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Happy Civilization V Day!
By order of the Governor of Maryland, have a happy Sid Meier’s Civilization V Day!
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Starcraft is Over-Rated
Starcraft 2 recently came out so, naturally, I just installed Starcraft for the first time. A few years ago, I decided to atone for that summer my brothers and I had played Warcraft III from an illicit copy by buying the Warcraft III Batlle Chest. It was a pretty awesome deal – for $20 I…
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Otakon 2010
Just like last year, I went to Otakon, but didn’t pay to get in. Perhaps next year. So, like last year, I mostly photographed people under the the awning of the convention center. Unlike last year, I asked lots of people if I could photograph them. It paid off as I was able to get lots…
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Holy Video Game, Batman!
Sometimes jokes can be very misleading to outsiders. For a few months after hearing jokes about how gamey it was that Joker’s henchmen lost track of Batman as soon as he went up onto a gargoyle I didn’t have any inclination to play the game. It just seemed like it would be too jarring to…
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The NeoEconomy
There’s a new system of exchange of goods and services that threatens to rock the economic system and it’s not some new form of derivatives. Digital goods and services are growing larger and larger, but economics has not yet caught up. This is scary because more and more of our economy is based upon digital…
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Podcasts I’m Listening To
I’ve been listening to podcasts for about two years now. I got into it because I love listening to some NPR programs, but they are always on when I’m at work or asleep on the weekends. Eventually, I heard on NPR that they have podcasts of various shows. I checked it out right away because…
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Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization
Do not be fooled by the Civ IV part of the title to the updated to the classic Colonization. You do so at your own peril; well, your colony’s peril. Colonization is primarily a game of economics while Civilization is primarily a game of domination. In Civ you work the tiles around your city and…
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A Review of New Super Mario Brothers Wii
This is a game I have been waiting for ever since I played New Super Mario Brothers on my borrowed Nintendo DS. This is the purity of Mario. Screw all this 3D stuff. Yeah, it rocks to have a 3D space to run around in, but that’s not Mario. Mario is a side scroller and…
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Tetris: An Introspective Review
Tetris is the first video game I was unable to shut off on command. Players of Sid Meier’s Civilization are familiar with the problem of “one more turn”, similar to the bookworm’s “one more page”. Tetris was my first “one more turn” game. I first played Tetris when I was five or six and received…
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The End of Braid Part 1 of ?
warning: The following contains many spoilers about Braid. I, personally, feel that your enjoyment of the game will be greatly reduced by reading this ahead of time. You have been warned! I finished Braid last night. I did cheat a little. Of the 60 possible puzzle pieces, I used a walkthrough to get about 10…
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First Look Review: Braid
That a game like Braid can exist is a statement on where video games are as an art form with a well-established history and canon. To make a parallel in the paint world: without a long canon of traditional paintings of tables with fruit and bread, people wouldn’t have really understood the “parody” or “remix”…
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Final Fantasy IX Completed
I finally finished Final Fantasy IX. Took me a little over 30 hours. I didn’t do all the side quests, but that’s more of Dan’s thing. The characters I played with the most ended up at about level 52 – if that tells you anything. Except for a little bit when I was trying to…
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Final Fantasy 9: First Impressions
After playing Final Fantasy 9 for a few days, here are my first impressions. the graphics are a little distracting – it’s kinda like an uncanny valley thing. It’s not quite as nice as the new stuff, but better than the SNES graphics. But there are a lot of closeups because it was state of…
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Final Fantasy 9: The Legacy Continues
I have a lot of love for Squaresoft (well, now they’re SquareEnix), despite the fact that I’ve played relatively few of their games. I think Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 (originally released as Final Fantasy 3 in the US) are the pinnacle of their jRPG work. I’ve also played Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy…
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Otakon 2009
For the first time since moving here, I found out about Otakon ahead of time. Unfortunately, the economics didn’t work out we didn’t buy tickets. But I did go to hang out outside Otakon on Saturday to get some photos. Lessons learned: Remember what you learned in Hawaii and don’t be afraid to approach people.…