Thursday, April 10, 2008

Assorted Things

Busy day today so I'll just run down a few things. First off, the latest There Will Be Games column is online. Great stuff. This really is a very fun read..as sad as this story is for Michael.

We also posted a 9,000 word walkthrough for Devil May Cry 4 in two parts. I'm no fan of these (on a concept level, Jeff did a great, exhaustive job) but my boss wants them and I am first and foremost a great employee! We also have a currently embargoed preview of Fallout 3 which won't go up until 11AM ET. Woo.

As for me, I'm still waiting on Jim and Knight's MLB 08 The Show rosters before starting my franchise. I have no issue in waiting as I have enough to do as is.

And yes, some of you noticed my CH 2K8 Legacy on the sidebar -- I'm almost done with year two coaching the Texas State Bobcats. With 2K9 dead in the water I wanted to really try and "master" 2K8 to see just how much legs it has. It DOES have said legs. I still agree with the lukewarm reviews, but the game is pretty darn fun, issues aside. I still think the AI is too predictable and doesn't look to score with its front court nearly enough, but I do have some great games so it's not all bad. There are more positives than negatives, no question.

I'd talk about Seven Kingdoms: Conquest but it's so bad I won't waste the skin cells typing anymore about it.

Todd is reviewing Assassin's Creed PC and he should blog about it but he's the worst blogger since Marx (who was a notoriously bad blogger from what I hear.)
In cardboard gaming news, I'm messing with Men of Iron and it's shockingly fun. I say shockingly because while I'm not "new" to wargames I AM somewhat new to "counter-based" wargames -- the kinds of games where your men are little cardboard chits rather than miniatures or even wooden blocks. These are like the text based sports games of the boardgaming industry, in a sense. Tons of data, lots of detail and depth but not the most eye catching in the genre. And that's ok. This pic is from the online module you can play. Amazing how these seemingly simple looking games can be so damn compelling -- it just takes a little imagination, sort of like watching the play by play of a baseball game.

I'll also try and keep you abreast of my Here I Stand email game; we're still in the diplomacy phase and England (played by our BG columnist Michael Barnes) is trying to smooth talk me into giving him free French mercenaries to fend off the Hapsburg player.
Yeah, right. We French don't cave so easily!
Really, we dont.