After slaying what seemed like countless waves of undead beings – humans, dogs, horses, there might have been a parakeet in there somewhere – our group emerged victorious, but only by the skin of our teeth.
D&D Night 2 Recap from Garret Evans on Vimeo.
Hot on the heals of my last post that talked about an incredibly long and in depth look into a ten year old video game comes the logical next step: a discussion of Dungeons & Dragons. I started a campaign with some friends last night. We got to kill some undead things and a giant flaming, zombie dragon. It was awesome. It was the first time I had ever played, so it took some getting used to, as I have no imagination whatsoever, but I think it’ll be fun.
Additionally, I decided to tape some of the game (this was an hour of what turned out to be about 6 hours of playtime). Let the nerding begin!
I usually don’t post a whole lot of video game articles here, but this one is definitely worth the read. If you have ever played through The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, please take some time to read this article. It’s a very interesting description of the themes of the game, which heavily include the idea of faith and its effects. It’s very well written. The article’s author is described as a sophomore at some college (at least of the time of its writing); I really hope he turned this in for some writing class. But go read it, it’s good times.
I don’t know if anyone else does this, but when my friends and I play Carcassone, we like to make up shapes and names for the towns that get built. I just played a game online, and here’s what it all looked like to me:
I wouldn’t mind living in Clawberton…
Last weekend some friends of mine and I decided to get together and play some WoW. The task at hand was to raid Naxx, which is short for “Naxxramas,” which is short for “we are nerds.” Raids can go up to and include 40 people, but for our purposes, we were doing a ten man raid that fateful day.
This was actually four photos, but Photoshop is kind enough to have a “Photomerge” script that will take your pictures and handily make a panorama from them. The pics were taken with my iPhone.
So there you have it. If you were ever curious as to what nerds do, there you go.
Warning: clicking the photo above may make your browser go a little wonky. Luckily you can just hit the little X in the lower right hand corner.
This is the start of the second week of NaNoWriMo, and to date I have written a total of 0 words for the event. Time to make excuses:
So there you have it. A few excuses for me not having written anything yet. Had I been writing the average daily wordage you need to complete 50,000 words in a month, I’d be up to about 11.5k. As it stands now, if I want to start today, I will need to knock out 2,173 words per day to finish on time. That’s not horribly out of the question, but we’ll see how it goes. I might just submit the novelette I wrote a few years ago, but that would be cheating because I definitely didn’t write that in an month.
This post may be a little outdated since this game is a few weeks old, but I just wanted to throw down some general opinions of the game.
Of course, this is Mario Kart. You’ve played this before on every Nintendo console since the SNES. This edition in the series has come back to its proverbial roots. Gone are the two passenger karts that were so debatable in the Gamecube version (people either loved or hated those. I was indifferent, honestly. I had fun either way). Returning are the solo karts that most people are familiar with. New to the game are motorcycles. To be perfectly honest, they sound really really cool but do not add an incredible amount of variance to the gameplay. They can, however, do wheelies that can give the player additional speed with loss of some control in addition to being able to drive through dirt and grass a little better. Karts get absolutely destroyed in terms of speed if you happen to go astray.
There are two big addtiions to the game that are new to Nintendo console (not handheld) Mario Karts. The first that everyone notices is, of course, the Wii Wheel. This completely original and never before seen device is included with every copy of the game for no additional cost. Really it’s just a plastic shoe for the Wii Remote to fit in. And while it doesn’t look like anything special, it adds a lot. I’ve come to absolutely love the Wii Wheel. I didn’t think I would, because up until now I’ve been a tried and true controller only karter ( what other choice did I have?). I thought that I would use the wheel a couple of times and then throw it aside. The opposite has happened. I pretty much use the wheel only now. It adds this visceral level to the game that makes it incredibly fun. There were worries that it would not be as responsive as the regular controller, but I think it controls better with the wheel. I feel like it fits perfectly with the game, and I’m sure they tweaked it for the wheel, but I’m just saying. Just like peace, you need to give it a chance.
The second “new” thing to come along is the added online modes. The game plays smooth as butter online, and that is really quite surprising. I didn’t think it would be so easy and work so well. Adding friends is made simpler as well. There are still friend codes, but you can send invites to friends on your main Wii friends list. It’s a baby step, but it’s one step closer by Nintendo for making a contemporary online experience. Not perfect, but better.
The online service also tracks yours and your friends’ records through a Mario Kart channel that exists on your Wii’s main page. This channel can be launched – without the game inside the machine – to check these records in addition to downloading “ghosts” to race and entering tourneys. Of course, once you do try to race ghosts or enter a tournament, you have to insert the game, but it’s nice to be able to check.
There is one thing that I do not like about the game, and this is a complaint many peopl ehave had about the last few Mario Karts: Blue shells and “Rubberbanding.” No matter how good a racer you are, if you stay in first place for too long you will inevitably be hit by a blue shell. It is pretty much unavoidable, especially at the 100cc and 150cc levels. This will make the other computer racers “rubber band” back up to you. It doesn’t matter how good you are, the computer will always be in contention. Always. While this makes for more “excitement,” it also adds to the frustration. The player’s ability to race by virtue of skill is reduced, and the level of having to rely on luck is greatly increased. Fortunately, when you’re playing with real people online or otherwise, it’s less of an annoyance. It doesn’t seem to be as aggravating because you don’t feel like humans can “cheat” to get those items like the computer can.
So all in all it’s a very solid game. The Mario Kart games always are. If you have any interest in the game or past games then you should probably pick it up. It is one of the best in the series.
I don’t usually post video links here, but I couldn’t resist. Any World of Warcraft news is good news. Video courtesy of The Onion.
‘Warcraft’ Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing ‘Warcraft’
