Followers

Monday, February 21, 2011

Minecraft: How to Survive

If you're interested in Minecraft, check out this great series on YouTube. There's over 10 hours worth of videos showing an awesome adventure.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Minecraft: Full Scale Enterprise Ship


I just recently got interested in Minecraft. After watching a lot of videos online I decided to buy it once I get a new laptop, which should be sometime soon. I've messed around with the free version and had a lot of fun building. Lately i've been on youtube looking for any videos I could find, and these two stood out. I'm a huge Star Wars fan and have never watched any of the original Star Trek. However, I have to admit that this is one of the coolest things i've seen built in any world editor game. The videos are kind of long but worth at least skipping around to see the insane amount of work that has been put into that project.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Dead Space vs. Dead Space 2

I was a fan of the first Dead Space and decided to buy Dead Space 2 as soon as it was released. The purpose of this post is to compare the two games and give my overall thoughts on the franchise.

Dead Space is most accurately described as a survival/horror game in my opinion. It is meant to put you in a dangerous environment in outer space all alone. Dead Space is not a very long game and can be considered easy after a few playthroughs. However, no matter how many times i've played it I always enjoy the experience.

Dead Space 2 has a slightly different feel to it. While some of the new ideas are innovative and add a lot to the experience, they are met with repetitive parts that don't feel like they belong. In the end this balances out to be a frustratingly difficult (at least the first time through) but fun experience. I would add a combat part to the survival/horror description of the first game though. Dead Space 2 has many more enemies and a much more challenging combat experience. Although it fits the situation of the story, since the main character Isaac keeps his experience and knowledge from the first Dead Space, it does change the game significantly.

The addition of more suits to choose from as well as more weapons is an obvious step forward. In some games such as God of War 2, the added weapons were almost completely useless (a problem that was fixed in the third installment). In Dead Space 2 the new weapons come in handy time and time again. Without them it would be near impossible to succeed.

The multiplayer feature that has teams of 4 humans battling 4 necromorphs with the help of constantly spawning AI necromorphs. While it might not hold up to the brainless addiction of the CoD and Halo franchises, it is an interesting take on multiplayer. More gruesome and well made than the Left 4 Dead games, it can allow for some fun matches. The only problem is how many people want to keep the CoD/Halo mentality and not focus on objectives. The multiplayer is set up with 5 unique maps (more on the way as downloadable content) that each have a different objective to complete. The humans rush against the clock to finish each objective and ultimately survive while the necromorphs do all in their power to stop them. If you can find a group that knows the maps and is willing to work as a team, this can be a very fun break from your typical online shooters.

Overall I like Dead Space 2 and would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Dead Space. The franchise is going strong and as with most big sellers, a sequel is sure to come in the near future.

On a side note: If you like Dead Space 1/2 and the sci-fi genre in general, I recommend watching the movie Event Horizon. It is a good horror/sci-fi movie and definitely reminds me of Dead Space.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Best commercial from the Super Bowl
One of the many leaked images from The Old Republic. This shows the use of a speeder bike as a mount (which hasn't been confirmed by BioWare yet).

Star Wars: The Old Republic

The majority of my recent game research has been devoted to BioWare's new MMORPG The Old Republic. It's set to release sometime this Spring and looks to be the next big MMO in the market. It's based around the story of Knights of the Old Republic, but set 300 years later.

I'm also currently reading the Darth Bane trilogy which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Star Wars lore.