that must be the problem and ordered a new PSU. It would take a few days to arrive so I switched back to my old graphics card till it arrived.

A few days later, I eagerly installed my new PSU (which is lit up like a christmas tree) and tested my graphics card again. Sadly the same problem remained. So elminating that from the possibility, I also then checked the core temperature, which was fine, then I downloaded and install Riva Tuner (an overclock and random setting changing thing for Nvidia cards) and did all the things that people suggested I do for my card (I have a 7600 GS AGP and my motherboard is an SiS chipset) but sadly nothing worked.

I then stumbled up this thread on hexus.net, which essentially outlined all the steps I went through, but at the end he points out how to fix it in one easy step.

Simply uncheck combined writes in the troubleshot section of the advanced display properties tab in Windows.

I spent a good 2-3 evenings trying to figure out the problem only to find that it was fixable but unchecking something present in the standard Windows GUI. The tooltop for the checkbox even states that it could cause corruption! Such a frustrating time, I was planning on taking the card back and getting another one because most threads on the net insist the card is just faulty.

Anyway I am very happy now that it works and figured I would provide a quick summary so that it might push some people with the same problem to the quick and simple solution.

Problem:

Graphical Artifacts in Direct 3D games (such as World of Warcraft and Titan Quest)

Hardware:

7600 GS AGP (mine was XFX but I am sure this applies to others) SiS Chipset

Drivers:

Nvidia 91.47

Solution:

Open up the standard windows display properties dialog, select the settings tab and click "advanced", go to the troubleshoot tab and untick the "enable write combine" option. Restart and problem solved!

Also if you have problems playing video files (the pc becomes very unresponsive and no video plays) then upgrading to the latest SiS AGP drivers fixes that problem nicely. This seems to be a problem with the latest video drivers and the SiS chipset and is unrelated to the graphical artifacts in games.

Source: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=60011

Last night while cutting some bread (which was stale after one day, crazy norwegians) to make some toast with I obviously wasn't paying attention and managed to cut into my thumb.

Now this isn't really that serious but at the time as the blood was gushing out, I was somewhat worried about my thumb! I haven't actually been cut for a very long time, probably not since some time at university (at least 4 years ago) and there was suprisingly quite a lot of blood pouring out.

On a more positive note we killed Onyxia with 20 people last night in WoW. Which may not mean much to post people but it was quite an achievement for us! Luckily my thumb isn't needed too much for playing WoW.

Oh and after hearing about this "easter egg" in WoW, I figured I would take a screenshot:

Those are the names of the NPCs in Stormwind Bank, and if you don't spot the easter egg in that shot then you should be shot =)

One of the disadvantages to playing in a virtual world is that the server can go down. I am never sure what causes it to happen, bad code? bad hardware? people tripping over wires? but whenever it happens it usually isn't instant and we sit there frozen in game whining about laggggggggg since the chat interface seems to still function even when the world is falling apart.

Of course even that doesn't last too long and everyone is soon thrown off the server and unable to log back in. Doesn't stop everyone from constantly trying though. It's funny that so many people threaten to stop playing after these sorts of things but are back online as soon as the server comes back, I guess you might liken it to a wife staying with a husband who beats her. Defies logic but there is no denying the addictive properties of Multiplayer Online Games, especially World of Warcraft.

Anyway the server is back up now so I gotta get back =)

I was asked randomly today what my top 5 RPG's of all time would be, so thought I would make a post about the ones I chose.

1. Secret of Mana
2. Final Fantasy VII
3. Tales of Symphonia
4. Golden Sun
5. Varios other RPGs

Secret of Mana was a classic back in the SNES days, and what I enjoyed most was the fact that enemies were visible and combat didn't cut away to a fight scene. Final Fantasy VII probably should be in the top spot however I now feel quite strongly about randomly invisible encountering enemies that I knocked it down one. Excellent story and fairly replayable though.

That takes us to the next game, Tales of Symphonia, the best of both worlds. Enemies aren't invisible when running around but they are just representations of the enemies, and the ones you encounter are decided when you run into one of those "blobs". This lets you run around them when you aren't in the mood for fighting and also level up by running around encountering enemies. Fouth is the Gameboy Advance classic , Golden Sun. Excellent old skool RPG, random encounters unfortunately but gave the player the ability to avoid enemies very early on in the game.

