Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Valve releasing Half-Life.

10 years?!  Where does the time go…

Half-Life, made from a mish mash of the Quake 1 and 2 engines, and Valve’s own customizations was a revolutionary gaming experience.  After years of development, the single player experience was top notch.  This was the first game that ever made me literally jump out of my seat in fear.  Sure, I had played games that made me uncomforatable, with the feeling of dread or now knowing what came next, but the first time a head crab jumped at me, I jumped 2 feet in the air.

Additionally, Valve took the mod community to the next level.  While id’s Quake-engine games were open, Valve embraced the mod community, and arguably the best mod (or 2nd best after Team Fortress, who they would later buy anyway) was developed using the Half-Life engine:  Counter-Strike.

And until tomorrow at noon, you can pick up Half-Life for 90% off (about $1) on Steam. Happy Birthday Gordon!

I’ve had a few days to play with the NXE, and I love it.

It feels like the Xbox boots faster, and it goes straight to the Dashboard, which I like (ala the Wii).

The avatar creation process is slick as well.  With more customization than the Wii, and higher resolution characters, it’s fun to try and put together an avatar that takes after you.  There could be more clothing options, and the hats are terrible, but I like having an avatar.  (Ala the Wii as well).

The Dashboard feels faster, and snappier.   It’s more intuitive, and easier to find things.  I can’t give kudos to Microsoft enough for releasing the NXE.  Two years into the Xbox 360’s lifecycle, and they invested and spent the manpower to re-do the dashboard top to bottom.

The best part remains the ability to stream Netflix movies.  The only catch is you have to add streaming movies to your queue on the PC, but they show up immediately in the Dashboard after adding them.  Streaming is quick, and the joystick has basic controls, and best of all, if you stop a movie, it remembers where you left off and picks up there.  The only thing I can’t find is what movies are in HD, as Xbox 360 users are the first to have access to HD streaming from Netflix.

And what is Sony’s reaction?  To yank all Columbia Pictures (a Sony subsidiary) from being able to stream on Netflix via the 360.  Talk about petty.

It’s not often I say this, but well done, Microsoft.

This was an unexpected surprise in my inbox this morning:

from: msftconn@microsoft.com
to: silwenae

The Xbox 360 Fall Flash update will be available to you by 2pm PST on November 14th (5pm EST on November 14th, 10pm GMT on November 14th).

If you would like to post comments regarding your experiences with the New Xbox Experience, or interact with other preview participants please use the Newsgroups link on the connect site.

If you need technical assistance with the Xbox 360 Fall Flash and you’re in the US or Canada and speak English; you can also call 877-783-1507. Phone lines will be open between the hours of 8am and 6pm CST. Do not publish or otherwise share this phone number with people that are not participating in the preview.

In participation with this program, you should not move your storage device (hard drive, or memory unit if you do not have a hard drive) to any other console as it will also update that console. If an unregistered console is updated with the NXE update, that console will not be able to connect to Xbox LIVE until the NXE has been officially released on November 19th.

Please remember that your participation in the Public Preview Program is subject to the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use.

We thank you for your participation and hope that you enjoy the New Xbox Experience.

See you online,

The Xbox 360 team

(I don’t see anything about confidentiality.) Sure, it’s only 4 or 5 days before everyone else gets it, but I had given up on the beta after applying 3 weeks ago. The nice thing about this, is that I had read somewhere on the interwebs that people trying to update on Tuesday may have difficulty because Microsoft’s servers will be getting hammered.

Here’s to creating my avatar and streaming a Netflix movie this weekend!

The Witching Hour live event for Warhammer ended last Sunday.

I logged in Sunday morning to putz around for an hour or so before football started, and of course Alandale was on.  Alandale causally mentioned that he was heading to Altdorf that afternoon for the final event of the Witching Hour, a trick or treat event in the city.  According to Al, you target select NPCs in town, say “trick or treat” in /say, and you’ll be rewarded with varying degrees of loot.

I was doubtful, but already in town.  I did a quick Google search, didn’t see anything, and asked him where he saw this.  Al was vague, but said it might be starting early.

Being the trusting gullible friend I am, I started saying “trick or treat” in town to about half a dozen different NPCs before I gave up and started pressing him for a link online with details.

Al was quiet for a few minutes as I geot more and more agitated, before admitting that he had made it up, and was crying he was lauging so hard.

Why wouldn’t I have believed him?  He clarified Warrior Priest action points for me, found out how to complete tome tactics and shared it with me, and is always on.  (We call him Mr. OCD).  And that’s how I was punked on the Halloween event.  This post is for you, Al.

Taking a break from the gaming talk for a post, this is cross-posted from my other blog:

If you live in the U.S., today is the day. After almost 2 years of campaigning and listening to the candidates, it’s our turn as citizens to make our decisions and vote for our candidates.

I voted an hour ago - and the turnout was higher than 4 years ago, and I live in the state with the highest percentage of registered voters and those who vote. We had more voting booths than I’ve seen in 10 years of living here.

The best part? In Minnesota you can register to vote on election day, and vote. There were 6 people registering to vote, all, I would guess, under the age of 25. That’s what it’s about. For years the younger demographic has had the lowest turnout - I hope what I saw wasn’t just a fluke, and the young voters turn out today, and keep voting for the rest of their lives.

Please vote today. Every vote does make a difference.

