Probably as you can imagine I’m playing the newest Fallout 3 DLC, “Point Lookout”. It’s Bethesda’s 4th one and many more may come.

Point Lookout takes you to a isolated island, it is Fallout 3’s equivalent of Point Lookout State Park. An amusement park, with a huge carousel surrounded by a damp swamp and an old lighthouse overlooking it. It gives off an eerie feeling.

And the bonus: remember the Pint-Sized Slasher? Perhaps Point Lookout, Maryland is where the Slasher originated.

The whole DLC is somewhat horror / thriller themed. The nuclear bombs did not fall on Point Lookout, but the island was simply forgotten and and left to its own resources.

New monsters are present, the Swampfolk, inbreed hillbillies with hostile attitude toward the player, such as Trackers, Creepers/Scrappers and Brawlers/Bruisers. Even a swamp variant of ghouls and mirelurks. Oh, and a new set of humans too, the Tribals.

Of course new quest-able perks are added, although nothing huge, still funny to have and weapons such as double barrel shotguns, axes and shovels.

Because so many Confederates died during the American Civil War on Point Lookout, you’ll find Confederate Hats by the thousands.

All in all, I can only recommend this DLC! The 5th DLC “Mothership Zeta” is coming in July, and will supposedly involve the crashed alien ship and not so friendly extra terrestrials.

Screenshots and Gameplay clips after the break. » more

Howdy folks,

a quick hello! A life sign, the Don, he be livin’!

No, the blog IS NOT DEAD. I just didn’t have the time last month!

It’s going to be better this month!

Didn’t even have time to play. Oh well, a few clips I shoot though:

Fallout 3 - Second Biggest Explosion
Damnation - PC Game Intro
Terminator - Salvation Pc Game Intro
Terminator - Salvation  Gameplay
ARMA 2 (Armed Assault 2) - Gameplay

So long, Don Salva

Addendum 14th June 2009:
No, it’s not going to be better this month! The biggest reason: Wordpress 2.8 is out! And I’m swamped with work and more work!

I have to scrap the addons, check the (addons) code, re-check the (addons) code, debug the (addons) code, adjust the (addons) code. I simply have no time for it.

Yes, I could leave it be as it is. But I’m one of the curious ones who need to be up-to-date with software.

I’ll throw in a post here and there come end of June, but that’s it! Sorry for the inconvenience folks, truly I am!

Have you ever wanted a special guide for dismembering stuff? Well, look no more! X-Men Origins: Wolverine ‘uncaged edition’ is the ultimate guide for you to master dismemberment.

I say this, because I play this game, and boy, is the violence excessive. Only game that beats X-Men Origins: Wolverine ‘uncaged edition’ in terms of violence, blood, guts and gore is Ninja Gaiden.

Game’s an action-adventure. You get to play Wolverine and relieve his past, especially his Origins in Weapon X. According to Wikipedia roughly 90% of the same-titled movie storyline is in the game as well.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine ‘uncaged edition’ is about fast paced action with a sheer amount of chainable combos where guts drop, heads roll and limbs fly with jaw dropping fatalities as an icing on the cake!

Oh, and you get to watch Wolverine losing flesh ‘n bones and regenerate them slowly back.

At some point, if you are careless enough you can see Wolverine almost striped naked to his adamantium skeleton. An awesome sight.

But it ain’t everything gold everything that shines. The whole game is too easy. No matter what difficulty level you choose you’ll blaze through the game in your sleep. And those minibosses, man I tells ya, they be teh suck! Repetetive…almost always the same ones and the first tactic that worked before still works on the 12385th one.

Music…bah, where be da coolz music? Very boring music, I had hoped for a more noticable music during the game play, but nada, zip! And most importantly, there’s no friggin’ multiplayer mode.

I mean are you friggin’ kidding me? I can no has smash me friends? I’s sad panda! Co-op would indeed be very nice to have, but that would make no sense in a game about Wolverine.

Perhaps some deathmatches in some sort of Arena? Now that would be cool. The sheer amount of combos and fatalities would indeed give a great replay value, if only there was a multiplayer mode…

Clearly the ‘uncaged edition’ was meant for the mature Wolverine fans while the “light” versions for Wii and PSP are acessible to our young’uns. All in all a must have for the Marvel fans; a should-have for the fast-paced melee-combat loving fans!

Links to various YouTube gameplay clips, cinematics, cut-scenes and In-Game screenshots after the break! » more

Microblogging, almost everybody on the internet is aware of this new trend. As am I. I too am using Twitter and Identi.ca, Identi.ca primarily.

