Nosce Te Ipsum

Quick update: as you might have noticed, I’ve added two widgets to the sidebar with my Xbox Live ID and my PSN ID.

Feel free to friend me, maybe we can rock some game together, or maybe not, who knows .

Come to think of it, I haven’t played a good multiplayer game in quite some time.

Co-op in Gears of War was kinda awesome.

See you later .

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To whom it may concern,

I couldn’t be bothered to post anything these past weeks because I’ve been playing inFAMOUS on the PS3. And I’ve finished Final Fantasy XIII – finally!

Yeah, inFAMOUS rocks.

Keep in touch,

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Quick gaming update.

In case you haven’t been living under a rock you know who Tom Clancy is. Bringing him aboard for their games has probably made Ubisoft a boat load of money. And for good reason. I am not a big fan of the Ghost Recon series and I wasn’t too impressed by Endwar and what not but the Splinter Cell series remains one of the best action/stealth game offerings. One thing I am confused about is the main character’s evolution. I mean, Sam Fisher. It’s all very blurry. Each story seems to be somewhat independent from whatever happened in the other games. He’s like James Bond I guess in that respect. But not the Daniel Craig James Bond – Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace share the same storyline. The thing I enjoyed most in these games, apart from the actual action of sneaking up behind bad guys and taking them, out is the intricate political back-story. Being written by Tom Clancy really makes a difference. For me, Splinter Cell games are like a video game version of the show 24 – which I love.

But life is not all skittles and beer. The PC version of the game, which I had my eye on, uses the same DRM system as Assasin’s Creed 2. You know, the stupid “always connected” system. I might have bought the X360 version if there wasn’t going to be a PC version with better graphics. The PC version materializes April 27th – in 2 short days.  Steam is offering you the possibility to pre-purchase the game for 50 cold ones(euros, on this side of the world) – new games are always this pricey. I am afraid I will have to decline, this time, Mr. Fisher. My faith in Ubisoft is somewhat shaken. It’s nothing personal.

Is isn’t he awesome?

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I dug up one of my old projects, an implementation of the game Gomoku – a game played on a Go board where the goal is to build a row of 5 stones.

The goal of my project was to apply the minimax algorithm using a pruning heuristic to reduce the game states search space.

It was written in Java; the labels are in Romanian because I was too lazy to recompile it. But I will…

Check it out!

P.S.

I am 25 hours into FF XIII – I am halfway there!

P.P.S.

Updated my gomoku code a bit. It now attempts to show the winning line. There are still a few bugs.

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Here are the facts: Final Fantasy XIII has been out for a while now – got mine a week and a half ago. I am only 9 hours into the game and alas, it seems it will take me a long time to finish this. The Final Fantasy series has always prided itself on offering a deep experience and that is great. However… I find myself lacking time. It’s been a very long time since I spent that much time on a game. One reviewer claims it took him 60 hours to complete the main game. That is a lot. Enough complaining.

I thought I’d take this time to remember my Final Fantasy experiences. I haven’t played all the games of the series – mainly because when I was younger I couldn’t get my hands on a Playstation so I am not a hardcore fan. But I did play at least two Final Fantasy games and loved them both(three if you’re counting XIII as well).

My first was Final Fantasy VIII. The first one is always the best . This was made over 10 years ago – 12, I think – on the PS One. The fine folks at Square Enix were nice enough to port it to the PC as well and so I got to play it too. It was an interesting and emotional experience (yeah, well..) but I have to admit I choked at the end – I simply couldn’t finish the final battle. This is what usually happens if you don’t develop enough your characters or don’t master the battle system. But that was a long, long time ago. In a galaxy not so far away. Moving on.

A few years later, I played Final Fantasy IX. I was in high school and the PS2 was all the rage. However, FF IX was a PS One game. FF IX had my favorite FF character, the melancholic, cute but all so powerful dark mage, Vivi . I don’t know why but he simply feels like he was the bast character they ever created. This one, I actually finished.

I played a bit of Final Fantasy X & X-2 and XII but lacking time I put them off to a later time which probably will never come. I never touched Final Fantasy XI which is an MMOR{G – I don’t like the genre very much and my past WoW addiction should keep me away from any MMO for a while. Supposedly FF XIV will also be an MMO – what a waste of good talent .

At some point, when I was in my teens, the Final Fantasy movie came out (The Spirits Within). It was, at the time, the most accomplished CG movie. Unlike Toy Story from Pixar, they had human characters closely modeled of real people and the movie felt more like an actual live action movie than a cartoon. Trust me, it was revolutionary at the time. Aki Ross, anyone?

