Sunday, February 28, 2010

8001050F

Tonight, after crushing a few Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus, I
decided to pop in MW2 and attempt to sign into PSN. I got a "Could not
sign into Playstation Network error code 8001050F" message. I power
cycled my router and modem, no change. I tried it again, and found no
resolution. I opened the internet browser on the PS3 and that worked and
loaded fine. I then did some research and typed in 8001050F into Google
and found 30 news stories all posted around 10:00 pm EST stating that
there were network problems and the 8001050F problem was the culprit.
Trophies, calendars, and PSN it self are all effected and I have not
found any news about Sony's plan of attack to fix the issue. The only
news I can find is Sony admitting there is a problem on the network. A
time frame, a solution, and any word if this will effect my current
account still have not been announced as of this post. Color me
disappointed, but not surprised,we get what we pay for on the PSN.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Starcraft 2 beta

I just wanted to make a quick note and let everyone know I am in the Starcraft 2 beta. I will go over the NDA and see what I can and can't say on here, but it's exciting, and really fun.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Bioshock and facebook

As of late, I have been behind the times. I still had not finished Mass Effect when Mass Effect 2 came out. Even worse, I have not started Bioshock, and Bioshock 2 just came out. I have had it sitting it sitting in my steam account for over a year now and never got around to it. I started playing this week, and boy, have I been missing out. The game is set in 1960, in an underwater city. You show up after some catastrophe has turn the city into a shit show. I am about an hour or two into the game and already it's great. It has enough of a challenge but isn't frustratingly stupid hard. I have noticed that ammo is hard to come by, so that should provide for a challenge, conserve ammo instead of shooting away at everything. I plan on finishing this next, then moving on to Mass Effect 2, then Bioshock 2. That series of games should take me to Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, or, I may slip that in between some of the other games.

We have launched a facebook fan page. You can become a fan on the left nav, or simply by searching for D Pad D Bags on facebook. We will be posting links to all our blogs there, as well as, some fun other things. Become a fan, and help spread the word!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Team Fortress 2 - Highlander Mode


About a week or so ago valve announced a new game mode for TF2, Highlander Mode. When I mentioned it to people, they figured it involved cutting off heads. They are close, they got the cutural reference right. Highlander mode means that there can only be one of each class on each team...get it? "There can only be one". I played a couple rounds and it's pretty fun, I find that it really amplifies the need for skilled players, for a couple reasons. The first off is the obvious, with the ability to only have one of each class, you only get nine players on your team. If so much as three people are out of place, or dead at the wrong time, you can loose a game very fast. The second reason is that if you end up with someone with little to no skill as a specific class, you are fucked. Since you can only have one Engineer, if he is not good at placing his sentry, it becomes an issue, or if you sniper is just plain bad, you will have an issue, or a medic who only heals one person. There are a couple upsides, the first is you are almost guaranteed to have a medic on your team. I find that medics can be scarce at times, even in much larger games. The other upside is, it is fun as hell. I really enjoy it. While having a bad player bringing the entire team down can be frustrating, it is a very very fun concept, and it is implemented very well. If you have Team Fortress 2, I highly recommend finding a couple Highlander mode games. If not, I highly recommend buying the game. It is worth it, and the free updates are endless. If you are looking for someone to play with, add Phegan to your stream friends and feel free to join games with me.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

MAG inpressions and weekend gaming



While out getting breakfast this morning, I saw a commercial for MAG and it got me thinking. Kyle was in the early MAG beta and may have his own opinions, but I have never played the game myself. I enjoy first person shooter games, while not great at them, I do enjoy them. Didn't someone tell Sony that this is going to be a horrid, horrid idea? The major flaw in FPS games is that no one listens to anyone else. This is excluding clan matches, and dedicated servers that have a core player base. More often than not, people like to just run around on their own and kill people. A leader for each team is assigned, and there is some algorithm to assign it, but in the grand scheme of things, if people don't know that person, why would they listen to them. MAG, being a large scale game will just make it worse. For every player who is actually dedicated and will remain organized and listen to the leader, there are at least 2 players who will ignore everything the leader says, run off on their own, and call people by racial slurs. I would compare MAG to Marxism, on paper, it may be a good idea, but in practice, it will end with innocent dead people, and others in poverty. I don't plan on playing MAG, I will stick to the FPS games that don't put me in a game with 127 douchebags who will say stupid things, and get me killed. Other than the massive numbers, I haven't seen the game offer anything that peaks my interest. My other major complaint about the game is it's name, "Massive Action Game", who is the marketing genius who came up with that one? I love it when a game tells you exactly what a game is from the title, like "Driver". The difference here, it even tells you it is a game! They could have at least come up with something more original than Massive Action Game, that may be the worst game title I have heard. Though, I guess it all ties in together, the game seems to bring no innovations to the genre, other than putting a large amount of players in battle at once, and with a vanilla name, at least they kept a theme to it. "Hey guys, we have nothing new to offer you, except you can play with another 127 people on your team who are most likely assholes and won't listen to the leader." Sounds like a game I want to buy.... "Oh yeah, and we call it...Massive Action Game!!!." Wow, sign me up for this one! In closing, everything in this game sounds like a bad idea to me, maybe there are people out there who like babysitting 127 people protected by the cloud of anonymity, but for me, I will pass.

