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Game Diaries
In 1746, three Spanish men-of-war are sighted off the coast on New Spain, bearing down on Southwatch, a fishing village built on a hill. Like all of my settlements, Southwatch is exceedingly well defended, with a fortress, at least three...
POSTED Monday, September 29, 2008
There's a lot of paperwork when you have a revolution. No nation is born without spilling a lot of blood and ink (there's probably some saying in French to that effect). So first you declare independence -- in writing --...
POSTED Friday, September 26, 2008
It's the calm before the storm. Of independence. How's that sound? Is it better if I pause before the "of independence" part, or should I just say it all in one breath, like "storm of independence"? I'm running various catchphrases...
POSTED Thursday, September 25, 2008
My problem with the Arawak War was a lack of pre-war planning. But now I've wiped them out, I've got a new army, and I've got more cannons to spread among my settlements for defense. So I figure it's time...
POSTED Wednesday, September 24, 2008
In 1644, three cannons accompanied by a pair of veteran soldiers open fire on the Arawak settlement of Cubanacan. The tiny village falls in a single turn, leaving only the larger settlement of Boriken to the west. You'd think it...
POSTED Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Greetings citizens of New Spain on this lovely day in 1644. We landed on these bountiful shores exactly one hundred and fifty years ago. Today, I stand before you, on the steps of the fully staffed New Madrid town hall...
POSTED Monday, September 22, 2008
After successfully prosecuting the Incan War, do I press on against other nearby native settlements? Or do I disband my army and get down to the business of settling this New World? The name of the game is colonization, not...
POSTED Friday, September 19, 2008
1563 is a turning point in two ways. My army avenges Beaver Dam by destroying the Incan settlement of Cuzco, capturing 103 gold, a valuable treasure worth another 803 gold once I get it back to Spain, and a native...
POSTED Thursday, September 18, 2008
My intention is to build up my colonies to the point that I've got a healthy economy going, at which point I'll detach a pair of soldiers to accompany the cannons I've purchased from Spain. This will be the army...
POSTED Wednesday, September 17, 2008
In the games I've played of Civilization IV: Colonization so far, I played nice with the native Americans. They're invaluable trade partners, and with missionaries in place, they'll provide a steady stream of new colonists. Their settlements eat up a...
POSTED Tuesday, September 16, 2008
I don't see how people can play two MMOs. There simply aren't enough hours in the day. And with the "launch" of Warhammer Online this past weekend (the servers went live for people who've pre-ordered the collector's edition), I'm...
POSTED Monday, September 15, 2008
A little hobbit burglar has sent me a tell while I'm ripping the tongues from brimstone leeches. He says we have a lot in common. At first, I think he's hitting on me (I am, after all, a hot elf...
POSTED Friday, September 12, 2008
MY SISTERS SWORD There it is in the "Looking for Fellowship" chat channel, in all caps. Some guy looking for help with a quest called My Sister's Sword. He gets no response. A few minutes later: MY SISTERS SWORD Someone...
POSTED Thursday, September 11, 2008
I am a level 48 elven minstrel who is, if I do say so myself, pretty bad-ass. But even bad-ass elven minstrels have days when they should have just stayed home. Read about it after the jump....
POSTED Wednesday, September 10, 2008
It's the ancient times before Google maps and I'm looking for a stolen gold ingot some dwarf carried away to Orod Laden. Orod Laden? Where the heck is that? I can't see hide nor hair of anything called "Orod Laden"...
POSTED Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Can you see Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin in the above screenshot of me and Elrond hanging out and talking about the Presidential election? Does it help if I zoom in on the hotbar like so? If you play...
POSTED Monday, September 8, 2008
I was recently given Thalronn, a powerful club more effective than Doom of Gurzmat, the sword I'd been using for as long as I can remember. Gloin gave me Doom of Gurzmat after I'd killed a goblin leader named Gurzmat...
POSTED Thursday, September 4, 2008
Today I did the 'I'm just going to log in real quick and check something in the auction house' thing. And then I played for four hours. I was at the auction house trying to assemble two optimized sets of...
POSTED Wednesday, September 3, 2008
See that picture up there? That's me with a pick-up group. We're fighting a Nazgul. That's right. A Nazgul. Among the usual quests in Lord of the Rings Online are quests arranged into books and chapters. They tell stories that...
POSTED Tuesday, September 2, 2008
While down in the barrow of Haudh Iarchith, slashing and harping* my way through the undead, I occasionally come across an ancient vase. Whereas miners take their pick-axes to nodes of ore and farmers plant seeds to harvest crops, scholars...
