The EA Gods have answered NHL 09’s prayers

EA Announces a patch for NHL 09: That’s right everyone, I asked EA to make EASHL games continuous overtime, and they obliged. No more sitting around waiting for the CPU to finish online games, no more ‘curve’ shot, no more cheesers. Welcome to the NEW EASHL!

Behind the Vault door: Fallout 3

Fallout 3: To start off my character (Walken) was born, and through Walken’s birth came his mother’s death. I can’t remember the last time a game started out with the main character bringing on his own mother’s demise, but this game isn’t about holding any punches. A year passes, and I’m walking around the old man’s living quarters. It’s at this age that Fallout 3 finds a cool way for you to develop your characters abilities, by allowing you to go through a children’s book that explains what each attribute does for Walken. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but it’s little things like this that go a long way. After this portion, we skipped ahead to Walken’s coming of age birthday party, where I acquired my first ever pipboy. The pipboy is basically the in game menu, and without it later on, I’d be dead on arrival to the surface. The party goes off without a hitch, and I meet the Overseer, his daughter, the vault bullies, my dad’s assistant, and a few other vault residents.

Now we’re bumped to Walken’s job aptitude testing. Here, you get to answer a few questions in a classroom setting, and find out what your character will be doing to keep Vault 101 running for the rest of his sunlightless days. I earned the job of fry cook, but changed my points to fit my personal needs better. Skip ahead to Waken’s 19th year on earth. I’m awoken by the sounds of a panicking Vault 101. The Overseer’s daughter has rushed to my bedside to inform me that my father has escaped the vault, and that her dad was going to kill me because of it. She tells me about a secret passage, and I kill pretty much everyone in Vault 101 on my way to the secret passage. The bully, who wanted my help to save his mother, got a rude awakening. I talked him into believing his mother was done for, and then I cracked his head open with my baseball bat. The Overseer and his overbearing ways were dispatched of with a couple quick headshots. I took his passkey, and got the f out of Vault 101.

The daylight hit Walken’s eyes like a freight train. Nothing could have prepared the boy for his first step into the real (radioactive) world. All I could see was desert, destruction, and sky for miles. I attempted to go East from the Vault, but found a plasma shooting robot that didn’t like that Idea, so I made my way to Megaton. Megaton is a town with an active Atom bomb in the center of it. This Atom bomb is worshiped by the Church of Atom. There are non-religious people who live in Megaton, but without the church, the walls of the town would never have been built, and those non-religious types would have already been another part of the “Wastes” themselves. I wanted to set off the bomb in Megaton after receiving a mission from a sketchy man in a bar, but my friend was on the sticks at that point, and disarmed the bomb. Walken’s destructive nature was disregarded, and the entire town now loves him for saving them. I can’t say I’m for all those adoration, but at least they gave me my own shack in Megaton, complete with a robo-butler who gives haircuts.

After all this, it was time to go off on a journey to find Walken’s father. We were told by a bar owner named Moriarty, that Galaxy Radio News is where we needed to start our search. Off we went, traversing the Wastes alone until the darkness fell. It seemed easier to search in the day time, so Walken took a nap in the middle of the wastes, like any silly vault dweller would. Walken’s first full day in the outside world begun in the middle of a firefight. The Brotherhood of Steel was knee deep in Super mutants, and Walken was sleeping in the middle of the street, where this conflict was popping off. I aid the Brotherhood in the dispatching of a couple mutants, and they basically tell me to f off. Instead, I just follow them, and they end up giving me escort to the Galaxy Radio station. We were attacked by a full fledged Super Mega Mutant. Dude was three stories tall, and wanted to bash our skull in. I fought him right out front of GNR, in the middle of the street, and was one hit away from death, but the Brotherhood finished him off with covering fire before he could finish me off. You have to appreciate a game that has A.I. smart enough to save your butt (especially during a boss battle).

