The Armchair Game Designer

Hello website, did you miss me? I sure missed you. It’s about time to break out the old Internet cliché and apologize for not posting. It’s been an incredibly busy month full of moves and work, but at long last, I’ll be settled into a new place and ready to go.

A few developments on the gaming front. Big news first: yesterday I bought a PS3 Slim. Lowering the price / form factor is one of the smartest moves Sony has made. Having never owned a Sony system before, I’m living proof that these cuts are effective at drawing in new customers.

I am quite disappointed that Sony purportedly has ‘no plans’ to reintroduce backwards compatibility with the PS2. I understand why they did it, but it will make much of the 100 Game Challenge more difficult for me, and might necessitate a small investment in a used PS2. The only other thing to disappoint me so far was Sony’s decision not to include component HD cables (like Microsoft did with the 360). I bought an HDMI cable in order to hook it up at home, but for the next few days I’ll be forced to play it in standard definition on a TV from the HDMI-less “HD-Ready” days of yore.

I bought three PS3-exclusive games to begin with that have long been on my “must-play list”: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Metal Gear Solid 4, and LittleBigPlanet. I’ll be doing extensive write-ups on the latter two for the Challenge. I got a chance to play around with Uncharted and LBP; LBP is just as delightful as I imagined it so far (am I allowed to say “delightful” if I don’t host a gardening show?), and Uncharted already packs in a ton of wit, though I’m having a bit of trouble adjusting to its controls, having gotten used to the 360 method of using the lower triggers for firing rather than the upper bumpers.

In other news, and much to my surprise, I was able to fix my aging PC’s graphics card issues. I had installed a new one right around the time Bioshock was released (any guesses as to why?) and after a bit of use it stopped working. With everything fixed, I can now finally dive back into my massive collection of PC titles and cross those off the 100 Game Challenge list. Look for my Call of Duty 4 write-up in the days to come.

The new World of Warcraft expansion has been announced. The former me would have gushed for paragraphs about its changes, but ever since I gave it up I have rejoined the apathetic masses to say merely, “Meh. Werewolves. That’s pretty cool I guess.”

With several weeks off before getting back to Higher Learning, I hope to knock a good chunk of games off the List. It’ll be a while before I run into “I don’t own that” territory, so I have a good buffer while I figure out how to proceed.