Sims 3

One of my most anticipated games of the year has finally arrived with a whole lot of new features to explore. The new addition include job and skill perks, town exploration, additional requests, and more.

I like the fact that Electronic Arts added a bit of role playing to the game where my sims can do random requests from other sims based on their skills. If I'm good at fixing things, someone will ask me to upgrade their stereo and pay for the job. It creates a interesting variety between the life at home and on the job. Sims also have daily wishes that boosts their happiness that range from making friends to doing chores. The ultimate lifetime wish can also be part of a career field.

The town exploration is a lot of fun. An athletic sim can go for a jog and the player gets to control where he is running to and for how long. The sims can visit many places, like go to the movies, shopping, out on a town. At night it's also fun to go to the grave yard and get aquinted with the ghosts or explore the catacombs.

However, I wish there was more customizing variety in the game, like more hair styles, household and house rebuilding stuff. I had to get a lot of the additional objects on the website. But maybe the next expansion will bring more variety.

Naruto: The Broken Bond

Being a huge fan of the anime I was extremely curious about how the game was gong to turn out. I was not disappointed. After a bit of a disappointment with Street Fighter VI, due to my own inability to play complex fighting games, this was a huge turn around for me. The controls are extremely simple to handle, I didn't have to do finger acrobatics in order to get the special moves right. There is only a small amount of button pushing, which is very easy to learn, and it is blister free.

The graphics are cartoony but beautiful nethertheless. I guess the designers decided to stick to the anime style, which I thought was appropriate for the title.

Overall, I highly recommend this game for those who are noobs, like me, in fighting games. It is simple but extremely fun.

The New and Improved Me

Hi all!

I haven't been posting for a while due to a very busy school schedule. But it's all over now! Yesterday I had the opportunity to walk on stage as a new graduate of Cal State Northridge with a Bachelor's in English Literature. I am stoked, not only is the school over but I also accomplished something great.

Ulduar 3.1 - Bugs Galore

The heavily anticipated patch 3.1 has finally arrived filled with a brand new raid, Argent Tournament, dumbed down Death Knights and bugs. As soon as it launched Blizzard was bombarded with in game tickets addressing various problems. The Culling of Stratholme on heroic was reset and it took about 2 days to finally get a response. The best advice they gave me was to do it again, and they were aware of the problem. Luckily I got the achievement done after I ran it for about the twentieth time. Blizzard's in game support is not without a sense of humor. It sure took the stress out of dealing with the in game problems. The GM I was chatting with told me that Mal'ganis got probably scared of the new Ulduar patch and ran away. Well, that's good for Mal'ganis I suppose, however it doesn't put too much credibility on Arthas. He can't be much of a tough ass if he has such scary cats under his command.

Argent Tournament starts out being fun. I easily got to the valiant's rank and that opened up a few new daily quests. In one I had to fight another NPC with the valiant's rank. That's when the fun is over. Beating them is extremely difficult. I huffed and puffed and tried different strategies but to no avail. The rotation between being able to keep my own shield up, getting their down and attacking them at the same time is very hard to manage.

Prospecting was also bugged. I had to manually move my ore from one stack to another in order to prospect it.

The number of problems was unfortunate. But Blizzard was quick to address them. The fix following the patch took care of the Mal'ganis problem and most of the other little annoyances.

I'm "wow" for WoW

What is it about World of Warcraft that is so appealing? I don't know about you guys, but I've never been able to leave it permanently. No matter how many times I have gotten bored with it and canceled my subscription, I still managed to come back and play with newly found enthusiasm.

Actually I have a love-hate relationship with WoW, mainly because Blizzard loves to jump from one extreme to another. And it can be frustrating. Firstly, they make it extremely difficult to acquire materials for high level crafting patterns. I would spend weeks grinding for money and materials only to find out months later that healing and spell damage does not matter anymore because everything has been dumbed down to spell power. All of those hours spent grinding for materials are totally wasted.

I can guess why - to make it more user friendly for people who play hybrid classes.
On one hand it is great because a holy priest would still be able to do damage while questing, but on the other the same holy priest and a warlock would have a cat fight in a raid about who should get a +spell power staff.

During the Burning Crusade the conflict between Horde and Alliance has been completely undermined by the arena PvP system because it allowed teams of the same factions to fight against each other. The fights between the Horde and Alliance teams resembled more of a friendly sparring than an actual conflict. Of course Blizzard outdid themselves in the Lich King by reigniting the war between the two main factions through the chain of events in Dragonblight. Apparently the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" philosophy is outdated in the latest expansion.

However, some things have been improved. I love the fact that reputation is not only exclusive to specific instances anymore, like it was in the Burning Crusade. The Lich King introduced the tabard system to the new factions. Now all you need to do is wear a tabard and run any high level instance and the rep is easily yours.

