That Crazy Little Thing Called Life

You might have noticed that I haven’t posted all that much lately.

My contract concluded at the end of November last year, and a few weeks earlier I was thinking that I’d have a ton of time to make regular updates. I’d even made a bit of a resolution to myself to try and get a post out each day.

But as they say, the best laid plans of mice.

On the Friday, the week before the contract ended I recieved a call from a friend whom I’d worked with a few years prior and with whom I’d hadn’t seen for a couple of years. He, and a couple of partners, had formed a startup business about three years ago and had just come into some government grant …

Jean-Luc Picard Is A Big Wuss

I’ve been meaning to write this article for a while now, but life decided to come by and slap me silly. (More on that shortly.)

Anyhoo. Star Trek Online. Oh, and please note this is not a review, I have spent in no way enough time in the beta to work up a review. This is simply an impressions and thoughts piece.

It sounds like the dream IP for a MMORPG developer. A huge pre-existing and completely obsessed with anything Star Trek fan base. An IP that is all about exploration, seeking out new life, and boldly going where no one has gone before. The TV series, all of them, have drama, diplomacy, puzzle-solving, space combat, ground combat, humour, and a hopeful outlook on the future.

It should …

2010 Prognostications

It’s kind of an expected activity for bloggers these days. At the end of each year, we make a bunch of predictions for the coming year and review the ones we made last year. But since I didn’t actually make any predictions last year, there’s only one thing to do.

Make some predictions for the coming year, 2010.

I did consider writing my predictions in some form of abstract poetry like our friend Nostradamus (pictured right.) After all, anything written in an abstract and obtuse manner can be interpreted as 100 percent correct after the fact. But really, where’s the fun in that? And writing poetry isn’t really my forte — There once was …

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright

I recently tried out the two week free return visit of Age of Conan and decided against resubscribing despite a renewed sense of fun playing the Barbarian class and a huge improvement in the game that has occurred since release. That decision hasn’t changed, but dang! The new mounts that are to be released with the Rise of the Godslayer expansion are something to behold!

Age of Conan always has been one of the more graphically gorgeous games around, and Funcom keep upping the ante with content like this. Giving players a tiger to ride around on is awesome (and fairly tempting I might add) and a great concept to get players back into …

A Cautionary Tale: The Sad Case Of Duke Nukem

There’s a particularly good analysis up on Wired on how the development of Duke Nukem Forever ended up living up to its name by taking forever to develop, and finally getting canceled. (Be aware, some of the article is NSFW.)

DNF was the major game release that I had been quietly waiting for since it was announced back in 1997. Having thoroughly enjoyed Duke Nukem 3D, and seeing some of the early screenshots, it was disappointing when they finally announced that the game had been killed. It seemed all those jokes about the DNF release date being a few days short of the heat death of the universe weren’t all that far off the mark.

Still, if …

Has WoW Been Finished?

This last week a Taiwanese player completed every World of Warcraft achievement in the game.

Does this mean he has officially finished World of Warcraft?

I know there are some games that let you keep going after the game is over, Civilization comes to mind, but if every goal in the game is done…

well, the game is over… right?

Time to cancel the sub, uninstall, and get some fresh air. Or pick a new game.

CrimeCraft Mugged By Aussie Censor

Once again, yet another game has fallen victim to the South Australian Attorney General, Michael Atkinson — the man unelected by the majority of the people that he has control over — and the OFLC.

CrimeCraft, an upcoming MMOFPS game, has been refused classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification not because of violence or sexual content, but because the names of the in-game drugs come close to those of the real world. You might remember that was the reason that Fallout 3 was originally refused classification too, the healing drug was called morphine. The developers later changed the name and the game was approved.

It’s a ridiculous situation in Australia at the moment. We have a R classification for movies, but not for games. …

Trying Conan

So here I am at the end of the two week reactivation trial from Funcom for Age of Conan.

For the first couple of days I replayed old characters, primarily Stropp the Aquilonian Dark Templar, and to be honest with you I didn’t find that character very engaging. I didn’t feel invested in the quests, and perhaps it was the area, those quests seemed to be a little disjointed and a bit boring.

So I decided to create a new character. Bargarse the Barbarian, a Cimmerian.

The Barbarian class in Age of Conan is effectively a rogue archetype. He’s able to stealth and do most everything a rogue does. At first blush this seemed a bit of a stretch for me, I’d never have pegged Arnie’s portrayal of …