Winter Steam

So Steam is offering great deals on a variety of games that they have available at their store.  This is similar to their Thanksgiving/Black Friday deals that they had some weeks ago.  But this time, it seems their offers are much more interesting than before.  Having already purchased Trine, Braid, and World of Goo at prices which were too good to pass up, they offer those three again at similar or better prices.  Unbelievable!  Yet while those small indie games which I have posted before are great to have, other games are making waves.  Games such as Torchlight, Battlefield 2: Complete Collection, Unreal Deal Pack, and Left 4 Dead 2 are attracting buyers.  For me, though, I have little interest in Torchlight and the Unreal Deal Pack.  Both BF2 and L4D2 are already in my possession so there's no need to get 'em again.  But one game in particular, I have been waiting for a good deal to happen.  I have been waiting since their deals and sales that started with Left 4 Dead.  I have kept an eye out for Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box for the PC ever since it made its way onto Steam.  Since then, I have waited for a weekend deal to get this game for a great price.  I didn't want to pay full price for it, given its age and how it lacks the Big Surf Island add-on that console players are able to enjoy.  And there are no Steam Achievements to mimic the achievements and trophies offered on the console platform.  But the last bit isn't much of a big deal.

So finally on December 28, 2009, Steam offers the one game that I wanted to play on the PC platform at the price that I was looking for.  And Steam does not disappoint.  At US$7.49, it was at a price that was better than anticipated and expected.  Having already finished most of what's available and to do on the Xbox 360, I just know I'll be having fun again trying to redo some of the things that the game has to offer.  Although some are a bit of a pain, I am willing to tolerate going at it again just because it's going to run smoothly with anti-aliasing turned on.

Who knew that Steam would be doing this to me?  It's almost as though what Steam is offering during these limited run daily deals are nickel-and-diming me because what they offer are truly good games to have and purchase.  Next up, the PC version of Batman: Arkham Asylum should be removed of DRM.  But I won't hold my breath on that.  If it weren't for DRM, I would have purchased the game via Steam.  Oh well.

Mincing in Pain

On June 1st, 2009, I placed a pre-order on Hobby Link Japan for a very expensive PVC figure.  This figure would turn out to be the most expensive figure purchased to date.  I hope that I won't make another expensive purchase like that again for a very long time.

The figure in question is Fate T. Harlaown, an anime character from the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS series.  The figure is manufactured by Alter, a company not new to the business on creating PVC figures.  They are one of the big ones out there, with character figures from K-On!, Ikkitousen, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and plenty others.  But what set this particular figure apart from the rest?  Size and complexity.  Many figures commonly found today are designed and manufactured with simple hairstyle.  The less detail the figure in question, the quicker the manufacturing process would be, in theory.  You don't create a figurine mold that details as many strand of hair as possible.  It's not economical and it's expensive.  Plus adding such details would exponentially add more delicacy to the figure.

The figure was slated to come out some months ago.  But it never arrived at the store until lately.  And immediately the figure sold out the moment it arrived.  I suppose this is one of the better benefits of pre-ordering something.  I have been waiting for a while.  Sadly, due to a combination of various factors, getting the figure is a very expensive process.  The store handles yen and that means converting it from US dollars.  With the US dollar being at a dismal value, combined with the current state of today's economy, it isn't easy trying to make sure that you have allocated enough cash to make sure it can be shipped out.  And because the size of the figure is larger than anticipated, it gets shipped out via EMS, which expedites the time it takes to deliver the order and increases the overall total.

When the package finally arrived, the package turn out to be quite large.  As soon as I saw the logo off the side of the box, I knew what was inside and I rushed to open the box up to get the item.  The item then sat on my computer chair, which ate up the entire seat width.  The sheer size of the item is almost incomprehensible and nearly indescribable.  Yet as I try to peer inside to inspect the content, I cannot help but feel amazed at the amount of details it has.  I'm at a loss for words just how to describe it.  I knew that the figure looks amazing in pictures.  Yet to see it in person is a whole different story.  I suppose it is similar or the same when it comes to getting Transformers toys from Japan rather than getting it locally.

Will I know if getting this will be worth every penny spent?  Time will have to pass by for me to find out.  But for now, the wallet cries and minces in pain.  It'll take a very long time for that to recover.  For the time being, it shall sit unopen and will accompany my other sealed items that I have tucked away, such as my hand-picked selection of Binal-Tech Transformers, T.H.S.-02 Convoy, T.H.S.-02b Black Convoy, Galaxy Force GX-03 Sound Blaster, and Masterpiece Megatron.

