Archmaille

It’s halloween, and I’m taking a light day for work. So I’m here to brag about my new Kindle Keyboard, well technically not mine… not anyones right now Bought it for my wife for Christmas, she’s the reader in the family, and our small house doesn’t quite have the room for all the books that she wants to stockpile. So I figured if she could get 1,000 books packed into a tiny tablet we might actually have some space to move, and it might keep our 2 y/o son from destroying so many books and making big messes. I liked the Kindle with the Keyboard the most, it just seems more useful, it’s much easier to search through a large library when you can type in what you’re looking for and search easily rather than trying to scroll through 100+ books.

written by Archmaille

Okay, so not really “feelin’ it” today. Kinda programmed myself to have Sundays as my resting time… and I know I did the same thing last Sunday, actually didn’t post anything at all just used some pre-written content. Anyways, don’t have that luxury this time

I’ve been playing NFS: Hot Pursuit (the new one) the last couple of days! Which is nice, I only got to play it an hour before when my pedals crapped out on me… then when I got some Clubsport pedals the game wasn’t working with them. I uninstalled the game, really pissed about spending $50 on it! Just reinstalled it to try it out, and it worked! Also figured with a new driver from Fanatec it was worth a try, don’t know what it was that fixed it, but it works now with the clubsport pedals, so I’m happy. It’s a good game for blowing off steam, I’ve got other racing simulator games that I like, but when I just want a crash ‘em up gimmicky arcade style game it’s awesome! If you loved the original NFS Hot Pursuit, or Cruisin USA this new Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit will be right up your alley! While it’s completely playable from the keyboard, as with all racing games it’s just more fun with a wheel in your hands. Turning seems sluggish (even with 180° turning radius) and you’ve often really gotta crank on the wheel to make sharp turns… it doesn’t really matter too much because you bounce off walls anyways Having some fun toys like spike strips, nitrous, and insane saves from an e-brake slide brings the arcade feel to the 21st century! While the driving isn’t terribly realistic, the gimmicks can actually make it a lot of fun, especially for some friendly competition between peeps online.

written by Archmaille

Even if you’ve managed to keep your job through the economic turmoil of late it is still important to cut corners where you can and start saving money. If nothing else the latest recession has taught Americans that we cannot rely on the government to take care of us when things get rough. So a lot of people are cutting back where they can. Now most people would consider their eyeglasses to be a necessity, and I’m not asking you to change that perspective. Eyeglasses are important for all kinds of things, maybe even important in keeping your job, or driving to your job. So obviously eyeglasses are a necessity! Many of you have even tried

written by Archmaille

In high school what got me into gaming were two very distinct games, games that not only got me hooked, but have been quoted as forming the field of RTS gaming. Those two games were Stronghold, and Total Annihilation. I loved stronghold for the historical aspect, being able to wage battles with ancient weaponry, and well everyone knows what Total Annihilation did for the gaming industry. So far the successors to these games has not lived up to their ancestors legacy. Supreme Commander may not have been a total flop, but somehow it seemed to fall short of the legacy TA left behind. Stronghold 2 was a decent game, very buggy, very exploitable, but still fun to play. Now Stronghold 3 has come out. I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when I heard it announced, I followed the developer diaries very closely, seeing things like a physics engine being added, dynamic lighting, and all those cool modern technologies coming in to play… I thought this is going to be awesome. I was a bit disappointed when they didn’t have a pre-sale… well they sold the game early, but I don’t think you can call giving away the old games and not reducing the price a “sale” I already own the old games, could we do something a little better?

Well, not to worry, I could wait until the game came out to get it. Only… when it did come out I didn’t have much urge to buy it. I sat around watching the developer videos the night before it hit the market and got very discouraged. What’s the point of including a physics engine if the animations it produces are going to look exactly like the pre-baked building destructions of SH2? What’s the point of including dynamic lighting if the textures and shadows look worse than games I bought 6 years ago?

I understand small studios don’t have the big budgets, or huge developer teams to work on these things… and I understand that there was a bit of a time crunch to launch the game on the 10th Anniversary of the original Stronghold game… I guess I just got spoiled by Company of Heroes. Especially in a game like Stronghold where the main focus is to build a castle I want army units that are smart enough to dodge big things like a stone flying at their head, I don’t want to control every unit individually, squads just makes sense a commander doesn’t tell every person under his command exactly what to do does he? Give me a game that allows me to make my own squads by grouping people together and I’ll be ecstatic! Make them smart enough to put shooting units (arrows) in the back, and stronger units up front to block, and I’ll jump with joy! Make the battles as simple as possible for the players, the economy and castle building takes up enough time as is. Also what is the point of building a castle if it doesn’t defend anything? 4 shots from a catapult and whole sections of wall drop… seriously? Are they nuclear explosive rocks? You’ve got a physics engine, make a rock take out a rock sized section of the wall! Yeah, so it’ll take a long time to cut through a wall, but isn’t that the point of a castle?

I am probably asking too much… And I don’t know that I’ll ever see these features in a castle builder game… the market probably just isn’t big enough. Even the total war series had some very quirky, pretty bad battle sequences at times, and it wasn’t even a castle builder.

written by Archmaille

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