Monthly Archives: December 2008

Raffle #2 Results Are In!

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Thanks to everyone who entered the raffle to celebrate Marty Blog’s 100th 95th post, and congratulations to the winners, listed below!  And again, that’s not a picture of me up there.  I threw everyone into the mix to receive the special Half-Life 2 + HL2:Ep1 prize – if you won, and you don’t want it, let me know and I will raffle it off again.

Third Prize ($5 game via Steam):

  • BenRK

Second Prize ($15 game via Steam):

  • Zeno

Grand Prize (Mass Effect or $30 equivalent via Steam):

  • MischiephX

Special Prize (Half-Life 2 + Half-Life 2: Episode 1):

  • Zakreon

I will be contacting the winners via email.  Hope to see you all around the site again soon, and thanks for helping to make this a successful raffle!

Image courtesy of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition

Marty Blog Big 100: Post & Win

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Mass Effect

I know, I know – this technically isn’t my 100th post.  Well, no matter – I’ve been busy with things, and haven’t had time to lead up to 100 before my holiday vacation, so I’ll make an exception and we’ll do the raffle at post 95.  It is a good time to be charitable, after all.

I am happy to say that Marty Blog is still going strong into the final weeks of 2008, and I am pleased with the way the year has gone for the blog.  I’ve been able to (semi) consistently post here about things that I care about and find interesting.  I’ve had a great time talking about these things with members of the GMC and Reflect Communities here.  And I’ve even moved past the default theme (and hopefully will move past my current theme with something better in 2009).  In short, it’s been a fun year, and I look forward to a continuation of that for the next.

Anyway, enough of the formal stuff – you’re probably reading this because you want in on the commemorative raffle, and frankly, I don’t blame you.  So here goes!

To help celebrate the continuation of Marty Blog, and to give back to everyone who’s helped make the blog fun for me, I’ve put together another little raffle – Marty Blog’s second Post & Win!

What can you win?

The grand prize for the raffle is a brand new (digital) copy of BioWare’s awesomely fun action-RPG, Mass Effect!  If you’ve already got a copy of Mass Effect, or if it’s not really your thing, I’ll also let you sub in any other single game of equal or lesser value ($30) that’s currently on Steam.  Here’s the list.

Additionally, second and third prize winners will be chosen, and each will be able to choose from any single game currently on Steam for $15 or less and $5 or less respectively.  Steam’s catalog has grown impressively since the last raffle, and there are some great new games available now, so there should be something for just about everyone there, for each prize value.

Finally, I’ve got a spare copy of Half-Life 2 + HL2: Episode 1 just sitting in my Steam account, ready to be gifted.  If you’re interested in that as well, say so in your post, and once the winners have been chosen I’ll take all the losers (you’re all winners to me…  really) and do one final drawing for this lovely prize.  This one is non-negotiable because it’s actually just an extra copy I have.

Note: Many of the games on Steam, including Mass Effect and Half-Life 2, are rated Mature by the ESRB, and may contain violence or sex.  I have no way of verifying people’s age, so I will assume that if you enter the raffle, you are 18 or older, or you have your parent’s permission to play games of this nature.

How do you enter?

Simply post a comment below (make sure to enter an email address I can contact you with in the appropriate area of the comment form).  Feel free to post suggestions, criticism, long manifestos of support and encouragement, dear John letters, requests for personal advice, announcements about the sentry gun you just built, or whatever else you can think of.  Everything is welcome!

Your name will only be entered into the raffle once, no matter how many comments you leave, and registered users of the site who comment will have a slightly higher chance of being chosen.

Entrants must have a Steam account, or must be willing to register for one if they win.  Steam is free, it’s a great service, and I am happy to promote it.  If you win and I am unable to award you your prize within a reasonable amount of time, the item will be re-raffled.  Apologies to anyone who lives outside of the U.S. or who doesn’t have access to Steam or it’s catalog of games.

Attempts at entering your name into the raffle more than once (or any other kind of cheating) will result in your name, and all aliases thought to be associated with you, removed from the drawing.  And of course, Marty Blog reserves all rights to make the final decision on the validity of any entry.

Entries close at the end of the holiday weekend – Sunday, December 28th at 11:59 PM PST – so be sure to make your comment before then!  Winners will be announced the following day.  I wanted to have winners announced before then, but I figured I’d give everyone out there a chance to enter, and of course, I’d also like to give myself some time off over the next few days.  Win / win.

Thanks again to everyone out there who reads Marty Blog now and then.  I truly appreciate your visits to this site, and I hope that the site remains fun and enjoyable to you as we move into the future!  And yes, I know I recycled that from my previous Post & Win, but I think it’s still very applicable.  I hope you all have happy holidays this season!

Team Fortress 2 Spy & Engineer Update

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TF2 Engineer Closeup

While I simply haven’t had time to devote to much Team Fortress 2 lately, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been interested in it.  My game is up to date and ready to play, and I’ve been keeping up on all the sparse bits of official news, which have been released via the Team Fortress 2 Official Blog.

