The KPO

Starhawk, the multiplayer centric game being released exclusively on the PS3 has given a few more details on how the game will combat campers in the game.  I am sure you can agree with me that one of the most annoying things about multiplayer shooting games are those annoying people who find the perfect spot and “camp” to kill everyone as soon as they spawn or can even get to them.  Well Starhawk plans on having special pods that players can release in the direction of that said camper and blow them to smithereens.  I think this is a very unique way of keeping people from camping even if it might seem a little over powered.  

Come May 8th we will all be able to see it in action for ourselves when the game is released here in the US.

Goodreads is a unique social site where you share and can buy books.  It has been rumored to already be pushing well over 20 million unique visitors per month.  Where it differs from the more talked about social websites out there is the fact that it revolves around books (authors and readers out there) in one spot to review and find the next book that you will love.  

Goodreads began offering e-books directly from their site and realized that their were a lot of self publishing authors out there who were looking for a place to get their work out there.  Goodreads says they have at least 35,000 self promoting, social-networking authors on their site.  

They also have a way to set up online book clubs so that you can review and comment on books with other like minded people on the internet.  They have over 20,000 groups on their site including The Sword and Laser (part of the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel,) The Next Best Book Club, and many smaller hometown groups as well.

To get readers to the new books that they would enjoy, Goodreads works with an algorithm that they have made that works with ratings, your own virtual bookshelf, and what the readers similar tastes have recommended.

All in all it is a great concept and if you are one who has a hard time finding the next book to read this is a great place to start.  goodreads.com

I had never even heard of this game until the other day and decided to do a little research.  It is a game which plans to compete with the Call of Duty franchise with out just being another clone of that franchise.  From what I can gather from the info available it seems to be trying to focus on being a more mature type of game. 

One of the first things I noticed about the description of this game is how it plans to do multiplayer differently.  It plans for all matches to be 4 versus 4 instead of the bigger 32 person battles you get in a lot of Call of Duty type games.  The reasoning for this one of the game designer gives is that he doesn’t have 32 friends to play with and knows that he has at least 4 friends that could be on.  Also considering it will be 4 versus 4 it will be kind of a squad based game play.  

The main story line seems take place in a future version of Dubai.  Where a cataclysmic sandstorm has destroyed the city and now it lies in ruins and over run with nothing more than outlaws and the few unfortunate souls that couldn’t make it out in time.  Your job is to investigate and rescue a crew sent in to save the people that were left but they disappeared.  

Some other notes of interest is the life like art in the game and beautiful scenery.  Another point is how that smoke and sand will be used to affect gameplay and can be deadly.  Check out the videos below to get a glimpse of the gameplay in action.  This game is due out in June of this year for Xbox and PS3.

Origin PC has just shown off their new EON11-S laptop made specifically for gamers, artist and graphic professionals.  It boasts an 11 inch screen, a new intel Ivy Bridge-based core processor, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M praphics and Nvidia’s Optimus graphics switching technology.

It comes in a wide range of colors and you can even have your own custom paint job on the one that you order.  They state that with the Optimus technology, which turns off the discrete graphics chip when it isn’t needed, will give you a 6.5 hour battery life.  

The Kindle Fire now holds over half the market share for all android tablets.  I am sure the fact that it is only $199 helped that happen fairly quickly and the fact that Amazon took a note from Apple’s playbook and made this a closed environment.  What this means for Google is that 54% of all android tablet devices are not using the Google Play store and are not paying google a dime for apps.  That is because Amazon has it’s own app store and does not allow access to the Google App store.  This is limiting in a way to the amount of apps you have access to but it also means that every app you download you know will work flawlessly with your tablet.  Something the Google Play store cannot boast with the plethora of apps and tablets that use it’s services.  As it turns out many more manufacturers are now playing around with the idea of making their own store and limiting Googles access to these devices.  This in itself does not look good for Google and it’s plan for Android.  But then again they did want to provide android as a system that any company could make their own.  All I can say is look our for a lot more fragmentation if this catches on with other manufacturers.

