Apocalypso's Atomic Arcade

2009/11/18

What the Hell is That Green Thing in The Sims?

It’s been there since The Sims 1, and has been there through every expansion and addon. Then there was the sequel, The Sims 2, and every expansion for that one too. Then this year saw The Sims 3 and the brand new The Sims 3: World Adventures.

All the while, I’ve never really known what the hell that green thing is hanging over a sim’s head. I read on the official Sims 3 Twitter account that it’s called a “plumb bob”.

In The Sims 2, it even changed colour from red, orange, yellow, right through to white. So what the hell is a plumb bob?

I was talking to my brother, and all the while I was playing with this thing, a led item hanging on a thread, which almost looked like a spinning top. It turns out that is a plumb bob.

Also spelled as plumb-bob, or as The Sims 3 wiki spells it: PlumbBob. Some even call it a "plummet".

Mystery solved.

2009/11/17

Wikipedia Needs You(r Money)

I was doing my occasional check up on Wikipedia, and saw this message in large letters above the article:

Wikipedia Forever

Whether it didn’t get the message across, I came back one or two days later to discover that once again in large letters, there was a new message:

Knowledge Forever
Ad-Free Forever
Wikipedia Forever

I came back to an article today, and there's this:

The guys in charge of Wikipedia have been talking about how they are going to keep the online encyclopedia running. They don’t want to resort to ad supported articles, like some gaming wikis I’ve come across do. So they came up with this donation option. It’s not the first time, seeing as I know it’s been done before in the past.

Modern Warfare 2 is (not) Surprisingly Short, Like Most FPSs Nowadays

I’ve read it online and I’ve heard it from other people: Modern Warfare 2 was too short.

My brother and I were talking lately and he happened to be pissed off. He said he finished Modern Warfare 2 in only several hours of playing and it was a total rip-off.

I started playing the game in the early hours of Saturday morning, and played a few sessions throughout that day and Sunday, and in the early hours of Monday morning, it was over.
I was really getting in to the game, and all of a sudden it stopped. I should have known that the ending with MacTavish lying on the floor with a knife sticking out of his chest and Shepard kicking the cr@p out of Price was the ending, but I was just so taken in to the game that I didn’t realize that soon the experience would end. I was kind of disappointed.

The thing is no Call of Duty game in history has ever been a long game. With practically every CoD game I’ve ever played, it only took me a few sessions over a period of 2 to 4 days (with breaks) to finish.

And to come across any game nowadays which takes more than several hours to finish is a rarity, besides Fallout 3 or something, which is an RPG. I’m talking about FPSs; shooters.

I mean, Wolfenstein was primarily an FPS with a few extra elements added in to the mix, and even though some claim it was boring, it still took me longer to finish than Modern Warfare 2.

Ever since the nineties, FPS games have evolved tremendously in several areas, but they have been getting shorter in lifespan for the most part. How many times have I played Duke Nukem 3D over the years, and how long did it take me to play through all four episodes of the Atomic Edition? More often, and much longer, to answer both questions.

Yes, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 does have the added bonus of Special Ops missions, some of which are more challenging than what was offered in the actual singleplayer, but once again, the main campaign is pretty short. If only the effort that went into these Special Ops missions was used to extend the singleplayer missions. Most of them were just outtakes from the campaign, but the suspension bridge one was fun.

Well, there is that DLC or expansion which revolves around Ghost that everyone is talking about now, so maybe there will be an extra few missions.

2009/11/16

Video Game Deals: Guitar Hero World Tour and On Tour

I've been looking at the best deals lately, and I've picked up on a Guitar Hero theme over at Amazon:

Guitar Hero World Tour - Guitar Kit (PS3) - $39.49 - Save $20.50
Guitar Hero World Tour (Xbox 360) - $28.49 - Save $13.50
Guitar Hero on Tour Decades - Software Only (DS) - $17.49 - Save $12.00
Guitar Hero: On Tour - Software Only (DS)- $17.49 - Save $10.50

Guitar Hero on Amazon

Modern Warfare 2's Ghost Character to get his own game

Some people think that "Soap" MacTavish is the best character in the Modern Warfare series. Others say its Captain Price, because he's featured in nearly every single main Call of Duty title. I was in the later group, until I saw Ghost.

Ghost is the guy in Modern Warfare 2 with the skull patterned balaclava and the sunglasses, whose real name is Simon Riley, a Sergeant in the SAS and member of Task Force 141, and he just looks and acts so cool.

Too bad he gets killed in the game. Shot and burned alive. Oh dear.

Oops. Sorry if you haven't played it yet.

Craig Fairbrass, the actor who voiced Gaz in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, also voiced Ghost in Modern Warfare 2, and he claims that Infinity Ward is planning a spin-off title for the character, possibly a DLC pack. He's all ready got a comic book series named after him, Modern Warfare 2: Ghost, the first issue out now.

