I went ahead and removed the It May Even Be In Our Time. I was sad to see it go, but it was time to move on. And it broke UI every time I switched between menu items.
It’s better this way. 
Personal News
While I enjoy the written word very much, my dry wit does not seem to be conveying very well and my long-winded explanations about why games are my favorite thing in the world are losing people’s interest. Hence, I’m tempted to try something slightly different: camerablogging.
I’m going to do an experiment and see how well my wit and analysis translate to video. I may be putting a video critique up on YouTube sometime within the next couple of months (it will be embedded in here – you do not need to leave my abode for your viewing comfort) and hopefully it will be interesting, entertaining, funny and far less daunting than my usual six-to-eight paragraphs of large words.
However, to do this, I will need a rather high quality webcam. I am currently looking at this one. It is affordable, really nice and if I don’t end up being good on video then I can always use it for recording home-made pornography and selling it to media companies (I jest, I jest, please, no outrage!).
Any suggestions, opinions, or cries of outrage are welcome!
I have put my Game Critiques in the body of the blog, just like a standard post, and have removed the stupid Game Criticism button from the top of the page. It was great for an older UI – in my newer one it’s not as effective, and with the presence of my Category list at the top right of the blog it is all too easy to find posts under the “Game Criticism” tag. So you can all just get used to it.
Plus, I was getting annoyed that comments were unavailable for pages, and that doesn’t make any sense to me. Wordpress is free, though, so who’s gonna complain? I should try to fix the coding, but I’d have to do that for all my wonderful addons that Tweet my posts and the like, so best adapt to what everyone else is doing and make it work.
New critique being proofread as we speak. You won’t be expecting this one. It’s a kicker.
Happy New Year, by the way. Hope your holiday loot was nice – mine was so unbelievable I may never run out of games to play.
I’ve moved!
Welcome to the new home of It May Even Be in Our Time. We have a new look and a new address, new space and a new layout. And CSS! Soon to be integrated into the new OrtizGames layout, as well. Get ready to have your mind blown.
Part of this new kick in the rear for me is the fact that I’m graduating come May, and I need to have my portfolio site set up. Another part of it is the fact that my last post was in 2008 and I have not been able to really deeply analyze something in video games for even longer. My game designer streak needs attention. I need to write. Assassin’s Creed II is coming out and someone needs to complain about it.
Looks like this is a job for, wait for it, Superman.
No, seriously, I’m coming back. Just give me a month to update the freaking site.
I’m building a game. I don’t have time to document it because I am so behind in production. It will be posted here when it is released. It will be interesting. You will be able to let your kids play it. I hope you like it.
Also: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/32048/360-can-handle-MGS4-says-Microsoft
Reply:
Courtesy of: http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=184
Yes, yes, I know, I know, where’s the SPORE critique? Where’s my game news? What’s happening?
To be honest, there’s nothing going on right now. So don’t worry about it. The game world is incredibly dull, except for Warhammer.
And the Fracture and Mercenaries 2 demos are lackluster, if not terrible.
I’m working on a game right now, so I don’t have much time to talk. Yes, a game. I’ll be uploading my portfolio with my work (finally) at some point soon and then I’ll keep posting about progress with this thing. It’s actually rather exciting. I’m just nervous.
Work is slowly taking over my life. And then there’s World of Warcraft and Monster Hunter, which are viruses. Not to mention I’m giving Beyond Good and Evil a full playthrough, and I still need to get Eye of Judgment to work (why is it so hard to make the cards readable?). My time is nonexistent. In theory. So give me a few more days, maybe a week, and I’ll give you guys the scoop.
God I need sleep.
Posted by andres
on September 18, 2008
Headline News, Interesting Stuff, Personal News / No Comments
Headline News, Interesting Stuff, Personal News / No Comments
SPORE works. Oh, God, I was so convinced the problem was my video card, but after Googling a little, I learned about a community of people that were having the same issues, and by using a simple yet retarded fix I managed to install the game and have it work. It doesn’t run spectacularly on my PC; it’s at lowest settings, and even then it has laggy moments (so maybe I should get the XG Station anyway?) but it runs, dear God, and I’m so happy that I finally have the chance to play. I’ve been out and about all today, fretting over being able to get home and play at 8pm. I’ve only made it to the Creature Stage.
