Afternoon friends. Zakn Here at the helm.

I'm writing this while Steam is downloading The Walking Dead Episode 4, and while avoiding FTL. I swear that game is meant to extract my tears......Yet again I have made it to the final battle only to have my ummm stuff pushed in. I do really like the game, and do encourage you to Buy it from them or on Steam. RexHarrisonsHat sends me daggers on Twitter about this. Apparently I've cost him a weekend. Yea, it's that addictive.
Here's where the Optimal came from: (Besides the SCoaMF, being all SCoaMFy)

1080 full screen that shit

Another notable Eve Video this week was the one Test pulled off on AAA. Watch the hero Interdictor (He launches warp disrupt probes aka bubbles, making it impossible to warp out w/in 15k of the probes). Then Dingo warped in Bombers, to Kill them. Like a boss.

Two last things before I bail:

I welcome Newbies, Like Test and Goons. I want Morons to be able to play Eve and have a place. Join the AoSHQ channel, and even if you don't end up with me, you'll be with Morons. There's Morons that do WH, There's Morons that Live in Nullsec, Morons that do FW. It's vewy niice as they say.

I've backseated many a Morons' first fleet. It's a learning process, Eve is not an easy game in the least.

Lastly If you like podcasts, I would like to direct you to the latest episode of Crossing Zebras. I worked really hard back channeling these guys as they worked the process of Joining Gents. You also get to listen to Kesper, which is always a plus in my book.

The Dude is up next

Obsidian's kickstarter for a new Infinity Engine game has finally come to a close. Everyone knew they were going to easily get their $1.1 million that they asked for but many people were curious on what the total would actually come out to and that answer is just a hair under $4 million. Not bad for a game that isn't expected to be out till 2014.

In shocking news, Telltail actually hit a release date as they released episode of the outstanding The Walking Dead this past week. Even if it may have eaten your save file if you're playing on the PS3.

4A Games is on the warpath as they scrapped the planned unneeded multiplayer of their upcoming sequel Metro: Last Light. I have no clue in how they could have multi in the series as it's very much a story and tech driven single player experiance but at least they realized it before it shipped. And if you've never played Metro 2033 yet, shame as it's a good game and worth the $5 when ever it's on sale. Just make sure your pc is quite beefy.

Chris Roberts (Wing Commander creator) has had an insteresting setback this week as his site based kickstarter for his upcoming Star Citizen has come to a halt as his site can't take the traffic so he launched it on the actual kickstarter service. Check it out here

Can't tell if the game is just done or it's in a really bad shape but two more main people at Irrational has left the building as work still continues on Bioshock Infinite as it's ship date comes closer. Out sometime in Febuary and they released pic of the game's special editions

In other news, yep, Vita is still dead

CD Projekt's upcoming Cyberpunk RPG has an offical name now, it's now Cyberpunk 2077 and they released a don't blink or you will miss it teaser

And while they were doing their confrence, they also launched their mac side of their GOG site with 50 games to start off with. Go here you Apple plebs

It appears that Ken Rolston (lead designer of Morrowind and Oblivion) has landed on his feet as Turbine snatched him up. Can't wait to see what he can do there.

GSL SEASON 4 FINALS
This morning, GSL Season 4 finals is on. The matchup is between a young buck by the name of Life from StarTail at the ripe age of 15 against an old guard almost in the retierment home at the age of 21, MVP who is still battling a pinched nerve which makes his hand go numb. Sadly GOMTV didn't go too crazy for this finals as it's just being held in an adutorium but they did go an extra step on the trophy as it's a bit player specific as there is a big 5 on it and if MVP wins, this would be his fifth GSL championship. Now lets get onto the action.

MVP took a quick lead off the bat as his newly created blue flame hellions killed plenty of drones which even lead to Life delaying his Spire but MVP's mech build was not enough to stop Life's broodlords just on the simple basis of the lack of numbers in MVP's army. I just don't know what MVP was thinking with being lackadasial with his army as he didn't make enough Thors nor Vikings. Life takes game 1.

MVP went against his strength as he turtled while Life tried grinding his way through MVP's hellion, thor and viking army comp but MVP was too well dug in. So Life does the only thing he could do, stalled the game while he started pumping out Ultras. MVP fought valiantly with a decent amount of vikings but it was not enough as Life's ultras steamrolled his opponent. MVP may have been able to pull out the win but he was sloppy with his army spread. Life takes game 2

Decent exchange for Life as his scouts ended up picking off some suvs but MVP was quick with a response as he rushed a squad of blue flame hellions and Life had no answer. Why did Life have no answer? No idea as MVP has used the same strat the last two games but the result was different as MVP quickly took game 3.

