Favorite Console

Today I'm going to blog about my favorite console growing up. Maybe that will inspire some of you to write in my comments and do the same.

So my favorite console of all time, hands down, no contest... is the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The SNES was the greatest. It carries the most nostalgia, as well as the biggest game library of re-playable games that I seriously have beaten countless times. The best part is I KNOW I'll keep playing them and beating the games.

 Being able to play online with friends using an emulator is sick too. I probably beat Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of Mana 2), Donkey Kong 1, 2 and 3, and Super Mario like three or four times each with my pal Beansy. By the way Beansy was a friend of mine that lived in Nevada. We met several years ago on Dark Age of Camelot, and ended up friends for quite some time.

He even moved to Utah to live with some friends of mine so he's like an RL friend now. Crazy...

Anyway, I could probably list about half the game library of the SNES that I have beaten at least once. And it still has one of the best Zelda games ever made.

The SNES will forever hold a reserved place in my heart for being the best console ever made. I still go back and play those games constantly. You know what... I think I'm going to go play Yoshi's Island again.

So tell me, what's your favorite console growing up?

Dead Island

So I watched some game play footage of Dead Island today, and I realize it's been around for a while now but I never had taken a look. I've got to say it's a little different than what I was expecting...

From watching the trailer, which you can watch here, it looked like it was going to be pretty intense. Also I had read somewhere a while ago that it was going to be melee weapons only. Apparently that was wrong, or they changed their minds, because there are in fact guns. It looks like the main point of combat is still going to be melee though.

Saw some of the crafting as well. Not much, but enough to see that it works a little like Dead Rising, but more in depth. You can combine items/weapons you find to make new ones, and repair your current melee weapons as well.

The combat is a bit more arcade than I was expecting as well. There are different points on the body that you can attack, but it all seems a bit arcade-like. It reminded Slib of Borderlands, the way there's elemental weapons and the damage pops up. Not that this is a bad thing, but it's just not what I was thinking it would be.

I was actually kind of expecting the game to be a bit more realistic than Left 4 Dead or Killing Floor, but from the video I saw they did say it isn't hack-n-slash. Actually, from what he said, hack-n-slash will get you killed because you'll just run out of stamina. Also there's quests apparently... Objectives are always cool, but I'm a bit jaded on questing thanks to current MMO's.

Also... it's going to be ported to PC from console... Not my favorite.
Looks like it's going to be pretty fun. Right now I'm just kind of hoping it doesn't suck.

L4D2 Customs

Not sure how many of you are avid and active Left 4 Dead fans, but I'm sure if you are one then you know about the custom maps. There's actually a LOT of really good custom player made maps that are extremely good.

Seriously some of these are good enough to be endorsed by Valve. We've caught ourselves in some surprisingly good maps with some intense moments, fun puzzles, and epic tank battles where we actually go back to that some one for more.

There's also some relatively silly ones as well, for example the Zombies of the Carribean map that we found... where it's just a complete replica of the Disney Land, Pirates of the Carribean ride. Many lolz were had.

You'll be catching a lot of player made maps watching the broadcasts on www.livestream.com/xylasgames , since Slib and I have pretty much played the originals to death. Every time we play a map that isn't made by Valve, I do my best to make sure the map creators get credit for their map.

You can actually find a lot of really good maps at www.l4dmaps.com, that's where Slib finds all the ones we play on. So basically you'll be able to search for the map by the name and creator if you see us playing and want to check it out.

So tune in! Because there's going to be plenty of zombie slaughter tonight! Peep the embedded player to your right over there!

(And you'll probably be seeing some Fear 3 soon.)

Spiral Knights

For the past couple days I've been checking out this new game that released a couple weeks ago called Spiral Knights. I'll admit at first I was drawn in by the cartoony look and the fact that it was free.

After installing it I began to play and noticed right away that it reminded me of classic Zelda, kinda mixed with Bomber Man (though I don't really know where I got that portion from). Noticing Sega made the game kind of explained why it felt kind of like Phantasy Star as well. Started playing it with Slib and we were having a blast.

Dungeon crawling with our little knights while collecting money and materials to transmute new armor. It was sweet. The only draw back is that since the game is free, it costs energy in game to go into the dungeons and also to craft.  You have a Mist Energy bar that has a max value of 100, and over a period of about 22 hours will recharge completely.

The way the game makes money is through micro transactions of purchasing Crystal Energy, which is used in place of Mist Energy, once you're out.  It's really cheap, 750 Crystal Energy is only $2.49. We both decided it was worth it and after spending $5 we split 1,600 energy and jumped back into the dungeons. Seriously ran  to the bank at 2:30am so that I could deposit money into my checking account to get the energy. I was having that much fun.

Just hit tier 2 last night. Shweet.

