A Green Mushroom

Recently evizaer wrote a post over at That's A Terrible Idea titled "Air Units in land-based RTSes" . In it he wrote about how air units in RTS games are "awkward". Saying they're either to powerful and become the only option, or they're just "ground units that ignore terrain". He goes on to wrap up his post by saying, "making all air units off-map call-ins tremendously increases the seeming realism and fun of air units while doing nothing to damage the metagame." This finishing statement, in my opinion, is completely and utterly wrong, and what better way to prove my point, than with Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2's air units fall into evizaer's category of "ground units that ignore terrain". On a surface level, this is true. However, there is much more to air units in Starcraft 2 than what that statement lets on. There are two states in Starcraft 2, when refering to air units, that a unit can be in. These s...

I’ve been playing MMOs off and on since the original Ever Quest came out. Out of all the MMOs out there, I’ve played EverQuest, EverQuest 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft, and Eve Online; all for various lengths of time. All of these MMOs, with the exception of Eve Online, use a leveling system for character progression. In fact, this is the de facto standard right now in the MMO industry which very few have the courage or ingenuity to break. Of course, this isn’t a bad thing per se. On the contrary, levels present a clear goal, get to the level cap. All other gameplay and content is then designed around this idea (except end game, but I’ll get to that later). Furthermore, levels give you a concrete indication of power and progress. They help you estimate fight outcomes (That guys lvl 26, there’s no way I can kill him at lvl 10). They also help reward you (DING! Lvl 35, now I can go get my Awesome Nuclear Explosion spell) and show accomplishment (Sh...

I can't believe how wrong I've been about board games!  I usually thought of them as bored games and had mental images of never-ending Monopoly games running through my head.  My only exceptions have been chess and some card games played with a standard 52 card deck. Fortunately for me, I have friends who were determined to show me the error of my ways.  They brought in a selection of games to work and asked me to play during lunch.  Usually we play SC2 or Call of Duty on our lunch breaks and gaming with them is a blast, but they wanted to change it up and try something new.  I think that secretly they're trying to indoctrinate me into their world of board games. I've been extremely surprised to find that I'm having fun!  Four of us have regularly been sitting down at a table and playing games face-to-face.  We're in the midst of week 2 of board games and so far they've gotten me hooked on Citadels and Ascension .  I think they're both gatew...

I got an awesome combo NES/SNES system for Christmas!  It was totally unexpected, but I've been having a great time playing games on it.  I guess they could be considered old school, but really they're just the games I grew up with. I was born in 86', so the NES and SNES were the most popular systems in my early gaming days.  My brother and I owned both of them but we sold them we the shiny new N64 came out.  It was one of the biggest mistakes of our childhood.  He and I have talked about it over the years and this year he decided to do something about it. Not only did my awesome brother give me a duel retro system, he also picked up the original Legend of Zelda, Pilot Wings, Star Fox, and my favorite Mario game ever made, Super Mario World!  It was the best Christmas present that I've gotten since we got our original SNES years ago. The amazing thing I'm finding out is how well these games hold up today.  Graphics aside, the gameplay truly stands ...