Despite the fact that I have several high level characters and think that the Lich King could have introduced more class variety instead of just new talents, I still have fun leveling my second Death Knight. It's probably because I amuse myself with the though that tanking is fun and I could maybe, probably, one day bring myself to actually do it. Even though Blizzard almost destroyed the dark setting that was present in the Warcraft series by adding a lot of pop culture references and silly events during the holiday seasons, I still look forward to having my character run around with candy buckets during Halloween and sharing Christmas milk and cookies with friends.

Those Darn Fanboys

Fanboys are like leeches, they have to suck all of the fun out of video games, movies, music. A new game comes out and it is already bombarded by an army of overzealous fans yelling that it's going to fail or that it's a poor copy of something else.

Take Warhammer Online. It's an MMO based on the popular tabletop called Warhammer. I don't even know how many of the loyal World of Warcraft fans had to drag it through dirt with their random outbursts that it is a "cheap" copy of WoW. Here is a little history lesson, kids: the Warcraft franchise started in 1994 with the release of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. Warhammer existed since 1980s, ten years prior to the first Warcraft installment, but in the board game form. And Warhammer Online took its story and artwork from the board game. So how exactly did Warhammer copy WoW? I guess it's just too hard to actually play the game and then make an intelligent argument against it.

Another game that suffered from the fanboys' and critics' intellectual handicap is Rise of the Argonauts. The game is an RPG, it is not an action game. But it had to be compared to God of War. Let me guess! Because both games feature Greek mythology, wow, they MUST be the same! (not!) Then why not compare it to Titan Quest? Silly me, God of War and Rise of the Argonauts have to be the same because they have similar camera views. I cannot think of any other reason to explain this nonsense. WTB logic and common sense. Rise of the Argonauts is actually a lot like Mass Effect. Both of them are RPGs with a very similar game play that lacks the fast paced action style of God of War.

But, boy, was I mad with the Diablo III fiasco when the fanboys actually had the audacity to file a petition for Blizzard to change the graphics of the game. They are supposedly not dark enough! Well, where have you kids been for the past decade? Have you played Diablo II at all?! The graphics were already different in that one! Diablo II was definitely not as dark as Diablo. But that did not make the game bad at all. It was a very popular game that had a huge fan base and many people still play it today.

Bottom line is that people love to jump to conclusions every time there is a change in something that they feel comfortable with. The topic has already exhausted itself in someone else' rants and I'm late for the party. But if someone listens, then I've done something right.


PS: The above picture of a unicorn is a satirical response by Blizzard to the fanboys who claimed that the graphics of Diablo III are too "happy" for a Gothic fantasy role playing game.

Street Fighter IV

I have never played any of the previous Street Fighter games so I have nothing to compare it to, but from my personal experience, this is not a game for noobs. The controls are extremely hard to manage and often times they have to be executed at the precisely right time. So if you miss by half a second or don't do the combination the exactly right way, it will not work.

I tried to learn the fight with C. Viper and Cammi and the result is a blistering thumb. The game is definitely made for more experienced players.

But other than that, the graphics are beautiful, the intro is extremely sophisticated, and the music is still rolling in my head.

Perhaps, after I get over my frustration and buy a healthy supply of band aids, I can give it another shot.

Dragon Age: Origins

One of the coolest and my most anticipated games of 2009 is Dragon Age: Origins. It creates the choices/consequences game play in a dark and Gothic fantasy setting. The characters' "origins", or where he or she comes from, plays a crucial role in the way the game is going to turn out.

The choices/consequences is certainly nothing new to the role playing genre. I definitely like that idea because it creates a realistic atmosphere and makes me pay the price for being a jerk to other characters in the game. The idea of origins also creates a nice twist and gives a certain uniqueness to each character. I like the fact that there are only 5 characters which makes it easier to decide whom to pick, instead of the gigantic roller coaster of character customization that I had to go through in some other games. Personally, I prefer a variety of choices that dictate the outcome of the game play instead of choosing from a million different classes/factions/religions and so on.

This is going to be a multi-platform game. As a PC user I've experienced my share of bugs and random system crushes in other games, some of which I actually liked. BioWare is known for producing quality games, and since they delayed this one until the second half/end of 2009, I'd like to think that it will be released as a finished product, and not a beta lookalike.

Pregnancy in Video Games

I read an interesting article on kotaku.com by AJ Glasser called "Knocked up: A Look at Pregnancy in Video Games". It presents different takes on pregnancy in a variety of games and how they differ from one another. Pregnancies vary from the very realistic presentation in Sims, where the belly grows and the mother-to-be shows the usual symptoms most pregnant women do, to the comical take in Harvest Moon where the baby one day just appears out of nowhere in the mother's arms.

