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All of the Arks: Completing Rage

A few days ago I finally completed the single player campaign of Rage. I had a roller coaster experience with the game and recently just picked it back up to complete it. I would say if you want a good shooter with plenty of car combat, Rage is your jam. The game isn't perfect but the shooter aspects of it are very good.

After starting it up for the first time on PC I was blown away with how awesome the graphics were. The story was compelling and I really enjoyed the voice acting of John Goodman as your main contact for the first 30% of the game(he vanishes after that never to be heard from again). In fact, the first 40% of the game is paced very well and plays... Read All A few days ago I finally completed the single player campaign of Rage. I had a roller coaster experience with the game and recently just picked it back up to complete it. I would say if you want a good shooter with plenty of car combat, Rage is your jam. The game isn't perfect but the shooter aspects of it are very good.

After starting it up for the first time on PC I was blown away with how awesome the graphics were. The story was compelling and I really enjoyed the voice acting of John Goodman as your main contact for the first 30% of the game(he vanishes after that never to be heard from again). In fact, the first 40% of the game is paced very well and plays awesomely. Rage even contains a few fun mini games, one such game, Rage Frenzy is a collectable trading card game where you collect cards in the game to build and play against NPC's.

The game is broken up by you flying to Subway Town and never needing to go back to the first part of the game. This is the part where Rage sort of broke down for me. I didn't really dig Subway Town as much and in general the missions you get are not as awesome. After hitting up Subway town and playing through a few missions I sort of stopped playing the single player and only just picked it back up to beat it recently.

I liked Rage a lot but in the end I really wanted more. I wanted more missions like in the first half of the game. I wanted more boss fights. I wanted more shooting and less driving. I didn't mind the driving but the game paced with an epic shooter level and then some occasional mandatory racing or driving to another location was odd. I don't mind driving to another location but the driving broke up the shooting awesomeness that Rage brought to the table. I guess in a way all the driving was good because without it the game would have even shorter. That said, in the beginning of the game I did enjoy building up from my 4 wheeler to my buggy.

At the very end of the game you get a rather big gun and head out for your last mission. Its kind of funny as the characters even tell you "this is your last mission." The last mission isn't too hard as they give you a very awesome gun and keep the ammo stocked well in the level. I was using the less powerful guns in the last mission and realised there was so much BFG ammo I was just trolling myself for not using it. The last few minutes of the game you are reprogramming satellites and as you wait you simply mutants and then the game is over.

The last level was beautiful and it was fun to be overpowered for a mission but it left me wanting a bit. All told I liked Rage quite a bit and look forward to coming back to play it in the future. I have heard rumblings that iD will release some kind of DLC for Rage and if that were true I would be interested in playing it.

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One sort of aside note... At the very end of the game they don't allow you to race in Subway Town because of the Authority occupation. I believe this prevents you from racing in Subway Town on that game save. A bummer because I wanted to go back and play all of those races but can no longer do so for Subway Town.

Another round of Linux perma-bans in Diablo III

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AfIQ2AogLLc/TLHS69ofqXI/AAAAAAAAALg/mDp50HYkNDI/s1600/banhammer1.jpg

It looks like more people have recently gotten Blizzard's ban hammer for playing Diablo III on Linux, through Wine. Wine is a compatibility layer that enables you to run Windows executables on Linux, some with better results than others. Diablo III works perfectly through Wine, but the evidence is mounting that playing it this way results in Blizzards anti-botting measures thinking you're doing something more nefarious.

What's worse is that they won't engage in discussion about it. You pay $60 for a game that you're required to play online, and you can get banned for doing something that they say is fine. Unfortunately the US doesn't have any potent consumer protection,... Read All

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/12/2012 at 08:54pm

I agree this is pretty bad and seems to be getting worse. I am hoping with enough community appeal, Blizzard takes this up and does something about it soon!

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/12/2012 at 09:36pm

It's quite possible that the bans are legit, I suppose, but "we checked into it and the ban sticks, you have no recourse, case closed" is not a good way to do business. They need to communicate more.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/12/2012 at 09:42pm

I think more communication would be good. I mean, is there some benefit Wine gets you for cheating? There may very well be and Blizzard would know if there was.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/12/2012 at 09:47pm

Bashiok, a community manager, said there was no problem with running in Wine, and specifically said Wine wasn't the problem. People have also been doing it in WoW for years with no problems.

