Network
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTN3s2iVKKI
People always asked me why I kept a poster of Network in the office.
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Comicvine.com is live!
Well, I just launched comicvine . It's a user submitted encycopedia for comic books with some fun social network tricks thrown in. It was built along with Ethan Lance in under 3 months.
There's not much to say other then go check it out and let me know what you think. The user submission stuff is pretty off the wall and hopefully people will dig it. It was definitely the most fun site to actually build.
There's not much to say other then go check it out and let me know what you think. The user submission stuff is pretty off the wall and hopefully people will dig it. It was definitely the most fun site to actually build.
Random Music Musings
Guilty pleasures... I love The Sounds on a Friday night with a couple beers in hand. The lyrics are probably the silliest you've heard since a Cardigans album (I love them too), but wow are these some catchy albums.
Random music thought:
Is it me, or are you not listening to much Belle and Sebastian anymore either? I can't sit through the last two albums of theirs.
Random music thought:
Is it me, or are you not listening to much Belle and Sebastian anymore either? I can't sit through the last two albums of theirs.
Icewind Dale 2: The Years Have Been Good
Heh, I haven't done a GameSpot post in a long time, but felt like rambling about one of my favorite games of all time: Icewind Dale 2.
It's funny you know, I have this amazing gaming PC at home (my work machine on the other hand is a Mac) and despite it being able to put my xbox 360 to shame I find myself regularly loading up a 2D based RPG released almost 4 years ago by a legendary, though now defunct studio. What has me playing Icewind Dale 2 instead of Oblivion (which is a great game that I still haven't finished)? Party-based gameplay, best of genre strategic combat and the most varied character creation of any game ever released. Years later I still can sit for hours thinking up clever names and picking portrais for my sad band of pixelated hereos.
I remember seeing Greg give it an 8.3 all those years ago and completely agreeing with the score. It was a great game, but there was virtually no story and even then its Infinity Engine graphics were below par for the time. Neverwinter Nights was released around the same time and IWD2 was seen by the press as this last gasp funeral for people that just couldn't let go of games like Baldur's Gate. NWN and Bioware were supposedly taking us to the future of RPG gaming that would bring the genre to the mainstream. Little did we know that it would be another old-time stuido, Bethesda, that would usher us into that new era with Morrowind and Bioware would start making neutered Star Wars games.
Since 2002 I have played Morrowind twice, NWN and it's expansions once and Icewind Dale II six times. I have played virtually every single-player PC RPG released in the past 4 years and found that nothing comes close to IWD2's depth or fun factor. Somehow this old "8.3" game has provided enough replayability for me to load it up year after year and take a party of 4 to 6 characters (with silly names like "Kelgar", "Dash" and "Vicor") across a bloodied tundra of 40 hours of non-stop fighting.
At this point I've figured out why I love IWD2 so much and why I've continue to come back to it. The game is both very hard and very fair at the same time. Unlike most hard games you don't feel like the game is cheating you or unfairly assisting its monsters in some way. When you lose in IWD2, you lose because you made a mistake or you weren't thinking about how to attack a situation. This is true regardless of your party's composition, and because of that it is always fun to play. Of the six times I've played it through, I've had a completely different party that needed to utilize different strategies to get through the same difficult scenarios. I've died dozens of times on the famous "bridge fight", a battle that finds you flanked on both sides, running out of spells midway through the fight and relying on some clever positioning to keep all your characters alive.
The best way that I can describe the variety of combat to someone who is used to RPGs, but may not have played IWD2 per se is that in IWD2 your most powerful spells have nothing to do with damage. Although there are a lot of RPGs out there that give you lots of spells most of them end up being worthless; you end up just spamming the high damage spell trying to kill a single character. Not so in IWD2, your most powerful spells are things like sleep, color spray, grease and ray of enfeablement. While you'll use that fireball at some point, it's only after you've neutralized your enemy that you'll even bother to attack them.
