Category: gnomes of gaming

That awkward moment…

It’s a bit awkward when your a I.T. professional and you realize that you no longer need a PC at home.

It started out innocently enough… I bought a Mac in 2007 and a new one in 2011 and my bank account quietly wept both times.

I upgraded to Windows 8 in the fall of last year.  Why?   Well why not I’m a I.T. professional I need to be versed on all forms of the dominant operating systems in the land in their native forms (GUI for Windows, CLI or LINUX, and a unholy combination of the two for Mac OS).   I then did the requiste app upgrades that come with any upgrade to windows… I lost the ability to get into work… The Citrix client for Windows 8 is to advanced for the Citrix presentation server that my work uses, and I can’t downgrade versions because Citrix is dumb.

That’s not a issue I can Citrix into work on my Mac.

I find that I have less time to play games and few games that come out really intrest me, I stop buying $60 games.  I start buying games that are on sale which means they are a few months old and increasingly have a Mac version by that point… This matters little since the only game I’m really interested in playing is Batman Arkham City on my Xbox

I install a hybrid drive on my Mac… and things (well some things) launch so so so fast (sub 1 second for Chrome I shit you not) (from cold boot to password screen for disk encryption is 7 seconds)

I get pissed off when I go to look for the calculator on my Windows 8 box… years of muscle memory and a certain f*’d up logic out the proverbial window.

The temperature hits 90 about 3 weeks ago, it hits 95 in my office (I haven’t turned on my AC yet (personal thing global warming be damned I don’t turn on the AC before April 15)) I turn off my main PC to keep from so much heat being kicked out.  That was 3 weeks ago I haven’t turned my pc on since then.  It took me a week to even notice that I hadn’t turned it on.

The change was so subtle I didn’t even notice it till I had been fully consumed.   Not to say there isn’t a place for the PC in my world (“Skyrim” is still PC only) the environment for the level of work that I do has reached parity to a point that the platform matters not.

The bigger point here is I have finally shed the ingrained need for a “Full Desktop” PC and have finally come to a point where I laptop is everything I need a main computer.  This notion is already on a dead man walking path though… The tablet in the living room will see to that in short order.

This leaves the following thought the future of a the high powered all powerful time and space bending machine as a thing of the past.  In the next couple of years the home computer will be nothing more then a server for the mobile devices that need local content caching, the rest of it lives on the internet through a always on society.

Even the top end of the market where I used to live will no longer need high powered machines for gaming the processing power for the high definition polygons will live on a server in a datacenter that scales massively for the latest AAA title where the gamers of tomorrow pay for a license fee and then time of use for processing power (think amazon cloud only games instead of big data) the only limitation being the available bandwidth on the local internet connection.

“Anubis” is the last of the big gaming rigs… I quietly weep at this thought.

Alt MAC

So STEAM finally comes to MAC next week while I don’t plan on loading it right away on my Mac, I thought I would share a tidbit of the improvements coming with the Mac version of STEAM. Please note that this is aimed at the Mac gamer set… so if you aren’t a gamer you probably won’t get these. If you’ve ever used Mac you will get them all.

Team Fortress 2

When engineers build turrets in the Mac version of Team Fortress 2, the turrets will cost twice as much (in metal) as the Windows equivalent. However, the turrets will be curvy and shiny, and emit a pleasant noise as they shoot the enemy down.

The Heavy’s chain gun will be lighter and smaller, and of course curvier and shinier. It will weigh merely 1.8 pounds and fold up nicely to ultra-thin dimensions, allowing the Heavy to move quickly at all times. It will keep track of the Heavy’s appointments and phone numbers with a stylish, yet elegantly functional, interface. However, it will only shoot rubber bullets.

And my current favorite…

Left 4 Dead

All custom maps in the Mac version of Left 4 Dead will have to be approved by Apple, which will reject any maps that feature nudity, suggestive content, political satire or zombies.

Two more main characters will be added: a balding, schlubby-looking guy in a suit, and a young dude with tousled hair and a semi-beard whom you will immediately want to shoot. However, you should not shoot the tousled guy, because teamwork is important to winning the game — and because it’s a lot more satisfying to see him dragged to his death by a tongue zombie.

Read More http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/05/alt-text-valve-apple/#ixzz0nHqReIup

In this perfect weather….

The high gaming season is on us once again, and once again just about every game that I have any interest in buying is coming out in the span of 3.2 seconds (ok not that quick but close enough). So as a community service I present to you Tom’s gaming guide for holiday 2009…. This guide should only be used as a tie breaker if your on the fence about something otherwise you are just being dumb.

