Dragon Age: Origins ate my life.

I started playing Dragon Age: Origins recently and it took control of my life and devoured my time. Though I had plenty of free time to soak up, this was kind of frightening. The game was so good that I literally started losing chunks of time without even realizing it.

At first I wanted to give the Rogue class a try, so I did. After spending some time with the class and consulting with the wiki page I decided that I should start over again. I was only 6 or 8 hours in and hadn't really done much, so why not? I had got the controls down well enough and figured that I had some of the basic mechanics down. I gave it another shot with the help of a small guide with a better explanation of the Rogue's role within this game. I got to around the same point and then stopped. Playing through the Rogue twice at low levels had made me want something different.

A Mage! That is what I'd want to play, obviously. I started my Mage and went on my way. Spell slinging sure is fun and in Dragon Age it is an absolute blast. The spell combos and interesting ways to use spells is immediately apparent and a whole lot of fun. I, however, hurt myself by reading that wiki. I looked up some of the "specialties" available in this game and saw that Blood Magic looked interesting. I took a straight shot toward it and was disappointed. I had a bit of a save issue and had to start farther back than I wanted because I found Blood Magic to be less fun than I had anticipated. So, I had to replay through some things to get back to where I was and then decided that I had really wanted to go an entirely different way. Should I go back to the Rogue? Should I stick with the Mage since I had recovered from my early mistake with Blood Magic?

NO! I should try a Warrior out. This time I went back to the wiki page, looked up some

information and decided that maybe a Warrior wasn't for me. Maybe the Rogue would really be more my style. Back to the Rogue it is. I was hoping to get some time in playing that character again tonight, but I decided to go out and hang with a friend for a while, instead. Social interaction is always nice. We discussed life stuff, like buying houses and what area my girlfriend and I should move to in the future. The friend I went out with was actually the person who let me borrow the game. Seems odd that I would pass up such a great game to hang with him, huh? =P He of all people should understand.

Though I haven't finished the game yet and I've bounced between characters, I am very pleased with the game. It is very fun and the combat system is relatively simple. It feels like a shiny Baldur's Gate and my brother calls it "KoToR 2 in fairy land". Both work. The game is fantastic and I look forward to playing it again and I look forward to completing the main mission even more. I plan to get it eventually and probably pick up the expansion and some DLC (downloadable content). Why would I want downloadable content after ripping open Activision's asshole over it? Because this content is very cheap, actually adds NEW things to the game and is going to enhance and expand my game.

Dragon Age is great. I just hope I can break it's spell on me before another 10 days goes by.

E3 2010 - Star Wars: The Old Republic

I've been looking forward to a new MMO for a while now. SW:TOR looks like it will be a big budget game with plenty of backing and high profile name. My hopes for the game being successful go beyond the Star Wars name and the huge backing from EA, BioWare and Lucas Arts, though. It's the fact that the gameplay looks so compelling and the classes look individualized enough that you might just find your perfect little niche in the game.

There are going to be standard MMO limitations, however. There will be tanks and healers, there will be various DPS, and there will be phat lewtz. The developers said that the game will be laid out in such a way that you will play you class "story" during the game. I'm not sure what that means or how that will change grouping, but it seems like it might be an interesting new take on the tired old questing system that we have now in MMO games. I hope very much that SW:TOR can break the mold of standard MMO games and go beyond with something that is both involving and fun. I want to play with other people, but I also want to be able to play alone. Good solo and group play will really make or break this game.

At E3 this year there has been a wealth of knowledge and a plethora of information given about SW:TOR. The game is scheduled to be released in Spring of 2011, hopefully this is the last time I have to see it at E3 without being able to play it. We have had interviews with developers and writers. We have seen countless new videos and treated to some hands-on play. Though they were not my hands, I am still glad that SOMEONE got to play the game. I can't tell you how excited this wealth of knowledge makes me, yet sad at the same time. I know that I won't get a good solid chunk of info for another month or more and I won't be able to play for almost another year. As we head into the summer of 2010 all I can do is prepare myself for the hours of my life that this game will steal away.

Dear Jeff Fisher, Keep you fucking players OUT of strip clubs, dumbass.

You would think that a multi-million dollar earning athlete and role model would want to appear in the headlines because he saved a child from being hit by a car or because he went back to his old neighborhood to help kids learn to read. Nope, not the Tennessee Titans. They go to strip clubs and start shit. At least no one got shot this time.

Vince Young, being the brilliant young man that he is, decided that he should go to a strip club and get into a fight with the pimp.... err... manager. I mean, who the fuck wears a purple-lined jacket? Yeah, pimps. Yeah, well, Mr. Pimp got a bloody limp and decided to call the cops. Young got picked up on a Class C assault charge. How in the fuck you manage to carry around an illegal gun, take it into the facility where you practice and play games and then threaten suicide and don't go to jail, but bust a grown mans lip and do... completely beyond me. Someone, please explain this to me.

