From the Brow of Zeus

Last week I raved about Mount&Blade. This week it's Belief & Betrayal, a game that proves having an ampersand in your title isn't enough to guarantee success.

Imagine a gray haired man with his back to the camera. His voice is flippant, shrill and condescending. He's Jonathan Danter, a journalist and something of a ladies man, at least according to his editor, who's worried he'll waste time “looking at girls in mini skirts and sexy tops.” But there's no way any girl could tolerate the presence of this goofy-looking goose in shoes. He's undeniably irritating, the kind of guy you couldn't wait to get away from. And that's before he busts out his lovable little chestnut: “cats whiskers!”

Read my Belief & Betrayal review, or you can check out all my old Out of Eight reviews in the archives.

Labels: videogames

So, Mount&Blade was the first game I gave an 8/8 rating to, and --

What's that? I didn't tell you I write game reviews for Out of Eight? Well, now you know. And you can click here to read all my reviews on one page.

Anyway, Mount&Blade is an Action/RPG/Strategy game best known for its emphasis on large scale battles and real-time mounted combat. But you can ignore all that deadly warfare stuff and just be an apolitical merchant trader, buying low and selling high. I hate to abuse a cliche, but it's a bit like Grand Theft Auto. And Darklands. And Sid Meier's Pirates! Oh yeah, and it rules.

I always take a moment to contemplate my next step before crushing my opponent beneath the heel of my boot.

You can read my review of Mount&Blade here. If that doesn't convince you, there's also a generous free demo which lets you play the whole game until you reach level seven.

Spoiler Alert: I give it an 8/8, which doesn't mean perfect, it means you should buy the damn game already.

Labels: videogames

New Radiation Symbol
For those of you who haven't heard, there's a brand new international radiation symbol. The new symbol depicts radiating waves, an arrow, a running person, a skull and crossbones, and a 15% chance that by the time you're done reading this, you'll already be dead.

Click here to read the full article.

I'm slowly bringing back all my old content. Write an email if there's anything you'd like to see again. Except for, you know, like, dead pets and stuff. Nostalgia is one thing, necromancy is quite another.

Labels: misc

In an article called Xbox 360 Barely Outsells PS3 in August by Tracy Erickson (of GamePro!), PC World made the startling revelation that more owners of Nintendo Wii have bought copies of Wii Fit than the Xbox 360 title Too Human,

[Madden NFL 09 for Wii] even sold less than Too Human, which is a far more niche title than passing around the pigskin. Apparently Wii owners prefer working out with Wii Fit and pedal-to-the-metal sessions of Mario Kart than football or looting adventures set to a Norse mythological back drop.

Why even put that last part in there? It had me scrambling to see if Too Human had a Wii release I never heard about.

I get the writer's point, that a niche Xbox 360 title can outsell a major third party Wii release. But there are two problems with the quoted paragraph:

1. Madden fans are fist-pumping college guys who've always stuck with whatever system was coolest/most resistant to beer/bong water spills. They don't have Wiis, they have PS3s and 360s.
   
2. Saying Wii owners prefer Mario Kart to Madden is fair. Saying Wii owners prefer Mario Kart to Too Human borders on insane. It's like saying they prefer it to skydiving.
   

Labels: videogames

It had to happen sooner or later.

In other news, I finally got Opera to work with Blogger. I just had to go to Tools/Preferences/Cookies and check "Accept All Cookies" instead of "Reject Third Party Cookies". Doesn't matter, because I still Delete New Cookies When Exiting Opera, so there.

Labels: misc