Post Christmas Video Game Hangover

The holiday season is brutal for everyone when it comes to the first world problem of being into geeky stuff.  Invariably, this is when the most best/new things of the year come out in an effort to win our hard earned money.

Gamers in particular get hammered every fall leading into winter as the deluge of promised games past finally make it from the shelves into our homes.  I feel the burn from both sides of the the candle being a game designer by trade.  All too often the holiday season is fraught with pushing to get games out before the year is up, and it makes it worse when you want to play everyone else's stuff.

Luckily for me, the biggest push I worked on last fall was the effort in getting the first beta candidates out for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and it wasn't so involved and panic stricken as past events.  That left me time to actually buy a couple games and play them, but that wasn't without its perils.

I admit, I'm primarily a PC gamer, though I do try to get most major releases on consoles across the multiple platforms to keep up with things and to satisfy my own curiosities.  That being said, the Steam sale that happens every winter invariably ends up causing a glut in my gaming queue that results in some games falling by the wayside, no matter how much I enjoy them.

I've been trying to find time for the new Star Wars MMO (lets have a moment of silence for the ill fated Star Wars Galaxies, may by dancer/swordsman rest in peace) while trying to play the couple of console games my wife bought me for my birthday and Christmas.

I still find myself trying to maintain some level of skill at shooters other than Counterstrike so I don't totally lose my touch at them, all the while trying to maintain the meager skills I've developed in League of Legends and the DOTA2 beta. 

It's all too much.

Yeah, poor baby.

I know I'm not the only one who contends with this though, Its something that happens to just about everyone I know that is into gaming.  There just is too much to play in a short period of time, and you really have to pace that out.

For example people devoured or are still masticating on Skyrim, while I've probably only logged about 6 hours on it.  I know its there, and that its wonderful, but my free 30 days are ticking away on the Old Republic, and if i don't get my money's worth out of that and get "hooked" I'll have to cancel that game and write it off as another MMO that didn't quite capture the imagination.

I could probably go on and on about KOTOR actually.  Half of it I really like, and the other half bewilders me.  I'm often left wondering why I should even have to put up with other people taking my kills, because that is pretty mu ch the only depth of interaction I have with them, and that includes the fact that I'm in a 30 person guild in there.

I think that kind of sums up how I've been feeling about alot of games I've bought lately.  They all sound like a great idea, but the portion where I really want it to be executed well, never really gels with me.

Take for example Forza 4.  I love the game and I really like the game mechanics there for the most part.  I can't complain about the cars, the tracks, the physics, all of it is there.  But why do they make it so hard to find and start custom games for multiplayer now?  I want to know why its easier to start a custom game in say PGR3 which is aeons old, but the latest and greatest driving game out there makes this difficult to do.  Don't get me wrong, its not impossible, but its just little tiny features, and the way the menus are ordered.  They make it harder to find custom games than I think it should be, and the result of that is its hard to find random people to play with.  Match making does not send people your way, they have to actively seek these custom games out.

Anyways, as usual, my interests are varied, and my time is short, so I have to pick and choose what I want to get into.  I can never truly master any of these games, I just don't have the time for it.  Those are the woes of adulthood and holding down a real job when all you want to really do is play games all day.  Being a game designer is the next best thing, but you don't get to choose what game you get to play all day.  That being said, I wonder who is gonna win?  Terrorists or Counter-Terrorists, I guess I should go find out some more.

I'm Not So Legendary @ LoL

Over the past month or two, I've continually been logging back into League of Legends despite my lack of skill in it. I think that might be what I like about it the best. I understand what I'm supposed to do, I'm just not good at doing it yet. There are a ton of characters I need to learn in terms of how they attack and how to deal with them, all the while I have to learn my own characters and what their strengths and weaknesses are. I've been playing more and more with some co-workers and their friends, which has been fun and frustrating at the same time. I'm level 12 in the game and they are all level 28 and up. This means when we get matched against other players, I'm at a significant disadvantage in terms of runes and masteries. To be honest, I prefer playing this way, because I'm playing against people that I know are better than me. If I'm able to hold my own, I'm growing faster than I would if I were to play with people my own level. Anyways, I've been playing alot of this lately, but can't help but look forward to DOTA2 on the horizon. I don't know what the big differences will be between the two yet, but knowing Valve and their processes alot better now, I am sure I know which game will come out on top at the end of this.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

As you might know by now, if you "follow" my blog at all, I'm a terrible blogger. I know this thing is here, and I know I have a small audience, but I keep letting weird stuff like work and life get in front of me.

I can't believe that I didn't post this here right away, considering how excited I've been to tell people what I've been working on this past year, but I didn't. Trying to rectify that...

So yeah! I'm working on the new Counter-Strike game! This is the project that I've been on since coming over to Hidden Path Entertainment, which was just over a year ago now. I was first brought on to work on guns, and it kind of branched out from that. Since that point, I've done game modes, gameplay stuff, designed some levels, and the weapons and equipment stuff.

You all know the drill of course, I can't get into specifics on alot of aspects of my job while the game is still in development, but I just wanted to make sure I got this post out.

I can't tell you how proud I am to be working on such a great game with such a great company like Hidden Path Entertainment in partnership with Valve Software. Who woulda' thunk it?

Rift 7 day trial invite

If any of you are interested in trying Rift out for 7 days, I have an invite code here I can share with you.

http://www.riftgame.com/en/products/ascend-a-friend/invite.php?voucher=36ZKZHNQLQPF3CJC7J6K&utm_source=manual&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ascend_invite

If you would like to play on my server, I play on Shadefallen, guardian side.

Can't ARGue with it.

With the Potato thing going on in the Indie games and seeing so many references to them the past few days, I caved and bought the Potato Pack too!

So far, I'm not sure which game is my favorite. I feel like of partial to AAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, because it feels so daredevil to get that close to things when you are falling that fast. I was getting a big kick out of it.

I found BIT.TRIP BEAT to be mesmerizing with it's Atari 2600 graphics and sounds too.

It's great to be among amazing company, really. I can't help but feel proud that I work with the people who created Defense Grid.