But learning all about the issues and bugs in SPORE and the features that have been lacking in the final version, I’ve become thoughtful as to what problems must have arisen in its development, and where focus has been placed in the game design in order to refine particular aspects of the game that were considered core to its experience. Why is it plagued with so many glitches, errors and difficulties? Why is the DRM so broken?
I’ll be sure to write up a SPORE critique for you all sometime very soon. For now, I’m going to go into hiding for a few days while I play it.
My computer cannot run SPORE: a game I have reserved two years in advance and have anticipated like the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
I’m going to go be very depressed for a while.
[EDIT:] I realize I was too vague with my post, clearly, so let’s elaborate quickly: I have a Hewlett Packard laptop, which has had sufficient power to run a lot of what I’ve given it. It even ran Oblivion at like, ten frames per second. It ran the Warhammer Beta, if with horrible lag. But SPORE simply crashes every time I try running it, and when I checked The System Requirements Lab, it revealed to me that despite my previous assumptions, my ATI Radeon Xpress 200M integrated graphics card simply misses the mark for playing SPORE. It’s just a smidge under requirements, where everything else on my computer is relatively decent. Even my processor isn’t half bad, and it’s a Turion 64, which is nothing compared to a Intel Core 2 Duo.
I was devastated all yesterday, and I’ve really kind of lost hope to be able to play SPORE anymore, except for one small glimmer of hope: the ASUS XG Station, a portable external graphics card and multimedia handler for laptops lacking in the graphics department. According to its Wikipedia Article (which isn’t a very reliable source), the ASUS XG Station has been delayed until sometime mid-September while it’s finished up. This means it could be possible to upgrade my laptop using the external video card and be able to play SPORE. However, I have no idea what the price tag on this thing will be, and considering the video card used in it is $260 USD or so by itself, I’m worried the Station will cost somewhere around $350 dollars or more, a cost I just can’t dish out so readily.
I await to hear more news, but for now, I’m pretty much resigned to not be able to play SPORE until I get a new computer in a couple of years. And that really hurts.
I had a strange and horrible nightmare last night that revealed several things about myself.
In the dream, I was playing a portable game. It could have been any console. Something like an action RPG with 2D graphics and puzzle elements. I ended up beating the game after what felt like an eternity of seeking treasure and fighting giant tortoises with cannons on their backs (I’m already considering the game possibilities of this) only to be taken back to my village and being offered a magnificent reward: a weapon I could later use by continuing the completed game, so essentially I could keep my prior equipment and do more long quests. In spirit, it sounds like a strange hybrid between Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Monster Hunter Freedom 2.
Anyway, the nightmare happened when I was trying to choose which of the legendary weapons of the village I wanted to have. As I was scrolling through them, I got a preview of that the weapon looked like, but nothing on its stats! Its attack power, special abilities and buffs were nowhere on the screen! And I looked around for some button that would give me the info of the weapon before I chose it, but I couldn’t spot any info on the screen, and was terrified to press any button out of fear that I would accidentally select the weapon when I wasn’t ready.
Then I accidentally pressed the back/cancel button, and suddenly the gifting ceremony was over! I was outside, and I didn’t have any of the weapons! I ran around the village trying to find where the ancient weapons were stored and see if I could still have one, but to no avail. Panicked, I tried to remember where I had last saved my game and whether it would be feasable to simply restart my console and try working back up to that point.
In my desperation, I woke myself up and lay there in stupor, thinking that timeless phrase again: “Oh my god, I’m so glad that was just a dream.”
And then I had to think to myself, “Only a game designer would have a nightmare about bad design choices in a screen for selecting a weapon.”
I must be insane.
I just spent like seven nine hours yesterday playing World of Warcraft. I’m in Mexico with nothing to do for two weeks. I might as well play games. But World of Warcraft the whole day? I really need to play something else. Or do something productive. I guess I’ll go fix Mom’s computer, or something.
Wait, or Monster Hunter. (*finds PSP*)
Someone who is not successful said something that is completely a lie and irrelevant. If exclusives didn’t exist, practically nothing would turn games to one title or the other. It’s getting to the point where everything has the same features and abilities. If exclusives didn’t exist, people would have no reason to buy one console over another, and they’d all end up buying the cheapest one.
They’d buy the Wii. Can you imagine the horror?
