Fallout 3 perk contest was great
My favorite one was Crazy Eye: Opponents attacking from the front suffer a penalty to hit you because, seriously, that eye is freaking me out.
However, the one that won, Grim Reaper's Sprint -- I would totally use a lot.
The Fallout 3 Perk contest was pretty awesome. One of our IT guys, Rob, put together this crazy web page so we could sort through all the entries and flag the finalists.
10 hours into Mass Effect
Likes:
* Defines a new standard for characters and conversations.
* Totally loving the atmosphere and ambiance.
* The story is really interesting and the world is great. Caveat is that I did read the prequel novel, Revelations, so I know all the lore going in.
* I actually like the grainy look of the screen. It makes me feel like I'm in the middle of a Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon/Star Wars film, especially with the sythesizer music.
* Have to say again the characters looks awesome. I love the faces, the armor, the aliens. All good stuff.
* Can easily see this game was strongly influenced by Knights of the Old Republic, one of my favorite RPGs of all time.
* Galaxy Map. This is why I'm playing this game, to explore planets and fly around the galaxy.
Dislikes:
* Load times aren't as bad as they were in Knights. But the elevator load while on the ship is a bit glaring. At least the elevator loads in the Citadel provided an opportunity for conversation in your party or an announcer voice that told you lore and other interesting story notes.
* Galaxy Map. Not free form GTA/Oblivion open-ended. I've only landed on two planets so far, I've looked at several more but wasn't able to land on any of them. I feel like lots of potential for downloadable content here.
* Third person, over the shoulder combat took me a bit to get used to. Not a bad thing necessarily but after playing lots of shooters lately that are in first person - Half Life 2, TF2, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 - I was not comfortable at first.
My current character is a male Infiltrator. My standard party so far is Ashley, the female solder in the pink armor, and the Krogan companion. I love how the Krogans look and animate, especially when they talk. Eventually, I'd like to try a female Solder or Vanguard.
Bethblog stuffs
I started writing a new recurring segment at the Bethesda Blog about breaking into the game industry. Also, started to post every month the top 5 Oblivion downloads for Xbox Live and PC.
I have a few other post ideas in the works, as well. The blog is doing really well and traffic keeps going up every month since we launched it. I'm really excited and pleased about how cool it is and how much fun it is to write for.
It should be even more interesting to visit next year as we get closer -- and after the release -- of Fallout 3.
I played KOTOR. I loved KOTOR. You, Mass Effect, remind me a lot of KOTOR.
I've really enjoying the game, only a couple hours in so far. I'm waiting for the game to open up, as I really just want to explore the galaxy. So far, top candidate for one of my favorite games of the year.
Thx, K Mart. Hmmm. Mass Effect.
This is my most anticipated game of the year. I am a huge KOTOR fan. One step closer to my dream Han Solo/Privateer RPG game.
Writer's Strike = Bad for television
If this strike goes on and TV does go into repeats for longer than just this winter, TV is screwed. I've read that if the strike goes into the spring, not only is this season effectively done but so will any new shows for the next season (08-09).
Why? Because, I can watch TV on DVD or off Itunes/Amazon Unbox/streamed online. I can play video games, blog, surf online, mess with Facebook/Myspace. To be honest, we have so many series we want to watch on DVD that I'm almost hoping the strike kills the season so we can catch up on Rome, Entourage, Sopranos and The Wire. And, so many games out that I want to play - COD4, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Rock Band, Super Mario Galaxy.
Ken's Eating Guide
Hey, my uncle Ken is writing about restaurants again. You may know him from his appearance on television including the reality show, The Restaurant. I have a brief .2 second cameo. Well. My hair does. Not me. But you can see my hair. And some of my ear and cheek.
Though it looks like a guide to places to sit when you look at the URL.
http://kenseatingguide.blogspot.com/
He's got an interesting photo blog as well. Using a real camera, not a iPhone. Yeah, I know. Crazy right?
Oldboy
I watched Oldboy on the plane out here. What a crazy movie. I had no idea what to expect. Very disturbing flick that I really enjoyed watching.
Bioware
Despite going to bed at 1 AM, PST, I still woke up at 4 AM (8 AM EST). Since I'm heading back on Saturday, maybe I should try and stay in east coast time.
The opening keynote was fascinating and inspiring. I fully admit that I am a Bioware fan. I loved the Baldur's Gates. I'm a HUGE fan of Knights of the Old Republic - easily my favorite RPG of all time. I even liked Jade Empire. (Hey! Kung Fu RPGs aren't exactly a commodity! I'll take what I can get!).
My favorite parts of their talk was the descriptions of how much the team grew as projects ramped up. I find working on 2 projects challenging enough (Elder Scrolls, Fallout) - but when they talked about ramping up to 3 (Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate and MDK2) with over 120 developers, my head started to hurt.
We use the matrix structure ourselves, similar to what Bioware uses. I can't imagine trying to scale it to 5 projects with hundreds of developers. Sheesh.
With the recent EA buyout, I can't help but with it were the other way around - like Pixar becoming Disney, what if EA became Bioware?
Anyway, it was a great talk and Mass Effect is definitely one of my most anticipated games of the year.
IGDA
So, I'm here. In San Francisco. Well, not really. More like Burlingame. At the San Fran Airport Marriott. Had a $15 cab ride that should've only cost me like $7 except the cab driver got lost.
I'm here for a leadership conference. I'm really more like the closer than a leader. I'd love to go to a closer conference, especially if Kyra Sedgewick is keynoting.
The conference is at the hotel, as well, so I'm probably not going to end up going into the city - though I believe there's a BART train near by.
Ironically, the conf rate at the hotel ended being less than Megen's associate rate. Fortunately, this is the last of my traveling for work this year, and now that Meg has a job again, we can get back to saving money for the wedding. (Not that I would dip into savings to fund my traveling or anything... no...) OK. Time for room service!
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