It has been a long time....

So for those who care, or maybe those who do not. It has been a long time since I have made a blog. A lot of new games came out that I would like to review(so tell me if you have a preference) and a lot of stuff has happened since my last post hence why I have not been posting(check the other blog if you care that much ;) ) But I promise I will continue to write reviews every so often! For now cheers!!

What I have another BLOG?!?!

Yep it's true, my life is so exciting I have made another blog!(http://hashgamestime.blogspot.com/) NOW WITH 120% LESS INFORMATION!!!

Review: Dragon Age: Origins

Well this time I have decided to review a game I have been playing lately again; Dragon Age: Origins. It's a RPG/Strategy game that you will be(at higher difficulties) pausing a lot to give orders to your squad. As with any Bioware game there is a lot of story and a lot of text. The dialogue options are very numerous and sometimes I feel like I am talking more than fighting(which can be good or bad)

To start you pick your character, class, and background, which is said to give you unique story openings. You then create a character and change his facial features how you like. Since I am a simple man without any creativity I made a human warrior, from a noble background with short dark hair and basic complexion and began my journey.

As far as the gameplay goes there is atually a lot of strategy involved... at higher levels. If you are like me you play on normal difficulty and go "RAWR SMASH SMASH" to most options. Oh yeah, and there is also an option to have sex/romance with 2 people of the opposite sex and 1 of the same sex. I chose to do it with Morrigan and let me tell ya, the scene was pretty hot!

Best 30 seconds of my life. Now back to the gameplay! You have the option of playing in third person view or scrolling to look in a more top down view and anywhere in between. The top down is supposed to be better for strategy but for me there's not really any strategy outside of poke everything with my sword if it looks at me funny. But on most actions you take your party will have some sort of approval or disapproval. For instance doing something nice will piss Morrigan off, but doing something nice will make Leliana happy. Depending on your party members approval rating they may get bonuses such as improved constitution, or if low enough, they may leave your party or fight you.

As far as plot development, it feels like your typical cookie cutter RPG as far as your the hero who saves everything and beds the women(or men) of your choosing. Basically you get screwed, you escape, then you get screwed some more, you escape. Then you decide to rally all of your support and kick the ass of the man who screwed you while also defeating the giant horde of monsters coming to rape you. But the dialogue is outstanding throughout. While some places feel cliché others had me laughing, some of the best dialogue happens when you have different combinations of party members and they banter with each other while you run around.

Each dialogue sequence will usually have 3 main options(with variations too sometimes) which can boil down to nice guy, neutral, and I'm going to eat meals out of your skull. I chose the last one because I'm a prick.

Overall the game is fun for the most part but if you like a lot of action it's probably not for you then because you'll most likely do more talking than playing.
The graphics are nice, the gameplay is nice, the game in general is pretty fun so I would definitely recommend it.
Overall: 8.5/10

Review: Diablo II

This time I am reviewing an old favorite; Diablo II!

To start, my apologies on not posting on time. A lot came up in a short amount of time and my review was pushed to the back. Now on to Diablo II

Most if not all of the people who are reading this have already played Diablo II. If you haven't then Diablo II is your basic dungeon delving hack and slash RPG and if you failed basic math the sequel to Diablo. Diablo II offers 5 classes(7 with the expac)

For this review I decided to do it as a Necromancer. The graphics of this game a subpar by almost any measure, but it is understandable since it is OVER a decade old(Released: June 29th 2010) for those of you who are like me and remember the day this game came out then it must make you feel pretty old. However the graphics did not destroy my experience at all. It had a lot of fun playing the game, and my army of skeletons sure made things interesting. Running around with your screen full of your own minions who do your bidding never gets old.

This game is not for those who enjoy button mashing, since 90% of your time will be *click**click**click**click**click**click**click**click**click**click**click**click*
and even more *click* You *click* to hit an enemy once(that's right no auto attack and when you have 20 enemies running at you at a time that's a lot of *click*) you *click* to move, you *click* to pick up an item you *click* to do basically anything. Maybe there are more keystrokes that I was too stupid to find but either way I clicked a lot compared to modern games. Mind you I enjoyed all of this mindless clicking as the game was *FUN* through all of this clicking I felt a sensation that I have not felt for many games these days and that was enjoyment.

