ok i know its been a long time since i did a "nimil plays" blog, but that’s because i’ve been trying to figure out a way to write these better! the truth is, i’m no good at reviewing stuff, especially videogames. because i start a game, and then i put it aside for months before i finish it or get anywhere significant enough to really do a review. not to mention, i’m broke so i end up reviewing old games and games that aren’t really popular or interesting to people besides me.

i’m honestly thinking of doing lets play style videos and uploading them on youtube. i’m not sure if this will work out, or if i will do more than one but its an idea for the future! if you’ve never watched a lets play video, they’re basically a set of videos where someone plays a videogame, and you get to watch. i’m a big fan of them myself, but i’ve never done one. i’m not really even sure what i should do for a lets play. they look fun though, so we’ll see.

this is not a sponsored review, i am doing this because i love games!

i’m not a fan of race games unless they are crazy. something with crazy tracks or insane crashes definitely catches my attention. lucas and i are always looking for games to play together (and i’m sure i’ve mentioned that previously) and i’m always looking for stuff i can play that i don’t have to buy (because i’m cheap :p) so i was pretty excited to try trackmania nations forever. this game is available on steam and yes it is completely free! its not just a crappy demo with a couple of tracks either. this game provides both multiplayer and solo tracks with full stats and even the ability to create your own tracks and host your own server if you are interested in that sort of thing.

the main appeal for me of this game was the insane track designs. not just a boring track where you turn left, or one with a few curves here and there. these tracks require a massive amount of skill as you try not to slam into sudden walls, fling your vehicle though the air and pray you land on the other side, and speed though upside down loops that can go on forever.

now while this is the main appeal its also the main thing that makes me stop playing the game. because I SUCK AT DRIVING! yes even though i do enjoy driving games that are crazy, i really don’t have the skill to play them, so i end up rage-quitting after only a few races.

barring that, i really did enjoy this game. i haven’t tried the track creation part of the game but i love when games give you the added bonus of an editor to play around in. there’s also the ability to mod your car (which i also need to do). the game is split up into different countries and areas on the map so you can compete with the entire world, or just people in your state, that part was very cool.

overall i say this game is pretty bad ass and i will continue to play it (and rage quit) for a while i’m sure.

you can check out trackmania nations forever on the steam website.

well i finally got a chance to play this and i gotta say… i don’t really like it! yes i’m kinda shocked too. maybe its because i was so used to the old game, or maybe its because i moved on to other mmorpgs that were different than the final fantasy mmo. i just don’t really dig it! not to mention there were a lot of issues with lag, which i should not have had.. my computer is a super beast and it should have chewed though that game like candy, but i lagged all over the damn place and i’m not sure if it was internet related or graphics related.

the quest set up is weird and i’m not sure if that was just tutorial stuff or if that’s how all quests are laid out, but you have to go to some sort of thing stuck in the ground, and talk to it, and it gives you quests, and then you go do them. the monsters i had to kill took forever to respawn but i think they were being over-killed by the sheer amount of people doing the same quests. not fun.

visually the game reminds me of final fantasy 11, right down to the character races. as i did in the old game, i picked an elf. “elezen” in this game, elvaan in the old game. not sure why they changed the race names if they were going to make the races exactly the same.

anyway i was less wow’ed than i thought i would be, but i was also a bit annoyed at the fail i had to go though just to play so i’m not going to say this game is awful, especially when its just a beta. but i probably won’t bother playing it when it comes out.

so far this game has been rubbish. while waiting for something in second life i tried to log into the beta session for final fantasy xiv (they have special days that they open the servers, for a day or so, and then they close them again X-x). when i logged on that time, i was actually able to create my character and view the opening video and move around for a little bit. then the thing i was waiting on came up and i had to go do that, so i closed the game. when i came back to try it again, i was greeted with the following screen:

*grits teeth* so i waited in the queue for my turn and of course wouldn’t you know it? no game for you haha! error code 30002.. what ever that means *head desk*

so far so bad… i have no clue how they expect to have this game ready by september, they don’t even seem to have a network capable of handling logins and their server queue is insane! this is square enix we are talking about! these people already have one mmorpg online and i’ve played it and it was fun as hell.. this has been a horrible beta test experience for me so far.

will i ever get to play? who knows.

so after 4 grueling days of on and off downloading of the beta client (my brother shares my connection and couldn’t play xbox live if i had the dl going…) i finally got it all installed only to find out from the beta site that the beta has been put on hold to address network issues or something of that nature. so until that gets figured out i won’t be playing i suppose.

the initial download its self was pretty painful. a 3gb file should not take 4 days for me to download, even though i did have to stop it a few times. it usually takes me about an hour to download one gig but this took forever just to get that far! it was pretty disappointing and that’s not a good feeling when going into a beta test.

i hope that what ever they are fixing will cure the downloader problem because i really don’t want to have to deal with this sort of thing in the future!

yes i got my hands on another beta test! this time its the new final fantasy xiv beta i’m downloading the client updates at a horribly slow speed so it might be a while before i actually get to play D:  *grumbles about crappy connection and bit torrent style client updates*  anyway. i’ll be back with a review of this after i finally get to play it.

