A Useful Spreadsheet for Fear Itself 1st edition

While waiting for my friends to be available for us to play a game of Fear Itself  I ended up making a couple of resources for the game. One of the things I made was a spreadsheet that had all the general and investigation abilities listed and add up the totals for each player. I mostly made it out of boredom but it ended up being useful when one of my friends got mixed up on the math. It can also be useful to keep track of what abilities your players have as well. It's simple but useful, anyway the Spreadsheet is a Google doc that can be found here. To use it you have to go to file, download as, and then choose one of the download options. If anyone knows if there is a way for me to publish the spreadsheet and let people use it on the web let me know.


UPDATE (November 3, 2016): So Fear Itself came out with a 2nd Edition that updated the abilities list (added new ones and got rid of others). And well I don't think I'll update this for the 2nd edition, mostly because I'm lazy and also because they changed the math on the fleeing ability that I'm not sure how to incorporate it in a spreadsheet.

Top 3 Cooperative Games

John and I continue our top 3 lists with cooperative games we have played. While listening to this while editing I'm surprised we didn't put Resident Evil 5 on the list or even an honorable mention. Oh well I'll still stand by the list we made up. anyway enjoy the video and if you have your own list or stories for cooperative games we would love to read them.

Top 3 Competitive Multiplayer Shooters

John and I sat down and recorded a couple of top 3 lists. We came up with the topics off the top of our heads, which to me is more fun than having to spend hours looking back at our personal gaming history and instead we thought up our most memorable games. The first video is our top 3 Competitive Multiplayer Shooters, and the next list will be our top 3 cooperative games.

Our Top 3 Games of All Time

About a Year ago I got Steve, Arthel and I to sit down and record our favorite games of all time. I finally got around to editing it and making a video out of it (nothing fancy just a slideshow of box art). While its been a year I can say my list has not changed, I can't say if Steve's and Arthel's lists are still the same but if they really want to, they can update this post with a more recent opinion.

For those that don't have the time to watch the video our top 3 games are:

Steve:
3. God of War 3 (PS3)
2. Super Smash Bros. Melee (GameCube)
1. Uncharted (The Series) (PS3)

Arthel:

3. Demon's Souls (PS3)
2. Pokemon Gold (Game Boy Color)
1. Uncharted 2 (PS3)

James:

3. Dwarf Fortress (PC)
2. Harvest Moon Back to Nature (PS1)
1. Tales of Symphonia (GameCube)

Actual Play #1 Our First Time and Boy Does It Show

My friends, John and Arthel, and I finally got the chance to do something that I've been wanting to do for months,we played a tabletop role playing game. The first game I chose to play, was Fear Itself. Even though I'm not into the horror genre, the game is fairly rules-light; I figure it would be a good starting game. The story we ran was something that I came up with.

(Sorry for the inconvenience of my dogs in the background)



Before I begin to discuss some of the flaws in the video, I just want to go on the record that I was nervous. It's a little intimidating using my concept for the recording.

Things I could improve upon as Game Master:

- Prior to recording, I asked how my friends wanted to approach the house (i.e: Were their characters teenagers in town breaking in? Ghost hunters? etc.). They decided that they wanted to be college kids and broke down in front of the house to investigate. Now, the confusion between what I thought they wanted and what they had meant, was in stead of breaking down in front of the house, they wanted to break down in the town and then learned about the house from the locals. Obviously, a lack of communication on my part. Granted, even if they had wanted to start at the house, I should have made them stop in town just to create a back story (college students on a road trip learning about the house).
-I railroaded them. Honestly, this was simply due to the fact I'm an inexperience GM and the setting of the story.
-I should have made a lot more stability checks.

Things I accomplished as Game Master:

-I created a fun game and we agreed to play another game soon.

Next game will be Monsterhearts.

My Dwarf Fortress Story

The video below contains my Dwarf Fortress story. It's the story that I tell my friends when explaining why I play Dwarf Fortress and why they should give it a second glance.



