So i'm only about 3 days into play Matrix Online, and I already know I won't play it past a month. The game isn't bad, don't get me wrong, and it's biggest pull is that it is an official continuation of the Matrix storyline, which is awesome in many ways. The problem with it is that it isn't as good as a lot of the other stuff out there.

The combat system is the biggest difference between MxO and other MMORPG's. It is innovative, it takes careful consideration of your actions and the potential actions of your opponents to be successful. It is also slow, clunky, and unintuitive. What should have been used to set MxO apart was an immersive storyline that makes you feel like your actions actually do make a difference, instead you get a generic storyline that just guides you through a story where your actions don't play a part in the greater plot.

MxO combines two of my least favorite aspects of MMO's: Grinding and Menus. The interface literally gets in the way of playing the game, and that's bad design. Monolith originally owned the game, before sony bought it, but that was 4 years ago and a lot of polish could have been heaped on this thing to make it worth playing.

To give you an idea of how bad it really is, I have started playing Puzzle Pirates as well, since MxO isn't holding my attention well enough. I think, that after this month is over, I will go back to WoW for a bit, since I at least know I like it.

It's been a day or two without a post, I've been busy building a website (ooohhh). Not an reason, just an excuse. Yesterday, I took the MMO plunge, but not in the way you would think.

I was looking through my old MMO's and trying to figure out which one to play to get rid of the shakes. Should I play World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Star Wars Galaxies? Should I go back in time even farther and play Everquest, or Ultima Online? Then something caught my eye...A game I had played in beta, and then repurchased for my wife when she was pregnant and on bed rest. The Matrix Online.

Now, for those who don't know, the Matrix Online is "one of those" mmorpg's. The ones that came out just shortly after World of Warcraft and were crushed in it's wake. There are probably some out there who didn't even know Matrix Online existed... but sadly, it did. I figure, it's been 4 years, it got bought out by sony, maybe it's better now? Well it is. I played it for a few hours last night, I will play some more tonight no doubt. It was fun, I met a charming fellow by the name of "MoThugz" who let me join his crew, he even gave me a yellow thug jacket to show my "gang colors".

I should probably check with the guild to see if anyone plays this, but I suspect I already know the answer.

Final thought: I brought this up with my wife last night, as we were getting close to falling asleep...it hit me that, in Resident Evil 2 (the game), there was the T-Virus, which turned people into zombies...ok...I get that. It also mutated animals (crocodiles, and spiders, maybe some others I have forgotten) making them larger and scarier. I get that. But on some other animals (dogs) it turned them into zombies like humans, and on other animals (ravens, or...I suspect, probably crows) it just made them bad ass so they flew through windows and pecked at you and shit. What is up with that? Why the differences between different animals?

My wife came up with the solution that "You are Dumb, Go to sleep". But I think there is something deeper at work here.

A friend/work acquaintance/boss of mine is looking at selling his frac set-up (or at least one of his frac set-ups) to make some room in his basement.

Head over to Muffwiggler's Blog for more info.

Today's geek affirmation comes in the form of setting up a drum kit on my laptop using the Rock Band Drum Controller for the XBox 360.
Here is Ash, throwing down some mad beats.

If you have Rock Band, and want to do the same thing, head over to andrewrudson.com to get step by step instructions and the drum kit software. Basically, as long as you have DirectX 9.0c installed, windows will automatically detect and install the drivers for your drums, so all you need is the software to start rocking out.
It lets you add you own .wav files as samples and assign them to whichever drum pad you want. It is a little limited with only 4 pads and 1 kick, but hopefully the software will be updated when the Rock Band 2 drum controller is available.
I will try to throw up a video tomorrow, I had one made, but it didn't turn out so well, so a picture is all you get for today.

i'm getting that old familiar itch...and if you have ever played WoW, you know exactly what I am talking about...unless you are still playing WoW and are constantly getting your itch scratched. I want to play again, but I am afraid.
Why did I give up playing WoW? It was starting to feel like a job, that's what I told myself...instead of feeling like I wanted to play, I was feeling like I had to play. It wasn't fun anymore. It's a game, so if it isn't fun then I should stop playing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The point is that I want to play it again...maybe it would even be fun. It's the sort of thing that I should traditionally pass by my wife (who will probably read this anyway, an occurance that will be followed by my mysterous disappearance from this world). So I will pass it by my wife, and then I will march down to my local EB, or Microplay, or Shack and pick up a 30 or 60 day game card, and away I go, hacking and slashing like there is no tomorrow (which indeed there may not be).

I do realize that I missed yesterday's geek affirmation, and so here it is now:

Yesterday I figured out a new way to create my combat encounters in D&D so that I can have all the information I need on one page, which excites me because it will streamline combat encounters and speed up gameplay.

I suppose I also need one for today, which could be my decision to go back to World of Warcrack, but I suppose I need to follow through on that decision first before it becomes a true affirmation. I guess that means I will be writing another post later when I figure out what the hell I have done today that constitutes geeky.

I have another geeky thing to add to my list for today. Today, I played accountant! I suppose technically i just did accounting, but everything in life is more fun if you pretend it's a game. My wife has her own business, and i like numbers, so I take care of the accounting for her, which is what I did tonight.

Wonderful way to spend an evening.

We were contemplating getting bicycle's today, and Redd's mom brought over some bike helmets incase we went through with it. Ash attached himself to one of them immediately, and has been wearing is since. I got some pictures of him playing with one of the cat's toys.
Here he is, examining the fish at the end of the cat toyHere he is, explaining (proudly) that he is playing with the cat toy.
I only kept this one because it looks like my son got attacked by a head crab. Even the finger curl on his left hand his perfect. This is what having kids is all about.

In other news, I played some Gears of War today. Being the poor ass gamer that I am, I don't usually check out the A-List titles until like a year or more after their release, and such is the case with Gears. I only recently finished Bioshock as well...i have no excuse for my actions.

I don't have an item to put in bold today, but I did do more work on my D&D campaign (which we will hopefully be playing this week, and I played Gears, so I suppose that counts for something....you know what? Fuck it. I'm putting this entire paragraph in bold.