All posts by Brian A. Thomas

I am the father of Ari and Sidd. I am the owner and administrator of this site.
General

My First Columbus Crew Match

I’ve wanted to go to a Columbus Crew game since they were formed in 1994, but it’s been the last two years as my interest in the sport itself has grown that I’ve really wanted to go, so I basically count the last two years or so of wanting to go as the real deal. Two years of wanting to go and not being able to for a variety of reasons, mostly work related. If I had the time off work, I had the kids and a two plus hour trip each way with young kids… If I didn’t have all those, it was normally really bad weather (as in thunderstorms in the area) or I just didn’t have the funds, and on occasion forgot or was busy with other things, a chance to to some board gaming with the local board game group, an important video game beta test, or whatever, including important things like spending time with loved ones. The point is, for a couple years I’ve really wanted to go but things didn’t work out.

I sadly can’t even really watch the games on TV as my TV doesn’t get that channel. I’d need a cable box for that, and I already spend enough extra on the cable for much needed Internet speed improvements. I can’t use the MLS Live app or anything like that either since I live in an area where the service is available, it is blacked out locally. I did recently find a site that often has the games showing live, though the quality leaves much to be desired. Still better than nothing.

Fast forward to recent events. On Reddit there is a sub-reddit called The Massive. There one of the users gives away extra tickets to the game, and as a bonus they are in the supporter’s section called The Nordecke (for fans of American Football, think of the Dawg Pound for the Browns). I entered, thinking there was little chance of winning, but in the end won anyhow. I finally was going to get to not only see a Columbus Crew match, but it was going to be perfect weather, there were going to be fireworks after the match as it was the 4th of July, and as an extra bonus I’d be in the Nordecke. Hopefully someday I’ll get to pay it forward, and help somebody else who wants to go.

So after spending some time with a loved one, if a bit too little time, I made the three and a half hour trek to Mapfre stadium… Continue reading My First Columbus Crew Match →

Gaming, PC Gaming

2015 in Games so Far – Mid May

It’s only May, so far to early to do a games of the year report like I did for 2014, but the year is shaping up pretty good so far. I’m just going to hit a few highlights here and there.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt,  so far is a strong contender for game of the year. Beyond the amazing graphics, the game has a nice depth to it, great story, acting and more. I think it’ll be hard to push it off the game of the year list.

Rebel Galaxy is also shaping up great. I’ve already done an early look at Rebel Galaxy. Should the game ship this year, then it’ll be on the short list for sure. It was just a great deal of fun to play… It might not have the depth of Witcher 3 or some of the others, but it has fun in droves.  Continue reading 2015 in Games so Far – Mid May →

BT Plays, Gaming, PC Gaming

Getting an Early Look at Rebel Galaxy

Imagine if you took the greatness that is Firefly1, and combined that with space trading of Elite: Dangerous (while removing the complexity of having to worry about pitch), while tossing in a lighthearted RPG and you’ll have a basic idea of what fun to expect from Double Damage Game’s first game, Rebel Galaxy.  They call it a “swashbuckling space adventure” and that is very apt. Continue reading Getting an Early Look at Rebel Galaxy →

BT Plays, Gaming, My YouTube, PC Gaming

Killing Floor 2 – Thoughts and Video from the Stress Test Beta

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So I manged to get into the Killing Floor 2 Stress Test Beta (I don’t think my Dear Tripwire, Why I Want In the Killing Floor 2 Beta post helped, but it might have), and I had a blast. Seriously some of the most fun I’ve had in awhile playing a game. Tripwire Interactive has a solid hit to be on their hands.

Let’s step back a moment for those who don’t follow the latest and greatest in gaming. What is Killing Floor 2? Continue reading Killing Floor 2 – Thoughts and Video from the Stress Test Beta →

Gaming, PC Gaming

2014 PC Games of the Year

So I didn’t play a ton of new games this year, so this list is based off what I’ve actually played myself. This list is mostly PC, I don’t include any board games… that may be another list… or not… There is one XBox 360/PS4/XBox One game listed that isn’t on PC yet…

The Winners

Let’s get right out and say that the lead favorite, though I’m not very far into the game is Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s a truly massive game, and amazing in nearly every respect. My only issue with the game so far is that it is often times hard to connect to the Dragon Age Servers. I connected before I played the game, so it imported all the choices from the Keep into the game, but would be nice to be able to sync the files still.
Continue reading 2014 PC Games of the Year →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

A Bunch of New YouTube Vids Are Up

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I haven’t been good at updating the blog here of late, but there are a bunch of YouTube videos since I last posted here. Check out my YouTube channel. All these videos, as with most of my recent videos are made from highlights from my Twitch Channel so quality isn’t as good as it would be if I recorded locally, edited and uploaded directly myself rather than have Twitch send it over. Remember, comment, like and subscribe! It helps. Continue reading A Bunch of New YouTube Vids Are Up →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

I Give Zombies Monsters Robots a Try

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En Masse Entertainment (of Terra fame) have a new game out in beta called Zombies Monsters and Robots.

