Sick days/ Learn to Fly 2

Hello Nerds!

I apologize for my recent absence, and my lack of updates on where I've been. As some of you will know already that I was on leave due to school activates, one instance of which being finals week, but I assure you that I’m back on the horse.

I also apologize if these blogs aren't as good as they usually are, as I've taken ill, and right before break none the less.

So to start off this week’s blogs I thought I would bring you all up to speed, I've been on my couch for quite some time with a bit of a sore throat and a case of spring allergies. Before that, I was working hard on the beginning of a new trimester at my school, after passing all of my finals.

 I plan to write all of my blogs for the week today, as I am taking vacation starting at eight o’clock this morning and only have today to get the weeks’ work done. I will be departing Cedar Rapids on a charter bound for Florida, a twenty-three hour bus ride with band kids. Let me express my gratitude I am sick, I won’t be forced to talk to anyone. I hope that I regain my strength for Disney, as I think it shall take all of the strength I have.

To satisfy those of you who were expecting a review, I will review briefly a game that I love to play when I’m sick: Learn to Fly 2, a game on Kongregate about a distressed penguin wanting to fly. You slowly gain money through your flights to buy better equipment and slowly soar to the skies, defeating the stereotype that penguins cannot fly for good.

I like playing this game because unlike some other games, this one is very easy to pick up, and you don’t need to micromanage it, you just fly through it. After only a few flights you as the gamer can agree that this game is a nice little cool-down from the hectic norm.

See you later gamers and remember

Resistance is Futile

Word Count: 355

Sim City 4: the Micromicromanagement game from hell

Hello Gamers!

I’m sure we’ve all at least heard of The Sims games, and today is the day I talk about one of the best and worst games ever: Sim City 4

I absolutely love this game for about an hour, and when my city becomes too big, I hate it.

It is a game for those of us who have never played it where you plot out areas for residential development, industrial parks, and business sectors. You then can plot out utilities, hospitals, fire and police stations, schools, libraries, basically everything your city needs to be a city.

You then wait for people to build houses, get jobs, go to work, and finally complain about absolutely everything.

I used to plot out everything before people got started building, but I’ve learned a trick: Don’t give them anything until they ask for it.

This way you avoid prematurely planning out every detail about your city, and you look like a decent mayor for it.

You can also create airports and seaports although it never seems like they bring in that much business.

It only takes about four or five in game months before your city is thriving and flourishing on its own.  I usually get around 1,000 people in my city before they begin to complain about things.

If you do follow my strategy of waiting, then you should be able to compensate for the demands of the people before they get too aufgepissed.

Once you have your city developed, you need to start planning cities in other plots of land to connect to your city of choice; otherwise you will fail…utterly.

This part of the game I found very realistic, and as a realist I liked it, but as the idiot I am I could not find a way to correctly hook up two cities. Sure I knew how to extend roads and railways, but nobody ever used them… I was really sad.

Once in a while I will pick the game back up, and try to perfect my strategy, but realistically it’s a crap shoot. I get on, play for about a day (irl) and then I leave from boredom.

So, when you’re mayor I recommend you listen to your council of advisors as best you can, otherwise your city… does something, I just don’t know what.

In fact, I don’t think the city does anything except lower your popularity, which might get you thrown out I don’t know.

Anyways it’s still a really good game, and I suggest that if your life needs some more micromicromanagement (you read me right), than this is the game for you!

See ya next time Gamers!

Resistance is Futile

Word Count: 451

Sandbox 2

Hello Gamers!

I have to tell you all something fantastic!

Universe Sandbox2 (written as Sandbox squared) has a teaser trailer out on its homepage!!!!!

If you haven’t seen it yet watch it now! Are you back? Awesome, right?

The graphics are magnificent in my opinion, the music (if it will be in the game, which I think would be a great improvement on the first game) is gorgeous, and I know I will be buying it whenever I get on Steam next. 

It looks like we will be getting new planets to tinker around with, new planetary features to play with, namely the asteroids hitting earth AND THE Earth exploding!? This game looks well worth the wait and I am psyched out for it!

It looks like in the video, at the end we get to see the moon being formed around the Earth, which brings up questions in my head like “Is it a simulation that you can just watch, or is it that you can create planets a WAY cooler way now?” That of course is just one of many questions I have about the game, and I’m sure you have some too.