After the skirmish I went into the GNR building, and met head D.J. (and ultimate douche bag) Three dog. Dude acted like he was a cool guy, but when it came time for him to share the knowledge of my father’s whereabouts, he told me I had to go steal a giant satellite dish for him first. What kind of dickhead sends you on a suicide mission during the apocalypse, when he could just be telling you where your long lost dad is? This kind, I suppose. Instead of running this fool’s errand straight away, Walken returned to Megaton. Here Walken found a job as a research assistant. First research duty was checking the super market for food. There wasn’t any, but there was a boy being chased by a hunter. I killed the hunter with my sledgehammer, and took all of his hunting equipment, then chased the boy down. Apparently the boy was a survivor of a “Fire ant” attack, and asked if I could go back to his town to look for survivors. I talked him down a bit with Walken’s high charisma and Speech, and eventually he told me of some loot behind the old diner in his village. I went there, got burned to death before I could get to the back of the diner, and handed the sticks off. Laparkea did all the same stuff, but he couldn’t talk the kid into divulging information about the secret dumpster behind the diner.

We skipped that mission, researched the store, found nothing, and went back to Megaton. Walken was then sent to go research radiation poisoning, so we took Walken to a giant rad-puddle, and performed our best herbal essences commercial by bathing in the puddle. After shoveling enough radioactive water into Walken’s mouth we went back to the annoying lady who gave us the job. She healed us, and sent Walken to a mine field to acquire of mine. We eventually reached the field, but Laparkea didn’t sneak up to the mines, and triggered enough to blow him to kingdom come. Walken was dead, his father was still out there, the wasters how to guide wasn’t finished being researched, and GNR still needs a satellite. Seems Washington D.C. is even more screwed than it was before Walken had arrived.

Come Plurk with me!

A Legend is born

NHL 09: Went 4-1-1 with PostersRise on my left flank today, but that’s hardly the point. Today, after carrying my games with a goal streak to 16 (still counting), I acquired my EASHL Legend Card! It was a hard fought battle, but it’s finally over. I’m now an A- overall, and the Souvenir City Day Man are in the 10 overall division on Xbox Live. A friend of mine, from a team in the third division, asked me to join up last night, but things are going too well in Souvenir City to ever consider waiving #22’s no-trade-clause. I must say the Fu manchu mustache has changed the outlook of my career, and the rest of the Day Man might also start rocking the handlebars to show unity.

Hopefully now Souvenir City can make a run to the EASHL playoffs. If everyone keeps playing this well together, we should be in the top five divisions in no time. Hopefully we can get a team full of Legends, so our attributes will be at their highest possible point. Time for the old playoff push.

Be back later with some impressions on Fallout 3, which I’m currently jamming on with LaParkea.

The first train to Souvenir City

NHL 09: Today, after using the term the past month, I decided to change our team’s name. Instead of the Las Vegas Day Man, we are now the Souvenir City Day Man. It isn’t a huge change, or is it? At first it didn’t seem to make that big of a deal when PostersRise and myself played a few games (1-2-0). Things weren’t working very well seeing as we only had one goal in the three games we played, so I decided to edit #22. He is still a Grinder, but now instead of a regular mustache, my guy sports the Fu Manchu. Another minor difference, correct? The next ten games might beg to differ.

9-0-1 in our next 10 games, the first nine of which I was first star, and all of which I scored at least one goal. It was intense, my player was reinvigorated through his new facial hair. The first game saw the same squad as the previous two games, but now with a third winger (GodHartsYankees). The first thing I said when the stadium loaded up was “This moustache has a hat trick in it.” What I didn’t know was that I was going to be scoring two straight hat tricks (the second was four goals), and that the stache had it’s own goal cycle in it. What I mean by goal cycle is, after four games with the Fu Manchu I had scored 3 goals, 4 goals, 1 goal, then 2 goals in consecutive games. First time I’ve ever done that online. I had three hat tricks on the evening, and I’m said to say that the last two games didn’t count in the stats as of the writing of this column, so I hope when I next sign in I’m given my Legend Pro Card.

