Category Archives: Games

Games

Skyrates

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Check out this game called Skyrates!

platform: web browser with Flash

narrative genre: WWI-style air pirate/trading. Think Sky Captain, Last Exile, or Crimson Skies.

player action: plot way-points between floating islands/cities to trade goods between them, wait a few real-time hours, fight bandits in a top-down view using keyboard controls, upgrade your plane, and repeat. Short bursts of actions with nice hour(s)-long waits so you can do the work you’re supposed to be doing in the office/school. 🙂

Come play and send me a note so we can form a Wing (clan, guild…)!

map view with trading and waypoints

combat view

Games

Microids to release Still Life Sequel

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Still Life box art from Wikipedia

OMG.  I thought Still Life was the best adventure game of 2006 or 2005 or 2004 or whenever the hell it came out.  It’s been so long, I don’t remember, but a quick Wikipedia read tells me it was 2005.  I remember everyone was gaga over Indigo Prophecy (AKA Fahrenheit), but while IP had neat new gameplay, Still Life had the much, much better story.

Every once in a while, I would hop over to a forum thread about the Still Life ending, hoping to get some sort of closure to the game.  This last time, I was hit by this news:

Microids to release Still Life Sequel – Microids.com

Awesome!

Games

X3: Reunion

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X3: Reunion

I had heard that a patch for X3: Reunion was out last year, but only this week was I able to get to it and try it out again.

If you read my previous post over a year ago about space flight sims, you’ll know that I stopped playing X3 originally due to bugs in the game that prevented one from completing the main storyline. I was trying out X3 back then mostly because of my disappointment with DarkStar One and Freelancer.

Continue reading X3: Reunion →

Games, Life

Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War

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So this past week I’ve been playing Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War. I don’t know if it was my subconscious memory (Deus Ex 3‘s teaser trailer was recently released back in November or December) triggering a newfound interest in the games or just coincidence that made me think about playing them again.

Deus Ex

Deus Ex start screen

Deus Ex: Invisible War

Deus Ex: Invisible War start screen

Anyway, I wanted to remember why I liked the first game so much and why I was disappointed with the second. Upon playing them again, I fully remembered both these things but I was also struck by how complex the story was in both of the games. The problem with the second game is not limited to the general dumbing down of the RPG elements that made the first game so great (see [A] below). I think I saw hints of a deep, deep story, just as in the first, that they only superficially were able to convey, making references to the first game without explaining what those references meant. They didn’t go deep enough to elaborate the complexity of how everything is connected and how the previous generation’s actions profoundly affect the situations the current generation found itself in. (Many characters in the second game are either descended from characters in the first or are in fact the same people from the first game.)

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Games

Oblivion mods

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OblivionThis post is old, but… I figure I should publish it rather than intend to edit it more…

After getting a new hard drive and video card, the first game I reinstalled was Oblivion. I wanted to check out all the cool fanmade mods that’ve been made over the last 2 years since I first played. To the left is a screenshot of the mods I’m running.

Basically, running the official mods plus the Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles expansions, Francesco’s overhaul mod, a couple of mods that make NPCs look better, the Natural Weather series of mods (plus a bunch of texture packs which aren’t listed to make the game look even more awesome), and some quest-type mods. The most amazing one is the Tales of the Fiend quest mod. I definitely recommend it.

You can find it and other mods in several places. First, TES Source and Planet Elder Scrolls are great sites with ratings and such, but I tend to look for links off of those sites to sites run by specific modders to read up on the latest happenings and download the latest versions. For good lists of recommended mods check out TOQL and UESP’s must have mods.

Games

Half-Life 2 mods

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I got The Orange Box two days ago and tried out Team Fortress 2 for the first time. It is a lot of fun, and I really, really suck at it. I figure a lot of my suckage is my noobness but even after I learn the game and the different classes well, I’ll probably still not be your first pick as teammate. 😛

Team Fortress 2


Anyway, Aaron actually gifted me copies of Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 about two months ago after he bought The Orange Box. The Orange Box comes with HL2, Eps 1 and 2, TF2, Portal, and Peggle. I’ve paid Aaron’s generosity forward now and gifted HL2 and Ep1 to another friend of ours.

