VideogameVagabond.com

Can a 45-year-old man maintain a marriage and a videogame habit? Let's find out!

Ice Cream Sandwich for the G-2?

I love my Android phone. Honest, I do. I am in absolutely no hurry to get to my next upgrade period.

But as much as I love my T-Mobile G2 with Google by HTC, and the current version of the Android OS running on it, which happens to be Gingerbread 2.3, I will be massively disappointed if Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) never makes it to my phone.

First of all, Ice Cream Sandwich sounds fantastic. And cozy. Like a brand new Rheem heat pump or something. And HTC has included it on their “probably” list for OTA upgrades in early 2012.

But here’s why I’m worried.

Shortly after I bought my G2, HTC promised Gingerbread in “early 2012.” It didn’t get an OTA update until late summer. And by then, the G2, originally released in Fall 2010, will be older than 18 months since initial release, which would give HTC the perfect excuse not to upgrade the G2.

Considering how much they dragged their feet on the original upgrade from Froyo to Gingerbread, one would hope they’d be a bit more prompt on Ice Cream Sandwich.

But I’ll believe it when the OTA appears.

Videogame of the Year: PS3

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, without the benefit of a Coca-Cola, a Dutchmaster, or anything else that’s bad for me. So my mind’s clear.

And while I didn’t buy many new videogames for the PS3 this year, it’s pretty easy, actually, for me to select a favorite: Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is the easy choice.

Sure, there were plenty of decent games out there this year on PS3. But none really grabbed my attention and made me say, “I gotta have it,” like Skyrim did.

Oh, sure, I enjoyed Dragon Age II. And I even appreciated the new White Knight Chronicles. But Skyrim set the bar for RPG experiences on a game console. Again. It’s that simple.

Motorola Razr rebirth: fail

I owned a Motorola Razr once upon a time, in its feature-phone incarnation. The sleek look was fun, but flimsy. Still, the coolness factor made up for its delicate nature.

This time around, the Razr is nowhere near as impressive. Although thinner and lighter than other smartphones boasting a 4.3-inch screen, it’s features are familiar to anyone who uses an Android Gingerbread smartphone, and its battery life is horrid.

So, my perspective is this: stick with something more solid, made by HTC.

Music games: my brief history

One of the biggest trends in videogames in the last five years or so is the ascendancy of music games. Whether it’s Karaoke Revolution: Glee Edition or Rock Band and Guitar Hero, music-related games have been hot for a while.

Some of them are even quite specialized; you don’t get just generic guitar controllers, but can — for a princely sum — get something name-brand and fancy like a Gibson SG. The trouble is, eventually, all these music games are pretty much alike, so the choice comes down to the game’s selection of songs.

That’s why I like the Music Wars series, currently from Wolverine Studios. The developer, Antuan Johnson, got his start with a feature-slim freeware version and took it commercial a couple years ago with Music Wars: Rebirth.

That’s why I’m excited to hear he’s in the open beta stage of his next massive update of this game. By focusing on simulating the music industry itself, the focus is less on whether a person can hit all the notes in order, and more on one’s evaluation of talent and such.

The updated game is said to have a ton of feature improvements to make it a deeper game experience than ever.

I, for one, can’t wait.

My Holiday Season 2011 Wishlist

I already own the best game of the season, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, for the Sony PS3. But if I could have three more games added to my shopping cart for free, which ones would I choose? And remember, I can’t choose something not videogame-related, like Dickies scrubs from Marcus uniforms. It’s gotta be games.

Well, let’s take a look:

First, I’d choose Disgaea 4, simply because I’ve loved the whole series and still do.

I’d then boot my other two choices into the first quarter of 2012, where the next really must-have games are waiting for me. One of them, of course, is Mass Effect 3. I want to complete that trilogy.

Then I’d probably insist on my next choice being Silent Hill: Downpour, even though Final Fantasy Vs. XIII would indeed be tempting.

Skyrim first impressions

The opening minutes of Elder Scrolls: Skyrim are impressive and enchanting as the game reintegrates dragons into their fantasy setting. But eventually the style settles down and, even though the graphics have taken a huge leap forward since the Shivering Isles expansion pack, the game becomes at least a bit more familiar.

