Wednesday Whimsy

By: Caelrona

Hiya all! The week is over already and I’m just sitting here wondering where it went. But anyway, Happy St. Patty’s Day to any of our readers who celebrate it. Aside from it being a small holiday; Sunday also brought us new episodes of The Walking Dead and Vikings; both of which I am loving so much. But today’s blog isn’t about television, no matter how much we all love it. Today I thought I’d talk about video games a bit. Lots of stuff happening on that front that I’m excited about; Minecraft just brought the 1.5 update which is murdering me with lag. That’s ok, Mojang, it isn’t like I was excited to play with the daylight sensors or anything. The newest Simcity was also released, but talk online says there are problems with it. Last but not least, Hidden Path Entertainment has finally stepped up to bring our beloved Age of Empires 2 into the modern age with an HD remake. So, let’s get started shall we?

Mojang finally released the much anticipated Redstone Update; otherwise known as Minecraft update 1.5. I’ve been waiting for this for a while with a lot of anticipation, because the daylight detector is a much needed circuit component and I loved playing with random redstone circuits. Unfortunately, the update did more than just bring new items. It brought lag; horrible, terrible, game stuttering lag. I mean, my laptop probably isn’t the best machine to run Minecraft on anyway; but this is just ridiculous. I get lag standing still. Aside from that they also changed the way texture packs have to be laid out, which means a lot of work for me converting mine to the new layout. In the long run, I’m sure I’ll eventually love the Redstone update, probably after a 1.5.1 hotfix to address the lag issue, but for now; screw you too, Mojang. =(

EA finally brought fans what they’ve been begging for with a brand new Simcity that has apparently crashed and burned since its launch. From what I’ve been reading, I’m really glad that I haven’t bought it yet. Apparently they are attempting to sell Simcity as an MMO, which is kind of silly. Take it from a Sim nerd; we don’t play Sim games to deal with other people. We play Sim games to control everything. An option to play with certain people would have been loved by pretty much all fans. Forcing us to play with random people, on the other hand, is not really welcome at all. We could just do PUG’s in World of Warcraft if we wanted to play with random players of questionable skill. Speaking of questionable skill; the AI built into the Sims is laughable. I don’t really think it can even be called AI, since there is no intelligence to it at all. They don’t actually have individual lives, as was promised. Instead they work at whatever the closest workplace is and live wherever the closest house is. But amid all the bad, there is some good news; apparently someone modded Simcity to work completely offline, proving the EA’s statements about online server play being integral to the game was a load of bunk. So hopefully the amazing modders out there can give us a functional Simcity that Sim-fans can love.

Hidden Path Entertainment is making many oldschool gamers very happy with an Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings HD release this coming April via Steam. I was so excited when I heard the news. I spent plenty of time playing Age of Empires, and having my friends slaughter me in online play. I still play it occasionally, although the hoops I jump through in order to run it on my Windows 7 machine without glitching are ridiculous. All of which is precisely why I am so excited; the HD release will feature updated graphics and had been designed to run on newer machines and operating systems. No more crappy graphics caused by Aero. As a bonus, they aren’t simply updating Age of Kings; they are also including The Conquerors expansion all in one glorious HD bundle, which is nice because that means we won’t have to turn around and pay again just to get those 5 civilizations. The best thing? They are charging a measly little $19.99 USD for this (a perfectly reasonable price, in my opinion) instead of some ridiculous amount that gamers would still begrudgingly pay for their much loved game. All in all, Hidden Path Entertainment is full of win!

Of course there are tons of other games being released, or have just been released recently that I’m also excited about. I mean, we did just get a Walking Dead game, and they announced Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag for then end of this year. All of which is super exciting, and I’m totally looking forward to them all. But since I didn’t want to bore you with tons of game announcements, I stuck to what pretty much sums up as my Top 3. I don’t know about you; but I’ve got some gaming to do!

Until next time,

Caelrona – signing off! ❤