Doug's blog

This isn't out for a while yet but I plan to start keeping an eye on it. Very reminiscent of Master of Magic in some ways but with elements of Risk and Total War thrown in. Everything being customizable could be fun too, especially if it does more for the game than just cosmetics. Elemental Link

So after last night when Rick was talking about Borderlands I was inspired to go take another look at it. I'm still somewhat indifferent to the single player game after having played through the nine-toes fight with both soldier and sniper classes but if it's ever going to be fun I think it will be in multiplayer. Any interest in trying to get a game going this Thursday evening?

I just got back from seeing the movie version of The Lightning Thief.  When I first started seeing previews for this movie last summer I was inspired to go read the books.  They are kind of like the Harry Potter series in that they were obviously written with a younger audience in mind but are good enough to be enjoyable for everyone.  I liked the book series quite a bit, they are a little simplistic but I enjoyed the basis in Greek mythology and they were fun and quick to read.  Unfortunately the movie I just saw had virtually nothing to do with the books I read a few months back.  The movie's story is completely different from any of the books; even some of the locations have changed.  There are quite a few important characters missing and others are written to be entirely different than they were in the book.  In short

So I am probably way behind most of you but I just got off a long couple of weeks and today was the first time I got to fire up Mass Effect 2. Without giving anything away I have to say I was kind of disappointed with the beginning of the new story. I think this might have been partially my own fault because I managed to lose my save file somewhere from the first one so I couldn't import my character and the default didn't line up too well with my original ending. Was anyone else able to import? Anyone know how big a difference it makes to the initial game story? I am sort of considering doing a quick play through of the first one again just to be able to import with the right choices, don't want to waste time if it isn't going to really matter though. Thoughts?

We had an issue with the guild bank today. Likely through no fault of his own one member had his account hacked and his characters deleted. The person who had stolen the account also took the opportunity to empty out all the tabs of the guild bank of anything of value. There was no gold in there to speak of but there were quite a few tough to make and collect crafting items. Petitions have been filed to begin the restoration process but this will likely take a month or more to complete. Because of this issue we would like to request that everyone who would like access to the guild bank begin using an authenticator. Rumors have been swirling for some time that Blizzard will be making these mandatory soon on their own anyway and this might be a good chance for us to get used to the idea. The guild bank has temporarily been locked to everyone. If you would like access to the guild bank again please get an authenticator and let Brannoc or I know and we will restore your access.

So I just finished Fallout 3. It is a game I had started and given up several times before because it wasn't what I expected a Fallout game to be and that was making it tough for me to enjoy. After Dragon Age though I wanted something a little different and I tried to approach it without considering the Fallout universe at all. I found it to actually be a really fun game this time around somehow. To be fair I did skip quite a few sub-quests and non mission related stuff but I did make it to level 18 at the end of the game and was able to pretty much roll over anything in the wastes. The best part though was the ending. I won't spoil it in case anyone is inspired to try again but I did think it was one of the cooler game endings I have seen in a long time.

A while back I posted about Uniwar for the iphone. Months later and I am still playing it pretty much daily. It is a turn based strategy game that supports play by email style games. If you have an Iphone it is certainly worth it IMO and now it is free for the next day or so. Go check it out.

I see that Dell of all places is already marking down Left 4 Dead 2 to $29.99. I don't think I am going to jump on the sale yet because 1) I suspect that it will drop to something along these lines on Steam pretty soon too and 2) I don't want to pay shipping.

In the wake of the disappointment that was Gratuitous Space Battles Armada 2526 came floating across my system today. It's a 4x space strategy game based on one of the same name from 1991. I had never heard of the 1991 original but the new version looks pretty cool from the descriptions and videos. According to avault and ebgames it actually released today; I went to look on impulse as they are a listed distributor but it doesn't seem to be available there yet. No luck finding a demo either. Ebgames has it listed for $39.99 which is more than I want to throw down on an unknown but I plan to keep an eye on the digital distribution channels for it to hit around 20 bucks or for a favorable review to come up someplace.

This game has been on my radar for a while. Visually it makes me think of the giant doomstar battles that were some of my favorite times in the Master of Orion series. It released on Steam a few days ago for 20 bucks and I am seriously considering it. Anyone play it yet or is it on anyone else's playlist?

Was just looking for something else at amazon and saw that the next Codex Alera book was on sale for 9 bucks if you pre-order the hardcover.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/044101769X/ref=s9_simz_gw_s4_p14_t2?pf_...

Here's a pretty cool game that came my way this morning. It's called Torchlight and it's basically a Diablo clone but it is a really good one. You have 3 playable classes and you also get a pet dog or wildcat to help you in battle and as a bonus you can send the pet off to sell off junk while you keep adventuring. There's a pretty good demo up for free on Steam and the full game is only 20 bucks. Well worth it in my book.

http://www.torchlightgame.com/

This website scrolled by on one of my RSS feeds recently and I thought it looked worth checking out. Basically an email reminder service that can be set to remind you of books, tv shows, and whatnot. I don't use it for TV shows but I put in a bunch of authors that I like since I often miss book release dates. I know what you're thinking though, why don't I just put that stuff in my calender? The perk here is that I don't need to know the dates, titles or anything else. I just stick in the author and it shoots me an email anytime they publish a new book.

http://www.crapimissedit.com

If you haven't already seen this they put up a flash based 2d teaser game for Dragon Age. It is actually pretty cool, check it out here:

http://www.dragonagejourneys.com/

This has been around quite a bit so most of you probably already saw it but just in case you missed it here is a link to video of one of the MS surface tables running a D&D pen and paper game. Cool stuff.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/20/dandd-rolls-with-the-changes-ported-to...

Here's a link to the intro by the Dr. Horrible cast.  Haven't found the musical thing yet, post it if anyone else spots it up before I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4ys5sM3TLM

The signup page for the Star Trek Online closed beta is up.

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/365

Since a couple of folks expressed interest in getting back into L4D the other night I thought I would just post the new map links up here.

The one I like best is this one: http://www.l4dmaps.com/

It has tabs at the top to choose types of map to view, campaigns are the ones we have done co-op.  There are quite a few up there but nearly all are still listed as beta versions and mostly incomplete.  Griffon and I played through Death Aboard a couple weeks back and while it was a little unpolished compared to the 4 base campaigns it was pretty good over all.  I also played through part of Powerstation in solo mode and thought it was pretty cool.

The other site that we were using is: http://www.l4dmods.com/index.php?option=com_joomloads&view=categories&se...

Great PA today for those of us that play FPS games.  I have been on both sides of this particular fence more times than I remember.

I used to read a column all the time called Games for Lunch.  It was written by this guy who would take a game a day and play for an hour writing up his thoughts as he played.  He moved the site a while back and I kind of lost interest in following him but I always liked the format so I thought I would try it myself for this game.  Let me know what you think.