That said, the community managers seem to contradict each other from time to time, and the lack of communication only adds to us not knowing what the heck is going on.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/15/2012 at 05:43am

Whoa: http://m.cinemablend.com/games/Blizzard-Admits-Linux-User-Was-Wrongly-Banned-Offers-Refund-49339.html

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 11/15/2012 at 02:48pm

Whoa! That's awesome.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/15/2012 at 03:49pm

Yup. Wonder how many more people ill get to play again now.

MoonWyrd Supporter wrote on 11/17/2012 at 04:32am

This is the sort of thing that worried me about the required online aspect, it even caused a friend to decide to pass on D3. It's good that Blizzard is on this, but the response seems a bit slow.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/17/2012 at 07:26am

I agree, the response was slow.

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Groupees Build-a-Bundle 4 is live!

Occasionally Groupees abandons the standard bundle formula from their BeMine bundles and gives you a choose-your-own-adventure bundle. You pay what you want and get to pick more games the more you pay.

In this bundle, the games without Steam keys all have Desura keys, but they are all on Steam Greenlight and Steam keys will be given out if they make it through the Greenlight process.

The big title in this bundle is Velvet Assassin, a game that was critically panned when it came out a few years back, but some people like it.

Snag it here. http://groupees.com/bab4

Gaming on Linux: Game Distribution

http://gamereuphoria.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/steam_linux_love.jpg

Part one of this series of posts can be found here:
http://cheerfulghost.com/panickedthumb/posts/727

Now that you're all set to play, let's talk about how to get games.

The availability of Linux games is growing daily. In addition to big releases, Indie games are becoming a much bigger deal than ever before, and those are far more likely to show up on Linux. One word of advice though: try not to be disappointed when the game you want isn't available, or if it is available but has more bugs and performance issues than its Windows counterpart. We're on our way to more and higher quality releases in Linux but there's still quite a way to go before it's on-par with Windows,... Read All

Wreck it Ralph Review: His Fists Are So Big!

Friday my Wife and some of our friends went to see the new Disney animation studios film Wreck it Ralph. This has been on my radar for quite some time and its also fairly rare for my wife and I to agree on a film to see together so we had to go.

I am going to keep this review as spoiler free as I can, so you don't have a ton to worry about in terms of me giving away the plot.

The movie is Disney's first jaunt on their own in a zone id like to call "Pixar Country." The animation style and tone are very Pixar-esque. The movie also tonally feels like the first Toy Story film. Its hard to put a pin on why, but I believe the first thing that comes to mind is that they use a... Read All Friday my Wife and some of our friends went to see the new Disney animation studios film Wreck it Ralph. This has been on my radar for quite some time and its also fairly rare for my wife and I to agree on a film to see together so we had to go.

I am going to keep this review as spoiler free as I can, so you don't have a ton to worry about in terms of me giving away the plot.

The movie is Disney's first jaunt on their own in a zone id like to call "Pixar Country." The animation style and tone are very Pixar-esque. The movie also tonally feels like the first Toy Story film. Its hard to put a pin on why, but I believe the first thing that comes to mind is that they use a lot of solid colors and shapes. Toy Story was chosen as Pixars first film because Toy's are relatively simple to render. Toy Story one also has a lot of close up shots because scenes further away from the camera are simply harder to render, or were at the time. If you walk through Toy Story 1 through Pixars later films you see the evolution of 3D, wider shots and more detail. Wreck it Ralph visually feels like a film from the middle of the early Pixar run. All that to say, its not a bad feel, its just something I noticed.

The movie is jam packed with video game callouts and cameo's and if you are not careful, you will miss scenes where Chun-li and Cammy walk by discussing something in the background of the film. The featured cameo's and characters seem to be more Retro than modern. All the game worlds we experience in the film are Disney creations and one such modern game is called "Hero's Duty." The other games in the movie are for the most part retro callouts. I imagine the target audience for this film is people of my age and my kids as I totally know the characters from Street Fighter, Sonic, Mario, Pacman & QBert. (I don't have kids, but many in my demographic do).

