Monday, April 30, 2007

Well, here I am, madly trying to finish school a week early so I can get more time to play this summer.

School for me ends mid-June, however (the 3rd week), but, if I work hard (and get up early each morning to do school) then I can be done my school a week ahead of schedule at least, which is exciting.

So… I’m a week ahead of my Science. WAY ahead on my Grammar stuff (according to my schedule that I created, I should be done in 2-3 weeks when I have 7 more weeks of school). My Math, which is done with Potter’s School (an online school) will be done by 25th of May, the only thing I need to worry about is my English and History.

English, well, you see I have a ton of books I need to read… which means I’ll probably end up reading and stuff over the summer… something that I don’t look forward to.

But, nothing to do but press on and get my school finished… the sooner I get the work done the sooner I can play video games all day long an focus on my writing a bit more.


Oh, and I'll be starting a new blog for my WFRP group soon... hopefully, I be putting up regular updates.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

NWN2 - A semi review

Okay, I’m not going to a proper review of Neverwinter Nights 2 seeing as I never bothered to finish it, but, I suppose I might as well tell you guys what I thought of it.

In all, it wasn’t worth it.

Now, mind you, one of the greatest things about NWN 1 was the online play, something that I don’t do, so, I don’t know if NWN2 had amazing online play or not.

Anyways… I think for me the biggest problem was that NWN2’s graphics just annoying. My graphics card, a rather nice one, and one that runs Oblivion fine (it works perfectly, though I’m not sure if it was set to “low” or “medium”), but doesn’t run NWN2??!!!! I mean, IMO, Oblivion has MUCH better graphics, yet, it manages to work on my mediocre PC MUCH better than NWN2… that’s just messed up.

Also, I’m not sure why, but I think I enjoyed NWN MORE than its sequel. The only reason I would ever buy NWN2 over NWN is the fact that you get a proper party, 4 people (actually 5, but the 5th doesn’t come in till mid story). However, your companions are pretty boring, the only one with any real depth is your dwarf dude, to compare this to KOTORII (which is quite logical, since Obsidian made both games), KOTORII, a older game with less variety in your character (only 3 classes, and 6 prestige classes, which are really just good/evil versions of the 3 primary classes with some new abilities) was SO much more fun, why? Because it had depth. Each character had some sort of twist to his background (except one, but that’s out of 9 mind you), plus it FELT epic… and, when I think of it, NWN2 is supposed to feel epic, yet, when I played it, I just sort of felt like it wasn’t.

I could go on, but, I’m not going to… you can read professional reviews everywhere. www.ign.com, www.gamespy.com, www.gamespot.com, etc. so go ahead and read a review there if you want to buy the game… but, from what I’ve played, it wasn’t that great, if I had to review it, I’d probably give it a 6.8 out of 10.

However, mind you, that rating doesn’t include exploring your castle (which supposedly is AWESOME), online play, and completing the single-player campaign.

Now, back to finishing up my Space Marine DOW Dark Crusade Campaign… how I wish I could get 4 squads of termies instead of 2… just two more and I’d be happy, I’d be willing to drop Landspeeders, grey knights (even if they are awesome) and my chaplain for them.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Boredom

Well, I’m bored.

Okay, I’m not actually bored, I just don’t have any decent PC games to play.

I should try and win HL2: Episode One, but, it tends to freeze my PC and I’m not all that fond of playing the whole game all over again.

I could continue Total Annihilation, but, it gets a bit old pretty fast.

I probably will continue to play DoW: Dark Crusade, it’s a fun game and I enjoy playing the space marines, Grey Knights are cool, even if they don’t add anything to the game and are, background wise at least, probably not going to fight with Space Marines very often.

And so, I’ll probably continue playing the most entertaining game I have right now, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, a GBA game I have for my PC. How does that work? Well, my friend Jacob has this technology and P2P software that allows him to put GBA files on his PC, I went over to his house, copied the files to a USB Stick and then put them on my computer.

Now, onto FF. Final Fantasy Tactics advanced is a Grid Turn Based RPG. What does that mean? Well first of all, it isn’t realistic. Units determine when they move by how fast they are (initiative and speed or something similar) as well as how many actions they used (up to a maximum of 2, moving and then using a ability like fight or a class specific power). Grid means the map is a grid, think of a piece of graphing paper, where a unit is placed in a square… only with some 3D things to think about such as height (which is really important for units who used ranged weapons like archers and gunners (yes, there are gunners)).

The game is fun, the story isn’t amazing, and the combat system isn’t new, what is cool is the class (jobs in this game) system.

You see, every race has some basic “jobs” humans have the most, while bangaa (lizard men, but they look more like dogs) have the least (I’m not sure what the other races are called, you have moogles, which have wings and technology, people with bunny ears and then some weird thing who I have no idea how to describe). Each job has different abilities, archers have ranged attacks, black mages have ranged offensive powers, white mages have ranged defensive powers (like cure, protect and such) solders have random melee powers (which aren’t that useful). Also, each class has different stats, thieves are fast, and warriors are slow.

Then you have more powerful special classes, like fighters, templars, paladins, ninjas, and snipers, and after that I think you get even more powerful, but, I never made it that far.

Anyways… that’s what’s keeping me sane these few days, hopefully it’ll tide me over till Brian comes back and I can play more of Oblivion.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Easter Week

Well, my Easter Holiday was fun. Two sleepovers and lots of Video Games, namely, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, NFL Street, and Counterstrike: Source (CS).