There is a video that is circulating the internet of Young going "backstage" into a little room where Mr. Pimpbitchwithabustedlipboohoo is being taught to read. He has a short conversation by a bald-headed security guard, then Pimp Daddy decides to start talking shit about Texas, where Young went to college and won a national championship. Okay... so, a famous person with millions of dollars comes in while I'm getting my booklearnin' and I start talking shit to this guy... what? Why? MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. He could be shoving real cash into the panties of my dancers are paying for premium drinks, why the hell would I piss him off?

Why did this whole fucking situation happen? Because Jeff Fisher hasn't figured out that young men with a lot of money don't need to be at a fucking stripclub! Fisher, get it together man. I'm amazed you weren't shitcanned after that loss to New England. You need to get control of your team back and you need to do it quickly. Just because Pittsburgh lets ROFLsberger go on a raping spree and Tony Dungy didn't want to believe that Harrison shoot people, doesn't mean that you can just let your guys keep fucking up in stripclubs. Ban them. Your players obviously aren't cut out for it.

Please, for the love of God, just stop. Stop letting them go to these places and make themselves look like idiots. That goes for everyone, not just the Titans. When was the last time you saw Peyton Manning do something like this? We all know Tom Brady likes to get chicks pregnant and then dump them for supermodels, but still... no stripclubs. If you don't want people to ask if your mom is a prostitute, don't beat up pimps.

Left 4 Dead vs. Comodo

Ahhh yes. Friday night. We eat steak every Friday at my house, a little later than normal this Friday, but still steak. I settle into my normal groove and get read to play a game with my brother, which I haven't done in a long time. He just got a Left 4 Dead pack that Steam had on sale. I don't own the second game, so we start with the first.

We both know what zombies are and look forward to killing them. I, however, have to shoot down my overzealous internet security first. The interesting way that L4D connects requires me to fight with Comodo more than normal. I have to play half of my games in Windowed mode, at least to start, because Comodo will freeze fullscreen applications that don't have the proper permissions. While I do appreciate this, I had kind of hoped that after nearly a year on this same install of Winodws 7 that it would have picked up SOME of my habits. Also, gaming in a window blows. Like, a lot.

He sets up a room, I join. First go... NO GO. I get a popup that won't go away no matter how many times I tell it that it's trust. Comodo refuses to believe that I want to play this game. I have to turn everything off, close the program, reopen it, turn everything off again and somehow manage to magically fix it. What? Yep. Not even worth going into much more detail.

Second try... and we succeed. We manage to get connected and start the game. He has never played, so I take the initiative and begin to lead him into the fray. We have a good time, blasting zombies and whatnot. We get to the first checkpoint without issue. We breeze through the first part of the second area, end up having to deal with a witch. I picked the fight, I was trying to show how much of a pain in the ass she is, but she didn't live long enough to get to us. We enter into the next stage and everything sucks. There is a Witch waiting for us at the lift, we have to deal with her and I end up taking the death punch. It sucked.

We make it to the hospital and the end of the map. We fight to the top of the building. We have killed a bunch of zombies. We have been pounded on by tanks. My brother has shot be about 30 fucking times. We enter into the last little bit and I'm looking forward to it, my brother... he has no idea what is coming. Wave after wave of zombie washes over us. All over the place. We get two different tanks and at one point both of us are pulled different directions by smokers. We somehow make it through and "get to da chawpa". Ahh, success.

I have won a mission in L4D. I have enjoyed my brother's company on a frenzied corpse-strewn street. I have conquered something, yes, but more importantly, I had made Comodo stop being such a bitch.

I just realized that there was a new version out, so I picked it up, uninstalled the old one and got to installing this one. I'm running the first scan with it right now, so it'll quit complaining that I haven't scanned with it. Hopefully I can train this new version better than the last.

Smartphone vs. Battery Life

My brother got a new TP2 in April. He got a Nexus One last week, after having phone envy when he saw my Incredible, nah just kidding, he just loves Android (don't we all?). His TP2 is GSM and I'm not sure if they use the same batteries, not sure why it wouldn't, but we will see. I plan to pick up the battery from him this week and see if it works. Maybe we can trade or he will let me hang onto it until Verizon release their 2150mAh Extended battery and back.

Here is to hoping it all goes well. =)

Edit/update:

I just picked up the battery from my brother and tossed it into the phone. It's been in for maybe 90 minutes, charged it back up to full and have it plugged into my PC while I transfer a few things to it. Will pull it off and give it some lovin'. Hoping just to pull a couple extra hours with it. Will update when I've had a bit of time with it.

edit/update 2:

have spent some time with the new battery. didnt use the phone as much as normal, between cooking dinner diagnosing and repairing a pc and fragging it out in tf2, i just didnt fool with it like normal.

my stats so far are.....10:48:27 up, 4:38:12 awake. cell standby 41%, phone idle 36%, android system 18%, display 5%. osmonitor and system app both say 73%. i did not do the turn off and keep charging method (you know what im talking about), gonna try it tomorrow. it really did do bettet than i expected. i will report back tomorrow after a nice big charge on this battery.