As for number five, I couldn't think of anything off hand worthy of being in my top 5, World Of Warcraft technically is an RPG but it isn't the same sort of thing as classic single player RPG's. Morrowind was a nice idea and fairly fun but the system broken down after playing for a while (I hope oblivion will fix these issues), Fable was just simple and limited, Baten Kaitos was pretty good but the voice acting and weak plot let it down. The list goes on with various games but I couldn't really decide on anything worthy of the 5th spot.

I would put Zelda in this list however it really is more of an adventure game since it lacks an overcomplicated plot and large amounts of random numbers. It would be the top of this list if it was though (Link to the Past followed by Ocarina of Time)

As you might of noticed, I have been even longer between posting than normal (although that is usually a long time anyway) and obviously as you might have guessed I have been playing World of Warcraft.

I often ask myself why I am still playing it, why even did I start in the first place. It consumes large amounts of time, I curse not having enough free time outside of WoW, and what do I get out of it? A high level character in a digital world on a server somewhere in Europe. Not only that but I pay for the privilege. So why do I?

This time, instead of just leaving an open ended question, I shall attempt to answer why.

The reason I started playing this particular MMORPG, was mainly because it was made by Blizzard and is based in the Warcraft universe which I had become aquainted with through playing Warcraft 3 (which I played because it was made by Blizzard). This reason alone doesn't always mean it would be a good game but it's a very good start.

The reason I even considered playing a MMORPG in the first place is because of Dark Age of Camelot. A good while back at university, from my Tribes 2 clan at the time, I got a link to try the European beta for DAoC . Had no idea what a MMORPG would be like, so decided to give it a try. GwieF was also interested because of his Tribes 2 clan trying it (no, they were not the same clans).

After playing it for a week or so, we got so totally hooked, it was like a classic single player RPG, but in a persistent world where other players were running around doing what were. There was something very appealing about exploring this massive world, alone or with friends (or essentially complete strangers) and facing threats together.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was helping other players, often going out of my way to help someone. For no reward at all. While the eventual goal in these games is to make more in-game money and increase in level, the reason I do this is so I can help more people, more often. Of course this begs the question, why are the players I am helping even playing the game =)

So after taking part in the actual release of DAoC, where on the opening weekend we played for an insane amount of time without sleep, we were hooked on MMORPGS. However it didn't last too long and I soon moved on. It had gotten too slow to advance and most other people I had got to know advanced too quickly beyond me. At this point in time I wondered why I bothered playing it so much at all.

Several MMORPGS later and WoW finally was finished and released in Europe. This particular game takes what I liked about DAoc and slaps it in a world that is a joy to explore and intereact with. Intereaction with other players from around the world, sharing our experiences of the world with others, helping others enjoy the game more, fighting epic battles against hordes of enemies and humongous giants, trying to make in-game money through buying and selling, questing for that glowing wand of death and of course having fun doing it all.

I can't say for sure that I will be playing it in 6 months time, but I can say for sure I will be paying for it in 6 months time (I chose the 6 month subscription without a second thought).

P.S. I will post screenshots of my antics soon, when I get around to sorting through them all!

One thing that often turns up in RPG's are random encounters. You are happily walking around in a completely unoccupied area, but suddenly you are thrust into a battle with enemies that clearly weren't there. While I used to fairly enjoy this, I have since become tired of it. This includes games like Pokemon and Final Fantasy. After playing Tales of Symphonia and Baten Kaitos, I have come to love the fact that I can see the enemies before I encounter them, and if possible walk around them depending on my mood. While they are only really iconic representations of enemies it serves to let me have more choice over when and where I fight.

The main reason I dislike random battles is because of puzzle solving. When I am in a dungeon and I am trying to push switches, move blocks or find my way through a maze, I get extremely annoyed when I keep having to fight enemies, when all I want to do is complete the puzzle THEN fight enemies. This can still happen in games which have visible enemies but at least then you are aware of when you are likely to enter combat, if you dont manage to avoid it.

