Winter Break

My winter break from school is approaching. Just like 2 more weeks then finals... I can't wait. But that's neither here nor there. I'm trying to decide what I'm gonna do with all this extra time that I will have. Something game related is what's going down... now just to decide exactly what.

My initial thought was an RTS. It's always been one of my favorite genres and I haven't jumped into a new since a couple of the early 2000's Command & Conquer and Red Alert games. So now I'm kind of mulling over possibly buying Supreme Commander, which is a great game by all the estimates that I've heard. Red Alert 3 recently came out and has gotten good reviews but reviewers said the story took a humorous, over-the-top story. I don't particularly have a problem with a funny story, after all Disgaea has an awesome and funny story with plenty of stereotypical cliches but I love it. Command & Conquer 3 came out last year to even better reviews. So, there's a good chance C&C3 will end up being my game of the break.

But, it's not RTS or bust... I've also pondered making a game. It could be an enjoyable month of honing my C# and XNA skills and having a hopefully fun game come out at the end. The problem with this one is that there's no type of game that is jumping out at me that I want to make right now. Not even a basic idea to start building on. Without at least an inkling of inspiration, I don't think this is the route that I want to take.

And now on to the newest and possibly most likely Winter Break time filler... WoW. The newest expansion is less than a week old right now. If I were gonna return to playing WoW, I've said for months that this is the most likely time for it to happen... sometime in December as some free time opens up. I kind of understand right now why it's so crucial to hit a holiday season release. If this expansion wasn't coming out until the beginning of January, there'd be no chance that I would be willing to reinstate my account. It would be Warhammer in this spot of potential MMO time waster.

Still not sure what's gonna fill the free time, but at least I've got some ideas... now to do some thinking and just see what I'm feeling like.

Saw 5... meh

Saw 5 opened in theaters last night. I am a pretty big fan of the Saw movies. I like watching horror movies in general and the intelligence and well thought out traps and plot twists in the Saw series make the experience all the better.

I'm not really gonna talk about the plot so as not to spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen it and doesn't want it to be spoiled... but I walked away not overly impressed. There were definitely some parts that were cool/interesting/thought-provoking, but all in all, nothing to write home about. If given the opportunity, I'd still go see it in theaters rather than waiting for dvd. But for someone who isn't particularly fond of the Saw series, I'd just say wait till dvd for this one.

I think Saw 1 is still my favorite. Not to say it's all been downhill movie after movie. It's kind of been riding a wave going upward and downward.

So, where I stand now is Saw 1 is my favorite... and I'm looking forward to Saw 6 around Halloween of 2009.

P.S. - Jigsaw is such a champ!!

Google Chrome

I've been using Google Chrome as my "secondary" browser for about a month now and I've gotta say it is a good browser. I won't venture to use the word great just yet. A year from now, I think it's conceivable that it'll be my primary internet browser. Once they've gotten a chance to get some feedback and add/tweak some features, it could become an amazing browser.

One of the things that thrilled me most about it is the way it used the screen. When maximized it even removed the title bar to increase how much of a web page is viewable. It's so subtle and yet so brilliant. One reason I love that "feature" so much is because the browser market is very much a me-too market where everybody copies core ideas from everybody else.

Opera does tabs then Firefox follows suit and then so does Internet Explorer. IE is working on a privacy mode (aka porn mode) and now Chrome has it and Firefox is working on getting it in. The craze seems to be having each tab run in a separate thread so that when one crashes, the others don't and that feature is starting to spread to all of the big browsers as well.

Because the browser market operates that way (and because they're all free), I'm excited to see anybody else jump into the fray if they have a history of making good software. So, Apple Safari on Windows -- bring it on, Google Chrome -- make it happen, I wouldn't be mad if Mozilla managed to jump back into the game with some Netscape love.

Google Chrome is a very impressive first beta effort. A decent browser over all, but needs a little more time cookin in the oven. And I feel comfortable comparing this beta product to the other companies release products because it is a Google product in beta. "Beta" can last an extensive amount of time for them, just check out Gmail (from 2004 until today it has been in varying stages of beta).

Here's to me using the then amazing Google Chrome browser (beta edition) on my computer (Windows and Linux side) and my hopefully Android-powered phone come holiday time 2009!

Marketing Genius (Bravo Blizzard)

I pretty highly regard the marketing of Apple and Nike. I've often thought if I were to rate companies on a scale from 1-1000, that I wouldn't be able to decide who to put in first but Apple and Nike would be numbers 1 and 2 (in whichever order) and would be in the 970 area. Whoever number 3 would be would be at about 750. So, I think those 2 companies blow everybody else out of the water.

Since the release of World of Warcraft, I would have to say Blizzard has been climbing up the ranks. I don't recall ever seeing a single commercial for Starcraft 1, Diablo 1 or 2, or Warcraft 1, 2 or 3 (to be fair, I lived in a small town that didn't have a "gamer" channel like TechTV or G4 until like 2000). But now they've launched cool commercials for WoW that include the Office Space one, the Mr. T one and the Verne Troyer (Mini-me) one. There are others, I'm just choosing not to go hunt them down on YouTube.

At any rate, there have been a few MMO games that were gonna be "the death of WoW." A couple that come to mind are Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Lord of the Rings Online. The newest game to be saddled with that burden is Warhammer Online, which I've written about previously. Warhammer Online officially releases on Thursday, September 18th. After having months of speculation of when Blizzard would release the next expansion to World of the Warcraft, entitled Wrath of the Lich King, they officially set/announced the release date on Monday, September 15th (for those wondering, the release date is November 13th).

What a stroke of genius! Right as gamers minds and energies are being focused on Warhammer, Blizz dropped the bomb that will make sure that their name and game is in the headlines and on the front pages of gaming sites.

Blizzard is no Apple or Nike when it comes to marketing, but they sure do know how/when to release information to stifle their competition. Bravo Blizzard, Bravo!