Still Hate It

Black Friday, I still hate it.  The one single day out of the entire year that people have to shop on and the retailers advertise on, you'd think they would at least spread their intended sale across several days, rather than squeezing it all into one single shopping day.

I still cannot get over the memory of an outing one year.  This lady had a PS2 and some games in the shopping cart.  Yet I know that advertisement all too well.  The deal has been posted before, albeit with different games.  Yet that idiot chose that day, of all the days in the world, to buy that gaming system when it's been similarly offered before.

Did I have anything to get during that day?  Not really.  Online distribution store Steam was holding several deals throughout the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to spur online purchases.  I chose to wait things out a bit to see if they dare to compete aggressively against some of the other retailers out there.  Specifically, a deal for Left 4 Dead 2.  Quite a while ago, I managed to pick up Left 4 Dead for US$25.  At the time, the regular price was $50 so getting it for half off was a good buy.  It didn't get any better than that, at least for that time.  Amazon then posted their Left 4 Dead 2 offer: $30.  Dell and GameStop offered the same, which makes buying from either stores virtually indifferent.  Amazon's deal was considered better, if you factor out the time it takes for them to ship the game out and have it delivered.  For where I live, there is no tax applied to the purchase and shipping is free courtesy of Amazon's $25 minimum limit.  But $30 isn't the price I was aiming for.  It's a good price but I was holding out to see what Valve and Steam would do over the weekend.  And like I expected, to spur the holiday spending spree, they offered Left 4 Dead 2 for a day at a special price.  Except, the price they offered was a complete let-down.  Instead of beating the competition in price, their Left 4 Dead 2 special was dead cold.  The price was over $35 and the savings was very dismal.  So my next step is to get it from GameStop, locally.

Getting the game locally saves me the trouble of having to wait for them to deliver the game.  So I picked out a store and went there.  Oddly enough, it was the last copy they had.  Funny, I seem to be having a string of bad luck with GameStop lately.  Twice now the game I get happens to be the last in their stock.  Bleh.  But Left 4 Dead 2 was purchased for 30 and I made sure that everything was included.  Actually, the only major concern is the key is unused and in the case.  I could care less about the install disc since I can always download the game from Steam itself once the game is registered to my account.  Ah, the advantage of having Steam...

Saturday's Steam sale was posted.  Within it, Trine for half off.  Having tried the demo, it was one of the few games that I wanted to get but opted out of paying full price for it.  At $10, it's hard to beat.  I bought World of Goo for $5 and it's worth every penny.  Playing Trine was a blast.  It's a great platformer that I am sure I will spend quite a lot of time on.

Sunday's Steam sale was posted.  And Steam strikes again, now offering TrackMania United Forever for half off at $20.  That's another game that I have been itching to get but not willing to pay full price for it.  Having played tons of Nations Forever, getting United Forever was worth it.  Getting it for less than $20 would have been much better but half of its regular price is the limit of how much I am willing to spend on it.

So when Monday came, Steam posted its final sales.  Unfortunately, none of the titles listed were of any interests for me.  To be honest, I had hopes they would offer Burnout Paradise for half.  But I guess I can live with that for a little while longer.

I still hate Black Friday.  It should not come to just one single day just to get people spending.  It would have been a lot better for me, as a laid-back consumer, had they spread the sale item over the course of the week or on certain days.  At least it would have been a lot less traffic and a lot less people crowded around.  People camping since Tuesday and Wednesday just to be the first in line?  C'mon, that's the most retarded thing I have ever heard.

For me, I've done all the personal shopping that I wanted.  Part of them were acquired prior to Black Friday and the deals, while early, were very good at the time it was posted.  It's a shame that people would bother to wake up at 1AM to 2AM just to arrive at a store that is opening at 3AM.  It's idiotic and it's lame.  A lot of people already have some form of access to some of these posted deals.  Yet if they are able to find it online early and plan out their shopping, why couldn't they just get their items early rather than Friday?  There were plenty of deals ranging from pots and pans to HDTVs to gaming consoles to PCs and PC parts.  All of them can be had at prices that rivals or beats what retailers offer.  Plus you don't have to wait in line and deal with morons.

Something New, Something Old

A long time ago, I transitioned from one game to the next.  It was a jump that took a while to adjust.  But this is due to how the two games differ.  Back then, playing BF2142 wasn't much of a big deal.  But it was still an interesting game since it was more focused on ground attacks and not so much on air superiority.  Although now, I do not know if I can say the same, having not played the game in so long, almost an eternity.