Identi.ca because I can link my Twitter account to Identi.ca and post only on Identi.ca to make my notices (identi.ca) also apear as tweets on Twitter.

The question, when I heard about such microblogging services, I asked myself was when should I be using it.

Then I looked at my blog and thought about it. It ain’t that bad if you think about it.

I use Twitter and Identi.ca for distributing interesting links I stumble across while surfing  and the occasional, unsubstantial notice/tweet.

So why would I waste a whole lot of blog space when I can put the links in 140 characters. Sure I can collect the links and present them in weekly or daily blog posts, but then it’ll be lacking something only the microblogging services offer: immediateness (huh, that’s some strange word I came up with).

You see microblogging services, unlike personal blogs, are available and know to millions of people. While I have to promote my blog to gain users, on Twitter and Identi.ca there already are millions of users ready to read.

When I share a link it becomes, on Identi.ca at least, visible to everybody right the second I posted it. (On Twitter you have to be registered and following me in order to immediately get the tweet I just posted!).

Microblogging services, they are great, ain’t they? What say you, dear reader?

Just thought I’d share great indie game with you. Braid is the name, a lovely jump ‘n’ run puzzle adventure. This game was released in August 2006 on XBox Live Arcade, but just recently, on April 10th 2009, came to the PC platform.

It’s played by solving physical puzzles in a platform game environment much similar to that of Super Mario Bros. . Tim the Protagonist runs, jumps and climbs across the game’s level while avoid being touched by plants, enemies and whatnot. Just like in Super Mario Bros. .

One of the unique game feature is the unlimited ability to control and manipulate time. Tim can reverse time and in essence go back where he just was moments ago. A great feature if you just got killed by an enemy; simply reverse the time and continue from there on again.

The game world is divided into 7 smaller worlds with an extra, what you may call, overworld in form of Tim’s house. The various worlds are entered through doors from Tim’s house.

What’s much more fascinating are the graphics. Although it’s only 2D, the graphics are simply amazing. And the music, don’t get me started on it. Perfect composition between graphics, music and levels. Which is why Braid got such high review scores!

The PC version of Braid comes with another great extra: an Editor! Players can create whole custom worlds for others to play in.

It truly is a great game for the occasional play session. Give it a try!

I made a short gameplay clip from World 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFKMCEBXYzY

Demigod has been out since April 14th 2009 and some of my friends are playing it like crazy. Although I loathe strategy games this one fascinates me.

Perhaps it’s those RPG elements or perhaps it’s the whole mix of RPG, strategy and tactic.

The game itself is not a pure strategy game. It has RPG elements where you can buy stuff and arm your chosen demigod and of course it has the usual strategy elements you’d expect, but not all of them.

Demigod plays different from your standard Real Time Strategy game like StarCraft, WarCraft, Company of Heroes, etc.

It plays different because you don’t control units. You control 1 single unit, your chosen demigod. Perhaps Demigod can be compared to Warcraft 3 with Defense of the Ancients (DotA).

There are 2 types of demigods you can chose from: Assassins and Generals.

Assassin demigods are made to me more of an RPG character who fight on its own. While the General demigods are made to be for RTS play since they can summon units who help fight alongside the General.

The Assassin demigods are Rook, Unclean Beast, Torchbearer and Regulus and the Generals are Vampire Lord, Sedna, Oak and Queen of the Thorns. It’s been said on the official forums that 2 more playable demigods are coming out later in a content patch.

There is no campaign mode as most of you may be used to. This game focuses heavily on multiplayer. Although you can play a solo tournament, it’s pretty boring, even in its hardest mode. Multiplayer is where the fun is!

There are 4 different match modes you can play:

• Conquest, where one has to destroy the opponents citadel in order to win.
• Dominate, where one has to capture and hold flags in order to win.
• Slaughter, where one has to defeat a specific number of the opponents demigods.
• Fortress, where one has to destroy the opponents fortresses.

That being said, I played the Solo Tournament mode, 8 rounds. Recorded it, transcoded it to 720p HD and uploaded it on YouTube.

Links to the HD gameplay clips on YouTube after the break. » more

An interesting site I thought I’d mention it. We all know the dangers of publicly displaying our email address. Spam Bots! Once they have it you are pretty much doomed, except if you know how to set up your email-box against spam.

Anyway while surfing yesterday I stumbled on http://scr.im . A service which allows you to hide your email address until the person who wants to know it personally verifies  a given code. This way Spam Bots are closed out!