Oh right and the film is good too. It wasn't Toy Story 3 or The Incredibles awesome, but it was very good. I would also describe it as super cute. I wasn't aware the movie would take place 80% in a video game themed Candy World. It's a very well done and all, its just also super cutsey. The jokes in the candy world are funny and worked on me as well as the audience.

Someone on the Itarwebs somewhere noted that Wreck it Ralph is the best Street Fighter Movie. Some truth there as most are terrible and this movie is good and does feature Zangief as a side character with some screen time.

This movie is a no brainer if you have kids and love video games. If you want a "smiling good time" and love video games you should watch this movie. If you don't like either of those things, pass this up and watch the original Street Fighter with Raul Julia and Jean Claude Van Damme. It's not very good but people do punch and kick each other, something this movie omits however Ralph does pummel many things. Just not other people.

Gaming on Linux: What you need to know

Steam for Linux is coming, folks. In fact, for a lucky 1000 people (and thousands of others who don't mind using a trick to bypass their invite check) it has already arrived. Gaming has always been one of the reasons people keep a Windows installation around. The games for Linux just aren't there. Valve is looking to change that.

So many of you may be looking to get into Linux gaming now that it's looking more viable. This will hopefully get you started. This post makes some assumptions-- I'm going to be providing information for Ubuntu, since that's the most popular and most beginner-friendly distribution around. Other distributions will have similar ways of doing... Read All Steam for Linux is coming, folks. In fact, for a lucky 1000 people (and thousands of others who don't mind using a trick to bypass their invite check) it has already arrived. Gaming has always been one of the reasons people keep a Windows installation around. The games for Linux just aren't there. Valve is looking to change that.

So many of you may be looking to get into Linux gaming now that it's looking more viable. This will hopefully get you started. This post makes some assumptions-- I'm going to be providing information for Ubuntu, since that's the most popular and most beginner-friendly distribution around. Other distributions will have similar ways of doing things.

Drivers
This is something you need to get squared away early. If you have driver issues, your games will suffer (if they play at all). If you're using Intel integrated graphics, those drivers are open source and should be handled for you pretty well automatically. Otherwise in Ubuntu 12.10, open Software Sources from the dash and click the "Additional Drivers" tab. In 12.04 and earlier, this isn't integrated into software sources, so open Additional Drivers directly from the dash.

In this window, you'll be able to select which proprietary drivers you want to install for your video hardware. I recommend going with the experimental nvidia driver. It has recently been updated for some major performance boosts. Regardless, the bare minimum here, you want the proprietary driver.

After the driver is installed, there are a couple of tweaks you'll want to do.

By default, Unity (the desktop manager in Ubuntu) is going to keep using the gpu for compositing even when there's a fullscreen program (such as a game) running. You can't change some advanced settings like this by default, so install compizconfig-settings-manager, run it, go into the "Compositing" section and check "Unredirect fullscreen windows." While you're in CCSM go to the "Open GL" section, and disable Sync to vblank here as well. It will get you some extra performance in the WM.

If you're using an nvidia card and things seem more laggy in games than they should, you should disable syncing to vblank in the driver settings. This doesn't seem to affect everyone, but if it does, it's a simple fix. In the nvidia-settings program, head to the OpenGL Settings section and uncheck "Sync to vblank." I've never seen any detrimental effects to doing this, and it speeds up framerates pretty significantly. It may cause more screen tearing though, so it's all up to preference.

Installing games
Now you're ready to jump in to gaming! There are various places to find games, but the easiest is to get them straight from your distribution's software sources. So for our purposes, lets head to the Ubuntu Software Center (more on that in a later post) to try out some free games, just to make sure everything is in working order. Nexuiz (the old version predating the one on Steam) and OpenArena are good FPS arena games, like Quake 3, and Battle for Wesnoth is a turn based strategy game that looks a bit like Warcraft. Either of those will get your feet wet, and ready to jump into more advanced stuff.

Stay tuned for more!

UPDATE: Part two of this series, Game Distribution, can be found here: http://cheerfulghost.com/panickedthumb/posts/729

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

""Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie" is a passion project by independent filmmakers James Rolfe and Kevin Finn, based on the popular web series. The film is being produced outside the studio system, entirely funded by fan donations. Principle photography took place in Spring of 2012, in the Los Angeles area, with Jason Brewer as the DP. Additional filming is taking place on the East Coast. Editing is in its early stages."