Which brings us to the Fantasy at hand – XIII. Like I said earlier I am only 8 hours or so into the game and I do have some trouble mastering the battle system. I find myself fearing I will not be able to handle the final battle. So in a way – this game is a lot like life (shorter, though) – it makes me fear the future, the lack of preparation for what awaits. Brilliant…

My favorite character so far is Lightning (for obvious reasons). I leave you with this nice trailer.

P.S.

Seriously, you don’t know what Final Fantasy is? Leave the rock you live under and fire up youtube. And then get a Playstation or an Xbox 360. Geez…

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In case you haven’t heard all about Ubisoft’s brain-dead DRM scheme, read my previous post.

Here’s a quick update: it seems that for the last few days legit owners of Silent Hunter 5 and Assassin’s Creed 2(I haven’t gotten mine yet…) have been unable to play due to the fact that Ubisoft servers were down during last weekend and then some.

Ubisoft reveals that they are the victim of Denial of Service attacks. Well, it kinda figures guys, just give up already. Trust me – just focus on making good games that sell. We will buy your damn games but don’t make us suffer for it.

I feel that, while they do have a right to protect their intellectual property, it should, and must not be at the expense of the honest players. It defeats the purpose, people.

Kotaku true  story.

Stay frosty.

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Quick update.

It’s no secret that Steam is the most successful digital distribution network for the PC. Since the launch of Half-Life 2, Steam has done wonders in the field of digital distribution. Digital distribution should be the way of the future: you are no longer tied to a physical medium, updates are pushed by the server instead of you checking for patches and best of all, your game is available wherever you are just by logging into your account. It’s a pretty sweet deal but I do admit that sometimes I prefer the boxed game to its ethereal, digital, counterpart.

Anyway, the news is that Steam is changing its look. So anyone who’s got Steam, go to account options and opt in for the new beta UI. More info on steampowered.com, of course.

Check out the new UI for your game library:

Got Game?

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A quick bite.

You probably know this song very well. It’s “Mad World” by Gary Jules. I was just watching a trailer for “The Crazies” that used this song as theme.

For me, this song is linked to the awesome “Gears of War” game. I can watch this for a while…

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The game everybody is talking about this year is, well, Mass Effect 2.

I loved the first Mass Effect but I admit I didn’t get much from the DLC which they offered after registering your game with a Bioware account. But DLC has come a long way since the first Mass Effect. For me, the best DLC ever was the Gears Of War 2 extra chapter. That’s what I want. Not just some in-game item or whatever.
I purchased the regular version of Mass Effect 2 for PC at a rather amazingly low price from a local online retailer and got the Gamestop pre-order bonus, the Terminus armor. But that’s not what matters.

I will not bore any potential reader with my opinions on the game – we have plenty of reliable reviewers out there that gave it the thumbs up, Adam Sessler from X-Play even called it Bioware’s Magnus Opus.
What interests me is the economical impact of DLC. Downloadable content they call it but, it is more than that.
Let’s face it, we like extras stuff, we like to get as much as possible from a product even if we might not need it. It’s embedded in our nature. So, publishers figured that they can actually increase the sales for the base product by introducing DLC as early as the launch day. Why DLC something and not just include it in the game if it is available at launch? Well, they probably say that it was developed after the original game was completed but I suspect another reason. DLC helps selling the base game. It’s that simple. Add some mostly irrelevant in-game item with pre-order and you boost pre-orders – you get buyers even before the game is released, what a deal. Oh, and Bioware is going all the way with their Cerberus Network. Now, I assume nothing too impressive will come out of it. But just having it increases sales. I, for one,  am annoyed with their 15$ fee to get into their Cerberus Network if you don’t get a code with the game package.

Well, I love Bioware and what they are doing but I am not loving these marketing tricks. They really don’t need it. That game can sell by itself. I assume EA used Bioware to squeeze as much income from this product as they could.

I was going to go a bit in the details of the game but I got lost in material issues. Just get it, you will see what I mean.

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After a nice 10 month absence from the World of Warcraft universe I reactivated my account in December 2009 on a whim. Of course, I got a bit hooked over the holidays (maybe a little more) and brought my druid from level 44 to 60 in a week or so.

As /played reports, it seems that all in all I spent some 12+ days in-game. Now that’s almost two weeks over a period of, I don’t know, 3-4 months ( I played last winter and now this December). I am not sure if I should be worried or relieved it is not more.

If you /laugh at me, my night elf death knight will come and cut you down to size. Ha ha!

Just kidding.

I am actually worried…

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