Shmee.Me

June 11, 2014

Shmee’s Thoughts On Crysis 2!

Since I have been upgrading my computer, I have been playing a few computer games I have had kicking around, and one of those games is Crysis 2 by Cytek and published by EA. I got it during a Steam sale awhile ago, and I just never got around to playing it. It came out three years ago, so you have probably either played it or decided to skip it, but I thought I would my thoughts on it anyway. That is kind of what I do on this site after all.

The plot in Crysis 2 is that you are wearing a super suit that allows you to try and save humanity from aliens, and a group of crazy people are trying cover up the alien invasion, or something like that. Honestly I am not totally sure why I am killing a bunch of humans during an alien invasion, but they are bad, and this is a first person shooter, so they must die.

My problem with this game is that at first you really don’t feel that super. You have to keep finding alien DNA to upgrade your abilities. Which fine, but I want to feel awesome from the get go, and I don’t want to have to hunt down a bunch of aliens to get better. Plus in the first game it was wide open, and I could complete my objectives in any way that I wanted, but in this game I am kind of stuck just moving forward and shooting.

On the plus side the shooting is good, and you can customize your weapons. The graphics also hold up well, and I am sure they would look better if I wasn’t playing the game with a Radeon HD5770. When I get my new graphics card I will have to fire it up again and compare the visuals.

The first Crysis blew me away with its crazy graphics, and cool abilities. It had a wide open world to explore, and it let me choose my path. This game feels like a step back in every department. It is still fun, but I find it lacking anything great that makes me want to keep playing.

June 10, 2014

So It Is E3…

All the big companies kicked off E3 yesterday, and while there were a few cool announcements, for me there was nothing ground breaking. Let me run down what happened: Every major game that sells well got a sequel; If there was a new game announced it looked a lot like games we have played before; Microsoft and Sony are willing to pay a lot of money for timed exclusives, and they both (Sony in particular) announced a few remakes.

The remake thing caught me off guard. I knew, as did the rest of the world, that Microsoft was going to release some sort of upgraded Halo, and they kind of needed to with Halo 5 not due out until next year, but Phantom Dust? That came out of nowhere. Sony went all in with remakes: an upgraded Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank, a timed exclusive of Grim Fandango, and a not at all exclusive GTA 5. GTA 5 came out after the new consoles did, so everyone knew it was going to happen; Grim Fandango makes sense since it is a cult classic that not a lot of people have played, so why not introduce it to a new generation, but The Last of Us seems odd since it just came out, and everyone played it. Oh well if you have a PS4 you are getting another game.

Both Microsoft and PlayStation tried to show that they are hip, and that they are down with the indie dev scene. Sony still seems to have the indie upper hand, but Microsoft is at least starting to get quite a bit of interest in its ID@Xbox platform, so lets see if they can keep it up. I am not sure that indie games are system sellers yet, but they are cheap and bring in fresh ideas to consoles.

The fact that Conker is going to be available for game makers in Project Spark kind of threw me off. Why just Conker? Why not a lot MS owned properties, so people can have Conker and Voodo Vince team up to save Master Chief from the Brute Force guys? Maybe they will in the future, but to make a point of saying that just Conker would be available was strange to me.

After the first day of announcements, some of the games I am interested in are: Tom Clancy’s The Division, Batman: Arkham Knight, Sunset Overdrive, Destiney, The Witcher 3, Bloodborne, Cuphead, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection (It has over 100 multiplayer maps!). Yes I know that list has a few of the sequels and remakes I was talking about earlier, but they do look very good. I just hope that some of the original games being made make it big, so we can get a little more variety in next year’s E3 press conferences.

Anything strike you about this year’s E3 kickoff? What games are getting you all hot and bothered?

June 9, 2014June 9, 2014

Computer Hardware Tripple Shot!