Of course you need to fight some enemies, otherwise you wouldn't level up and be able to fight the mandatory boss enemies, but fighting the enemies you feel like fighting usually ends up more than enough, and you can go back and kill the ones you missed later should you so desire. With random battles you don't even have a guarantee of fighting enemies, you just wiggle the control stick about until you enter a random battle.

One solution to this problem is to do as Golden Sun and Pokemon both do. Introduce very early the ability to AVOID random battles (ie. using an item or a spell). Final Fantasy does this too, but in FF7 I believe it was pretty far in before you could get the ability required. IMO random encounters these days are simply an easy way out of not having to develop a decent eneny encounter system. Random encounters are frustrating and should have left the gaming industry long ago. One can but hope that more companies take a more original approach to enemy encounters in future games.

A couple of weeks before I came to Oslo, Tales of Symphonia was released in the US for the Gamecube. Unable to wait until it came out in the UK, I had already pre-ordered it and recieved it within a few days of its US release. I was glad I did.

It is definitely one of the best games I've played this year, and in fact still playing (despite having completed it, not 100% of course). One of the most appealing reasons to play this game is the actually enjoyable combat system, which unlike Final Fantasy games is real-time, which means fighting the same enemies over and over again (which you can avoid doing if you want without needing to find the sacred moo moo grass of tati-lala) is actually fun. With 8 different characters to control you can switch at any time and get a whole new fighting experience sinceeach character has their own strengths and weaknesses.

The Plot

The Characters

The Combat

The Rest

After deciding I wanted to play pictionary online, a quick search in google revealed isketch.net. I am now addicted to it.

An article on DGMA.com, has some comments from me, along with various other STCCG players.

I inherited a farm from my father and was tasked with running it on my own. After being shown around the farm by an old friend of my fathers I ran into a couple of stray dogs. I decided to keep one, it was pretty cute, with its pointy ears and red neck scarf. My fathers friend said he would find a home for the other one so I didnt feel bad about only looking after one.

After milking my cow for the first time I wandered into the village and talked with many of the locals. I discovered an inn ran by a nice couple and their rather weird son (who seems to like fodder). Staying at the inn at the time was a young girl named Nina. The moment I saw her I knew I wanted to marry her.

After a very eventful year in which I helped with an archeological dig, grew many different crops including Tomatoes and Melons, raised many chickens, a sheep, a horse and a cow and attended many seasonal festivals, the girl of my dreams finally said yes. It took many home cooked meals and bizzare artifacts but I persevered and eventually won her over and she agreed to be be my fiance.

We married and several years later had a child named Kai. I look forward to the next chapter in my life.

In case you hadn't noticed all of the above occured in Harvest Moon : A Wonderful Life, a GameCube game in which you run a farm. Despire what you might think it's actually good fun and quite addictive. It's one in a long line of Harvest Moon games accross various platforms.

Single player is no where near as bad as some people claim it is. Since there are no random battles "leveling up" is achieved through completing areas again, which gets you an artifact. Each artifact gives you a stat bonus, extra health, extra command slots (You start with 4, 2 of which are taken up with Attack and Defend) or other bonuses. This is certainly different from most Final Fantasy games but suits a mainly multiplayer action orientated game better than a complicated experience system.

Multiplayer is what this game is all about though. Working together to complete each area is great fun and spell fusion makes casting spells together require coordination between players. I have only played it with two players, but I've read that the more players the more fun it gets. To keep things interesting there is also a bonus point system each time you do an area, where each player gets told something they need to do and the better they do it the higher score they get. The player with the highest score gets first pick of the artifacts at the end of the level. Tasks include "taking damage" and "do not pick up items". These add to the variety of levels and help add a little competition into an otherwise co-operative game.

The plot of the game is also moved along by semi-random events between areas which while aren't as deep as other FF games it seemed fine to me (and even made me laugh in places). Since the game is not based around specific characers most of the plot is based around characters other than your own. Some character interaction between your own groups character would have been nice but since it can be played with only one character aswell as up to 4, it's not something which could have been done easily.

Earlier this week I almost completed the game (at least I think I did) but the final boss took me so long, and I died too easily so decided to "level up" some more before trying again. I plan to try and get all the items and artifacts eventually once I have managed to kill the final boss.

