I don't remember if I beat the second quest in Zelda 1 when I was a kid. I probably did, but I'm not certain.
I bought the Virtual Console version 4 years ago, when Wii was brand new and there were only 5 NES titles to download. Since I've been playing it infrequently, the first quest of Zelda took about a year and a half to complete.
Last week, I was still on level 4 of the second quest. But I played it early last week, and my 3-year-old started to take interest. His favorite things to do were to spin around and fall down when I died, wave his toy sword at the screen whenever a monster was on it, and talk endlessly about secret passages.
It dawned on me too that secret passages are so much more fun when there's one in every single screen of a game, and why don't more games hide an endless array of them like this old, tried-and-true classic? It seems like the newer Zelda games even only give you a few boulders here and there, clearly marked, spaced by vast regions that do little more than ensure that the area takes a little longer to traverse.
After beating the second quest, another fun thing happened...I got my 3-year-old to start up his own game. For the last week he's been cheerleading my playing, but upon starting his own game, he built up from not knowing even how to walk up, down, left, or right, to actually walking around while hitting the sword button and watching the screen all at once in 45 minutes...And he's never played a game that long before (unless you count dancing to Beatles Rock Band). I'm excited to see where this kid goes now that his attention span and skill is finally developed enough to handle Zelda.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Artemis Spaceship Simulator
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/27/take-it-to-the-bridge-artemis-spaceship-sim/#comments
Oh wow...You can finally man an old-school style Star Trek-like bridge simulation for $60, 5 buddies, and an uber lan party...If only the graphics were better!
Oh wow...You can finally man an old-school style Star Trek-like bridge simulation for $60, 5 buddies, and an uber lan party...If only the graphics were better!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Lotro gets expensive
So I didn't know this before but apparently my PTP (Pay to play) friends are getting reamed by Turbine. Turbine charges you (in Turbine points) for every mount riding ability you want to earn with every character you play with. A number of other things like that are going on too. I'm ok with charging one time fees for content or dinging stupid people for perks that don't help or for potions but some of this stuff is ridiculous... Honestly.. speeding up deeds? Cmon... How low can you go? (Sing it with me now!)
(they also ding you for shared bank storage and the two extra classes which were part of Moria. (Not surprised on the classes one, I had to pay for them too..)
(they also ding you for shared bank storage and the two extra classes which were part of Moria. (Not surprised on the classes one, I had to pay for them too..)
Any good games?
So this is a blog post asking my fellow bloggers what good games they have heard of that are coming out soon. (Don't have to be MMO's) It will be shopping season for us soon and I'd like to know what's cooking.
As a side note... I think the new dungeon feature in Lotro is cool but the first dungeon has a bugged encounter in one wing (the maze) A word to the wise, before you take on the master elite barrow wight, tell everyone to stay downstairs or the encounter will reset annoyingly.
As a side note... I think the new dungeon feature in Lotro is cool but the first dungeon has a bugged encounter in one wing (the maze) A word to the wise, before you take on the master elite barrow wight, tell everyone to stay downstairs or the encounter will reset annoyingly.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
What's Hot, What's Not in Lotro
So I've been busy playing the new book chapters and trying out all the new fangled features. I've come up with a small list of likes and dislikes from what I've seen in the changes to the game.
Dislikes:
1. I don't like the color scheme of the exp bar, I liked the old one better.
2. I don't like the blaring annoying "Lotro store icon" in the lower right that is now always there instead of hidden away in a menu. (the marketing ninjas probably required that)
3. I don't like the names I'm seeing come up on some of the new players, they are rather offensive (prolly came straight from WoW :P)
4. I don't like how you can buy travel things/deeds/etc, that you used to and still can earn the hard way. I agree with Keen on this point, that it trivializes past accomplishments.
5. I don't like how low the population bar is set on the new area layering technology. It seems like if 40 people come into an area, it splits it into two instances of 20 people unless they are already in a raid
6. I don't like how they have given us "perks" that fill our already overflowing bags up.
7. I thought they said that the new area was going to be an alternative place to level from 60-65 but make no mistake about it folks. This new area (Enedwaith) is for lvl 64+ characters.
Likes:
1. I do like seeing lots of new players around everywhere. The game and world is alive again!
2. I do like chatting with people in OOC chat and there is a lot of chatting going on.
3. I do like they are making more real money off of the suckers willing to buy potions and perks in the game instead of craft/earn them so that they can afford to develop more gorgeous areas and more importantly, PlayerVersusMonsterPlayer skirmishes!!!!
4. I do like the new area they added (its really pretty), though the quest designers need to be given a lesson in creative quest design. They should all be sentenced to play Baldur's gate 2 for 2 hours every night, in which there are NO kill 10 rats quests and very very few "run to this side of the map and then run back" quests just to waste your time.
5. I do like that they upgraded the graphics engine to directx11 now.
6. I do like the instance join option. I may actually get to see some instances I never got to run now, like Annuminas!
7. I do like the newly revamped Hobbit/human area involving you with Aragorn and politics of the area more in the quest line.
8. I do like the fact that my friends who played WoW are now considering jumping (and some have) into Lotro.
All in all I think more good qill come of this than bad because if things get really unbalanced Turbine has thus far been pretty good at hitting things with the nerf bat eventually. But there's always the few who will buy their way to world domination and then leave cuz there's nothing left to improve and thus they get bored. They too help fund additions to the game so bully for them... (I guess I'm not a purist after all :P)
Dislikes:
1. I don't like the color scheme of the exp bar, I liked the old one better.
2. I don't like the blaring annoying "Lotro store icon" in the lower right that is now always there instead of hidden away in a menu. (the marketing ninjas probably required that)
3. I don't like the names I'm seeing come up on some of the new players, they are rather offensive (prolly came straight from WoW :P)
4. I don't like how you can buy travel things/deeds/etc, that you used to and still can earn the hard way. I agree with Keen on this point, that it trivializes past accomplishments.
