Playing Sim City
I’m now back to playing Sim City without any issues, thankfully. I have to get ready to head to work, but I’ll post a few screenshots from today. My city / region is just starting to take shape.
An amusing Black Ops II Zombies video
Came across this on Facebook today and thought it was worth sharing. Pretty catch song and amusing animation.
Sim City: My experience so far
So by now everyone knows all about Sim City’s problems. Despite the poor reception I still decided to pick up Sim City this past Saturday. I managed to get it as an even trade from GameStop (traded in Dishonored, Forza Horizon and Madden 13 for exactly $59) and downloaded and installed the game on Sunday.
At first I got hit with this:
Sorry the picture is hard to read, but the error message reads ‘Unable to load the city at this time. Please try again’. I kept getting this error when I’d click ‘Getting Started’ and thought I was screwed. However I soon discovered you can change the server you’re connecting to from the launcher and once I switched from Pacific 1 to Pacific 2 I had no problem launching the game and playing the tutorial.
I was able to play the tutorial without any issue at all and it was a fun experience. The game looks great, and I was excited to dig deeper into it Monday night.
Unfortunately, fate wasn’t on my side. When I tried to launch the game last night I got a message saying it was unable to access required data files and I should reinstall the game.
Okay….no big deal I thought. I uninstalled the game and downloaded it again from Origin…. Then when the updater ran it would crash every time at 20%. I did some research and found the EA recommend fix is to delete the user data file and run the game again, thus starting the update over again. (I’m assuming the updater is actually downloading all of the game data, as the initial download is quite fast and the user data folder was over 1gb).
Now I’m running the updater again and am currently at 15%. It’s a painfully slow process, it’s been updating for almost an hour and is only at 15% (my internet is 10mbps). All I can hope for is that it doesn’t crash at 20% again, and maybe tonight after work I’ll be able to play the game again.
Do I blame EA for these issues? Not really. If anything it’s just as likely Windows 8’s fault, or the fact that I’m installing the game to an external hard drive. I don’t really follow the ‘blame EA’ attitude that most people seem to have. The servers seem to have stabilized and they’re working hard to fix various bugs and address individual technical problems. Not only that, but the gesture of giving out a free game to people who bought Sim City at launch (prior to March 25) is an awesome one.
I picked up Mass Effect 3 as my free game. I played it on Xbox when it came out, but I’m currently playing through 2 on the PC and I was probably going to buy Mass Effect 3 anyway.
Now playing: Tomb Raider
I’ve never been very interested in the Tomb Raider series and I’ve only played about ten minutes of the original Tomb Raider on the PlayStation, however something about the new reboot got me interested. There’s just something about the style of the new game that caught my eye in all of the commercials and early reviews. I decided to head out to a Red Box and try it out for myself and so far I’m very impressed.
I’m about three hours into the game and it certainly has a ‘flash’ that I never expected from a Tomb Raider game. The environments look amazing and the scenes in the rain just look awesome. Fire in the game is very important and it looks great whether it’s simply a burning torch or huge explosions.
Speaking of explosions, who knew there could be so many in a Tomb Raider game. This is definitely not a slow paced adventure game. There are HUGE set pieces which get your adrenaline going big time. Some of the most thrilling parts of the game so far involving running, jumping and climbing as the environment crumbles around you. It’s satisfying in a huge way.
Combat is great, especially with the variety of weapons available to you. The bow is incredibly satisfying, especially nailing guys in the knee (an ‘arrow to the knee’ achievement would’ve been amusing). The pistol and machine gun are great for when your cover is blown and an army of enemies has you pinned down.
There are quite a few stealth sections of the game so far which are nice breaks in the fast paced story. It’s just as satisfying to strangle a guy with your bow string as it is to shoot an arrow through their head.
The game looks absolutely amazing and it has some great cut scenes even if the story is a bit awkward.
