I fought hard to tear myself away from the Olympics — events progress without me this very second! — since I really had to review the Steel Series Siberia Neckband. It is very pretty and the hidden mic is wonderful. I could even live with the bright white design decision but the sheer weight and quiet microphone meant that this could not be the headset of my dreams. Alas, I must keep searching!
Perhaps you have a PC & 360 headset that you’ve sworn eternal fidelity to? Let me know :)
In this first music game episode Jenn takes a look at beatmania on the PS2 and some of the games it inspires on the PC and PSP. She also takes a stroll down memory lane to the first music game she can remember playing. (17:45)
Feedback: Wanna be a dancing fool? You’ve got options: Dance Dance Revolution, In The Groove, StepMania, Pump it Up! What’s you favourite? What types of songs do you find make your feet happy? Do you think those of us that like these types of games have something wrong in the head? :)
At E3 Jenn got a few minutes to chat with Al Lowe. Most of you might know him from a little series called ‘Leisure Suit Larry’… except for the last one. He had nothing to do with that. Al talks about his new game development venture, iBase Entertainment, good ol’ Larry, a very strange path to becoming a game designer, and the state of the industry today. A cramped restaurant booth may not be a scenic interview spot but the conversation was definitely worthwhile. (11:33)
Just to head off a few e-mails: I know that I’m not visibly in this one. Crowded restaurant booth at E3 + small table + no camera man = the best I could do with a tripod that wasn’t going to get kicked over by the throngs of people. Huge awesome special thanks to Darren Kitchen from Hak.5 for editing job and Ashley Witt for the new OpenAlpha theme!
World of Warcraft Beginner’s Guide (February 3, 2006)
Jenn walks through the basics of World of Warcraft, from getting started, to common tasks, adding UI Mods, and de-mystifying ‘Aggro’ with finger puppets. She also reviews the WoW Atlas, declares the winner of Hello Kitty’s Cube Frenzy, AND announces a new live WoW show with Darren from Hak. 5 (23:55)
Don’t forget to check back to Episode 2 for the Handy Dandy (and greatly abridged) MMO Glossary.
Other great WoW Resources:
WorldofWarcraft.com – the official Blizzard site has links that explain all the in-game mechanics and contain the forums that are burstin with great insight and the latest hot-button topics.
Thottbott.com – the Google of WoW. Information on Thottbot is provided by users that upload their Cosmos (a UI Mod package) data. While the database isn’t always correct, the comments and maps often make up for any inconsistencies.
Allakhazam.com – another huge WoW Database with quest info, forums, and all that other good stuff.
MapWoW.com – while not as useful as other WoW maps (seriously, just peg WoW Atlas or Maps into your search engine of choice and peruse the many other options) it does use the nifty Google Maps API and I think it has great growth potential.
Curse Gaming – the ultimate WoW UI Addon resource.
Ometh Homepage – home of the Ometh Nmod. If the site is running slow, you can also pick up the installer from Softpedia.
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (August 3rd, 2005)
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games continue to grow in popularity, partially due to the increase in broadband availability and the increased complexity of the worlds available to explore. Jenn takes a look at what’s out now, what’s fun, what’s free, and what’s up with services like IGE. (13:00)
The MMORPGs covered in this episode were just a small subsection of what’s out there right now. Also, when looking for MMO reviews online, it’s always important to note when it was written since the game experience is usually changing. People that play Ultima Online today are exploring a vastly different world from the one that launched. Even with more recent titles, there are often expansion packs released and other tweaks made over time.
Be sure to check the official sites for more info on character classes and game mechanics and take advantage of the free trials, if available.
MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game PvP = Player vs. Player PvE = Player vs. Environment Patch = a blessing and a curse. Some bugs may be fixed or content added, but it probably broke something somewhere else. GMs = people with way cooler armor than you FedEx Quest = messenger quest. Take a usually
worthless (un-sellable) item far away to someone who actually cares
about it, but not enough to properly reimburse you for your trouble ding (followed by “gratz”) = you might promise yourself that you’d never type this into global chat. You’d be lying. Why shouldn’t the whole world know you gained a level? Min/Maxer = a player more concerned with ‘winning’ than having any fun Nerf = usually follows a patch. Something that was
once strong, by accident or design, is now as harmless as a Nerf arrow.
The fact that ranger characters seem to get nerfed frequently is just a funny coincidence