Despite the science fiction dystopia represented by Fallout, The Elder Scrolls is clearly the franchise where Bethesda is clearly most at-home. The game screams developer affection for the product being presented.

When my wife and I first encountered Oblivion around the time we first got married, we ended up playing two copies of the game to death before we grew tired of it, and just my first couple hours with Skyrim tell me that my PS3 controllers are going to need some fresh duracell procell replacements by the time we grow weary of this latest installment.

Review: Ghost Radar Classic (Android)

The Android game Ghost Radar Classic is free most places these days. It pretends to be a ghost-hunting app that will record paranormal activity everywhere, as well as pick up on EVPs.

Unfortunately, this entertainment software doesn’t even try hard to be convincing; it shows activity everywhere and spits out computer-generated-voice words every few seconds.

Rather predictable and disappointing, don’t celebrate Halloween with this stinker of a game. An Arizona pool fence is far more interesting and convincing as a ghost detector.

Even at the price of free, Ghost Radar Classic is too expensive for what it’s worth… which is nothing.

Review: Virtual Horse Racing 3D for Android

I recently downloaded Virtual Horse Racing 3D, an Android-platform videogame, and while at first glance it appears to be the product of a lot of Help Desk Specialist Jobs veterans, the game actually is better than it seems at first.

The look of the game will call to mind the PSone and PS2 classic series, Gallop Racer, and the racing is roughly on par with that series. However, whereas Gallop Racer was interactive for the gamer, in this game all you can do is bet on outcomes and watch.

It’s actually not too hard to keep from losing your shirt on this game, because it enforces a strict limit on betting of $10 per horse, per line. So at most, you lose $30 per race.

The racing is fun, but with such a shocking lack of interactivity, gets told fast and doesn’t age well. Too bad.

Google Navigation has been valuable lately

Ever since moving to Portland, where I have never lived before, the most useful app on my Android has been Google Navigation. It operates like any other gps online navigation system I’ve tried in the past, like TeleNav, but the main difference is that it’s free.

Many times, as we’ve been learning the area, Google Navigation has been the key to us arriving on-time, in the right place, without getting lost among a load of rabbit trails. Back when I briefly worked for a Spring reseller a few years ago, TeleNav was a spendy little app. It added something like a $10/month charge to your bill, in addition to requiring that you had a data plan as well.

Now it’s on most Android phones and all you pay for is the data plan.

Guess which one I like better?

Finally, an OTA update from T-Mobile

When I bought my T-Mobile G2 by HTC last January or February, I bought it with Android version 2.2, known as Froyo, with the understanding that an OTA upgrade to Gingerbread would be coming “within weeks.” Weeks went by, then months. Still nothing. So finally I found a place to download the pre-release official T-Mobile 2.3 Gingerbread update and get it installed.

I suppose someone would bet their equestrian helmets collection that if I’d waited a few more days, I’d have received the OTA update. And maybe they’re right. But once I was on Gingerbread, I was happy, so how I got there didn’t matter as much.

Well, just as I sat down to write this entry, my phone buzzed to tell me a bug-fix update had been released and asking if I wanted to install it. Sure thing! So I did.

And now I have my first OTA from T-Mobile. Which is great.

Sure, it’s not Ice Cream Sandwich, but that probably won’t be sent to my phone anyway, much as I wish it would. But at least it shows there’s an effort made on T-Mobile’s part.

The Kindle Fire looks pretty nice

It’s not often I get excited about new product announcements anymore, but the Kindle Fire, Amazon’s first color Kindle, is pretty nice. In fact, the only complaint I have about it is that it features a traditional backlit screen; something I’m not interested in because I already own an Android phone.

I understand that even the latest eInk color screens might not be up to Jeff Bezos’ standards, but I can wait until they do and start appearing on the second generation of Kindle Fire devices.

That being said, if I wanted a backlit tablet, the Kindle Fire is pretty sweet. It can perform full Web browsing and even stream video in addition to reading books. (Not sure if it utilizes a YouTube video downloader, but its speeds are primarily determined by your WiFi network, so it’s probably pretty good.)

And with 8 GB of memory, it’s the beefiest Kindle device yet. And all for a price of $199? That’s an impressive debut, considering Barnes and Noble dropped the Nook Color to $229 the day before the announcement, hoping to undercut the widely-anticipated price-matching price of $250 that was expected out of Amazon.

