Short, Controlled Bursts

A busy gamer dad shares his thoughts on gaming, paintball, geek life, and other eclectic topics of the day.

Borderlands: Early Impressions

Posted by Lance on October 22, 2009

Borderlands Box Art

I finally got to play a little Borderlands last night.  I’m very pleased with the game, and Gearbox has delivered on the hype.  The game is not perfect, but has attained that nebulous plateau of polish, charm, and great gameplay that earns it the title of Good Game (TM).

Gameplay-wise, Borderlands is a fairly straightforward shooter – even a little retro, a la Quake and its ilk.  However, the engaging setting and art design, coupled with copious gun porn and fantastic co-op play, seal the deal.

Visually, the oft-mentioned “concept art” presentation absolutely must be seen in person.  Screenshots and preview videos simply don’t do it justice.  Gearbox has crafted a living, breathing, interactive comic book – and my Samsung big screen is all the happier for it.

I’m only 10 levels in (currently playing the Soldier class, although I’m Siren-curious), so I’m not yet going to expound and rate.  Suffice it to say the game is as fun as promised.

However, I can’t sign off without mentioning the one factor that is getting under my skin.  Out of context, there is some really goofy, illogical stuff going on regarding the class powers:

  • Soldiers can heal teammates by shooting them.  With bullets.  Wait, what??
  • The Siren can do corrosive damage with her melee attacks.  Well, um, how?  Is there acid continuously dripping from her palms, or what?  Wouldn’t that rust her guns?  Not to mention put a damper on dating…
  • Soldiers have a power where, after dispatching an enemy, their rate of fire increases for a period of time.  Sooo, their guns get all cheered up and enthusiastic for a while?  I don’t get it.

Yes, yes, I know.  Just shut up and enjoy the game, Lance.  Of course, you’re right – it’s all in fun, and lots of it.  It’s still friggin’ goofy though…

Posted in gaming, GearboxSoftware, reviews, videogames, Xbox360 | 3 Comments »

SCB: the Relaunch

Posted by Lance on October 22, 2009

I’ve been working on securing the ShortControlledBursts.com URL for a few months.  The previous owner had agreed to let it drop, but it takes forever for the Powers that Be to open a URL back up to the public.  Anyway, I’d decided that before doing any major redesign, I wanted to have all my ducks in a row.  Hence, the recent inactivity.

I’ve succeeded now though, and so I’m off to the races!  I got a great deal on hosting from DreamHost, and migrated my WordPress.org content over to a private install of WordPress where I could have a little more control over design.

This current theme will suffice for a while, but hopefully some pretty new graphic design finishing touches are incoming.  I want to have a logo designed, and perhaps a little art work – we shall see.  In the meantime, posting shall finally resume!

Posted in blogging, blogtech | 1 Comment »

Charity Auction for Child's Play

Posted by Lance on April 24, 2009

Brigwyn over at The Hunting Lodge blog is organizing a Children’s Week auction for the Child’s Play charity. Please click the links above and participate! Donate an item to the auction, bid on an auction, or just make a cash donation – it all helps!

For those not familiar with Child’s Play, this is a charity started by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade webcomic fame. The organization donates games, toys, and books to sick kids in childrens’ hospitals all over the globe.

The cool thing about this charity is that your donation doesn’t just go into some nebulous pot and end up who-knows-where. You literally choose which hospital you’d like to contribute to, and an Amazon.com interface opens, showing you a list of the specific items the kids staying there have requested.

This is not your typical bullshit, bloated, waste- and embezzlement-laden “non-profit” megacharity. The exact item(s) you donate go right from Amazon to the kids. The charity has been a tremendous success – it’s now in its fifth year, and the 2008 holiday season saw almost $1.5 million in goods sent out to suffering kids.

WoW gamers – help a sick kid forget about their pain for a while. Giving ’till it doesn’t hurt FTW!

Posted in auction, charity, ChildsPlay, PennyArcade, videogames, WorldofWarcraft, WoW | Leave a Comment »

Mirror's Edge Demo: My Brain is Officially Blown

Posted by Lance on November 1, 2008

Oh. My God. I just finished playing through the Mirror’s Edge demo (released today on both XBL and the Playstation Store). Wow.

You’ve never played anything like this before – trust me – and that’s perhaps what excites me the most about this game. We’re not just talking new IP – this is an entirely new genre. Maybe one could argue that ME is simply a first person implementation of the original Prince of Persia, but even at this early stage I’d have to argue that it’s something more.

Now, I’ve been playing first person games for what – let’s say 15 years now? I’m confident though, that I have never experienced this level of perspective and immersion. Dice has absolutely nailed their design concept.

I can only assume that the camera position and field of view were tuned, tweaked, and tortuously tested. The player is provided with a sense of position, motion, and inertia that, properly blended with an intuitive control set, make precarious, vertigo-inducing rooftop free running feel somehow natural and fluid. As you flow across the rooftops, you are in a body – not just floating along in a disembodied camera, all FPS-style.

Then there’s the art design, and its implementation via the in-game engine. The city is beautiful, crisp and bright, yet stark, and the framerate blazes along smoothly. Your Kung Fu is indeed impressive, Dice.

Play this demo.

Posted in Dice, FPS, GameDemos, MirrorsEdge, Playstation3, PrinceofPersia, videogames, Xbox360, XboxLive | Leave a Comment »

Fallout 3's "Blood Ties" Quest – 'Tis the Season! (spoiler free)

Posted by Lance on October 31, 2008


So it turns out that all my fumbling and bumbling to find The Family was rewarded in the end with a pretty cool quest. Those that know my taste in monsters will realize that this one was right up my alley (and seasonally appropriate as well).