If there’s one thing I don’t really like it’s all the QTE’s (Quick Time Events) in which you have to push a button on time or die. I don’t like these because half the time I’m not expecting them and can never react in time to survive. I’d rather let the game let me decide how I deal with the decision than have it force me to push a button in order to reach the desire outcome. Most of time these QTE’s set up some pretty cool cinematic kills so I can see why they’re in the game, I guess it’s just frustrating to die because I wasn’t expecting to have to push a certain button.
I recorded me playing the first few minutes of the game, though I couldn’t quite get it set up to record right (just used my iPad to record my TV screen and didn’t quite have it close enough). I figured I’d post it below just for the heck of it. Enjoy.
Skiing Bogus Basin
Went skiing again this past Sunday at Bogus Basin (Boise, Idaho). It was a pretty awesome time even though there was less snow this week compared to last (33″ this week..there were a few brown / grassy spots but overall it wasn’t too bad). I thought I’d share this video I threw together with iMovie from our trip. It’s shot with an iPhone 4 so it’s not the best video in the world. I’m not sure if YouTube will allow the music to remain in the video. I hope so, it’s not as interesting to watch without the music (not that it’s incredibly thrilling in the first place).
I hope to post more soon, it’s been a busy week at work so I spent the weekend relaxing (and skiing of course). I’ve played a little bit of Devil May Cry 4, DmC: Devil May Cry, Dead Space and WWE 13 this week so there’s definitely a good bit to talk about when I have the time.
OnLive Desktop: Microsoft Office on the iPad
You may have heard of OnLive, a company best known for it’s streaming / cloud gaming platform that allows you to play PC games on demand without downloading anything. Well now they also offer the OnLive Desktop app which allows you to access a PC in the cloud on your tablet. There are quite a few apps that will let you connect to your own desktop, however in this case you’re connecting to one of their desktops that have free, pre-installed apps (pretty much just Microsoft Office 2010 right now for free members).
Currently there are two service plans, Standard (free) and Plus ($4.99/mo) with Pro ($9.99/mo) listed as coming soon. The Standard service gets you access to a desktop (with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe Reader) as available (I didn’t have any wait at all when I tried it this morning) and 2GB of cloud storage. I assume you can access your files on another computer by logging into your account, however when I tried to log into my account on my MacBook I kept getting redirected to the login page.
The Plus plan grants your priority access to a desktop, allows you to use Internet Explorer to browse the web with Flash enabled and includes “Gigabyte speed” cloud storage and Webmail. It doesn’t specify if it includes more cloud storage than the Standard 2gb, but it notes you can use DropBox and other cloud storage options with it.
The Pro plan offers the benefits of the Plus plan with 50gb of cloud storage. There’s also an Enterprise plan and Collaborative plan ‘coming soon’ with various other benefits included.
So far my experience with OnLive on my iPad has been a decent one. I noticed a tiny bit of lag when typing and clicking (or rather tapping) on things, but this very well could be due to some slower than preferable WiFi. Otherwise everything worked as expected and looks quite good on the iPad. I could certainly imagine this being a useful tool until Microsoft releases Office for the iPad. The app and its Standard service are free, so I recommend you create an account and give it a try. You never know when you might need it.
Below are a few screenshots of it running on my iPad:
iPad: Final Fantasy Dimensions / The Walking Dead
I’ve used the first gen Kindle Fire and the 7″ Kindle Fire HD and enjoyed both, but I finally decided to become an iPad owner. I’d describe myself as quite the Apple fan. I love their story, I love their attitude and I love their products. I use a 13″ MacBook Pro (2012) and the iPhone 4 and love both. They’re both very solid, sleek and sexy products with great operating systems (I also run Windows 8 on my MacBook and enjoy it). I love the iTunes store and have a lot of iTunes content, and I could still access all of my Amazon content via the Kindle and Instant Video apps, so the iPad was a great investment in my eyes.
