Monday, January 11, 2010
Times, they are a changing
After not updating this blog in forever and a day it seems, I decided to stop the blog. However, I am not quitting updating people on the goings on as far as video games and movies go. I am moving The MMOrning After from a blog format to Twitter. The main reason was an Xbox Live update a little while back that gave Twitter access to Lives users through the Dashboard. That will make things easier for me to post on the internet, and hopefully get updates out to you guys on a more regular basis. So while the blog may be stopping, I am hoping you guys move to Twitter and pick up things with me there!!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Technology is wonderful....when it works.
I apologize for lack of updates this month. With a houseful of people and the laptop still on the fritz, it can be hard to squeeze in time on our desktop PC, which results in the lack of any updates.
We went and saw "2012" about a week ago. I enjoyed it. For those that don't know, it is a story about the end of the world coming in conjunction with the end of the Mayan calender, which is December 21, 2012. While the story itself was alright, it paled in comparison to the special effects. The effects in this movie were phenomenal. Watching Los Angeles or Las Vegas or any of the other well known locations be destroyed by Mother Nature was pretty intense. It is a longer movie, but it doesn't feel like it with everything that is going on onscreen. So if you are looking for a fun movie to go to, I would recommend "2012".
I've been playing a ton of "Dragon Age: Origins" as you may imagine, and in fact, a few days ago, I ended up beating the game. What a game. A lot of the things that happen in the game reminded me a lot of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which I am a huge fan of. From the army of evil marching across the countryside destroying everything in its path, to the band of adventurers comprised of men, elves, and dwarves, this game is epic in scale. One thing I would have liked to see is there not be so much linear parts to the game and have it be more of an open world type of game like "Oblivion", but this is BioWare, and this game does indeed borrow a lot from "Mass Effect". It will be interesting to see how much along the same lines "Mass Effect 2" is. And that is a very good thing. Even with the linear nature of a lot of this game, I put in almost 90 hours of gameplay. Not only that but the way you can build relationships with your party members, and with the multitude of job and specialization combos makes for a ton of replayability. Which is why I started another game, this time as a female elvish Rouge. On my first playthrough I was a human Warrior, but this time around I'm looking forward to the different play styles between the two jobs,
Then last night I was on Xbox Live and saw their deal of the week which was 50% off of "Peggle". I've read a lot about this game and it's expansion "Peggle Nights" and they sounded really interesting, so I downloaded and played the demo, and I was hooked. It's an arcade style game kind of like a marriage between pinball and "Arkanoid". Basically you shoot balls at a table full of pegs, and every time your ball hits a peg, it disappears. There are different color pegs on the board, and the object of each board is to eliminate the orange pegs. This is a lot more challenging then it sounds, and a lot more fun. And a lot more addicting.
We went and saw "2012" about a week ago. I enjoyed it. For those that don't know, it is a story about the end of the world coming in conjunction with the end of the Mayan calender, which is December 21, 2012. While the story itself was alright, it paled in comparison to the special effects. The effects in this movie were phenomenal. Watching Los Angeles or Las Vegas or any of the other well known locations be destroyed by Mother Nature was pretty intense. It is a longer movie, but it doesn't feel like it with everything that is going on onscreen. So if you are looking for a fun movie to go to, I would recommend "2012".