I am continuing to slowly upgrade my computer (well actually pretty much replacing it), so the next three components I got, were the motherboard, RAM, and CPU. First up lets talk about the foundation of it all the motherboard:

Asus M5A97 LE R2.0:

After a bad experience with other board makers, I pretty much now only use Asus boards. Their customer service is kind of lame if you ever do need to call them, but their parts are usually so good that you don’t have to anyway. This board had exactly what I wanted: gigabit Ethernet, USB3 ports, a decent sound card, it supported the CPU I wanted, and it was cheap. It ended up being even cheaper thanks to a rebate offer.

It has a great BIOS, which I updated as soon as it started up, that allows for complete control over all your components, and extremely easy overclocking tools. What I liked about this thing is that it just worked the way I wanted it to out of the box. I didn’t need to play with anything, or toggle a setting, it just got my PC up and running.

The only downer is that it didn’t have a USB3 expansion port for the front of my case, but that wasn’t a feature I wanted to spend $20 on. I installed this three weeks ago and it has been rock solid, so if you are looking for a good low-mid level gaming board for AMD processors, you should put this on your short list.

G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB SDRAM DDR3 1866:

I don’t have a lot to say here other then this is some pretty fast RAM. I got the Ares version of the G.SKILL RAM family due to the fact it has low rise heat syncs, so I can put whatever components I want in my computer, and I don’t have to worry about them running in to the giant RAM chips sticking out of my MoBo. Like all DDR3 RAM chips that function above 1333 MHz, I did have select the 1866 MHz speed in my BIOS, but other then that they have been completely trouble free. I have never had problems with G.SKILL RAM, and it looks like that is still the case.

AMD FX8320:

Everyone that builds a mid-range gaming computer these days uses the Intel i5 series processors because they are fast, and they don’t consume a lot of power. I however am an AMD fanboy from way back, so I will take the hit in power costs, and a little hit in single threaded processing power to use an AMD chip. If you don’t care who makes your chips you should probably use an Intel i5, but if you do get an FX-8320 you will still be very happy.

It is fast enough, it has eight cores, and it is unlocked so you can overclock it as much as you feel comfortable with. In just playing around, I got this chip to over 4.1 GHz without too much effort. I didn’t leave it at that speed because I still only have to stock cooler, and didn’t want to burn it up, but when I do get a better cooler I will have this chip clocked well over the 3.5 GHz stock clock speed.

And I will totally be getting a better cooler. The stock cooler is fine when the computer isn’t working hard, but once you start doing something fun it sounds like a hoover vacuum cleaner. I suppose they just throw in a cooler to make it a complete set, but they must know guys like me will not use them for long anyway, so why bother including something good. Still the chip is cheap at under $150, so even with the price of a decent cooler, you still haven’t spent $200 yet, and that is a pretty good deal.

There are my three computer hardware mini reviews, and I hope you found them somewhat useful. I still have a cooler, and a video card to go to finish this computer off, and I will let you all know how it goes!

June 2, 2014

A Game of Reviews

Well who left the door open? Just about anyone could walk in here and leave a review, I’ll just close the… actually, since I’m here I could probably leave a review… just a little one… since Shmee’s busy with other things…

I’d be doing him a service. He’ll thank me later.

Over Memorial Weekend the family Paladin traveled south to that terrible place of bridges and confusing freeways, Portland, OR. To pass the time my brother taught us three new games you might like to check out yourself.

The first is The Resistance: Avalon or as I like to call it Mafia with fancy cards. It goes by other names as well, such as Werewolf or The Resistance since all of these games are the same basic mechanics. It’s a party game, so you need 5-6 people to make it fun. To begin players are given role cards, telling them they are loyal followers of Arthur or evil servants of Mordred. Only the servants of Mordred know each other while the rest of the table devolves into paranoia and fear. The goal is for either group to complete three quests, with the servants of Mordred playing fail cards and just generally being sneaky. You learn a lot about the people you play with, like my wife and brother are not to be trusted – EVER and that my sister will always suspect my brother even when he’s done nothing wrong. I had fun playing this game, but I’m not sure I can recommend it since you can play Mafia for free with just a deck of cards (rule http://www.princeton.edu/~sucharit/~mafia/oldmafia/rules.htm from Princeton no less!). Avalon does add some extra role cards like the Merlin card, but I didn’t feel like they added much to the game to make this a must buy. If you like nice themed cards with printed rules instead of a deck of playing cards and rules passed down via oral tradition then Avalon is a great game, I just like free.

