Not goodbye.

It has become increasingly easy to ration a larger portion of my gaming time to The Lord of the Rings Online. By "larger" what I really mean to say is "the entire". I never reckoned to think I would ever install an MMO, let alone play one to the exclusion of all other games! It happened though. Bit by bit, LotRO has surpassed Left 4 Dead and become my game of choice.

The idea of paying a monthly fee no longer rankles as it once did. At $9.99/month LotRO is obviously one of the better bargains in the MMO-verse, but I would happily pay more. Much more.


I should note that this will be the last blog from me for awhile. The future of Vanderblog is up in the air right now. A friend and I are looking to start a gaming blog of our own and it is likely I won't have time for this blog (even more likely that any material I would normally write about in Vanderblog will end up in the new blog anyway).

I'll post a link and more info when it becomes available.

Van out!

p.s. check out the Batman Arkham Asylum demo (yes, it's on Steam). Good stuff.

Episode 2.5

Matt Bortolino has made me realize just how much I really am pining for Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Research and Development is a new mod for HL:E2 that prompts the player to remember just how damned cool the physics can be in the Source Engine. Those of us wondering wtf is taking Valve so long to get Episode 3 out the door would do well to give this free mod a look.

R and D treats you to many different play styles all while never having the character pick up a gun. You might think it no fun to play through a HL2 mod without a gun, but you might be wrong. Each level and each puzzle is clever and thought provoking without being too hard (well, most of them aren't). Enemies still abound, and you have to dispose of them in order to progress, but the design of the game is such that you shall never miss the gun that you don't have.

The enviroments are well crafted and very nice to look at. Everything about the production of this free mod is so well done you will swear it of Valvian origins. It all culminates in a boss battle that makes me grin to think about even now, and not in a funny way either. More like a Holy-Crap-I-Can't-Believe-This-Is-So-Much-Fun grin. I won't spoil it for you, just play it and you'll understand why this will soon be the best single player HL2 mod you've ever played.

Still having a blast playing Lord of the Rings Online. Unable to choose between the Hunter or Minstrel class for main character, so I'll just play them both for now thank you.

Van out

*Edit* Holy crap!

Video Games | Command & Conquer 4 | Exclusive Debut Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

At the press of a button...

Lord of the Rings Online has gotten it's hooks in me. Puttering around in the starter town before, pretending to play the game, I barely eclipsed the 12 hour mark in total playtime. Now, with over 50 hours banked, I am a new man about town in Bree Land.

Crafting isn't something I ever tried before. Or increasing my reputation. Or earning titles. Or accomplishing deeds. Now, it's difficult to imagine the game without these things. Since learning how to play the game...I find I actually enjoy the game much more than before. Combine this with a new $9.99/month subscription plan and you have a game I will be playing for a long time to come.

Work continues on the Left 4 Dead campaign at a tortoise's pace. Despite our best efforts though, we're nearly ready for a playtest of the first level. Our creative braintrust will be put to the test in an effort to make this campaign the creepiest one available from the community.

I'm playing LotRO and L4D with equal enthusiasm right now. I'm also on the lookout for a genuinely scary game right now. I snatched up the Penumbra trilogy when it was on sale via Steam. I installed Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Still haven't found anything that grabbed me the way Dead Space did. I still plan to play these games through to completion, but does anyone have a recommendation?

The lightsabers they have nowadays are kickass. The blade extends at the press of a button. I cannot find anything cooler than this simple concept.

Parting shots:
- I hit 400 hours played in L4D.
- There is NOTHING on tv right now.
- Valve's new format for installing custom campaigns in L4D is brilliant.
- poison ivy can grow in your backyard.
- Dam It! is the best custom campaign played thus far.

Van out.

A new enemy lurks...

In the murky pre-dawn hours of Thursday morning an affliction was set loose upon my back. Upon awakening I discover previously simple movements have become painful and agonizingly slow. In one fell swoop I am reduced to tank-like efficiency: my head no longer comfortably pivots on my neck, turning my body as a whole is now necessary in order to glance at my periphery. Like a reject from an early Resident Evil game, I stumbled out of bed and headlong into my new dreary existence.

I, like many gamers who have come before me, do not practice good posture. Slouch all day in an office chair at work. Slouch most of the night before bed in an office chair at home. I am become the slouch...and it is my back whom now must pay the terrible toll.

Like any gamer worth his weight in Mountain Dew, I sought better 'gear' to equip myself with to facilitate my quest to slay my enemies. I asked for - and received - a better office chair as my Father's Day gift. Now properly equipped, I seek to do battle with my sad posture of the day previous. The battle will be glorious, but victory is not assured.

If I do not return...tell my family I love them.

V out.

The most fun you can have in 5 minutes

I played a fun little browser game over the weekend called Little Wheel. You take the role of a small robot tasked by the fates to restore power to his robot world. Using only the left-click button you navigate your robotic-self through clever puzzles which bring you closer to your final goal.