If you're wondering what's up with the screenshots being a bit out of place, it's because I took enough screenshots to fill 5 minutes out of 8.5 and I didn't have any other ideas of shots to take without spending a couple hours with the game.


If you want to learn more about Dwarf Fortress check out it's website:
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

and it's wiki:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

If your interested in playing or learning to play, check out the Lazy Newb Pack which comes with tilesets to make the game more graphic friendly and utilities to make Dwarf Fortress more user friendly. It helped me get into the game.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0

Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together First Fifteen Minutes

I play Tactic Ogre Let Us Cling Together for fifteen Minutes.... I fail at talking, I take a quiz, I answer my cell phone, and I learned to walk. 


I also play the tutorial battle where everyone talks casually about items and how to walk, as they kill people... oh and I get to throw rocks at the enemy!

PSP Video Test Persona 3 Portable

If the video feels like it just stops its because I had to chop off the last minute because of youtube limits... which doesn't matter because Like I said in the video this is a test to see if I can record PSP games with my Hauppauge HD PVR... and I think its was a successful test (other than me failing at talking at some points) but you can give your opinions if you want. I'll be getting Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together for the psp Tuesday and I'll be doing a first 15 minutes video for it (hence the test) so check back for that.

P.S. I'm still doing that top 10 of 2010, I got the list down already but I suck at writing...

My New Year's Resolutions

Honestly this should have been posted yesterday or Friday but I didn't think about it till today. I'm not sure if anyone will see this but hell if i don't follow through on these I can at least feel bad each time I come to the blog.

• I'm going to post more often with reviews and opinion articles on current gaming news.
• I'm going to try to stop writing "gonna" because apparently my computer is trying to tell me it's not a real word.
• I will try to start using my video equipment to do more videos. (maybe video reviews, or me playing a demo/first 15 minutes of a game and try to be entertaining.)
• I want to learn how to play Dwarf Fortress effectively. (I got most of the basics down but the military aspect eludes me.) 
• And lastly I want to give other video game genres I've usually would just avoid a chance. (mostly fighting, and racing games.)  

Anyway my next post which will be about my top ten games for 2010 should be up by tomorrow or Tuesday.

--Thanks for reading.

Old Cole Vs. Old New Cole Vs. New Old Cole

Old Cole was bland but at least he looked like a badass.



Old New Cole may look like an asshole but at least he doesn't look like the zombie the original was.



Initially I was annoyed by the change but eventually got over it and realized they don't look 100% different. Old New Cole could kind of pass as a happier "I have powers and you don't" Cole...with hair.



New Old Cole...Yay!!!!!?????



When I first saw the newest iteration I was ecstatic. The more I thought about it, the more I hated it. This new Cole doesn't really look as badass as the original. He doesn't look as boring but he also looks more like your average person...if that makes sense. In some screen shots the newest Cole looks sick almost diseased. Now even if the best of the screen shots is what he will look like through out come launch, I have one big problem. They didn't change back the voice. The voice of Cole in Infamous 2 doesn't really match the current character model in my opinion.



I loved the first Infamous and trust Sucker Punch will deliver an even better experience than the first. I guess I'll eventually get use to Cole's voice with his current look. Funny after all this I still have to get use to it. I mean was it really worth complaining about the original character, about the second iteration, and now the third, if in the end it still isn't quite right?

Revised Top 5

Well I saw that most of my “top 5 games I can’t wait for” came out and I decided to update it. I’m still gonna stay in the 2010, so any game that was on my list that got pushed to a different year will be replaced, and any of the games I’ve played I’ll give a little description on what I thought of it. So lets start with the games I’m gonna take off the list.

Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver (DS)
I did not complete this game. Reason why? I got bored halfway through. I think I’m getting tired of the whole pokemon formula, I’ll probably even skip pokemon Black and White.

The Grinder (Wii, PS3, X360)
Not Coming out this year. Halloween 2011...

Alpha Protocol (PC, PS3, X360)
I skipped on this game… after seeing a couple of reviews I decided to save my money…. For naughty bear…

Naughty Bear (PS3, X360)
I feel I picked the wrong game to back my money on, I should of got alpha protocol. I did not enjoy Naughty Bear…

Okay now to the revised list.