19(2)0 games played and I’m sitting at these attributes…

Position Score… B+
Team Play Score… B+
Stats… A-
Overall Rating… B+

That A minus still eludes #22, but if I ever get those extra attributes, watch out America (EASHL).

Come Plurk with me

A day in Albion

Fable 2: Work began before the sun came up. There was wood to be chopped, and gold to be made. Hacking away until the sun rose and the 4th star on the job had been acquired, there was nothing but solid work being put in. At one point the axe got stuck to the chopping block, so it seemed the character was using the force to complete the wood chopping tasks. After exiting the job mini game, and returning again the axe was still in the chopping block, but the Hero was re-axed also. After a good day of work, I was glad to see the dog hanging around the whole time. Not sure why, but it keeps spirits up having the dog for company in the single player experience.

Before I go on about the happenings in my visit to Albion, I just want to talk about some of the actual gaming aspects. The action is mapped to three buttons. First the X button attacks with the primary weapon, the Y button attacks with the projecticle weapon, and the B button is for all your magical needs. Now I wasn’t too impressed with the action because the X button seemed so limited, but I was also using the hero of someone who played a good amount of time into the game, and doesn’t ever level up (because he’s so hardcore?). There may have been a bit more varitety with the X button with the acquiring of new levels, combos, and actions of that nature, but my friend’s stingyness with EXP didn’t lend to finding out the way these things work. Safety mode, which keeps the player from attacking innocents, is a welcome addition to free roam gaming (would have been great for Assassin’s Creed).

Back to the world of Albion, where I encountered a couple Demon doors. The first Demon door wanted to degrade animals for pleasure, so that relationship didn’t last long. The second Demon door was a bit of a dullard, and only needed a chicken kicked into it’s mouth for appeasmant. After fulfilling the wishes of a Demon door, you get to enter a forgotten keep, where treasure (in this case a potion) is hidden.  After the disappointing Demon door encounters, it was time to go see the Town Crier, who thought it was a good idea to kick the bloody dog. What kind of idiot kicks the dog of a man with demon horns? The kind of man who gets the steel. After dispatching of the naive the town guards came to dish out my punishment. Instead of paying any kind of fine, the community service was selected. In Albion, murder is community service.

After the debt was repaid to society, it was time to experience henchman mode. In Fable 2 single player lends itself to a tame handling of the public. Rarely is it safe for a single player (and his dog) to go buck wild on a town of people due to the town guards. When that single player is equipped with his own (human controlled) henchman guards aren’t as intimidating. Romping around as a duo of looting demons in the world of Albion is quite pleasing. I didn’t expect much from this multiplayer feature after hearing about the lack of a split-screen element, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the feature was well handled. I didn’t find the camera or real estate allowed between the two players to be any kind of a problem. The Henchman thing works online and offline, which gives this game a lot more playability in the eyes of someone like me (who thinks a game without multiplayer is a game not worth buying).

I’ve only played a bit of this game, but I’m surely going to find a chance to get some more playtime. The fighting isn’t all that great, but this game has a lot more to offer than sword battles (job classes, magic uses, interactive world).

NHL 09: 3-1-1 tonight, but I wanted to talk about one game in particular. It was our second game of the night (4 man team of GHY,Diablo,Jimmyknocks.com, and myself), and we were down 1-0 going into the final two minutes of the game. Sadly I was called for some nonsense penalty (tripping I believe), and was sent to the penalty box, where I enjoyed my pop corn shrimp. As soon as the PK started, GodhartsYankees told me to tell ElDiabloisLord (because the team was experiencing microphone problems like some kind of NFL team) that it was time to go all out, and score. GHY scored a game tying goal with :18 left on the clock prompting EldiabloisLord to ask “how do you do it?” Eleven in game seconds later ElDiabloisLord scored the GWG, and my pop corn shrimp tasted sweeter than ever. Quite a comeback, and all I had to do was watch.

