Archive for the ‘Console Games’ Category
L.A. Noire is great. Really great, even. A much welcomed breath of fresh air to a medium that almost never cares to take itself seriously. But for me? Personally? It’s a teaser. A bone on which to gnaw while the main course is being prepared in some mystical laboratory where video games are birthed. That main course is Grand Theft Auto 5. GTA3 was the first game I played on the (incredible) PS2 console and, ever since, I’ve held video games to a higher standard of quality. It knocked down all the walls of the conventional game (figuratively and literally) and pushed the bar for the 3rd person perspective and literally created the open world genre.
Flash forward to today. Grand Theft Auto 4 has been out for more than 3 years and, despite the critical and commercial successes of Red Dead Redemption and now L.A. Noire, I find myself primed for the next GTA. Even though we may still be another year or more away from it’s actual release there still have been the typical signs and rumors that it might already be in development. And with E3 being right around the corner, I feel it might be the right time to bring up the question: What do I want from a new GTA?
Modern Multiplayer
There’s nothing wrong with GTA4′s multiplayer, so to speak. Competitive multiplayer was fair, fun and it worked. The free roam mode is a dream come true for fans of the series. With or against online players, it enabled you to explore the rich detail of the world and attempt to achieve completely absurd and arbitrary goals, such as “How many vehicles can we fit in this fast food restaurant?” or “How long can we survive holed up in this bank against cops?” and the fan favorite “How can I ruin what everyone else is trying to do by running them over?”. Possibilities are, for lack of a less cliche description, endless. It’s fun, but it’s not perfect. Matchmaking, and the basic online UI, wasn’t as intuitive as it could be and it could. Unlocking more appearance pieces was arcane and poorly explained (if at all).
Consumer electronics manufacturers often employ the use of security screws to prevent access to the internal workings of their devices. They do this for a variety of reasons, the most common of which is to force consumers to use factory authorized service companies to perform any repair work. The problem with this idea is that there are many repairs that could be easily performed by the consumer if they could take the device apart. Often times consumers are unwilling to pay for these types of repairs because they seem so simple that the consumer places little value in the work that would be performed by the service company. Sticking buttons is a very common problem with consumer electronics devices. The cause is often build-up of dirt and other substances in the gap between the button and the housing of the device. The solution for this type of problem is a simple cleaning. The problem is that the cleaning can only be really effective with the device disassembled.
A prime example of this type of repair is found with the Nintendo Wii. Keeping your Wii in good working order poses some unique challenges since younger children are often the primary users. Kids will do things that older children or adults would never think of doing. They will force more than one game into the system or they will use the Wiimote with dirty, sticky hands. Many of the problems that kids cause with the Nintendo Wii could be easily taken care of by an adult with basic mechanical knowledge. A stuck game could be removed or dirty buttons could be cleaned up. The only problem is the security screws that Nintendo uses on the Wii.
One of the most tedious, time consuming things to do on ffviii is to complete the queen of cards side quest. It can take many hours of moving between towns and losing rare cards. However it is well worth doing if your a game perfectionist as it gives you access to 5 new rare cards: Chubby Chocobo, Phoenix, Doomtrain, Kiros and Irvine.
Fortunately once you have made it to disk 4 you can simply challenge the queen of cards and she will play each of the rare cards. The only catch is that she is (in my opinion) the hardest card player to beat due to the fact that she combines plus, random and other rules with boss, player, and GF cards. However it is still much quicker to acquire the Chubby Chocobo, Phoenix, Doomtrain, Kiros and Irvine cards this way.
To find the queen of cards on disk 4 go to the bottom of the Esthar continent and look for an area called the “Abadan Plains”. You cannot see it from the world map but there is actually the crashed lunar escape pod from disk 3 on the tip of the Eastern Peninsular. Run around near the tip and eventually you will bump into it. Here you will find the queen of cards standing next to the crashed lunar escape pod.
What makes a World of Warcraft guide the absolute best? What do you have to do to make yours one of the best World of Warcraft guides?
It really depends upon what sort of guide you are writing. If you are writing class guides, you will want to include as much information on the class as possible. If you are writing a general guide for that class, cover the basics – what can the class do, what is its purpose, what stats does it want, what are some general tips for playing the class well? If you have specialized guides in mind, take a look at what sort of information other guides are posting and consider your audience: are you writing from a raiding perspective? Lore? How about player-vs-player combat or dungeons? You will want to include spec information and get as in-depth as you possibly can. This does not mean you have to whip out a math degree – it takes a certain type of player to get into the math, and ElitistJerks.com covers that sort of thing quite well. The average player does not want to have to get a PhD in order to understand the game, after all.
If you are interested in writing a Gold Guide, you will need to keep in mind that every server’s economy is different, so your tips may not work everywhere. You can get away with being fairly general in this sort of guide because people are used to that, as they get a lot of information from self-proclaimed “goblins” and thus are used to dealing with information that is not as clear as they would like. If you want to be adored by the public, however, be thorough. Do your homework across multiple servers, WoWHead, whatever tools you can get your hands on, and be sure to supply your readers with add-ons and information on how to use them. Start with, say, Auctioneer and go from there.
For Nintendo Wii game system users, the cost of replacing broken DVDs can be very high especially since each new DVD copy costs a minimum of $50. If you multiply that amount with the number of overused DVDs that you have in your archive, the entire amount could be very expensive. This is not to mention that discs are vulnerable to almost all sorts of problems like read errors, scratches, cracks and prints. Your expenses could double in no time at all and your frustration level could undoubtedly be very high.
With a game burner, you no longer have to worry about overspending on your Wii games. It is an application that allows you to download and copy games from any source and burn them into your own blank DVD. It is the most practical solution to every Wii gamer’s problem – how to make backup copies of his favorite game.
One popular game Burner software has already received 2.6 million downloads worldwide since its release in 2008. Users love the fact that this application is so very easy to use. The application’s screen is very practical and does not need much figuring out. In fact, the entire program is so simple that users do not even need to change or enter any layerbreak settings as the program is 100% dedicated to burn and copy Wii and Xbox 360 games.
Software editors and critics have also raved about this product. Since its release in 2008, this game burner has already amassed more than 10 awards from different entities. This is proof that it is one of the most trusted applications in the world today.