I will likely get some RDR and DDR in later, but the whole family is getting together so I won’t be around otherwise. Hope all of you in the rest of the world have a great day, too! ^_^
Gaming Round Up
June 30th, 2010 · gaming
I should have thought of a title that ended with an ‘E’ word so I could make a Zork reference :)
Ghostbusters, PC
Doesn’t suck. I’m as surprised as you, really. Now I’ve only spent an hour with the game but aside from the cinemas looking really lame compared to the game — I run 1920 x 1200, everything maxed — it feels like the same old Ghostbusters, just as I remembered. I truly lost all my mouse aiming skills but my wired 360 controller made it feel just like, well, playing it on the 360! The loss of multiplayer on the PC is still lame, ditto the lack of Steam achievements, but I do have to fight the urge to keep playing with everything else on my to do list. Seeing as I didn’t even have to spend the $4 thanks to a lovely gesture by optikal, it’s really a win. The game could get really choppy and buggy later on but I won’t find that out for a bit. Having spent my hour in game in 15 minutes chunks, the only issue I encountered was a hard lock on my second last quit. Even the Wii Ghostbusters (still worth checking out for a different Ghostbusters experience! And, hey, female rookie ftw) had some gamebreakers but they didn’t corrupt my save so I’m not entirely crushed by them. Now it’s still on sale for $6.80USD and, honestly, if you’ve never played it and wanted to, it’s still worth it at that price.
Ghost Trick, Nintendo DS
Ghost Trick Developer Interview – E3 2010 from Jeriaska on Vimeo.
Colour me intrigued. I’ve always felt intrigued should be a bluish-green. I had not been aware of Ghost Trick before E3, you can read wiki for some more English info but it’s definitely on my radar now. I seriously dig the art.
Red Dead Redemption, Xbox 360
Yes, I am finally playing it! I didn’t know what to think at first. I never played any of the 3D Grand Theft Auto games. Shame, shame, whatever. They didn’t interest me and I saved my money. I’m not against violence in games, but the loss of the cartoonish style was a turn off and the new characters did not appeal to me. Anyway, that’s a whole different post of no interest to anyone. The biggest adjustment that I had to make was the level of freedom granted to the player. Frustrating-at-first freedom. Wanna shoot someone? Go ahead. Now live with the consequences. For a while I stayed far far away from random fights in the world when I’d accidentally pick the side contrary to my goals or not see the teeny tiny badge until it was too late. I felt terribly unheroic watching these people run by with bullets flying while I just watched or ignored it completely. I was pretty upset when one of these random fly-byes shot my horse! Jerk. Thanks for ruining my achievement. I was so close, too.
Despite all the hours I’ve put in the game so far, I’m really not far along. There’s a bounty available? Sweet. I will chase that bugger down all corners of the map, picking every flower and shooting every animal along the way. Hey, horsebreaking. It’s boring and lame but might as well. Nightwatch? Meh. Occasionally. It’s a good thing I barely know the rules to poker or I’d play that, too. No Liar’s Dice for me and, man, I stink at Horseshoes. Yay! A Stranger! More sidequests! It’s been pretty much like that. There’s no leveling system yet I’m really interested in all of these sidequests since the world feels really complete. The lead’s voice acting is superb, Bonnie is a wonderful female character that gaming needs more of (so far. I have no idea if this changes later on. Please don’t change!), the Marshal and his men are alright, and everyone else needs to shut the hell up. Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, stop talking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m into the story. I’m not into the stereotypes. There should be more RDR going on later tonight, if I dare. This is one of those games that I start and then, lookie, it’s quarter to three. Oops. What’s one more hour?
Misc.
The new OA is kicking my ass with formatting issues. I’m still aiming for this week. Probably not Canada Day ;)
Pokemon. I talked about working on an exploit and its consequences and its perks. I haven’t touched the game since. I keep thinking whether to post about it or not. Would it be seen as encouraging this sort of thing? Would it make things worse? Would it level the playing field? It’s a single player game for most gamers, who does it hurt? So far I think I will publish it. It’s not something ‘omg super awesome wow!!!!’ and is rather obvious, so don’t expect the earth to shatter when I post it :)
I have not started making new ringtones yet, despite all your lovely responses. This needs to change so I stop cringing every time it rings. I’m also going to have to hack it again so I can change the awful text message sound.
