EQOA - Halloween Event and more!
EVERQUEST® ONLINE ADVENTURES™ CASTS A LINE INTO FALL
WITH FIRST EVER FISHING TOURNAMENT
The Adventure Continues With New Holiday Themed Quests and Activities
Gone Fishing!
Scheduled to begin on October 31st, EverQuest Online Adventures (EQOA) will officially kick-off fishing season with its first ever in-game fishing tournament. Players can grab their rods and reels and seek out the best locations as weekly prizes will be awarded for catching special tagged fish. Anglers who are able to lure in the tagged fish will be awarded an in-game pet as a reward. The tournament is scheduled to culminate on November 15th, so time is limited. Join in the fun and hook a big one!
Fall Activities Galore!
- Trick or Treat Halloween Quest: Quest is comprised of 20 NPCs that the player must discover, collecting all the “treats” they hand out.
- Moradhim Earth Elemental Invasion: A GM run event that has players battling a Rift, the enraged earth guards, and the muddites. GMs take the guise of “rock named” elementals to fight. ( read more… )
Happy Halloween!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
For those who celebrate, Online Gaming Radio wishes a Happy Halloween! For those who don’t celebrate, turn out the lights and hide sucker! Those monsters outside between 6:00 and 8:00* are after your precious hard-earned candy!
Tonight don’t forget it’s also Wednesday (shocking, I know) and that means we’ll be playing various podcasts of previous shows all throughout the day mixed with a bit of music. I was going to post two OGRe pictures in this news post: one for Halloween and one for Rerun Wednesday, but that would be one-too-many OGRes and they would probably start fighting with each other over candy or whatever. Plus I just paid a lot of money for that costume… so there’s that too. He doesn’t get to rip that thing until it’s time to take it off.
(BTW, our OGRe here is dressed like a Moogle. If you already knew that, you win 3 internets and a [Gold Saucer Ticket])
*Depending on how lame your local city laws are on “official” Trick-or-Treating hours. Why, in my day we used to go out until 1:00am in the rain and snow for candy… and we LOVED it! Kids today… *grumble grumble*
EQ2’s-day - 5 Beta Winners being Annouced
Join the hosts of EQ2’s-day, Dellmon and Zanadi, every Tuesday starting at 4pm Pacific Time (7pm Eastern) for all of your EverQuest 2 topical goodness.
This evening, 5 of the listeners will be announced for their EQ2’s-day - Get Into Beta contest!
The Halloween Gaming Night
Tomorrow is Halloween and though many will be taking their kids door to door or hovering around the door in some creepy costume to scare the kiddies, gamers by the thousands will instead be turning the lights off and sitting down to the glow of their computer and television screens this halloween due to several highly anticipated titles being released tomorrow morning.
Manhunt 2 - (Rating M for Mature content)
Releasing on multiple consoles including the Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2(PS2), and Playstation Portable(PSP), this game is on a second release stage after its initial release was rated AO (Adult Only) which caused it to not only be barred from any platform besides the PC, but also cut them from the retail shelves of most retail establishments. Though the company refuses to comment on what parts were cut or outright edited, this game has been put through the rating mill time and again until it was able to be whittled down to a good solid M for Mature rating so they could release on multiple platforms. Unfortunately this game has hit those involved with rating a few too many times and it appears that the European market has decided to outright ban this game upon principle. As always, Rockstar, the developers of ManHunt 2, are trying to toe the line of decent entertainment and violent smut among other things.
From the reviews that I’ve read about this game, regardless of them winning their M for Maturity rating, it’s still by far considered one of the most violently graphical games which is viewed as so far extreme that people who typically embrace games of gory nature are even going conservative towards this game saying that it comes too close to home and is far too disturbing to continue playing. So this might not be your type of game even if you’re typically into the blood and violent gaming scene. http://www.rockstargames.com/manhunt2/
The Witcher - (Rating M for Mature content)
Though this game shares the same rating as Manhunt 2, it’s very VERY far from similarity in content. Some have rated this game as THE RPG of the 2007 year. If you are a person who enjoys a game with a very strong backstory that takes you out of your world and sucks you into the game, then The Witcher is a must-have. Inspired by renowned Polish author, Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher is full of conflict of all natures including social, political, and racial. The world The Witcher is set in is neither black nor white, and instead dwells within the grey areas of a world gone wrong.
The Witcher features real-time combat with over 600 unique animations instead of the few that most games tend to use. If their website is to be used as a measuring stick to rate this game by, then the game is just going to be amazing. The website is amazing and has definitely caused me to look closer at this game, so check it out. http://www.thewitcher.com/
Hellgate London (Rating M for Mature content)
Also coming in with a Mature content rating is Hellgate London. Another game which is said to bring back a feeling of nostalgia from the Diablo 2 days but with guns and a slight first-person shooter feel thrown in the mix. This game has earned its Maturity rating for obvious reasons with zombies coming and trying to overrun the place, you’ll have to fight your way through epic battles. This game, much like the Diablo 2 series, is not only single-player, but also has multiplayer gameplay where you can meet up with thousands of gamers from across the globe to battle against in a very similar way that Dungeons & Dragons Online has presented to the MMORPG market. http://www.hellgatelondon.com/
The Ravecast + OGRe = Ugly Pumpkins
Tune in Every Friday from 6:30pm - 9:30pm Pacific Time for The Ravecast.
