Evolution

Today. Something will change. As they do.

I, Afro Stan, will adopt a new handle. 

Waffle Monster.

Along with my new persona, I will become nostalgic and note a trend I am noticing. Think back, way back, to the first FPS. Automatically, two giant titles spring to mind: Wolfenstein and Doom. Both games came out very close to each other, (Wolfenstein in 1992 with Doom coming two years later). Both brought to us what we can only tag with chaotic awesome. I can remember being four, and playing the Nazi based game of Wolfenstein, good times...

Wolfenstein began as a simple escape. The levels followed no real life example, instead incorporating excessive use of swastikas for hallway designs. It seemed to be a holy-church worshipping the furious Fuhrer, Hitler. It was never meant for historical accuracy, as the final boss is Adolf in a mechanosuit. Just, pure, happiness in 2d-3d form.

Then, Return to Castle Wolfenstein appears. This takes it much farther, as the story is amped up with a blow to the head with history. Now only that, but a few dangerous roofies of H.P. Lovecraft were thrown in for good measure, making an undead-ridden Nazi-palooza of a game. Evolution rears it's bittersweet head, and we take our original concept of a simple escape and turn it into a psychological adventure.

Doom was nearly comical, with it's basic "Here, take this gun and go KICK SATAN'S ASS!" through technological levels. Yet, the masses fought missile-launching baddies like lunatics. Doom 2 followed a very similar course, yet Doom 3 took our baby and spewed out a masterpiece. It truly showcased the horrors of hell from what was originally a test to see how much demon-ridden gore we could encroach upon the 90's. 

Now, I nearly sh*t myself thinking about the Dog-like thing that I can NEVER find with my damn flashlight!

Evolution takes our good games, and makes them different, better in most cases. Like the frost unto the puddle, it's a matter of conditions.

-Waffle Monster

The Weekend Rant: World War Edition.

The Weekend Rant is a new weekly feature here on the Videogame Vagabond were the Vagabond will tackle a subject about the Videogames Industry that annoyed him during the past week.


"Heres yet another game were you shoot Nazis"

"Another world war two shooter announced"

"This world war two shooter is better then all the other world war two shoots"

"Time to kill another 3 million Nazis"

Stop it.

Right now Stop it, your all acting like children.

It seems that every time there is a FPS set during World War two the whole world seems to explode in to proclaiming it as just "another world war 2 shooter" and that its all been done before. True that there have been many a FPS set during the bleak days of world war two but I am here to stop the howling and complaining that it is "played out".


Lets start by taking a look at shooters based on it. It seems that every year at least one game based on it comes out. Now i will say that most of these games are just variations of games that came before it but one in a blue moon one does some thing a little diffrent, Call of Duty: World at war reminded us why the UN banned flame throwers for instance.

Another thing that these games could try is basing the game on some other front then the western front, I will be the first one to amite that we have stormed the beachs of Normandy a few to many times. I would love to see a game based on the Mediterranean campaigns or the Eastern front, or prehapes the Pacific front would be a nice change of pace or if they really wanted to try some thing fresh they could base a game around the various resistance movments in Europe and abroad.

Another under utilized grouping is that of World War Two and the RTS/TSG genres. I mean a strategie game based on it seems like a no brainer but it seems that only a few companys seem to see this ( such as Relic's Company of Heros and 1C's up coming Men Of War ).


In the end i am just trying to point out that there is still room for World War Two in our games and that there is still touched potential there. All this said I am still waiting for some one to make a good game based on the American Civil war or World War one, but thats a rant for another weekend...

-The Vagabond.

The Mekapaedia Arises...

First off, I'd just like to say “Thank you!” to The Vagabond, for allowing me to join his prestigious blog. I hope I will not fail you, Lord Vagabond (for the last time...).

Firstly, a little about me: I am a nerd, addicted to tea, and prefer a lack of physical activity.

Also, Mekapaedia does have a meaning: “Meka” is a Japanese word for “Mechanical, involving robotics, computers and transportation.” (or so I've read, this was the precursor to “Mecha”) and “-paedia” means “knowledge/education” and the “ae” is simply the British spelling.

There we go, you now know me. On to the show...

...I will begin with something that will become commonplace from me: rants on computers.