When you finish the quest, be sure to talk to Vance if possible and ask him about, erm, joining the gang – if you dare. You’ll be rewarded with a cool bonus Perk.

Posted in Fallout3, Halloween, videogames, Xbox360 | Leave a Comment »

Fallout 3: Stuck on the Blood Ties quest? Here's a solution.

Posted by Lance on October 30, 2008

If, like me, you are working on the Fallout 3 quest Blood Ties and have spend hours searching for The Family without success, check out this blog post from Kelly at Outer Heaven.

Posted in gaming, Xbox360 | Leave a Comment »

That's a big Twinkie…

Posted by Lance on December 5, 2007

IGN AU just posted a big writeup on the forthcoming Ghostbusters game after being treated to some hands-on time and a tour of the Terminal Reality studios. The more I hear about this game, the more my Twinkie grows.

You see, my family and I are huge Ghostbuster fans. I mean, my son christened our cats Gozer and Zuul. That should tell you something right there. As such, I’m super excited about this game – especially after hearing that Aykroyd and Ramis are intimately involved in the project. An interactive version of Ghostbusters 3 would be very welcome in my Xbox.

The probable lack of co-op play is a potential bummer, but on the flip side, we get a collateral damage score at the end of every level. It seems this game is in good hands.

Posted in Ghostbusters, videogames, Xbox360 | 2 Comments »

GameSpot's Gerstmann Caned and Lynched?

Posted by Lance on November 30, 2007

This story may become a very interesting one. Jeff Gerstmann, a long time editor at CNET’s popular gaming portal website GameSpot, was fired Wednesday. Current interweb speculation revolves around a connection with his recent less-than-glowing review of the game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men.

The game’s publisher Eidos had been advertising the game very heavily on GameSpot over the last few weeks, so industry watchers are wondering how much Eidos’ influence as an important advertiser factored into CNET’s decision to let Gerstmann go. Obviously, questions are immediately raised regarding the journalistic integrity of this trusted game review site. Thing is, Gerstmann had given the game a score of 6.0, which is not a great deviation from the overall Metacritic score of 68%.

Gerstmann’s video review of the game was also pulled from GameSpot at some point, but has been posted on YouTube. To be fair to GameSpot, it is not his best work at all.

I know that GameSpot is certainly high on my list of information sources, and as a result I will be watching developments very closely. Check out posts on Kotaku, Achievement Junkie, Wired’s GameLife blog, and Penny Arcade’s scathing commentary for some more angles.

Posted in CNET, Eidos, GameSpot, JeffGerstmann, videogames, Xbox360 | 1 Comment »

George Hrab *is* Mur Lafferty's Man in the Boat

Posted by Lance on September 14, 2006

Our huge home town annual event, Musikfest, has come and gone a few weeks back. My friend Jon turned me on to an amazing musician and lyricist, George Hrab, with his excellent philosofunky band the Geologic Orchestra in tow. Awesome night – instant fan. Geo’s show was the highlight of my Musikfest 2006, even considering the fact that I got a chance to see Brother twice and the return of the mighty Alice in Chains, virtually in my own back yard.

In seemingly unrelated news, I recently downloaded show #75 of the Wingin’ It podcast. I’m not a regular listener, but I am a fan of Mur Lafferty’s Geek Fu Action Grip ‘cast. Ol’ Mighty Mur had explained that this Wingin’ It episode had been taped live at DragonCon, and that the antics weren’t to be missed.

Imagine my suprise when, only seconds into the show, Mike and Evo announce their musical guest, George Hrab! George busts into a live accoustical rendition of Cruel Spines; the crowd goes wild in drunken hilarity.

Not to be outdone, Mur soon launches into a fervent reading of her essay on the clitorus and associated male incompetance, written on the spot only several minutes before. Laugh out loud stuff, and the audience is totally eating out of her hand. The whole nutty performance is capped off by, at the request of an enthusiastic male audience member, a show-and-tell how-to, complete with a large scale model constructed from a jacket and starring George Hrab’s bald pate as the man in the boat. Unbelieveable!

Mike and Evo wrest control back to a degree, do their thing, and the show ends with another tune from Geo, this time Brainsbodyboth.

So, be sure to check out Wingin’ It Show #75, whether you’re a fan of Mur, Geo, or just want a good laugh.

Edit: I just found out that George Hrab actually lives in central city Bethlehem – got to be a short walk from my house. I’d thought he was a Philly resident, seeing as he’s the drummer for the Philadelphia Funk Authority and all. Just makes the coincidence even stranger in my mind.

Posted in GeekFuActionGrip, GeorgeHrab, MurLafferty, music, Musikfest, podcasts, WinginIt | 1 Comment »

Spiff's WoW-based Jonathan Coulton Music Videos

Posted by Lance on September 11, 2006

Using captured and choreographed World of Warcraft footage, Mike “Spiff” Booth has created some great music videos for a few of Jonathan Coulton’s funny, geek-centric songs, including “Skullcrusher Mountain” and my absolute favorite, “re: Your Brains”. Check them out on Spiff’s YouTube page, and be sure to visit Jonathan Coulton’s site as well of course, if you haven’t already.

Posted in gaming, JonathanCoulton, MMORPG, music, videogames, WorldofWarcraft, WoW | 1 Comment »

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