Author: David

Categories
Reviews Video Games

Vikings!

I’ve been casting about for something to fill the void since I completed Fallout 3, and so my brother’s timely gift of Viking: The Battle for Asgard has me wandering around hacking at anything in my path with a sword and an axe.

When I first found this game on the store shelf, I was actually picking up Conan, and the sales assistant told me that Viking was very much a similar game. That is very mucha  simplistic comparison. Sure, they both involve muscle-bound protagonists in a third-person hack ‘n slash fest, but that’s about where the similarities end.

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Categories
Video Games

Fat princess

I remember some time last year, a bit of a furore erupted over the messages being sent upcoming game Fat Princess. The guys over at Giant Bomb have posted a video of the beta, and I have to say that I don’t give a crap.

It’s a long video, but the gameplay looks great. As the Bombers describe it, it’s a cross between deathmatch, capture the flag, and an RTS. There’s all kinds of awesome in this. The visuals are ironically cute, a kind of Castle Crashers mixed with Warcraft II.

The goal of the game is to capture your enemy’s Princess. You make your own princess defensible by fattening her up with cake. I’m not sure how this is offensive. It’s harmless fun, and the amount of cartoon blood is probably more worrying.

In any event, this looks like something worth picking up when it comes out.

Categories
Reviews Video Games

Falling out not with a bang, but a whimper

A long time ago, I declared Fallout 3 to be little more than “Oblivion with guns” and set off to play said fantasy game and its expansion. Naturally, my short attention span got the better of me. I created a new character for Oblivion, spent a few days levelling him and finishing the Mages Guild quest path, and went to explore the Shivering Isles expansion. Too bad that this was exactly the moment when I got bored with the game.

In the meantime, I had been watching Flip play Fallout 3 and decided that it looked like fun. We had also been talking with nobody, who had already finished it once and had some good things to say about the versatility of the character build system. So, I resolved to dig in and give it a try. Flip generally plays a good character, so I went for agent of chaos (which in too many CRPGs is equivalent to destruction) and found a build online which would allow me access to pretty much all the skills fairly quickly.

In the fast moving world of game critique, a lot has already been said about Fallout 3. I know I’m several months behind the ball, but I’m happy to not be bleeding edge, and pitch you my own observations.

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Categories
Reviews Tabletop Games

EYECON 2009

It’s been a while since I did a con report. Admittedly, I was an organiser for SYDCON 08, but I still could have written something. Anyway, other than providing the IT services, I was largely left to play games at this year’s EYECON. For the first time in ages, I played only freeforms (oh, and a LARP — you can’t have everything). I’ll review them in a second.

I want to acknowledge the hard work of all the game designers (whether or not I played your game), and my colleagues in the SRGA. As a secondary organiser, much of my work was done weeks before people started registering for games. Props go to everybody who did all the running around, lost hours of sleep, and nearly went insane due to everyone else’s “special” requests. You guys know who you are, so give yourselves a pat on the back and get some sleep.

Before reading further, be warned that I may not be able to avoid spoiling these games. In the event that you may want to play them in the future, you may not want to read my review.

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Categories
Photography

Star shots

It’s been raining the last couple weeks, so I haven’t had much of a chance to do night time photography. I’ve been hankering to do some astronomical shots, but only just got around to doing them tonight.

All of those were taken on my Nikon D60 at f/8, ISO 100 with a 30 second exposure. I’ve touched them up a little bit, but was very happy with the low level of noise and clarity of the picture.

Unfortunately, 30 seconds is the longest exposure the D60 will do without a remote, which is a shame because I really wanted to try my hand at star trails. Other than driving sales of peripherals, I’m not sure why Nikon decided not to let users set an exposure time in the menu system.

I think I may have to investigate the price of that remote, as well as an AC adaptor.