This weekend has been somewhat gaming light for me. I have been playing some Madden 09, which I haven't played in a while, maybe it is the Super Bowl hype that got me in the mood. I played two games, Keep in mind, I have not won a game yet vs the computer in Madden 09 (yes, I am that bad.). The first game went into OT, against the St. Louis Rams, I got the ball down to the 10 and threw a pick in the end zone which resulted in a loss. The second game was against the 6-1 Colts. I actually won the game. The majority of my issue was throwing over the middle. Something in Madden 09 makes the linebackers godly pass defenders. If you throw a ball within 10 yards of a linebacker, it is an interception. I swear I threw the ball to a completely open guy, with a completely open passing lane and out of nowhere a linebacker appears in the middle of the field, jumps 25 feet in the air and picks me off..it's kinda insane. I decided to stick with a running game, short passing game, and the occasional deep shot to Randy Moss. It worked out well, and I won my first game 24-7 against the Colts. Other than Madden, I plan on getting a little TF2 in before the weekend is out. I should be picking up Mass Effect 2 within the next 2 weeks, and I plan on going back and finishing the Pitt in Fallout 3, and picking up Broken Steel soon after.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

NHL 10 makes me a loser.

I fucking hate NHL10. I should have picked up Fifa 10 for $44.00
instead. I was in the mood for a new sports game, so I checked out what
the local retailers had to offer and found all EA 2010 titles were on
sale for $44 at Target. I originally planned on Fifa, but after some
consideration I decided on NHL 10. I still rock Fifa 2000 for PS1 and am
not a huge follower of soccer so current rosters aren't something I'm
missing. I got home with my copy of NHL, threw it in the PS3 and fired
it up. Right away I was impressed with how the game looks. The graphics
are beautiful, the animations are smooth. My living room was lit up
pretty bright by the TV. My eyes took a minute to adjust, similar to how
it feels walking out of the movies on a sunny day. I started to play the
practice mode to learn some mechanics and controls. At this point in my
life I'm 15 years removed from weekend long sessions of NHL '95 on
Genesis and SNES, so I am horribly unfamiliar with hockey games made on
anything other than cartridges. After grasping the concept of the new
control set up (left thumb stick moves your player, right thumb stick is
stick handling and shooting, passing is R2 and the face buttons are
plays and strategies) I decided to start a regular game. I am well aware
there are sliders and easier difficulties, however I started with the
defaults. I got tooled 4-0. I kept my cool, it was my first game, and my
first game back into video game hockey. I started a second game and
bumped down the difficulty and tried the NHL 94 control scheme which
maps actions (shoot, pass) to the face buttons. I found myself
appreciating the alternate control setup, but wanting the newer scheme
for certain features like being able to direct a slap shot. If I were
playing against a friend also using the NHL 94 scheme I wouldn't mind it
because we would be on the same level, playing against the CPU seemed
like I was at a disadvantage. Again, I lost. I went back to practice
mode and played a 5 on 5 team practice. I went back to the default
controls and felt a bit more confident in my skills. I started another
game and finally scored a goal. I still lost but fooled myself into
believing I was capable of winning. I played a rematch, and won. I was
riding high. I celebrated with the cat. We popped champagne, high fived,
smoked a cigar, threw confetti and I picked up the PS3 over my head like
the Stanley Cup and did a lap around the kitchen on my Heely's. I played
one more game and was shut out. I figured I was exhausted after the
victory celebration and called it a night. I was ready to get back onto
the ice last night after work. I started off strong but most games
seemed to start becoming formulaic. I score once in the first period.
Opposition scores twice in the second, then once more in the last five
minutes in the third period. I can't pin point what I am doing wrong
other than being naive, and thinking I am the master of all games of all
time. I am having a good time, but am beyond frustrated that I haven't
cracked this egg. I honestly don't care about winning or losing, but I
do want to have an enjoyable, fairly competitive game. I want to relive
the glory days of 0-0 games into the 3rd period then an upset at the
last minute, then playing a rematch to the same result. I've been steam
rolled. This game has glitched out on me and froze my PS3 twice under
similar circumstances. I made a shot on goal, the goalie held onto it
and one of my players was skating towards the net, and once he reached
it the game froze. The sound continued but the screen froze, and the PS3
button didn't bring up the menu. I still plan on playing NHL 10 and
improving my record to something better than a .071 average. I just need
to not throw my controller, and practice more. Send me a game invite on
PSN: Rozzy50 and you'll get an easy win.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Fallout: New Vegas, Mass Effect 1 and More

