New Job

I’ve jsut quit my day job today. Two weeks notice. Normally I wouldn’t give such short notice when my contract explicitly states 4 weeks but I really don’t have any other option.

So why am I posting about such a mundane thing? Well the new job is the reason. You’re now looking at the new CS Manager for Dexterity Networks. Basically, I’ll be handling the online game support. Of course I can’t say for what game(s), but if you look hard enough you may find me. (Not that I’d tell you if you did find me)

So the countdown to leaving hell begins now.

*BEEP* *BEEP*

So turns out my motherboard was slowly enacting seppuku upon itself.  Due this unfortunate turn of events I had to buy parts for a new computer. Since I hadn’t upgraded anything other than memory and video card in the last 3-4 years I had to replace everything. So I got new memory, hard drive, CPU, motherboard (obviously), video card and PSU. I also bought a 1TB external hard drive when I thought it was my hard drive going tits up. Luckily it wasn’t, but now I have a backup drive.

Wasn’t terribly costly to buy the new parts. All told was about £250, not including the TB drive. Took me a week or so to get everything re-installed and sorted out. But being the geek I am, I enjoyed every moment of it.

Now that I have a dual core CPU and a PCI-E vid card, the games look OMFG wonderful. LotR:O looked wonderful already, but now it looks super wow and runs so smoothly. I think I need to re-install Bioshock jsut so I can look at it in amazement.

So my computer is all fixed again and you can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Broken Computer and gaming awards

My computer has been having “issues” this last couple weeks so that’s my excuse for no content. It’s still broken though so I’m posting this from work when I should actually be working.

In lieu of content though I suggest you go visit Ready Up and vote on the Game Awards

Censorship

So here I am, the newest edition to Femme Gamer.
I’m City, games come first over most things and like Donna, I never sleep.

So right to it really.

I recently learned that Eidos were trying to censor any negative reviews about Tomb Raider Underworld before the game came out, much in the same way they tried to with Kane & Lynch.
What’s the point?

Reasons why they both got bad press:
Kane & Lynch had the worst PC port I have ever seen, they hadn’t even bothered to change the sodding menu’s from the Xbox version, and don’t even get me starting on the aiming, or length…

Tomb Raider Underworld is just unfortunately still very buggy. Bad clipping, bad cameras, why the hell weren’t these things picked up in testing? Why was it rushed out so there has been a game per year for the last few years? What about giving fans a nice polished game, instead of a good game, with irritating problems. It pains me to say all of that. I am a massive Tomb Raider fan, I’ve gotten every game on release day, all the special editions where I can, and sat and played them through as soon as I got them home… apart from this one.

So Eidos, instead of censoring everyone in order to get a better metacritic score, how about spending just a little bit longer putting out a polished version of a game, they way you wouldn’t have to worry about the reviews, as the games would speak for themselves.

To Trophy or Not

So I’ve got a PS3 now which means trophies. Anyone can look and see just how poor my Xbox 360 gamer score is.  Racking up the points really isn’t a big deal to me. I know there are plenty of gamerscore fanatics out there, a friend of mine is one. He’s not happy if he doesn’t get every single point out of an Xbox game. He’s even been known to borrow/rent crap games jsut to get the easy score out of them.

I understand the fanatic competitiveness that having the highest score on a leaderboard. That’s essentially what the Xbox gamerscore has become, and everyone wants the highest score.There’s even functionality within the Xox 360’s interface to compare your score with your friend’s.

The PS3 has trophes. It’s a similiar system generally speaking, but you don’t really have an overal ranking gamer score like on the Xbox. The caveet is that not all games have trophy support, be they old or new. Why developers aren’t releasing games with trophies, I don’t know. It can’t be that difficult to put them in since they have very likely done the achievements for the Xbox. What do I know though. Maybe it’s hard to do.

Here’s what I don’t understand though is this. Why the hell would someone decide to completely not buy a game that they are really interested in just because there are no trophies? I jsut don’t get that. If you really like a game why would you not jsut play it? Why are trophies so fucking important that you’d deprive yourself of something genuinely fun that you want to play?

Anyone who knows me will know that this hasn’t come from nowhere, but something has gotten a hair up my ass. This time it was numberous comments on the news post on PS3Trophies.org regarding the announcement of Fallout 3 getting trophies.  Amid the bullshit are many comments regarding the purchase of the game vs it having trophies. One comment even said they had no plans to buy it, despite really wanting to play it, until this announcement was made.

Fuck gamerscore and trophies. Play games because you want to.

ME Review is Up

The Mirror’s Edge Review is up. Overall it’s an okay game when it really could have been amazing. Small things annoyed me and kept the game from being the wonderful thing I was hoping for.

Mirror’s Edge

Promo copy of Mirror’s Edge came in the post today. Two hours into it and I want to scream. Seriously, there is only so many times you can miss a jump and fall to your death before it really starts to piss you off. And it isn’t like I’m crap at platform games, cause I’m not.  Stupid game is driving me batshit crazy.

After playing for a mere two hours I just quit out of the game. I haven’t a clue how to save or when it saves so when I turn it on again I’ll be in for a surprise; probably one I won’t like.

I’m really disappointed,, but will play more before final decision time. Right now though it isn’t looking good.

The Return

I know it’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from writing at all. I have returned now though and I have some company. My friend and fellow games journalist, Lex, will be joining me here.

So say your hellos to her and expect some more writing soon.

I live

Yea well I’ve been lazy about posting. Busy with work lately and real life gets in the way and some days I jsut don’t feel like going near my computer when I get home.

I went to Connect ‘08 a couple weeks ago. Birmingham is such an ugly ugly ugly city. But it is the best place to have any kind of convention since it’s in the middle of the country. Here are the 3 pieces that came out of that though.

Jumpgate Evolution

Lord of the Rings Online

Dungeon & Dragons Online
It was a good time and I got to meet people and play games and get paid for it. Oh what a horrible job I have. I have to play games and write about them. Or the horror.

Good-Bye

Yesterday when I got in from work my husband had sad news for me. Gary Gygax has died. I sat down suddenly and began to frown as the impact settled in.

Indirectly Gary Gygax has been responsible for a fair amount of the years of my life since I was 20. Without him and his creation of D&D and RPGs the last 12 years of my life wouldn’t have happened the same and I certainly would not have my wonderful husband. So many friends and so many wonderful times. All because of one creation that spawned so many ideas and millions of imaginations.

I was about 12 when I played my very first D&D 2nd Ed game. I was confused by THAC0 then and I still am today, but regardless I loved it and wanted to play more. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to play more until I was in my 20s. Between that first D&D game and my 20s though was computer games. Wonderful RPGs such as Final Fantasy. Games that I seriously don’t think would have existed had Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson not created the world of D&D and RPGs.

With a single creation imaginations were spurred into action and our whole gaming world has blossomed. Inadvertantly Gary Gygax changed the face of gaming, both computer and pen&paper. That change though has touched so many lives and changed so many people. And so much of it was only for the better.

Gary Gygax you were a hero who loved your fans to the last moment. We will miss you.