My Gamingesque Blogtard

So I recently started running my D&D group through the World's Largest Dungeon. Here's the progress they've made so far: I've added a few things to make it less grindy, like a merchant that will show up from time to time to sell them goods and offer them respite. So far they've managed to stumble into the acid trap multiple times, with the roguen realizing he was in trouble, running full tilt back to the room with three Orcs in it, and collapsing at the feet of the cleric because the 2nd round of damage kicked in. The Azer walked face first into the fire trap but being immune to fire damage he lucked out. He then one-shotted the dark mantle, much to his delight. A bigger update and maybe a party outline next time. No, not in 2027.

Well, as you may have noticed, I haven't done much with my blog lately. Things have gotten busier, but I'm still gaming. I've decided to keep track of my gaming here , at The Backloggery. Not sure if you'll be able to see my page or not without signing up, but it's worth a shot. I'll still update here every once in a while, for things not related directly to me completing games, and hopefully I'll find time to update at least a couple times a month.

Just a stray thought I had back in October, but didn't get around to finishing until now. Do I like sequals? And I don't just mean game sequals, but sequals to anything: books, movies, comics? Let's look at each individually. Comics Well, the "episodic" nature of comics guarantees there will be a sequal, so it almost isn't a fair question, however, there is the habbit of revisiting a particular story arc or series again and again. For example: in the DC universe there was a series back in the 80's called Crisis on Infinite Earth's. Lots of people like it, so the made a follow up later on called Infinite Crisis. Again, popular to the point where they brought it to the table again with Final Crisis, which is wrapping up in the next few months. Now, I don't know all the details of the stories, not having read them completely, nor the stories that led up to each of them, so I really don't know if the sequals were necessary to explain more of what w...

So, I really like the Art Deco style. Don't know why, but I do. Games that use this however are even better. Two that come to mind are Bioshock and LA Noire . The former came out at the end of summer, 2007. The latter has yet to come out, but should be by end of 2009, and I hope it doesn't become vaporware . I remember when I first played Bioshock . I had just gotten my 360 and only had the couple of games that came with it. Marvel Ultimate Alliance didn't interest me at all, despite my love of Marvel, and Forza Motorsport 2 was a racing game that would have eventually required skills to master I wasn't willing to develop. I started going through all the demos and arcade games available and downloaded everything that even looked remotely interesting. I came across Bioshock and thought I'd give it a try. Now I don't watch horror movies, and I've only played a couple horror games, and FPS's aren't really my thing, but this was different! The style...

I've found myself playing a lot of flash games recently. I think that is because most of them don't involve a great investment of time. Some do, and those ones hold my attention for a few days, but the rest I can play for 5 minutes to an hour and get my fill of them. There are some however that transcend both, simple yet elegant games that stick with me to the point where I play them to the point of complete memorization and eagerly hope for a sequel . The follow are some such games. Submachine . This was of the earlier "series" that I found that stood out. A point and click adventure that takes you through the puzzles of the vast " submachine ", an extra dimensional machine that many people have lost their lives in. What started out as an escape from what looks like the bowels of a ship in Submachine 1, spreads to sewers, temples, castles, laboratories, and submarines through to Submachine 5. At the start you don't really know where you are or why, bu...

I don't know why I keep reading forum's, most of them are pointless. Wait, I know why. It's to try and find some new information on whatever (usually gaming) that hasn't made it to mainstream news sources or other, more traditional forms of information. The thing that is really starting to get to me is these new trolls. For those who don't know, trolls are people who go to forums or message boards on certain topics and make posts that are intended to upset people. For example: On a kitting forum, someone might come along and say "Knitting sucks!" And everyone else would yell at him and complain about him and get all riled up. Meanwhile, Mr. Troll would love the attention he's getting, and would continue egging everyone one until he either got bored or banned from the site. The process continues with the creation of a new account or the masking of an IP address. This is the simplest method of trolling and is rarely acknowledged these days. So, the trol...