Their latest announcement reveals a few incoming updates for the Engineer and Spy, as follows:

  • Teleporters will be upgradeable to level 3. As the teleporter is upgraded, the cooldown will decrease.
  • Dispensers will be upgradeable to level 3. They will heal faster and generate metal faster as they are upgraded.
  • Spies will be able to recharge their cloaking ability by picking up ammo off of the ground.
  • We’ve made a bunch of minor changes by adding particle systems and upgrading the HUD to show things like deaths by critical hits, players that are overhealed, and giving more information to medics when people are calling for them.

The Engineer is my favorite class, so I’m happy to see him getting some love from Valve soon.  I’m not particularly good at being a Spy, but it is one of the classes I generally have a lot more fun with, and I am happy to see this change coming, as this is something I have felt you should be able to do from the very beginning.  With all other characters able to pick up dropped weapons for ammo, building, etc. it only makes sense to allow the Spy to pick up these lost armaments as well, especially since the cloak ability replenishes so slowly on its own.

I’m also excited to see the minor changes mentioned in the fourth bullet point.  Playing as a Medic should be even better, and it’ll be nice to see more information listed on the HUD for critical hits, overhealing, etc.

Just talking about these upcoming changes is making me hungry for some TF2.  Maybe it’s time to stop working on my new blog layout / games and start doing a little PC gaming again?

Image courtesy of TF Portal

Getting My Feet Wet With I-Fluid

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I-Fluid 1

After viewing an interesting trailer on Steam the other day, I finally got a chance to try out the demo for Exkee’s I-Fluid over the weekend.  Though I am not sure that I am ready to pay the modest $10 for the game, my experience with the demo was somewhat fun and I think the team behind the game definitely have something to be proud of.

I-Fluid puts you in the, er, shoes of a drop of water, and has you sliding around levels getting from point A to point B, doing time trials, and finding hidden petals.  Levels for the game look very nice, even realistic, and are composed of various items like books, paper, pencils, paperclips, and a cornucopia of other office / school supplies which all serve to help or hinder your progress.  Objects in the game react realistically thanks to the Ageia physics engine, and often you must traverse moving objects as they tumble around.  Obstacles in the game vary from stationary objects, dry surfaces (like paper) which will suck your drop dry, and thirsty insects.  You can replenish your small supply of water on any wet surface, and movement around levels is appropriately slippery.

I-Fluid 2

As you can see from the screens, I-Fluid is actually a very visually interesting game.  The high-resolution textures used on most of the models look as if they were derived from photos, and the depth of field effect really solidifies the macrophotography feeling of the game.  Drops of water, and other transparent materials, refract the scenery behind them.  Much of the game’s various objects look tasty enough to eat.

I-Fluid 3

The 2D aspects of the graphics, however, leave a lot to be desired.  During the opening screens of the demo and even when the simple resolution configuration popped up before the actual game loaded, I felt that a lot more polish could have gone into the presentation.  Once the 3D portion of the game loaded I forgot all about this, but loading screens and menus can be important, because they are some of the first impressions your users will have of your game.

I enjoyed gliding around a few levels from the demo, as everything controlled just as it should.  I was slightly annoyed at the controls when, only seconds after being introduced to the jump ability, I found myself being forced to perform a difficult maneuver across a plastic protractor, suspended over a pit of notebook paper by a rolling glue stick.  It sounds silly, I know, but the movement of the water drop depends largely on your control over momentum and the direction of the camera, and I had trouble sticking the landing with such slippery physics.  Overall, I had fun playing I-Fluid, though I’m not sure if I’m up for the challenges I suspect will be present in the full game.

I-Fluid 4

At the very least, I-Fluid did manage to pull me away from working on my revised blog layout for about 45 minutes, so I guess there is a small victory to be held somewhere in that.  I think that for anyone wanting a simple, physics-based platformer with good graphics and a unique approach, I-Fluid could be a good fix, especially if taken in bite-sized play sessions.  For me, I might just wait until it comes down to $5.

Quick Reflect Competition & WordPress 2.7

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Raffle

I just wanted to post a quick note to tell everyone about two things, the currently on-going Reflect Games Competition and WordPress 2.7.

First, the Reflect Games Competition – it began last night, and is ending at midnight PST on December 21.  The challenge is to make a cut scene in Game Maker, pretty much however you want.  The rules are lax and the time is short, so read more about that here, at the Reflect Games forum, and consider throwing something together – you could win a little holiday fun in the form of Steam games, Amazon goods, or iTunes music!

Second, I installed WordPress 2.7 RC1 a few days ago, and all went smoothly…  I’m not even sure that I had more than about 30 seconds of downtime.  Today, the official release of WordPress 2.7 was released, and I got my first chance to try out the automatic upgrade function.  So far, I love it!  Instead of having to download, unzip, and upload a bunch of files, I can now upgrade the entire blog at the push of a button.  The WordPress team deserves a resounding “good job” from everyone who uses and supports their software for this – they really did an excellent job.

Anyway, I’d better get back to work for now, but thanks for stopping in to see what’s going on, and good luck with the contest if you decide to enter it!  The raffle for Marty Blog is still being planned, so don’t miss these two opportunities to win some stuff!

Image courtesy of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition