My rogue detects traces that nerds are afoot

Before I discuss anything, I want you to know where I’m coming from. I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve never understood pen & paper D&D or how it translates to fun. The closest I’ve come to playing a D&D game to date has been Knights of the Old Republic, which used the Star Wars license, an amazing presentation, and a glossy veneer to cover up the dice rolls which were taking place in the background. Talking with some of my compatriots, I think it is this unfamiliarity with the source material that is making D&D Online: StormReach a much more confusing experience for me than it may be for someone else. I find myself missing a lot of the conventions I’ve grown accustomed to in WoW, yet enjoying the real-time physics based combat (to a degree). (Read on …)

http://revolution.nintendo.com/

I was excited…

Now do I really want to say to people…

“Do want to come over and play with my Wii?”

The temperature outside the Eat My Bomb Chicago offices has reached 70 degrees during the day, signalling the end of Winter Games 2006. I’ve only officially completed one game out of five. It makes me wonder, what the hell happened? I had completed the wonderful Mary Kate and Ashley game, was making great progress in the addictive World of Warcraft, had made it 70% of the way through the classic Parasite Eve, and had made decent progress on the entertaining Stubbs the Zombie.

Now Winter Games is over, and I have only game completed on my list. Nutdogs.

I think I can attribute this to a few things. For one, I spent a little bit too much time playing World of Warcraft (no surprise), Ghost Recon, and Rainbox Six it’s distracted me from the other games. My goal was level 58 on WoW, and I should have just left it at that–instead, I went for level 60. I’ll write up a little more about level 60 on WoW later–but that reminds me, I never wrote about it, and so it never got updated on my list. Ugh. The new gaming rig I built also kept me from the console games.

Also, I think I could have spent more time on Parasite Eve to finish it, perhaps even sacrificing Stubbs to do it. That would have put me at three out of five games completed–a moderately acceptable result. And also a hypothetical reality.

Well, I guess it’s just like being a Cubs fan–there’s always next year.

Check it out. We’ve been invited to collaborate with gaming supersite gamershell.com on our gaming podcast. More details forthcoming, but you can listen to the first installment here. Enjoy!

Wow, this thing even staples!

Last night saw a crushing defeat of Team Mediocre (Denalan, Scrimpnut, and Selvaris) by Team Above-Average (Brixtone, Daedalus, and Dodongo). All the great components of multiplayer gaming were present including pre-game smack talk, a high body count, furious lead distribution, explosions, deadly snipers in high places, accusations of cheating, blaming the controller, and finally crying. The final round of the evening was such a blowout, Team Above-Average convened in the copy room to discuss its victory while also photocopying butt cheeks and rifles. It must be said that Denalan was absent for much of the final round and thus the victory is without complete satisfaction. Additionally, only seconds after this picture was taken, Scrimpnut came into the copy room and presented the crowd with a grenade killing everyone involved.

My sincere thanks to everyone involved for a great night of gaming and I look forward to the next outing.

Looks like a long way to go, Nelly.

Even though I maintain a backlog of dozens of games, I continue to ask for new games for my birthday. This time around, the results could be devastating. The gauntlet of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion has been cast at my feet. The game promises superb adventure and many many many hours of gameplay. Sorry, sunshine, you may have to wait a while longer.

Both Ruckus and I recently started playing Morrowind and were left somewhat confused about the high praises that it receives all across the universe. Much of our disappointment can be attributed to Morrowind’s dated visuals and character models as well as an unforgivably clunky combat system. Thus I enter Oblivion somewhat jaded but right away all the pretty stuff is keeping me distracted. Hooray for HDR lighting!

Check out this week’s podcast, yo. It features gaming headlines, a look at the first MMOVSG (massively multiplayer online virtual sex game), and new releases for this week. Enjoy!

April 17th, 2006 Podcast