Batman Arkham Asylum – Run don’t walk to get this masterpiece.
Halo ODST – Let me know how it is, I’m waiting for it to hit the $20 mark
Teken 6 – Like random button mashing? Like lots sparkles? Like a minimum of story? If you answered yes to two out of three then this game is for you.
Left4Dead2 – The only reason you’re reading this blog and didn’t buy this game is because your name is Curtis and your being difficult.
COD:Modern Warfare 2 – I hear it’s great… I’m waiting for it to come down to $20 then I will buy it used to screw Activison out of their money for making the PC version $60 and taking all control away for multiplayer.
New Super Mario Brothers (Wii) – How could you deny “It’s a me Mario!” ?
Brutal Legend – It has Jack Black and way to many Metal guys… how could you say no? (Probably because the game play has gotten thoroughly trounced in every review of the game)

In the event that…

You ever play the game “Left4Dead” with me… know that I have something of a reputation as a friendly fire maven.  As evidenced by the stats for one particularly “good”  round;

Most damage to teammates: 4,334 (on Expert)
Average damage to teammates: 140.00
So the lesson here boys and girls… Don’t get in front of me when I’m shooting at the undead.

Take me to the river….

I consider my self a gamer, I’m not any one kind of gamer I like all kinds of games.  Board, card, video, and sports (more watching not so much the playing).   I’m not partial to any one type of game over another I just enjoy playing games.

On the subject of video games I consider myself a PC gamer first and foremost and console gamer a far distant second.  I’ve been that way for coming up on 10 years now (basically since my first run through with the original half life and the X-wing / TIE fighter games of the later 90’s).  Last night I had a experience that may have signaled the shift of my PC gamer status.  Playing the “Left 4 Dead” demo with Curtis and Nick we kept having some serious technical issues.  We are all running Vista on our gaming boxes and you all know how much I loathe Vista, sadly Vista didn’t cause the headache it was game itself.  Which is really unfortunate since it runs on the STEAM service for the PC and honestly if I’m going to buy a game on the PC and it’s on STEAM that is how I’m going to buy it.

The problems seemed to be mostly of the beta/demo variety which I can understand, but after having such a good experience with Team Fortress 2 last year during the beta period I was fairly disappointed by the technical problems last night.  What happened next is to me amazing, I downloaded the “Left 4 Dead” demo onto my Xbox and played for about an hour online with public groups with really no problems outside of the occasional lag spike.

My experince with “Left 4 Dead” is probally not that common experince I will still pick up the game since when it did work the game lived up to the usual polish and refinement that I have come to expect out of the folks at Valve.

I have to say though, this is the first game that if I knew more people who would be picking it up on the Xbox I would probally go that route rather then the PC.

On the subject of Master Chief….

I’m glad I only paid $20 for Halo 3… the single player campaign left something to be desired. (a balanced experince would be a good place to start)

In Halo’s defense… it is supposed to be primarily a online game not a single player game.

I’m just happy I didn’t pay $60 for it.

On the subject of Niko Bellic…

So after just over 2 months and about 44 hours I beat the main story of Grand Theft Auto 4 last night.  Yes how exciting is my life when I’m talking about beating a video games.   That is not really the point of this post.  The point of this post is the single player experince on a console.

I had forgotten what the single player experinice on the console could be like. The last time a game enthralled me this much was 1998 with “The Legend of Zelda: Orconia of time” which is in my book the best Zelda game to date.  I do have the Zelda games for Wii and Gamecube, but I got through about 80% of them and then put them down.  I just lost interest same thing with the last three metroid games too (and just for the record there the best one of the series is probally still Super Metroid from 1993).   I don’t know what it is about the Grand Theft Auto game that has kept my attention.  It had a pretty good story which is a nice change of pace, it’s wasn’t the classic play the good guy or play the bad guy, all of the characters had depth of some sort even the secondary back ground characters.   And no it wasn’t the random senseless violence of it all either, though I will admit that launching a few RPG’s down a busy street in the game does have a certain amount of fun to it all.  Then again so does running from the cops.

I wish I had the same love for the multi-player experience on Xbox Live.  While Xbox Live is the best service amongst the current generation of platforms (I didn’t care for it when I borrowed the PS3 and the online mulitplayer in MarioKart makes me want to dig out my eyes) I just don’t like it.  I was talking with Curtis about online multiplayer games and we basically came to the same opionion that it still isn’t there on the console like it’s been there on the PC for 10+ years now.  And I think that this the problem for me is I’ve been playing on line on a PC for so long that I have very high expectations.   Now by no means is the PC multiplayer experince unified, but at least it’s a consistent part of just about every game that comes out these days.

