PSA: Time is a resource

I sometimes believe the internet can read my mind. Don't believe me? Well, I had been thinking to myself recently that, while an excellent source of entertainment, video games really don't do much else for you. And wouldn't you know it, the same day I find this excellent article over at Pixelated Geek. They put my thoughts into words likely better than I could.

This has nothing to do with the article, but I found it on Pixelated Geek and lol'd.
To sum up: time spent playing video games is time lost doing anything else. This is something that I think some avid gamers forget from time to time.

Oh sure, arguments be made that video games increase your hand/eye coordination, or that organizing a WoW raid is an exercise in project management. But other than other gamers, who else is going to understand this? More importantly everyone has goals in life, and most of them don't involve video games (get an education/job/spouse, raise a family, travel more, lose weight, etc.). Video games advance none of these goals.

I'm not knocking video games in any way - I love them - but I don't recommend anyone play them at the expense of other aspects of their lives.

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Quitting time

Those familiar with The Unwind know that I'm a big fan of video games. In this vein, something that never ceases to fascinate me is the gamer culture surrounding it all.

One particularly insightful article from The Escapist delves into the recent phenomenon that myself and many other gamers have experienced: not finishing games. It's a really good read that touches on many of the reasons why people stop playing games mid-way through.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_176/5486-To-Do-Finish-Any-Game

From my own experience, I know that even a 10 hour investment on a linear, complex story is asking a lot. If I step away from a game for a while - and I invariably do, thanks to everything else in my life getting in the way - I may forget the controls or what it is I have to do next and may deter me from getting back into a game. The games that I can easily and gladly sink 40+ hours into are the ones that I can just pick up and play after stretches of time away.

Also, another thing that I find is that once I understand and really figure out a game, I get bored of it. It's exciting to learn new game mechanics and immerse yourself in a new game universe, but when I "get it", it starts to get repetitive. Good games keep me interested by keeping things fresh.

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Left 4 Dead is Left 4 Awesome

Left 4 Dead is out, and it is without a doubt unbelievably cool. The premise of the game is that you are one of a group of 4 survivors and you're trying to survive one of the 4 campaigns that you are on. Each campaign plays out just like a zombie movie would, from the artwork right down to the campy dialogue between characters. Heck, the whole experience is like playing in a zombie movie, complete with movie credit-style statistics at the end of the campaign.

As you go through, you have to fight hordes upon hordes of zombies. On top of those there are several "boss infected", upgraded zombies with additional abilities. These include:

• Hunters - Zombies with the ability to jump long distances and pin down a survivor (and wail on him)
• Smokers - Zombies with really long tongues that can be used to snare and drag away a survivor.
• Boomers - Fat zombies with the ability to vomit goo on survivors. If vomited on, more hordes of regular zombies are attracted. Also, boomers explode when they take even the smallest amount of damage but spray goo everywhere in their explosion, giving them another chance to spray the survivors. I hate these guys.
• Tanks - The zombie equivalent of the incredible hulk. Holy crap are these guys scary.
• Witches - These crying abominations will remain stationary and leave you alone so long as you don't startle it. DON'T STARTLE IT. If you do, you've just forfeited your life. No joke.

Boomers. They always seem to somehow slime me and no one else. Not cool.
This game is insanely fun. There is an AI "Director" that changes up where things are located every time you play. Weapons, ammo and health packs are never in the same places. Zombie hordes are randomly sent on you and boss infected can spring up anywhere in any combination.

That, and you do this cooperatively - ideally with friends. You cannot win on your own in this game and you need to stay together with your team in order to survive.

I haven't even started playing the versus, where you have humans playing as the boss infected, but already I've had 2 moments that I had to take a step back and appreciate the awesomeness.

The first one, we had to lift a platform that we knew would attract a zombie horde. The only place we had to retreat to at this point had a witch (that we had previously snuck around). So we decide to hole up in a nearby gas station to give us some protection. Little did we realize that some of errant bullets were hitting the gas pumps, and the whole gas station exploded on us, killing 3 of the team. Top that with the fact that a boomer and hunter were harassing the lone survivor... I was shouting newer and more interesting profanities than I think I ever had before.

