Greetings from San Andreas Part 2

Just a trip on my blimp

Ohhhhhh yeaaah

I think I need a jump.

No no, the lighting is all wrong

They see me rollin', they hatin.

You can see part 1 of my San Andreas photo journey here

I Didn't Like Dark Souls At All

Though Metacritic may not agree with me, I'm going to come right out and say it. I absolutely despised Dark Souls. It was too damn hard and frustrating. I didn't find it rewarding at all and I rage quit more times playing that damn game than anything else in my entire life. I found absolutely no joy in that game. I didn't understand why in the beginning of the game they would let me stumble into an area at with level 99 skeletons who would absolutely demolish my anus on sight. I didn't understand why they would give absolutely no direction or indicating on how to defeat some wandering ghosts who are just waiting for me at the story progression chokepoint. I hate having to google solutions to small, seemingly inconsequential battles. I hate having to google any kind of gameplay tip.
Maybe I'm not a glutton for punishment. Maybe I've been spoiled over the years with games like Fable, Devil May Cry, and even Ninja Gaiden. Hell, I loved the Ninja Gaiden for the original XBOX and I found it to actually be challenging and rewarding. Dark Souls, on the other hand, was just this tedious, twitch reflex requiring nightmare for me. I felt like I should have been hopped up on Vivanse just to keep up with the level of planning and dexterity that this game required. I really hated this game.

 This meme sums it up nicely.

Now, the question really is, am I just another lazy gamer?  Am I just a whiner? Am I part of the coddled Call of Duty generation? Did the checkpoint systems of Halo and Grand Theft Auto lower the challenge level bar for me permanently? I would have to say no. I played and beat Contra on the NES without cheating. I played through Ninja Gaiden without a strategy guide and finished the "special world" in Super Mario World. I have no problem with a fun challenge. Dark Souls to me, is not fun at all. I really tried hard to like it. I owned it on the PS3 and sold it after a few weeks to prevent myself from cracking the box by chucking it at my wall. I own the Prepare to Die edition on Steam which I gave another go before right clicking it and pressing "delete local content". I really can't like this game at all. I'm just not into masochism. With that said, I'm going to go back to taking more GTA V selfies tonight.

Tropico Bundle on IndieGala

Right now on IndieGala you can pick up the Tropico Bundle for Steam. If you beat the average (it's something like $5.00 as of this posting time) you also get Tropico 4 Special edition for Steam.

I have dumped hundreds of hours into Tropico 3 and Tropico 4 and I would definitely recommend this bundle to all of the aspiring dictators out there. Be forewarned, the music is slightly annoying/addicting and you'll find yourself singing along and blurting out "saxaphone" every so often.
You should go pick up the Tropico Bundle and see some "accidents" happen to your political detractors.

Greetings From San Andreas Pt.1

I did some sight seeing around San Andreas.

 

Too bad Franklin doesn't like swimming.

Just got my learner's permit.

Donuts.

Moar Donuts.

Drank too much.

Michael has a foot fetish.

This guy wasn't happy with my photography.

You shouldn't smoke while pumping gas.

We were playing hide and seek.

Always the rebel.

He wanted the donuts more.

Chop leaving skid marks.

sammich

At rehab.

A Revolution is Coming: SteamOS

Valve has just announced its new operating system: SteamOS.

At this moment, only a few details regarding the release have been announced on the Steam site, however some interesting points to note are:

• In home streaming: stream games from your windows/mac box to your steam os machine
• integrated media services (music, netflix, etc)
• family sharing (yes, the same kind of sharing that they implemented in the last steam release)
• optimized "graphics processing", your games *may* look better on Steam OS.

That's all we've got right now but we will post more as information becomes available.

Bioshock Infinite for $14.99

Today on greenmangaming.com you can pick up Bioshock Infinite for $14.99.

Grab it here and use promo GMG25-J4B0D-FLH8M to get it for $14.99

Cedar Point: The Nerd Review Part 1: The Rides

This past weekend we took a trip to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. For the uninitiated, Cedar Point is the largest amusement park in the midwest.

It is pretty damn big.

As a nerd and avid fan of rollercoaster tech and amusement parks I will not try to hide the fact that I was absolutely thrilled to be going to the rollercoaster capital of America. I will also say that I was not disappointed.

The Review

The Rides

Currently Cedar Point has 16 rollercoasters. I have tried all of them in my lifetime and during this last trip I rode 8 of them (all level 5 "thrill rating"). In my opinion, the "must-ride" coasters would be the Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster, and the Magnum XL-200.