The world is hurting right now from the loss of Steve Jobs. But with the innovation he’s displaying, I’d argue Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is a candidate to eventually become the next great tech innovator.

REVIEW: Out of the Park Baseball 12

I took a long time testing Out of the Park Baseball 12. And there’s a good reason why.

I really wanted to kick the tires on this edition of the game. I explored every feature I could think of, tried the game not only based on the 2011 season, but starting from several historical periods as well.

I wanted to be sure the game was tight, solid, and bullet-proof. As I write this, the brilliant, baseball-savvy folks at Out of the Park Developments have released Update #4 to the game, and so the bulk of this review is based on that release.

Let’s put it this way: I applied more scrutiny to this edition of Out of the Park Baseball than any other edition I’ve ever reviewed. The team at OOTP Developments, I’m sure, wondered if I’d ever get around to actually reviewing the game. But that was never in question; the truth is… OOTP Baseball 12 is just so impressive, so engaging, and so deep you just can’t tear yourself away from it for long.

That’s a good thing, if you’re wondering.

You see, lots of companies do baseball games. Not many eat, sleep, drink, and live baseball the way the good folks at OOTP Developments do. And it shows through in the game.

While it’s still a game and playing it will offer some varied results based on your own interaction with it, each and every historical season I opened was… historically accurate. Not just generally, either. To a tee. If there are inaccuracies here, they lie far beyond my own baseball IQ and, therefore, my ability to detect.

I mean, look at it this way. Several years ago, when I wrote a lot more videogame reviews per year than I do now, I could pick up a copy of, say, EA Sports’ major league baseball game, play it for a couple hours, and write, “Ehh, they got most of the major league roster right, but the minor leagues are woefully inaccurate, and you can only play through ten seasons in franchise mode.”

And while I’d flesh it out, by the time I discovered flaws like that, the game was ruined for me and I had an easy time setting it aside, thinking “maybe next year,” and moving on to the next videogame in my review pile.

I can’t do that with Out of the Park Baseball. Not ever, really. And especially not with this year’s version. It’s the kind of game that tosses you back to your high school years, when you loved baseball just because, and your biggest worry was promise ring etiquette. It’s that pure a baseball experience.

I’m sure PS3 and Xbox 360 owners are reading this and thinking, “What the heck is he talking about? It’s a freaking PC text-management sim! There’s virtually no graphics, no high-def, it’s just text and some retro background graphics and such. Nothing to write home about.”

But if your idea of baseball is 256-bit graphics and 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound and Dual Shock 3/EyeStation integration and such, well… that’s not the heartbeat of baseball.

The heartbeat of baseball is in the stats and the details and the history of the game and getting it all right. Right, not just because you did your research with a Baseball Encyclopedia, but right because you’ve loved the game since you were old enough to understand it, and you remember more than just the magic moments of your favorite team’s first pennant win, but because you remember who they drafted in the 20th round in 1956 by heart, even though that was 10 years before you were born, because you just… love… the game.

That’s the kind of passion that can’t be defined by a business plan, a release strategy, or whatnot. (And, oh yeah, in addition to the PC version, there’s now an iPod Touch/iPad version of the game this year!)

That kind of passion, it’s just either there, or it isn’t. Out of the Park Baseball 12 bleeds that kind of passion from its pores. The love shows.

So, after taking longer than I’ve ever taken to evaluate a videogame, I find myself both exhausted and a little bit in love. Because this is a game I can’t find noticeable faults in. Everything it sets out to be, it is.

So, I could regale you with a long list of features and improvements lifted straight off the press release, if you wanted those kinds of details. But that’s not what a review should be.

A review should tell you if a game is fun. (It is.) If it’s addictive. (Yup… look how long I took to review it.) If it’s satisfying. (Very much so.) If it’s hard to put down, or easy to set aside. (Try impossible to put down.) Most of all, it should tell you if the game is worth your hard-earned sheckles in a rough, difficult economy like we current have.

My verdict? If you love baseball at all, Out of the Park Baseball 12 just simply is the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be (until next year’s version). It’s the Bret Hart of baseball sims.

And that’s what’s important for you to know. The rest, you can get off a press release.