1. We ran the server at his house on his desktop, and I just logged into it remotely. At the time, he had an 8 mbps cable connection with fairly slow upload speeds. Pairing that with my puny 1.5 mpbs DSL connection and I was in lag city.
2. Next we moved the server to my house. Our theory was that my DSL would have slightly more consistent upload speeds so it would be fine for me and decent for him. This fell apart in practice because of two things. 1.5 is a pretty small pipe and if you need to do anything else while the Minecraft server is running, things gets very slow. The other problem is that I generally don’t have my desktop up and running 24/7. We were constantly trading text messages about the state of the server.
3. I fired up a micro instance on Amazon EC2 and installed Ubuntu. This looked super promising. Micro instances are quite cheap, and it was reasonably easy to setup. You have to know a handful of Linux commands, but nothing too extreme. I was even able to setup remote world backups using Duplicity (which is super cool by the way). Except…     the Minecraft server instance kept crashing with out of memory errors. I guess this wasn’t that surprising. Micro instances give you 613 mb of memory, and Minecraft generally doesn’t run very reliably with anything less than a gb. Bumping up to the EC2 Small intance really put it out our price range.
4. We spent some time looking around for a traditional Minecraft hosting service. There are plenty of reasonably priced options, but they were just more money that we were willing to spend to play a game a couple times a month.
5. My friend upgraded his cable connection to 30 mpbs download and 8 mpbs upload (not just because of Minecraft). We moved the server back to his place. The lag was mostly gone, except for the occasional minecart riding blip here and there.
6. This winter we heard about Minefold. I moved over the server just to try it out. I have to say, I really like it! It solves a lot of the problems we were having with the other solutions. Neither of us has to run a Java server on our personal computer 24/7, it has good uptime (at least for the amount we play) and it even has an auto-generating map of our world…     well the surface anyway.

Minefold definitely fits with the amount we play. It has a unique pricing model as well. Each player pays ~$5/month for access to unlimited worlds and unlimited time on those servers. Minefold will even give you 10 free hours each month, just to get a taste. This pricing model works out great, because you don’t have to pay for a single server and then try to split up the costs between each of your players. The other benefit, that is right up my alley, is server maintenance is handled by Minefold. You basically upload your world and away you go.

If you haven’t tried Minefold, it is worth a shot. If you would like to take a peek at our world, you can see it here.

Overall, it’s a pretty cool game. I classify it as a hacky-slashy-burny-isometric-platformer (I don’t know the official genre). Battles are fun! There are a bunch of different weapons to try out and each one seems cool in its own way. Some of the weapons are centered around a certain type enemy. For example, in order to fend off these nasty beasts called Anklegators you use this long sharp pike that allow you to poke them right in the nose.

The narration is one of my favorite parts of the game. It reacts with you as you go along. If you are just smashing boxes to see what is in them, you get something like “Kid just rages for a while.” If you are just running past enemies as fast as you can, he’ll say “Kid makes a break for it.” It works really well, especially with the gruff voice of the narrator.

The game starts off at a decent pace and progressively gets harder as you go along. I have had to retry a couple levels because I died so many times, but I haven’t got frustrated at the game. Use your shield! I’m actually surprised at its size considering it is a $15 XBLA game.

It put a smile on my face – Recommended

I’ll be writing up a Madden 10 review soon, so keep posted!

The Good

The game is fun. It has all the classic elements of Battlefield combat: land, sea, and air vehicles mashed in with a large ground-based capture the flag maps. Another huge plus is that the game is only $15. I think that this is a great step in the right direction. I hope it sends a message to game publishers that you can publish a game that might not look the best or be game of the year but if it’s fun and cheap people will buy it.

They are also doing a challenge where the community unlocks new content by getting a large number of global kills. At 43,000,000 kills the respective system (Xbox360 or PS3) unlocked the Coral Bay map (which is an air-combat only map). This REALLY incentivized people to get on as much as possible and keep the fight going 24/7. Editors Note: Both systems have unlocked Coral Bay, although the Xbox 360 was the first to do so.

The Bad

This game is slow. While I enjoy playing it, I never get really passionate about it like I do COD4 or TF2. You have no sense of teamwork, or team goals, which is a problem in a game centered around team and squad based objectives. You basically run around capping points, trying to kill the enemy. When the game is over you are never really surprised about who won, because you have no clue what is going on elsewhere in the match.

The game in general seems very non-immersive. When I shoot my gun or run around I don’t FEEL like a soldier on a battlefield. I almost feel like I’m playing a rail shooter in an arcade.

When I hopped back into COD4 after playing this game for a couple reasons, I realized why COD4 is SO GOOD. When you run the camera moves around like I’m running, when I shoot my gun the camera makes me feel like I’m actually shooting a rifle, Battlefield 1943 just doesn’t do that.

The Down-Low

This game is fun and cheap, plain and simple. As you can tell, it wasn’t the best game I’ve ever played by any stretch of the imagination but it keeps me entertained and got me to pry open my wallet instead of GameFly’ing it like I do most games.

The Grand Theft Auto series has been a classic series for all gamers. From the top-down excitement of GTA and GTA2 to the mind blowing 3dness (and the infamous hot coffee mod). Chinatown Wars takes the top down of the originals and the 3D (and hookers) of the later games mixes them together.

The Good

This game is fun, VERY stylized, and adult. Why do people love GTA games? Because they are open-ended sand box games that allow you go drive around hitting people with cars and causing mayhem.

The top down style fits very well with the limited 3d capabilities of the DS. Also the stylization makes you really forget that you are on a portable unit.

The Bad

The story is pretty lame, which isn’t that big of a problem. As I said above, the story in these games are worthless, but they are challenges so you end up doing them anyways after an hour or two of driving around for no reason.

The aiming can get a little wonky at times. While someone right in front of me is blasting me away with a shotgun, the game decides the woman pedestrian at the edge of the screen is a bigger threat.

The Ugly

The corny ass dialogue and goofy cut scene art is enough to make a person stab their eyes The characters in the cut scenes look like a 5 year old did them, and the conversations are just juvenile.

Although I did laugh the first couple times I heard a hooker say “You wanna piece of my pie?”, hearing it 300 times again while walking around the city gets old fast.

The Skinny

This game is fun. It has some problems, but I’m really enjoying the new crop of mature games coming out for the Nintendo console. I loved GTA and GTA2 so this game fit very well with me.

The Good

The game look great. Very stylized (like Team Fortress 2), good sounds, great models. I like the “gain points to buy new items” aspect, because it encourages players to play consistently to buy and keep better weapons. Besides the pilot there are two extra seats on planes, and by seats I mean you sit on the wing and shoot at people.

The Bad

The game has no focus. The loss of the mini map makes you feel like you are just one guy running around a field. The weapons dont’ feel like they do damage (except to you, of course), and you feel thrown into a game with no teamwork whatsoever. My favorite ability in the Battlefield games was the ability of teammates to spot enemies for you. They have removed this from Battlefield Heroes and without this it is VERY hard to find snipers (and trust me one good sniper can just wreck a spawn) or let your pilots know where enemy planes are. There is also no voice chat or commander, which makes it TERRIBLY difficult to coordinate a team.

The vehicles are TERRIBLE. When flying a plane you have no clue where the other planes are and no seeming way to gain an advantage on them. The tanks just seem silly and without the mini gun for the driver there seems to be no good way to kill infantry with it.

The sounds get annoying QUICK. They tried to make the sounds as cartoony as possible, but I can only hear the sad trombone sound (only much higher pitched) so many times before I want to choke myself with my mouse cable.

The Ugly

As it stands right now, I would pass on this game. It just feels too disconnected. There is no teamwork and therefore it’s just another run around and shoot things, only this time you are stuck in a cartoon.

5. The Audience

4. Upgrade Cycles – If you pick your pony in the console market you can be assured that pretty much any new game coming out for quite some time will be playable no questions asked. Eventually our console is old as dirt and the “next-next-next-next-next-gen” console comes out and we know to pry open our wallets and start arguing with Playstation fanbois about why you won’t pay through the nose for a POS. Upgrading on the PC is a very personal process that us PC gaming nerds take very seriously. You probably shouldn’t ask PC nerds about upgrading unless you want to hear quite a bit of technical information (about hz, overclocking, heat, etc.) and arguments about whether or not it’s prudent to spend $500 bucks on a video card.

3. Location, Location, Location – PC gaming and Console gaming happen in two very different locations. PC games happen at a desk, in an office chair. A very erect stance is taken, conveying professionalism and dedication. Console gaming happens in the front room, in front of a TV, on a couch or easy chair. This means that thee is quite a bit more relaxing happening when you play console games. A great example is that sometimes I’ll kick back, put my feet on the ottoman and kick some ass at COD4 on my 360. Friends can sit and watch me play my console, socialize with me while I do, take turns, etc. PC gaming on the other hand is a very personal experience. Please don’t bug me, I’m trying to kick ass.

2. Flexibility – When gaming on a PC the world is at your fingertips. Remember, the PC wasn’t MADE for gaming, but it does it pretty well. PC gamers demand things fairly open an un-restrictive. We want only the game, and we make the rest of the decisions our self. When buying a console (ignoring all you dirty little hacker types) you aren’t only buying the hardware, you are buying the OS, multiplayer system, and reliability. The closed nature of the console gives us security and a warm fuzzy inside.

And Finally. . . . . .

1. The Ever-So-Volatile Mouse vs Controller Debate – This debate has been raging since the dawn of the Xbox (which really brought the FPS controller debate to the forefront). The truth is, they are both great systems of controlling, as long as they are NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER allowed to intermix. When facing each other, the mouse has a distinct advantage. I’m not saying one is better than the other, I’ve recently gotten VERY good at first person shooters with the controller and find it to be a very elegant way to control a game. . . . as long as you are playing with other people using controllers.

You know, there may be differences, but let’s bury the hatchet. We are both video gamers. We love the same thing, we just do it differently. So I encourage all of us, go find your counterpart and shake his hand, or better yet: play a game with him. PC guys, go pick up a controller and learn to use the damn thing! Console guys, pony up some dough for a PC and get fragging. Either way, at least we aren’t watching Anime, and trust me, that’s a good thing.

Changed backstab handling to fix facestabs

I kidding, of course I care about the rest of the update! I’ll play around with it when I can and report back, in the mean time you can read the full update details and hop on yourself.

This update is looking to bring back the thunder to TF2, I know I personally have completely given up on the game. Perhaps I’ll have to start practicing again so I can hit a home run or two.