TIE Fighter, Left 4 Dead thoughts

Recently I just finished TIE Fighter, a great space simulator from Lucasarts that puts you in the role of an Imperial Pilot. The game originally debuted in the mid-1990s, back when a lot of people played various flight simulators, and it was the sequel to the classic game X-Wing. TIE was not just a sequel, but a major technical facelift, both in terms of technology and adding a lot more gameplay options and a much deeper experience. In 1997 PC Gamer even rated it the number one PC game of all time, although admittedly for PC gaming this was BHL (before Half-Life!). I picked it up again not just for nostalgia (the original came on floppy disks!), but because I never did play through all the expansions and I wanted to see the whole thing through.

The main thing I want to highlight about the game is its surprisingly intriguing overall story throughout the original title and its two expansions. You see, during the flight missions you have your main objectives as explained to you by an Imperial officer's briefing. However, there are alternative "secondary objectives" given to you by a shadowy cloaked agent of the Emperor. As you complete these secondary goals you gradually learn that the commander of your ship is becoming increasingly involved with the Rebellion. But even better than this, during a mission where you plan to finally trap the remnant of this mutiny, you get double-crossed by another segment of the Imperial fleet, who attempts a coup against the Emperor. Since the overall plot of the game takes place between Episode V and VI of the movies, it's a great subplot to the overall Star Wars universe. Finally, not only do you get to work alongside expanded-universe uber-fan-favorite Admiral Thrawn, but you get to fly missions with Vader himself. A must play for all Star Wars fans, probably the best SW-based video game to date.

That's an old game. Now to talk about a new game - Left 4 Dead. Today I just downloaded and sampled the demo. Simply amazing. Every since I first played Doom multiplayer, I've yearned to play a great co-operative multiplayer FPS. This game basically puts you in a 28 Days Later/Dawn of the Dead-Zack-Snyder-remake zombie fest alongside 3 other people (either bots or other players). It feels very arcade-inspired, you only use a couple weapons at a time, hordes of enemies, maximum of 4 players, etc. This simplicity however is great, as it shifts the emphasis from solving "monster puzzles" (fire weapon #45 at monsterC's knees!) to just outright mayhem and saving your buddy when they get surrounded by angry, hungry, zombies.

Even though I could only taste two levels, it was a ton of fun, and the experience is tripled when you play with friends instead of the bots. Furthermore, it was developed by Valve and one of their recently-purchased developers, so it uses the fantastic HL2 engine, replete with realistic lighting effects, physics, and atmosphere. I've played the two levels multiple times now, and I'm still hearing snippets of banter between the characters for the first time. Once I get some money together, I can't wait to buy the full version.

The First Post

Welcome to the Borean Tundra. Here I'll mostly write about World of Warcraft, but also whatever else is entertaining me lately, like games, movies, music, comics, sports, internet junk, or whatever else.

In terms of WoW, I have two main characters. My gnome mage Guppy (or Guppii on my new server), and my night elf resto druid Moneyball. I think for the new expansion I'm going to rename my druid Guppyball for continuity and to get the "y" back in my name. The mage was my principal character for over two years, but in Wrath I'm seriously considering playing my resto druid as the "main". Taking a healer slot makes it easier to fill groups, both for me and the other members.

I have a couple other characters I'm going to muck with too. I recently capped my third 70, my rogue Yuppie. She's fun to play, but I doubt I'll be raiding with her except as an alt or something. I mainly leveled her to add Jewelcrafting to my profession arsenal to make money. Additionally I'll play the new Death Knight to some degree, but just as a profession-bot. So, I'll probably just get the DK to the minimum level to reach the max-level profession recipes for Alchemy and Inscription, to help this whole money-making empire I have planned. However, I can't settle on a name. My three options are Cakeordeath, Cashbringer, or Sarahpalin. Tough choices! My earliest character was a 60 orc warrior, but I've played Alliance for so long I don't envision myself going back, even though I do like Horde more.

Lately I haven't played much WoW because I completed the rest of my pre-Wrath goals a little early. The primary objective was just to get the rogue capped, and that was done 3-6 days ago, plus JC is at the WotLK-minimum 350 level too. My other goal was to get the pre-expac WoW achievements that I wanted on my mage done. That was a lot more time-consuming and will take up a separate blog post someday.

Otherwise I've just been biding my time, the new expansion is only a week or so away. I have a couple RL things to knock out before I can buy it, but I hope to have that done in time for release. My other problem is I don't have a working DVD-Rom on my tower, so I either have to buy a new one or wait until Blizz offers the download option. With nothing to do in WoW besides auctioning some last TBC items I've been replaying one of my oldest most favorite games, TIE Fighter! It's a great space-simulator. A while ago I replayed most of X-Wing (the predecessor) but TIE is a lot more developed and advanced so I skipped ahead to play through it. I'm almost done with that, and then I'll move on to replaying X-Wing Alliance unless Wrath totally consumes my free time.

Last note, I named the blog after one of the new zones in Wrath because it sounded the coolest. I hope the zone is decent (it's one of the early ones), otherwise I'll have to make a name change!