I've been playing a ton of "Dragon Age: Origins" as you may imagine, and in fact, a few days ago, I ended up beating the game. What a game. A lot of the things that happen in the game reminded me a lot of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which I am a huge fan of. From the army of evil marching across the countryside destroying everything in its path, to the band of adventurers comprised of men, elves, and dwarves, this game is epic in scale. One thing I would have liked to see is there not be so much linear parts to the game and have it be more of an open world type of game like "Oblivion", but this is BioWare, and this game does indeed borrow a lot from "Mass Effect". It will be interesting to see how much along the same lines "Mass Effect 2" is. And that is a very good thing. Even with the linear nature of a lot of this game, I put in almost 90 hours of gameplay. Not only that but the way you can build relationships with your party members, and with the multitude of job and specialization combos makes for a ton of replayability. Which is why I started another game, this time as a female elvish Rouge. On my first playthrough I was a human Warrior, but this time around I'm looking forward to the different play styles between the two jobs,
Then last night I was on Xbox Live and saw their deal of the week which was 50% off of "Peggle". I've read a lot about this game and it's expansion "Peggle Nights" and they sounded really interesting, so I downloaded and played the demo, and I was hooked. It's an arcade style game kind of like a marriage between pinball and "Arkanoid". Basically you shoot balls at a table full of pegs, and every time your ball hits a peg, it disappears. There are different color pegs on the board, and the object of each board is to eliminate the orange pegs. This is a lot more challenging then it sounds, and a lot more fun. And a lot more addicting.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thirteen is lucky after all
So I was poking around on the Xbox Live Dashboard and saw something pertaining to a special announcement about "Final Fantasy XIII", the next installment in the phenomenal series of RPG games. So I downloaded the video, and they showed some really, really good looking gameplay footage, announced that Leona Lewis has a new song coming out called "My Hands" which was chosen as the "FFXIII" theme song, and last but most importantly not least, they announced the North American release date. So if you are a big fan of the "Final Fantasy" series, mark your calenders for March 9, 2010.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Where does the time go
So I was thinking about my blog, and it came to me that I hadn't updated it in almost 2 weeks. Shame on me. It's been kind of an interesting 2 weeks though. It started with some more "Magic: the Gathering", doing some co-op with my son. That was kinda fun. I am still impressed at the job they did on that game recreating a good "M: tG" play experience. Then a few days later I was looking on Xbox Live and I noticed something about "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2". And much to my joy, it was the first character DLC pack. Not only did Xbox owners who did not pre-order the game finally get to play as Juggernaut, but we also got Cable, Psylocke, Carnage, and Magneto. They also gave us some new Simulator missions which were pretty cool, so once I downloaded that stuff, I played that for a day or 2, trying out the new characters and playing the sim missions. The new characters seem to be pretty good, from the limited playtime I gave to them. Probably my favorites of the group are Juggernaut and Magneto. Carnage isn't too bad as well, and I really didn't spend a lot of time playing with Cable or Psylocke, just enough to unlock their alternate costumes.
With my wife out of town last week, I decided to go against a rule she set for me a few years ago. Since I am a huge gamer, and my family knows it, she decided that come November 1, I am not allowed to purchase any new games until after Christmas, since I don;t know who will be getting me what games, if any, for Christmas gifts. Well, I had a thought, that with so many good games coming out, buying 1 won't make a difference. So I bought "Dragon Age: Origins". I fully blame this game for my lack of an update. This game comes from the same guys that gave us "Mass Effect", the upcoming "Mass Effect 2" and "Baldur's Gate" 1 and 2. After recently playing through "Mass Effect" you can really tell where some of the gameplay in "Dragons Age: Origins" came from. I am really enjoying this game to this point, even though I am only about 25 hours into a 60-80 hour game. The game is the story of the Gray Wardens, a group of elite warriors, rogues, and mages, who have one job. Every few hundred years, an army of evil beings known as Darkspawn bring hell to the world of Ferelden in an event known as the Blight. It is the Wardens job to eradicate the Blight. Once you create your character, you start the game as one of the newest Gray Wardens, and you are off and running. Like I said, this game is a whole lot of fun. Combat is definitely interesting, with probably the most interesting thing you can do for each member of your party is set up what is called Tactics. These are different commands you can have each party member do certain actions if certain conditions are met. These can range from doing certain abilities or using certain spells, to even taking health or mana potions. You start off with only a few Tactic lines, but can increase those as you level. This is a great RPG, and serves as a really un bridge until January when "Mass Effect 2" comes out.
Sandwiched in between this all, I had to replace my old router, when a firmware upgrade crashed my network, making our laptop virtually useless to go online. I highly doubt I will buy a Linksys produt ever again, and I will leave it at that.
Last but not least, I want to give a shout out to my good friend Oprahruru. He recently decided to take a leave of absence, possibly a permanent one, from the world of Vana'diel and FFXI. Oprahruru, take care of yourself, keep in touch on Facebook, here on my blog, on your quality blog, Master of Manipulation, and on the Duskwalker website.