The image above shows what is called a 'Papaopamus'. It is the creature which pulls your caravan along in Final Fantasy : Crystal Chronicles. So far that is the best picture of it I can find, however that picture doesn't really do it justice. I shall endeavour to find a better picture of the loveable creature (it doesn't really do anything other than pull your caravan in the game, but it clearly deserves it's own spin-off game)

In case you hadn't noticed I bought FFCC today =)

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The something else that came along was another MMORPG, based in the Star Wars universe, and called Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided.

Based on Gwief's experience of the game I decided to give it a try. My first impressions of the game was that is was pretty well polished and after switching the controls to a more FPS style I was soon wandering around with ease.

I decided to start off as a scout, and headed off out into the wilderness to try and kill things. After failing to do so many times I then discovered scouts could use camps which allowed you to sit down and rest in to heal faster. Rather than mindless killing I think the main way to get along in this game is to do missions. Since I wanted to shoot things I took some destroy missions which find a target at your level and creates a waypoint to the location so you can find you way easily.

Unlike most MMORPG's, in SWG you gain different types of experience depending on what you do. If you shoot someone with your pistol you gain pistol xp, if you shoot someone with a rifle you gain rifle xp etc... It also applies to various other things such as healing and crafting items. So to get better at something you essentially need to do that something.

I am currently a Combat Medic, although I did try to be various other things but somehow I keep healing other players and I don't think I could play without the ability to heal reasonably well.

Here are some screen shots of my adventures so far.

Overall I am enjoying the game for the most part, especially since they added vehicles and am just exploring the rebel/imperial part of the game to see how that fleshes out. I'm not sure how good the long term appeal of the game will be but if they can continue to add new content I should hope I could be playing this game until at least WoW is released =)

Since I got broadband aside from downloading various things, I have taken up trying MMORPG's again. The first and most laughable one I tried was a SNES RPG looking game which was peculiar and free. It was clearly written in visual basic, so very quickly stopped playing it.

Next since I now had broadband I decided to download the free 7 day trial for Anarchy Online, it was about 1.2 gig to download but just leaving my pc on overnight and a little during the day was enough to download it in no time.

Anarchy Online was pretty much what I expected from it, a typical MMORPG, with the usual amount of killing stuff and spending your skill points each time you levelled up. I'm sure it is a pretty game however due to my machine being over 2 years old I played it on the lowest settings possible.

I started as a Shade, which is a stealthy backstabbing type character. The Shade is best suited to using daggers or knifes, however not long into the game I decided I wanted to use a Bow, so I eventually got myself one and went around killing things reasonably well.

However, on seeing me using a bow most people took it upon themselves to give me free daggers, and tell me that a Shade shouldn't be using them. It was quite funny really, but gave me all the more reason to use the bow! I did try playing a different character more suited to a Bow but even though they were better with the bow they never felt the same.

Overall its probably one of the better MMORPG's out there, and the skill system is quite flexible although most players don't like breaking the mold. I probably would have continued to play it after my free 7 days but something else came along...

For some reason last week I decided to play Metroid Prime through again, since I hadn't completed it on anything other than < 80% complete, which means I hadn't even seen the second ending, let alone the third (for getting 100%.) I happily played that for hours on end, and really quite enjoyed playing throught it again, but after purchasing Lost Kingdoms II, for £15 on ebay, I started playing that instead, I enjoyed the first Lost Kingdoms and although it's not the greatest game ever made its not too bad.

Anyway after playing that for a few hours, my head and eyes hurt quite a bit, and I feel generally "out of it". I don't know what it is about the game, but there arent any particularly flashy light bits or anything like that, Metroid Prime is far worse for flashy lights. Perhaps it's because I haven't played it before and my brain isn't used to working... While playing the game I don't notice anything but as soon as I stop playing it I feel totally weird. I also feel the urge to play it, so perhaps there are subliminal messages in the game telling me to play it =)

If I could drive, a car like this would be nice.

As Hixie pointed out I came down to Bath to attend another BUNCS LAN and staying at the Hixie Hotel =)

Was the usual LAN affair, not as many people as we had hoped, but enough for a few good games, and of course getting the usual dose of new Anime. We played some Black Hawk Down, which was ok at first in multiplayer, but played a little too much like Counter Strike for my liking, with the usual deaths by a random enemy you can't even see.