It's announced that a new patch for this old game was going to be made.  And it appears, due to a recent posting and goals set out by DICE/EA, that they are going to remove the DRM from the game and include the Northern Strike booster pack as a bonus.  This is a welcome news, despite that the game is so old.  Well, the removal of any DRM is always a welcome news no matter how old the game is.  DRM these days do nothing more than annoy the crap out of players.  I just prefer to play the game and that's it.  I don't want extra junk being injected into my computer just to make sure that I legally own a copy of the stupid game.  Some of the worst offenders are the ones that overrides a driver layer, while some others try to hinder you by limiting to how many optical drives you have or whether you're running a disc emulation software.

Yet as I look back at 2142 as a game, I found it that it has some nice things to go with it.  Yet at the same time I am really annoyed by it as well.  One of the biggest issue I have with the game happens to be the balance of how weapons are used.  Early on, when I had played, nearly everyone would be running around with the Voss unlock.  The comparative ratio between the Voss and Baur unlocks is so lopsided that it ain't funny.  Simply speaking, everyone and their grandmother were using the Voss unlock.  Very few people use the Baur.  And I am one of the handful of people who utilize the Baur as the primary gun of choice.  It has killing power and it is effective for long range suppression fire.  Yet by comparison, the Voss has similar stopping power, fires faster, and holds more rounds per clip.  It also has the most lopsided accuracy out of all the unlocks available.  But I continued on.  I use the Baur, not because it is potent but because it has a significantly higher learning curve than the Voss.  The Voss is such a weak (meaning: easy) weapon that it takes very little skill to really use it.  The Baur, on the other hand, requires more control and forces you to take your shots carefully.

Things could have changed since I have long left the game.  Who knows.  But I ain't going to get my hopes up with that yet.  I may still have a short tolerance for the game since it's based on the same bullet system that BF2 uses.  Meaning, the first shot will shoot straight but each subsequent shots will not.  I have long been accustomed to how Call of Duty shoots because your skill come from your reflexes and how well you can control the gun's recoil.  If BF2 and 2142 won't let me shoot straight each time I shoot using the gun's sights, what good is using it?

I don't know if I should bother installing the game again.  I do want to try getting some of the awards specific to Northern Strike.  But I don't know if I want to deal with the game's deficiencies.

Digging A Deeper Grave

You know how people say that one is digging their own grave? I guess you can say that this is one of those cases where it's like that. Granted, it's already been set when Infinity Ward when they said that there won't be any dedicated server. But nobody knew just how deep the grave hole would be until just recently.

Best Buy hosted a live-chat with the people from Infinity Ward. And with it, questions about the game will be asked directly and the IW staff would have a chance to answer them. Obviously the questions that were raised repeatedly were regarding dedicated servers. But nothing was said that they will ever consider it, implying that they have full confidence that their IWNET system will work without issue. Another question that was raised that factored in to the limitations to the IWNET system is the maximum number of players possible. It turned out to be 18, or 9 for each side. Also gone from the game is console access, which enables people to enter special commands to tweak certain settings so that they are able to better suit one's playing experience. Some games featured the ability to lean left and right, allowing you a chance to peek around the corner instead of dancing in and out of corners where you can get shot. That feature is no longer in Modern Warfare 2. The issue with ping, another shortcoming of the IWNET system, will see players connecting with ping of over 100ms at the very least. So the playability on other people's host machine will be akin to playing through a fast 56k modem of the old days.

Much of what was seen in other FPS games on the PC platform saw these as standard-fare features. There was no question to include them as they allow for all sorts of customizations for players to utilize. They can tweak the game so that it can suit their setup no matter how strange or odd it may seem compared to the general masses. Sure the console players may not use 'em. But that's probably where everything went wrong there. Having to cater to the lowest common denominator seems to be the clear-cut choice when it comes to develop today's AAA/franchise games. And because of that, the PC players are slowly being ousted from having a reliable, dependable, thriving, and tightly-knit community. I just do not see why the big developers of today would look down on PC gamers so much now since it was the PC gamers that put them where they're at today. The one game that started out on the PC has now evolved and turned into a game that is nothing more than a mere port of a console-centric game. Yet Infinity Ward claims that is not a port but a new version that now has "custom stuff like mouse control, text chat in game, and graphics settings." Sorry but these three items are standard features on all PC games in general.

I just cannot tell you how terrible it looks now. Never mind the dumb features that they put into the game. There are many ways to make the gaming experience a thousand times better than what's being known as of now. Yet this is perhaps the one method that has truly killed the game before it even hit the store shelves.