The skills trees are diverse and offer a wide range of ways to play(the amount of modifiers they add per level makes it feel impossible to understand but in that good depth sort of way). I looked up a guide on the best way to play a nec(since I am an idiot with no imagination) and there were tons of methods(I chose the summoner one) and one of my favorite things is this game is not happy go lucky like modern games are with bloom coming out the ass. It's dark, it's not happy, there are people impaled on spike and you have an ability(and a bad ass one at that) as a nec that makes corpses explode in a gore bath. Basically if you invited this game over to your house for a party it would shit in the middle of your floor and have sex with your dead dog, and drink all your beer without apologizing for anything. Yet you would invite it over again even 10 years later because it is so much fun.

The one thing that pisses me off(but in a good way if that makes sense) is the inventory screen. You have a select number of squares and items will take up a various amount, you can move them around if you wish to maximize space but you can't carry everything and if you carry a billion pots then you're screwed for loot.

Really, the system makes sense though in a way. But more often then not you'll be going back to sell your junk to pick up more junk.

Speaking of junk, there is a lot of items to choose from. With so many different stats and modifiers you need a college degree to understand them all and which is better. I literally found a wand and had to compare it's 4 modifiers against my 5 and figure out which is better and why. I was constantly swapping new items and armor for the latest thing quicker than Charlie Sheen could bang that 7gram rock(yep, made CS reference) This game though will make you feel like an addict, and you'll keep coming back to it. Like an abusive relationship you just can't quit it.

The multiplayer is where this game shines though, you can have multiple people play the campaign with you and let me tell you that makes this game fun as hell. It's mostly no different than single player except monsters get harder, and you have assholes who steal your loot. So if you can find some friends then have at it.

I can't really describe this game in anything but it's fun level. The sound is bad, there's a rudimentary crafting system, if you enjoy grind and love playing forever to get max level it has that. It has multiplayer even some PvP(which I never did because they would have killed me before I could reach for my mouse) it has a shit ton of hack and slash and complex skill trees. Basically if you have bee living under the PC gaming rock or too young to even know about this game go pick it up(They still sell the damn thing in Walmart, I want to see CoD do that). It's worth your time

Overall
Graphics: Shit tier
Sound: See above
Gameplay: Addictive

Overall I would rate this game a 8/10 maybe y view was skewed by the hours I spent on it as a child, but I don't care, I love it to this day.

Not a review this time, but a discussion on video games.

Next review will be over Diablo II coming... tomorrow!

What is it these days with video games having such a negative connotation? I mean, look at me. I am a university student who is a math and computer science major(next semester moving on to computer engineering). I am also in the honors program of said university. I am also fairly active and in shape and have had many healthy(well sorta) relationships.. Did I mention through all of this that I have played video games fairly heavily since I was a child(longer than I care to remember)

Yet through all of this I still hear of video games getting a negative reputation. On the news I have heard of Dead Space 2 getting negative remarks about it's graphical violence and what not. I find it silly to think that children are persuaded into thinking this is real and should be imitated, and if they have a mental problem where this occurs shouldn't the parents be watching what they do? I guess that is the root of the problem though... Parents. Parents don't want to watch Jr. after work and instead allow an Xbox or Playstation babysit him while they relax. Then when they wonder why their child misbehaves they blame it on the video game instead of their own shoddy parenting. All in all, parents need to grow up and realize that video games are not a very good scapegoat when you have people like me(and most all of my friends as well) who play games all the time and maintain healthy lifestyles and GPA's in school.

I apologize for the rambling as it is late, but anyone have any comments?

Review: Minecraft(beta)

So while I am playing through Diablo II for a friend, I have decided to write a review for everyone's favorite game, minecraft! To be honest when I first started this game I knew I wouldn't like it, I could tell I would quit after 30 minutes or so and never look back. 8 hours of playing it straight without stopping later I admitted it was a little fun.

To start with, the graphics on minecraft are well... terrible, however they are easily ignored for the most part. For those of you who have ever played minecraft, the world is made up by blocks, entirely by blocks, and the blocks are colored by.. you guessed it, smaller blocks. There are very few exceptions to this block rule. The music and sound is alright, except the nighttime, and morning time sequence is very appealing to the ears. That being said, I usually have my own music playing in the background.

The gameplay itself is very interesting, minecraft is a true sandbox game. There are 0 goals, and I mean 0 goals. You click play and you start in a randomly generated world(that goes on forever and constantly randomly generates land) with nothing but your hands. What you do from there is your choice, if you're playing on peaceful mode(whimp!) then you usually don't rush anywhere. If you play on hard mode(my preferred mode) then you might make a mad dash to the nearest tree so you can begin building a shelter. You build a shelter due to the fact at nighttime(or dark areas such as caves) monsters are spawned around the world, and these monsters will try to molest you in anyway possible. Once daylight hits these monsters will die from the light.