POSTED Friday, August 29, 2008
I have made zero progress today. I blame the fishing. Read the Lord of the Rings Online game diary after the jump....
POSTED Thursday, August 28, 2008
I was having a grand ol' time doing the new quests in the gleaming northern reaches of Farochel. So why am I, a 46th level elven minstrel, poking around the Barrow-Downs back in Bree, an area for 15th level characters?...
POSTED Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tolkein's books are full of lovely travelogues. Characters hike from one place to another for pages on end, often filling the time with singing. If the Fellowship had a car, The Lord of the Rings would probably be a buddy...
POSTED Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Back in Rivendell, Bilbo Baggins asks me to find Gollum's cave. Dude, I was just there. I even blogged about it on Fidgit.com! Man, if I had 5 copper pieces for every time that happened in an MMO, I could...
POSTED Monday, August 25, 2008
It started with this message:Want to see where Golum held up for years and kept the ring of power, send invite to adventure in Goblin Town. Read the Lord of the Rings Online game diary after the jump....
POSTED Friday, August 22, 2008
When Lord of the Rings Online came out a year and a half ago, it got it hooks into me deep. Deeper than any other MMO. It was a combination of factors: I was finally getting into the lore, the...
POSTED Thursday, August 21, 2008
And so Siren screeches to an inglorious end. After 11 episodes of mostly middling gameplay interspersed with intriguing storytelling, the twelfth episode has effectively killed the game for me, leaving me with no desire to get to the end. Episode...
POSTED Tuesday, August 12, 2008
What a terrible episode. Lots of fumbling around in the dark with unclear objectives and almost no story elements. And instead of a cliffhanger before the final episodes, there was an almost laughable "huh?" moment involving a giant fuzzy headless...
POSTED Monday, August 11, 2008
Okay, I finally got what I wanted. An open ended area to play. And it really wasn't all that. The gameplay consists mostly of stealth until you get a good weapon, and then combat. Neither is very good. As a...
POSTED Friday, August 8, 2008
The first part of episode 9 seemed to offer a couple of different ways to progress, and I somehow managed to circumvent an entire set of goals. I wish there was more of this in Siren. The gameplay is starting...
POSTED Thursday, August 7, 2008
So I've decided to stop calling them zombies. Something very different is going on here, and even though one character makes a zombie reference in episode 8, that's clearly not what these things are. They run, they use weapons, they...
POSTED Wednesday, August 6, 2008
The mapping function in Siren: Blood Curse is a model for how ingame maps should be done. At any point, you can pause the game and peruse a clean 2D representation of the level. Every doorway is marked, so it's...
POSTED Tuesday, August 5, 2008
One of the problems with the episodic structure is the way each character has to "reset" between episodes. For instance, I had a character whose first task during the level is to find a weapon. The problem is that he...
POSTED Monday, August 4, 2008
The Silent Hill style contrivances are starting to muscle their way front and center. First there's a contrived point-by-point handheld trip through a cramped area clogged with zombies, then there's a contrived point-by-point handheld trip through an open area clogged...
POSTED Friday, August 1, 2008
It looks like a lot of locations will be reused over the course of the game. A location you visited with one character will be played through later by at least one other character. On one hand, this feels a...
POSTED Thursday, July 31, 2008
Okay, so come on, this is the graphics engine? Really? Because so far, it's not doing anything special. In an outdoor area – directly repeated from the original Siren, by the way – the fogging is terrible, as if the...
POSTED Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Downloading and installing each episode is a bit of a pain, particularly since the game is sold in three chunks, but installed in 12. I guess this is a way around the fact that you're basically downloading a 10GB game...
POSTED Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Siren: Blood Curse was supposed to be released in 12 episodes available for download over a period of time, similar to a season for a TV show. With its splintered narrative and multiple characters, this would have been ideal for...
POSTED Monday, July 28, 2008
The campaign is over and I'm happy to announce that Barack Obama is the next President of the United States of Tom's Game of Political Machine. It wasn't even close. Obama won every single state that was closely contested. Ohio...
POSTED Monday, July 14, 2008
Obama spends the last month of the campaign, October, continuing to court Texas. McCain runs around doing stupid pointless things like giving a speech in Florida proclaiming his support for more jobs. But McCain of all people should know that...
POSTED Sunday, July 13, 2008
I've just noticed that when I reload a game, a lot of the data is different from when I saved the game. The percentages in different states have changed. The issues no longer show whether they've risen or fallen in...
