long overdue update

This may be my last vblog for this site depending on how things work out at gaming nexus and their blog. However I will keep this blog up just so I have that outside outlet. Today's video is a long overdue update and features a nice little anecdote on girls and gaming.

FIRST VIDEO POST!!!

Well I'm not the best looking fella that's for sure but hey things can only go up from here right? right?

interrupted

Working on getting a high speed internet connection. I have purchased a Logitech pro 9000 and will be attempting to do some video blogging. wish me luck.

Introduciton to half evil

Sorry for being absent for so long but life got in the way. This past weekend I introduced some of the guys I play D&D with to a concept document for a game I've been working on. The working title is Half Evil and it will be a PC RPG that will hopefully reach full maturity. I won't go into much detail because of copy rights and all that good fun legal issues but I will give you guys a small taste of what I've been working on.

The plot: A traveler from the future arrives at the doorstep of our hero wearing a blood covered uniform of the Society. Our Hero brings the man inside and discovers that the traveler is from the future and brings with him two things: news that, in the future, our hero becomes the most ruthless and evil emperor the world has ever known and Our Hero’s personal journal from the future. The journal tells the tale of our hero’s journey from a poor young man to the hero and eventually the ruler of the kingdom. What the journal doesn’t reveal, according to the traveler, is the secret evil that lives inside our hero that festers and grows in power and then takes over our hero’s mind once he is king. The traveler watched as our hero turned from benevolent ruler to a malevolent emperor bent on conquering the world. He has come back in time in the hopes that he can undo the future and prevent the world from this evil.

The document I showed the guys was 6 pages long and right now the full design document (if it could be called that) is about 17 pages long. Half Evil is my dream project and the game I would want to make if I had the resources but right now I would optimistically say that this game won't be ready for at least 9 years.

Online or bust.

Going on a 3 hr. Road trip tomorrow to visit my friend JT for the weekend. He has high speed at his place so my laptop is coming with me and I will hopefully have some free time and get some posts up. I didn't win fallout 2 :( but I did get a response from Casey Lynch about a sort of interview with the guys at the newly formed Radar group :). I'm pretty excited about a company like Radar group actually existing so when I got a reply to my email it was like the gaming gods smiled on me. Expect to read the interview and a brief article on Radar Group at GamingNexus.com within a couple of weeks. also my first ever game review is up on the site!

I love drawing in crayon

I was hitting up the notorious flash portal Newgrounds and found this little gem of a flash game called Magic Pen . I haven't had so much fun playing a flash game since the flash version of portal. I know that physics driven drawing games aren't a new concept put this one makes it fun, challenging, and colorful and you can't beat the price.

Star running on Wii

I don't own a Nintendo Wii console but if I did would seriously consider buying Strong Bad's Cool game for Attractive People . I have enjoyed the quirky humor of Homestarrunner.com and the flash based games you find on their site. However the game coming out for the Wii seems more like a fan game like the Simposons game or the Family guy game unlike the games on the site which originate from the flash toons themselves and aren't generally based the homestarrunner world. Of course the best part about the site for the game is that the dev blog post is by Strong Bad himself. I might have more fun reading the stuff that comes from that than playing the game.

Oblivion with guns and so much more

Although I've read most of the "new information" on fallout three in past articles in Game Informer and Official Xbox Monthly magazines but IGN.com has a decent article and screen shots and videos to boot. Right now I'm attempting to purchase Fallout 2 on ebay so I can play through it and get a better picture of the roots of the series. While Deus Ex did it very well the last RPG/FPS I played, Bioshock, had less of a RPG element and more of an elaborate upgrade system. What I'm really excited about though is the ability to combine the parts of worn out guns to create new weapons. It would be awesome to try and duplicate weapons from the old west, movies, or even guns from other games. Maybe not in look or style but in functionality and performance. This is a colt 45 the most powerful hand gun in the world.

A devlopers take on Portal's devlopment

I've always enjoyed the articles I find on Gamasutra but this one was particularly enjoyable because Noah Falstein took one of my favorite games from last year broke it down and explained (not in minute detail) why the different elements of the game made it so much fun to play. Of course one of the great things about articles on Gamasutra is that the comments are always intelligent because they're made by people in the industry.

Prelude to a wireless connection

This step by step guide on Instructables.com tells you how to hook up a Xbox 360 to a win or mac notebook in order to get access to Xbox Live via your notebooks wired or wireless connection to the internet. While I haven't had much success myself I understand that many people have been able to take advantage of this connection there by passing the need to buy a wireless adapter for the 360 which the last time I checked still retailed for $100. It seems that the more the technologies of consoles advance the more modders can do with them and I've seen some amazing modifications for the 360 from custom led accented controllers to clear 360 cases. I'm hoping someone will be clever and mod the 360 to play blu-ray discs.

General views on gaming

My short time as a writer for a video game website has taught me a few things but the most important is this: the gaming industry evolves quickly. While it is true that there has been a recent trend of buy outs and mergers with game developers and publishers this doesn't mean that the number of different titles being released has slowed down. Every day you can read about some new development about a game or watch new video or view new screen shots. What baffles me is that this is not limited to a particular genre, platform, or company but all kinds of games on all kinds of platforms developed by many different companies are announced, go beta, go gold, or released every day. Sifting through the various web pages, magazines, blogs, tv shows, and news papers can be daunting for anyone, especially if your searching for something that isn't "main stream". This blog will be a tool for me and anyone else to sift through the media mush and find the articles and news posts that are truly interesting. This doesn't mean I won't put my two cents worth in but then again you can feel free to comment. After all one man's opinion just isn't worth that much.