In the interest of passing on more than just gaming rumors, and reviews, I am passing on this link to an article on the site How Stuff Works, about how Blu-Ray Discs work. Now you may ask.. “What the hell do I want to know that for?”. Well it turns out, Sony has already announced that the PS3 will be using Blu-Ray technology for its media. Having been a fan of How Stuff Works forever, I highly reccommend you all check it out and learn a little somehting about your future console

And with that, all I have to say is… 50 GB!!

I was just accepted to the EQ 2 beta (and for that I’m very grateful). Now I haven’t played yet… and before I silence myself with the NDA I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on this MMORPG contender.

Everquest 2 has all the potential to be the sequel of year. It’s got hot contention with Half Life 2, Halo 2, Doom 3, etc. People eat this MMORPG stuff up big time.

Every preview I’ve read over the last 6 months has had the same exact focus - the graphics are pretty, all of the NPCs are voice acted, and the initial Isle of Refuge quests are entertaining. (OMG, if I hear of the Isle of Refuge one more time, or even the boat ride…) Great.

Most previews stop there. Forgive me for sounding like Comic Book Guy, but these previews of the game end at the very same moment where the game actually begins. The Isle of Refuge is the game’s tutorial and only accounts for very tiny bit of your characters progression. Most players will finish this segment in their first sitting. Meanwhile the game is supposed to capture your dollar and attention for months on end. Shouldn’t these game previews extend beyond this short introduction to the game and actually view where we’ll the player would spend most of his time?

These are the sort of previews we read when games are just announced. Low level content is established but the higher-up stuff hasn’t yet been developed and not ready to be viewed by the press. But EQ2 has been in beta over a year now and is scheduled to ship in just a few weeks. Some of the game’s classes don’t even exist until your character reaches level 20. EQ2 _must_ have preveiwable content well beyond level 5.

I think EQ 2 might actually suck big time.

In a similarly disturbing thread, not 1 preview is critical of the game at all. They all read as if they’ve been written by the Sony Online Press core. For instance, here’s a preview that Gamepro.com releaed today. It continues the trend of writing with the same soap opera Vaseline-smeared lens.

Meanwhile the gaming message boards haven’t quite built up my esteem for EQ 2 either.( Sure, most boards are junior high kid crap, but there are a few with mature, high quality communities). Buried deep within threads you’ll find folks who’ve landed accounts for both the WoW and EQ2 betas. Most have snide remarks and a common theme of, “Don’t bother, they’ve killed the series.” This comes from EQ1 lovers and haters alike. Did they break the NDA ? - sure. You’ve gotta love BBS anonymity. But at least they have an opinion instead of the commone press robot spewing out details about the same five levels.

Today I came across the first critical article of EQ 2 that I’ve seen, written by gamehelper.com.. It legitimizes just about every not-so-nice post that I’ve read by people on the boards. Far and away it’s the most complete and truthful picture I’ve seen of EQ2 in a preview.

And so before I enter my NDA obligation I thought I should make a strong suggestion to those of you who’ve preordered EQ 2 - you may want to cancel your order and wait for some reviews. There are a ton of other quality MMORPG games coming out *cough*, with fun and tested gameplay. This one might not deserve your preorder cash.

And with that, it’s beta time!

Dave

Gamespot is reporting that HL2 will ship for Novemeber 16th. Could it be that the game that will be my new favorite game of all time will be here that soon?!?!

Oh man. Hold on to your hats… This fall and winter is enough to give me a gamegasm. Yes.. a gamegasm.

Highs: Everything; graphics, plot, gameplay. It’s what experts have been predicting for this medium.

Lows: Squadmates sometimes get in your way; low-res textures in huge outdoor scenes.

Bottom Line: Surpasses Half-Life in every way. Arguably the best game ever made.

Final Score: 98%

Sure they reviewed a release candidate of the game, but so what? I’ve trusted PC Gamer reviews for years and they have often fallen right in line with my tastes. Lately I’ve been getting quite PO’ed over Half-Life’s year long no-show but now I can’t freakin wait. Go Gold dammit!

PC Gamer reviews are not on their website. You’ll have to buy the mag to read the full thing. It’ll be on magazine shelves in a couple of weeks.