 Millennium Force

• The Millennium Force was the tallest coaster in the world when it first debuted, and it still has the ability to scare the living crap out of me today, over a decade after I first rode it. You're hurled up the first hill quite quickly on a very quick lift. I thought it would ruin the anticipation I usually get when I'm slowly climbing a roller coaster hill but it actually added to my anticipation. The first drop falls at an 80 degree angle at 90mph, which is one of the best drops in the entire park. In my opinion, it is the best steel coaster I have ever been on. 10/10 must ride. 
• The Top Thrill Dragster is one of the scariest things I have ever rode, hands down. Being accelerated to 120mph in under 4 seconds is one of the craziest feelings I've ever experienced. It felt like I was making a warp jump on the Enterprise. The sheer force from acceleration almost made me poop a little bit of funnel cake. Just don't put your hands up because you might get hurt when it shoots you forward (and also because the ride won't take off if your hands are up). 
• The Magnum XL-200 is one of the original gangster roller coasters at Cedar Point. For a 24 year old coaster, it still manages to amaze and scare me to this day. It was the first "hypercoaster" ever built, and has held up very well through the passage of time. The carts are kind of old and their aesthetics are a bit dated, but if you like nostalgia and dig the 80's vibe, you will definitely enjoy their looks.

The rides at Cedar Point are second to none. It puts every Six Flags I have ever been to shame. The amount of rides and the sheer scale of the park would definitely warrant a 2 day trip to the park. I don't have that kind of stamina anymore, but 13 year old gerbil definitely wished he was able to go for another day. The placement of the rides facilitated the experience, as one could just walk along a set path and ride every single coaster in the park. It flowed very nicely and didn't confuse me as other parks often did. They did have a lot of those spinny rides that I hate. Spinning is the bane of my amusement park existence because I get motion sickness from spinning really easily. That said, Cedar Point has some really awesome spinning rides that I would never ever ride. The "Raptor" made me super dizzy but that's my fault for riding a ride with a lot of crazy spirals and loops first. Whoops.
I also got the chance to ride their newest coaster "Gatekeeper" which is currently the longest and fastest "winged coaster" in the world.

Nice and thick.

Gatekeeper was pretty interesting and quite fun and it didn't give me the same motion sick feeling that other steel coasters with plenty of spirals and loops did. It felt more like flying or gliding rather than being hurled through loops and spirals at break neck speeds a la Raptor. 

Rides TL;DR 

If you want to go to the amusement parks with the best rides, you have to go to Cedar Point. 10/10 must ride.

The Original Gangster: Grand Theft Auto for DOS and Windows 9.x

In 1997, I downloaded the most amazing shareware game ever. It was this little gem called "Grand Theft Auto". I eventually talked my dad into taking me to CircuitCity to go buy the CD-ROM. I present to you the original gangster: Grand Theft Auto.

You can still get the original as part of the Grand Theft Auto collection on Steam. That's how I managed to pull this gameplay footage.

New YouTube Channel

We just started a new YouTube channel, the NerdSophisticate channel!
Come take a look and don't forget to subscribe to some of the most (un)sophisticated gaming and tech news ever!

Hitman + Tomb Raider + Sleeping Dogs on PC for $14 via amazon

On sale right now is "Tomb of the Sleeping Hitman" pack (I swear I did not make this up) on Amazon. You can pick up all 3 games for $14.
I have played all 3 and I will say that they are all solid titles.

• Tomb Raider is a departure from the previous games' styles, but one of my favorite games of the past year. 
• Hitman Absolution was decent but I did not find it as interesting as Hitman Blood Money. It's still worth a play through though if you're a Hitman fan.
• Sleeping dogs was one of the surprises of last year for me. I didn't expect it to be that enjoyable, but I actually had a great time with it and I highly recommend it to my PC master race friends who have to wait for GTA V to come on on PC in the next decade.

Go pick this pack up on Amazon now.

Cookie Clicker: Like blue meth in cookie form

I just spent a whole morning with "Cookie Clicker", this crazy little browser game about making cookies.
I can't stop thinking about cookies now. How will I generate more? Who can I exploit to get more cookies? Should I exploit my grandmother some more? How about some cookie farmers? Can I exploit them some more to get cookies?

If you want to go down a cookie filled rabbithole of entertaining despair, I suggest you go to Cooke Clicker right now and give it a shot.

For the record, I'm almost at 2 millions cookies a second.
Take that, grandma.