A Random Monii

The nostalgia seems to be fully-charged this past week. Today I’m going to talk about Oblivion.

Oblivion, most of you should know it. The amazing game which should, by all rights, suck you in for a couple of months, at least. The one which deposits you in this world, this beautiful virtual world, which seems perfect. Which capivates you so much, that even when you discover that it’s not perfect you stick around. You keep playing, whether it be to level or to complete quests or to just explore.

For me it was exploring. I loved exploring the province of Cyrodiil, loved trudging through Black Marsh and leaping around the snow-capped mountains to the North. Loved opening up all of those map markers, to show how far I had traveled.  Loved taking time, days and days in Real Time, to traverse the land and behave how my character would have.  It was amazing. And why am I speaking in past tense?

Because I’m now a real student. I honestly, unfortunately, have very little time for gaming. I spend my free time with people, and for the first time in my life I’ve truly been accepted into a group. Any gaming I do is tabletop (DnD for the win), and the only time I’ve touched a computer to frag was in a hall full of people, to show the boys that yes, the girl could game. I do miss Oblivion, because it took up so much of my time. It sucked me in, it made me download hundreds of MB of mods. Made me get involved in my characters, write biographies for them, write journals. And I loved it. But for now, real life beckons. I occasionally want to slip an Oblivion reference into a DnD game, and I still might.

Garry Newman is the smart guy who developed Garry’s Mod. So smart, that Valve even took on his mod and let him release it commercially over Steam for (some) profit. Most modders would never even dream of the success that this guy has had. Why was he successful? Well, here’s some ideas.

• He had a creative, innovative idea to use the Source engine to make a sandbox game., based on a already successful concept (JBMod).
• He released open betas. Quickly. Many were reported to be buggy, but the concept sold it and people kept coming back for more.
• He made the mod for fun. To play with a small group, and it then ballooned from there. Remember that, modders, fun?
• Gameplay was always first to him.

Cheers, Garry. If more modders followed your path, their mods wouldn’t suck. Thank you. Garry’s Blog is here, if you want to read his own thoughts or track the progress of the mod.

Garry’s Mod, for the record, is one of the most entertaining ways I’ve spent my hours on the pc recently. There are even many populars mods for it (yes, mods for a mod). And with the new beta in testing for Orange Box material, Garry shows no signs of stopping yet.

“War, it ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Peace, love and understanding
Tell me, is there no place for them today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord knows there’s got to be a better way” - War, EDWIN STARR

My sister has do to an essay in school on the topic of “[Insert Religion Here]: War and Peace”. She chose Christianity because our family is Christian and she thought it would be easiest to do it from her own perspective. It got me thinking on the whole concept of war.

I must admit that I’m enthralled by the idea of war. I even admitted recently that if it weren’t for the harsh physical training and the danger, I’d be thrilled to go and join an army. Living with people, forming a unit under harsh conditions, fighting against A Common Enemy. Conflict is central to the human race, and a war is as much conflict as we can come up with. As a writer the idea intrigues me endlessly.

The gaming industry seems to have an addiction to World War II games- Medal Of Honor, Call Of Duty, Soldiers: Heroes of WWII and Battlefield 1942 come to mind (check out Wikipedia’s “World War II Video Games” page by clicking here. That’s a lot of games). That’s excluding the massive sway counter-terrorist games have held in the last 5 years- Counterstrike and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, anyone?

And the gaming industry bosses and me aren’t the only ones- the word is hooked on war. Aside from the obvious War In Iraq, the sole reason I am glad I’m living in South Africa (as we aren’t touched directly by the whole messy business), war is reflected everywhere. It always has been, from the start of time. Your grandfather’s generation played with toy soldiers and your generation plays with virtual soldiers. Or real soldiers.

But is war morally right? Let’s see what the internet says.

Christians seem to be divided in half on this issue. Various parties believe that war can be justified in certain circumstances (The Just War Theory), such as terrorism. The Just War theory believes that war should not involve inocents, and if innocents are getting hurt then people with ‘legitimate authority’ should step in to stop it. It is our Christian responsibility to make sure that innocents do not suffer. As a side note, this includes attacks on unarmed civilian buildings. I’m looking at you, Iraq War.

On the other hand, many bloggers out there believe that war shouldn’t happen for any excuse. They use Bible readings such as Matthew 26:47-53, Romans 12:9-21 and Matthew 5:38-48 to justify this stance, stating that Jesus never condoned violence and neither should his followers. See this article from the National Catholic Reporter, and this article from the Collegian, Missisuri Baptist University.