With my wife out of town last week, I decided to go against a rule she set for me a few years ago. Since I am a huge gamer, and my family knows it, she decided that come November 1, I am not allowed to purchase any new games until after Christmas, since I don;t know who will be getting me what games, if any, for Christmas gifts. Well, I had a thought, that with so many good games coming out, buying 1 won't make a difference. So I bought "Dragon Age: Origins". I fully blame this game for my lack of an update. This game comes from the same guys that gave us "Mass Effect", the upcoming "Mass Effect 2" and "Baldur's Gate" 1 and 2. After recently playing through "Mass Effect" you can really tell where some of the gameplay in "Dragons Age: Origins" came from. I am really enjoying this game to this point, even though I am only about 25 hours into a 60-80 hour game. The game is the story of the Gray Wardens, a group of elite warriors, rogues, and mages, who have one job. Every few hundred years, an army of evil beings known as Darkspawn bring hell to the world of Ferelden in an event known as the Blight. It is the Wardens job to eradicate the Blight. Once you create your character, you start the game as one of the newest Gray Wardens, and you are off and running. Like I said, this game is a whole lot of fun. Combat is definitely interesting, with probably the most interesting thing you can do for each member of your party is set up what is called Tactics. These are different commands you can have each party member do certain actions if certain conditions are met. These can range from doing certain abilities or using certain spells, to even taking health or mana potions. You start off with only a few Tactic lines, but can increase those as you level. This is a great RPG, and serves as a really un bridge until January when "Mass Effect 2" comes out.
Sandwiched in between this all, I had to replace my old router, when a firmware upgrade crashed my network, making our laptop virtually useless to go online. I highly doubt I will buy a Linksys produt ever again, and I will leave it at that.
Last but not least, I want to give a shout out to my good friend Oprahruru. He recently decided to take a leave of absence, possibly a permanent one, from the world of Vana'diel and FFXI. Oprahruru, take care of yourself, keep in touch on Facebook, here on my blog, on your quality blog, Master of Manipulation, and on the Duskwalker website.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Haunted house of cards
So last week after playing some "Halo Wars", I decided to finally start playing "Grand Theft Auto 4". I had bought the game a few weeks ago, a few days before jumping feet first into the"Halo" universe. I really enjoyed "Grand Theft Auto 3" on the PS2, and had heard and read a lot about "GTA 4", and everything pointed to this being another great addition to the "GTA" universe. After playing it for a few days, and enjoying it, I decided to download demos of two games that some friends of mine turned me on to.
The first game I tried was called "Carcassone". It's a strategy game based on an old board game. My friend Leo told me about this game, and the demo was fun. It took me a couple tries to get the hang of the game, and unfortunately the demo was kind of limited. At some point I think I'm gonna have to buy it. The other game I tried out, eventually downloaded, and bought the full version of, and have been playing virtually all this week is "Magic: the Gathering: Duel of the Planeswalkers". Before I talk about the game, I feel I should give a little background info. I used to play the card game a lot. There used to be a HobbyTown USA store in my area, and me and a bunch of friends of mine used to go and play every week for a few hours, and many times would even go to each others houses to play. In fact, my friend Brian is the one who told me about this game, and he was pretty much the one who taught me how to be a better M:tG player.
So fast forward to me and my 360. This game is a lot of fun, and they did a really good job recreating the card playing experience. They even gave you access to a few really good decks, along with unlocking more cards for each deck as you win matches against the AI player. One thing about the AI players is that the ones later on in the single player game can pose a pretty decent challenge. I was actually pretty impressed by this. But there is one huge drawback to this game. In the actual card game, decks are usually constructed using a total of 60 cards. In the 360 game, you are very limited to how you can construct a deck. A lot of the matches I am playing with a deck totaling 70 cards or more. Not only that, the only cards you can add or remove from a given deck, are the ones you unlock, even if some of the cards in the decks they give you kind of suck. And the bad part about this, is that a lot of the cards you unlock are actually quite good, so you really don't want to play without them. But other then that rather major drawback, I really enjoy this game so far, and not even close yet to unlocking all the cards for every available deck.
Earlier today, my wife and I went to see "Paranormal Activity". I was very surprised that this movie came to my area, seeing as how I live in a smaller area. When I first heard about this movie, and the strategy they were using to release it, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would have to wait for it to come on DVD. But word of mouth for this movie was so strong that it pushed itself into a nationwide release. This was a really good movie, filmed in much the same style as "Blair Witch Project", "Cloverfield" and "Quarrentine". Very fitting that they release such a good ghost story the night before Halloween. I highly recommend that if you want to have a few moments that make you jump, go see this movie.