5. Civilization 5 (PC)
I have no clue if my laptop can run this game, I don’t know much about pc gaming… but after playing civilization revolution on the consoles I been wanting to try the pc games, and with civilization 5 coming out soon might as well try that one.
September 21, 2010
http://www.civilization5.com/

4. Fallout New Vegas (PC, PS3, X360)
I loved Fallout 3. It took me a while to get into it, but I've spent more time devoted to that game than I did to my porn collection at the time. A new location and a new story with some tweaked mechanics. I'm up to pay 80 bucks for it. (if I had 80 bucks)
October 19, 2010
http://fallout.bethsoft.com/

3. Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar (DS)
I love the harvest moon series… It’s hard to explain why I like it so much, but I always enjoy myself taking care of my farm, wooing the women of the town, and giving people I don’t like trash…(By the time this gets on the blog this game is already out… I’m just to poor to get it at the moment.)
http://www.natsume.com/coming_soon/games/hmgb/index.html

2. LittleBigPlanet 2 (PS3)
I still enjoy the original LittleBigPlanet, and having that game with a bunch of new items for level creation just sounds amazing. I really like the music sequencer they showed off not to long ago. Hopefully I’ll be able to complete making a level this time.
November 16, 2010
http://www.littlebigplanet.com/2/

1.Fable III (X360, PC)
This should have been on my list the last time, it just slipped my mind but not this time. I really loved the first fable (I didn’t hear about all the stuff Molyneux said while the game was in development.). And Fable 2 is something I still play today. I really can’t wait for this game and I’m hoping on saving enough cash for the limited edition version.
October 26, 2010
http://lionhead.com/Fable/FableIII/

Naughty Bear Review

Naughty as in bad

Liked

Some Humor: You’ll get some chuckles out of the things that are going on. Stuff like choking a teddy bear with a phone or the fact that they named a zombie teddy bear Geebus.

Hated

Sea Sick: the Frame rate in Naughty Bear is poor. It gets distracting and it just gets worse when you start killing the other bears.

Boring: Naughty Bear Gets boring fast, the deaths and screams of the other bears become a dull throb in the back of your head as you think what game you’re gonna play next.

You know what fuck the list of pros and cons. The bottom line here is Naughty Bear is not a good game. The Frame rate is Disgustingly bad, the camera is shit, the game can’t keep up with its self and freezes up when to much is happening (which is often towards the end of the game), and in the end a big waste of time. It’s a interesting concept but poorly executed, this game would be hard for me to recommend to anyone even if the price was ten dollars. Just pass this one up or wait till its 3 bucks.

2.0/10 SHIT

I played all the main story missions, a handful of the challenges, and a few matches in multiplayer.

Modnation Code

I doubt if anyone reads this blog (yet!), but if you do leave comments or hit the follow button. I tend to get lazy when I don't have anyone to update for.... motivate me dammit! Why am I writing this again? Oh yeah I got a extra code for Modnation for something called the Air Raid, so I decided might as well give it away seeing that I doubt I'm gonna be able to get Modnation anyway (damn my lack of money).

And if you can't see the Image above the code is: FEN5-LHBN-B843.

Oh and if you get the code leave a comment saying you got it so people don't waste their time.

(p.s. Steve/John don't take this code...)

(p.s.s the Steve and John that write for this blog not any Steve's or John's that just read the blog)

Record of Agarest War Halfway Review?

I’m not really sure if I can or should call this a review, but I think I’m going to. Basically, a lot of good looking smexy games are coming out next week. It’s bad enough that I won’t have enough money to buy them all, but also not have enough time because of other games. So, I figure if I want Agarest to be reviewed this month I’m gonna have to do it now while I’m on the halfway point in the game (or so it seems anyway). I will however be doing a full review of the game when I do finish it (which will probably be in a couple of months).