Force Unleashed: Wookies on trampolines may be funny (Darth Vader + Wooden bridge), but that’s about the extent of humor that I want to see in a game about the darkest mother f’ers on the Dark side. Instead the Force Unleashed shows Starkiller (Luke Skywalker’s original last name) joking around, smiling, and being an overall normal dude in the cinematics of this game. Saw a glitch on the second to last Vader fight (final if you choose it to be), where he froze before jumping off his floating middle platform. No attack could break him out of it, and a reset was needed to remedy the situation.

Been a glitchy day… Come join Plurk, and join in on the conversation

In the Trenches: Call of Duty: World at War Beta

I give my views on this site with every post, so I decided to start a new feature where I give other gamers the chance to get a few words in. Here are some impressions on the World at War beta from gamers throughout  Xbox Live…

The views expressed here represent only the person who’s name is bolded next to each.

Epic__Failure: It’s pretty good but it could be better.

SilverSlice: This game is a major improvement to COD4 in most ways.

SoD x Xstatic: CoD4 Received a 10/10, and I could see another 10/10 on the horizon, Call of Duty World at War.Treyarch is following in Infinity Ward’s footsteps in producing yet another Great CoD game.

TheYesYEsShow: German zombies, what more could you ask for?

celtslammer91: Almost, but not quite.

Eggroll360: Vote to skip.

Marvel4Dan: Didn’t WWII end decades ago?

Blaze2588: Online co-op campaign FTW.

lordofchipmunks: Rifles in regular online? LOL

DreadZer0: Call Of Duty 4.1 with a WWII skin.

hardman2k7: Very impressed so far, keep it up Treyarch.

eliteXwaldo: call of duty 5:glitches at war

DPwnsUHard: CoD4 with more n00bs and suped up Last Stand.

IIIESOTERICIII: Infinity Ward is not doing cod5, so I don’t see it being better than 4. Back to WWII? CODD4 was the shit because it was modern warfare!

Gade_Zero: Needs improvement.

TonyDaTiger93: I like it.

i_post_sometime: Took two years to make a Call of Duty 4 mod.

23llamaross1: Double Barrel Shotgun. Nuff said.

LOKIJHY: I have not played this game.

OM3GA GOD21: Makes me wanna wiggle and giggle till my tummy goes jiggle.

G0LD3N3Y317: This game is a joke. I know it’s a beta, but still…another WW2 FPS? So, it’s like CoD3 Version 3.5 with all of CoD4’s perks, looks, and feel.

Chris_Hun7er: This game is awesome. ‘Nuff said.

GIETER37: COD4 with new skins = epic fail.

Its_Sour_D_XC: Socom’s better!

Ih8theislanders: I am very impressed with the beta. I love the dogs, especially that you can get points for killing them. War is my favorite mode.

The Force still not strong with Gaming

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - This game just doesn’t impress me. I’ve seen every single aspect of this game (each level, the training missions, playable Darth Vader), and none of it makes me want to pick up the sticks to play. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Lightsaber induced force mayhem, but I’m just so sick of Star Wars games that feature a Lightsaber with the attacking attributes of a wiffle ball bat. Can’t there be a game where I just slice through all the regular enemies like a knife through hot butter with my lightsaber? LucasArts seems to think not. Bring on the Knights of the Old Republic MMO already…

NHL 09: The three former Alcoholix team members (Myself, GodhartsYankees, JimmyKnocks) found ourselves facing off against two of our old club members (B13RedHawk,IIIesoterichIII). For some reason they were sporting Calgary Flames jerseys, and using a lot of erotic inuendo. Our former teammates scored the first goal, but we came back to tie it late in the second period. The game remained tied until an ill-advised penalty was called on one of their CPU players. With less than a minute on the clock, I scored the GWG off a power play goal on the rush. The coolest part was that it was our fiftieth win with the Day Man, and it’s a milestone that will easily be recalled. Nothing like scoring a game winning goal against your former team in the final minute of a game. NHL 09 plays like a fairy tale the more I think about it.

It’s October, of course there’s more Zombies!