The game features a crafting system and many of the items you use will utilize this system. It is quite ingenious but not very intuitive. You see, the way you craft is by placing different resources in a certain pattern(it resembles the item being made), however there is no way to know this unless you either have help from a friend, look it up online, or like to waste your time experimenting. There are plenty of things to be made, and it's quite interesting how many patterns there are.

When you destroy a block, you get to pick up that exact block in your inventory. Most things stack up to 64 times so you can carry quite a bit. In turn you can place these blocks where you please. This is one of the parts most people enjoy, as this allows you to build anything from a castle, to a house, to a farm to well... it's like virtual legos with monsters, your imagination is your only limit really. Currently as we I write I am drawing out(yes drawing) plans to build Helms Deep from LotR(nerd score +1)

The game features multiplayer(albeit very buggy multiplayer) where you and friends can do what you please online(if you have a server) I haven't done this much but I have seen amazing videos online of what some people have done.

All that being said the game is still in beta(just recently from alpha actually) and as such is still being developed, it has made amazing strides since it's introduction and I look forward to seeing what Notch comes up with.

So on to scoring the game.

PROS:
Freedom to do, go, and build what you want.

Addicting(countless hours of enjoyment)

Very high replay value

Enjoyable

Encourages imagination instead of holding your hand

Music/sound(it's not much, but it is pleasant and nothing like hiding in your hole praying for the sun as you can hear zombies moaning outside)

Cheap

CONS:
Addicting(Between this and facebook, productivity in America has fallen to dangerous levels!)

Graphics(not a bother to me, but I have seen it turn off graphics whores)

CREEPERS![also called another name that resembles a male body part by 99% of the playerbase] (these SOB's have caused me more grief than any monster in a game, and that's including Ninja Gaiden. Nothing like leaving your house thinking it's safe and having a creeper jump on you from above and blow up half your house)

Buggy and poorly scripted, it actually requires a lot to play multiplayer and even run it single player due to various coding and programming flaws.


Overall the game is highly fun, addicting and creative. I would recommend it to basically anyone who likes to have fun. So if your idea of fun is filing charts and hating your life then move on, nothing to see here(shouldn't you be off knocking ice cream out of children's hands?)

Score: 9/10

Review: The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II

Since it was requested I went ahead and played LotR:BfME2(Holy acronym Batman!)
If you have never played Battle for Middle Earth II or the original and do not know what an RTS is, and would like to know what it is, start reading here. If you have move on to the paragraph after the first.

Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II(from now on BfME II) is a real time strategy game. Basically the point of these type of games is you must gather resources, research upgrades, build up your base, defend it from enemies while training troops to destroy your enemies. You take command of multiple types of unites and point and click where they go. Now that you understand what kind of game BfME II is, on to the review!

BfME II is obviously the sequel to he original BfME. It changed some things that I liked, and didn't like as well. Starting off though, the controls and hot keys seem to work well. The graphics aren't great, though it was made in March 2006, (almost 5 years ago!) but can be ignored easily unless you're a graphics-whore. The AI is mediocre, and has sometimes caused me heartache such as a when a single unit told to stand guard at a spot ends up chasing an enemy hero across the map and yells at me "We're under attack!".

The game differs from the original in that it now offers new factions. The Men of Gondor and Rohan has been combined into Men. Elves, Dwarves, and Goblins are all new additions and of course Isengard and Mordor are back. I really liked the fact that they added new fations giving a more complete feel to Middle Earth. There's also a couple of other things I liked about this game more than the original. I for one enjoyed the fact I could build any building anywhere including walls. Though it did take some strategy out of the game. I also liked the new create a hero mode where you can make your own hero and use them in game. I also like the new War of the Ring mode, albeit it is a little simple. The new size of armies is also nice, since it makes the huge battles we remember from the movies/books actually seem big. Unfortunately with the good, comes bad.

The games campaign in my opinion seemed rushed and poorly done. Unlike the original game's which actually took you through all of the movies locations and then some. I also wish the create a hero was a little more in depth on the customization. I would like to also see units being able to mount walls like in the first game. War of the Ring, while fun, is too simple and easy to build. Most of the complexity is taken out since you can only build 3-4 types of buildings on the map.

If BfME III ever comes out, I would love to see some of these things implemented alongside some more things. Perhaps Knights of Dol Amroth? Or even possibly make the game about the second age instead of the third. I would also like it if they would make the campaign on the good side more engaging and the evil side needs a complete rework, because as it stands it wasn't very much fun at all. Either way I enjoyed the game quite a bit and still find it fun to play from time to time. I don't expect to see another sequel anytime soon however, which I find disappointing.

Together we guard the white tower!
-Nico