So now I’m the owner of a white 32gb iPad 4 as you can see in the blurry as crap picture above (sorry about that). So far it’s been a great experience. The retina display is absolutely amazing, text on websites looks incredibly crisp and HD movies look absolutely stunning. The amount of apps available is a HUGE improvement over the Kindle Fire HD (sorry Amazon) and I’m glad I made the purchase.
I’ve been enjoying Final Fantasy: Dimensions a lot so far. Dimensions is a modern Final Fantasy game created in the old 16 bit style and it’s a wonderful throwback. It looks and sounds great and so far it is a blast to play. It is an episodic title and the prologue is free, chapter 1 is $2.99 and the 3 remaining chapters are $6.99, or you can buy all of the chapters for $19.99. I think I’m going to buy the chapters as I get to them because the game is about 40 hours along and I’m sure it’ll take me at least several weeks to finish and I’ll probably get distracted.
I’ve also been playing The Walking Dead, which I’ve played on the 360 but since the first episode is free I figured I’d try it out. I’m going to play the opposite type of character on my iPad playthrough, so I’m pretty much going to be a ruthless son of a bitch throughout the game 🙂 Should be fun.
I’ve also checked out Infinity Blade II which looks amazing. If you have any other recommendations for must play games feel free to suggest them in the comments. Anyway, I’ve included a few more screenshots below. Enjoy!
Loving House of Cards
I finished the first two episodes of the new Netflix original series House of Cards, and I have to say I’m quite impressed. The show portrays the inner workings of the Washington political and press scene along with all the dirt and sleaze. This is what makes the show interesting, you’re constantly wondering what scheme is going to play out next and if it’ll work or backfire in the faces of the people behind it. Kevin Spacey’s monologues (I don’t believe I’m using the right word here, but hey it’s 2 in the morning) in which he breaks the fourth wall work great and add a special flavor to the show.
Netflix has made the first episode of House of Cards available for free in hopes that it’ll hook viewers who will then shell out $7.99 to have access to the remaining 12 episodes (which are all available to watch right up front, no waiting!). I’ve been a Netflix subscriber for years, so for me House of Cards is just a nice bonus. I hope it ends up being a success for Netflix and maybe we’ll get a second season and more original content in the future.
Seeing Warm Bodies
I’m seeing Warm Bodies this evening and I’m quite excited to
see this unique take on the zombie genre. It’ll be nice to see a lighthearted, warm zombie movie a week before the return of The Walking Dead.
I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on the film later on. I’m keeping this post short as I’m posting from my Kindle Fire HD.
Another Netflix original series: House of Cards
Netflix is getting more and more into original programming with the return of Arrested Development and the Lilyhammer series. Today its newest original series, House of Cards, debuted with all 13 episodes of season one available on day one.
House of Cards stars Kevin Spacey and its list of producers include David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network), Kevin Spacey and Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) among others.
I haven’t watched it yet, but the show looks quite interesting. I’m definitely looking forward to watching it. Many people are discussing just how they’ll go about watching the series. Would you try to watch the entire season at once, or one episode a week? The nice thing about Netflix’s distribution method is it’s entirely up to you to decide. It’s “on demand” in a sense. This seems like it’d take away from the social aspect of watching a series. For example every Monday you might hear people at work talking about the previous night’s episode of The Walking Dead. With House of Cards some of your friends may watch the entire series by the time you’re only on the second or third episode.
With its original programming, Netflix hopes to change the way television works. Reed Hastings has said:
Imagine if books were always released one chapter per week, and were only briefly available to read at 8pm on Thursday. And then someone flipped a switch, suddenly allowing people to enjoy an entire book, all at their own pace. That is the change we are bringing about. That is the future of television. That is Internet TV. [CNET]
I certainly look forward to the future of Netflix programming, and agree entirely with Hastings’ statement that the viewer should be in charge of how they consume their content. I look forward to checking out House of Cards this weekend, and will be sure to return with my thoughts on the series.
Gumballs Plays Games 