"I'm now voicing a guy called Ghost, who now just got a spin-off comic of his own and they're talking about another little game to go with it. So, I’m quite excited about it. It’s grown and grown and grown.”

“I don’t know. It’s the whole thing I suppose of not knowing who he is. He’s like the head of the SAS and… I’m just so thrilled to be a part of it, I mean it just gets bigger and bigger each year.”

If it does turn out to be a DLC pack or expansion, it will likely be the first kind of addon since United Offensive for the first CoD game. What do the fans say? More or less along the lines of, "I hate you Infinity Ward", "Modern Warfare 2 sucks", and "They're milking the game for more money". Surprise, surprise.

Personally I think that Ghost might be a rip-off of another character of the same name from Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. He was one of Strelok's buddies and also obscured his features, albeit with a hood and a gas mask. When you think that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare also featured a Pripyat level like Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, in "All Ghillied Up", I start to wonder.

Whatever the case, he is not the "head of the SAS".

Some say that Ghost is basically an inside joke at IW, basically like the Kenny McCormick of the developing Modern Warfare series, as he replaced Gaz who was killed in Modern Warfare.

Some say he might be Gaz and that he wears the mask to cover up the injuries he sustained in Modern Warfare. If you look at how the Price character kept reappearing in the series even after he was supposedly killed in Call of Duty, and crossed over into Modern Warfare, it's not impossible I guess.

All we know is he's called the Stig.

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thatvideogameblog.com

Apocalypse Then: Half-Life 2

5 Years of Half-Life 2

Well, it’s hard to believe, but it has indeed been five years since the release of one of the most critically acclaimed FPS titles ever, Half-Life 2. It’s the sequel to yet another well-known and loved game, Half-Life.

Half-Life 2 was developed by the renowned and lately somewhat controversial Valve Corporation, and was released on November 16, 2004 for the PC, after being in development nearly since the original game came out over five years before it, with console versions of the game following lin years later. It was the first in a line of controversial Steamworks games; titles which involve Steam, Valve’s online digital distribution service, and require online product activation. This caused a lot of public outcry, especially for players without a broadband connection. The game was later included in The Orange Box compilation pack along with Team Fortress 2, Portal, and the Half-Life 2 Episodes. Half-Life 2 continued the science fiction story of the mute scientist known as Gordon Freeman, as awakens from approximately twenty year of stasis and he finds himself in City 17, a strange Eastern European-looking place in the future under alien control; the Combine having assembled forces consisting of transhumans, as well as other methods of maintaining compliance, like using headcrabs as part of their biological warfare arsenal. You remember those from Half-Life, right? Gordon found himself yet again being manipulated by the mysterious G-man, and fighting alongside resistance members as well as some old friends from Black Mesa to take on the powers that controlled the City, as well as possibly many other cities of its kind across the world. Dr. Wallace Breen was one of the chief enemies in the game.

Half-Life 2, although arguably not the most graphically advanced game in the world at the time years ago, was still beautiful, and a marvelous game, with great AI and revolutionary physics, animation, gameplay, and story, and was applauded for its immense use of technology, unlike one of its main competitors of that year, Doom 3. It won numerous Game of the Year awards. If people thought that Half-Life was great, then Half-Life 2 was excellent, and is on many lists of greatest FPSs of all time, and its protagonist, Gordon, has been voted as one of the best heroes of any game, despite being a man of very few words, if any at all.

I have played this game at least a few times over the years, as well as the Episodes. When I originally got it, I couldn't wait until Christmas- I had to play it then and there. I remember for a whole few days during the summer holidays of 2004 I was stuck there playing it, just glued to the screen.

There was an expansion pack rumoured in 2005, called Half-Life: Aftermath, but this turned out to be a series of addons called the Episodes, which so far consists of Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Episode 2, and the yet to be released Episode 3, which is still in development. These episodes were part of a supposed revolutionary concept called "episodic content", which means that the masses don’t have to wait for the next game in the series, which in this case would be Half-Life 3. In a sense, the episodes are Half-Life 3, although some argue that Valve would have been able to develop and release a proper sequel in the last five years, and that the episodic content idea, although promising, hasn’t worked too well. In addition to the episodes, another addon called Lost Coast was also released for the game.

Besides this, Half-Life 2, using the Source engine has inspired many games which use the same technology, a lot of which Valve or teams hired by them, has made, as well as fan-made mods, including a remake of both Half-Life (Black Mesa Source), and the expansion, Opposing Force (Operation Black Mesa).

Games that used the Source engine include Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, SiN Episode 1: Emergence, and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, as well as a Source engine version of They Hunger, called They Hunger: Lost Souls, which is yet to be released. They Hunger was an excellent three part mod for Half-Life.

So Valve, come on and hurry up with Half-Life 2: Episode 3 all ready!