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Posted by Sean on May 19, 2010
[Categories: About Me, iPhone, Mid-Game Impressions, playstation3, Video]
[Tags: , , ]
Angry Birds

Angry Birds

It’s been a while since my last post, I was travelling this past weekend so not much gaming done then, apart from a fair amount of time with “Angry Birds“. What a great little package that is for the price of $1, on top of that they added more levels for free with an update. I really try to get perspective from 3 different angles when looking at iPhone games. First and most importantly, my own, the game from a gamer’s perspective. I saw an addictive little slingshot puzzler game where you have to beat down enemies using various types of ammo (birds), that have different abilities, while navigating or using obstacles to crush your foe. Since each round only takes 20 seconds at most, it fits the iPhone game formula of pick up and play when you’re standing in line, in-transit, or whatever else (not that it stopped me from spending an hour on the couch with it). All of this tells me that this is a great game. Then I usually like to see what my girl friend thinks of it. She’s not a novice when it comes to gaming, she’ll play as much Mario as she can get her hands on, but her tastes don’t go much beyond that, aside from the occasional iPhone game, Topple, Diner Dash, that sort of thing. She also owns an iPhone, so it takes some of the ‘non-intuitiveness’ of iPhone gaming out of the equation. She agrees that it’s fun… Finally I like to put it into the hands of someone who doesn’t own an iPhone with no instructions just to see how it goes. In this case it was a good 10 minutes before I got my phone back. Needless to say, it’s worth your dollar, and I’d still say it would have been a good game at the $5 price point.

Skate 3

Skate 3

The remaining gaming time I had has been mostly spent waiting for HD Skate 3 clips to render and transfer to EA servers, or almost transfer, then have to render all over again… That could have been handled way better… If a clip is rendered, why not save it in a rendered state before uploading… that way if the upload fails you don’t have to sit there for 15 minutes while it renders again… (all my uploads were in HD, and they take FOREVER) I finished my first go at a compilation reel which I have attached below. I’ve learned that it takes A LOT of clips to fill a 4 minute song, and despite upgrading to the $10 “Filmer Pack” DLC which boosted 5 minutes of storage, they clearly were offering 5 minutes of standard definition recording because I had to clear my profile a couple times to get the footage I needed for the 4 minute sample which I guess is understandable, but still disappointing, for $10 there isn’t much value there.

Montage moved here

This has been a crazy week for games, but sadly, one I’m not really able to participate in. The reason being I’m going on vacation next week, and traveling overseas for two weeks. It’d be sort of silly spend that money on video games I won’t be able to play until I get back anyway so I’m holding off in case those funds are needed elsewhere. I had all but talked myself out of Red Dead Redemption until I started reading the reviews, it is getting some really really high praise so I may have been convinced to pick that up when I get back. I was kind of surprised by the Split/Second scores though, I thought it looked interesting but I thought it was going to come with some kind of major flaw, that doesn’t appear to be the case… so I guess it is up to Blur to determine which of those I grab since I’ve already decided I’m only getting one (if any). And I’m really excited for Prince of Persia regardless of how mediocre the review scores look, the common theme in those reviews are that fan of the franchise (namingly me) are going to enjoy the ‘return to form’ of the best in the franchise (in my opinion).

In any case this will likely be my last post until the middle of June since I won’t be doing any gaming while I’m over there I don’t think, certainly not the console variety, I’d imagine some iPhone, and some DS though (still have bowsers inside story to finish up). Over the next few days I’ll likely be playing Skate though, you’ll likely find some new clips on my skate profile if you’re really interested in keeping tabs on me.

Posted by Sean on January 26, 2010
[Categories: About Me]
[Tags: ]

I just wanted to make a quick note to inaugurate the new theme deployed to the site, I mentioned a few weeks back that I wanted to do this to make the site feel like my own instead of using on readily available theme, with that, I’m pretty happy with how it looks so far… thats right, so far, it’s not completely finished… there are some areas that aren’t done yet, but they aren’t features that are being actively used at this point so I saw no problem with deploying what I have so far.

Unfortunately, “Comments” are one of the afore mentioned features, however, if you’ve got some feedback for me about the new look I’d be happy to hear it. Please shoot me an email sean@degenerategamer.net

It took quite a bit of time to get this far being my first real foray into PHP, and wordpress themes, but I hope to get the comments up very soon, within the next couple weeks.

Posted by Sean on December 15, 2009
[Categories: About Me, Mid-Game Impressions, pre-Release Impressions]
[Tags: , , , , , ]

The past couple weeks

With the console season officially over (there is only 1 console game to come out that I’m dying to play, darksiders), and only 1 console game here for me to give a fair shake too (Saboteur), gaming this week has been a little dry.

Back to a guilty pleasure:
Over the last week or so I’ve been getting back into World of Warcraft (don’t worry I have no intention of turning this into a WoW blog). With the release of The Fall of the Lich King patch 3.3 introducing a new raid my interest was piqued. The Lich King story line is one of the most compelling in video games to me. It caught me at a young age and I feel almost I owe it to myself to see it through. I won’t get too deep into it, but Dungeon Finder is awesome, and it works… sure you get the occasional bad pug group be for the most part its a good time, and an easy way to get you geared up for the new content.

Saboteur:
I played for about an hour, and I had an OK time, I agree with most of what has been said so far in the popular media, the controls aren’t as tight as I would like, and climbing is significantly more cumbersome than I am used to from playing Assassin’s Creed 2. Driving is pretty good though, and blowing stuff up is always good even though I haven’t done much of that yet.

Borderlands: Island of Dr. Ned (DLC):
This finally came out for PC, but I haven’t spent much time in there at all, maybe 20 min or so and I could barely keep my eyes open at the time, so I’m not going to comment on it yet, but wanted to give it an honorable mention because I am excited to get some time in.

PixelJunk: Shooter:
I forgot to mention this one in my interesting releases post, I’ve been looking forward to this one! there is a lot to be said for new classic arcade style games… there is definitely a place in my life for games that I can enjoy in 10-15 minute chunks.

The Next Couple Weeks

I like a lot people will be travelling around to see family over the holiday… So I definitely see this as an opportunity to catch up on my mobile gaming!

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks:
It’s still in the wrapper… been saving it up just for this! I’ve read some positive reviews so far and my expectations are high!.. Don’t let me down Link.

I’ll be posting from the road, but probably nothing at great length, I’ll likely pick up some iPhone games while I’m out there when I get bored if I find any good ones I’ll be sure to share! If you’ve got any good ones I should be checking out do share…


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