MVP once again going with the same strat with a mech build and yet once again, Life doesn't learn as MVP's hellions roast tons of drones. With Life being on the ropes, he presses with an army of infestors but they are no match for MVP's tanks as Life flails using half of his infestors to take out a mere couple of MVP's tanks. After that point, it was gg with MVP tying it up with a win in game 4.

Another game, another mech build by MVP and another game with Life having no answer. I just don't know what Life was thinking. MVP had ran the same shit all finals and there is no answer. MVP threw in some banshees this game to soften up Life's forces and they were a great investment as they kept Life busy. MVP takes game 5 and brings it back to match point.

An overconfident MVP once again sticks with what is the hot strat against Life with mechs. But Life's coach finally told him to actually make some damn roaches and he responded. MVP just couldn't gain any traction against Life who is on tilt and throw in some very sloppy play by MVP and it's GG as Life rolled MVP. It all came down to a game 7. Has the tide turned for Life? Or did MVP just misstep?

Leave it to a game seven for Life to bring out something new (and frankly what he needed all along) as he goes with roaches and mutas against the strat that MVP has been running all morning. Great trading between the two but MVP made a mistake in overcommiting against one of Life's bases and loses a bunch of thors. And with that, the flood gates opened as Life just threw everything and the kitchensink at MVP whiddling down his force. MVP tried everything he could but it was not enough as MVP had to call GG. The curse of player specific trophies continues (OSL made a trophy for Boxer only for Boxer to lose the finals).

Next week I'll be doing something different, I'll be shitting up my must play Halloween game collection. Ready to be scared or creeped out?

AOSHQ is a regular stop for me, though I’ve never bothered posting anything. But I thought I’d suggest you mention the ‘freemium’ game model. This business model is becoming popular. I myself like to play Dungeon’s and Dragons Online, a fantasy MMORPG. The gameplay is nothing special and IMO the story/role playing is weak, but if you get in a good guild, you have people you can play with. They offer the basic game for free. You can download the client, get two character slots, and off you go. You can (slowly) earn points through gameplay to unlock more features (quests, classes, races, etc). If you purchase points with cash, which automatically upgrades your account to four character slots, and a couple other benefits. I slip them 10-20 bucks a year, but it’s possible to play the game for free and to get a fun experience out of it. There’s also the VIP level, where you pay about $100 a year, get full access to everything, and get bonus points each month for extras.

IÂ’m not advocating this game in particular ((or if I am, IÂ’m doing it really poorly) but you might want to see what other quality games are out there for cheap/free and do a post on that. For what itÂ’s worthÂ…

From Anthony (Please give me a sock name in your email! -Zakn)

Games as a medium have a power no other does: the power of identity. By allowing you to control a character, games allow you to identify with that character very closely.

Non-gaming example. Suppose you're in your car and someone in another car bumps you. What do you say?

You say, "Hey, he hit me!" even though that's not what happened at all. You are identifying with your vehicle because you are in direct control of it. By the same token, you are identifying his vehicle with him. "He hit me!", not "His car hit my car".

Video games work exactly the same way. Watch someone die in a video game; odds are good they will say, "I died." Not, "My character died." Again, identity.

Once upon a time I was working at a company that made video slot machine games. We had licensed the character of Lara Croft for one of our games.

The manager in charge, wanting to make sure we got things right, played through a bunch of the original Tomb Raider games. This was kind of tough for him since he was a non-gamer.

He said that there was a part in one of the games where Lara got captured. As she put her hands in the air, her male captor circled her with an evil grin on his face. He said that scene made him feel incredibly uncomfortable. He said he actually thought, "I wish he'd stop looking at me like that."

He suddenly realized he was feeling what it might be like to be a woman in that situation.

What other medium could do that? Even in a limited capacity? Even for a moment? Movies and novels would have us males clucking our tongues, judging the evil lecher and assuring ourselves we'd never act in such a fashion. But they would never, in a million years, make us feel the way the woman is feeling. Only the incredible identification powers of video games can do that.

Which is why I will never stop playing and making them.

Thats about it for this week guys. Be sure and keep emailing me gaming stuff that you are interested in and i'll post it up. aoshqgaming at gmail dot com

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 09:00 AM | Comments (41)
Post contains 2071 words, total size 12 kb.

33 Posted by: boulder hobo at October 21, 2012 02:29 PM (QTHTd) Eww hated the Mako sections so much Posted by: Polliwogette, teahada hobbbit who wants some R & R at October 21, 2012 02:29 PM (NYki No idea, only news was that they snatched him up. Its going to be interesting in seeing what he can bring to Turbine

Posted by: The Dude at October 21, 2012 10:41 AM (tw6Ar)

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