I am not sure what to make of this after watching the trailer. I really enjoy the Angry Video Game Nerd shorts but I wasn't in love with this trailer. I will watch this movie, no doubt, but this movie seems to go into different territory that might not... Read All

Lets Play: Minecraft "Walk a Direction"

I just created a new Let's Play video. The idea of this one was that I would pick a direction in my first Minecraft world to explore. Part of the awesomeness of Minecraft is how open and expansive the worlds are. Its impressive.

I wasn't sure how long I would be out exploring, but the video spans two Minecraft days. Since I don't mark my path, I return to my house by getting killed.

Enjoy.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 11/11/2012 at 09:52pm

Couple notes/tips. :)

There is a difference in what the different trees can make. They make different colored wooden planks. Functionally they're no different, but they can be used to make different colored houses/floors. :D

Also, a shovel is the most efficient tool for digging in dirt/grass. I noticed you used a pick for most of that.

A tip for fighting creepers is to dash attack them. When you dash attack them it knocks them back far enough to reset their fuse or timer or whatever you want to call it. Also, higher quality swords will do more damage. So while you probably don't need diamond tools for most things, I recommend a diamond sword. :) (and a diamond pick axe for mining obsidian)

You can actually tame those wolves you found. If you feed them bones they'll start following you around.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 11/11/2012 at 11:28pm

I think I saw a pig in a tree at 12:35. This game is unnatural!

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 11/11/2012 at 11:51pm

Really fun video. Not too long!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/12/2012 at 12:14am

Awesome, thanks for the feedback it was really fun to make.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/12/2012 at 12:15am

WhiteboySlim: thanks for the tips. I do typically shovel dirt but sometimes I don't always remember. Cool you can take wolves with bones, ill try that next time!

hardeyez wrote on 11/13/2012 at 05:38pm

Also, you can add a minimap mod (e.g. REI's) which can help you to always find home.

hardeyez wrote on 11/13/2012 at 05:43pm

But watch out, if you mod a bunch, take two precautions:
* backup your minecraft.jar so you have a clean one to go back to
* hold off on updating until the mods you want catch up

There are a few 'mod manager' type systems to help out, but I never delve deeply into any of them. My kids love Technic Pack and Tekkit http://www.technicpack.net/ which applies a BUNCH of mods to a separate install, so you can run it and vanilla side-by-side (in fact I think technic is still based on minecraft 1.2.5). But the launcher has several modpacks to begin with (tecnic, tekkit, hack/mine and yogbox) so it's an easy way to see a bunch of mods w/o messing around with minecraft.jar :)

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Cheap Steam stuff!

http://www.cheaptrick.com/images/CheapTrick_Myspace_Header_01.png

Get it? Cheap Trick? Am I old now?

Anyone want some coupons for Steam games? I have a few. These expire within the next few weeks, so get 'em while they're hot!

Please, for the first day or so, pick only one of these. If there are some left by Sunday morning, it's a free-for-all.

2 Killing Floor guest passes. Not coupons, exactly, but not full games either. Play it for a couple of days and see what you think!

50% off any Assassin's Creed game other than AC3.
75% off the Trine Complete Collection
3x 50% off Alan Wake Collectors Edition
2x 50% off Alan Wake's American Nightmare
4x 50% off Legend of Grimrock
3x 75% off Rochard

The coupons for Trine, Alan Wake, Grimrock, and... Read All

Interview with Greg Pabich of Cheetahmen Games

Forever enshrined in history is the story of Action 52 games and The Cheetahmen. Action 52 games made a NES cart that packed in a total of 52 games and one such addition to the mix, Cheetahmen has caught on to achieve NES Retro infamy. In a series of events not entirely clear to me a few thousand copies of a prototype print of Cheetahman 2 were found in an old Action 52 storage area. These were later put on EBay and currently fetch for a high price.

A bit about the original Action 52 cart as reviewed by the amazing Angry Video Game Nerd:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwmoJkHS-2E

Intro Greg Pabich, the Wizard behind the recent Cheetahmen 2: The Lost Levels Kickstarter.... Read All