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Archive for May, 2012

Real job…

31 May

RealJob™ has been kicking my ass lately, so nothing new to report lately…

Most of my TV series are done for the time being (damn summer schedule!), so I’ve been mainly playing Diablo 3 (when the servers aren’t down… Nice going, Blizzard, you’re really pushing it), watching old movies that were pilling up in my “to-watch” list (nothing really good that warrants a recommendation) and been feeling the urge to join the masses and play Skyrim.

It’s fun that I’m thinking about playing Skyrim since I got it for Christmas… but when I think on the massive time investment I’ll have to do (60+ hours), I kind of put it on hold…

This is one of the things I feel Grey might fill a niche: short RPG experiences, where we condense the good bits into 4-8 hours of gameplay… Of course, if our plans come into fruition, the whole Grey experience will be about 40 or 50 hours, but since any episode is only 4 to 8 hours long, it seems more manageable for people with little time for games…

Anyway, work will be pretty intense for the next weeks, but hopefully I won’t be so tired and I’ll manage to get some more work done on Grey!

 
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Posted in General

 

More on Diablo 3…

24 May

Hey all!

Mini-review of Diablo 3: It’s just like Diablo 2, but with extremely good graphics, loads of polish and annoying always on DRM…

The DRM part has run a lot of ink in the gaming press… For me, I was annoyed by it twice (on the launch, since I had to wait 45 minutes to get online), and on last Sunday (when the service was down for 6 hours or so).

I understand why people are angry, but I also understand why Blizzard went this route (and had the problems they had)…

Anyway, I’m guessing this will be the future on the PC gaming market, as annoying as it is…

Other than that, the game is loads of fun, the perfect implementation of a Skinnerbox, polished to perfection… You just need “one more level”, “one more zone”, and do it again and again and again and again… Smile

Good lessons there, for game designers…

I’m giving it a 8/10 (loses 1 point due for the DRM and 1 point for half-assed story). But again, I can’t stress this enough… It’s really really really really a lot of fun!

On the game development front, XCOM-Enemy Unknown is looking great:

The base gameplay might shape up to be awesome! Open-mouthed smile

Finally, head on down to the Spellcaster Studios website, we have a new blog post with what we’ve been doing lately!

 
 

Diablo 3…

17 May

diablo3

Diablo 3…Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3! Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3… Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3! Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3…

Diablo 3, Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3! Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 Diablo 3 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I made my point.. Smile

 
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Posted in Games

 

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom

14 May

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom Xbox 360

Finished playing “Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom” this weekend, I got to admit it is a pretty nifty title…

When it came out, I was probably busy with a whole lot of games and I ignored it (although the art always fascinated me)… I picked it up some months ago in a bargain bin, and I managed to play it this last week…

My first reaction is that the game is like Enslaved: a good title lost because of too many games out there and not that much media attention…

“Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom” is a family-friendly third person adventure, in which the player controls one character (the human) and can give some limited commands to the Majin, resulting in a somewhat cooperative gameplay experience.

Thankfully, there’s none of those usual issues in this kind of co-op gameplay (dodgy AIs doing more harm then good, etc)… You actually have to use Majin and his abilities to overcome puzzles and obstacles, which the game has his fair share. Combat is almost secondary, but it requires it to use the Majin… You can do the fights on your own, but they’re extremely hard that way…

The art of the game is gorgeous, giving you the fairy-tale feel that suits the game… Sound and music is good, but some of the dialogues are pretty flaky (thankfully only on the secondary characters, the main characters have decent writing and voicing).

The game follows the structure of a Metroidvania game, in which you acquire powers that allow you to access parts of the game that were previously unreachable.

My only real complaint about the game is the power-up and upgrade system. The upgrades feel “tacked-on”, with no real relevance (they have, I guess, but you don’t feel it). The power up is noticeable when you get back to the starting areas (lots of backtracking on this one), but the game’s difficulty scales up so uniformly with the power-ups that you really don’t feel it as well. The finishing move combos (that you keep getting upgrades) also feels empty and non-important.

All in all, “Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom” is a pretty fun experience, if third-person adventures are your cup of tea… It’s not as “epic” as an Uncharted game, but the story finishes being more emotional and with real fairy-tale moments that I enjoy immensely. 8/10

 
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Posted in Games

 

Another hiatus…

07 May

Sorry about that, but I’ve been busy with day-job and personal stuff and I haven’t been able to write anything…

Anyway, last week I’ve watched “The Thing” 2011 prequel, and it was awesome!

 

Watching this one and afterwards watching the original 1982 “The Thing” is a very cool experience, since they reference stuff in an amazing way…

I was really impressed with this…

This reminded me of the “The Thing” game:

 

Which was actually a very good game, with solid ideas that didn’t get the budget or marketing it actually needed…

One of these days I want to make a game in this vein: somewhere very remote, a very dangerous thing comes to life and proceeds to eat everyone! Open-mouthed smile

 
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Posted in Movies