Why is this strategy (which is super fun and stressful) so common in IWD2 but not other games of its type? Simply because in this game its not uncommon to fight over a dozen enemies at a time. If you tried to just attack them you'd be overwhelmed. Unlike Oblivion you can't just run around the arena with your shield up casting fireballs at those 2-3 powerful guys, there's no where to run in this game, the enemies are coming at you in large numbers and there's nothing you can do about it but lay down some debuff spells, hold that holds half of them off and then concentrate your damage at what is now a pretty fair fight.
The tension and skill you find that comes out of these types of battles is intense, and because your party is always so different with each new game, your way of combatting the situation will always change.
It's a hell of a ride and one I will likely return to again next year. If you aren't afraid of a challenge and don't mind looking at a bunch of sprites I highly recommend you check it out. That 8.3 might have been true for its time, but like a good wine, Icewind Dale 2 has aged quite well.
It's funny you know, I have this amazing gaming PC at home (my work machine on the other hand is a Mac) and despite it being able to put my xbox 360 to shame I find myself regularly loading up a 2D based RPG released almost 4 years ago by a legendary, though now defunct studio. What has me playing Icewind Dale 2 instead of Oblivion (which is a great game that I still haven't finished)? Party-based gameplay, best of genre strategic combat and the most varied character creation of any game ever released. Years later I still can sit for hours thinking up clever names and picking portrais for my sad band of pixelated hereos.
I remember seeing Greg give it an 8.3 all those years ago and completely agreeing with the score. It was a great game, but there was virtually no story and even then its Infinity Engine graphics were below par for the time. Neverwinter Nights was released around the same time and IWD2 was seen by the press as this last gasp funeral for people that just couldn't let go of games like Baldur's Gate. NWN and Bioware were supposedly taking us to the future of RPG gaming that would bring the genre to the mainstream. Little did we know that it would be another old-time stuido, Bethesda, that would usher us into that new era with Morrowind and Bioware would start making neutered Star Wars games.
Since 2002 I have played Morrowind twice, NWN and it's expansions once and Icewind Dale II six times. I have played virtually every single-player PC RPG released in the past 4 years and found that nothing comes close to IWD2's depth or fun factor. Somehow this old "8.3" game has provided enough replayability for me to load it up year after year and take a party of 4 to 6 characters (with silly names like "Kelgar", "Dash" and "Vicor") across a bloodied tundra of 40 hours of non-stop fighting.
At this point I've figured out why I love IWD2 so much and why I've continue to come back to it. The game is both very hard and very fair at the same time. Unlike most hard games you don't feel like the game is cheating you or unfairly assisting its monsters in some way. When you lose in IWD2, you lose because you made a mistake or you weren't thinking about how to attack a situation. This is true regardless of your party's composition, and because of that it is always fun to play. Of the six times I've played it through, I've had a completely different party that needed to utilize different strategies to get through the same difficult scenarios. I've died dozens of times on the famous "bridge fight", a battle that finds you flanked on both sides, running out of spells midway through the fight and relying on some clever positioning to keep all your characters alive.
The best way that I can describe the variety of combat to someone who is used to RPGs, but may not have played IWD2 per se is that in IWD2 your most powerful spells have nothing to do with damage. Although there are a lot of RPGs out there that give you lots of spells most of them end up being worthless; you end up just spamming the high damage spell trying to kill a single character. Not so in IWD2, your most powerful spells are things like sleep, color spray, grease and ray of enfeablement. While you'll use that fireball at some point, it's only after you've neutralized your enemy that you'll even bother to attack them.
Why is this strategy (which is super fun and stressful) so common in IWD2 but not other games of its type? Simply because in this game its not uncommon to fight over a dozen enemies at a time. If you tried to just attack them you'd be overwhelmed. Unlike Oblivion you can't just run around the arena with your shield up casting fireballs at those 2-3 powerful guys, there's no where to run in this game, the enemies are coming at you in large numbers and there's nothing you can do about it but lay down some debuff spells, hold that holds half of them off and then concentrate your damage at what is now a pretty fair fight.