ZMR is a fun, 3rd person shooter where you fight, well zombies, monsters, robots, armies of bad buys and a host of everything else. Over the top and immense fun.

Here’s my first try at it:

I might make more videos later… and share more about my thoughts about it at a later date.

Board & Card Games, Gaming, General, Warhammer 40K Conquest

Warhammer 40,000: Conquest LCG Comes to OCTGN

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I’ve previously mentioned that Fantasy Flight Games has a new Living Card Game (LCG) coming out called Warhammer 40,000: Conquest. Needless to say I’m pretty excited about it… Perhaps not as overly geeked out as I am over Imperial Assault (see previous story), but it was one of the games I was most excited for prior to GenCon (since then Abyss has slid down a bit and Five Tribes has moved up to just below Conquest and Imperial Assault for the post GenCon stuff). Anyhow, I can’t wait for it to come out.

Sadly, I don’t have a play group to play it with. I’m sure plenty of people at the Boardgamers of Greater Akron will be playing it, but it is a bit of a drive to Akron from where I am, and I don’t know anyone local who’s into LCGs. So being able to play the game over the Internet is always a sweet deal. Sure one could use Skype and just put the webcam on the table, but that requires a playlist of people to play with a much larger table than my desk, and a few other complications. Lucky for us, there are methods of playing LCGs, TCGs, CCGs, and other games over the Internet. For card games the two main platforms seem to be OCTGN and LackyCCG. This post will focus on the OCTGN plugin, but I know there is development ongoing for a LackyCCG plugin as well (by another person than the one who did the Conquest one). OCTGN is presently Windows only (though they mention they would like to do a Mac version and touch screen version eventually), while LackyCCG is multiplatform including Windows, Mac, Linux and iPad.

Before we continue, let me note that I am in no way involved with this project, either the LCG itself (although, FFG, if you want me…lol), OCTGN or the plugin being discussed below.

So what do you need? Continue reading Warhammer 40,000: Conquest LCG Comes to OCTGN →

Board & Card Games, Gaming

Team Covenant Shows A Full Demo of Star Wars: Imperial Assault

I don’t cover board games nearly as often as I would like to or should. But at GenCon this year, Fantasy Flight Games announced a new title that has me really excited. Star Wars: Imperial Assault. The game basically is Decent with a Star Wars license and a 1v1 skirmish mode option… I mean I was excited that Abyss was going to be on sale at GenCon (though I wasn’t going, so can’t secure myself a copy… though if anybody is in the area and wants to gift me a copy, cover order goes purple, green, blue, red, pink/orange), and I was excited to hear more about another must have game, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest a new LCG from FFG, which I hear sold out in a couple hours, and of course their Star Wars: Armada game (another must have), but Imperial Assault took me, and I think everyone, by surprise. Huge reveal. The fine folks over at Team Covenant have posted a nice full playthrough… Haven’t watched it fully yet, so excited about it I had to share it right away.

What I’m excited for are the vast number of fan created scenarios. I’m sure they’ll modify the Descent campaign creator tools to this… Continue reading Team Covenant Shows A Full Demo of Star Wars: Imperial Assault →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

Nosgoth Gameplay and Mini Review

Nosgoth is a free-to-play multiplayer action game that is presently in Closed Beta. I got in late February and I’m finally getting around to talking about it. At the end of this article I’ll have a gameplay video so you can see it in action. You can apply for beta at the Nosgoth link, or buy a Nosgoth Founders Pack which will get you into the game instantly (part of why I’m bringing it up now, as I think it’s worth looking at). Like most Founders Packs on games that will eventually be free-to-play, they include plenty of in game currency to buy skins, faster access to classes, and your typical free-to-play, but not buy to win, game… and that’s an important note. Based on my time in Nosgoth, I never felt the need to buy things, or that those buying stuff had an unfair advantage. That said, there are some really cool skins and stuff that would be sweet to have.

A small disclaimer, I’ve never played any of the Legacy of Kain games, the universe that Nosgoth takes place in, so I won’t be discussing any of that aspect. All I know about the world is there are vampires and humans, and from the dialog I’m guessing the humans are the rebels… Nosgoth refers to the world, the planet we are on in this story. Kain has died and the vampire race is in disarray and the humans seem to think it is a good time to rebel… or something along those lines. Like Titanfall (as I noted in my review of Titanfall), there is a story told here via dialog. Perhaps not as heavily well as Titanfall’s story, but in this case it has a rich history behind it already so it just needs to be there enough to connect it to the universe that it inhabits.