POSTED Saturday, July 12, 2008
Rather than continue to complain about the interface and the dirty cheating AI, this game diary entry is a good time to talk about some things Political Machine does right. Read the more upbeat comments, and details about the campaign...
POSTED Friday, July 11, 2008
After stalling out in Iowa, presumably because his campaign's negative $116,000 weekly balance drained the coffers so dry he couldn't even afford a plane ticket, it turns out that McCain is not out of the race. Instead, he's just playing...
POSTED Thursday, July 10, 2008
By the middle of June, I've got three intimidators knocking back McCain's awareness rating in states where he hasn't set up an election headquarters to counter their effect. I park two in Pennsylvania and one in North Carolina. With judicious...
POSTED Wednesday, July 9, 2008
By the end of May, the projected electoral votes have swung wildly out of my favor. McCain now leads Obama at 310 electoral votes to 228! Studying the map, it's obvious that I'm being outgamed on the electoral college. We're...
POSTED Tuesday, July 8, 2008
In the real world, the Republicans just spent $3 million to run ads in key battleground states claiming Obama supports higher gas prices and McCain supports the environment. In my Political Machine world, I just spent the week running ads...
POSTED Monday, July 7, 2008
McCain is ahead by 9% in Ohio. Spooked by 2004, I send a media darling out there, accompanied by a consultant and an intimidator. The media darling, an Obama girl I found in West Virginia, improves Obama's standing on all...
POSTED Thursday, July 3, 2008
One of the early important battles is to grab the undecided voters. States are divided into conservative and liberal voters, and poaching some of the guys from the other side is an important part of your long-term strategy. But every...
POSTED Wednesday, July 2, 2008
It's January of 2008. We have ten months until the Presidential election, at which point John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected into office. I am here today to tell you that I have been appointed Obama's campaign manager....
POSTED Tuesday, July 1, 2008
On the day Wii Fit came out, I was in my neighborhood videogaming retailer (i.e. used game racket). While I was browsing the used section for deals slightly better than "$3 off this battered copy of Perfect Dark Zero", two...
POSTED Sunday, June 8, 2008
It's taken me only ten short days to decide that Wii Fit is terrible as an exercise game. So let's consider it as a game game. What about the minigames? Maybe it's something fun to keep around and whip...
POSTED Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Balance Board™ tells me I've lost 22 pounds since yesterday. Also, my Wii Fit Age™ has plunged to 37. At this rate, I'll be a zygote within two weeks. Then, at the beginning of our yoga session, Creepy Telepathic...
POSTED Friday, June 6, 2008
Close call today! It was hot today, so I was down to, well, my unmentionables while doing Wii Fit. I'd drawn the blinds, but the front door around the corner from my TV was open, with only the screen door...
POSTED Thursday, June 5, 2008
"Too busy to work out yesterday, eh, Tom?" Don't start with me, Balance Board™. I will box you faster than a One boxes a Three. Which I'm tempted to do anyway when I flub my balance test and am told...
POSTED Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The pacing in Wii Fit is deadly. After each exercise, I just want to get on to the next one while I've still got momentum. Instead, creepy telepathic ghost chick trainer has to offer me not one, but two...
POSTED Tuesday, June 3, 2008
WiiFit's Balance Board ™ notices that I've gained 17.9 pounds since yesterday. After scolding me, it asks me to choose from a list of explanations for why I've gained so much weight. Among the choices isn't "Because Wii Fit...
POSTED Monday, June 2, 2008
Great news! I somehow seem to have lost 17.6 pounds! Here I was trying to lose five pounds in two weeks, and now the Balance Board ™ is telling me that I've lost more than three times that amount...
POSTED Sunday, June 1, 2008
Several times today, the scary ghost chick tells me that stride and running endurance degrade as you get older. This is a tip that she feels compelled to reiterate, numerous times. Is it because I flubbed the balance exercise...
POSTED Saturday, May 31, 2008
I'm really feeling yesterday's lunges and side planks. My thighs and back are asking if we could just skip Wii Fit and play GTA4 instead. But I'm not going to disappoint the Balance Board ™, or the eerie ghost...
POSTED Friday, May 30, 2008
When you're doing the yoga and strength training exercises, Wii Fit gives you an instructor who demonstrates the moves and then performs them while you follow along. You can choose from a dude or a chick. Being a dude, I...
POSTED Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wii Fit came out in Japan over the holidays. It has sold nearly one and a half million copies. That's a lot. However, Nintendo expects to sell twice that number here in the US, because we're fat and lazy. They...
POSTED Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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