F13.net - Usefully Cynical Commentary

Spammers.

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 01:15:47 -0600

I have turned off the ability for people with a yahoo.co.uk email address to sign up for the forums. If spam accounts continue to be made with hotmail.com addresses, that'll be next on the chopping block. Followed by Yahoo.com. I'm deleting 10+ users a day and frankly, we don't care if this inconveniences you. Get a gmail account of get an account with a real domain name. Email me at schild @ if there's a problem.

That is all.
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Forum URL issues

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 05:14:51 -0600

If you have having trouble reaching the forums go to:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php

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There's a Story Here, Somewhere.

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 23:00:17 -0700

Blah blah, facebook is everywhere, blah blah.

Moby Games for Jason West.

LinkedIn:

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They Shoot Horses, Don't They? F13's MMO Recap 2009

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:53:30 -0700

By UnSub

2008 was a year of death for the MMO genre. As economic conditions changed, a number of titles died or were cancelled. It was a tipping point - launching a MMO wasn't enough for it to be successful any more; instead you needed a strong basic offer and continued improvement to keep players subscribing and interested.

By comparison, 2009 was a year of pain. There were fewer dead MMOs (although some that died were still very notable) but that was because of the number that went out in 2008. Instead, 2009 was a year of layoffs, mergers and lawsuits.

Game of the Year - 2009

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 16:06:17 -0700

2009 is too depressing for commentary. So, here we go:

Ghostbusters - Terminal Reality - PS3

Sun, 4 Oct 2009 03:03:51 -0600

An odd game this. In order to accurately mimic its source material, the developers have put together some pretty unwieldy controls here, since much like the characters in the movie, the game is designed so that you spend as much time accidentally destroying your surroundings as you do actually hitting your target. If this weren't a game based on the Ghostbusters, I'd likely be panning the spastic fishing game style controls of trying to wrangle a ghost into a trap, but instead the game stands as a fine tribute to the movie, even if it's not a particularly good game. Honestly, I'm not sure how you could do the controls better and still stay true to the license, so I've been inclined to give them a pass.

I have a few other nitpicks as well. To start with, while you can't exactly play a game based on a movie from the 80's and complain that it relies to heavily on nostalgia, I do wish they did a little less rehashing of the movie.

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Review: Far Cry 2

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:50:05 -0600

(sent in by Azazel)

This review would have been more relevant a year ago theatre Presents:
Far Cry 2.

OK, where do I start?

We'll start with characters and story, I guess. Please meet Far Cry 2, no relation really to Far Cry 1 except in name and the most general sense. It doesn't follow up on the first one, it's by a different developer, the characters are all different, and... well, yeah. For the record, I loved Far Cry 1, despite it's veering off into Island of Dr Moreau territory later in the game. I liked the open gameplay, the lush green setting, and being able to snipe people in the head from a kilometer away on the top of a mountain.

Scribblenauts - 5th Cell - DS

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:43:23 -0600

I knew I would buy this game the first time I heard some press on it back during the last E3. The premise of being able to write out the word for a particular object and have it appear in your game world as an aid to solve puzzles is the kind of thing that immediately captures my imagination. So, does it live up to the hype?

Yes...but maybe not entirely. There is no doubt that this is a clever, and in at least one regard ambitious, little game. It works pretty much as advertised. You are presented with a scenario where you do in fact have to think up of objects you want to bring into your world to help solve the puzzle or complete the action (there are two different modes that are Puzzle and Action, but they aren't so different as to be worth splitting hairs over). For example, in an early level I am presented with a scenario where a boy is sleeping upstairs in a house. A girl is downstairs. My goal is to wake the boy, and feed the girl.

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Hello Kitty Online Beta (Cute PCs Only)

Sat, 5 Sep 2009 02:56:02 -0600

Finally, the Hello Kitty Online Beta. I've been waiting five years for this, so I may as well play it on day fucking one. It will go down as the second shortest amount of time that I have spent in an MMOG, 1st place prize still held by Vanguard. I lasted about 6 minutes in the latter and I lasted about 12 minutes in the former. Mostly because I got lost while I was fresh off the boat. Yea, you start as a FOB, so what? I had the plan of making an 8 year old little girl and entrapping predators with my doe eyes and a child's vocabulary. It was all going fine until my first quest, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Sabrina is (or was) a blue eyed, blue haired member of the Hello Kitty Aryan Army. Don't question it, aryans have blue hair in animu world. Ask your weaboo friend you won't take out in public if you don't believe me. ANYWAY, I start making small talk in chat.

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The Diary of Nythrax Released

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 07:58:52 -0600

That's right. The book of the thread of what may be the most incredible playthrough ever of Baldur's Gate has been released. After five editing passes, I'm 100% sure there are still grammatical and spelling errors. That's just how things go when you're so indie you can't afford a UPC code. Anyway, buy the damn thing! Available NOW on Blurb.

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