Warhammer had it’s first Live Event over Halloween: The Witching Hour.

You can read all about it at the link above. My first impression? They got it 50% right. I didn’t care for the level of influence you had to gain by killing the Ghosts over and over, but the RvR part was fun. I only participated Saturday night, and according to Alandale they fixed the most important part, where the PQ loot treasure chest spawns. (It used to spawn on the battlefield, and Destruction would do everything to make sure you couldn’t get to it by ganking you over and over).

I got lucky, and with a high roll, came in 2nd place for loot, and was rewarded with a nice purple piece of jewelry:

The nice thing about doing the Witching Hour, with the double renown bonus for battlefield RvR (versus Scenarios), you could earn a nice chunk of exp and renown, and you knew where the enemy would be.

Here’s to Heavy Metal on November 17th.

One of the things that made me launch this blog, was that I’ve started playing Warhammer a couple nights a week, and it made me nostalgic for all the PC gaming I’ve done over the years.

In addition to the nostalgia posts, I’ll be posting thoughts and experiences as I progress through Warhammer.

It’s nice to be playing a MMO again, without having to be hardcore about it, and hanging out with old friends, both real life and those I’ve met through games.

Sorry for the lack of posts, traveling for work has cut my time down.

Taking a break from history lessons, some new reviews of the fall update for the Xbox 360 dashboard have come out today, aka NXE (New Xbox Experience).  I applied for the beta this past weekend, and haven’t heard back yet if I’m in, though they said it could take up to a week, so I’m still hopeful.  Either way, the new dashboard is set to be released in just under a month on November 19th, and it’s chock full of goodness.

Engadget and Gizmodo have the reviews up, and they are stellar.  From the new avatars, to the new look and feel that replaces the blades look the 360 currently uses, to installing games on your hard drive this is one heckuva an update.  But the feature I am looking most forward to:  Netflix streaming.

Even as the owner of a Blu-Ray player, there is something to be said for the instant gratification of adding a movie to my Netflix queue and watching it instantaneously.  I’ve been a Netflix subscriber for a number of years, though I took a break for a couple of years, and signed up again late last year after buying the Blu-Ray player.  (My wife was getting annoyed with all my movie purchasing on Blu-Ray).  And the bombshell dropped this morning:  Not only does the 360 get Netflix streaming, but it will be the first device to get Netflix streaming in HD.  Woohoo!

When my Xbox died a few months ago, I upgraded to the Xbox 360 Elite.  I wanted to make sure I had the hard drive space to be able to load games directly to my hard drive, as the fall update allows (in addition to all the storage I needed for the Rock Band downloads!).

As anti-Microsoft as I am, the Xbox 360 is still, in my opinion, the best console experience on the market.  I owned a PS2 and original Xbox, and own a Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, and I find myself playing my 360 by far the most.  (Probably has something to do with being such an avid sports fan).  Even when in the market for a Blu-Ray player last year, though the PS3 was arguable the best Blu-Ray player on the market at the time, I still bought a standalone player.  I really wanted the upscaler chip in the player I bought, and I didn’t want to spend more on the PS3 in games, controllers and accessories, so it was best to avoid the temptation.

Kudos to Microsoft to investing the time and the effort to continue to innvoate (and in the case of the avatars, steal) in improving the Xbox 360 experience.  November 19th can’t come soon enough.

And if you’re looking for me on Xbox Live, my gamertag is silwenae99.

You may be asking, “How did you get here?”  “When did this whole gaming thing start?”

And that’s a damn good question.

Part I:  Introduction to Computers

My earliest memory gaming memory is programming machine code on a Timex Sinclair 1000 to play Breakout.  (On a 12″ black and white TV no less).  You know the game where you move the bar at the bottom of the screeen left to right not letting the ball fall through as it bounces up to knock bricks out above.

Sidenote: We owned both the Timex Sinclair 1000 and 1500 a year or two later, with the memory expansion.  Nothing like loading programs from a tape drive!  A few years ago my dad gave me both of those computers, and all the programs / tapes we had for them.  They’re sitting peacefully in my closet with all my other PC parts.

A few years after that, we got an Apple //c.  I loved that computer.  From learning BASIC and LOGO, to playing Choplifter or Zaxxon.  The sleek form factor that was so much better than the boxy Apple IIe.  And it had a built-in disk drive!  And our 300 baud modem - my first introduction to CompuServe and being shocked it cost so much money ($15 / hour ? - I honestly don’t remember) even to play some of their role playing games.  I loved finding all the BBSes I could connect to.  I remember playing stock trading games online, Star Trek, and others.  I remember playing Wizardry, Wolfenstein, text adventure games like Zork and more games, spending hours in the basement in front of that computer.

We didn’t own any consoles, though it seemed each friend had a different console - Intellivision, Atari 2600 or 5200 and the original Nintendo are the ones I remember the most.

The short story?  I’ve been around games all my life.  But I’m part of that generation, so who can blame me.

And yes, I do live in a beautiful house with my beautiful wife.  (Name that song!)

Next time:  Part II, the Age of the PC

I’m back with a second blog.  What am I thinking, I should be giving my first blog more attention, and here I am splitting my time.

It’s all because of a stupid game.  No, really.

More to come soon, but you can expect my thoughts, rants and raves on everything games in this space as my muse wills.