The second game is Love Letter and it’s fabulous. It’s one of the few games my wife has walked away from and said we should buy (this has only happened like twice so it’s a big deal). In Love Letter you are trying to win the favor of the Princess by outmaneuvering your opponents. You start with one card and on your turn you draw a second one; now you must decide which one to play, weighing things like using the lowest pointed Guard card to guess at one opponent’s hand or go big with the higher point Prince forcing another opponent to draw a new hand but leaving yourself exposed. You can get knocked out of the game almost right away and while this can seem super unfair, yet in reality you’re hardly out of it for long since most rounds lasts five minutes and you are going to be too busy to notice because you’re watching how the whole thing turns out. Love Letter is going into our collection and it should be joining yours as well.

The final game is Marvel Dice Masters: Avenger vs. X-Men, a mouthful of a title for a game with a mouthful of dice. MDM:AvXM is a collectable card game (CCG) that uses Marvel’s famous superheroes like Captain America, the Hulk, and Wolverine. Each hero has their own flavor and powers that they add to your team of six cards, but most importantly they give you a set of themed dice. I loved rolling Storm’s clear blue and Hawkeye’s purple dice to gain dominance over my brother’s yellow and red Iron Man and black themed Nick Fury. The other great part about the dice is there is no bad roll, you can reroll or use what you got in different ways – allowing a guy like me who can consistently roll 1’s to not be frustrated that the fates have abandoned me. The rules can be a little daunting when you start, so it helps to play with someone who knows what’s going on or to set aside an afternoon to play several games and experiment. The other downside is this game is super popular and has sold out almost everywhere. I think I picked up the last copy in Bellingham the other day, so you can either pay $50 online or wait for the $15 second printing. It’s a fun two player game, with lots of strategy, and more importantly dice so I recommend it.

Whew, this review stuff is hard. I’ll just sneak out. This can be our little secret, OK.

No, seriously don’t tell him.

May 16, 2014May 16, 2014

Let The Child Of Light Tell You A Story!

Child of Light was recently released by Ubisoft Montreal and published by their parent company Ubisoft. It trades out the usual grim and gore of normal RPGs for a light and airy watercolor-esque world. The game was too pretty for me to pass up, and I have enjoyed myself immensely.

The game starts off with a woman telling her child a story about a girl Aurora who become very ill and fell asleep, but when she awoke, she was in far away land. She must free the land from the darkness that has gripped it, so she can return home, and be with her beloved father. It will not be easy, but she will pick up friends along the way including a firefly by the name of Igniculus.

The story tries to rhyme the whole way through, but it is not successful. I appreciate the effort, but I think they should have given up and just made the text more interesting. While the story is sweet it is not overly gripping, but since they were going for a fairy tale story maybe that was on purpose. Still it does its job and moves the game forward.

The game is a turn based RPG, with the slight twist of an added timing element, so if you finish an attack on a monster while it is gearing up for its attack, you cause it to loose its turn. Likewise the monsters can do the same to your party. Your firefly companion also gets in on the action. If you have him hover over a monster, he slows it down, but if you have him hover over a member of your party, he heals that person.

There is a limited loot system. There are the standard potions, health, magic, revive, and what-have-you. Then there are oculi. These are gems that you can add to your attacks or defense to change up your powers a bit. Equip a ruby on your attack, and now you do fire damage. Put it on your defense, and now you are guarded from fire. You do your best to try and match your oculi to the type of creatures you are fighting for maximum advantage. You can combine oculi to create stronger or varied bonuses.

Now for the moment of truth. Is the game fun? I think so, and I also found it quite relaxing which is a change from the norm. It was nice to lean back and explore the world of Lemuria, and do battle with polite monsters that take their turn. It is a shame the story didn’t pack more of a punch, and it is a little short at about ten hours, but for fifteen bucks that is quite alright. It was a great change of pace for me, and I think it will be for you too.