The first game I tried was called "Carcassone". It's a strategy game based on an old board game. My friend Leo told me about this game, and the demo was fun. It took me a couple tries to get the hang of the game, and unfortunately the demo was kind of limited. At some point I think I'm gonna have to buy it. The other game I tried out, eventually downloaded, and bought the full version of, and have been playing virtually all this week is "Magic: the Gathering: Duel of the Planeswalkers". Before I talk about the game, I feel I should give a little background info. I used to play the card game a lot. There used to be a HobbyTown USA store in my area, and me and a bunch of friends of mine used to go and play every week for a few hours, and many times would even go to each others houses to play. In fact, my friend Brian is the one who told me about this game, and he was pretty much the one who taught me how to be a better M:tG player.
So fast forward to me and my 360. This game is a lot of fun, and they did a really good job recreating the card playing experience. They even gave you access to a few really good decks, along with unlocking more cards for each deck as you win matches against the AI player. One thing about the AI players is that the ones later on in the single player game can pose a pretty decent challenge. I was actually pretty impressed by this. But there is one huge drawback to this game. In the actual card game, decks are usually constructed using a total of 60 cards. In the 360 game, you are very limited to how you can construct a deck. A lot of the matches I am playing with a deck totaling 70 cards or more. Not only that, the only cards you can add or remove from a given deck, are the ones you unlock, even if some of the cards in the decks they give you kind of suck. And the bad part about this, is that a lot of the cards you unlock are actually quite good, so you really don't want to play without them. But other then that rather major drawback, I really enjoy this game so far, and not even close yet to unlocking all the cards for every available deck.
Earlier today, my wife and I went to see "Paranormal Activity". I was very surprised that this movie came to my area, seeing as how I live in a smaller area. When I first heard about this movie, and the strategy they were using to release it, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would have to wait for it to come on DVD. But word of mouth for this movie was so strong that it pushed itself into a nationwide release. This was a really good movie, filmed in much the same style as "Blair Witch Project", "Cloverfield" and "Quarrentine". Very fitting that they release such a good ghost story the night before Halloween. I highly recommend that if you want to have a few moments that make you jump, go see this movie.
Friday, October 23, 2009
So all precincts are in......
Work was kind to me today and I was able to go see "Saw VI" like I had hoped to this morning. Let me start this by saying there will not be any spoilers about the movie, so this will most likely be a short update. The movie was really good. This one was similar to the last 2 movies in that a portion of the film was told through flashbacks, to tie the movies and the total storyline together and "Saw VI" accomplished this well. They tied up just about every lose end that the previous films had left us, which leads me to my only gripe. While every plot line was finished, they did unfortunately leave a small opening at the end of this one for a "Saw" movie next year. I really hope that the series is done. If they do in fact release a new "Saw" next year, they are gonna be doing the series a disservice. Hopefully the people at Lionsgate know when to call it a day with the series. I'd hate to see this go the same way as the "Friday the 13th" movies and just become a joke. The "Saw" series deserves better.
A tradition unlike any other......or not.
Well today marks year number 6 of a tradition that I have come to look forward to every year. What is this tradition you may ask? Today is the opening of "Saw VI". Ever since the first one came out, I have made a point of going to see the new one the day of release every year. Don't ask me why. I don't really have an answer as to why. I will be honest. While I do enjoy the "Saw" movies, they really need to end the series with either this movie or with the possible release of "Saw VII". I haven't done any looking into another "Saw" movie release for next year so they might already be planning another movie for next year. But the series does need to end soon. One thing that keeps me curious about the new "Saw" movies is how they keep the "Jigsaw" storyline going with him long dead. I also enjoy the flashbacks into his life they have had in the recent movies, going more into his life before "Jigsaw" and the events that pushed him to his breaking point.
So, after work today, I will be in the theater, pop and Crispy Critters in hand looking forward to see what "Jigsaw" and company come up with next. Hopefully the movie can meet my expectations. Those expectations being just not to suck too bad.
So, after work today, I will be in the theater, pop and Crispy Critters in hand looking forward to see what "Jigsaw" and company come up with next. Hopefully the movie can meet my expectations. Those expectations being just not to suck too bad.
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