first off i think i’m changing my “time waster of the moment” to “nimil plays” just cause it shrinks the title down a bit. as always, these are not paid reviews, i do these cause i love games!

so i mentioned a while back that i got a beta key for starcraft II, however i didn’t get to play it much because i got busy with some other things that unfortunately ate up my starcraft time. the small amount of time that i did get to play was pretty awesome and i came to the realization that i now suck at rts games. i used to kick ass at them but i guess i am out of practice. i lost every match except for the one where the other side pulled out as soon as we entered the match! now this does not mean that i hated the game, but it was just more challenging than i originally remember the first starcraft. of course i didn’t play much against other people on the original so i guess i was just being pitted against more skilled players.

the game its self is really great looking, the graphics are still top down, and a bit small but beautiful all the same. the sound effects were great and as a fan of the protoss i started hearing “we require more minerals” in my sleep.. its kinda like the new “construct additional pylons”

so i can’t really properly review this game because first of all it was a beta, so all i got to play with the multi-player function, and secondly because i suck and didn’t spend enough time playing it. however i did enjoy what i got to play and i think if you were a fan of the original starcraft you will enjoy this new one.

this was really a suprise. i’ve not played starcraft in YEARS. but i was really excited when blizzard first announced that there was going to be a starcraft II. i signed up for beta when they first opened the signups and i never actually expected to get in! but earlier today i found this in my inbox and i squealed for joy:

so now i am currently waiting on the thing to finish patching so that i can hit play for the first time and learn how to play starcraft all over again >_>

i have been a fan of blizzard’s games for a looonnnggg time. ever since i first got my hands on a playstation and a friend loaned me a copy of warcraft II i was hooked. a lot of my friends who were fans of the warcraft series were not fans of WoW but i was hooked on that too. the couple of times i played starcraft, i was hooked, and i’m pretty sure that starcraft II is not going to disappoint.

so after i play a bit i will write more but i just wanted to share my happy moment with the blog.

this is not a sponsored review, i am doing this because i love games

Lucas and i are always looking for new games that we can play together. i’m always trying to drag him into the newest free mmo that i can find and usually he’s not very willing, but recently i was able to get him to look at mmos with me and to my surprise he agreed to play this with me.

5street is not a normal MMORPG. instead of fighting monsters, joining guilds and winning against a common evil, you uh… dance! yes that’s right… 5street is a dance mmo. its sort of like dance dance revolution but for the PC. you make an avatar, and you proceed to beat the crap out of your arrow keys to dance

i love games like these. you may recall my earlier twotms where i wrote about typemania and tap tap revenge 3… i am a big fan of music games! my poor keyboard takes a lot of punishment from games like this. the special thing about 5street is that it is very couple oriented. you can get married, and do all kinds of cute dance moves together. sadly i have not been able to wrangle lucas into playing long enough for us to be dance partners, but from the pictures i saw, it is disgustingly cute.

i won’t lie, i havne’t spent much time in this game. i’ve been busy with other stuff and it is so very couple oriented that i don’t really want to play it without lucas. the american version of the game plays mostly american pop and hip hop music but i have noticed a few songs in other languages. for some reason they are also still celebrating xmas there… not sure what that’s about.. since its may, and xmas was like… 6 months ago O_o

some things i didn’t enjoy about the game:

• you cannot change your hair colour unless you buy coins. ok i understand the purpose of having a free mmo with purchasable extras, however it kinda sucks that i am stuck as a blond with no way to change my hair to a colour i prefer.
• clothing has time limits. this kinda sucked. want something cute to wear on your avatar? well you can pick 7 days or 30 days for them to own the item. there is an option to own it with no limit but i was unable to select that option no matter what item i attempted to get.
• awkward hand placement. the game at one point wants you to hit the number keys at the top of the keyboard. i had a hard time smacking the right key while trying to pay attention to what i was doing.
• text is cut off in places. i’m not sure why there isn’t a scroll bar but during the tutorial i was unable to read half of the instructions because it just sorta cuts off and gives you no way to continue reading what was left off. this also occurs in other areas as well.

even with these problems i did enjoy the game. it was cute and fun and a music game which i love. i want lucas to play it with me more though and have a goofy cute anime wedding

you can check out 5street for yourself by clicking here!

this is not a paid review, i am doing this because i love games!

this time for my time waster of the moment, i checked out a cool ipod/iphone app called words with friends. i found this app after i saw jess mention it on her facebook page. i am using the free version, which has advertisements added into it but you can also buy the non-advertisement version from the app store.

words with friends is an awesome networked version of scrabble! you can choose a random match, or if you know someone’s user name you can play directly with them. the really fun part about this game is that its set up so that you can take your time. if you start a game and then have to go do something else, or work, or anything that would take your eyes off the ap, you can come back to it later and pick up where you left off with the person you were playing the game with.

i’ve played a few matches so far, and so far i’ve lost all of them except one which i only won because the other person resigned i am a huge scrabble nut, so this game is perfect for me. no one in my house will play scrabble with me!

so anyway, if you like word games or things like scrabble do check out words with friends! and if you feel like playing a round against me, i’m nimil on there as well.