The tension and skill you find that comes out of these types of battles is intense, and because your party is always so different with each new game, your way of combatting the situation will always change.
It's a hell of a ride and one I will likely return to again next year. If you aren't afraid of a challenge and don't mind looking at a bunch of sprites I highly recommend you check it out. That 8.3 might have been true for its time, but like a good wine, Icewind Dale 2 has aged quite well.
Recent Reviews
Just when I thought Mark Erveritt (or “E” as he is better known) had lost his touch, he comes back from the rock undertow and releases this double album of soft lullabies and bloops and bleeps. Similar in tone to the Eels first two albums more then the last two, Blinking Lights is the best they’ve put out to date. For a band that could never really put together a fully consistant 12 track album, it’s weird that they’ve been able to accomplish that feat with a 33 track one. I haven’t enjoyed a double album this much since Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. If Brit Daniels is my messiah, then “E” is my Lazurus.
posted November 10, 2005 at 12:50:01 PM
While I know there’s been a supposed New York rock revival going on the past couple years, Alligator is the only album from New York (Brooklyn specifically) that to me has any sort of flavor. Bands like the Strokes and the Star Spangles had always sounded fairly fabricated and trite, where this opener from The National comes in tow with some serious energy. Sure, it’s pretty basic rock and roll, but it’s consitant and of great quality. “Mr. November” is likely my favorite song of the year even though it sounds like something the Foo Fighters would have done in the late 90s. It’s the least ambitious and most conservative pick on my list but I dig it all the same.
posted November 10, 2005 at 12:48:35 PM
Ah Spoon, I heart you so. There’s not much to say about this one, it’s a Spoon record and sounds like every other Spoon record: fabulous and full of wit. “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine” did what I thought would never happen and became my new favorite Spoon song. A title previously held by the drasticly catchy “The Way We Get By”. Brit Daniels is, as far as I’m concerned, the only rock messiah left that hasn’t become absolute rubbish yet. This is album five for Spoon folks, think about that. By this time they should have been experimenting with electronica or some “new” sound that other epic bands mistakingly get into. Cheers to Spoon for sticking to their roots and crafting another damned catchy album.
posted November 10, 2005 at 12:47:18 PM
Please note that this review is very specifically tied to the Jon Brion helmed “bootleg” version of Extradinary Machine and not the recent commericially released album produced by Mike Elizondo. The Difference? The bootleg is brutally angry, bitter and full of hate where the new version is toned down and layered. The first version also contains and opens with Fiona’s greatest accomplishment, “Not About Love”, a track so bare and spitefull it assaults the listener like a cannon shot from a broken heart. The stark contrast between the two albums confirms something I had previously suspected but never accepted: Jon Brion is the reason I like Fiona Apple records, not Fiona Apple.
posted November 10, 2005 at 12:44:53 PM
I’ll be honest, I didn’t think BSP had more then one album in them. Their first was polished and epic in a way we haven’t seen from a British Rock band since the Stone Roses. Like I somehow suspect of Arcade Fire’s Funeral now (my fav album from last year) BSP was too good to have a decent followup. Yet somehow Open Season got released in a timely fashion and dare I say it, destroys their self titled debut. There’s not one track on the disc, from “It Ended On an Oily Stage” to “True Adventures”, that I don’t absolutely adore. This compliment is coming from a guy who hates when members in a band wear scarves, BSP’s favorite fashion accessory next to foliage and stuffed owls.
posted November 10, 2005 at 12:43:03 PM
I remember coming home tired at 2AM and drinking a diet pepsi on the couch before I passed out. I tried to place the empty bottle down but realized there were 20 other empty bottles just like it on the floor. It went downhill from there.