For such a simple game, Spiral Knights is actually really fun, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for some sweet co-op arcade action.

The Next

I've talked a little about EverQuest 1 and how that game has influenced me. It may seem kind of stupid, but when you're as big of a nerd as I am, games can really touch you.  The game hasn't just influenced me in gaming, it's influenced my writing and my imagination tremendously as well.

I'm really stoked or EverQuest Next. EverQuest2 was kind of a let down. When it first came out it had a shoddy class branching system. The leveling was boring, and the game wasn't that great to look at.  Giving it credit, it's graphics were far ahead of its time... when it came out, and some people still have trouble running it at full capacity.

EverQuest 2 is still a great game in my eyes. The changes that it underwent to bring about its AA system, the betrayal, the ability to play as any class/race combination. I really liked what the game was offering. As I played through though, the amount of skills it gives you gets a bit tiresome. My berserker at level 60 had about 12 combat skills that I used every single fight, and a large number of others for different situations.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I liked having a lot to do... but at when I played my monk, my assassin, and my shadowknight... I failed to see much of a difference as far as play style.  Now you'd think with how simple EQ1 was it wouldn't matter... but as times change so do I, and unfortunately I crave more.
I still love EQ2... but with any MMO at all, I get super bored playing solo.

Yeah I make friends online. I make tons. Usually I'll end up with several actually. The issue is that they end up out leveling me, or I out level them... (there's mentoring in EQ2 so it's not as big of a deal) and it's just hard to match play times especially with my chaotic schedule. So I play for a while, and I get bored of playing alone, and I quit.

EverQuest 1 I actually went back to about a year ago and resubscribed. I played from level 1 to 60 by myself and was having a blast until my paid time ran out. Back at that time I had no money to keep going... And when I had the money to start playing again, my friends talked me into picking WoW back up and started a subscription for me.

Anyway this isn't about my life story of MMO's, no one cares, but EverQuest Next is getting me going.  Apparently there's not too much information about it out right now, but from what I can find I'm still ridiculously excited. I'm talking pre-order, first of many logged in the day it goes live, making a Dark Elf Shadowknight ready to kill some snakes or something.

There's little to find about the game, but what the lead designer is going is something different, from what he's saying. I've been able to find two "in game art" pictures, and a few quotes. Looks like they're going to be designing the game with EQ1 (YAY!!!) as the influence more than EQ2. Says it's going to be more of a reimaging than a direct sequel.

Now this excites and scares me. Basically they're saying they're redoing EQ1. This could be great, and this could also suck tremendously. They're also going to be building it from the ground up with more PVP in mind. They're looking to deliver the story line in some other manner than dialogue boxes. I'm hoping this means they're looking to abolish the whole quest grinding aspect that every MMO has adopted.

All in all I guess there's really not too much more to say other than I'm trying not to pee myself with excitement. SOE has done some stupid things lately, but also some redeeming things as well... So I'm really on the fence about how I feel, but my excitement takes over and I just hope the game takes off. Because lord knows I'll be playing the hell out of it... At least when it first comes out.

It's going to be hard to beat the feeling of sitting in my brother's room trying desperately to stay quiet as to not annoy him as I watch him raid. Killing dragons, giants, and ice dwarves. Then when he goes to bed being stupidly excited to log onto my low level characters and set up camps in The Overthere and the Deserts of Ro. Here's to hoping.

Check out my sources for possibilities of additional info or clarification.
Sources:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=19260
http://www.1up.com/news/soe-announces-everquest-next

The Broadcasts

So I wanted to pause here  to talk a little about the broadcasts.

Right now with the broadcasts you'll be seeing a lot of L4D2 and Killing Floor, although I have been playing Hunted as well.  You'll be seeing a lot of Valve games as well that aren't just zombie slaughter. Team Fortress 2 mainly, because I'm absolute shit at Counter Strike: Source.

The point of the broadcasts is mainly for your entertainment, but right now it's not as often as I'd like. What I want to do is run this baby almost daily from a set time frame, to make it easier to tune in to. The down side is my current job has a random as hell schedule, which makes it hard to do that.

For now I'll be trying to sort my life and job in such a way that I can post a weekly schedule of the broadcast times. At least for now until I can generate enough revenue for it to support itself. I'll be adding a donations button that you'll now be able to see on my blog. Hopefully I can get one into the livestream channel as well. Obviously since it's just donations, I'll be constantly updating the two regardless.

The point of acquiring donations and revenue from advertisements is to not only make it so I can broadcast more frequently for longer times, but also so I can start taking requests. What I mean is specific games to be played. Times. Challenges. Viewer join ins. All kinds of sick things that will involve you, the viewer.

