Sunday, March 13, 2011

Random Disorganized Stuff

This blog brought to you by people with no lives

          The lapse between my blogs are getting pretty wide now, isn’t it. it’s partly because my xbox is broken and as such I haven’t been playing many new games, and partly because I’ve been sucked into the world of MMOs. MMORPG is an abbreviation for a genre of videogames known as massively multiplayer online role playing game, one of the most famous/infamous of this genre of game is World of Warcraft. Known by everyone, whether you play games or not, World of Warcraft has made a significant impact on the perception of gamers as well as the way MMOs were built. The MMO that I’m currently playing is Lord of the Rings Online, which is doubly nerdy, because it combines two things that nerds enjoy-Videogames and Lord of the Rings. In an MMORPG you start off at level 1, almost powerless, then set off on your journey to gain more power. The world that you play in is populated by other people around the world so being courteous is an important virtue, you don’t want internet hate gangs on you. As you progress the enemies you fight get progressively more powerful, but so do you. The higher in level you get the more skills you have at your disposal, the better equipment you have to raise stats and make you more efficient. Eventually you’ll hit a level cap, the current level limit, and that’s what is referred to as end-game. People who are crazy dedicate hours to farming items so that they can get just one piece of equipment, one of the reasons why WoW has such a negative view.
Imagine this, but with other people
In LoTRO all of this is true, except that the end game is sort of lacking and as such it’s starting to lose grip of me and I’ve gotten back into TF2 (Team Fortress 2) a little. In LoTRO you start off as a normal hero, protecting the boundaries of your respective homeland, (Ered Luin for Dwarves and Elves, Bree-Land for Humans, and Shire for the hobbitses). However fate has called upon you to do more than just protect your homeland, and soon the storyline has you going around all of Eriador to assist the rangers in the protection from the armies of Angmar (I understand how hardcore this sounds). While you do this you also take on quests from various areas so that you can level up and gain more strength. The community of LoTRO is a very nice, friendly, and casual one so there’s not a lot of trolls in the game.
But enough about MMO’s and LoTRO, I’ll probably write a more in depth blog on LoTRO specifically now that I’ve laid out the basis for MMO’s later. In other more relevant news of gaming I recently finished Dead Space 2 at a friend’s house, and damn, it’s a real fine game. The graphics are top notch and the sound effects live up to the standards of the first game. The storyline is great, and serves as a great addition to the world that Visceral Game studios has set up. The satisfaction that you get stomping on the necromorphs is still there, with plenty of jump scares. The atmosphere is once again great, however this is more of an action game now than it is a horror game. Dead Space 2 is probably one of the best ways I could’ve started out the year of 2011 with.
SMILE!
I’m still waiting on getting my xbox fixed to start Brotherhood, but I can’t wait until that happens. Also I can't wait until the Source Code comes out, from the sounds of previews as well as the trailers they've put out it's looking like an impressive film. In terms of music I’ve been going back on some of the older music that I started out with, such as Green Day. Dookie and American Idiot are probably two of my favorite albums and the top two albums for Green Day. American Idiot in particular I can listen to over and over again, it’s a great album. Also since I’m in GSO I’m constantly exposed to classical music, and one song in particular has stuck with me. Here it is, and I hope everyone has a great rest of the week.
Younglak