Well, I was hoping something would jump out at me by this Friday and boy did it ever. Since the news was made that Turner Broadcasting was looking to sell off their online video game distribution service GameTap or just pull the plug on the entire thing, it's been sort of up in the air about what the fate of the platform would be. Who knew we would look to the French to step up and take the reins? Paris-based Metaboli has agreed to keep the service alive, and, in a decision that had to have been a very calculated move against soon-to-launch Good Old Games, they are now adding the original Fallout to the collection of free titles, a game which GOG is currently offering for $5.99 to the early beta testers.
Anyway, Fallout, one of the most popular RPGs of all time, the game that spawned my love for nuclear apocalypse long before I saw any of the actual films the game was heavily influence by, and also the game that spawned one of the most rabid fanbases filled with more complete fucking raisin cakes than you will ever see. I really don't need to go into detail, do I? If you like RPGs, if you like sci-fi, if you like dark humor, if you like turn-based games, if you like post-apocalyptic atmosphere, if you like guns or just if you haven't even played motherfucking Fallout before, you're doing yourself a grave disservice by not grabbing it right away. All you need to do is download the GameTap client from the link below, you don't even have to set up an account or anything. It's engrossing, it's huge and, now, it's free. What more do you need?
Download, gametap_setup.exe
-K.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Play This Now: Fallout
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Curses, You Know My Weakness: Stupid Crap
Sort of hot on the heels of my stupid Fallout 3 purchase comes the news that EA's upcoming third-person sci-fi horror shooter Dead Space will be dropping an "ULTRA LIMITED EDITION" that is both ridiculously priced and includes tons of useless crap that I find hard to resist.
Goddamn it, video game companies, you can't space this shit out? Dead Space is releasing October 14th, then Far Cry 2 (Which also has a stupid limited edition in a wooden box) hits October 21st, then Fallout 3 hits October 28th, then the first half of November will see the release of both Mirror's Edge and Left 4 Dead. Please stop making limited/collector's editions of things, I'm going to spending enough money as it is.
-K.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Play This Now: Gang Garrison 2
Putting this up early because I had nothing to update with on Friday, hopefully I'll dig something else up for this week as well.
Probably the most entertaining entry in TigSource's Bootleg Demake Competition, Gang Garrison 2 is a 2D side-scrolling "demake" of Valve's Team Fortress 2, complete with all nine classes and online play. I'm sure most of you will find it immediately reminiscent of Soldat, except much more fun (I wasn't particularly fond of it). Though it's still very much a work-in-progress with only three maps, lack of any chat functions, the engineer can't currently build anything, lag issues and some crashing bugs, but hopefully they'll continue to iron things out and make it grow long after the voting ends and the competition is over. Even though I could fire up actual Team Fortress 2 I've been playing this quite a bit these last two days, because, providing you can find a server, it's really easy to jump into. Give it a shot and keep an eye on its progress, it's free and it'll take no time to download at all.
Download, gg2b19.zip (5.57 MB)
-K.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Kyle's Passive-Aggressive Moving Company
One of the reasons I was more than happy to escape the clutches of retail was so I wouldn't have to suffer the indignities of cleaning up after assholes, children and sometimes assholes and their children or ridiculous customers who demand I give them discounts based on coupons they left at home or countless other examples. There are times, though, albeit rarely, that compare to the soul-crushing experiences of Spencer's Gifts.
My mornings here usually consist of a couple offices moves; Disconnecting an employee's system, moving to their new office, and hooking it up again. Occasionally, when there's a combination of Building Services not being included in the move and the employee has some small stuff they would like to transport, I agree to take it for them. Today I had a fellow who had me carry the entire contents of his former cubicle. It began with him asking me if I could take a couple books, then he also asked if I could take two small bean bags, then he began putting more crap on my cart without asking. I use the word crap very deliberately because it included:
- An empty jar of Planter's peanuts
- A handful of thumbtacks
- $0.08 (One nickel and three pennies)
- His empty satchel, which I assume he carried in himself
- Two pink balloons
- ...Two pink balloons
-K.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday Friday Morning Afternoon Video Thing
UPDATE: The site I mention below seems to be a little stubborn now, but it works after a few refreshes.
So I haven't updated in a while, mostly due to a combination of sleep deprivation and (constant) lack of creativity, also a lack of tracking down any decent free games. I did want to share this with you, since it's technically a video, but somewhat interactive. I want to point you in the direction of the site for NOLAF, the National Organization for Legislation Against Fun, a funny, thoroughly produced and truly bizarre viral marketing program for, get this, Tostitos. I guess it worked because within an hour of viewing the site in its entirety I purchased a bag of the corn-based snack. It must've been a lot of fun to create, and I wish I had the money or drive or energy or talent to create something along these lines, because I could see a similar format being expanded upon to create a kind of old school, FMV-based adventure game. Something like the classic Pandora Directive.
Check it out, but by all means do not enjoy it.