What do I think? Why would anyone want to hurt anyone else, especially physically? It’s not the ‘Christian’ thing to do, and it’s certainly not the Monii thing to do. Virtual violence, along with many other things we end up doing in games, is good for entertainment and stress relief- but that doesn’t mean that it’s right to do these things for real.

Hey everyone! I’m back from my trip overseas with a bunch of games, thanks to the generous donations of my family. Today I’m going to be looking at Battlefront II.

I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoyed Battlefront I. It was tons of fun, mowing down droids (or clones, if that was your flavour) and racing to capture checkpoints. The only experience I’d had with Battlefront games was 1942, and only in limited amounts. So SW Battlefront was a refreshing experience, and I even completed all of the modes. I’m notorious for not finishing games, and SW Battlefront was one I’m proud to say I finished.

But onto Battlefront II. What’s changed? Well, you don’t need to tell me that. IGN has detailed hands-on reviews from 2005- click here for first impressions or second impressions by the IGN crew. In my opinion, it’s essentially the same game with an added sugar rush. The graphics are shinier (so be careful you low-end computer owners), the gameplay is faster and the storyline in single-player works much better. I’m not a big fan of the vehicular/space sections, but even I can admit that the space battles look very authentic and are probably fun for those folk who can manage to pilot the darn things. For the other people who also get spacesick, like me, you can always fly your craft into the belly of the enemy ship and cause sabotage on foot. Wicked.

The AI seems to have been boosted, too. The snipers on both sides hit their marks much more, and many a time my plans have been thwarted by an NPC simply ducking or diving out of the way of my explosions. A sprint button has been added, which is invaluable. But the best new feature, in my opinion, has to be the squad commands. It’s not any Republic Commando (which I still haven’t played…yet) by a long shot, but it’s always good to have extra firepower at your back when facing a snail tank droid or a Jedi.

In short, it’s an awesome play. The only real problem I found was that my conscious started twinging when I was told to slaughter Jedi padawans in the Temple.

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Now playing: RENT - Another Day
via FoxyTunes

So I hit 60 and have been working on my leatherworking skill. Not having to worry about XP anymore changes the game hecticly, but it’s still interesting.

And tonight a group of my 55-70 lvl friends and I decided to try raiding. Well, Onyxia completely wiped us three times.  We didn’t have a healer, see.

But it was fun to try. >_>

Title taken from the wonderful Pure Pwnage online show.

Yup, still playing WoW. My hunter’s level 55 now, and I killed my first level 50 gold elite dragon yesterday. Now I can’t wait to hit 60 and start organising some raiding.

I’m currently 6th out of 80 kids in my grade right now, so I’m allowed to leave study hall early until exams start. Privileges FTW.  There’s only a few more days until mocks, which is a little bit scary. I did fill in my university application, but currently my principal is taking a year to sign it. *sigh* If I don’t get in, I’ll blame him.

On the advice of a fellow gamer, this morning my hunter took a trip across to Horde territory. Why? To get a new pet. My old bear, Baloo, died and I wasn’t able to res him in time… so I asked for an idea for a cool new pet.

The suggestion I was given? Humar the Pridelord.

On my first try, I killed the mobs around him very easily, and thought he’d be a piece of cake. I was wrong. I’d never gotten owned by an animal half my level before.  It took me three chances to try and tame this guy, but I’m glad I did. I’ve renamed him Thane, to keep a bit of his lordly title.

So I started playing World of Warcraft again, about 5 days ago. My dwarf hunter is now level 35.

Yeah, it’s very addicting. I played to the point of a headache today. >_>

In other news, I’m planning for the great MoniiFest 2008. You don’t know about it? Well, if you haven’t been told already then you don’t need to know. *grin* The trip will be fun, but the planning is a mission and a half, let me tell you. I’m aiming at May right now. Anyone want me to come and visit? Drop me a comment or an email.

At last!

Lesson learnt, never listen to a Hong Kong website when they tell you to expect your product in 14 days. They mean a month, at least.

Some things I love about Diamond:

• I think the starter Pokemon are very cute. I wanted the chimp /and/ the penguin.
• The fact you can run indoors. One of the annoyances for me before was the slowwwww speed indoors, especially with all of those indoor dungeons.
• The Poketch. The clock is just cool. I’m easily impressed.
• The cool graphics that make it psuedo-3D.

I’ll add more as I go, I’m only about a 1/2 hour into the game. I haven’t even got a gym badge yet!

You have to love your friends.

Especially when they make you want to live again. 

In other news…I fixed Oblivion!  Y’see, I have a bad habit of buying fantastic games and then making them better with mods. Except that I tend to break my games… too many mods spoil the broth or something. But I finally got Oblivion to work and am slowly slowly adding one mod at a time. It’s so pretty… I’ve missed it so much.