I want this to be a lot more than just online television at random times. Eventually I'm hoping to have just about everyone involved that wants to be.  So if you enjoy what you see, help the cause! And I'll be taking requests hopefully VERY soon.

Second Wars

Honestly I think Guild Wars 2 is going to be great. 

From what I've read it appears they're going for a different feel to the standard MMO, but I haven't checked too much into it. The thing that excites me most is the combat looks a bit unique compared to more MMO's like World of Warcraft or EverQuest, where it doesn't seem like auto attack is going to play a big role, if it's even in the game at all.

The change to the game development, engine, and PvP system is something I'll be looking forward to. I've gotta say that GuildWars is a pretty good game, but I'm really not a fan of the way the PvP or multi-classing works in that game. Which is weird because I'm usually huge on multi-classing. I love hybrids...

The play stayle of GW is fine, I'm not here to knock it at all, I just don't like how you can only have a certain amount of active skills at a time. Makes it too much like a card game for me... But GW2 is going with a different approach to the class system. Looks like it's one class per character, and you're going to have access to more abilities at one time for battle.

No monthly fee almost guarantees I'll be playing this with the other games I'm excited about. Even if The Old Republic ends up being the greatest thing to hit the internet since porn, I'll still be throwing down in GW2 on occasion you can put money on that.

Seems like live action and collision will play more of a role in the combat, but that's just based on hearsay and nothing official. 

Although, I did get this straight from the GW2 wiki, "Control of combat will be more active; including blocking skills that are "held down", ground-targeting for spells and attacks, and hit detection that allows one player to block projectiles by standing in front of the intended target. Guild Wars 2 will be a true 3D environment which will allow characters to jump over obstacles as well as swim and dive underwater. New animation coding will allow separate tracks for upper and lower body components, allowing players to activate more skills while running or jumping for smoother combat immersion."

All in all the most difficult thing this game is going to offer I think is picking a profession... Do I go with the cunning and agile thief with their array of sweet abilities and tools? Or the powerful warrior, smashing things with a two handed sword and ground pounding (two of my favorite things).

Guild Wars 2 looks tremendously promising, and is more than likely going to be something features in my live streams quite often.

Sources: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2

INTERMISSION!!

So instead of blogging about Guild Wars 2 like I was planning... My inner gamer is taking over and the fact that I just got Hunted: The Demon's Forge the other day and have been playing it with Slib... AND I've also got my streams to work, I'm going to just broadcast some Hunted and talk about GW2 tomorrow!!!

Hit up my twitter page for the link to the broadcast!
www.twitter.com/xylaslothian
You'll be seeing a lot of these over the next few... forever. I'll be tweeting each time a broadcast goes live so make sure to follow me.

I will touch on GW2 a little bit just so I'm not a complete ass, and say that I'm completely stoked for the classes this game offers. Here's some links to the previews for the classes so far and showing off some of their skills. Bonus points if you guessed that I'm stoked for the thief. (And kinda for the engineer).

This should get you stoked for what I'll be talking about.

Engineer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGEOIKNRF2Y
Thief:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_HtkaV_JyU
Guardian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvYxoURQbPI
Elementalist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woe8hvlcETo
Ranger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZwGoA3xDMw
Necromancer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8lkfa0KPHk
Warrior:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_TzYExWoQY

The Old Republic

This game just looks sweet. Sweet graphics. Sweet effects. Sweet quests...
Bioware's throwing down to make an MMO with already thousands of hours of recorded voice acting. Talk about awesome. Now I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan to grace the internet, but I still think it's pretty jawsome.

I'm pretty stoked for this one because of the features more than the fact that it's Star Wars. Class progression, real time combat, advanced character progression, the voice acting...

Oh man. From what I've seen so far from previews of the game the quests seem to be pretty involving too. Looks like they're actually trying to get you to care about the quests you accept and do.

I'm not sure if it's with every quest, but there are decisions you have to make just like KOTOR and Dragon's Age, because Bioware knows what's up. I'm pretty excited to have my Sith Marauder that... well... Let's just say I'm not the best at being evil, so I'll probably be pretty neutral with my actions.  Regardless, I'm pretty stoked to kill me some Jedi. Yup... I wanna kill Jedi.

One of the awesome features that this game has that I think is going to help a lot is how you share quests. I read Gabe's (Penny Arcade) little description of what he thought of the game when he got to play, and apparently instead of grabbing a quest and sharing it with your friends later, you have the option when  someone starts to pick up a quest to join via holoprojection. Sweet deal.

Overall I think this game's going to have a lot of what's missing for me in most MMO's right now. For once it's HUGE. I read somewhere that one planet is the size of Azeroth and Outland put together. And there's definitely more than one planet. Also... Ships? You get your own ship.. like... I'm not huge on vehicles... but, you get your own ship. Seriously how awesome is that? Guild ships too... ugh... So sick.

