Blog entries from Breefolk

[IMG] Does the arm in the above photograph look bare to you? If so, you are not alone. The arm in question is my own (the left one, to be specific), and I have thought for some time it might be interesting to get a tattoo. So, I now have a proposal for all HTL members: If we can raise $800 or more this month (October), I will get the HTL logo tattooed on my arm. I'll even record a special...

Okay, this is a little different from the usual fare. I'm not one to use my blog purely for personal gain, or to do favors for my friends, but this is an unusual case. Dimensional Death, the World of Warcraft guild I have been a member of for some time now and have raided rather successfully with, is getting ready to enter the new Mists of Pandaria expansion and prepare for raiding. I'm...

Previously, I wrote about how the next generation of consoles will not revitalize the industry, but I suppose I should have put a caveat on that: the next-gen consoles will not revitalize the industry unless they manage to include a kind of creative forward-thinking that the last several generations have lacked. The previous few generations, we were still coming out of the leap from 2D to 3D...

Last night, I solved a cryptogram. I had seen them before, but had hated trying to solve them so much that I never really cared enough to work it all out, but this time I brought up a javascript cryptogram helper and put the whole thing into it, solved the code, kept notes, and solved the whole thing by myself, and I had a lot of fun doing it. This is the sort of thing that makes The Secret...

In my last blog, I wrote about Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello's insistence that more games is better, but now I want to talk about a similar, though equally foolish, assertion he has made: that the next generation of game consoles will revitalize the market. Riccitiello has told investors that EA has built its business plan on an assumption that a new generation of gaming consoles would...

So, continuing on with The Secret World and getting a little more experience in the game, I've found a few nasty bugs that are somewhat game breaking. As with any MMO, it seems likely that these will eventually be fixed in a future patch, but they can be pretty damaging to the experience. First, you have some quests that bug out on a regular basis so much so that you become accustomed to...

I was following news about the EA shareholders meeting today, and the more I listened, the more I became irritated with the whole situation with gaming as it is. John Riccitiello continues offering “more MORE MORE!” when I can't help but feel like I want less. Here I sit, I have so many video games that I've purchased that I haven't even had time to play them all yet. I have a life, I have...

I've decided that, since it's taking freaking forever for me to truly write up a worthy final review of FunCom's "The Secret World" MMO, I'm going to write a diary of sorts to publish in parts so people can be up to speed on what I think of the game. This will be a continuing project until I feel it is no longer necessary, whether because I feel like I've finally done the game justice or I...

Note: All opinions expressed herein are opinions of the author and not that of HTL. Since I came to work on HTL, I've learned to have a lot more sympathy for BioWare. When the shit really hit the fan over ME3's ending, there were a number of people asking the Devil's Advocate question across the internet: How would you feel if you worked really hard on something and people came back at you...

With the rise of downloadable content in recent years, true “expansions”, as we have known them in the past, have become far more rare than they used to be in video games – not that they were ever terribly common to begin with. It used to be that certain types of games would be released, well received, and then expect additional content to be added some time later in the form of an expansion – a...

I just completed my first run through Diablo III on Normal difficulty, and I've got to say I definitely enjoyed it. Having been playing the Diablo games since I was about twelve years old, the game certainly doesn't disappoint on the gameplay front. The action, as always in Diablo, is front and center, and is ramped up even beyond my expectations. In Diablo II, released over a decade ago,...

Over the weekend, I had the chance to take part in the open beta for FunCom's upcoming MMO, The Secret World. Since recent events have led me to become extremely mistrusting of game developers and especially video game critics, I've decided that I should write reviews of my own, since clearly so many have a sincere lack of ability to provide what their customers are looking for. Since The...

Okay, some of us got together in the Here's a Realistic Idea: Buying Bioware thread and decided it might be a good idea for us to work together to write a letter to EA's investors in order to urge them to change EA's policies. I wrote up a rough draft, and am posting it here for review. It would be great if any constructive criticism be brought forth in the comments, and I will continue to edit...