Now, I used to be a big gamer when I was younger. I disliked XP (and non-windows OSs) for the longest time in favour of Windows 98 because it didn't play any games. All the games I played (it was like... early 2000s) ran on 95 to ME, not 2000/XP, because 2000/XP used the NT Kernel. See, from Windows 1, it was really MS-DOS with a window manager (graphics), similarly to Linux. But the NT kernel was a completely new OS without MS-DOS, a fully graphical OS, and didn't actually allow you to directly access the hardware (a la HAL.dll), making the OS more stable, but more sluggish. NT was released around the time of Windows 3.1, and is the current kernel behind all the recent releases of Windows (XP, Vista, 7). Anywho, I didn't like it. So I tried to stay with 98 until it decided that it didn't work very well any more (as Windows does) and I got a new computer. With XP. I quickly got used to it, and indeed, XP is the best Windows yet. And now, everything runs on XP, and the compatibility mode allows some older games to work. But more and more over the years, I've started to game less and less. Why? I'm not entirely sure, but it's probably an amalgamation of things. What do I do instead? I watch TV shows online, and I play with Linux.

Yep, Linux.

I personally find Linux much fun: something doesn't work, there's an answer, but you have to research and figure it out. It is wonderful for the mind. Eventually, I hope to set up a Linux sever in my basement, but that will be a while, because I have things to do and things to learn. Anyway, since this is a gaming blog, I may as well dispel two myths about Linux: 1: It's hard to use, and 2: It doesn't play any games.

1: This is so ridiculously untrue it's not even funny: sure, you can get Arch Linux and try and command line everything, but even that just takes some time (and another computer to look up stuff with), but the vast majority of Distros (different versions of Linux, there are hundreds) out there have window managers (Graphical user interfaces, GUIs) that are as easy, if not easier then Windows's. Seriously, download an Ubuntu LiveCD and try it for yourself. I think the GUI is even better and easier to use then Windows. And prettier. There are lots of effects that the GUI can do, ones that make Vista look dull, and yet it still takes less system resources then Vista. Huh. And seriously, try out Ubuntu (or Linux Mint, that one's good too). http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download for Ubuntu and http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php for Linux Mint.

2: Depends what you want to do. Due to the nature of the Linux community, there are many, many free games (FPS, Racing, RTS, RPG, etc...) that you can get. Most of them Open Source, so if you wanted to help you, you could! But that's not what most people want. They want the games everyone else is playing. They want Windows games. And do they run on Linux? Well... yes. Yes they do. Well, some of them, at least, thanks to Wine. Wine is a Windows compatibility layer (don't say emulator, they don't like that...) that allows the usage of Windows programs. What works? Well, off the front page of the AppsDB: Guild Wars, Baldur's Gate, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Counter Strike Source, Team Fortress 2, EVE Online, Command and Conquer 3, Call of Duty 4... etc, etc... the list goes on. Sure, it's doesn't play everything, and sure, it have to type “wine whatever_program.exe” to start it, but it is gaming on Linux. And Linux doesn't really have many viruses. Also, there is a distro made exclusively for gaming, called “linuX-Gamers LiveDVD”. It's a DVD that runs the OS (it can install, but you don't have to) and it loaded with games. Don't worry, it has a GUI... http://live.linux-gamers.net/?s=download for linuX-Gamers LiveDVD and http://winehq.org/download/ for Wine.

Well, that about sums it up. I'm going to try the Windows 7 Beta soon, I'll tell you how that does. In fact, I'm re-partitioning my hard drive and installing multiple OSs (Windows 7 included), so we'll see how that goes.

-Mekapaedia

Crafting War.

There are 11 million players currently experiencing the nearly orgasmic online experience of World Of Warcraft. I'm here to make an analysis on why that might be.

Blizzard has always done a very good job on their games. Most are full of Pop Culture references, or general humor as it would be. While WoW will always be a funny game, with an almost cartoony visage to it (I swear to god, Orcs have shoulderpads that could house a family of five!), it also sets a very effective theme depending on where you choose to adventure. With that, comes the Choice of Character. With ten different races split up into two large factions, the Horde (Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Undead and Blood Elves) and the Alliance (Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Night Elves and the Draenei) they effectively set up a basis for PvP. It's nice, clean and efficient. Not only that, but further you have your classes, all very different from each other (Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Priest, Warlock, Shaman, Hunter, Druid and Paladin), which then become even MORE diversified when you specialize talent points into three trees, different for each class. Effectively, we have every possible role covered. 

Second, is the stunning amount of work that went in. Every zone is completely different, the music accompanying each one perfect. The quests, and characters, and beasts roaming about is perfectly pulled off. It just makes sense. Parts can be really creepy, ven though my character is effectively a Cow-man. It's great.

It's epic. When you conquer that huge dragon, or that bastard machine (looking at you, Fel Reaver) there is definitely  a feeling of achievement. The landscapes make you feel epic, the gear makes you feel epic, it's great!

It caters to everyone. Whether you like to be an Arena gladiator, and get a partner or four and face off against other players, or feel the need to join groups of 10 or more players to defeat difficult bosses. Whether you'd rather join Battlegrounds, or collect mounts / pets. It's all there.

