Longklaw.com

I have so many games that I have: only played once, played a lot but never finished, or never played at all. I decided to come up with a plan to work my way through some of these games. I started by compiling a list of all the Xbox games that I hadn’t completed yet. I picked the Xbox because the Xbox 360 will probably be the first next-generation system that I buy. I figured I could just retire my Xbox if I play all of the games that I want to.

After I made the list I ordered the game in the tentative order that I want to play them. That order is very tentative. Then I went to Gamespy.com, Gamespot.com, and IGN.com in order to obtain estimates on how long it would take to beat each game. For games that I had already started, I tried to estimate how much longer I had to play the game to finish it. Of course I used a spreadsheet for this because I have no life. I know this makes it sound like work, but it’ll be fun. I’m already having fun working my way through KOTOR II. My total estimate for Xbox games is 143 hours. At my rate it’ll take me about 6 years to finish them. The third Xbox and the PlayStation 4 will be out by then. The list and estimates are below. Some of these games I don’t even own yet. Some I may not like and decide not to play anymore. We’ll see how it goes.

As I was falling asleep last night I was watching something on TV that had skaterboarders in it and it brought back a vague memory of some game that I played long ago on the NES. I remembered skating on a halfpipe and doing tricks for points. It seemed like there were other events you could compete in, but I couldn’t remember any of them. Of course I was going to go crazy if I didn’t figure out what that game was. I was too lazy to get up a look it up last night and didn’t want to take the time while I as at work today.

Using Google I was easily able to find out that the game was California Games. I probably played it some time around 1989 or 1990. Check out the Wikipedia article for more info. and some pics. I remember not being any good at the surfing event, so I didn’t really like it. I think the rollerskating event was pretty fun though. Nostalgia is great.

I’ll be starting my new job on August 1. I have this week off.

Over the weekend I started playing Star War Knights of the Old Republlic II: The Sith Lords. It’s been sitting in my collection for over a year and a half now. Better late than never. It’s a fun game so far. It’s a lot like the first game, and that’s not a bad thing. As much as I’m trying to go to the dark side, I keep getting light side points. I guess it’s just in my nature to be a good guy.

Over the past few months I’ve been slowly making my way through the complete series of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’ve seen all of the episodes at one point or another on TV, but now I can watch the whole series all the way through on DVD. I just finished season 4. The show started getting really good in season 3, but season 4 is even better.

My roommate and I are almost finished with our second helping of Tales of Symphonia. The sidequests are what’s keeping us from finishing the game. I’m going to try to make Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks our next joint project.

I finally finished playing 24: The Game for the PlayStation 2. I hardly ever finish games that I play on my own anymore, so I feel the need to write about it.

The game takes place between Season 2 and Season 3 and fills in a few of the plot holes that where present at the beginning of Season 3. The graphics aren’t the best, but the story is good and the voice acting is great. It sounds really good in surround sound.

For the most part, the missions are easy and short and I didn’t have a problem with that. The ones that are annoying are extremely annoying. Maybe that’s just me. The missions vary from the standard action missions to descrambling data on a hard drive. You get to complete action missions as different characters from the show such as Jack, Tony, Michelle, and Kim. Yes, Kim does get in trouble and you do have to save her. It’s cool to see characters that aren’t on the show any more either because they died or they became one of 24’s many characters that disappear without any explanation.

The enemy A.I. is terrible. You can run out in front of one of the bad guys and they’ll soon forget that you are even there. One weird thing is that sometimes when the bad guys run out of ammo they’ll yell, “Reload!” That’s basically another way of saying, “I’m reloading, so now is a good time to shoot at me!” The camerawork can be a pain, especially if you’re fighting up close.

There is a lot in the game that will remind you of the show: the multiple camera angles, the music, the sound effects, the ticking clock, etc. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing this game. If you’re a fan of the show, it’s a good game to try out. No, it won’t take 24 hours to complete the game.

Another trek down memory lane.

I remember that Fall 2004 was an unusually great season for video games. Not long after I started this site, I created a list to help myself keep track of all the games that I wanted to buy. I had planned on making it available online, but I never got around to it and the list has sat out there all this time with no links pointing to it. Eventually, I stopped using that list and now I keep track of the games that I want on IGN.

Some games on the list that still haven’t been released. Some I never owned but maybe will someday. Some I owned but never played much. Some I spent way too many hours playing.

I hope everyone has a great Independence Day. Today will probably be a movie/gaming day for me. For some reason I don’t really want to do a lot of stuff outside today.

