The Lamer Gamer

Yeah, I’ve been playing SC2, a lot. Probably too much, as I’ve given up on my job and just play at work all day. It’s amazing that no one notices.

So here are my thoughts.

• Graphically, not the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen, but gameplay experience has been vastly improved.
• MP balance is pretty good, but I’m disappointed that so many of the units in single player were left out.
• Love 2v2!
• Good matchmaking.  Would be nice if it included some way to rank your coop partner.
• Void Rays, again, seriously.  Try something more original.
• I wish the random game types I mentioned before were still in there.
• Cannon rushes are lame, and rather satisfying to beat.

Well, at least the boss isn’t here.  Which leaves me to do dumb things like watch replays.

This has to be one of the most ridiculous all-in’s I’ve ever seen. Also the voice over nearly brought me to tears.

Trying to decide if it’s worth picking up StarCraft II if the only PC I have that’s capable of running it is the one on my desk at work.  My work environment is kind of a joke, so it’s unlikely I’d be caught, but still, I like to devote a lot of time to a new purchase and I’m wondering if I could really just close my office door and ignore the world for a few weeks.

Already, I’m just spending my time catching up on music I haven’t listened to in 15 years, but that’s basically accepted practice at any job isn’t it.  Somehow just found out that my phone can receive FM radio, so that’s been awesome, as I never bothered to load music onto it.

Ran 2.5 miles this morning. I wonder if there’s a 5K I can register for any time soon.  Probably.

I’ve been messing around with StarCraft multiplayer a bit recently and although I only play normal “Melee” type games, I often wondered what the other ones were.  So after some research…

• Top vs Bottom – Players are automatically teamed and share vision.
• Melee – Basic game type.  Eliminate other players.  Teams allowed.
• Free for All – Eliminate other players.  No teams allowed
• One on One – 2 Player FFA
• Use Map Settings – Uses the settings in the map itself.  This is typically used for the more scripted maps, those that have triggers and follow some sort of story.
• Capture The Flag – Flag Beacons are placed on the map.  After 10 minutes a flag is placed on one, and you must retrieve it.
• Greed - First player to reach a set number of resources wins
• Slaughter – Player with the most kills in a set amount of time wins
• Sudden Death – Players are eliminated upon losing any of their Command Center/Nexus/Hatchery buildings
• Team Melee – 2 players share a single base.  These 2 players may team up with other teams of 2.  Interestingly, you start with harvester units of each race.  Your starting race determines your starting building.
• Team Free for All - 2 players share single base against up to 3 other teams (4 total).   No teams.
• Team Capture The Flag – 2 players share base in Capture the Flag

It’s watching someone else play all day.

I didn’t bother to pre-order StarCraft II and get the beta code since I don’t have a PC of good enough specs to play it at present.  I’ll probably end up getting SC II at some point, think it release at the end of the month and that gives me at least a few weeks to scrounge a half decent gaming PC from part laying around at work.

Anyway, work sucks.  I guess that’s a given.  So I’ve taken to watching replays of StarCraft II games on YouTube, which is an astoundingly effective way to waste time at work.

Several months back, a friend introduced me to the fact that there is a Korean Pro Circuit for StarCraft.  Huh?  Yeah, people play it professionally, as in they make money doing it.  Since it’s so popular over there, they have TV stations which carry the games and have commentators going nuts over these games like a guy on UniVision giving the play-by-play on Mexico vs Brazil in the World Cup final.  That, my friends, is comedy.

The pro leagues haven’t picked up SC II yet, so right now it’s a bunch of young amateur replay broadcasters pumping out commentary on SC II video replays on YouTube.  I figure I’m watching at least an hour or two of replays each day at my desk, and theoretically picking up some decent strategy for when I get to play it myself.  Listening to these commentators trying to make like Howard Cosell is pretty funny.  No way I could take any of this as seriously as they do.  Worse, they tend to cast games by the same guys over and over again, and they seem to get a lot of the games from replay packs that the contenders post themselves, so it isn’t exactly a mystery as to who is going to win.  Top that off with the wit an average 23 year old can bring to the table, listening to their bad puns gets kind of painful.

There are at least 4 guys that I’ve been following.  At least decent.

http://www.youtube.com/HDstarcraft#g/u

http://www.youtube.com/HuskyStarcraft#g/u

http://www.youtube.com/StarCraftLegacy

http://www.youtube.com/BlizShouter

For some reason I felt the need to rent Supreme Commander again.  I guess I wanted to run through it before renting Supreme Commander 2.

NEWS FLASH, it still crashes.  All the time, though typically only when saving.

Nice for me is that it crashed about 3 minutes before the Senators scored in triple overtime, so I actually got a chance to see it.

Finished up Mirror’s Edge this weekend, which felt rather challenging, though it might be that I suck that bad.  Mostly it was the Speed Runs that got on my nerves.  Very similar in feel to completing the campaigns in AvP on nightmare difficulty, where in either case, one little screw-up has you restarting the level.  I’m really impressed with Mirror’s Edge in a lot of ways, it’s innovative in terms of gameplay and controls + it’s a game that doesn’t center around guns.  Lord knows I’ve got enough FPS style games around.

Inspired by MI, I’ve run around 10 miles in the last week.  No, not really.  I did run 10 or so, but because I’m already registered for races that I’m going to get murdalized in if I don’t train up hard in the next week or so. 

