I’ve been going through the backlog of games, that I have said at the start of this year that I would go through, finding that, really, I like all of them a lot. So much, in fact, that I think these games that I’ll go back again and again because they’re really fun to play. I remember when I used to have a Hewlett Packard Pavilion PC that I would often use to play Half-Life, DeusEx, Quake III Arena, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter and even Soldier of Fortune (thanks GUNGHO917! I have not forgotten!). And the common thread about the games is that they were all really fun and brought you to their world despite the genre (first person shooters that were not really known to give story very well at that time).

A recap of wasted time

So far I’ve managed to finish the following games which I’ve included a small two-bit review on:

Alice: The Madness Returns – This game is said to be like the first where it visuals are great despite the flaws found in the camera, controls and weaponry. The leveling design and the overall atmosphere of the game is undeniably good as it really sucks you in to the world that won’t let you stop looking at and admiring it. The story continues off from the last game where Alice, after a series of unfortunate events, comes back to end up at the care of a psychiatrist who can be described as nothing more than a mere psychological groomer and laxative of children that are to be sold to pedophiles. Violence, macabre, and black humor are to be expected in this title as it does not disappoint in delivering.

L.A. Noire – A game about a man that goes through a seemingly okay transition from being a World War II veteran to one of the Los Angeles Police Department’s finest, only to have the twist and turns that make him into a pariah while going after the largest scam that hits all facets of the ruling and executing classes of Los Angeles’s emerging and booming society of the late 1940′s.

Star Craft II – A space cowboy opera, complete with just about every Southern stereotype that you can imagine thrown in for good measure. Whether you identify yourself as the archtypical “good ole’ boy” or not, this real time strategy title is definitely for you. That or a person that happens to love real time strategy games; a genre not exactly up my alley – Myth: The Total Codex anyone?.

Tomb Raider Legend – This just might end up being among the last of the linear 3D action adventure platformers because no one is making games like this one anymore. The game takes you on the role of Lara Croft, the “healthy” looking British archaeologist who, in this installment in the series, is going out to pursue Valhalla by investigating the artifacts that open to the gates to Valhalla and try to find her mother. The game is kind of bland…but in a good familiar way that was understandable given that, when this game was made, the game development industry still were competing for who had the best graphics in their game for the most part and not innovative gameplay per se.

Bastion – This game is the only indie game that I can gives complete approval, but also recommend from a soft spot of my innards (your cue to say “ewww”). The RPG elements incorporated into this isometric platformer is just great. The animation and art style that is almost that of the manga/anime character designs but with more attitude and flare that is quite unique. I would highly recommend playing this game along with your favorite beverage because this game makes drinks of whatever kind interesting enough for you to want to have one while playing this game.

Batman: Arkham City – If you have ever played Batman:Arkham Asylum, then you know that it is one of the best Batman video games ever as it made up for years and years of very bad Batman video games. And you would also know, those among you that are Batman comic buffs, that the story behind both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City are made up of a a few comic story lines that parallel to the official current Batman timeline. Which means I ended up playing a game that revolved around a story plot that pretty much came from the writers at Detective Comics which is quite exciting and is the biggest selling point for me to tell anyone when recommending this game.

Currently on “SonoQuest: wasting away on gaming”

Currently I’m tackling on Deus Ex: Human Revolution which, in a nutshell, feels and acts like the very first Deus Ex game of the series. I really do like the aesthetics and the cyberpunk action that really reminds me of Ghost in the Shell: Innocence . Despite the story not being as intricate as the very first Deus Ex game with the multiple party backstabbing and whatnot, but this game really sets forth the linchpins that would later on result the circumstances found in the first Deus Ex game story. Update (5/9/12): I finished this game and I might write a quick review on it to give my impressions of the game in the near future.

“Next time on SonoQeust”

After this I have only three games in the backlog: Witcher I, II and finally Fallout 3: Game Of The Year Edition. So how long will it be before I’m completely and utterly done with the games that I have currently? I give around 5 to 8 months really. But all in due time…all in due time.

But to go into more detail about the subject matter: I found that some games are just not feasible to even be counted on the backlog since they are games that either don’t have real closure to them or have not fit my taste in games.

The first category is really games that are just meant to be played over and over again until absolute mastery is achieved to enjoy thoroughly such games related to a sport of some kind (racing or martial arts) or maybe related to some particular eye-hand coordination conditioning to be good at (like bullet hell games). And then there are games that just never got me interested or I thought that the game was designed too poorly that I just did not bother to continue and drop them.

It could be that perhaps my supposed initial count of 47 games waiting for me to tackle are really going to be slimmed during the next months of playing through the games so it will end up with me just having around half a quarter of the original size of the backlog. Resulting in me having wasted money on games that I never end up playing at all; lesson learned when it comes to game impulse buying: don’t do it or it’s going to make gaming suck for oneself.

to check out the backlog in progress(click here). I should also give note that for Firefox users, the CSS Skew rules don’t work anymore (at least with the nightly builds they don’t anymore).