5. I don't like how low the population bar is set on the new area layering technology. It seems like if 40 people come into an area, it splits it into two instances of 20 people unless they are already in a raid
6. I don't like how they have given us "perks" that fill our already overflowing bags up.
7. I thought they said that the new area was going to be an alternative place to level from 60-65 but make no mistake about it folks. This new area (Enedwaith) is for lvl 64+ characters.
Likes:
1. I do like seeing lots of new players around everywhere. The game and world is alive again!
2. I do like chatting with people in OOC chat and there is a lot of chatting going on.
3. I do like they are making more real money off of the suckers willing to buy potions and perks in the game instead of craft/earn them so that they can afford to develop more gorgeous areas and more importantly, PlayerVersusMonsterPlayer skirmishes!!!!
4. I do like the new area they added (its really pretty), though the quest designers need to be given a lesson in creative quest design. They should all be sentenced to play Baldur's gate 2 for 2 hours every night, in which there are NO kill 10 rats quests and very very few "run to this side of the map and then run back" quests just to waste your time.
5. I do like that they upgraded the graphics engine to directx11 now.
6. I do like the instance join option. I may actually get to see some instances I never got to run now, like Annuminas!
7. I do like the newly revamped Hobbit/human area involving you with Aragorn and politics of the area more in the quest line.
8. I do like the fact that my friends who played WoW are now considering jumping (and some have) into Lotro.
All in all I think more good qill come of this than bad because if things get really unbalanced Turbine has thus far been pretty good at hitting things with the nerf bat eventually. But there's always the few who will buy their way to world domination and then leave cuz there's nothing left to improve and thus they get bored. They too help fund additions to the game so bully for them... (I guess I'm not a purist after all :P)
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Random Links about Games...and stuff.
Here are a few links I want to read over again. For various reasons of interest.
http://gamerant.com/interview-author-dean-koontz-talks-storytelling-video-games-poole-38472/
http://gamerant.com/hardcore-gamers-wii-culture-poole-37277/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/02/24/this-hunger-for-reality/comment-page-2/#comments
http://www.world-mysteries.com/rennes_mneyman.htm
http://gamerant.com/interview-author-dean-koontz-talks-storytelling-video-games-poole-38472/
http://gamerant.com/hardcore-gamers-wii-culture-poole-37277/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/02/24/this-hunger-for-reality/comment-page-2/#comments
http://www.world-mysteries.com/rennes_mneyman.htm
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Labor Day Special
I had a great horse race with my wife and my little sister last week in lotro, and this week I got to raid with my sister-in-law, soon to be brother-in-law, sister, and friends I made in-game. We started up a "Hand of Smack" (our kin) raid and had 6 people in no time! took me about 20 minutes to round up another 6 and bam! we were rolling.
This was to be a lvl 34 raid of the Seige of Gondamon. Not something to do lightly, I might add. The enemies were fierce and the waves came on two sides sometimes. I foudn that once (not if) the outer defenders died, it was best for the group to stay in the middle downstairs and just deal with everything there. If you hang out upstairs there's more chance something will kill Mathi and that's never good. On our second try we downed both dragons, and the Mr.Heat Wave Dourhand Dwarf. (You have to fight three bosses at once in raid mode, and they all do tons of damage. They really DO want to take down the city of Gondamon after all) Lastly I spent some time playing a vicious game of Scrabble, swimming in the pool, and helping my brother-in-law learn how to craft and navigate quests in Lotro with his newbie hunter who is now lvl 16.
And today, I can't play so I'm writing instead. Cuz apparently the servers are down until tomorrow. I'm kinda reserving my judgment on this whole FTP thing until I see the results. It might be beneficial for the long term health of the game. But personally I think they should have at least let them have the lone lands free, if they really wanted them to get hooked, or at a discount anyways. Well I live on Windfola, one of the least populated servers previously so maybe it'll be a great thing. Maybe I better start recruiting noobs. Who knows. If any of you bloggers come to Windfola add Thallian to your friends list and send me a letter. I'll add you to my friends too, and invite you to the kin when I catch you on. ;)
This was to be a lvl 34 raid of the Seige of Gondamon. Not something to do lightly, I might add. The enemies were fierce and the waves came on two sides sometimes. I foudn that once (not if) the outer defenders died, it was best for the group to stay in the middle downstairs and just deal with everything there. If you hang out upstairs there's more chance something will kill Mathi and that's never good. On our second try we downed both dragons, and the Mr.Heat Wave Dourhand Dwarf. (You have to fight three bosses at once in raid mode, and they all do tons of damage. They really DO want to take down the city of Gondamon after all) Lastly I spent some time playing a vicious game of Scrabble, swimming in the pool, and helping my brother-in-law learn how to craft and navigate quests in Lotro with his newbie hunter who is now lvl 16.
And today, I can't play so I'm writing instead. Cuz apparently the servers are down until tomorrow. I'm kinda reserving my judgment on this whole FTP thing until I see the results. It might be beneficial for the long term health of the game. But personally I think they should have at least let them have the lone lands free, if they really wanted them to get hooked, or at a discount anyways. Well I live on Windfola, one of the least populated servers previously so maybe it'll be a great thing. Maybe I better start recruiting noobs. Who knows. If any of you bloggers come to Windfola add Thallian to your friends list and send me a letter. I'll add you to my friends too, and invite you to the kin when I catch you on. ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)