On its homepage it also has some brief examples of what’s new about it.

Some new items include the ability to smash bodies together at various speeds (I assume this is just an upgrade to the old system, as you could do this before as well). It also is introducing a Climate factor to planets, as seen in the video I assume you can now adjust temperatures of planets on your own, without moving the planet’s orbit distance. Terraforming is also new, and perhaps my favorite addition to your toolbox of awesome. Terraforming means changing the atmosphere of a planet, and it’s surface, and if Man of Steel taught us anything, it can be cool and dangerous at the same time- what more can we ask for?

You can also throw asteroids at planets (again, it’s not anything new), but the damage system appears to be new.  

There are many new features to Sandbox 2, and when I get the game and play through it a bit I’ll report back with my review.

Resistance is Futile

Word Count: 374

GTA V IS HERE!!!!!

Hello Gamers!

Today I’d like to announce something that I've been waiting for, for a long time now.

Steam is now offering GTA: V for pre- order, for $59.99 that includes one million in game cash, and three hundred dollars in online community gameplay. This will be available through the first of February, and I’d suggest if you haven’t already gotten it for various other console, and that is, you like the idea of a computer playing GTA: V.

I’m seriously considering buying the game, as I like to mess around in games like that. I’ve always found those games had a sense of freedom I couldn’t get from other games. I think that sense of freedom comes from the game’s sandbox quality – you can do anything you can imagine.

 Now, I know you might be wondering “Leif, why don’t you just play more Minecraft, or UniverseSandbox?” Well, the truth is those games are very fun, and are jam packed with freedom (so much so they could be the next symbols of freedom if we ever tire of the Bald Eagle), but they don’t have the kind of silly freedom I like. Silly freedom to me is like (how Nerdcubed describes jumping in front of cars) Carkour, or jumping out of a helicopter into another one, or stealing a plane just to smash it into other planes and so on and so on.

Games like Universe Sandbox and Minecraft are great, but with GTA: V there is so many other things to do. For example, you can’t do much in Minecraft except build, mine, destroy, hunt, kill, and hike. And in Sandbox, all you can really do is smash planets together, which I tell you does get old if not left alone for a while.

GTA five will allow me to do all of those things (except mine and build) but do them with weapons and have chases. And it will let me escape from the monotony of car chases with no real thrill of being killed (as in Need for Speed your driver is a God).

Need for Speed: Most wanted showed me the thrill of a good chase, cop cars coming after ya, but there was always a sense of restriction in those chases. I think adding weapons might just solve the problem I had.

I’m not sure if I want the game yet, but at least I have some time to think it over, and I hope that I’ve informed those of you who have not been on steam, or simply not heard of it from your friends.

Enjoy GTA: V for the computer

Resistance is Futile

Word Count: 444

Prison Architect

Hellllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Gamers!

Are you reaaaaaaadaaayyyyyy?

Today is the day I talk about Prison Architect!!!!!

Now you may wonder why it’s called Prison Architect, well you’d be right to ask!

Prison Architect is a very fun, very complex game about what it would be like to run a prison. You are in charge of designing your prison, hiring staff, making sure prisoners are fed by hiring cooks, make sure they can shower, and sleep, and have free time, and the list goes on and on.

You literally get dropped out in the middle of nowhere, with eight workers, and some supplies to begin your journey to becoming the greatest prison owner/operator your prisoners have ever known.

You can get grants for completing little tasks, which I’d highly recommend for beginning a new game, as some grants give you up to thirty thousand dollars! These tasks are pretty easy, too. The “administration” grant just says to hire a warden, research finance and psychology, and have two office rooms. It’s not a lot, trust me. Others might include building a med centre, or a kitchen.

Once you begin, I’d recommend getting an office built first, with the exception of some paving stone so that your workers can move faster getting to where they need to be.

After creating your first office, hire a warden to research whatever you need.

Build then a utilities room for power and water, making a kitchen and canteen, and a holding cell for incoming prisoners.

Once that is done, you can build showers, or start off on building your cells.

In this game, as it is in FTL, the pause button is your life, use it.

Plan out lots of things ahead of time, so that no time is wasted, you want to have your prisoners be happy so they don’t revolt against you.