(I typed this on my phone, while laying in bed... it sucked)

Edit/update 3:

The day didn't go as I had planned, phone got left at home and didn't come off of the charger until about 8PM, it's 3AM now. Uptime of 32:10:39, Awake time of 17:04:13. Plan to actually turn the phone off and give it a good solid charger tomorrow. Battery is reporting 57% charge today after fairly heavy usage coming off the charger. Lots of time on WiFi, as well.

My regular battery would probably be in need of a charge by now. I am pretty pleased with these unscientific "tests" I've run. Basically, I just use the phone like normal and I have seen an improvement in how long the charge lasts. I will check back in with more news tomorrow, after it gets a good charge on the charger with the phone powered off.

Edit/update 4:

Up time 8:55:49 - Awake time 3:27:45 - Battery 62%

Usage

31% - Maps

24% - Cell standby

22% - Phone idle

10% - Android System

7% - Voice calls

4% - Display

2% - Dialer

I didn't do as much gaming today as normal, very light usage throughout the day (for me). I'd say that makes me "moderate". I used Google Maps, as you can see, I think that makes up for my light use of my games. I made some phone calls, fielded and sent out the normal amount of texts. I even showed off some of the coolness of the phone to someone today. Random loading of internet pages to show how fast the browser was and some of the random/neat apps like Sky Map and Google Goggles.

I can assure you that my 1300mAh battery would be dead just from this usage. It would have had to sit on the charger at my desk all day or it would be in need of a charge.

I am no scientist, but based on my usage patterns I can say that the 1500mAh battery is far superior. This makes me wonder if the 1500mAh is less awesome and the 1300mAh might just suck. The 2150 is getting reports of in stock, or soon to be in stock. That's good. This will hold me over until I finally pick up a 2150. I look forward to the battery life that the 2150mAh will net me, especially after the results with the 1500mAh.

So... come the hell on Verizon. I'm dying for a battery here. GIMME! This smartphone is painfully weak and limited with such a short battery life. Gimme the juice!

Oh Turbine, how you give me hope...

As if making two marginal MMO games and Asheron's call wasn't enough, you have gone ahead and helped usher the new form of "free-to-play" games. Don't get me wrong, Asheron's Call was fun and AC2 was probably before it's time and suffered greatly because of it. No disrespect to Turbine, not in the slightest. I've played DDO (Dungeons & Dragons Online), and I enjoyed it. Though I've never played their hobbit-filled MMO, I must assume that it is similar in polish and presentation.... Oh, and yeah, it's also gonna be FREE, soon.

Turbine made a staggering announcement recently and said that this fall their Lord of the Rings MMO will be modeled in similar fashion to DDO, as in... FREE. Well, free to a point. You will be able to play through the early portions of the game, just enough to get your excited and then abruptly shut you off. You will be required to purchase "mini game packs", that open up a little or a lot depending on what you choose. You can also spend a little extra cash and get a few things along the way, if you so desire.

But Dave why do you like this model of distribution and talk so much shit about Activision of being greedy dicksuckers, you ask? Because Activision charged PC gamers 10 dollars more (yep, a pricetag 10 bucks higher than console... 60 bones!), didn't provide dedicated servers, and slowly release old content for a new game and make you pay for it. Turbine won't require you to buy the game and they won't ever charge you a subscription fee. You will be free to roam about the world that they have given you for free and you can, if you wish, purchase a continued experience. In the 75 dollars that PC gamers have shelled out for MW2 alone, you could probably pick up a considerable chunk of the content you want in DDO.

DDO and LOTRO are NOT the best MMO games out there, but they are a nice alternative and for cheap people they will be better than just about anything else you can play for free. While I am giving shouts to free games, Guild Wars is another great alternative. Though you will have to purchase the game and some expansions to really get the full effect, the whole collection should only run you about 60 or 70 bucks, about as much as you'd spend on MW2 (faggots).

The Stimulus Map Pack

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?

This? THIS is what you give to PC gamers for shitting on everything that they know and love about PC gaming. You remake a couple old maps and slide in a new one or two? You ship a PC game WITHOUT dedicated servers, something you failed to mention until close to launch, and then you expect them to just lay back while you fuck them out of another 15 bucks?! Wow.

Why do you people let them do this? Why do you buy these games and allow this to continue. As much as they are the problem, the community is to blame. If we didn't buy these half-finished, half-featured games.... well, then they'd pull an EA and stop making the game for PC at all (in reference to them ditching the Madden series after Madden 08). In the case of EA, though, they own the rights to, basically, all of the NFL and no other company can even make a game to compete. It's really, really sad.

I don't play, have never played and do not intent to play Modern Warfare 2. The lack of dedicated servers for the PC instantly made the decision for me, upon release of the game. The fact that months later they rehash old content and charge people money is just... awful. I remember when Half-Life was the GAME and Counter-Strike was the MOD. While I understand that those days are gone, quality games should still make it to PC... for the PC.

I really look forward to the next batch of gaming coming to PC over the next few years, those that are full Direct X 10 and even the new games that give us glimpses of Direct X 11. I hope that these games can help me wash the bad taste out of my mouth, the last five or so years in gaming has been mostly lackluster. We keep supporting it, though and end up with... A Stimulus Map Pack. Sigh.