Some fun and intuitive person has made a website where you can go and watch live streaming TV in many countries all from the browser on your mobile device.  Simply go to ioslivetv.com and enjoy.   As of this writing the site is still working all though some shows sputter a little probably from the site being broadcasted all over the internet from sites that blog things, so kind of like me. haha  Anyway enjoy this free service before it is taken offline due to the fact that I am pretty sure this is not going to be considered legal.

This is a free game in the app store based on a flight combat.  You have your usual gameplay styles with accelerometer and swipe controls.  This game even features full multiplayer dogfighting.  Fun times right there!  You have your choice of playing the dogfighting, campaign mode, or endless survival mode.  All of which help you gain credits to spend on upgrades for your plane type, missiles, guns, and other attributes of your plane.  As with most free games there are options to buy premium coins from in app purchasing that can get you even better upgrades.  Check it out in the app store today.

I am not impressed!  Andrew Luck, I mean seriously you are suppose to be the replacement for  Payton Manning and about to get crap ton loads of money and you still use a flip phone.  I mean really?  Ok maybe he can afford to get a decent phone that isn’t from 1990 now that he will be making the big bucks.

Yes this is what you look like when you use a flip phone and it’s not cool.  HAHA I know a lot about football so this is how I comment on the NFL draft, don’t judge me!

Can I tell you how excited I was about this game?  You have no idea how Geeked out I was for a chance to get to play this game.  So much so I even went out and bought a decent windows laptop to play it on (GASP!)  I literally followed every fan site every beta testers slightest little tale of how awesome this game was.  So when it was released yes, I was there on day one already in a guild and ready to kick butt with my Sith Inquisitor and everything was great in the world.  Well so I thought, as I had feared EA had pushed so hard for a holiday launch that there were as with most games these days a lot of hick ups that hadn’t been worked out.  I could play the game but at 5 fps (frames per second) it was pretty miserable.  I contacted a GM (Game Manager) right away and then another and another.  Finally one made sense and asked for a few files from my computer and that they were going to forward it on to the next level of GM service.  Meanwhile as I waited I scoured the forums and found a really stupid answer.  If I put all my settings to high I could actually play the game at 16 fps.  Which isn’t great but at least it didn’t make my eyes hurt like I was watching a flip chart cartoon.  So now I was off into leveling land and everything again was decent.   I leveled with friends did a few flash points and was totally amazed with the story that it seemed as if I was the only one that was having this experience.

The servers were full the game seemed like it was a great success but then it happened.  Level cap and boy did it hit strong.  See this game is based so much on the experience of the story that when you hit level cap the main story line was over.  Back to the typical mundane MMO experience you go and sadly this is another part of the game that had been rushed.  The end game content was basically so finite you could say it was none existent.  No granted it seems they are rolling out updates as fast as they can.  Something still just didn’t sit right with me and my love for the game quickly ended out of boredom.  So after one free month and one paid month of gameplay I canceled my subscription.  

Well it would seem that I was not alone more and more of my online buddies seemed to not be venturing into the game lately.  Talking with one the just the other day I was told that the game state is in trouble and that they need to do something soon or it would fall apart.  I asked what they meant because as far as all the PR is concerned the game was going well (no WOW killer, but good.)  What I was told was that the server I was on (the busiest when I was playing) seemed to have fewer and fewer people playing.  Also with the primitive form of group forming tools the game was not as fun because you couldn’t find people to do group activities such as flash points and raids with.   Him and his guild buddies were even talking in game about how Bioware really needed to do something or they feared the game would be headed into a steep decline quickly.

Now I hope this was all pure speculation on my friends part but as I stated the game after you hit level cap just becomes another MMO.  Bioware really needs to focus and reinvent what endgame really is in this story based game of theirs and if they do they will start seeing a lot of more people coming back and playing the game for the first time.  Also, Bioware make this game work on a Mac. PS, Next time you get a comment about what you were going to do about the problems people were having at the start of the game don’t say something stupid like most people aren’t playing on low end PC’s so we don’t see this as an issue.

videogamenostalgia:

The first Guild Wars 2 beta event open to everyone who pre-purchased the game will start tomorrow,  Friday, April 27, at noon PDT and will end Sunday, April 29, at 11:59 p.m. PDT. 

If you haven’t pre-purchased yet, don’t worry, there will be a beta event every month so you can always participate in later events if you just can’t resist.