I played the demo for Prey. It reminded me a lot of Doom 3, but this one could potentially be more fun. I’ll definitely be interested in buying it when it comes out on July 10. I’ll just need to upgrade my old computer or buy an Xbox 360 first. So, I probably won’t be playing Prey when it first comes out.

Time to get some BBQ.

My return to online gaming never really got that far off the ground. I was finding it hard to motivate myself to put the time into it. World of Warcraft was great, but I never got into Dungeons & Dragons Online as much as I wanted to. I decided that I didn’t want to pay monthly fees for games that I wasn’t even playing, so my subscriptions have now been canceled.

My offline console games are much more appealing to me right now. The second helping of Tales of Symphonia is almost complete. I starting playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and now I know why so many people are crazy about this game. Also, I rented a copy of the 24 game. It’s not a great game, but fans of the TV show should like it.

I did spent a little bit of time playing an old PC favorite of mine: Diablo II. This is a game I can really see myself putting some time into. Stay tuned.

I used to sometimes participate in beta tests for video games . I was going through some files that on my computer and came across an old list that I had kept of games that I got a chance to beta test. I’m don’t know why I kept the list, but looking at it brings back memories of games I had long forgotten and some I don’t think I’ll forget for a long time. Diablo II was the first. Here goes:

Act of War
Anarchy Online
City of Heroes
Command and Conquer: Renegade
Conquest: Frontier Wars
Diablo II
EVE: The Second Genesis
Everquest Online Adventures (PS2)
Everquest Online Adventures: Frontiers (PS2)
Fung Wan Online
Ground Control
Ground Control II
Guild Wars
Horizons: Empire of Istaria
Killzone (PS2)
Knight Shift
Kohan II: Kings of War
Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle
The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game
Lords of Everquest
Massive Assault Network
The Matrix Online
Mimesis Online
PlanetSide
PlanetSide: Core Combat
Project Entropia
The Saga of Ryzom
The Sims Online
S.L.A.I. Phantom Crash (PS2)
SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs (PS2)
Star Trek: Armada
Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain (PS2)
There
Ultimate Baseball Online
Unreal II: Expanded Multiplayer
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
World of Warcraft

Since I had a lot of work to do and I tried to be sociable in real life, I only got to play the Dungeons and Dragons Online trial for about 2 hours over the weekend. It’s different, but it was still fun to play. I liked the voiceovers describing what was going on around you. I wonder if that will get annoying.

Here’s an example of how little I know about D&D rules. I was duel-wielding a longsword and an axe and didn’t realize I was taking a major penalty for doing so. No wonder those kobolds were giving me such a hard time. Once I realized what was going on, things got much easier.

Yesterday, I bought a copy of the game complete with that handy little instruction manual. The first half of the week will be busy, but after Hump Day I’ll be free for a few days.

Update, 3:05pm
I forgot to mention this, but I’m a human paladin on Xoriat.

I am enjoying my time in Azeroth. Somehow, it’s better than Starkville. I like the paladin and druid equally at this point. My only problem is that sometimes I have trouble getting into the game. From what I’ve heard, that is a common problem.

I signed up for a one week free trial of DDO. I just have to download it. Unless it takes an incredibly long time to download, I’ll be playing it sometime this weekend.

It looks like Xfire is being bought by Viacom. I remember when I first heard about it on TechTV, back when it was still TechTV. It couldn’t have been too long after Xfire first started up. If only I could remember to run Xfire every time I play a game. If anybody uses Xfire, my screen name is longklaw.

I decided to try Internet Explorer Beta 7 for a little while. I know it sounds risky, but I wanted to try it. I’m ok with IE’s new look. It reminds me a lot of Netscape 8 for some reason. I’m really glad that it has tabbed browsing. That feature is the only one I wish IE6 had. Of all the web sites I went to, there was only one that looked weird when I viewed it using IE7. After using it for a little while I decided it was time to uninstall IE7 and course IE6 froze up every time I tried to use it. Thank goodness for system restore.

Final Fantasy VII – Advent Children finally came out on DVD yesterday. I went to Sam Goody and picked up a copy. I’ll probably be watching it in the next few days. The manager at Sam Goody told me that I had been shopping there as long as he had been manager there, which is a long time. He said that I was one of those customers he expects to see there at least once a week. Though that used to be true and I have started back shopping there recently, I don’t go to Sam Goody nearly as much now that we have a GameStop here in Starkville. Still, it was nice to know that he appreciated my bu$ine$$.

The spambots have found me in my new home. [sarcasm]I am so thrilled about that.[/sarcasm]