While in Portland last month, I played Portal on Scott’s computer in the mornings while waiting for guildies to wake up so we could do our days of boardgaming. (Awesome game.) So, TF2 was really the only new game for me, though I really wanted to play Episode 2 after having HL2 and Ep1 fresh on my mind.

Yesterday, I spent some time downloading a bunch of HL2 mods. Here’s a list:

Continue reading Half-Life 2 mods →

Games, Life

Quit World of Warcraft today

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After collecting auction data over the weekend, putting pretty much everything I have in my banker mules on auction yesterday, then collecting the money and selling anything that didn’t get bid on, and finally depositing all my gold into the guild bank, I quit WoW today.  I almost teared up yesterday and today.  Auctioning everything and then collecting my mail took hours.  Yeesh!

But the tears (almost) were from melancholy as I’ve spent a good 3 years of my life with WoW and have made many friends (who I hope to see in future games).  And of course, my dissertation is on WoW players as they learn teamwork in raids.

I sent some farewell messages to non-guildies (as I plan on keeping in touch with the guild through our online forums) and sat next to Thrall in Nagrand while logging out.

Ironically, for some reason all my characters had a present in their mail for the collector’s edition pet.  I don’t know if all players who bought the collector’s edition were likewise affected, but, after 3 years, Thoguht was finally able to get a panda.  Damn you, Blizzard!  😛

Games

Best DS games I played in 2007

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Best DS games I played in 2007 (I haven’t yet played Phantom Hourglass)

Hotel Dusk screen

Hotel Dusk – This game is a masterpiece in storytelling.

Phoenix Wright

Phoenix Wright series – Perfect games for bus riding; no frenetic movements or audio required! The cases are completely over the top and they have a cool habit of relating to each other across the series.

Trace Memory

Trace Memory – Also known as Another Code. The previous game by the people who made Hotel Dusk. Also good, but not as. Still, by the end of both games I wished there were sequels to them so I could spend more time with the characters in both stories. Mark of good character development and backstory, I’d say.

Dragon Quest Heroes - Rocket Slime

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime – fun game. I played this before Dragon Quest VIII, which by the way is an excellent PS2 game.

Minish Cap

Minish Cap (technically, a GBA game…) – borrowed this from Andrew and Yo. Just about as good at Ocarina of Time, which basically means it is really, really good.

Games, Life

Trip to Portland, trip to CA, and other stuff!

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So, I haven’t posted to this blog in about a month. Wow. The main reason being that after upgrading my video card and getting a bigger hard drive, I reinstalled a ton of old games that have had user made mods released over the past couple of years or whatever and started playing them. First it was Vampire Bloodlines and now it’s Oblivion again. I’ll write about them in separate posts, including which mods I’ve been trying. On top of those two, I’ve also played Call of Duty 4, Half-Life 2, and HL2 Episode 1 (thanks Aaron!).

Last weekend people in my guild who live in the Pacific Northwest got together down in Portland, so I’ve also played a bunch of boardgames and even got a chance to play Portal during our downtime. 😛 (Check out the Portal end credits song on YouTube!)

Oh, two more things.

My paper on WoW finally got accepted to Games and Culture (a SAGE publication run by Doug Thomas) pending minor revisions (which I’ll get to in January)! Only took a year… :/

This Friday, Robin and I head down to the Bay Area to hang out with my family plus our uncle’s family (him, his wife, their 3 sons, one of the son’s wife, their two kids, and an au pair). You might know one of my cousins (one of the 3 sons) named Leehom Wang, who apparently is like the biggest pop star in Taiwan and was the 4th billed in Ang Lee’s latest movie Lust, Caution. Unfortunately, he’s just coming to San Francisco for a concert on the 23rd and then flying back to Asia the next day. I was hoping to get to know him a bit better. It’ll be cool to hang out with the other two cousins and rest of them, though!  Leo and Stacy are totally cool people, and Leekai is like the smartest person in the world.

Games

Portal: The Flash Version

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Portal: The Flash Version

(via a guildie, Euthan)

Fun 2D Flash web version of the Portal game that is getting a lot of press since it’s included in the Orange Box.

Flash version of the game Portal.