Now Playing: Batman – Arkham Asylum

I finished Batman: Arkham Asylum yesterday and really liked the experience from start to finish. Great job by developer Rocksteady! I went in expecting a Bioshock version of Batman, which might have slightly thrown off my enjoyment for the first couple of hours. But once I realized that this is actually a stealth game/brawler, and once most of the core mechanics had ramped up, I kept playing and playing. The best compliment I make is that it kept getting more interesting the further in I got, rather than less. New gadgets and little twists on combat and stealth kept everything fresh until the very end. The sense of character was outstanding in places – taking down 7 or 8 armed guys late in the game, with the Joker taunting his own guys in the background and the AIs playing more panicked voice lines for every guy who disappeared, made me feel like a 100% badass dark knight. “Fear me, I’m coming for you next, thug!” Brawling with all mechanics in place – which includes knife guys (need to be stunned before hit), stun baton guys (don’t attack from the front!) and weapons (don’t attack at all!) – was great as well. Once you start stringing together combo hits the action just flows beautifully, and the game puts a positive spin on blocking by using an appropriate counter mechanic, rather than the bland “I negated an attack but didn’t advance the action” standard. I never reached the 40 hit combo achievement, the best I could do is 28. But I certainly tried for it every time I went into combat! Very nicely done.

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BBelief 2008 – Looking for Testers

I’m looking for a few brave men and women (5 or so) who want to test a semi-finished version of my Beyond Belief 2008 Quake level. I’m expecting some brief feedback about difficulty, level flow etc. You need to have a beefy system since the level only has a “vis -fast” and is a total resource hog. You want to be a good player, as well, since I only have hard difficulty implemented right now.

If you’re interested please leave a comment with your email address (make sure to “encrypt” it so that spam bots don’t harvest it). I’d like to test the map in as many Quake ports and configurations as possible (classic plain vanilla Quake is out of the question), so please let me know what port you’ll use. I’ve mostly played and test in DarkPlaces, I’m interested to see how FitzQuake etc. perform.

R.I.P. Aeris

No drama this time, just old age.  This was one of the first birds I got, before I even met Victoria

Down to two budgies for the time being. It’s somewhat quieter in the house right now, but the two remaining birds are big talkers. And we’ve been talking about starting to “staff back up” after the Superbowl.

Now Playing: Fallout 3

When it comes to Bethesda’s big, open world RPGs, I have a predictable pattern: I will hopelessly fall for every other game that they release. When The Elder Scrolls: Arena was released in 1994, I was all over it. Then Daggerfall hit the streets, and I never got past the initial quests. Several years later I was hooked again, dedicating hundreds of hours to Morrowind; only to be left cold by the even grander follow-up, Oblivion. If this alternating outburst of enthusiasm sounds weird, there’s a simple reason for it: Bethesda’s games are so comprehensive that I can’t play more than one every few years. When Oblivion arrived to much fanfare, I found that I just hadn’t recovered enough from Morrowind; I was feeling like I was replaying the same game again. I knew how much I should have been loving Oblivion and actually bought it for all available platforms. But every time I stopped playing early on.

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Bands Missing From Rock Band

The Cure
Friday I’m In Love. Just Like Heaven. Love Cats… The Cure is cult, and there’s tons of classic Cure songs that I would kill to play. If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you know what I mean!

Depeche Mode
Okay, so I’m a huge Depeche Mode fan. But really, can you imagine anybody who wouldn’t want to play Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence?

Genesis
Give me Congo, Mama and No Son Of Mine any day! While we’re at it, throw some of Peter Gabriel’s solo stuff in there!

Another To Do List

Looking for alternate universe with 48-hour days. Can be second hand, but must be in good condition.

Now Playing: Dead Space

If there haven’t been many blog updates in the last week, you can lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of Dead Space. In times when I normally write my posts or work on BBelief2008, I have been playing Dead Space instead. When I should have been going to bed around midnight, I kept playing Dead Space instead. It’s one of the best games I’ve experienced this year.

(The following text won’t contain any story spoilers, and no major game spoilers. But if you prefer to not know anything about the game, you might want to stop reading right here.)

Dead Space is a case study in focus and execution. There are a few novel touches (like the 3D inventory and 3D UI screens), but when you get to the bottom of it, there’s a preexisting example for every one of Dead Space’s game elements. Dismembering enemies? Soldier of Fortune 2. In-game economics and stores? System Shock 2 (and, more recently, Bioshock). Node upgrade system: Final Fantasy X/2. Resurrection monsters: Archvile from Doom 2. Zero gravity sections: Prey. And of course Doom 3 paved the way, by the way of Event Horizon.

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BBelief 2008 – The stage is set…

One of the challenges has actually been to not add too much detail to various areas. It’s nice that today’s computers are stretching Quake’s limits, but the composition quickly becomes too busy. If think that that first shot is stretching it. What do you think?

BBelief 2008 – Racing Towards The Finish Line

Every level in progress reaches a point where it’s not much fun to work on anymore. It’s those dreaded last 10%, which usually consist of applying a lot of polish – and getting to all the work that the author just didn’t really want to do (but has to ). When you’re just doing the level for fun, it’s even easier to procrastinate on those areas – and eventually hit a roadblock. I hit that spot a week or two ago, and stopped working on the level for a while. For me, the breaking point was mountains.

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“Evil Exhumed” by Warren Marshall

In his neverending quest to one-up me, Warren Marshall has released his Quake 1 Base level, Evil Exhumed. But Warren didn’t just create a huge level (that will remind you a bit of the archeological dig sections in Doom 3) and new textures. Oh noooooooo! He also programmed an entirely new level editor for the Mac to make this level. I cannot compete with this level of commitment! So head over to Warren’s page already and download the level!

As for BBelief2008, this is how I described my current status to Warren earlier today:

Need to finish mine…I’m somewhere at the 75% mark now, but that just means that I’m getting to all the areas that I didn’t wanna do before God I hate making mountains in Quake…