Am sorry but i ordered fun with my game.

With news of the new dead rising game I think its time to reveal an awful truth.

I HATED DEAD RISING!

I can not put enough anger in to that sentence to feel truly satisfied.

The game started out fine,a cool interative cut seen flying over a city engulfed in wonderful anarchy and zombies.God do i love zombies.Theres a special kind of terror that they bring with them,i mean they could have been your brother or your mother or your girlfriend but what ever feelings they felt for you are gone and replaced with a lust and a want to eat your face.

After the cut seen you land on top of a mall and are greeted by a strange man,setting up a deep plot?Me like.You then go down in to the mall and are greeted with the sight of survivors,its good to know that your not alone in this zombie apocalypse.You mix and mingle with them like guests at a fine cocktail party and then a cute little dog comes to the front glass entrance and starts barking and scratching at the doors,the zombies seem to not care about it and you hope it goes on its way.But low and behold that that old sobbing woman in the corner lives up to the stereotype and owns that dog and she will be damned if its left out there and she is more then ready to sell all of us down the river if it means she gets her dog.What fallows is a truly hilarious seen.The old woman opens the door and the zombies issue forth hell bent on ruining your day.

Well you make it out ok and people are now scaterd across the mall you meet a friendly janitor who helps you and you find out that you need to go save the people and find out who that strange man was who greeted you at the start.

Then they precede to Ruin The Game. In this game if you want 100% or even a good ending you have to save and save and save if you mess up,To Bad ,and the shooting handles like a you have just broken your shooting arm and the final kick in the balls is the fact that there is a time limit. Am sorry but i didnt realise that it was 1988 and that i was putting quarters in the machine.

I never played past the 2 hour mark.If a game isnt fun or enjoyable at that point then i hope you do the right thing,microwave the disk.Dont return it and make others suffer like you did.

However killing zombies with a soccer ball was awesome.

-The Vagabond

Litter Box

At some point during your many hours invested in the gaming experience, you've played a sandbox game. Whether it was Pokemon, wherein you saved that Master Ball for WEEKS, only to get pissed off and waste it on a Snorlax instead of the mutant pink thing you originally strove for. Maybe it was Destroy All Humans, with the ability to raise hell in any major city your little green head saw fit. Perhaps, if you are a caffeine addicted preteen, you wasted away in front of any of the new Grand Theft Auto games. Either way, at some point in time, there has been a game where you had the option of doing anything you really wanted.

But, this has to be pulled off effectively. 

I'm not going to lie, I dislike most of the GTA games. I find something rather arbitrary and a little shall we say, moronic about being a gangster in any way shape or form. Video games which put that much power into your hands, especially marketed to the masses of newly-adolescent (or almost adolescent) market. When you have the option of stealing a car, AND killing civilians as a 12 year old, what do you do? No. I know the sarcastic comment you're thinking of. You do NOT go around picking up trash, donating money, and generally making our virtual community a better place. You emulate the stereotypical rampages of the drug-ridden underground. Lovely. 

Destroy All Humans had a novel concept, one that everyone could find amusing. Problem was, was that it was a bit clunky with the sandbox idea. It's either screw around, or do the main missions. While I can appreciate zapping tank from the safety of my flying plate, I have to restart in order to go back to do what I want to do. 

Both of these games need to learn something from the King Pin of the Sandbox Game industry: Bethesda Softworks.

Better known as the womb from which The entire Elder Scrolls series was conceived. Morrowind to Oblivion, those are the ultimate Sandbox game. We'll be putting our analysis on Oblivion. Oblivion features a very seemless Sandbox mode. I can do the main questline, or stop halfway and go visit anywhere I wanted. The great thing is that there's NO TIME LIMIT. You're never pressured into doing anything. As long as I arrive at this household, at the designated time of day / night I'm good. Not to mention it all makes sense. I decided to run straight east from the Imperial City. I found a pack of wolves, three forlorn caves (One I decided to do sometime later, it was full of undead), a minotaur, a couple Oblivion Gates, and a few camps of Bandits. Walking away I was a couple pieces of armor richer, and had the triumph of clearing out two infested caves. Killed a minotaur, stole from the bandits, and closed an Oblivion gate. The great part? I wasn't at all "told" to this! I found them of my own accord and decided to react the way I did. The game allows you to be whatever you feel necessary!

My Character is a Berserker. He's in full heavy armor, with a big axe. He's also the passive type. If I wanted to, I could join the Assassin's guild and become rich off death. The fighters guild and become famous for my heroic acts! I could be a pickpocket, and constantly be caught by guards for stealing their keys (harder than it looks). I'm already and Arena Combatant. You can join factions, get your virtual ass handed to you by whatever the hell was in those ruins (it was at night, I couldn't see). Point is, it's up to you and is pulled off way better than nearly any Sandbox game out there.