My policy on prison guards is having as many as you need, no more. This is usually about ten for your first 16 prisoners. Prisoners will arrive every twenty-four hours, and they come in eights. You can of course elect to stop the receiving of prisoners, given that you didn’t click the “continuous prisoners” box in the beginning.  

Once you have a few prisoners, I’d recommend lengthening the free time in exchange for fewer lockups, I think this will make the prisoners more happy but I haven’t absolutely cheeked that fact.

I've also found that once you have the basic tier one workers researched you can research grounds keeping and janitors that will really help your prison look better. You can assign prisoners to do this job, once you've researched the “prison labor” box.

Don’t forget to build a staff room for your workers who get tired, they don’t have to be big as only about three or four get tired at a time (given  your prison is small). Workers such as your warden will not research anything if tired.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to try different layouts, make your prison unique.

We’ll see ya later Gamers

Resistance is Futile

Word Count: 507

Universe Sandbox

Hello Gamers!

Today I’ll be giving you my thoughts on Universe Sandbox.

This is a little physics game about space and astronomical bodies and such that is really fun to dick about with. Have you ever wondered what it would look like if the earth was three times its normal size compared to the moon? Or if the sun would just go away to see what all other planets would do? Or whatever your brain thinks of? Well this is the game for you.

This game allows you to do so many wonderful things with… well anything you can think of. You can adjust gravity, time, size, weight, orbit time- basically whatever it takes to destroy pluto in funny ways!

Nothing can compare to the sheer size of this game, there are so many different simulations to open up. Some examples are

Earth and Moon

Solar System

Death Star orbiting Endor

Distant Stars

And some that are just for fun simulations

Tea cups in space

Size ratios

And I’m sure there are more to come, because the game offers a simulation creator, in which you can do everything you could before, but you now have a blank canvas to go all Picasso on (or Van Gogh, if ya like that sort of thing).

Universal Sandbox is on steam, and I think I picked it up for about ten dollars, like many of their good games are, if you’re just looking for the cheap entertainment of once in a while dicking about.

I’d highly recommend this game to friends, and really anyone who likes realistic physics and space games, where you can do the things you’ve always wondered about.

I think I’ve talked about this game enough, and if you’re not convinced (and I think I’m going to do this quite often from now on, link a great YouTuber I follow *and you should, too) to help me show how great this game is.

Resistance is Futile

Word Count: 329 

Battlefront II

Hello Gamers!

Today, Battlefront II. 

This was absolutely my childhood pastime; it was battlefront every snow day, every weekend, and every rainy summer day when my friends would come over to play inside. 

And I hope you go pick it up (it's only like ten dollars on steam) and experience it for yourself- if not for me, than for yourself.

After my PS2 could no longer read video games, I moved on to the Wii, along with came other games that I will also review in the future (such as the Lego Star Wars series, various Mario games, and possibly others I can’t remember now) when I get to it.

If there was ever a game that you needed no previous background in gaming, and Star Wars, I think this was it. You don’t even need to know any of the species, just how to aim a blaster and throw grenades.

The game does get a bit wonky in voiceovers- even on steam, when playing, in the middle of a sentence the game sometimes repeats parts, and sometimes the audio is a bit fuzzy, but the gameplay is the most solid I’ve ever seen in a game from that era.

The game is also very inclusive about the timeline of Star Wars, and what I mean is, it takes us from the beginning of the Clone Wars, to the battle of battle of Yavin 4, to the construction of the second Death Star. I really enjoy the story telling, the perspective of the 501^st, and what it was like for them. All too often we hear about the Jedis’ perspective  of the war, but never the Clones.

The game also has great bonus features for after you beat the main story in their “Galactic Conquest”, where you can choose your preferred time period, and team for that matter. You can choose to be CIS or Republic during the Clone Wars, or you can fight the Empire as the Rebellion. Your objective, like the name suggests, is to capture all enemy planets in the Galaxy, and to destroy (or fend off invading) ships of the enemy’s fleet. Once you do this, you’re done and can move onto other campaigns, or instant actions, or XY&Z.

The point is, you have so much freedom in this game, which is why I picked it up on Steam once the idea came to me, and it is by far the best ten dollars I’ve spent there.

See ya ‘round Gamers

Resistance is Futile

Word Count: 421