So today, Bethesda released the first trailer for Fallout: New Vegas. Since it is a teaser, it's all about generating hype, and trust me, it's working. I am a huge fan of many of Bethesda's games, as I have said before, I love The Elder Scrolls Series, and I really enjoyed Fallout 3. I look forward to seeing what Fallout: New Vegas brings. As much as I loved Fallout 3, there are some things that could be improved upon. The first of which is a larger world, sure, Fallout 3 had a pretty decent sized world, but it was by no means huge. I am hoping for a giant world where there are insane amounts to explore. What I would also like to see are longer side quests, that span much of the world. Part of what made Oblivion so amazing was the long side quests for the fighters, mages and thieves guilds, and the Dark Brotherhood, Fallout 3 was missing those types of quests, the majority of them were short, with two to three steps max, and there wasn't a major story to any of them. The only one that compared was the Outland Survival Guide quest line, which was fun as hell, but was lacking an large overlapping story behind it. I hope that New Vegas brings some of those elements into the Fallout world. Fallout 3 was my favorite game from 2008, so if New Vegas is just as good, I will be happy man, but, I can't imagine Bethesda sitting on their hands and not make major improvements. You can watch the trailer here.

This week I also finished Mass Effect...the original. I know, Mass Effect 2 just came out, but I figured I needed to finish the original before I moved on. I have been working on Mass Effect for over a year now. The first third of the game really pulled me in. Then, while playing the middle of the game it lost me. I would spend time here and there playing, but I would stop playing for months at a time. A week or so before Mass Effect 2 came out I decided that I needed to finish the game, I pushed through what I had left in the middle of the game, and made it all the way to the final third of the game. It was worth it, the story is amazing, and pulled me back in. I should be getting Mass Effect 2 in the coming weeks and I will pick up where I left off. I highly recommend Mass Effect.

I have a couple games that I have been considering. I have been thinking of getting Borderlands for a while now, I have heard some good things about it, and some have told me to wait until I can get it on sale. I still plan to pick it up eventually, just not sure when. I also am debating which system, I don't have a ton of friends who have it on any of the systems. I will most likely get the best deal through Steam on PC, but if I had a group of people to play with on xbox, I would consider getting it there. I am also eyeing Darksiders. In Darksiders, you play War, of the four horseman of the apocalypse fame, someone accidentally triggered the apocalypse early, and your leader has betrayed you. So, you get to run around with your horse and slay darkspawn, sounds pretty damn sweet if you ask me. This is console only, so I won't find a deal on it any time soon. Finally, the other game I am considering is Dante's Inferno, I played the Demo over Kyle's and it was pretty fun. It felt a little repetitive, but I enjoyed myself. It is rife with quicktime events though, which I am not a huge fan of, so we will see. Reminds me of what God of War seems to be.

Speaking of Darkspawn, I am very excited for Dragon Age: Origins Awakening, the first expansion for Dragon Age: Origins, I look forward to seeing what is in store in that. I also need to pick up the 2 current DLC that are already out for DA:O, I may start the game again in a month or two, with the DLC and bring that save into the expansion.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Weekend Review

Due to technical difficulties, the D-pad D-bag podcast has been delayed.
Egan, Koz, and myself got together Saturday night with the hopes of
recording and general mayhem. I ended up exposing Egan and Koz to the
splendid world of "Pimp my Ride". This is one of those "I'd buy that for
a dollar" bargain bin games. There were moments when Egan laughed so
hard he stopped breathing. Egan also said "ya know this isn't that bad
of a game". I also tried to put in my brand new copy of "Secret Service"
for PS2 but the game would freeze on the opening Activision spinning
logo animation. I'm a bad enough dude to save the president,but this
fucking game was broken right out of the shrink wrap. Egan pointed out
the note on the box that the game was "in no way related to,nor endorsed
by the United States Secret Service". I am also pretty sure Koz made
some reference to "In the Line of Fire", Wooden guns,Clint Eastwood,and
"Space Cowboys" being on AMC all week. I was quite bummed. Egan and I
got a game of "MLB: The Show 09" in. We had a game go into extra innings
and I pulled out a 2 run walk off for the win. Then, shit got hectic.
"Legends of Wrestlemania" was fired up. We had a 10 man Royal Rumble to
cap the night off. Koz was the Royal Rumble winner,winner, chicken
dinner. If I am not mistaken his choice was "the Big Boss Man". The
night was sponsored by Red Bones BBQ. We got some notes and ideas
together for when we do execute recording. Expect something (good?)
soon.