Fat, Ugly or Slutty

There's a new blog out there called Fat, Ugly or Slutty where women post some of the experiences they have in the gaming world. It's sad. It's true.

Valve's new peer-to-peer marketplace a success!

You really can't call it anything else when 5 contributors get hefty royalty checks for $39,000-$45,000 for 2 weeks of sales!

I'd love to see new marketplaces like this pop up. It keeps the players interested in the game because they can benefit directly from it and there's new content constantly being churned out! Amazing!

The sincerest form of flattery?

So me and my husband were playing this today and I had to stop for a second because it it every way reminded me of a video game version of this. My husband plays 40k, both the Blood Angel and Tyranid armies, so of course he owns the board game, just so that he could cannibalize it for his armies.

I knew that Blizzard has made a killing ripping off the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k universes, but I didn't know that Valve was getting in on that action too!

Regardless, it's free! And it has achievements! And it has co-op! Even with it being free, I hadn't downloaded it until a few of my friends told me it was worthwhile. And it's good to have games you can play with friends online. (Especially when free!) It's worth checking out, even if it is a complete rip off :P (Though I have to say that Valve picked a WAY better name. I mean, Space Hulk? Really?)

Fable 3 trailer

What a great trailer! I feel guilty for all the chickens I've kicked :(

I enjoyed the first one... until I got to this crazy timed section I just couldn't make it past and rage quit.

The second one, I played entirely and loved it! I tried to play the first expansion... and rage quit. Those freaking targets are just NOT my idea of fun.

Despite the rage quits that Molyneux inspires (the fable franchise wasn't the only one to frustrate me so much), I'm looking forward to seeing how he's refined his ideas in the new game. To see what he felt worked and what he left aside.

Experiencing narrativity

There's a philosophical article that talks about the way that people experience their own lives, if they reflect on their lives as they live it, turning it into a story, or if they live day-to-day, not really connecting their present-self to their past- and future-selves. He he refers to them as diachronic and the familiar gaming term, episodic.

While the article focuses on the ethical impact those differing points of views can have, it's interesting to consider how these two types of people could approach gaming differently. Likely the narrativistic folks would enjoy role-playing games and first-person games with a story-focus as well as sim games that involve development and growth or strategy games like chess that involve thinking many moves ahead. Versus episodic folks who might prefer more abstract content who might lean towards in-the-moment fighters and shooters, games based more on twitch reflexes or puzzle-based games.

On the other hand, it could affect their play style if they did play the same games. I have friends who don't really enjoy RPG games because they can't play as characters other than the type of person they see themselves as. They don't like playing evil characters they can't separate themselves choosing an "evil" option from a character being evil. Maybe the people who play FPS shooters and prostitute-beating games need to be able to just play in the moment and separate that from their past- and future-selves.

I'd be interesting to see some studies in this area, I'm sure they exist...

10 years of Gameloft games

It's a pretty good example of exactly how much things have changed in mobile games over the years. I started here 5 years ago and the advances have been impressive, year after year!

Dungeon Hunter rules!

Woohoo! Felicia Day loves the last game I worked on, Dungeon Hunter! The next day, unsurprisingly, the game shot up to #2 on iTune's app charts. Awesome.

Mass Romance

I loved playing Mass Effect 2, I had to convince my husband to let me have first crack at it when he brought it home and I barely put it down until I finished it. I loved the game, it was (nearly) the most perfect for me. (Really, probing planets? How was that fun or challenging? That was just grindy, not even gamey.)

Regardless, I really enjoyed playing a renegade with a heart of gold. I was a badass with the enemies, letting people who've done wrong meet their bloody fate with fear in their eyes. But I've also been kind and compassionate to those who have done well.

Back in the first game, I was super flirty, leading people on until I had to making a choice between them. In the end, I landed Liara (and the consort, but that's another story).

When the second one started, I began by hitting on Jacob, since he was the only option at the start. I LOVED watching him squirm as I chose options that obviously made him uncomfortable. I really was intrigued that wow, I start being sexy and someone turns me down! That's pretty unusual. I kept pursuing him until he finally thawed. I liked that he was a tough nut to crack and you had to work at him, it was a great fit for my aggressive character. Not long after, we became exclusive.

However, I soon became bored with him since that's as far as you could go in a relationship until the suicide mission. So I dumped him. Hoo-boy! He was NOT happy with that. He was all snippy with me. I had to ask him if this was going to be a problem, after which we never spoke again. AWK-ward!

By then, I had picked up a few more crew members. Thane caught my eye. This wise killer. He was dying, but had found peace once he knew his son was safe. I loved talking to him, mostly about his dead wife. This guy has baggage and I couldn't imagine living through each instant so vividly. He had a pet name for me, not wanting to explain it at first. But finally he told me and I was touched. We shared our feelings, killers trying to cleanse the universe of evil.

But before the suicide mission, I balked. Liara's photo had been lying face down on the desk in my cabin, knowing that I was being unfaithful to her. I broke it off with Thane, told him I couldn't be with a dying man. He understood.

During this time, I had also spent an amazing evening with Kelly up in my cabin. All. Night. Long. Too bad we never made it in time to rescue her. I also tried to get on Jack's good side, but she told me she doesn't play for the girl's team, even though she had told me about her previous 3-somes. Bitch. No love for a lesbo in this universe!

As we headed into the Omega 4 relay, I looked at Liara's photo, hoping I'll make it through. Hoping I'll see more of her in the next game!

Road Safety as an MMO

GameSetWatch has written about a new road safety MMO for kids. I really hope it does well. It'd be great to see educational games become more viable. The concept sounds interesting and I'd love to see how it's implemented. Hopefully they'll post some statistics in coming years about its effectiveness.

6 degrees of AWESOME

Best achievement ever, Six Degrees of Schafer in Brutal Legend. To get the achievement you have to play with or against someone who already has it. And I'm guessing Tim Schafer's account is Patient Zero. I think that's bloody brilliant because they would have had to do some finagling with Microsoft to get that set up properly because I've never seen anything like that in a game before.

So far, I'm really loving the game.Yeah the game play is a bit unresponsive at time and I can't drive worth shit. But I can't remember ever laughing so much at a game before. Truly entertaining.

I was wowed by the demo because I got a complete flashback to my dad's old hard rock album covers from the 70s. The open world part hasn't wowed me quite nearly as much as the demo had, but the spider's den was gorgeous.

I've tried a few side missions but couldn't even last 30 seconds in them. And it's not too clear what I did wrong.

Despite its flaws, it's a must just for the soundtrack and cameos. Jack Black is perfect as Eddie Riggs!