Especially GTA.

-Afro Stan

(Hiding before an angry mob of pre-pubescent 12 year olds come to call me names)

A outside look at a inside job.

This is the first artical of a series of articals that will cover various aspects of video game journalism.This first one is on the journalists themselves.




Much like primitive man watching a wiseman perform his magic me and other 'hardrcore' gamers watch in awe at the articals and reviews are created as if by magic by gamings own version of wisemen,Video game journalists.

But what function do they serve? Are they truly the wise men of the games industry or are they just people who get payed to talk about there opinions on the things we love most,video games.

Video game journalists are tasked with many a thing to write about,be it writing reviews or writing articals on game genres,the future of games or any other such artical,this shows that video game journalists live busy lives.

A video game journalists will probably work in the industry for over 10 years,in many cases more.In that time they truly get a grasp of the games themselfs,they understand what makes a good game and what makes a bad one,they carefully weigh each of the games aspects, graphics, story, game play,ect like a trained chemist and give the game a score.The simple fact is that in most cases the score with make or brake the game,most people will only look at the score before buying a game but as games like Beyond good and evil and Psychonauts show that good scores cant sell games alone.In that regard a video game journalist must feel angry some times.They try to infrom people of a great game but the game is brushed over by most.

But from all that experience of knowing what a good game is and what a bad game is leads many video game journalists to the magical realm of video game development and producing,showing that video game journalism can be a stepping stone in to the wider realm of the games industry.

From that experience it also alows them to write more in depth articals about the games they review and the industry in general.

In the end the job of a video game journalists is a hard one.They must be able to write interesting articals and be able to truly judge games and think deeply about them,but hell they play videogames for a living.

-The Vagabond

Who yah gonna call?

Upcoming game, Ghostbusters!

Y'know, there's a weird feeling you sometimes get. That knowledge that, if done effectively, you will save yourself from what is a seemingly inevitable meeting of your face to pavement. They usually hit it off pretty well. It is at this time that I get that same dreadful sensation of going over my bike's handlebars. I am a huge fan of Ghostbusters, the animated series to knowing the quotes leading up to the Stay Puff't guy by heart. So, imagine my joy when I see a trailer advertising my hopes and dreams in game form! But then, it sets in. 

Fear.

Panic.

Claustrophobia as I sit in my comfortable leather chair, wondering if this'll become a one-liner laden version of Luigi's Mansion. It would be SO EASY to ruin this game for me. How, you ask? A collectable easily found item. Remember the fruits from Crash Bandicoot? Or the quirky item from any game ever produced by Nickelodeon? Exactly. From early prototype gameplay videos we see that it's going to be a lot like a kids version of Gears of War or Dead Space. The cutscenes look great so far, but the gameplay is really going to have to add something fun to it to stand out. I hope to god you get a character choice, and that multiplayer is avaliable.

Either way, I'll be purchasing this game to live my nostalgia on screen.

- Afro Stan

A poem from Afro Stan

 Once upon a midnight bloody, trudging through streets muddy

 stepping over twisted zombie corpses galore

Whilst we four came a crawling, I heard the sound of someone bawling

With sudden fear clenching our hearts, we peered

Sudden sight not aiding our fallen cheer,

A sobbing adolescent sat in the corner of yore

Frantic looks of experience, yet of this figure I could make no sense

Whom could roam with zombies and not be reduced to gore?

Neither member of the group, saw me draw shotgun resolute

" I don't trust it", spake mine brain

"Such a girl out there is insane!"

Out of the doorway, I crept across the floor

Before companions can stop me, I've nearly touched the sobbing teen

Whom jumps up with a scream, and I'm attacked by an undead bitch

Glowing eyes I hadn't seen burst unto the scene

Wild zombie clawing at my face

Shredding skin at an alarming pace

Quoth the server: "Keaton hath startled the Witch"

In the beginning...

Welcome?

This is but one of thousands of videogame blogs,and of course this will hopfully be but a stepping stone to the vastly lucrative business of videogames journalism and in time this blog will be abandoned when i received my first paycheck and when there is massive layoff and i am out on the street i will come crawling back here...

But enough of the future.

The Videogame Vagabond (wikipedia article for 'Vagabond' is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagabond ) will be a place of higher thought,lower thought,videogames,reviews,and a helping me develop my writing skills.


Lets hope that this will become a place of thought full posts full of wit and charm,and that it dosnt fall pray to my habit of starting things and never finshing them,and that this endeavor will help me reach the ever so high parthenon of videogame journalists.