Thursday, December 1, 2011

TOR Beta Impressions

My original plan for the Thanksgiving day beta test was to try out multiple classes and get a feel for all of them. That plan fell by the wayside the moment I started playing my Sith Inquisitor. The flow of the story and the sheer fun of gameplay caused me to play my Sith Inquisitor all the way to level 26. I was online 10 minutes before the servers shut down because I was trying to complete my class story for Tatooine. TOR is shaping up to be a highly addictive and excellent game. The little touches (area looting, crew skills, companion missions) are what make the game engaging and give it a "can't put it down" quality.

Ryan Hanenburg is channeling his UNLIMITED POWER!

Friday, November 11, 2011

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim has released to rave reviews. The newest installment in the Elder Scrolls series boasts hundreds of hours of entertainment and a persistent world where quests are generated infinitely. Time will tell if these claims prove true but after playing for about 3 hours I can tell you that so far the praise is definitely warranted.

Ryan Hanenburg is shouting at dragons

DC Universe Online goes F2P

DC Universe Online has officially gone Free To Play. Free players are limited to 2 character slots but more can be purchased. In addition any DLC packs (such as the Green Lantern powers) must be purchased individually unless you sign up for a monthly fee.

Ryan Hanenburg thinks Superspeed is the best travel power

Friday, November 4, 2011

Judge beats his daughter for downloading games

Texas judge William Adams is on the internet, unfortunately he's on camera beating his daughter with a belt. Allegedly Judge Adams was beating his daughter for illegally downloading video games and music from the internet. The video was posted to Reddit supposedly by the daughter and within minutes it was sent to the authorities. Judge Adams has been quoted by saying that the footage is "not as bad as it looks" however it should be noted that he does not deny that the footage is true.

If you wish you can see the video here but be warned that it is extremely graphic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wl9y3SIPt7o

Ryan Hanenburg is extremely disgusted with this man and hopes that he is never allowed to pass judgement on anyone ever again.

Grand Theft Auto 5

On November 2 Rockstar unveiled the trailer for the newest installment in the Grand Theft Auto series. The trailer shows that it will be set in the California inspired location of Los Santos once more (the last time we saw this location was in GTA: San Andreas.) Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjZ5tgjPVfU

Ryan Hanenburg is torn between Saints Row and GTA

Friday, October 28, 2011

Voidstar

This weeks Friday update for Star Wars: The Old Republic is an update on the Warzones available for PvP. The highlight is the Voidstar where players must battle for control of an ancient warship. The attackers must use demolition charges to blow open doors and the defenders can access the defense systems of the ship to discourage attackers. It looks to be a new take on base capture mechanics and it looks like it'll be tons of fun! Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK19tHqyFUI&feature=player_embedded or at swtor.com

Ryan Hanenburg is never called a Space Cowboy.

SWTOR Classes

Here's a YouTube video of me commentating on the various classes of Star Wars: The Old Republic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDawrk-T9BA&feature=channel_video_title

It'sa me! Ryan Hanenburg!

Friday, October 21, 2011

New Talent System for WoW

Today at Blizzcon Blizzard revealed a new type of talent system for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. In the new expansion talents will be based on a series of ability choices made every 15 levels. This will replace the current point based system. Another thing is that there is only one tree for each spec of a class. Check out http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/blizzard-reveals-new-talent-system-at-blizzcon/ for more details and pictures.

Ryan Hanenburg is wondering how this will all work out

Mists of Pandaria Confirmed

Today at Blizzcon the new expansion for World of Warcraft was confirmed to be Mists of Pandaria. The announcement was then completed with a trailer that touted new features such as

  • Level cap raised to 90
  • New class: Monk
  • New race: Pandarens
  • Pve Scenarios
  • Pet Battle System (Pokemonnn!)
  • New Talents
  • New continent
  • Challenge Mode Dungeons

Check out the trailer at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyeZ8khSEC0&feature=channel_video_title

Ryan Hanenburg wonders how many noodle themed food items will be in this expansion