Anyhow, let’s talk about the gameplay itself, as that is what’s important. Nosgoth pits Humans vs Vampires. Each match features two rounds. One round you will play as a human, the other round as a vampire, keeping the same team. Whichever team has the best combined score, wins the match. Continue reading Nosgoth Gameplay and Mini Review →

BT Plays, Gaming, My Twitch, My YouTube, PC Gaming

New YouTube Intro In Progress

In an effort to step up my videos to a more professional level, I started work on a new Intro. It’s semi-okay as it is, but I didn’t really spend the time to make the music loop properly when I extended the clip’s length. I have some plans on how to further enhance it from here once I get some actual content to add it to. Such as ArcheAge if Trion responds to my letter to them asking to get into the game (EDIT: They didn’t respond directly but I did luck in to the Alpa so…), and/or Blizzard lets me into Heroes of the Storm (yep, got a letter asking them for access to that game too).

It’s based on a template by Laurent Caccia. I made it longer, which is why the music has an odd loop at two points, and I have plans on modifying it from where it is now. For example I have it showing me playing Titanfall in the BT, but that’d probably change to the game being played in the actual video, and a few other small modifications that might be coming if I can make it work out well…

If any talented artists out there want to make a header for here (1200×240), backgrounds etc for my YouTube channel (which I don’t think even works anymore, I need to check that out more) and my Twitch channel, there I’m mostly looking for better header images above each block and of course overlays for the channel on the rare occasions I might stream, and can do them for free, let me know. I need to work on a better one for my Twitter as well, though save for how hard it is to read the smaller text, I think that one is somewhat okay.

Gaming, PC Gaming

Hearthstone Expansion Curse of Naxxramas Announced at PAX East 2014

So one of the cool pieces of news to come out of PAX East this year is that Blizzard’s digital collectible card game, Hearthstone, is having an exciting new expansion coming “soon”, and said expansion, Curse of the Naxxramas will include a single player campaign. One of the things that most appealed to me about the Hex TCG, is that there are plans for a PvE mode. I think there’s lots of room to grow in that field. Fantasy Flight has shown how it can be done with some of their LCGs, like Lord of the Rings.

I am a terrible Hearthstone player, so I can’t comment on the new cards much.

The new expansion will be across all platforms, including iPad. I changed my store to the Canadian store in order to get Hearthstone on my iPad early (last I heard the worldwide release is a week or two as of 11 April). As I understand it, again, I haven’t had time to get full details yet as I just recently got home and my smart phone isn’t that good to keep up with all the news, there are 5 dungeons or so, and the first is free, the other 4 will be accessible with in game gold or real world money.

I really should play the game on stream one of these days… just to see how bad somebody can be at the game. Lol.

EDIT: Just how bad am I? I got in the Closed Beta on 21 October 2013, and I still haven’t beat the practice modes… of course that may be exaggerating a bit since I haven’t really played as much as I should/could.

Sadly I don’t see Battle.Net Balance Cards in Amazon to link them here…

Gaming, PC Gaming

Is Goat Simulator a Baaaaaad Game?

Is Goat Simulator a bad game? That’s not a simple yes or no question.

There is no question the game provides a few moments of humor, both from the premise and the physics. However the humor wears thin, and the title I use for this article is the sort one can expect. Blow up a gas station, earn the Michael Bay achievement/score thingy. The text to voice software provides a few moments of fun when you make it when I made it say “Ari and Sidd are doofy poopy butts”, which sent my ten year old laughing so hard he had to leave the room. It’s the physics itself of course that provide most of the humor. Being able to climb a construction crane’s ladder with your neck, the odd physics glitches. Those are the things that provide most of the humor. After a while though, as noted, it wears thin. You can see the same joke only a few times before it gets repetitive and boring. The humor is certainly not great humor like South Park: Stick of Truth, which is one of the most genuinely funny games, if South Park crude humor, ever. It’s more like, “Ha, watch how he gets stuck in the air if I activate this power and see him rag doll around.” The second time you push that R to deactivate the power and fall back as the moment is gone. One will watch a funny movie several times, and find it funny each time, but this isn’t the same with Goat Simulator where you just start rolling your eyes at it after a short while, and without the humor moments the game loses most of its appeal.