I got a lengthy email from the folks at Artifact Entertain this morning. They wanted me to re-try their game since they’ve fixed so many things that should have been resolved before they released it. Usually these “please come back we’re dying here” pleas include a month or so of free time to re-try it out… But here’s what Artifact offered me instead:

Here is my proposal to you:
1. Resubscribe to Horizons: Empire of Istaria;
2. Activate any of your characters or create a new one;
3. Connect with your friends & catch up on the latest news and events;
4. Explore the new Istarian landscape;
5. Experience the vast amount of changes and additions for yourself;
6. Enjoy the game.

Neato! I get to give them money and enjoy the game!!! Shouldn’t that be what I had when I first started?

Please.

If you have a file planet account go there today, and sign up to be 1 of 20,000 to get into the Beta.
Perhaps in th egame you can hunt down the Wachowski Brothers, and make them pay for those other 2 movies.

GoGamer.com has discounted the highly rated RTS Warhmammer 40k: Dawn of War as part of their weekly 48 Hour Madness sale. You may remember that Chris reviewed this title last week - he gave it 4.5 joysticks out of 5. I also had the opportunity to play the multiplayer beta and it was smacktastic.

I’ve been waiting for this discount. Thank you go gamer!

Xfire is an aim-like chat client for gamers. It lets you immediately know what your friends are playing, and allows you to join them on whatever server they’re on. Just right click your friend’s name and select “Join Game”. If you have the game installed Xfire boots it up and automatically logs you into that particular server. Very cool.

Recently they’ve added in-game chat support that lets you communicate to your friends while playing. It’s a toggled option. To bring up the chat window - hit scroll lock + x. Scroll lock == Brilliant! Now - there’s only a subset of popular titles that in-game messaging works in, but that list has been expanding pretty quickly.

They’ve also added a mini profile feature which you can stick on your website or in messege signatures. It looks like this and dynamically updates itself while you’re playing:

Although you can’t upload your own profile pic there are over 550 of these cartoony game oriented avatar images to chose from. In the stack I recognized characters from Soul Caliber, Quake 3, South Park, Anime, Marvel comics, etc.

I don’t know if they’re privately funded or what. They’re doing some pretty damn cool stuff if you ask me.

Well as it is every year the fall is here and the games are coming out seemingly all at once. I wanted to take a moment to post about a game that may be under the radar for some of you.
This week an RPG I have been anticipating for over 6mo’s will be released for the PS2…Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (SMT:N)

SMT:N takes place in present day Tokyo, early on the Earth is hit by the “Conception” this in effect decimated the world’s population and turns almost everyone into Demons. You play as a teenager who is implanted with a parasite that protects you, and gives you the ability to fight these Demons.

On the surface, this game sounds like your standard RPG, however it differs most in game play (something I have been looking for) Aside from Random encounters, spells and a “deep” philosophical story, you get to build a party as you go out of the Demons created during the “Conception”. Some will require money, some will join you to fight for good, and others just want to kill you. Either way once a Demon is in you party, you then have the option to combine Demons to form new party members!
The main Char, can also implant new sets of parasites to enhance his power.
SMT:N should be in this week, and I will have a full review of this game up soon, it is also worth mentioning that the US version of SMT:N is based on the Directors Cut of the game released in Japan last year and will feature Dante from Devil may Cry, in what capacity I am not sure.

American Magee. This guy definitely is picking very interesting stuff to put out.

Scrapland gave me the impression I was returning to my youth and a C64 game had exploded in 3D on my PC. Give it a try - it’s weird. It’s engaging. It makes me think that something that can be fun and make such sense but make no sense at the same time can be totally engrossing. There is also a demo download at FilePlanet besides this preview.

Scrapland Preview - PC - Yahoo! Games Domain: “After his promising ‘Dorothy-gone-bad’ game, Oz, was canned, designer American McGee could be forgiven for giving up on the video game world. Thankfully, the id Software veteran, who counts Wolfenstein, Doom II, and Quake among his credits, isn’t so easily discouraged. He’s serving as executive producer on Scrapland, a Spanish-developed Grand Theft Auto meets Blade Runner action-adventure with a nice line in ship-to-ship combat. From the looks of our preview build, it’s pretty clean for a scrap land — read on for the full details. “