Star Wars: The Old Republic may not end up being exactly what I'm looking for to fill that void that EverQuest has left, but it looks promising. It already has more features that I'm stoked for than most games that are already out or are coming out. Who knows? Maybe it'll carve a new spot in my heart to rest itself for eternity.  Can't wait to stomp on some Jedi...

Split topic!

So basically what I'm going to do over the next few days is talk about some games that are coming out soon that I'm super stoked for.

That way, I can talk about each one, why I'm excited, and give everyone the opportunity to individually comment on each game so that they can give their input as well... and my blog post won't be 5 miles long.

What I'm looking to talk about will probably, mainly be focused around MMO's, because ever since original EverQuest I feel like there's this void that nothing has ever been able to fill. It just seems like nothing's going to ever beat waking up at 5am on those summer mornings. Also... Infamous 2 kinda already came out so... Yeah.

Right when my brother goes to sleep (one computer fml when I was a kid...) just so that I can play my gnome warrior, or dark elf shadow knight, until about 2pm when he wakes up and kicks me off. Or the time he let me play his max level, raid geared necromancer in the Tower of Frozen Shadow to farm bone chips for him, and dying...

I'll never forget the panic I felt as I did a /who all "Defenders of Ak'Anon" and searched through every cleric in his guild and sent them a personal tell asking them if they had their cleric epic weapon... I needed a 99% exp rez. I lost a level. Nate could not find out... I would be killed.

Not even just killed. Beaten within an inch of my life, and then after I recovered, rinse and repeat, until my mortal coil could no longer suffer such punishment.

Oh man, those were the days!

So anyway, I'll probably talk a lot about Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, EverQuest Next, Planetside 2, and The Secret World. I may talk a little about some single player games that are coming out as well such as Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Space Marine.

Are there any games you're super stoked for and just cannot wait? Leave a comment and let me know!

Everyone needs a good side kick.

Well the title isn't quite right... but you'll get my meaning soon enough.
Slib's had my back for about 7 or 8 years now on just about every topic you can think of.
Girls... Job stress... Family... You name it. Kid's been there for me.
Thing is... I've never met him. He lives in Canada and I'm down in Utah, and well... It's just never worked out for either of us to visit.
So we play games. Just about everything. But the main thing we like to do is slaughter zombies, and that brings me to the point...
While spouting off nonsense and screaming complete bullshit in Ventrilo, Slib and I have decapitated, assassinated, shot, blown up, and dismembered thousands upon thousands of zombies.  Whether it be Left 4 Dead or Killing Floor (and hopefully Dead Island soon...) we've pretty much spent the majority of our gaming time together doing such.
Don't get me wrong... we've played plenty of other games. Counter Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, EverQuest II, Dawn of War II... The list goes on and on and on.
My main point is the fact that we have stupid-good-synergy. I rarely have to tell him what to do to help me out, and even if I do he usually is on top of it within seconds. He's saved my ass countless times and I'm sure it'll continue to be that way.
Now... That kind of does make him sound like a side kick... but the thing is, he's usually the one dishing out the majority of the punishment. Sometimes we're pretty equally skilled, but overall, this guy wins every contest just about every time.

Whether we're comparing battle metal to hardcore, or axes to swords, or just talking about girls... You can almost guarantee something (usually a zombie) is being disemboweled in some manner or another.
Games wouldn't be the same without him, and the reason I'm mentioning him is because once I start my live streams here in a couple days you'll almost always be seeing and hearing him.
So everyone make sure to say hi to Slib once I get the streams going, because side kicks come and go (here's looking at you Batman), but a battle brother will last a life time.

What makes a game valuable?

So I'm sitting here trying to figure out just what to do for this new blog, and how to get it going...
And my mind starts trailing off on  Of Might and Magic - Dark Messiah.
Since I literally just beat the game for about the 5th time I realized what makes a game valuable to me.
Replay value.
Replay value is by far the broadest as well as most valuable aspect of a video game. Because face it... What's worse than not even being able to finish a single player campaign? Or just as bad, you beat the game, and it sits on your shelf collecting dust for the rest of eternity, until you decide to go trade it in at your local Game Stop and oops! it's worth $3 because it came out 4 years ago.
I've gotta say that Dark Messiah is going to hold a place in my heart for a very long time... I remember being excited for it a month before release, pre-ordering on steam and having that baby downloaded to my hard drive the day of release... five years ago.
And I literally just beat the game again, and you want to know what I did?
Immediately started a new file.
Dark Messiah you need a sequel... but if you don't end up having one... I guess that's okay.. Because I know I can never get enough of Xana talking smack on Leanna while I impale a Black Guard with my Souldrinker.
Mmm...