Flash Game Friday: Word Bacon

Do you love bacon?  I know you do.

Do you love word games?  Who doesn't?

Put them together and you've got Word Bacon, a fun little letter-replacement game made by a Redditor named seebs.  The objective is simple, you are trying to take one word and make into another by replacing letters.  Every replacement must construct a new word, so it's a tricky brain teaser.  At normal mode it's okay, but at "Holy Swine of Zeus" you might find yourself clicking the "Hint" button every round.

Definitely a contender for your Friday "productivity" time.  Give it a go!

Old World Blues Follow-Up

Bethesda's first attempts at a roll out of DLC for smash hit Fallout 3 were pretty ill-received.  I happened to like The Pitt, which brought up some more complicated moral choices, but that can't be everyone's cup of tea, I suppose.

Giant Roboscorpion!

Old World Blues was, in comparison, an immaculate example of what I had expected from a $9.99 purchase of DLC.  It added approximately 10 hours of playtime, new enemies, new versions of old enemies, new weapons, new perks, new traits, and an engaging and hilarious story. 

I wrapped up the DLC last night, and have to comment that it stayed true to its foundation of quality deliverables through and through.  The story had poignancy and a twist, but not a twist in the way that the writers sat down and said: "we have to think of a twist so that the story maintains relevance.  All stories have unexpected twists!"  Actually, the "twist" is a natural discovery, and it's the exact kind of fun I wanted from the story add-on, and that I had come to expect from Fallout: New Vegas.

Crashes, of course, were an issue; I can't say I wasn't disappointed by the gripping thrust back into reality by watching my character's weapon half-holstered, frozen in time.  It would have made a nice picture had it not been so frustrating.

My recommendation of grabbing this DLC stands, but if I could enhance it - somehow add flavor to it, I would say this: as a male character with the Confirmed Bachelor (gay) perk, I was able to flirt with my brain in a jar.

Really, where else can you experience that?

Dragon Age 2 has MORE DLC?

Why was I not told about this??

Books: Southern Vampire Mysteries

Sarah (whose blog has some to-die-for food pictures, NSFD- not safe for diet) got me interested in True Blood, an HBO series based off of the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris.  The series was addictive, and before long I'd watched a great deal of every episode available for human consumption.  For my birthday, I'd asked to give the foundation books a go, and I've been eating them just as quickly!

The books center on the first-person narrative of Sookie Stackhose, a waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana's only successful bar, Merlotte's.  Sookie is a twenty-something everywoman, except that she has a "disability" - as she calls it - of telepathy.  When Bill Compton, a vampire walks into Merlotte's, Sookie cannot read his thoughts and finds his silence blissful.

The books (and subsequent HBO series) do the in medias res thing I like so much.  Vampires have "come out of the coffin" and are (mostly) doing their best to fit in with the mortal population, baring the ability to walk in daylight, lest they burn into flames (as they should, Ms. Meyer).  Vampires may be old hat to big cities like New Orleans, but Bon Temps is a whole different story.  This is a helpful literary tool because it allows the reader to gain some backstory on vampires through some of the residents' naivety.

As a reading experience, Dead Until Dark was much closer One for the Money and Evanovich's other Stephanie Plum books, that is to say: funny, witty, with a side of mystery whodunnit thrown in for good measure.  Harris doesn't shove anything down the reader's throat, nor is the revelation a sudden change in direction.  The ending of Living Dead in Dallas did seem a little rushed, but that's my only compliant - and it's minor.  These books are edible and DELICIOUS.

True Blood on the other hand, is a different monster entirely.  The show follows the basic plot points from Harris' text, but spreading a couple hundred pages over 13 full episodes does require some fleshing out.  If you are a fan of the show, you'll likely enjoy the book, but they are not the same.  Whereas the HBO series is dark, sexual, and violent, Harris' books are more fun, and about the relationships (especially between Sookie and her vampire suitor, Bill - and a much-sexier-than-I-had-given-him-credit-for-because-I-didn't-find-the-actor-attractive, Eric).

It's been a perfect summer read, and if you have any interest at all, I'd say you need to sink your teeth into this series.  It's to die for: Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood)

iPad Apps: iCatcher

Do you have an iDevice?  Do you like podcasts like "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: The NPR News Quiz?"

Then consider picking up iCatcher!  This app is the only one I've found that successfully syncs video and audio podcasts.  It's very easy to search and download tons of podcasts, and you can set up automic syncing and updates!  For only a couple bucks, it was well worth the investment.

Fallout: New Vegas DLC - Old World Blues

Old World Blues is the most recently released DLC package for Fallout: New Vegas, and it's also the only pack I've had any experience with.  After about five hours of play yesterday, I feel like I've got a good enough grasp to give it a review, even if I haven't played the whole thing (this sort of behavior makes me reek of professionalism, right?).

Firstly, there is about a half hour of dialogue at the beginning of the DLC.  Yes, a half hour.  Do you know how long I wanted it to be?