-K.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Ye Olde Game Shoppe
So I finally got into the beta for Good Old Games, which is basically exactly what I've been pining for recently; A Steam-like service for old games. I don't know why an online store needs a beta, but who knows. What Valve does with their service is admirable, most recently putting up the entire X-COM collection and the first two Oddworld games, but a service that focuses entirely on just bringing you these titles, retooled to function with XP or Vista, reasonably price (It looks like most everything is $5.99) and absolutely no DRM, is especially appealing. I logged in for the first time yesterday, picking up Shogo, Fallout Tactics and Descent 3 (Plus the expansion) for a little under $20. I kind of regret Shogo, because at the time it was a pretty fun shooter from a still fairly new Monolith Productions, but it has not aged well. Also I had some technical issues with the game, so it's not perfect, but part of the service is continuing to address these problems. They plan to have a new release every week, and if they can keep it up I imagine I'll be talking about the service fairly frequently.
On an unrelated note, I finally updated the Stuff You Should Like, on the right column, after months of neglect.
-K.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Thursday Morning Video Triple Play
Because I am nothing if not generous and the vastness of the internet is such that having a backlog of funny videos is a silly concept, I am going to assault you with a collection of hilarious things from the internet. I hope Ian McShane narrates more funny things in the future.
-K.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Making Like Chow Yun-Fat
So after completing Max Payne I almost immediately installed Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne and played through that again. Now I've been playing around with a few mods and remembering that, when it comes to dicking around and making screenshots, it's got high marks in that regard as well.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Cheers and Jeers
Cheers: So as part of the big Vivactard merger, as we discussed earlier, it saw them dropping licenses left and right, as if they were loose change falling out of the pockets of a man desperately trying to get to catch a train on time. Coincidenally enough it was the train heading to Moneytown, but I digress. This has allowed Monolith to re-acquire the F.E.A.R. brand so that their upcoming sequel will now be appropriately titled. Good for them.
Jeers: After almost nine months working here and reading the site regularly, my employers have seen fit to block access to Penny-Arcade. PvP, VGCats, and Ctrl+Alt+Del all remain perfectly acceptable, confirming, once again, that there is no rhyme or reason as to what sites are deemed unfit for workplace surfing. I did not link the latter two sites because you should not view them, and would make much better blocking candidates because they are unfit for any surfing.
-K.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Play This Now: Urban Brawl (Action Doom 2)
It warms my heart when clever nerds get together to create something new out of old technology. More often than not it results in little more than great big face lifts, like Tenebrae for the original Quake, while technically extremely impressive does nothing to change or improve actual gameplay. But occasionally you get something like Urban Brawl, the stand-alone prequel to a Doom 2 mod I was previously unfamiliar with (and bears very little resemblance to this). What they've produced is basically an old school 2D beat-'em-up in 3D with the Doom engine, with an art style I could only describe as a poor man's Frank Miller with more color. It also offers branching paths with multiple endings, though, much like an old 2D game, it does get brutally difficult at times. You might also have to look past the not-so-great voice acting and writing that makes Max Payne's hammiest lines seem straight out of a Steinbeck classic, but if you can you've got a unique and admirable (and free!) time-waster.
Download, action2.zip (56.9MB)
-K.
Friday, September 5, 2008
In Space, No One Can Hear You Frag
It's an extremely slow day here at work and judging from the game sites, the ones that aren't blocked, a slow news day as well. So what I'm saying is boredom is really the only reason I'd bring this up. Apparently the country that brought you melting humans in Parasite Eve, the country that brought you over-the-top violence in The Killer and Hard Boiled, and the country that brought you the runaway smash-hit of human atrocities in the Holocaust, have banded together to say no to EA's upcoming Dead Space. No, they said vehemently, no we do not want your fictionalized destruction of aliens on our turf, not at all, and I say good day, sir! This just goes to show that whenever Japan and Germany decide to team up on any issue it does not produce anything good, and the inclusion of China is equally as startling.
Anyway, I haven't been enjoying too many free games lately, there are a couple on my radar and if any of them stick out I'll be sure to throw up a Play This Now for this week.
-K.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Video Games!
So I've been continuing my trend of playing older games, making my way through the first two Quake games once again. Then I jumped several years forward to Max Payne, mostly inspired by the latest trailer for the film, and Tron 2.0, which I do not have to give a reason to play again, so I'm getting closer to the present. Both the latter titles hold up surprisingly well, though shootin' dudes, whether they are digital constructs or over-acting mobsters, will never get old. Spore comes out soon, and I have not absorbed any related media since the epic Robin Williams E3 disaster from a while back, and my interest has definitely waned. Like LittleBigPlanet, I am not actually sure in what way it is a game but hopefully by not building myself up to any crazy expectations I can only be pleased by what releases.
Speaking of video games, which I do non-stop, I wanted to shed some light on this story. Now neither of these properties I would think would be a fantastic fit for an MMO, but they stopped work on a Firefly MMO to work on a Buffy MMO? They stopped work on a Firefly MMO to work on a Buffy MMO.
They stopped work on a Firefly MMO to work on a Buffy MMO.
They stopped work on a Firefly MMO to work on a Buffy MMO.
What the fuck is going on?
-K.
Thursday Morning Video: Saturday Night Live - Hibernol
Every time I come down with a cold I think about this fake commercial, back in the ancient times when Saturday Night Live still produced comedy instead of pain and despair. If this were an actual product I would purchase it without hesitation. Or I guess I could just drink a full bottle of NyQuil.
-K.