Liked:

Soul Breed: I’ll be bloody honest right now, this was the main reason I got this game when I heard about it. There are five chapters in the game. In each chapter, you play the child of the main character from the previous chapter. The interesting part is, depending on who you marry and mate with determines the stats and skills of your child.

Story: While not the best story in the world, it is enjoyable and interesting enough to keep me going instead of outright quitting the game. The basic premise of the story is basically an ancient evil has come back to takeover the world and the first hero who dies at one point is granted strength to help the world defeat this darkness, but he has to give his and his descendants their… freedom I guess would be the best word in this case.

Meh:

English Subtitles: The game only has Japanese voiceovers. This didn’t really bother me, but I may as well mention it just in case this does bother you.

Dislike:

Fighting: I probably should have mentioned this before, but the game is a strategy RPG (like FF: Tactics or Fire Emblem). I tend to enjoy these types of games, but Agarest War has a few issues. Every battlefield is flat, they reuse the battlefields a lot, there’s no feeling of an advantage when you attack from behind or the sides, and my biggest issue with it is the battles just get too tedious too fast.

Stuck: It's possible to get stuck, there’s no way to change the difficulty mid game, and if you can’t get out of your predicament, you're just gonna have to restart. (Yeah I'm an idiot... there's a kind of move menu so you can go straight to town you visited...)

I’m enjoying the story but the fights are really bringing me down. If I had to rate Agarest War from where I am in the game, I would give it a 6/10.

Edit:

I decided to record the intro of the game out of boredom and put it here enjoy.

Crazy Uncharted 2 Clip

This isn't me playing in this video.

NFL Off-Season Moves

Anyone who likes or even loves football and follows the NFL knows that it is very likely that some of your favorite players could be saying their good byes to your team, and hello to another over night. That's how the business side of the NFL is. I personally do not like that and some people may be indifferent about it after accepting it...

Well, to get to the point of this post, It has been the off-season for the NFL since February and I think that all of the trading, signing, and releasing of players is starting to wrap up for now. This has been the most busy off-season I have witnessed since I started following football. I find this exciting for the most part. There have been a lot of big moves that everyone knows about, and a bit of smaller signings that only fans of that team would pay attention to.

About the draft...I never really made any kind of big deal about watching the draft in the past, but i watched the 1st round of the 2010 NFL Draft. The reason that I never worried about watching is because it will be covered on ESPN for the next week after. Anyway...every year that I hear about the draft, people seem to be saying that it was the best draft class of all time. I don't see how every draft can be the best draft ever. Maybe that is just me though.

Moves I'm Excited To Follow

• New York Jets- The New York Jets picked up a lot of talent this off-season. I want to see how LaDainian Tomlinson and Santonio Holmes perform in this upcoming season. I was dumbfounded when I read online that the Jets picked up former Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes! I was also surprised to hear that they did get L.T. I wasn't surprised that he was picked up, but I was surprised because of the team he went to. Unlike a lot of people, I DO NOT think that L.T. is washed up! You can not blame declining or lack of production on one person. Just like you can give one person all of the credit when things are going great. I think L.T. will do just fine and Santonio will be itching to play when his suspension is up.
• Kansas City Chiefs- I can't say that I know why the Jets decided to let go of a great RB like Thomas Jones. All he did was produce for them and he is great in the 4th quarter. The Chiefs should enjoy pounding the rock with Jones and tossing in some Jamaal Charles in the mix. The Chiefs should be a bit tougher this year with the addition of Jones plus a couple of good draft picks like Eric Berry, Dexter McCluster, and Javier Arenas.
• Baltimore Ravens- We all have to assume that Anquan Boldin will most likely be Flacco's favorite target. The guy is a great receiver! You also have to assume that the Ravens will be just as tough to beat as always. They picked up some defensive guys in the draft who can come in and make an impact. As always, Ray Lewis will be driving this team to play great games.
• Miami Dolphins- A HUGE move for the Dolphins was trading for WR Brandon Marshall! This guy is big, has great catching ability, and has some good speed for his size. The Dolphins also added to the defensive side of the team when they picked up MLB Karlos Dansby from the Arizona Cardinals(I didn't know he is 26 by the way). All of their draft picks were defensive players except one OL. Even though they have another really tough schedule, look out for the Dolphins next year.