The game lasts all of 10 minutes - if that - but you 'll find yourself wishing it lasted longer. The cartoon graphics are very well done and the physics is very believable: cable cars sway, construction cranes swing obstacles around, objects - yourself included - crash about the environments realistically.

This is the most fun I've ever had with a free browser game. Check it out when a spare moment presents itself. I highly recommend it.

You can find it at this link: http://fastgames.com/littlewheel.html

- Vander out

Rolling on the River

I finally made the upgrade to Windows 7 last week. Feeling lazy, I didn't do a fresh install, opting instead to simply upgrade Vista. Installing my new OS was painless - I've installed games which gave me more grief. Now that I've had a chance to tool around and plumb it's depths, I really like what 7 has to offer. The Windows bar at the bottom now automatically groups all windows from the same program into one button. Don't have something highlighted? It doesn't show on your screen, the OS now conveniently hides it. Icons in the system tray now are accessed by one measly arrow button that displays them all. The desktop now looks much more streamlined and cleaner, free of the clutter present in previous iterations.

It looks pretty, but how does it perform? Glad you asked. Bye bye Mr. Bluescreen Crash everytime I reboot. Adios to Left 4 Dead freezing my entire system, forcing a hard reboot, once a week. So long to programs refusing to close even when using Task Manager. Every problem I had with Vista has ceased to be a problem. A shame this couldn't have been all part of a service pack for Vista. At the very least, it's nice to be able to use it for free until this time next year.

I know, I should probably be mad...this after all is what Vista should have been all along. I should be mad since I've basically been a paying participant in a Microsoft beta test. Oddly, I'm fine with that. Call me a sucker if you like, but I understood a long time ago this hobby would have it's share of headaches. It's not like I have another option anyway. What am I gonna do? Get a Mac?!

Hit me again Ike.

V out

Great Expectations

I purchased Left 4 Dead under no false pretense. There is a simple mathematical formula involved for me whenever Valve releases a new title: New Valve game = me buy. It really is that simple. I purchase everything they make. Period. There are very few companies that possess my loyalty in the same way Valve does. Gabe Newell's announcement of support akin to what we have for Team Fortress 2 played no role in my purchasing decision (see above formula). I will admit to initially feeling a little miffed by the quick announcement of L4D2. Not for the reasons you may think though: I was really hoping for some word on Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

Many are crying wolf on the lack of DLC promised by Gabe. I can understand this to a point, but history bears remembrance in this instance: The Survival Pack came out right about the same time the GoldRush update hit TF2 in relation to it's release. Sure, a new campaign would have been great. I'll be the first to say I was a bit crestfallen when there was no new campaign to be seen in the Survival Pack. My dismay quickly passed for 2 reasons: I now had 2 more campaigns to play through in Versus mode. Considering the mileage I gleaned from No Mercy and Blood Harvest, Dead Air and Death Toll should cover me adequately for a long while.

Not everyone liked the Survival Pack as much as me. Conversely, not everyone cared for the Goldrush Update either. Different strokes and all of that. The important thing to take from this is that Valve is supporting L4D no different from TF2 at this point in it's life cycle. Valve has spent the last 7 months working on L4D2. During this time we got regular gameplay patches and the Survival Pack for L4D. If the support falls off for L4D, I'll be the first to call them on the carpet. For now, they are right on track with their previous effort. Let's give them an opportunity to not keep their word before blasting them for creating a sequel.

*whew*

Speaking of L4D, Valve also made it clear any maps made with the new Authoring Tools will work in L4D2. Those were good words to hear since work continued on our campaign this week. Most of the first level is blocked in and I'm in the process of shaping out the level beyond simple blocks. Our resident blueprint creator handed me a layout for a crucial interior portion of the design this week. This will consume most of my time for the next few evenings and I'm really excited to see how it turns out in-game. Howsabout a screenshot you say? Here's an in-editor look at the level layout thus far:



After 2 crashes in last night's L4d scrimmage and the inability to play Knights of the Old Republic without some annoying finaglework on my part....I think it's time to put Vista out to pasture. By "out to pasture" I mean "take it off life support and let it die". I had fancied going back to XP, but I hear good things about Windows 7. The Release Candidate is available to anyone who wants it and I've yet to hear a bad thing be said against it. Looks like Vista was just a beta test.


Parting shots:

- Jericho is still enjoyable 4 episodes into Season 1.
- Nightshift was an incredible collection of short stories, complete with mini-sequel to 'Salem's Lot, my favorite King novel so far.
- I still haven't canceled my LotRO subscription.
- I ordered Volume 1-4 of the Walking Dead, can't wait to dive into those.
- My son has a habit of deleting save files. Goodbye progress on Yoshi's Island!

V out.