After messing around with XML for a few hours and fiddling around with the skew feature in CSS 3, I ended up making an, almost complete, xml document of my entire game backlog that I’ll update every now and then after finishing a game or two.

The idea is to get a list that is written in XML that is linked to an XML Stylesheet (XSLT) that is linked to a Cascading Style Sheet written up with some fancy CSS 2.1 and 3 effects and then passed through a web browser (any browser will do that anyone happens to use to access the XML file as all modern browser can parse xml, css, process xslt files and output the XML in HTML form) to then be seen in the manner as shown in the image above.

A work in progress as the CSS rules will be worked on a bit more, the XSLT file will need more fine tuning, and last, but not least, have the XML document itself finished and ready to go.

What is interesting for is the file-on-file access and cross technology of static code that can be taken from a single desktop application program (the web browser) to have everything come together.

It should get more interesting if I should start basing tags, attributes, and expected values found within the XML document itself on a document type definition (DTD) so that way there’s a more formal manner of defining the tags, attributes, and potential values so as to form, not just a solid XML file, but also a very small XML-based markup language for this game backlog list XML document.

Update on 3/26/2012 I’ve completed the list in the base xml file so any future changes will likely to pertain to the CSS or XSLT file. And as always you’ll find on the right hand the link to the list to check out any updates that I’ve done and where I’m at with my backlog.

(Click Here)

There are many peripherals that exist out in the market for computing that many gamers go for are mouses, monitors, graphics cards, mouse pads, headphones with speakers, and anything that can assure as much audio/visual accuracy for their gaming experience as much as possible, but there is one peripheral that is so crucial and fundamental that most overlook: it’s the keyboard. Before I start my review I’d like to give a quick crash course in the difference between a mechanical keyboard and what keyboards most people have come to be used to using in recent years (rubber dome). If you remember back in the old days of computers when you had these loud heavy keyboards that would be part of the computer set ups. Originally of IBM engineering design, these computer keyboards were composed of electronic switches that would make use of gold plated contacts – so as to assure proper electronic signaling of the particular key switched pressed. This made sure that you had every key stroke register with the computer. At the same time it was design to make sure that there was little finger fatigue, and by extension, hand fatigue with long periods of use. So functionality and ergonomics were in mind. The only set back was that that keyboards were loud with the individual key “clicks” and “clacks” that it would give in use.

In time, as more and more computers were sold and became common place among consumers, a new kind of keyboard began to emerge: the rubber dome switch keyboard. The rubber dome switch keyboard was new kind of of engineered keyboard that allowed for making more slimmer laptops as prior mechanical switch based laptop keyboards would take up a lot of space (which often result in some pretty bulky laptops). The design of a rubber dome keyboard was having a keyboard rely on wire membranes would be connected to small rubber capped switches that, when pressed down, would start an electronic signal to register to the computer immediately. Now given that the engineering and design of rubber dome keyboards was for the application of portable computers of the time – laptops – it made sense since the wiring within the keyboard not need to be long and would not make the signals started by the pressing of the rubber switches to have to travel much before the signal begins to attenuate (that is to lose signal strength from the starting point being the rubber dome switch to the central processing unit). But when rubber dome keyboards are applied for desktops computers and workstations, the quality of such type of keyboards overtime don’t address the needs that mechanical keyboards do become apperant. And it becomes apparent over time when, after heavy or long term usage, the rubber dome switches eventually wear out and don’t immediately generate and send electronic signals at the proper speed as they should for the keys to register on the computer of which its connected to – resulting the noticeable “delays” for characters to show up on the screen sometimes when worn rubber dome keyboards begin to give out.

In the area of ergonomics, rubber dome keyboards are quite variable in performance in terms of the amount of force that the keys need to be pressed. For instance you may have some rubber dome keyboards designed to require a lot of force for your fingers to apply in order to press down while other rubber dome keyboards are more “spongy” and easy on the fingers but later wear out quickly where you have your most used keys require more force than those keys that you have not used as much throughout the entire time that you have used the keyboard. So this can provoke very quickly for carpel tunnel to result or possibly some type of arthritis to develop overtime due to having to work with such a variable set of keys that require different amounts of force to be applied.

And this is where mechanical keyboards prevail: with the use of individual mechanical switches that, which by design are inherently more resilient and offer a more uniform feel, the tactility, when using such a keyboard, manufacturers can use various types of mechanical switches that are varied by tactility. Resulting in being able to make mechanical keyboards that are designed for various needs or purposes. An example: you can have one mechanical keyboard with mechanical switches that require more force to press down because it will be used on a computer terminal where precise registration of the keys is needed and prevent any “finger slips” that will cause typos. Another example: a mechanical keyboard where you have mechanical switches that require very little force to press down and register the keys before completely pressing down any given individual key so as to allow for the user (let’s say a PC gamer of a fast paced first person shooter multi-player game) to input the commands quickly without any force resistance obstructing every keystroke – or when touch typing with very quick precision and speed.