I am excited to see how Sam Bradford and Jimmy Clausen will perform this year if they start. Bradford is almost sure to start. Clausen could start, but some people are behind Matt Moore so we'll see what happens with that. Two more players I want to see are C.J. Spiller and Jahvid Best. They should both be exciting to watch and make things difficult on their opponents.

Split/Second Demo

Like many people, I got the chance to play the Split/Second demo when it came to Xbox Live market place, and let me say it’s badass.

Loved

Explosions- Every two feet there is something you can trigger to explode to try and take out your opponents in front of you, each explosion is always fun to watch, and nothing is more fun than watching your opponents crash or you narrowly making it out of an explosion.

Multi-path- I played the demo fifteen times the first day it came out, and each race felt different and had enough different paths to make one map a blast to play over and over.

Disliked

Behind Me- You can’t trigger explosions behind you… which felt a little odd.

I really like the demo for Split/Second and I pretty much hate racing games. I can’t wait for this game to come out on May 18th 2010.

Random Comic I Made

Platinum Prostitute

Don’t think of this as another term for trophy tramp, while they are similar they have some key differences. While a trophy tramp’s end goal would be a platinum trophy, the platinum prostitute’s only goal is the platinum trophy. A tramp gets excited getting even a bronze trophy, the prostitute finds it rather useless unless that’s the last trophy they needed.

PersonA: Hey you got a trophy!

PersonB: … Is it the platinum?

PersonA: Well no but… you got a trophy.

PersonB: But… its not the platinum…

Burnout Paradise

I know this is late to review, but I just bought and started playing this game last week...

I had played a Burnout game about 4 or 5 years ago and loved all of it. I just recently started to play Burnout Paradise and I like it a lot.

In the last game I played, in the main mode there was just a world map and you would select which events you wanted to do. While racing, or crashing, there would be a set track like most racers. It was fun and I enjoyed it while I was able to play it. In this new Burnout, it has a free roam feature that lets you explore Paradise City (and the Paradise Island DLC) and discover what there is to find. I personally like this feature over the way Burnout used to be. Also, while in a race or event, you still have that freedom. There are no more walls with arrows or some kind of barricade that tells you which way you are supposed to go; you go whichever way you like.

I don't know what the online play was like in previous Burnout games, but I think the online play is great in this one. It has a constant flow of information on what records you're friends have broken and what streets they now own. If you want to go online with other racers, you can access a menu that appears while you are free roaming. You don't have to press pause or go back to the main menu. The connection is, if not instant, almost instantly and you don't have to wait in a lobby or anything. There are also quite a few challenges/events to enjoy and compete in when playing online with a few friends.

I have read a few things about this game online. Some people say that it is extremely realistic. The only things to me that are "extremely" realistic are the crashes and the sound of the engines. When you crash or wreck your vehicle, the game will most likely go into slow motion and show you all the crinkles, bending, and smashing of the car. Depending on how you crash, you will see pieces of metal and rubber flying everywhere. The wheels will come off and if you crash into something sideways, your car may even start wrapping around what you crashed into. The engines do sound realistic, but when you are on a straight a way, if you are holding the throttle the whole time the car will continue to shift up, and up, and up. It doesn't stop unless you start to slow down or the alternative, which would be crashing/wrecking.

Burnout Paradise has quite a few cars to choose from, including cars from previous games. This wide variety lets you try out Paradise City a few different ways. I have a few personal favorites that I tend to stick with. There are three different kinds of boost though. Aggression, Speed, and Stunt. You can also stick the cars in these boost categories. If you have some built up frustration, grab an aggressive car and go on some road rage. If you feel like showing off your moves and getting some style points, get into a stunt car and jump off a few ramps in a stunt event.

If you like cars, smashing stuff, and insane jumps, this could be a good game for you. I like it a lot. It's an especially great time if you can get some friends online and drive around whether it's racing, or wrecking each other all over the city.