Friday, October 14, 2011

Signs of War

A new gameplay trailer has appeared on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website titled "Signs of War". Along with this trailer also came the news that the release date for TOR has been made global and is now December 20 for all countries. This is a change from the previous date which was Dec 20 for US and Dec 22 for Europe.
Check out the new trailer at http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20111014
Ryan Hanenburg is looking for signs of beta.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Skyrim beaten in 2 hours

Bethesda QA tester Sam Bernstein recent posted on the Bethesda blog that he has beaten the central quest for their upcoming RPG Skyrim in a little over two hours. He and another tester Jeff Browne were having a competition and he was able to beat Browne by about twenty seconds. Bethesda says that Sam's experience is not typical and was mostly due to his large amounts of experience with the game and that he was "rushing" to the end. Bethesda claims that it will take most players about 30 hours to complete Skyrim's main questline. For more information head to http://www.bethblog.com/index.php/2011/10/13/jeff-vs-sam-ii-the-skyrim-speedrun/

Ryan Hanenburg is hoping that there will be an awesome Dark Brotherhood questline for Skyrim.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Real Life Assault over Black Ops Game

Mark Bradford, 46, tracked down a 13 year old who had been "trash talking" him in an online match of Call of Duty: Black Ops and assaulted him. The child was at a friend's house not far from Bradford's apartment and Bradford tracked him there and began choking him. The boy's mother was able to intervene before the child received serious injury. Bradford was apparently able to find the boy since he was a "loosely-connected friend of the family."




Bradford has reportedly suffered from mental health issues in the past. He has plead guilty to one count of assault by beating and is awaiting sentencing. Bradford claims he and the boy have reconciled and still play Black Ops together online.


For more details check http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113404-Middle-Aged-Gamer-Assaults-Teen-Over-Black-Ops-Beatdown and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043589/PlayStation-gamer-Mark-Bradford-46-throttles-schoolboy-Call-Of-Duty-revenge-attack.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Ryan Hanenburg never uses his headset when playing Black Ops

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Star Wars: The Old Republic Release Date

At EuroGamer developers Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic would be released on December 20, 2011 in the US and December 22, 2011 in Europe. The announcement came out of nowhere and shocked fans worldwide. SWTOR is one of the most highly anticipated games of the year and the news that it would launch within the year was celebrated by all fans.

If you're looking to gain early access you should pre-order now as release copies are limited and early access is based on the order in which pre-order codes are registered. For the official release check out http://www.swtor.com/news/press-release/20110924

Ryan Hanenburg is chargin his Force Lightning

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

DC Universe Online Goes Free to Play in October

Sony Online Entertainment announced that in late October DC Universe Online will be shifting to a Free to Play model. There will be 3 levels of access with increasing benefits based on how much you pay. Free players can have up to two characters and can experience all current content; they will need to pay to download content patches however. For more information on this topic visit http://www.dcuniverseonline.com/en/news/archive.vm?id=63&month=current

Ryan Hanenburg is Batman

WoW Patch 4.3 Preview

Blizzard Entertainment recently unveiled a plethora of details about their upcoming content patch 4.3 which will feature the end of Deathwing. The patch will contain three new 5-man dungeons which are titled "End Time", "Well of Eternity," and "Hour of Twilight." All of these dungeons are related to the 4.3 raid which is called "The Dragon Soul"; named for the artifact which caused the corruption of Deathwing in the first place. In an interesting move by Blizzard the last two fights of the raid are Deathwing making it a multiple encounter fight.
For more information on the patch head to www.worldofwarcraft.com
Patch 4.3 does not currently have an announced release date.

Ryan Hanenburg is going dragon surfing

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Beta Weekend Re-invites

Stephen Reid, Community Manager of Bioware recently announced on the forums that those who participated in the first beta weekend for Star Wars: The Old Republic would be invited back for the next weekend. Reid said that the reason for this was that unexpected hardware issues caused testers to have an unsatisfying experience and that it would be more beneficial to have them experience a more complete client.

The entire forum thread can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=489789

Ryan Hanenburg is refreshing his mailbox hoping for a beta invite.