A friend of mine from Twitter (solaceincinema.com) pointed me in the direction of an Interactive Zombie Movie. It’s called The Outbreak (survivetheoutbreak.com), and it’s not exactly a video game, more like a choose-your-own-adventure video book, but it’s zombie fun nonetheless. The Outbreak starts off with five people arriving in a house trying to hide from zombies, but one of these survivors is bitten, and two others are arguing over his fate. That’s where you come in. The Outbreak features a bit of overacting, some silly special effects, but overall is worth a look in my opinion. On my first try I was eaten after my third decision, so I hope anyone who tries this fares better in the zombie apocalypse.

Additions of cursing and gore leads to maturity?

Call of Duty (5): World at War – That’s right, the new Call of Duty features gore (body parts being blown off, blood ’squibs’ for bullet hits), and has in game characters dropping F-bombs. While both of these are welcome additions to the series, Call of Duty (5): World at War is going to be pulling an M rating down from the ESRB, but does that really mean this new online community will have improved maturity? If this beta run is any indicator, the answer is no.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but this community already sports terrible glitch exploiters, who must play games for no other reason than to ruin the fun of others’. The map Roundhouse features a glitch that allows players to drop beneath the map to shoot up at the foolish noobs, who don’t want to overuse broken elements of a video game for fun. This is all compiled by the fact that tanks take forever to kill. If you ever find yourself in Roundhouse against a team with glitchers, and two controlled tanks, you may as well leave because no game is worth that level of frustration.

Makin, a jungle map that sports some of the best water in a video game, has a glitch of it’s own. On Makin players, who are cunning enough to outsmart the programmers of this fine game, will be able to climb trees with the best of tree climbing animals, as they snipe from an improved (Dirty) vantage point. This glitch is nowhere near as ridiculous and cheap as the one on Roundhouse, but you better believe it’s just the icing on the (poop) cake that is  World at War’s online community.

That’s not all folks. The worst part about the Call of Duty: World at War online community is the amount of people who exploited free beta code giveaways for their own well being, and the detriment of gaming (Treyarch specifically) in general. Websites like FilePlanet offered the chance for any non-preordering chap to get a chance to try the beta via online registration, but some people saw this as an opportunity to make money, and decided to register for multiple codes (sometimes 20+), so they could sell/trade their newly acquired beat codes. It’s one thing to register extra for your friends, who otherwise couldn’t at that moment, but these “people,” who overused free beta code giveaways for profit disgust me.

Justice? You’re telling me about justice?: Glitchers can’t be stopped, but their fun can equally be ruined. Apparently (according to Gamefaqs boards), there are players who carry out their own brand of justice on glitchers in Hardcore modes. These players follow the glitchers under the map, and clean house, team colors not factoring in. Be weary glitchers, your own teams don’t even want you. As far as the code exploiters go, I have it on high authority that EBAY has suspended a lot of the auctions featuring the Call of Duty beta codes. This would usually not be a high form of justice,  but seeing as many people gave the code out without receiving pay first, EBAY suspended the payment after the codes were already given back to the gaming community for free. Suck on that Beta code sellers.

The dreaded 2 goal lead

NHL 09: Had GodhartsYankees over tonight, and we played some of the most epic hockey the Day Man has ever played. First game of the evening featured the Day Man’s top forward line (GHY, Diablo, Myself), and we added our first D-man ever to the team, PostersRise (playing his first ever EASHL game). We did what we could as a team, and came up with a two goal lead coming into the third, but then the wheels came off. Five shots from the opposing team later in the third period, and we were down 5-3. Nothing could have prepared us for that loss (other than countless years of the CPU doing the same thing in my franchise), but it set a tone for that night, that we would not settle any longer.

By game two Jimmy Knocks (Jimmyknocks.com) had joined up with the club, and we were rolling our first five man game with the Day Man. From the inclusion of Jimmy Knocks the Day Man went undefeated for the rest of the night. Going three and oh with five men, four and oh with jimmy Knocks, and the Day man are now 45-22-9 overall. PostersRise got his first points, and eventually first goal in his online career, Jimmy Knocks showed the world how to play shut down d, and the Day Man are becoming an online epidemic.

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