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Danny Webb
United States
Whitesburg
Kentucky
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Forlorn: Hope
I finally got enough games in of this addictive little two-player bug hunt game to do a review. If you like Space Hulk for the setting and theme, Forlorn: Hope is right up your alley. If you like Space Hulk for the game play, Forlorn: Hope is at least a slight bit better than GW's beauty.
Check out my full review at the link below:
http://www.nerdbloggers.com/nerdbloggers/2011/7/4/forlorn-ho...
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Danny Webb
United States
Whitesburg
Kentucky
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The following is a re-post from my multi-user blog, Nerdbloggers.
We have finally gotten word on what Sony plans to do to compensate PSN users for the recent outage caused by Sony’s decision to completely re-write their online security in the wake of an attack by hackers that lifted the information from over 70 million PSN accounts. Here is the excerpt from the press release:
Central components of the “Welcome Back” program will include:
Each territory will be offering selected PlayStation entertainment content for free download. Specific details of this content will be announced in each region soon.
All existing PlayStation Network customers will be provided with 30 days free membership in the PlayStation Plus premium service. Current members of PlayStation Plus will receive 30 days free service.
Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity subscribers (in countries where the service is available) will receive 30 days free service.
Additional “Welcome Back” entertainment and service offerings will be rolled out over the coming weeks as the company returns the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services to the quality standard users have grown to enjoy and strive to exceed those exceptions.
Let’s look at that list. The free downloads bother me immediately. When Microsoft had a hiccup with Xbox Live in 2008, they gave a free game (Undertow) away. That was fine for people who didn’t own the game and wanted it, but all of us that had already purchased it or had no interest in it, got no compensation for the outage. This could easily happen with Sony. Clearly Microsoft should have offered free points to be spent on any content, but I don’t think that is an option with PSN since the transaction there are based on actual dollars, not points. There are likely a number of issues involved with giving money away that don’t come up once those dollars are converted to “points.” Still, I would hope Sony offers a variety of choices, and that every gamer has the opportunity to pick up games or DLC that they don’t have and actually want.
The next bulleted point tells us that each user will get a free 30 days of PS+ (Sony’s premium online service) and that current PS+ subscribers will get 30 days added to their account. I’m a PS+ subscriber and have been since that program launched. I would have been happy just to have the length of the outage added to the end of my subscription, so this is a bonus. It isn’t mentioned here, but with the related Sony Online Entertainment takedown, Sony has said subscribers will get a free 30 days plus however many days are lost to the outage. I would hope this is true for PS+ also. Otherwise, while new users would get a full 30 days, current PS+ members would be getting 30 days minus however many days it turns out PS+ is down during the outage. Sony should add the time missed to the end of our subscriptions and then add the 30 days to that.
I do not subscribe to nor am I curious about Qriocity, but the same points above apply. If Sony doesn’t offer back the days the network was down, they are not really giving 30 free days.
So, for Nerdbloggers, the jury is still out on Sony’s reparations. It will come down to the free content offered once the Marketplace comes back online. If the offerings are good enough, I will be happy. After all, Sony was the victim* in this crime; the users are just the collateral damage.
* A victim much like a tourist walking down the street with gold chains and our money sticking out his pockets.
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Danny Webb
United States
Whitesburg
Kentucky
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I'm through buying video games. Really. I'm pledging to stop buying video games until my current stack of unplayed games is reduced to zero. The story of why follows:
When I was young (let's say from age 10 through 24), I had very little money and an enormous amount of free time. I loved video games, but it would sometimes take me months to put back enough money to buy a new game. When I received games for my birthday or Christmas (sadly, only four days apart), I had to make them last for a while. These facts of life meant I put an amazing amount of hours into the games I owned. I would turn them inside out, hold them by their feet, and shake every tiny bit of value out of their pockets. I didn't start keeping track of how much time I had put in to a game much before games started tracking that stat themselves, but I do have notes showing I put in over sixty hours on the SNES Ogre Battle and over two-hundred hours on Heroes of Might and Magic I-III (over 100 hours on HOMM II alone).
Eventually, I grew up, embarked on a career, and got married. Taken together, these things meant I had more money to buy games, but a little less time to play them. Still, I kept buying games. Really, the only games that were getting a good going over in my house at that time were those that I was reviewing for, first, some fanzines, and eventually a number of web sites, but especially Armchair Empire. I had an obligation to play those games to completion before reviewing them and often it meant not getting to play a recent release I wanted to play because I had a game I had to play. Still, I spent a lot of time playing games.
Then, the kids arrived...
http://www.nerdbloggers.com/nerdbloggers/2011/3/29/my-no-new...
Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:03 am
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Danny Webb
United States
Whitesburg
Kentucky
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William McCarroll
United States
Draper
Utah
Check out my reviews at www.nerdbloggers.com
Hi!
We'd all like to welcome William on board and invite you to check out his review of Civilization.
Remember, we are giving away a new copy of Eagle Game's Struggle of Empires at the end of the month, so you only have two more weeks to enter. One entry can be earned for doing each of the following: join our guild here on the geek, follow us on twitter at twitter.com/nerdblogger or like us on Facebook. Other than joining the guild, you can do all of the above using links in the left-hand margin on www.nerdbloggers.com.
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Danny Webb
United States
Whitesburg
Kentucky
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It has been a while since Nerdbloggers.com had a game giveaway, so how about this. Here is your chance to win a copy of Martin Wallace's Struggle of Empires (2nd Edition). This is a brand new copy straight from Eagle Games and still in shiny shrink wrap. Entry in the contest is free, but you will need to jump through some hoops.
There are three ways to gain entry(ies) into the contest:
1. Click the Facebook link in the left-hand column on the site and "like" us on Facebook.
2. Follow us on twitter @nerdbloggers.
3. Join our guild here at BGG--it's in the Podcast section.
Do all three and get three entries into the drawing. Readers who already follow us on Twitter or "like" us on Facebook will be automatically entered into the drawing, as will all non-winners from earlier contests. We will get a random number from a follower on Facebook to determine the winner. The contest runs through March.
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Danny Webb
United States
Whitesburg
Kentucky
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I've been on a huge Martin Wallace kick lately, so I was excited when my copy of Automobile arrived via Fed Ex today from the good people at Coolstuffinc. Though I already had my suspicions, I was disappointed to find the game's box is not even close to the shape of the Treefrog release. Lot's of Wallace's games have been picked up by bigger publishers (or, sometimes just by other publishers) in the last few years, and most managed to box them in approximately the same size box as the Warfrog and Treefrog originals. As I work toward completing my Wallace collection, I really appreciate the aesthetics of the uniform boxes lined up on the shelves. In contrast to Mayfair, Z-man did a re-issue and light re-theming of Last Train to Wensleydale that matches the Treefrog box size nearly perfectly, so it slides right in to where the original would have been had I managed to snag a copy, and it looks great. All that said, I'm glad to have Automobile in my hands. I'm committed to a lot of reviews right now, so I'm not sure when it will hit the table, but I can't wait.
A note: I've never held the Treefrog editions of Last Train or Automobile in my own hands, so I'm working on the assumption that they were the same size as the rest of the TF and WF releases.
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Danny Webb
United States
Whitesburg
Kentucky
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I posted my first blog entry with the wife and kids standing at the door hurrying me along toward our dinner reservations, so I didn't get to see if anyone had responded. When I finally made it back home, I discovered that my original post had been re-posted about two hours after I left home and two hours before I returned. I have no pets, didn't leave any rugrats at home, and I don't have a "smart" phone of any type that I can post from. I could have deleted it, but, instead, I'll use the post to ask this question--what is your favorite game that features ghosts.
For me, it is the simply named Ghosts!, a lovely little hidden information abstract. I used to keep it in my office at work and wrangle students into games when they stopped by. It plays really quickly and has a nice bluffing aspect that makes it feel different than most other abstracts. I think I sold my copy during a purge a couple of years ago. Guess I need to put it on my trade list.
Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:26 am
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Danny Webb
United States
Whitesburg
Kentucky
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While reading through Bobby Warren's response to Mike Chapel's losing patience blog entry, I came across this particular sentence that reminded me how much a similar complaint about the ergonomics of the big box AH Acquire has annoyed me over the years.
In a list of things that he doesn't have patience for, Bobby includes the following:
Quote: Over-produced components which interfere with the game experience, such as the empty city markers which block site lines in the Railways of the World.
I've been to a lot of conventions, joined a number of game groups for their game nights, and hosted game nights with hundreds of different participants over the years, and yet I don't believe I've ever ran into a type of gamer that is apparently very common on the Geek: one who has a permanent neck brace and their ass super-glued to their chair.*
Seriously though, how hard is it to lean your body a couple of inches left or right to see what is behind the one and one-half inch plastic piece that is somehow blocking the view of the table as if it is the Washington Monument.
I appreciate the simple design of the 3M Acquire, and actually prefer it, but I can't imagine that the plastic bits in the big box edition cause any real annoyance, except for people that have to hear other players complain about them.
*No offense intended toward Bobby, people with broken necks, or people actually glue to their chairs.
Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:33 pm
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