So with that being cleared up, I’d like to give a brief review of one such mechanical keyboard that I have purchased recently: the Daskeyboad Ultimate S Silent Model. The Daskeyboard Ultimate S Silent model is a mechanical keyboard that makes use of Cherry brand mechanical switches (the Cherry MX Brown switch model to be exact) which allows for a more slightly quiet and light performance during usage in comparison to their other keyboard model that makes use of the more tactile (but loud) Cherry MX Blue switches. The keyboard comes with blank keys so there is no inscription of what every individual key does exactly which is ideal if you happen to be one that does not use the QWERTY keyboard layout and use other alternative keyboard layouts such as Dvorak or Colemark, or just happen be to be forcing yourself to upkeep your touch typing skills and not look at your keyboard. And it’s thanks to the Cherry MX Brown key switches that you have a keyboard that is firm enough to help in making precise hits on the keyboards when typing while being easy enough to press down when playing any game that requires quick succession of keys to be pressed. But no matter whether you are gaming or are just typing away your latest report, this mechanical keyboard is the one to go to when you are working for sure. Couple this with the feature of being able to connect this via PS/2 and make use of n-key rollover. N-key rollover is a feature that is found in most or all mechanical keyboards where you can press down as many keys as you want and they will all register at once! Again very helpful for the fast touch typist or the hardcore multiplayer first person shooter gamer.

On the gaming side, I have noticed some definite responsiveness that I have seen lacking in the scissor rubber dome key type keyboards that I have been using in recent years – especially in first person games where the keyboard really shines as it demands for multiple keys to be pressed in quick consecutive succession for strafe movement. When playing less demanding games such as L.A. Noire, Fallout 3, or The Witcher, I’ve noticed where you have the ease of the keys that don’t end up tiring my fingers (my ring, middle, and index fingers that work with the WASD keys). And although it would have been more ideal for the keyboard to utilize mechanical switches with even less force resistance, such as the Cherry MX Red switches, they would have been a bit too light and more a disadvantage when typing sometimes as the resistance in the keys with the keyboard I have are helpful playing as sensory cues to my fingers and peripheral vision to indicate when I’m either pressing the right or wrong buttons when typing.

On the productivity side of things, this keyboard is quite nice to work with and allows you to really get into wanting to type fast and with precision. With the various clicks and clacks you hear with this keyboard as you type, you can really get into what you’re doing as you are using this keyboard. But it’s not just audio aesthetics as the feel of using this keyboard while typing away at fifty to sixty-four words per minute, you can then start to really appreciate the ease of use of this keyboard and start asking yourself quietly of what exactly have you been using up till then on the computer.

The keyboard key buttons themselves are of a sturdy hard plastic with a matte finish that does not develop gloss spots as quickly as more cheaper quality keyboard buttons might. On the other hand, the gloss finish of the keyboard panel itself I’m not particularly fond of as it requires the occasional wiping with a microfiber cloth which comes included with it for good measure when it smudges quite easily. But other than that this keyboard is quite nice and really allows you to easily enjoy typing on it. It goes for $135 and I highly recommend it for anyone that wants a keyboard that will provide a durable and top-notch performance for many years.

Check out Daskeyboard’s website (click here)

Many of the games of theThe Elder Scrolls series, at least the main numbered titled installments of the series and not the spin-off titles (such as Battlespire and Redgarud), have all been about open-world RPG gaming with the emphasis in immersion and believeability – something that is a big deal given how Bethesda, the game developers of The Elder Scrolls game series, go about achieving this with each series installment. And out of all the possible examples to go pick to demonstrate this, I’m going to be talking about the second most recent installment – which I just finished recently – of the series, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Released in 2006 and quickly being the darling of the PC and console gaming world for it’s incredibly large gaming environment, vast story arcs, customizability, and large questlines. The game, at the time during release, was not making promise or offering anything that was starting to become “standard feature” in PC games such as multiplayer or co-op gaming. It was nothing more than your standard, offline, single-player video role paying game but what it did promise was improvements from it’s predecessor, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, such as an intuitively designed menu and quest navigation system that allowed the player to be able to manage quests and go through the world of which your character plays in (this time in the Tamerialic province of Cyrodill for Oblivion) without losing direction or hair and/or mind (in that order).

Of course there was the expected graphics improvement and shifting from the old Gamebyro game engine to the new Gamebyro Lightspeed game engine – the latter featuring some milestone technological advances that allowed for even further modularity and extensability for game developers and designers which means that the world of Oblivion was guaranteed to larger, have more depth, and would surely kill hours of your free time.

The Graphics

The Sounds

The Story Arcs

The Gameplay

Final Thoughts

A slight pulsing glint of ruby started in one of her eyes to the beat of every syllable of her words.

And it was for the first time in my existence that I started to hate her for those words – just genuinely hate her.