There is a bit of a game inside the physics sandbox portion. There are some statues hidden around the lone map that the game ships with (though there is another map coming sometime in May) that you want to collect as many of as possible. Collecting them and finding certain hidden areas and doing the challenge there, give you upgrades. For example, in the goat fighting circle, defeat four goats and you get a muscle power goat. Don’t hurt anything for 5 minutes get the Angel Goat, drag five people to the pentagram and earn a devil goat and lots of others. These powers, once unlocked, can be used in a custom game mode, and combined for some semi-funny combos, some of which are needed, apparently, to unlock other modes. There are a few odd challenges to try and attempt like getting on the hang glider, jumping on each trampoline in the game only once without touching the ground in between them, and a few other odds and ends. These are what makes one actually come back to the game off and on. Continue reading Is Goat Simulator a Baaaaaad Game? →

Gaming, PC Gaming

Ready for Titanfall

I’ve been looking forward to Titanfall ever since the announcement. Made by Respawn Entertainment, a company formed by the people who created the Call of Duty franchise after their rather public firing by Activation, it held promise to deliver a new FPS franchise to rival the others. The question would be could they deliver?

The TLDR answer? Pretty much. The game delivers a very entertaining multiplayer experience. The wall running, parkour elements add a great deal of fun. The Titans themselves make for a nice replacement for the usual driveable vehicles. The Source engine, while a bit outdated, holds up reasonably well and with the promised fixes coming to at least the PC version, I think it will deliver a solid experience visually. Is it perfect? No, but it is a very good multiplayer FPS, so long as that is all you are looking for. Want more details, then read on after the break. Continue reading Ready for Titanfall →

Board & Card Games, Gaming, General

Resistance With Regular Playing Cards

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The Resistance is one of the best games to play in a group. However sometimes you don’t have your deck with you but might have access to a deck of regular cards and the game is possible with a regular deck of cards. I’ll present some basic rule sets for playing the game with regular cards below…

The Resistance is a hidden role game for 5-10 players (it works best with 7-10). You can go over 10, but the rules presented here are for up to 10, and it becomes a bit more unwildy above 10, above 10 you are probably better moving to Werewolf, Mafia (a webcam version is popularized by Daily Mafia), Two Rooms and a Boom as they are better balanced for larger groups. Anyhow, as I was saying, it is a hidden role game. You are a member of the Resistance, fighting against an corrupt government. Each turn somebody becomes leader and decides who’s going on a mission to destroy the government. However, your group has been infiltrated by spies, who may sabotage the mission if they are on it. The number of spies depends on the number of players. If the Resistance makes 3 successful missions, they win, if the spies sabotage 3 missions they win. Continue reading Resistance With Regular Playing Cards →

Gaming, PC Gaming

Finally in Hearthstone Beta, and Loving Faëria

Well, I’m finally in the Hearthstone beta, finally got the opt-in key (and no, I don’t have extras). I’ll give impressions later. Right now my card game of choice though is Faëria, which may be one of the best card games out there, and a huge shame it isn’t getting far more attention. That one for sure I’ll be giving more coverage to.

Digital Card games in order, off initial impressions of my likelyhood of playing a lot:
Faëria (great, deep game, very strategic and tactical)
Hearthstone (fairly casual)
Card Hunter (ahead of IW mostly due to the humor and casual fun)
Infinity Wars (deep, and complex, perhaps too complex for casual play, and I got Faëria for the deep end right now)
I’m considering Scrolls…
SolForge, Magic and the rest… Hex probably would go here as well, but all below those for the moment.

TLDR: Get Faëria… now…

General

Present State of My Digital Card Game Playing

I’ve spoken before of the Digital LCGs, TCGs and the like that I’m wanting to play. A small update on some of those.

I am still not in the Hearthstone beta. Can’t comment too much on it outside of what I’ve seen. For the moment I’m digging Infinity Wars and Card Hunter until I can get in.

I actually got in the Infinity Wars beta after all. Very good game. However I’m stuck on one of the early missions (Warpath Campaign 2 for anyone interested in helping… if I’m still stuck when help comes). Here I am playing the game (the screen cap may say Offline Now, because I likely am offline from Twitch at the moment, but it was recorded there and rather than export it to YouTube I’ll leave it there for now, anyhow the video should work.):
Continue reading Present State of My Digital Card Game Playing →

Gaming

Virtual Tabletops

This post is more of a note to myself to remind me later… but I figured I’d share the discoveries with my limited audience as well…

What do you do if your gaming friends are spread too far apart to get together and join in on a game? Or you just don’t have a local group? Virtual Tabletops on the Internet is becoming more and more popular. Some people just use Skype or Google Plus Hangouts, but the virtual tabletops add a few extra elements.

There are many to pick from, but for this article I am going to focus on two newer ones.