Secondly, we're in a hospital looking to use the elevator to get to the roof (to be rescued). We hit the call button on the elevator. Suddenly, a tank bursts through a wall Kool-aid man style right next to me. He proceeds to beat the crap out of me as I try really hard not to soil myself from the scare I just got. It was awesome.

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DOSing in the towel

The late 80's and early 90's were a simpler time for PC gaming. Kids these days are spoiled! You didn't have your quakes, steam valves, warcrafts or whatever it is you youngin's are into these day. Back in my day, you had DOS games and you liked it.

256 colors were considered a luxury. If you were lucky, you had mouse and/or joystick support (but not both!). Those were the good 'ol days. And now, one site has dedicated to recapturing the old frustration magic that was DOS gaming. Behold, Abandonia:

http://www.abandonia.com/

The site has 948 games available for immediate download and enjoyment, and many more listed for posterity's sake. I'm kinda disappointed that they don't have the best DOS game, Commander Keen 4, but they do make up for it by having Commander Keen 6 - aliens ate my baby sitter. Time to go get my pogo and raygun on.

This oughta distract me while I patiently wait for Left 4 Dead to come out... holy crap, tomorrow!

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Show and Tell: video game style

Man, it seems I've been playing a crap ton of video games lately - all of them good.

• World of Goo (PC, Wii) - This game is simply an amazing, unique experience. This game has it all: beautiful graphics, addicting music and gameplay that is extremely habit forming. Basically, you have a bunch of goo blobs, and you have to get them to a pipe at the end of the level by constructing whatever structure you need to get the goo to said pipe. Dump on that an insane amount of creativity, and you have an approximation of what this game is like.
  
  But I realized exactly why I love this game so much: I feel like a little kid again playing it. This game is so fresh and different, and requires me to think outside the box, that I feel as though it's got that same magic I discovered when I was banging away at an NES controller at age 4.
  
  Seriously, each level thusfar has brought with it huge, rewarding gameplay revelations. Each level I've completed gives me a huge sense of accomplishment. This game puts me in such a childlike trance that I'm momentarily jarred when I come back to a world in which Santa doesn't exist.
  
  
  Yup, just like this.
  This is one of those rare games that is fun for anyone who plays it. Highly, highly recommended for everyone who likes to have fun and has a pulse.



• King's Bounty: The Legend (PC) - This game was everything it advertised and then some. I checked it out expecting solid Strategy/RPG gameplay, along with a fair amount of personality and humor. I got excellent Strategy/RPG gameplay and a great amount of personality and humor.
  
  This is the first RPG where I'm actually reading the interactions with the NPCs. If you're familiar to the genre, typically when you find someone with a quest it's usually the same: click, click, click, accept quest, click, go kill or retrieve X, return for reward, rinse, repeat, find next guy.
  
  I'm instead finding myself reading all the dialogue, as well as all of my responses, because often I find myself highly amused by what's being said. And I'm loving every minute of that.



• Portal: Prelude (PC) - This was a fan-made mod to one of 2007's best games, Portal. I'll be honest: it's tough. I haven't even been able to get through the first level, so I've largely given up on it. But it is Portal, and it's free. So if you liked Portal, there's no reason you shouldn't keep trying to run through the endless turret fire in the first level give it a go.
  
  You can download the mod here.



• de Blob (Wii) - I can sum it up in 10 words: the love child of Jet Grind Radio and Sonic Adventure.

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Samba de Amigo

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for rhythm based video games. There's just something about the genre, that when you get into it - I mean, really into it - it's almost like the controller in your hands dissolves away and you're just outputting pure rhythm. When that happens, the part of my brain that controls pure joy is activated to unhealthy levels.

This is why I'm super excited for Samba de Amigo coming out for the Wii on Tuesday. Samba de Amigo was a game that, back in the Dreamcast's heyday, I couldn't get enough of. It's infectious blend of songs and light-heartedness belied a very addictive game with a lot of depth and replayability. The whole premise was that you would shake maracas in time with songs. Lacking the maraca controllers (like I did), even hitting the right combinations of buttons on the Dreamcast controller was a blast.

