When in Doubt, Shift

My game play habits have shifted from PC to console back to PC again for my entire life. When I was a wee lad my parents bought us a Commodore 64 then a few Christmases later, our first Nintendo. 4-5 years ago after primarally playing PC games for years I picked up a Wii. A year or so later I nabbed a PS3 and I was primarally a console player up till recently. Fast forward to now and I am shifting back to the PC starting with the release of Lord of the Rings Online Free to Play and then Diablo 3 and now the amazing Steam sale.

Ive shifted to now 90% of my gaming happens the PC and I only go to the consoles occasionally or for BluRay or Netflix. Recently I pre-ordered Borderlands 2 on PS3 and it may well be one of the last full games I play on it. I did that because it seemed most of my friends would own it on that system, but it was a hard choice to make. The PC was so tempting! I like my consoles, but it seems that the PC offers me more right now.

Games load much faster. Games are cheaper(Steam sale, what what?). You can mod them. The graphics are much better. FPS's on the PC are more fun. I can easily chat with my friends while we play or skype. And its just plain fun. Yeah, switching back to PC is a ton of fun. Which is why I play games in the first place.

That all said, I might switch back to consoles when they can up the ante a bit but for now I am happy to switch back to the PC. I know we live in a post PC world and I own an iPhone 4S but the PC is awesome and I love that it is my primary game platform now.

As I trawl teh intrarwebs I come across many things. Some interesting, some boring and some I don't want to ever think about in my lifetime. One such thing falls in the realm of interesting and "huh?"

A site called Game Ranx collects and lists certain kinds of game related information. One such list is "25 Best Video Game Inspired Desserts."

http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/7555/article/25-best-video-game-inspired-desserts/#p12

The Gears of War cake... kind of scary. The Zelda cake? Awesome. I get older soon, hopefully my friends bring Skyrim or Metroid cupcakes. That or I cut them loose. I think I draw the friendship line with themed desserts.

As I figure out how to capture video to show everyone my Terraria world, he is a video of a real life Portal 2 jumpsuit! I am going to try to convince my wife this should be her Halloween costume.

Hmmmmm, I wonder what odds Vegas would give me on that happening? Longshot or 2 to 1?

Recently BioWare released Mass Effect 3 Extended cut and to celebrate released the soundtrack for free. I haven't played any of the Mass Effect's but I dig video game soundtracks so I picked it up. Its superb music and if you like that sort of thing I recommend you get it.

http://social.bioware.com/me3ecsoundtrack.php

Recently picked up a few games from this years steam sale. The Bethesda pack, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2 and Terraria. I started Terraria because it was a smaller download than Skyrim or Left for Dead and haven't stopping playing it! Its only $5 during the summer sale and I heartily recommend you get it.

I started out having no idea what I was doing and watched a tutorial video saying I should build a house to survive the night. I did that and survived. Then I built my house underground. Then I created a huge mine. The I started chopping down trees and planting more. Then I realized I could build a stone house/castle in the sky (picture above). Then I wanted to see how deep I could mine. Then I realized the hours had melted away and I needed to stop.

If you grab the game checkout the wiki:

http://wiki.terrariaonline.com/Terraria_Wiki

And then read and watch these videos on starting:

http://wiki.terrariaonline.com/Guide:Getting_started

I haven't built a house for the NPCs because right now I dont care about that, that said at some point I imagine I will. Died a few times, apparently you can't fall absurdly high from your sky castle. Found sand, clay and a bunch of other sort of rare-ish materials. Still trying to figure out what else I can build.

Such a rad game for $5 that said I need to pace myself or bye bye time and subsequently my life.

Valve recently dropped the source film maker on folks and I have been trolling teh intarnet swarm-fest for interesting videos created with it. The above video isn't Source Film Maker creation, but its an awesome mashup of Team Fortress 2 and The Dictator.

That said here are a couple videos I found interesting or amusing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXEnIfSrnFo [ Batman? ]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1YrrAroK6bI [ Save as .dmx ]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIZQpwCOCaQ&feature=player_embedded [ Shit just got Real ]

I just pre-ordered Borderlands 2 for the PS3 at Gamestop with all extra goodies. Radtastic.

This past week was San Diego Comic Con and in typical fashion 2k was around to demo Borderlands 2.

A few morsels:

"It was really the Commando that did it for me, though the Assassin's pretty fantastic as well (more on him momentarily). But the Commando, with his wonderfully helpful turrets and outlandishly explosive upgrades, really won me over."

Go on....

"Having only messed with Roland a bit in the first game, I'll just say that while his turret stuff was neat, Axton (the Commando) is a whole other deal entirely. We were shown characters at levels 25 and 35, so we got to go pretty deep into one of the individual skill trees for each character. For the Commando, it's all about how you build out your turrets. You'll of course start out with minor upgrades like ammo counts and cool down periods, but as you start going further in, you'll be able to do all sorts of wacky stuff. You can add grenade launchers, rocket blasters, and even stack a second turret on top of your main one, with all upgrades included. There's even an option to make your turret stick to any surface, including walls and ceilings. When you're trying to avoid getting swarmed by rabid creatures, this can come in handy."

Awesome. All the classes in Borderlands 2 seem solid to me. Interested in the Ninja, Commando and I believe I will start as the Gunzerker for my first character.

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http://www.giantbomb.com/news/borderlands-2-on-skill-trees-psychotic-children-and-the-joys-of-being-a-ninja/4270/

A funny video about video games from the bad guys perspective making the rounds on the intarwebs.

I am unsure what to make of Epics forthcoming game Fortnite because I haven't seen any game play and in depth description of it. That said, Epic's Cliff Bleszinksi said something at Comic Con today that made me think about gaming and how things move:

"We're here and we're announcing that this is a PC-designed game, it's shipping exclusively for the PC," he told a crowd of attendees."

"Next-gen's here. It's been here. It's a high-end PC," Bleszinski said. He added that the dudebro-free Fortnite didn't "make sense" for Unreal Engine 3, and cheered PCs as being part of Epic's "heritage.""

Epic has been a primarally console based developer for the last few years and in the case of Gears, XBox only. Its cool to hear them make a choice about the PC as a first class citizen. I wonder how many other developers will push PC ahead of consoles now that the consoles lag so far behind in terms of graphics?

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http://fortnitegame.com/
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/12/fortnite-is-epics-first-unreal-engine-4-game-heading-exclusive/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/12/fortnite-will-be-a-pc-exclusive-and-epics-first-unreal-engine-4-game/ (fortnight screens)

Brand new Borderlands 2 trailer called "Wimoweh" dropped this morning. The trailer showcases some new stuff from the game briefly. Namely Lilith, the Siren from the original Borderlands is present and has Angel Wings? Also a new largish female character smashing a few things in a trash compactor? Sick. In the end its awesome to see new game footage but I would have used a different song.

I prefer Claptrap bringing the Wub Wub to The Lion Sleeps personally. Speaking of Wub Wub, you will be able to buy that as a shirt soon:

http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=140821

Update: Song stuck in head... Must cleanse with fire....