First, Easter Sunday, I enjoyed fooling around and then going to the Dressners for Easter Sunday Dinner, Brian and Julie in a break from the norm because Julie was homesick, instead of spending their Mid-term break in India came to BD for the week, which meant I got to have a sleepover with Brian, and play Oblivion.

After a few hours of sleep and more Oblivion, we had breakfast and then went to a gamecafe (a place with like 6-12 PCs linked up on a LAN connection where you pay money to play video games) to play CS with Jacob and Caleb, plus Brian.

That was fun, we played for 2 hours, and I found out that while Caleb was mediocre at CS, Jacob kicked butt. He had mastered the art of headshots and tended to smash us with a lot of SMG fire before we could blast back.

Then I borrowed Oblivion and didn’t do much else for the week, which was fun, by the time I had to give it up I was almost lvl 9, focused on my fighting with Blunt weapons (not sure why they’re called blunt, but basically maces and axes versus bows, and then blade weapons which are knives and swords), with a bit of healing and destruction magic thrown in for good measure, on and I’m an orc, which is sorta weird but I like it.

Then I learned that Matt, who had also come to Dhaka for Mid-Term Break, was having an early 17th B-day party (its scary to realize that him and Brian will be Seniors next year… very scary). That was fun, we went to the club, played soccer and water polo, played Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, and NFL Street, then woke up to go to Church.

And well, yep, that was, in brief, my week, now its but back to school for another month and a half, then SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^ That was fun :p.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Oblivion

HAPPY EASTER!

What did I do on Easter? Well, mainly, I played oblivion.

What is Oblivion? FOOLS! Don't you know what this game is?! EVIL! BURN THE WITCHES! (okay, back to the cage...)

*Several hours later*

Sorry, seems I didn't take my pills, where were we? Ah yes, Oblivion.

Elder Scrolls IV: oblivion is a single player only Role-playing game. It is, unlike any RPG I've ever played, totally non-linear. You see, in most games, while you can run around and do a few side quests, sooner or later you need to complete the main story. While this is true of Oblivion, since the game supposedly (I've heard this at least) has 200+ hours of side quests, it won't happen any time soon.

So, what do I do in Oblivion? Well right now I'm randomly running around and trying to kill someone to actract the assassins guild called the Dark Brotherhood, and later on, I'm going to meet a person to get to the Thieves' Guild. Then maybe I'll go to the Area and fight a bit for cash, or perhaps join the Mages' Guild? Hmm...

Oh, and I could always help the Emperor's Heir get his Amulet that he needs to stop the demons from destroying the world so he can take the throne... but I don't see this happening any time soon, its actually quite boring.

More on my easter later... right now, I need to play this game of amazingness.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Today in our family bible study we read the first 2 chapters of 2nd Thessalonians. Now, before you jump at my sudden spirituality, allow me to remind you, I AM a Christian, and I DO believe that Jesus is my savior… even perhaps I don’t have that air of a “Christian” about me, and in fact, dislike the term, as it gives off a cliché sort of feeling, a cliché I try to break to prove that Christians do have to fit that cliché mold. However, enough ranting… back to the theological me, not the angry oneJ.

Anyways, we were reading the Bible, and Paul mentions the “lawless one” which some people interpret as a human who will take over the world and proclaim himself God (though I will say that since the Bible doesn’t say this, it is possible that the “lawless one” could be a philosophy or new religion as well as a person, it could also be a country). And I realized something, I found another Biblical Analogy in the wonderful (erm “nightmare”) world of Warhammer 40k.

You see, in 40k, there is this race of ancient beings (why do all sci-fi setting have one?) called the Eldar. Now, the Eldar ruled the galaxy before humanity was in existence. And they still ruled the Galaxy when humanity began to travel about it for the first time. Anyways, well, as with I’d say all decently old races in warhammer 40k, the Eldar fell, in fact, their fall was so important in the history of our galaxy that it is called the Fall, with a big “f”. Why did they fall? Well, they became too focused on pleasure. They went around and did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, however they wanted. If that meant getting high, they then they did that, and many, many, many other, much more disgusting things.

Some of the Eldar rejected this life-style and they began to build HUGE ships to escape the Eldar Empire.

And what happened to the Eldar as a race? Well, the short story is that their continuous lust for pleasure created a new, powerful warp being, a new chaos god (this gets a bit hard to explain, but, basically, the chaos gods want exactly that, they are known as the Ruinous Powers, as they tend to umm… ruin people). When this Chaos God was “born” it created a rift in at the heart of the Eldar Empire, a rift between the Materium (the realm we exist in) and the Immaterium (also known as the “warp”, the place were the thoughts of humanity become reality, a really, really, freaky place). And also killed about 90% of the Eldar race, the rest escaped in their big ships or somehow managed to survive and continue to this day their disgusting search for pleasure.

Now, how does this be spiritual? Well, you see, in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 12, “it says, and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” And, as stupid as this may sound, but the picture of the Fall came to my mind as exactly what may happen to the earth. I can imagine a big, huge city like New York were the only desire of everyone in it is to experience some new kind of pleasure, whatever it may be, no matter how perverted.

Anyways… that’s a look into how I view the Bible. And, as disturbing as 40k can be some times (they do go so far as to sometimes quote the Bible or famous Christian quotes and turn them into 40k quotes… which does slightly disturb me), it does have some really good Biblical pictures in it.

Till later.

The masterofweirdness, your supreme (erm… not really) lord, Roy Isaac.