The DLC Tax
by rainynight65 on Mar.09, 2011, under Gaming, Thoughts
This morning I caught a tweet from GameShark writer Todd Brakke on my twitter feed, about the price and DLC modalities of upcoming Bioware title Dragon Age 2 1. Granted, I removed that game from my shopping list a while ago, seeing that I never finished the original Dragon Age, and the add-on turned out to be a waste of money for me. But does it strike me as odd that the DLC shenanigans not only continue, but keep getting more ridiculous? Not really. (continue reading…)
- Yes, I borrowed the title from that tweet
↩
The State of Adventure Gaming
by rainynight65 on Feb.14, 2011, under Gaming
Let me get one thing straight. For all good intents and purposes, for all the developer’s ambitions, for all the releases we’ve seen, the Adventure genre is dead. Or at least in such a deep coma that it wouldn’t make a difference. Why? Strap in, ladies and gentlemen, it’s going to be a long ride. (continue reading…)
For Documentation’s Sake
by rainynight65 on Dec.09, 2010, under Day-to-Day
I don’t often pre-order from Amazon UK. Or any overseas sources for that matter. However, there was an item that I just could not resist, and as with all limited items, I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t go away empty-handed. So I pre-ordered for the first time. Well, everything played out, the item shipped on time, my mother is bringing it with her this coming weekend. Nothing special there, I just thought I’d share what I consider to be a light-hearted little post-shipping joke. (continue reading…)
A Gothic Tale?
by rainynight65 on Dec.08, 2010, under Gaming
The history of the Gothic franchise is one of ups and downs. While the first two games reached decent sales and a good reputation among RPG fans, Gothic 3 was released in a completely unfinished state, with game-breaking bugs and problems that aggravated players throughout. Original developers Piranha Bytes moved on to another publisher. JoWood kept the franchise and gave the job of creating the next game to Spellbound Entertainment, who are known for… well, not much really, only the real-time tactics series ‘Desperados’ comes to mind. All that didn’t do much to inspire faith in ArcaniA. However, the PC demo with good graphics and compelling gameplay raised hope that ArcaniA might be worthy successor to the Gothic series. Sadly, it is not so. (continue reading…)
E-pistolary
by rainynight65 on Oct.27, 2010, under Books
In 2000, British copywriter Matt Beaumont released his debut ‘e’, subtitled ‘The Novel of Liars, Lunch and Lost Knickers’, an epistolary novel that tells the story of a British advertising agency and its employees. Why is that of any interest to a tech blog? ‘e” was one of the first novels to use e-mails as a vehicle to drive the story, and did so in a highly entertaining and amusing manner. Last year he released ‘e Squared’, which may count as the official sequel, and true to fashion I am a bit tardy, but it is never too late to take a closer look at it. (continue reading…)
Musing of the moment: Marillion and the incomplete song
by rainynight65 on Sep.07, 2010, under Music, Thoughts
In 1997, Marillion released their ninth studio album ‘This Strange Engine’. Probably not their best piece of work, especially since it was released directly after the milestones ‘Brave’ and ‘Afraid of Sunlight’, but still a very decent album with a number of brilliant songs, as well as some of the more imaginative lyrics of the scene, such as ‘Estonia’, in which Steve Hogarth reflects on his encounter with one of the survivors of the Estonia disaster of 1994 1. Or one of my more personal favourites, ’80 Days’:
“Woke up last night under the mountains
Driving from Zurich to Milan
I lay there listening to the echoes
Thinking of Iceland and Japan
So many smiles, so many faces
And my home so far away
I lose some of me in all these places
And I can’t help the way I’m changed
All over the world in eighty days
Memories turn like magazine pages
What kind of a man could live this way
I do what I can
But I can’t escape it”
However, there is one thing I’ve never been able to wrap my head around. The first song ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ is a great piece, with a nice piano part and interesting lyrics. It shows what Progressive Rock should be about – quality instead of quantity. Except that, when the song is essentially complete and over at approximately 4:10, the band felt the need to add another 3 minutes of atmospheric chants and other hoo-hah. Why they chose to take a completely rounded-off song and add the extra time, making it sound less complete as a result, has escaped me since I first heard it.
Any ideas? The comments are open.
Face Value
by rainynight65 on Sep.01, 2010, under Gaming, Thoughts
Every year in September, gamers across South Africa get ready for rAge, the country’s biggest Gaming Expo and BYOC LAN. Every year, the tickets go on sale on the 1st of August, and every year they sell out within days. And again, every year you get people buying tickets in excess of what they need, for one sole purpose: to create a quick artificial shortage and then resell their excess at inflated prices.
Closing the price gap
by rainynight65 on Jul.21, 2010, under Gaming, Thoughts
There has always been a difference in prices between games for the current consoles and for the PC. While the general margin for both has gone up in the last few years, the gap has remained surprisingly stable. Until recently, that is. (continue reading…)
Whatever is wrong with Bad Company 2…
by rainynight65 on Jul.10, 2010, under Gaming, Thoughts
… has yet to ruin my fun.
The Battlefield series always followed a large-scale, strategic approach to its game play. Big maps, large teams and the option to play a slow-paced, methodical game were there since the series’ inception, and that’s what’s won it a lot of followers on the PC. In the last five years I myself have poured hundreds of hours into both Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142, as have a lot of my friends and clan mates. Now I am by no means a competitive player or über-skilled, but I have always enjoyed a more or less relaxed game with friends.
Arbitrary Scores
by rainynight65 on Jul.09, 2010, under Gaming, Thoughts
I’ve been following a few discussions and podcasts lately, some of which dealt with the point (or lack of point) of scoring game reviews, in fact, any reviews. Now that’s a discussion that has been going around since the beginning of review scores. The debate however has gained new momentum with the advent of Metacritic, a site which aggregates review scores from different sites to present a kind of average which many people use to orientate themselves and, in the end, make a purchase decision.
-
Hi! Welcome to Right as rainy!
Thanks for dropping by! Feel free to join the discussion by leaving comments, and stay updated by subscribing to the RSS feed. See ya around!
Latest Instagrams
