First is The Format’s “On Your Porch” from the band’s 2003 debut album ‘Interventions + Lullabies’. I love the story the song tells and its simple acoustic melody.
Secondly I’m loving “Until I Am Whole” by The Mountain Goats from their 2012 album ‘Transcendental Youth’. The song has a bit of an eerie feel and the vocals remind me a lot of The Decembrists’ sound. There’s something special about this song, it’s soothing and yet a bit dark at the same time.
FTL, or Faster Than Light, is a game that slipped under the radar for most people. I first heard about it from Giant Bomb, however at first nothing really made me want to go and check it out. Luckily it went on sale during the Steam winter sale and I picked it up for $4.99. The game is actually quite fun and incredibly addicting. You have to navigate the galaxy and fight other ships while maintaining your ship’s systems and determining which systems to upgrade with your limited resources. I’d try to explain it more in depth, but the Giant Bomb Quick Look below will give you the best idea of what this game is like. Enjoy!
It’s been a busy two weeks but hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of things soon. In the meantime I thought I’d share a few pictures from the ski trip my girlfriend and I took on Sunday to Bogus Basin, just outside of Boise. It was my first ski trip of the season and it was a nice refresher trip.
We went night skiing (4-10) which is quite affordable at Bogus. It’s $22 for a night lift ticket, however the gas station Jackson’s offers a $10 off voucher if you buy three 20 oz Pepsi products. They also offer a 50% military discount on lift tickets and ski rentals, so I skied for $21 (I don’t have my own skis yet) and my girlfriend skied for $12.
We kept it pretty easy for our first trip and skied ‘coaches corner’ to warm up, and then went down ‘Showcase’ (which was pretty rough since there were quite a few grassy patches that resulted in a few falls). We then went down the ‘Sunshine cat track /Sunshine’ trail a few times which was ultimately the most fun trail to ski that night.
Below you’ll see a handful of photos from our trip to Tamarack Resort / McCall, Idaho over Christmas as well:
The annual end of year Steam Sale has been underway for a few days now and it’s been quite an interesting sale. I had $10 in my Steam Wallet going into the sale and I decided to limit myself to that amount for the sale. Therefore I was able to pick up two games for $4.99 each. I bought Hotline Miami and Faster Than Light (FTL). On Amazon I decided to pick up GTA IV for $4.99. I have it on the 360 but figured it’d make for some good jump in and out fun on the PC.
It’s been a little busy during the holidays, so I figured I’d do a quick check in. I’ve been playing Saints Row 3 (Saints Row The Third) on the PC and I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far. It’s a great game that offers plenty of chaos and laughs. I absolutely love the story missions so far, and it’s a blast to drive around the city in various cars causing all sorts of mayhem. The weapon variety is also nice and it’s awesome to be able to call in a UAV to rain missiles from above when you get into a jam.
Below are some assorted screenshots from my playthrough so far:
So I rented Most Wanted from GameFly for some reason. I tend to absolutely hate arcade racing games. I want the most realistic experience possible, therefore I prefer Forza 4 (which is absolutely amazing). Anyway Need for Speed is what you’d expect from a modern arcade racer…Flashy lights, nitrous, dubstep, cinematic wrecks and more dubstep.
One thing that really bugs me is that during a race your car will literally change colors multiple times just because you drive through a repair booth. What the hell is that? Anyway, I recorded a gameplay video, though it doesn’t look great. I recorded it using my MacBook camera using the Windows 8 camera app…I’m not sure if it’s something to do with the software, or just being a laptop webcam (though I thought the MacBook camera should be pretty decent…maybe it’s just because I’m in Windows right now).
So I installed Windows 8 Release Preview on my MacBook Pro via BootCamp and today I purchased the discounted upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for just $39.99. That’s right, if you have a compatible version of Windows you can upgrade for just $40. If you don’t have a copy of Windows, all you need to do is find a copy of Windows 8 Release (or Consumer Preview) and install it and then run the upgrade assistant to make your purchase.
Microsoft no longer provides a means of obtaining the Windows 8 Preview versions (as far as I’m aware), but luckily I already had the ISO since I ran Windows 8 Preview on my PC before buying my Mac.
As you can see my download is underway (though the time remaining is much, much lower now 😛 37 minutes) and I’m excited to finally run a full featured version of Windows 8 on my Mac. Don’t get me wrong, I still love OS X more than Windows, it’s just a matter of being able to play some PC games. Windows 8 isn’t all that bad. It’s my favorite version of Windows yet to be honest. I love the way it looks, it’s fresh, new and flashy. Metro apps are pretty neat as well.
So if you’re like me you’ve probably been upset to find out that the Kindle Fire HD doesn’t allow flash like the Kindle Fire (first gen) did. However, I have good news for you! It’s quite simple to get flash running on your Kindle Fire HD, all you have to do is follow the instructions in the video posted below:
The best way to do this is to open that video on your Kindle Fire HD and then simply click the links in the description one by one to download the software and install them in the order described in the description.
It’s as simple as that! It takes no longer than two minutes and you’ll have flash enabled browsing via the Dolphin web browser on your Kindle Fire HD!
I’m about an hour into Metro 2033 (available FREE from THQ via Facebook (read more) and I have to say I’m having a good time so far. I had previously played Metro on the 360 but only for a brief 30 minutes or so. It never caught me. I’m really enjoying the dark atmosphere so far. I can’t really say much else as I’m not very far into the game.
I figured I’d at least share some screenshots:
I was browsing blogs here on WordPress when I came across this article by After Dark Gaming. The art work associated with the article immediately caught my eye. I had never heard of this game until I happened across this article and I have to say I’m a little intrigued by this game. I still don’t know much about it. The ‘reveal trailer’ (below) is pretty interesting though. It’s dark, brutal and a little graphic, yet the music is almost disassociated from what’s happening. This makes the video even more creepy.
The game’s description on its Steam page reads:
Hotline Miami is a high-octane action game overflowing with raw brutality, hard-boiled gunplay and skull crushing close combat. Set in an alternative 1989 Miami, you will assume the role of a mysterious antihero on a murderous rampage against the shady underworld at the behest of voices on your answering machine.
Below you’ll see a few screenshots as shown on the game’s Steam page:
Hotline Miami is available on Steam for $9.99.
Gumballs Plays Games 