All you have to do is enter your email address and choose your own URL like http://scr.im/WHATEVER ! Then share it. The person who clicks http://scr.im/WHATEVER will get a code and has to match from 8 random, and 1 exact match given.

http://mailhide.recaptcha.net is a similar service, expect you have to manually enter a given captcha.

Now we can carry on debating whether such services are useful or not. I say to each his/her own! No more stupid  nocando(at)whateverservice dot com !

Fallout 3: The Pitt is out, and I’m playing it.

What was a simple and quick "run and grab 10 ingots" turned out to be a "grab whatever ingot you see and explore the zone" Quest!

I’m doing "Unsafe Working Conditions" in the clips. You have to go inside ‘The Steelyard’ and collect 10 metal ingots. If you get all 100 of them, you can then turn the remaining 90 for extra items. If you play on XBox 360, you get an achievement too.

Love it, it’s as good and as interesting as Operation Anchorage. Although Operation Anchorage has got negative reviews, because people feel it didn’t "fit" into Fallout 3, they forget that Operation Anchorage was a simulation and a crucial moment in Fallout’s history.

Anyway playing ‘The Pitt’ is entirely different as ‘The Pitt’ integrates in the actual Fallout 3 time line. After a short while you will get a broadcast signal followed by a message pop-up, same procedure as with Operation Anchorage.

The DLC "The Pitt" isn’t long. If you are a slow player, perhaps you get 5-6 hours out of it at most. If you play it fast it’ll be even shorter, I’d estimate about 2-3 hours tops. Before you get angry bear in mind that DLC’s are NOT intended to be full expansions with tens of hours of game play. DLC’s are small content patches which add a few hours at most to the game.

I want to apologize for a few things though in the clips:

1) There are some "breaks" in the videos. Meaning I stopped recording to read a terminal, or to open a lock, or to browse through my pip-boy. I didn’t record this because it was unessential to the game play and it would be a waste of space (All 5 clips were worth uncompressed and not trans-coded about 78 Gbyte of Disk Space!).

Don’t worry though I usually started to record from this point where I stopped.

2) I did NOT explore The Steelyard to its fullest extend. I did however at the point when I was recording not know this. I got back later and saw I missed a few spots (and Ingots, got my 100 ingots!)

You see, I don’t want to re-record this again. Because when I re-record it, I know the spots already, I know where to look and I know what to do. Recording while being in there the 1st time is something entirely different!

Prologue 0/4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy3Wk-X48Qo
Part 1/4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBl0leW7Cbo
Part 2/4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nur7DltuA8
Part 3/4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKtPTenScTs
Part 4/4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u50pDYNgw-Y

Screenshots: http://www.the-screenshots.com/v/Fallout3/Fallout3_ThePitt/

Long story short: Enjoy and don’t forget to watch in HD!

Addendum: I’ve got emails asking me how many ingots there are and where they all are, what the reason is to collect more than 10 ingots and if you get your items back you had to surrender at the beginning of The Pitt.

There are 100 ingots total. Collecting them all is recommended insofar because you get really awesome items. As for the items you had to surrender at the beginning of The Pitt, yes, you will get them back once you beat the Arena and are summoned to the Pitt Boss Ashur.

I’m not gonna write another lengthy guide to each spot of all the metal ingots, since there are tons of them already on the internet. Take this for example, all the spots for all the ingots!

H.A.W.X. is out! Folks are playing it and the game is getting mixed reviews!

Folks who are die hard fans of simulators a la IL2-Sturmovik or similar ones WILL be disappointed by HAWX if they hope to get a modern substitute for their good ol’ simulator.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. is by no means a flight simulator game. It is an arcade flight simulator. Emphasis on ARCADE. The whole game is made so easy with its arcade elements it’s ridiculous.

Still the game offers a great deal of fun if you like the occasional dogfights against your friends or if you want a quick co-op session.

Get it if you can’t be bothered with it being an arcade flight simulator; ditch it if you are a die hard realism flight simulator fan!

I play it too and got you a few game-play clips:

All flyable planes Overview Part 1 of 2
All flyable planes Overview Part 2 of 2

Operation Adder Part 1 of 2
Operation Adder Part 2 of 2

Operation Backfire Part 1 of 2
Operation Backfire Part 2 of 2

PS: Screenshots are up on the gallery!

One year until the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada starts. I’m exited. I love the Olympic Games, summer and winter likewise.

So I wanted to see how the logo designs evolved from the very first Winter Games over the years.

The designs appear to have changed from monochromatic colors and design to multicolor ones.

The logo design seem to take on the trend to simpler and cleaner colors and shapes. Take a look at the logos from Winter Olympic Games 1924 till 2010. » more