my thoughts on whatever I may be thinking about and choosing to share
warreni's Articles » Page 2
September 24, 2008 by warreni
Coelacanth said on September 23: [quote] Quoting warreni, reply 18 . This is just being melodramatic; of course you can give it to a friend. He won't be able to get updates, but so what? It's a perfectly functional piece of software. Unlike many games rushed to market today, patches are not required to make it playable. As has been pointed out before, you paid for what was in the box when you bought it. You're getting the updates, in effect, for free. Now, people reasonably expect...
August 14, 2008 by warreni
I just finished reading Frogboy's Information Society post, here: https://forums.wincustomize.com/321098 . It got me thinking about something. I'm a bit of a political nerd; before I got married and my priorities were rearranged (I love you, honey!), I was much more of one. I think that TPM is a game I would like, but I've been reluctant to purchase it because of some of the points made by reviewers. So my question is this: Would Stardock consider patching TPM to address complaints like the ...
June 27, 2008 by warreni
On the surface, this game seems like a great idea: cobble together a game extremely similar to X-Men Legends II except instead of restricting the roster of heroes and villains to traditional X-Men/Brotherhood-types, throw in the kitchen sink of Marvel paragons and ne'er-do-wells. And it's actually a terrific idea; the execution, however, falls rather short of its goals. The plot of this game, that Doctor Doom has cobbled together a temporary alliance of supervillains to help him steal t...
June 18, 2008 by warreni
Go to any major gaming site (ign.com, gamespy.com, gamespot.com, to name a few) or the official Spore website and look at the forums discussing the Creature Creator, a limited version of which became available for download yesterday and the full version of which will be available for retail purchase tomorrow. You will invariably find many comments that say "I can't believe EA/Maxis/Will Wright/Will Wright's evil clone is actually charging $10 for this software; what a rip-off!" I'm having a ...
June 12, 2008 by warreni
. . . does anybody know much about these "xtreme desktops"? Does anyone use them or had any good or bad experiences with them? Are they compatible with Stardock products?
April 28, 2008 by warreni
  I recently played through the story mode in Snapshot Adventures: The Secret of Bird Island , Gametunnel's 2007 Casual Game of the Year award winner. The game was created by Large Animal Games. This game, like many so-called "casual" games is clearly aimed at kids, but the gameplay will also appeal to adults. The idea is that you are travelling around the country, meeting with acquaintances of your grandfather, a renowned bird photographer, and attempting to unravel the circumstances ...
April 23, 2008 by warreni
This is one of countless stories of tragedy that have come out of the Second Iraq War. Matt Maupin, a staff sergeant with the U.S. Army, was the first soldier kidnapped in this conflict, back in 2004. He was just twenty years old then. He used to work at Sam's Club in the small town of Batavia, OH to make extra money for college. For the same reason, he joined the Army Reserves: like many of the members of our all-volunteer army, he needed a way to help pay for college. Friends and cowork...
April 23, 2008 by warreni
I finished Prey recently. It may be that in my old age I have developed a short attention span (I blame my wife), but unlike many other reviewers, I really felt as though the game wore out its proverbial welcome, like the friend or family member that you're very fond of who visits for Christmas but won't take a hint that you're ready to go to bed. The story revolves around a Cherokee named Tommy who is tired of life on the rez and has nothing but contempt for his heritage. Tommy's grandf...
January 26, 2008 by warreni
That's a weird subtitle, I know, but I was pondering what connections exist between these two games beyond the fact that I recently completed the single-player campaigns in both. Both are real-time strategy games that attempt to bring some innovations to the genre. Land-based combat in both is heavily invested in the concept of holding strategic points. However, each disappoints to a greater or lesser degree in its own ways. Many reviewers have stated that SW:EaW represents the first go...
November 30, 2007 by warreni
I finished True Crime recently, and I found it to be a pretty enjoyable experience. The game was criticized and not wholly unjustly for having a pretty simplistic combat system. It also drew a lot of inevitable and unflattering comparisons to the GTA series. However, it has one saving grace that I think actually makes it superior to the two GTA games I've played ( Vice City and III ): a branching storyline that doesn't grind to a halt every single time you fail to complete a s...
November 10, 2007 by warreni
Tomorrow is Veterans' Day in the United States. Without getting into political discussions regarding America's current or historical military engagements, it's safe to say that all of us wish for our soldiers to come home safe and sound and able to lead productive lives in peacetime. Sadly, many do not. In addition to a day of remembrance for those whose lives were lost, I encourage visitors tomorrow to follow these links: Thank You Veterans - a site created by the Paralyzed Veterans of Ame...
August 27, 2007 by warreni
Saturday I nailed down what's been bugging me about Galactic Civilizations II . One thing is probably just the nature of turn-based strategy games, which is that the pace seems glacial compared to RTS gameplay. That's really a personal problem, because I didn't really play a lot of TBS games back when the original Civilization or any of the SSI turn-based, hex-based wargames came out. (At that time, I was probably playing SSI's Gold Box games.) I've been playing RTS games since the days o...
August 16, 2007 by warreni
Okay, so it could just be me, but I remember 'round about the time MS was getting ready to launch Vista, a flurry of press releases and interviews in popular trade publications like PC Gamer and, naturally, Games for Windows touted this new initiative that Microsoft planned to seriously hawk the PC as a gaming platform. There would be huge in-store displays at your favorite game retailer with demo kiosks, banners, and other niceties comparable to the floor space given to consoles. Vista h...
August 3, 2007 by warreni
I apologize for the noob question, but my WindowBlinds tray icon disappeared some time ago, and I'd like to get it back. Is there a setting in WB with which I'm not familiar that enables/disables this icon? Thanks.
July 28, 2007 by warreni
Heretical as it may seem, I have to start out by saying this: I don't like Diablo . I played the original game and I have played Diablo II but not its expansion pack (this is mainly due to the fact that somewhere in Act II or III, I was wandering around this teleport labyrinth and simply got aggravated because this sort of pointless wandering was one of the main things that bugged the crap out of me about the game in the first place). There appears to be some substantial subs...