In-Game Economics 101

EDIT: Oh sure, Washington Post, put up your article at the exact same time I post this, referencing very similar things...  You're on my list, buddy.

Disclaimer!  Some of this discussion comes from the presentation "Understanding Virtual Worlds" that Michelle Kandalaft (a Ph.D. Psychology student and awesome gamer-gal) and I put together at the University of Texas at Arlington.  I am not an expert in Economics, though my mother drew a Supply-Demand graph on a napkin at Denny's when I asked why things cost money at the age of 4.  So, credit where credit is due to Dr. Kandalaft and my mother.

Also, the Amazon.com ad for The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers [7th Edition] was purposeful.  If you haven't read it, you really ought to.

With Blizzard's announcement that Diablo 3 will feature a system for users to sell in-game items for real-world currency, gaming blogs and twitters have erupted with interest over the decision.  While to many this seems a formalizing of a long-standing system (gold-farming), the nature of in-game trade for real-life currency is not unheard of in Virtual Worlds.

TL;DR (because really, this is TL):  Economics is complicated.

More (and, lamentably, graphs) after the jump...

Star Trek: TNG

We've been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I have only one conclusion from watching a majority of the first season:

Dragon Age 2 DLC: The Exiled Prince & The Black Emporium

Dragon Age 2 was realeased with two DLC packs instantly available, one of which was free when purchasing a new copy of the game.  But, you ask, if I picked up the game used, is the DLC worth it?

The Black Emporium is said free-with-new-purchase DLC, and adds the following to Dragon Age 2 gameplay:

• Hawke can enter a sustained mode (at no cost to mana/stamina) to summon a Mabiri Warhound which assists the party.  The dog is available from the very beginning of the adventure. 
• The (titular) Black Emporium is opened in Kirkwall in Act I.  The Emporium features items that cannot be purchased anywhere else in the game, especially the Maker's Sigh, which allows you to redistribute all ability points and talent assignments (essentially allowing you to reformat a character).



Third floor: Ladies' handbags, designer dresses, disembowling daggers.

Is It Worth It?  For free, no questions asked, but is it worth the $9.99 price tag?  The additional features, while certainly neat (new dialogue is added for each party member's interactions with your Mabari, for example), did not add any additional play-time to the game.  You can pick up any crafting resources you missed in a previous act (which is nice), but it wont' help you towards the devilish Supplier trophy/achievement, so that is what it is.  Rather than considering purchase of the DLC, consider whether or not a used version of the game is worth not having these features, since that's pretty much the choice you're making...

The Exiled Prince adds a new companion to your party.  Or so it claims to.  In all reality, Sebastian Vael cannot actually join the party until Act II, and has only a minor quest to complete in Act I.  I barely utilized Isabella because she joined the group so late in Act I, do you think I'm going to use this dude?  Furthermore, Sebastian unbalances the otherwise well thought out party system (or had you not noticed that you had 2 rogues, 2 warriors, and 2 mages?) as a third rogue (and a second one of range).  On the bright side, Sebastian can equip bows, while Varric keeps Bianca near him at all times.



Holding his Longbow like a gangsta...

You can romance Sebastian, if you're a woman.  He is a man of the cloth, so no Friends of Dorothy need apply.  Like other companians, he has quests to be completed, which all-in-all add a couple hours to gameplay (although they utilize the heavily recycled locales, so it just feels like more of the same).

Is it Worth It?  For $6.99, I don't think it really was.  Sebastian barely feels like he belongs in the party of misfits, and I'd much prefer Varric for ranged attacks (and romantic lustings).  All in all, it just doesn't justify the price tag.

Item Packs are also the available DLC for Dragon Age 2, but as I haven't given them a spin, I'm not sure I feel good reviewing them.  The game already has all types of weapons and armor to chose from ... do you really want more?

Flash Game Friday: Sweatshop

Maybe you don't want to think about social issues while playing a Flash Game.  If so, skip this review and just play this classic.  (No seriously, you should play it, anyway.  It's about not shitting your pants, an admirable goal.)

Sweatshop is a game created by Little Loud to help raise awareness of the high costs of cheap prices, and possibly just be a fun game to play.  The game can, at times, be a bit heavy handed about it's thesis (sweatshops = bad), but at its core, it has a fun story and very non-traditional tower defense gameplay.

Workers have specialties, but children can do anything!

As raw materials come down the production line, you must place workers to craft the items.  As manager, you control the worker's conditions: how fast the belt runs, if there are bathrooms available, etc.  Some of these impact production and sale value, and some are simply for the benefit of your employees' health and wellness.  It is cheaper to hire children and replace the dead ones with new ones, but that's awfully heartless!

The game boasts 30 levels of increasing difficulty, and I found myself into the game for a few solid hours.  Give it a go, if not just to blow off some steam at your comparably easy job, but also to learn!