I see that Supreme Commander 2 is out for 360, and while I was so dissapointed with the first one, I’m going to give it another shot.  so MI is heading back and we’re gonna see about renting SC again.  Maybe there’s a patch for the lockups…  Maybe…

Borrowed Halo Wars from a buddy as I still had a number of achievements to finish up.  For whatever reason, I’m totally into unlocking the avatar gear in Halo Waypoint, and that of course requires finishing a bunch of these games.

Most of what I had left in Halo Wars was just time consuming, only requiring a little skill and some reasonable planning.  But I got stuck bad on one mission trying to hit par time on Heroic for “Mr. Punctual”.

Mission 6: Dome of Light was such a damned pain in the ass.  If you don’t get it done well under the par time, the covenant troops get their upgrades and you’re out of luck against the bad ass Hunters without air units.  Finally figured out a reasonable strategy of Gauss Hogs and Flamers and a short script for how to start out so as to get production really running in the shortest amount of time.  As you progress, a lot of it has to do with having your units placed before the mini-bases pop up locations 2, 4 and 5.  Otherwise it’s again a time consuming bitch to get through each of those.

1. *Save (saving as at your leisure but I’m suggesting it in a few places to save time if you mess up and need to replay)
2. *Skulls (since score doesn’t matter, you’ll want 5 of the 6 skulls that boost you, but drop the score)
3. Build 1st Supplypad
4. Capture NW Reactor (use the existing Marine unit, quickly before the get killed in combat.  This is crucial as you need Tech 1 to upgrade supply pads)
5. Build 2nd Supplypad
6. Upgrade 1st Supplypad
7. Position your Spartans where they’ll do the most good.  The three towers 1 right next to your base, 2 at Rhino position 1, and 3 roughly ESE of your base are perfect.  I like turret in the 1 spot, rocket in 2, and spartan laser in 3, but whatever works for you.
8. Build 3rd and 4th Supplypad
9. Upgrade 2nd Supplypad
10. Upgrade 3rd Supplypad
11. Build Barracks
12. Upgrade to Fortress
13. Upgrade 4th Supplypad
14. Build 5th Supplypad
15. Build SE Turret
16. Train Marine
17. Build Field Armory
18. Build NE Turret
19. Upgrade 5th Supplypad
20. *Save
21. Train 2 Flamers
22. Research Adrenaline
23. Build NW and SW Turrets
24. Research Reserves
25. Train Hog
26. Research Napalm Adherent
27. Research Medium Turret
28. Train 2 Hogs
29. Recycle 1 Supplypad
30. Build Reactor
31. Research Reinforcements
32. Research Large Turret
33. Recycle Field Armory (once research is done)
34. Build Supplypad
35. Upgrade Supplypad
36. Research Gauss Hog
37. Research Oxide Tank
38. Research Grenadier
39. Recycle Reactor (you don’t need it once you pay for the research)
40. Build Supplypad
41. Upgrade Supplypad
42. *SAVE

Now that you’re set up, build the hell out of Warthogs and Flamers, and keep them coming, both aren’t particularly tough to kill.  You’ll want to dispatch a group of each to the first Rhino area and then send a ton of units up the the 2nd area and only then order the 1st Rhino and deliver it.  Once you place the 1st Rhino, the mini-base will spawn at area 2, your troops up there might cause some of the buildings not to spawn, but I don’t think I’ve seen that often.  Use the Hogs to take out the turrets and then the building.  Use your Heal ability too.  Essentially use the same tactic on the 4 and 5 areas.  3 is cake just transport a few units over.  I finished in under 20 minutes this way.

http://dakotamoms.com/?p=2160

I found this brief post by a mom with a son who would rather bag supper than stop playing his online RTS.  Big surprise…

What’s odd to me is that mom is torn between telling the kid to shut it off and perhaps cutting him some slack cause she’s under the impression he’s learning something.

I took a look at the game she mentions, www.travian.com.  It’s something of a derivative online real-time strategy.  Your typical enough town builder with resource and troop management.  While it’s not Halo 3, I find it hardly “educational”.

Anyway, while she’d tell the kid to shut it off and get his ass to the table if he we’re playing Super Mario Bros, Travian apparently seems like it would be okay to miss a little of dinner over.

Seriously!?!

First, mom, please understand that this game is an entertainment vector, not education.  I told my dad one time that Civilization was educational, he bought it, and you fell for the same ruse.  Yeah, it’s not as annoying as having Mario’s “beep beep noise emanating from the screen”,  and maybe your kid is building a town while building some social skills, but there are other ways to accomplish that.

Second, and more importantly, why are you even considering this?  Because his online world is persistent, and he might lose some digital villagers if he leaves for dinner?  Maybe you should teach him some time management skills and see if he can accomplish his online tasks BEFORE the dinner bell.

Regardless of the merits of the game, it’s more important to impose some dinnertime structure.  Tell the boy to get to the table and scarf down those nummy bean sprouts, and then maybe there’ll be more gaming after dinner.

I was thinking about making my own quiz, but found this one instead.

http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/rts-multiplayer-playstyle-quiz/take

Seems oddly weighted towards “TURTLE”, but maybe everyone just plays that way, I know I do.   The other types were Commander, Strategist and Rusher.  I think I would have specifically included a “Upgrade Everthing” type.  That’s probably a weakness, upgrades don’t do squat for you when you don’t have units…