Urban Terror, a similarly themed game mod using the Quake III Engine, was much better than Black Hawk Down, although alot of the maps were too small since you spawned around the corner from each others spawn points.

We did plan on going to see X-Men 2, but managed to eat far too slowly at Burger King, so was too late to catch the film, so we travelled back to Hixie's, and spent several hours installing Diablo II on Hixie's laptop. We did plan on playing it before the LAN but since it took so long to install didn't get a chance.

As usual a great weekend, and makes me wish I was still down at Bath.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I can't figure out what to do with the Ghost Ship in Wind Waker! I've tried using every item I have on it, but nothing works. Is there no justice in this world!

Since I now know I need to find something else to help me with the ghost ship I am now off to search all of the islands (The person who told me this should be shot for going to gamefaqs.com really, but at least it means I can stop aimlessly following the Ghost Ship around).

The spirit temple in the Master Quest version of Ocarina of Time is the most evil dungeon of the entire game. I was repeatedly getting stuck, and the number of chests that gave you nothing but rupee's or heart's was ridiculous. Just when you think you have it figured out, you get 10 Rupee's instead of a key! ARG.

I eventually manged it and the spirit boss is one of my favourite bosses in the game, the evil twin sisters, Koume and Koutake. So now onto face the evil Ganondorf!

Well Metroid Prime is fantastic. I enjoyed every minute of it, except for when after jumping my way up to a platform I then fell all the way back down to the bottom and into WATER (I hate underwater parts of games). I am glad to say the game didn't scare me much at all, there were a couple of times, mostly while in or near water areas, but other than that and as long as I had a decent amount of health I was fine.

I have completed it I have to say, and unlocked hard mode, which is much harder, as I have died far more often than I ever did during the early part of the game.

I could go on for ages about how good this game is but I won't, since I'm too busy playing it =). All I need now is a GBA to GC connector so I can try out the original Metroid that can be unlocked.

Metroid Prime has landed. I am too busy playing it to say more, will let you know what I think of it later. Maybe.

It has been reported that a Warcraft III expansion is indeed in the works, and will be called "The Frozen Throne". No news of a release date or what the expansion will contain.

I hope it includes some new hero's for the current races and a new race would also be great =)

For christmas I got a copy of Metroid Fusion, and it is one very fantastic game. I played it mostly with headphones on and the music and sound is extremely atmospheric coming from a GBA, and even has little bits of speech here and there.

It plays just like the classic Super Metroid but with lots of new stuff to do, the wall climbing is a great addition, and it even seems to have a nice plot aswell. I also got Eternal Darkness, which is slightly scary but to be honest I was more scared when playing Metroid Fusion.

I very highly recommend getting Metroid Fusion and a GBA SP in march (Oh and get a copy of Advance Wars aswell).

BecauseNintendodecided that it was too much work to release it in Europe. Animal Crossing, the quite popular GameCube game in the US that has many old classic NES games in it, is not going to be released in Europe, they say that since they are working on the sequel there is no point working on the first game. That isn't a good reasoning because otherwise we would never get any games at all.

Animal Crossing has things such as seasons, and holidays as part of the game, so things like thanksgiving would need to be removed for different markets, but I would be happy with the game in its american form. If the sequel has everything the first game has in it, then thats fine, but that also means that the first game is completely pointless and you probably wont want to buy the second one if the you have the first one.

Nintendohave announced the release of a new GBA, called the GBA SP. It will be sort of smaller, and has a screen light, built in rechargable battery, and fold out screen and kind of looks cool.

The release date for it is this march in europe which is pretty fast for Nintendo, and means that will be an expensive month, since Metroid Prime also comes out that month.

Well Blizzard finally released another patch for Warcraft 3 with balance changes (up to version 1.03 now). Which is about time as I personally think there were some serious issues with Orc Shaman and their bloodlust, you could quite easily win with just Shaman alone which was just wrong.

Well so far the patch seems pretty good, auto-cast Frost Armor is one of the better additions as its actually now useful. Havent tried all the new things out yet but in my last few games it seems much better, well I havent lost since the patch so that may be a good sign or a bad one.