Roll20. Available as a free version which will work for most players, though GMs will probably want to get the paid version. This has a built in video/chat function, or you can integrate it with Google Plus Hangouts (which is apparently more stable at the moment). Can handle card games as well, though really, I’d probably stick with OCTGN for virtual card games that don’t have dedicated apps. It can also apparently handle board games as well.

Tabletop Connect 3D. Available now via Kickstarter. Near as I can tell this will cost a little bit even from basic players. However, this tabletop seems to be much closer to what I had in mind if I was a good enough programmer to make one myself. It adds a 3D element, and some other features that make it likely to become the king, though Roll20 is more full featured right now. I don’t know if they are going to expand to include support for modern designer board games or if they are going to be strictly a RPG type virtual tabletop. Well worth checking out though.

Both are well worth checking out if you need a way to play D&D, Pathfinder, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire or the like over a virtual table. There are many others out there, but these seem to be the two big rising stars of the moment.

General

Digtial LCGs, TCGs and the Like of the Next Generation That I Want to Play

I’ve never been a Magic the Gathering player. I’ve had decks, but never really played.

Recently I’ve really gotten into Android Netrunner. In my opinion it is one of the best games for two people out there… but it isn’t digital… well not officially, you can play on a client called OCTGN, but for the most part you really need to be able to get to your local FLGS (favorite local game store) and play. My local FLGS in Akron, Underhill’s Games, has a weekly Netrunner event, but my car situation keeps me from making it like I would like…

Meanwhile I also have Lord of the Rings: LCG, which can be played solo… but again, not available digitally officially yet…

So digital card games are what I’ve been looking into.

The big one at the moment is Hearthstone, but that is in closed beta and I’m not in it yet, once I’m in I’ll report more and post up some videos. There are plenty of videos of it on YouTube and Twitch. Check it out. Blizzard, who made World of Warcraft, Diablo and the StarCraft (I need to get those for Ari) made this one. It seems very well done as one would expect from a first level developer like Blizzard… (Side note, I can’t wait to see Blizzard All Stars and Titan.) This is perhaps the big boy on the block, at least in the general public eye.

Infinity Wars is another big one out there in beta. I downloaded the client a few days ago, but didn’t make an account until today (Sept 1st), and sadly they just shut down beta invites… like had I signed up when I downloaded I probably could have got in, but now I’m on a 2-3 week wait. Again plenty of videos on YouTube and Twitch… to which I’ll be adding to for sure. As of the writing, they shut down new beta invites for 2-3 weeks. Had I tried to get in when I downloaded the client I probably would have been in already and making content for it…

Hex: Shards of Fate is perhaps one of the ones I’m most interested in seeing. It seems to be combining an MMO with a TCG. Yet again, closed alpha (not even beta yet). This one you can buy your way in, but I don’t know if I’m sold on the idea of buying in… I’m not clear yet on the MMO elements… what little I’ve seen seems to be just a next generation digital TCG, but I haven’t seen any of the PvE stuff yet. I’m very interested in the concept here at the very least.

SolForge I have on my iPad… I haven’t really used it yet though. I know lots of people are playing this while waiting to get in on the above.

There are a few others on the iPad that I’m not going to link to directly, but there’s Summoner Wars, Nightfall, and Ascension…

Of course Magic has its own digital version…

General

What I Would Have Done for the New Superman/Batman Movie

The way I imagined The Superman/Batman movie. Lex Luther (Bryan Cranston) reaches across the bay to Gothem’s richest citizen Bruce Wayne (now cast as Ben Affleck, though I didn’t have a casting choice in yet and I’m fine now with Affleck) in a voice of concern about this new caped crusader that nearly destroyed Metropolis in his battle with Zod (I didn’t mind the end of Man of Steel, Superman 2 had the same result, and in that one they laughed it off rather than Superman being upset about it). Batman comes over, they have a fight but they realize they are on the same time. Meanwhile Joker (no casting choices yet, I though about seeing if Mark Hamill would unretire his Joker, but this isn’t voice acting and Mark’s acting itself is what the question would be) along with my beloved Harley Quinn (also my beloved Katee Sackhoff ever since she started campaigning for it, though I might hold her off for a part in Justice League) starts causing havoc across both cities. Batman and Superman, not friends exactly, but working on the same side fight their common enemy, in the end finding that Luthor is the one pulling the strings and encouraged Joker, Luthor has something bigger planned… roll credits, tease Justice League (which is where Katee might be better cast as Wonder Woman, a tough roll to cast, Eliza Dushku would be possible, but doesn’t really fit the role as well physically, but perhaps that would be more the point).