So that brings me back to the ultimate question. Is the current PC the last one I will build just to be a gaming rig?  Right now I don’t know, there is a certain simplicty about just dropping $500 every 5 years for a new console instead of a $1000 ever two to three years (depending on new technology and what games your buying) and that is not including the new video card that is pretty much a standard upgrade every 18 months at this point.   I think that I will always be a multi platform house.   I like games and I like them in their natural enviroment.  Right now the console ecosystem seems to be the more robust ecosystem for the single player or limited multi player experince.  If you want to do a MMO the PC is really your only choice, well until Sony and Microsoft get their respective acts together and allow for cross platform play on a third party back end.

OH wait that’s a when hell freezes over kind of thing.

Pigs (three diffrent ones)

So with the recent demise of HD-DVD as a viable High Definition physical video format I’ve been kicking around the idea of making the jump to Blu-Ray and all of it’s glory.  This thought was helped when my brother bought a PS3.  And since he is not a game one can only assume that he bought it for Blu-Ray movies.  And over the course of the last month or so as I’ve mulled this decision over in one form or another I kept hearing about how integrated the PS3 was and all of the other normal chest thumping when the users of one particular technology smell blood and indecision in the water.

I honestly had not been bombarded with so many reasons as to why the PS3 was superior to every other platform out there since Jr. High when Donny Witt and I used to spend hours on end taunting each other as to which was the greater the 16-bit system Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis.  Hey when your 13 these things make a difference.  And just for the record the Super Nintendo still kicks the Sega Genesis’s little white butt!!!1!11!!0ne

However I digress, so through some weird combination of coworkers, an alignment of stars, and a promise to not hack or break anything I have been loaned a PS3.

Que jaw dropping… for those of you keeping track the last time I owned a Sony system willingly was 1996 when I bought the then state of the art Sony Play-station using money from my job at Albertson’s.  I had sold it within a year and bought a N64 which I still have to this day.  I do have a PS2 that my brother gave to me, however I have not hooked it up and have made no attempt to.   In the ten years since I sold that first Play-station   I’ve bought two other Nintendo systems and when I’ve played them I’ve enjoyed them immensely.  Key phrase “when I play them”.  I’m a PC gamer and I hold a special place in my game playing heart for all things Nintendo as I’ve often stated here I don’t care much about games other then are they fun?  And my general experince with Nintendo games is I often find them to be immensely fun!

So what gives with the change of heart?  First off, at $400 the PS3 is a bargain of Blu-Ray player right now and will be BD 2.0 compliant when that spec comes out.  And since Blu-Ray is a Sony format you know damn well that any future profiles will be supported by the PS3.   Second it’s backwards compatible with that gianormous library of PS2 games and more then a few are sure to classics when we look back on them in 10 or 15 years (classics in the way I see “Super Metroid” and “The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past” as great games of my youth).  Finally all of the new gaming platforms support some sort of link to your PC so you can play movies, show pictures, and stream music to your living room (sorry Windows only apparently Mac/Linux et all don’t want to support or just don’t care to support anything that would make their platforms accessible to the box in the living room (yes Tivo does run a Linux Kernel, but it’s heavily modified and we will get to why that is not a media platform in a bit)).

So for the past 5 days I’ve been playing with a PS3…

It’s more fun then I expected so it’s got that running for it.   The downloadable games from the Play-station Network makes ALOT of sense and I do I really like it.  Even if the selection is somewhat limited at the current time.  Hooking up with my home network was no worse an experince then the Wii or the Tivo was.  It’s a good media server  for the front room of the house and I could see me streaming things to the PS3 with out to much of a stretch of the imagination.    The games were “OK” I had a couple loaded onto the Hard Drive (Teken 5 being the closest thing to a “A” title and unless your a 12 to 18 y/o male a fighting game won’t hold your interest for long).  Teken has held up suprisingly well over the last decade or so and I have to give the the developers credit it’s still the fighter to beat.  “Call of Duty4” was a abysmal experince…. the game looked good, but I’ve never liked FPS type games on a console with the loan exception being the “Metroid” games.  I’m a PC gamer first and foremost and “COD4” on the PS3 reminded me of why this is in spades.

So what finally turned me completely off to the PS3?  My cable provider!  One of the big points of the PS3 is that you can stream music and videos off of it onto your PSP over the wireless network in your home or the internet!  And the PSP can play Tivo To Go files too!  Imagine my utter dismay when I was presented with the following screen.

Content you can't touch....

And this is true for about 85% of the shows on my Tivo, there doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason other then for some obscure reason Cox sees fit to set the copy protection flag on certain programs.  Ultimately this what led me away from the PS3/PSP combo more on principle then problems with technology.  Since if you look on current TIVO and PSP advertising they each tout how you can transfer tv shows from your Tivo to your PSP!  This killed it for me right here.

That and after watching “300” on Blu-Ray I could not tell a difference in picture quality, but the sound did seem improved.  Not enough of a reason to switch physical media formats.  But enough to give me faith that Apple may be onto something with the Apple Tv.

Good night and good luck.