→ 2 CommentsTags:360·ds·E3·gaming·ghostbusters·pc
Ghostbusters Steam Sale
June 25th, 2010 · gaming
It’s important for anyone new reading this to know of my extreme pro-Ghostbusters bias. Oh, and I played the heck out of and seriously the 360 and Wii versions of the game. Obviously.
Even before I talk about the Steam sale, there’s more good news!
Terminal Reality is pleased (and relieved!) to announce that a patch for Multiplayer Achievements glitches in Ghostbusters: The Video Game has been completed and tested. It’s currently awaiting approval for distribution, which is likely to coincide with the Xbox 360 firmware update this Fall. The Ghostbusters team would like to thank everyone who has continued in their support of our studio and games.
<kermit> YAY!!!!! </kermit> Yes, ’bout damn time but they could have easily let these bugs linger for ever and ever and ever. I’m surprised they were so quiet about it before! This is a very clever toss-the-community-a-freakin’-bone maneuver ;)

And then there’s this. Ghostbusters: The Videogame* (still an awful title) through Steam today for $4.00 USD. PC means no multiplayer but, seriously, four bucks? Duuuude. Even I know I will cave by the end of the day and buy it. Perhaps it will further encourage them to make another one! It also gives me an excuse to talk about Ghostbusters more… like I needed one. I’ll see you guys all on Live again when the patch comes out! Until then I finally started Red Dead Redemption and, oh, the new episode of OpenAlpha is presently uploading.
update: Very reliable Mr. TheEggplant cautions that it’s a “nonworking piece of ahrglebahrgle” and I’m not just posting that because he used my word. I have heard about the bugs and wonky mouse movements — I plan on using a controller anyway — which is why I can only recommend it at $4. I almost said “think of it as a $4 demo” but I hate the idea of paid demos and at least this does have the whole game. As always with PC ports of console games, or PC games in general, do you research and make sure it’ll run on your rig before purchasing. Not that any of this will save you from lousy code, sadly.
Tell you what. I’ll buy it and give it a run and see how the first few levels play out. This could be a bogus indicator of the rest of the game just because the first areas are often the ones most tested, but worth a shot. If it crashes at launch, that’s bad. And sales like this are precisely why I never let Steam keep my CC information. Click-buy-click-buy-click-I owe how much???
This post keeps getting longer. I was literally entering in my card info when I get a lovely surprise popup window. This was one of the few examples of a good popup! Thanks optikal!

There is one teeny tiny problem though. It’s going to take, according to Steam, 4 hours for it to download. People always hit their servers pretty hard during these sales so it’s not really a surprise but it does make it difficult to promise test results in a timely fashion. Uh, buyer beware! I’ll still report back when it gets here. Now to format the page for the new OpenAlpha since the YouTube version finished uploading.
update to the gazillion previous updates: I still don’t have the game downloaded. I had to pause it briefly while uploading OA and restarting it gave me even less speed than I had before :(
*resizes your browser when you pick a country. I hate that.
I need a new ringtone
June 24th, 2010 · kitchen sink
If I hear Pokemon Center one more time…
Because I ended up setting a few other phone alarms to that ringtone I am finally utterly sick of it. Any other gaming tone suggestions? Some of my past ringtones:
- Mario Star Music
- Woodman’s Stage
- Mega Man Boss Intro
- Instructor Mooselini
- An awesome mashup of the Mahna-Mahna and the Ghostbusters theme
- Matoya’s Cave (FF1, NES)
- 1up sound
Hmm. I think I’d like Matoya’s Cave and Woodman’s stage again. I’d just have to make them again since I don’t have my old files. I still want more though! Variety will make me less twitchy every time it rings :)
→ 14 CommentsTags:tech
