It's Dai Time

Katie & Scott & Simon & Cecily.

Tag: video games (Page 14 of 16)

Day 80: this is bad news for pay realms

May 2, 2009 / / 0 Comments

281 I first learned about Free Realms from this Penny Arcade webcomic, which kind of describes my first giddy reaction to it as well.  I opened an account as a bit of a joke, though – a chance to quickly look at a free-to-play kid-targeted MMO and see how they generate interest and revenue in such a model.

Then, this morning, I played Free Realms for over two hours.  Why?  How did it engage me for so long?  Why do I still have a desire to get online and take my Level 4 Chef traipsing through Sanctuary, looking for new recipes?

First off, Free Realms is not a quickly thrown together product.  The production values are quite high, the graphics are good, and the art direction is clear.  The game is supposed to look safe and kid-friendly, but the environments are fleshed out and the characters look about as good as most MMOs.

Additionally, there’s a lot of content before you even have to hand over a cent.  The world of Free Realms is large enough, and if the team supports the game as time goes on, there’s no reason that the world can’t get bigger in the upcoming year.

Free Realms feels like a rather odd cross between World of Warcraft and Cooking Mama, a weird combination of the core mechanics of a hardcore MMO with the casual components of minigame collections.

Is it something that I would ever pay for?  Unlikely.  I can’t imagine parting with actual money in order to get access to more jobs, or in order to purchase a virtual cat for my character.  But I can certainly see myself playing Free Realms more over the next few weeks.

And just like Puzzle Pirates, I can certainly imagine players finding a community, fostering friendships, and being weaker in their inhibitions.  After all, $5 a month is a small price to pay (considering what other MMOs charge) in order to fully experience the game that the developers designed.

In the meantime, if you jump onto Server 1 on Free Realms, keep your eye out for Zoe Frigidbandit.

Day 74: sushi boat fracture

April 26, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Today, I ate sushi from a boat, which is a pretty near way to eat sushi.

I also bought Fracture for the 360 at Best Buy on sale for $10. I played it for several hours, and find it to be a fair FPS, although the game teases the player with a solid mechanics and then proceeds to hide them in the background.

We also watched Monsters vs Aliens in 3D. It was pretty funny, although the 3D wasn’t all that special.

Now, I’m going to get some chicken. I like chicken.

Day 48: crooked fingers, or take pictures of your hands

March 31, 2009 / / 0 Comments

There’s been a video game story that’s been hitting the blogs recently, even though the actual story that it’s reporting is about a year old.  I first saw this on GamePolitics, and the gist is this: children who play video games before their bones are strong enough end up getting deformed fingers.

The main researcher behind this argument is Mike Tomich, who has an ugly website with pictures of hands where he has superimposed lines to make his point.

I’m not sure whether I buy this or not, but if you delve into the site, you’ll soon see that Mike isn’t just a video game alarmist; he’s actually against children doing most things that put repetitive strain against their bones (e.g. crayons and computers), and is even arguing that adults can deform their bones from “high effort” steering vehicles.

Regardless, this is topical for me because just a few days ago, I had mentioned to Katie while we were watching TV that I had crooked fingers.  My hands have never really hurt, I don’t have any kind of repetitive stress injury, and I’ve never had trouble doing dexterous actions (such as juggling or some coin/card manipulation for magic), but check this out:

photo photo (1)

These are my hands.  I’ve didn’t include my thumbs, as they’re pretty normal-looking.  I haven’t drawn lines on them either, but look at how crooked they are!  As I didn’t play many video games as a young kid – I only really got into them in college and after, with just dabbling in high school and before – I’m not sure what “caused” this, if anything, or if my hands were just born this way.

Still, my left pointer finger clearly veers toward the left, especially at the top knuckle, and there’s a gap between the pinky and ring finger (partially due to my wedding ring).  On the right hand, my middle finger leans left and my pointer finger leans right, making them bump into each other while leaving a gap between the middle and ring fingers.  These pictures also show that I need to cut my nails, especially on my left hand.

Katie’s finger straightness, on the other hand, is pristine compared to mine.  Which got me thinking – are there more people who have crooked fingers like me?  How unique are my deformed hands?  Or is it more rare to have perfectly straight fingers, like Katie?

If you’re reading this, take a picture of your hands and upload it!  Are your fingers straight?  Does one lean to the left or right?  Could you be a hand model?

I used to think I could be, but it appears that dream may now be dashed.

Day 46: draft aftermath and garbled thoughts

March 29, 2009 / / 0 Comments

For reference, here’s the fantasy baseball team I drafted:

  • C Mike Napoli
  • 1B Joey Votto
  • 1B Mike Jacobs (bench)
  • 2B Brandon Phillips
  • 3B Aramis Ramirez
  • 3B Adrian Beltre (bench)
  • SS Jimmy Rollins
  • OF Bobby Abreu
  • OF Matt Holliday
  • OF Carlos Quentin
  • OF Jermaine Dye
  • OF J.D. Drew (bench)
  • DH Jim Thome (bench)
  • SP Erik Bedard
  • SP John Danks
  • SP Jeremy Guthrie (bench)
  • SP Rich Harden
  • SP Derek Lowe
  • SP Chris Young
  • RP Brian Fuentes
  • RP Chris Ray (bench)
  • RP Joakim Soria

Today, I dropped Mike Jacobs and picked up Kevin Gregg after the closer decision announcement came out.  I also picked up and stashed Troy Glaus in one of my DL slots.  I’m shopping J.D. Drew and may look to trade Beltre at some point to try and bone up my pitching (or a better catcher).  Overall, I felt that the draft went relatively well, despite my rather weak starting pitchers.

Of course, we won’t actually know how successful my season will be until the real season starts in a week.

I had a dream last night that I had built an Iron Man-like suit and was flying down the hallway of an old apartment my parents and I lived in when I was a kid.  It was quite strange.

I played Fallout 3 until about 3 AM last night.  That was too late.  I haven’t even bought the Pittsburgh expansion yet!  I do plan to, though, so that I can stand in a ruined Point State Park and shoot mutants.  It was my dream in Pittsburgh, but…the apocalypse never happened.  Oh well.  Maybe one day.

You know, I never thought I’d have one of those guy friends who’s “that guy.”  But now that I think about it, my co-worker Jerome is kind of like “that guy.”  And that’s cool with me.  Like, the movie I Love You, Man just came out.  Looked kind of funny, but would I really see it on opening weekend?  If I’m Jerome, the answer is OH YES.  That guy.  He’s great.  He and his scruffy Euro-face.

I don’t think Jerome reads these.  I guess we’ll see!

I’ve been playing the recently-released EA DS game Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, which is a great title and an addictive game, but I’m not sure how much I actually like it.  I want to keep playing because I want to see what additional powers I get, but the levels and action get a bit repetitive and dying – although there isn’t a large penalty associated with it – is annoying when it’s because I’ve been suddenly surrounded by enemies.  In other words, the difficulty seems a bit manufactured instead of natural.

It’s no Professor Layton, that’s for sure.  Here’s some Professor Layton fan art I found on the Internet:

layton

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