Gearbox Software, who are not the original Sonic Team that made the Dreamcast game, hope to recreate and improve upon the Dreamcast version, using the Wii's remove and nunchuck as maracas. Couple that with additional downloadable songs, an online leaderboard and a songlist that is over twice what the Dreamcast game was... well, I'm pretty excited.

I just hope they can pull it off. So far, the early reviews of the game say that there are problems with the controls at higher difficulties. I guess I'll find out for myself on Tuesday.

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Stay awhile and listen...

OH. MY. GOD. Diablo 3!

Yes. Just... yes.
For those not in the know, Blizzard is one of the leading video game companies in the industry. They have revolutionized the Real-Time Strategy genre (Warcraft series, Starcraft), have the most successful Massively Multiplayer Online game (World of Warcraft), and have set the gold standard on the Action RPG genre (Diablo series). This is not hyperbole. If you're a gamer and Blizzard speaks, you listen.

And speak they have. This past week, Blizzard was posting a cryptic image as a splash page to their website. Each day, the image revealed more (but still never enough) until this Saturday, where Blizzard spilled the beans at their invitational event they held in Paris: Diablo 3 is coming!

The Diablo games hold a very soft spot in my heart as a gamer, as I've probably spent more time pointing and clicking my way through hell and back than is probably healthy for me. Diablo 1 occupied a lot of my time in high school, whereas Diablo 2 was most of my college days. I've got a bajillion stories that I could relate and likely will as time goes on and more details about Diablo 3 are released. But for now, let's bask in the initial deets.

Though Blizzard's set a target date for "when they're done" (grr), I couldn't be any more excited about the game. Already, they have revealed that two of the playable classes are the Barbarian and a new class, Witch Doctor. Check it out for yourself at their website:

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/

This is something I'm keeping a close eye on and will add my reactions to it each and every time some new details are released. Right now I'm still fawning over the cinematics and gameplay videos. BRING ON THE SECRET COW LEVEL DIABLO!

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Spy's sapping my post!

I owned a Nintendo Entertainment System when I was 4, and since then video games have been something of an obsession a pastime of mine. Seriously, if I devoted even a tenth of the amount of time I spent with Italian plumbers and blue hedgehogs to something productive, I could have learned 12 different languages or cured cancer by now.

Then I leveled up my real-world avatar and things like "responsibility", "finances" and "pants" were things that I could no longer avoid. Between the demands of a day job and something that resembles a normal social life I had little time or energy left to play video games. Most of the time, I was only able to dabble in this, or dabble in that. Everything seemed like more of the same. This was especially true of the first person shooter (FPS) genre, which came in three flavors: tactical, Counterstrike-esque shooter; futuristic, frantic Halo-esque shooter; and World War 2.

Suddenly, along comes a game called Team Fortress 2, and totally recaptures my attention and free time. I'm not the first person to talk about this game, and as God as my witness, I'm not going to be the last. You join a server, pick one of two teams fighting each other, and pick one of nine classes of characters (pictured above). Brief summary: it's a game that favors teamwork and group tactics over "lone-wolf" mentality to accomplish the particular goals of a map.

I could wax poetic about the amount of polish, class balance, and addictability (that a word?) this game contains, but what really hooked me was the personality. Each of the nine aforementioned misfits- er classes, have their own set of weapons, strengths and weaknesses and personality. This personality is palpable, and oozes out of every detail.

The demoman is a drunk Scottish explosives expert with one functioning eye and can slap people around with an alcohol jug. The Heavy, that big slow brute, laughs maniacally when he fires off a few hundred rounds. The German-accented Medic is a really weak combatant but will still try to put up a fight with a syringe gun in a pinch. And nothing, I repeat nothing, in the game is more satisfying than as a Spy getting behind an enemy rush and stabbing as many of them as possible in the back.

Valve, the game's creator and apparently not content with merely representing the classes' personality in game, also developed several short videos for each of the classes in the "meet the" series of videos. They don't have all of the classes represented yet, but to get an idea of the personality I'm talking about:

• Meet the Scout
• Meet the Engineer
• Meet the Demoman
• Meet the Soldier
• Meet the Heavy

This is one of the few games in recent memory that has been able to not only hold my attention for so long, but genuinely continue to excite me every time I play. I could go on and on... but I think I'd rather get back to playing.

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