Glasser says that Sims has the most accurate version of pregnancy. And I agree. The whole game is designed to emulate life in the virtual world. Even sex is designated into the two categories of "safe" sex aka "whoo hoo" and "try for baby" which will get the female character pregnant. And after the pregnancy has been successfully achieved, the little woman goes through the usual 9 months, which get compacted into mere days, of a series of morning sicknesses, constant fatigue and other wonderful byproducts of pregnancy.

Harvest Moon doesn't display pregnancy in such detail. Glasser argues that it is "bizarre that when playing as the girl character you're pretty much farming, fishing and horseback riding all the way up until the point of labor." I certainly agree with that. But then again, Harvest Moon is not designed to replicate life. It's more of a fun farming simulation where you have an option of courting and marrying the locals, but you don't really have to. Although, the female in Tree of Tranquility definitely does look strange running around with farming tools in her last trimester. The designers probably decided not to pay too much attention to pregnancy since realistic life is not the point of the game.

I think that the realistic view of pregnancy is essential to games like Sims. The whole game revolves around copying life as realistically as possible, save for a few ghosts. If it wasn't the case, then how would the game look if little Sims could go to the bathroom but couldn't have the morning sickness? And as far as Harvest Moon goes, I don't think the pregnancy theme fits into the game even though family life is a part of it. Maintaining the farm is the most vital component. And if you don't water your crops and feed your animals everyday, they will eventually die. However, if the main character is female, it wouldn't hurt for the game designers to make it a little more realistic. Why not switch responsibilities from the main female character to her NPC husband or at least share some of them? Or better yet, dump all of them on the man while she is hormonal. Hubby seems somewhat of a dead beat, doesn't he?

While the Sims games stay faithful to reality and have their Sim parents pass on their virtual genes to the Sim babies, Sims 3 is taking procreation to a whole new level. I almost fell off my chair when the end of Glasser's article said that ghosts will be able to have babies too!

"Ghost babies? GHOST BABIES!"


Works cited:

Glasser AJ. "Knocked up: A Look at Pregnancy in Video Games". Kotaku.com. Feb 9, 2009.
www.kotaku.com

Rune Factory Frontier

They finally did it! (but some of you might already heard about it) The perfectly awesome Rune Factory Frontier is being released on Wii. But if you didn't know, Rune Factory is the RPG version of the Harvest Moon farming simulation series for Nintendo DS. You do everything you usually do in Harvest Moon - grow plants, animals, get married, expand your farm, etc. But there is also a story line which you need to follow in order to progress in the game. The RPG part requires players to fight monsters in various caves. You can also grow a variety of seasonal crops in each cave throughout the entire year. Seasons in caves don't change and each one has its own season. After the main storyline is finished, you can continue playing the game indefinitely just like regular Harvest Moon.

My reason for excitement is that I can finally see Rune Factory on my big screen TV in 3D instead of pushing the buttons on my little DS. According to GameSpy, Rune Factory Frontier promises to introduce different experiences for everyone and provides choices that set a certain direction for every player.

What I like about the Rune Factory series is that it combines simulation farming with RPG. My experiences vary between being a hardworking farmer to being a courageous knight who fights monsters and rescues damsels in distress. The farm is also easier to manage. Days seem longer and you don't run out of stamina that easily. It can also be replenished once a day by taking a bath at the local bathhouse. (Tree of Tranquility also has that feature where your little character can take a relaxing bath at the hot springs) There are also health and stamina bars which let you see how close you are to collapsing. The only Harvest Moon games I've seen with a similar feature are Tree of Tranquility and Island of Happiness. I haven't played any other ones except for Harvest Moon DS/DS cute.

Rune Factory Frontier is coming out on March 17th. I will write a more thorough review after I'll play it.

Julia

Hello and Welcome

Hello world,

After a week of procrastination I finally created my own personal blog. Mission accomplished. What's next? So many interests to sort through, so many topics to cover. What am I really interested in? Shoes, clothes, make up, dinning out...I'm such a girl. But wait, I also like heavy metal and video games. *gasp*

Video games are the biggest and the baddest entertainment industry in the world. It surpasses the movies and music and continues to grow. What used to be mostly exclusive to young men and teenage boys is now accessible to everyone. There are a ton of different genres and sub genres within those genres too. There is also a rating system which an occasional soccer mom will ignore and a variety of game platforms to choose from.

The beauty about video games is that you can be absolutely anyone in that world. You can devote 20 hours of your life to some quiet farming and courtship in the Harvest Moon series or hours and hours of intense raiding and getting phat lewtz in the MMO giant like World of Warcraft. I still can't decide what I like more.