Topic:
All things spooky - and a lot about Valve’s recently released Orange Box and the games within including Portal and Team Fortress 2.
P.S. The pictures of us above are from our dressing up for halloween last year.
Turbine and Codemasters Online to Celebrate the Harvest Festival in Middle-earth
Two-Week Celebration Kicks off on October 26th!
WESTWOOD, MA – October 25, 2007 - Today, Turbine, Inc. and Codemasters Online announced the details of the first annual Harvest Festival in The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™. The Lord of the Rings Online is the second largest Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game* (MMORPG) and one of the largest Tolkien communities in the world. Beginning October 26th, players are invited to join the celebration of the harvest season in Middle-earth™.
Book 11: Defenders of Eriador Launches October 24th!
WESTWOOD, MA – October 24, 2007 - Turbine, Inc. and Codemasters Online Gaming announced that Book 11: Defenders of Eriador, the third free content update for subscribers to The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™, went live today in North America. Book 11 continues the epic story of The Lord of the Rings Online by adding over 100 new quests, a new 12-player raid, two new areas in Middle-earth and introducing the player housing system.
Rerun Wednesdays!
Tune in all day to hear snippets from all of our past shows. Hear recordings from your favorite shows or maybe even shows that you’ve never heard before. Rock & Roleplay, EQ2’s-day, Design & Conquer, The Ravecast, Norrath2Day, and any new shows that will be launching in the near future.
Not sure how to tune in? Click on “Listen Live!” here on the right of the screen.
A window should pop up asking if you wish to download or open with.
Choose open with and select your preferred media client, such as Winamp, iTunes or XMMS, and then hit ok.
Atari + Chuck-E-Cheese = uWink Inc.
On a roller coaster through various websites, I’m seeing many comments, postings, digg’ed articles and more regarding comments about today’s gaming industry from the eyes of Nolan Bushnell, inventor of Pong, and founder of both Atari and Check E. Cheese Pizza Time Restaurants.
The line that’s caught most people’s attention is a reporting which is being mass-linked with its origins starting at electronicdesign.com
…In fact, he is forging a different direction from today’s shoot ‘em up, beat ‘em down, tear ‘em apart electronic diversions. He sees a generation of video games that foster fun, social interaction, and education.
“Video games today are a race to the bottom. They are pure, unadulterated trash and I’m sad for that,” says Bushnell…
When writing reviews, make them fun.
There are many games coming out or that just released which are a load of fun. They’re fun to read about before they release. To look at screenshots, to be a fan-spaz-monkey over while theorizing about how the game is to be. Who says you can’t use your imagination when you’re an adult, anyway? And obviously,they’re fun to play upon release… most of the time.
The few games I’m keeping my eyes very closely to at the moment are: Hellgate, The Witcher (drools), and Stargate Worlds. Now SG:W is fairly far-off in release, so it has time, but this Halloween I’m going to be having battles with myself on which game I’m going to be spending my casual-gaming time playing.
So until those two release (in a week), I’m going through reading reviews, and I couldn’t help but notice how absolutely much fun one site in particular is to visit and read what is posted. It’s obvious that the guy is having a good time writing, and his reviews are written in a form that is fun for the reader as well. His latest review is about Hellgate London, Bill Roper’s soon-to-be-released game. He also mentions that he’s been, like many of us, sucked into Valve’s Orange Box which has become a substitute for “Real Life” time… that is to say, time away from the computer and the games.
Back to the actual subject at hand: Writing reviews. Part of what I do is read a lot of reviews and they almost always “say” something about the author in general. Were they trying too hard? Were they in a hurry? Is the internal voice talking like a Fox News reporter? Is the person so sucked into the world of fantasy that they want to write something that’s just as fantastically mystifying, but instead fall short because they’re using the actual word “mystify” a thousand times instead of actually describing how the place actually is mystifying.
When someone is writing with amusement, a sarcastic outlook, tongue-in-cheek, or something similar, you can thoroughly tell. It makes it incredibly easy for readers to follow, it’s entertaining, which is always a plus, and it shows how much the writer was enjoying the thing that they are reporting about.
So for those of you out there who are consistently trying to write reviews and it just seems strained and difficult, perhaps try relaxing a bit. Take off the suit-and-tie approach, put on some weird al, if that’s what tickles your funny bone, or if you want to give a good kick of fantasy and mysteriousness, strap a rock under your nose and put on a good sound track with a fantasy setting feel to it, and enjoy what you’re writing. And also - if there are elements to what you’re reporting about that aren’t that great - don’t leave those out. Include them. If a person always gets the “yes man” response, there is no way for them to find the areas which need special attention for improvement. They need the constructive criticism as much as you need to vent about your frustrations.
