Edward's February 2014 Mix

 

 

 

 

 

Snow. Cold. Winter. I’ve had about enough to last me three lifetimes. Seriously, this has been the worst winter I have ever known. People speak of the infamous Blizzard of ’78, but that was just snow. This winter has been snow, lots of it, but I can handle that. Watching Northern Exposure and The Thing movies prove that. Those venues make me want to live in Alaska or the Antarctica, but this cold we’ve been having, sheesh, it reminds me being tumbled about in space, a leak in the space suit, lifeline severed from the mama ship. A scene out of the movie, Gravity. Ah, Summer, to me you are but a distant memory. Oh, how I miss you. There is one consolation with this blasted hellish winter. At least I can stay inside and play games and listen to music.

 

1. Rush on CD 

My personal contra with “Loudness Wars” continues. I’ve been listening to the Canadian super trio, Rush on CD. I first fell in love with Rush back in 1980. I slept beside a small single speaker radio in Portsmouth, Virginia my senior year of high school. I remember a DJ announcing a new song by the group Rush. I’d heard of Rush a year before, but I thought their stuff was just a little too hard. And then this new song, “Spirit of Radio” came on. Alex Lifeson’s high E string shenanigans caused me to hear them in a new light. Was this the same band my skateboarding buddies, Joe Crawley and Chick Myers worshipped back home (in Greencastle, Indiana)? Yes, yes it was! I became an instant fan. I bought Permanent Waves the next day at the mall. And a year later I picked up Moving Pictures and liked it even more. I picked up Exit . . . Stage Left in the Navy Exchange on base in San Diego, CA. And I scored an obvious pirated copy of Signals in Singapore. I was so naïve, It has to be legitimate. I bought it in a record store! And then my last year in the Navy I picked up Grace Under Pressure. (My favorite Rush album.) And in 1985 I bought Power Windows, the album that resonated with me with its MTV videos as much as the tape cassette. And then I hit a wall with Rush. It seems to me that everything after Power Windows just went mediocre. But that’s okay. I rode the Rush roller coaster for five years and six albums. And it’s great to be able to find these wonderful recordings in original CD format with a little online fortitude.  No dynamic range compression. No remastering. These CDs are Rush in the band’s purest form. It doesn’t get better than this.  

2. Path of Exile on PC 

Allow me to prelude this with this: I beat Torchlight. It took me 113 hours and I had to cheat to beat the final boss. Initially, I was seduced by Torchlight’s cartoony WoW look, but I was thrown into confusion by the cosmetic stat based mechanics (a staff you were holding might not actually work as a staff, it merely gave you a buff for using staff type weapons.) I am now playing Path of Exile with my friend, Gene Clifford and my brother in law Mark Nogelmeier, and let me tell you this is an all out blast. PC Gamer wasn’t lying when they said, “We think PoE is more Diablo than Diablo III.” Bold statement, for sure, but it feels dead on. My shadow class rogue is level 22 and working his way up rather quickly with the efficient aid of my two steadfast companions.

3. Azzo Corsa on PC

I have mixed feelings about “Early Access” games. You’re basically paying a premium price to be a participant in a game that’s not even out as a beta yet. This just sounds like a recipe for a disaster. But actually that remains to be seen in this project. If you believe in a developer, why not invest in them this way? It’s been exciting to participate in Azzo Corsa and watch incremental updates pack on like icing on a grand wedding cake. I’ve only had the game a few days, and there’s already been two updates. These updates have changed the game, that’s how good they are. It makes the idiots on Steam who write reviews for this game look like antsy preschool children staring out the daycare windows and going nutso when mommy’s car pulls up. Children, the story isn’t even over yet. Although I’m also looking forward to Project Cars, Azzo Corsa has been on my radar for quite a while. Driving the tiny but sparky Fiat 500 makes me want one in RL. The game is really putting my Logitech G27 wheel/paddle set through its paces. I’ve lamented the fact that the last great NASCAR sim was Papyrus’s NASCAR Racing: 2003 season, and the last great racer beside that was Simbin’s GTR games which are ancient now. Codemasters does a decent job with their “sim-arcadish” Grid games, but the PC sim crowd has needed something like Azzo Corsa for a long time. (Nodding my head and bringing my hands together for a slow clapping.) 

 

4. Need For Speed: Pro Street on PC

I was just talking about serious racing sims, and now I’m interjecting a blurb about a car racing sim that is as far from serious racing sims as chocolate is from vanilla. Well, despite the fact that EA has turned the series into a cash cow like COD, these games are still fun. I’m trying to play them in the order they came out. I am way behind, this is true, but I’m still having fun with them. This one (2007)depicts track racing, something I’m certainly not used to with a NFS game. It’s enjoyable, fulfilling, although quirky (my Logitech G27 works okay with it, but I get the feeling EA pinned compatibility as an afterthought.) I like the ladder system in the game, and being able to purchase upgrades (and better cars) through placing in races. It’s certainly not on par with a Codemasters Grid or Dirt title, but it should hold my attention until I beat the game. 

 

5. Mass Effect 2 on PC

I got hot and heavy into this a year ago. It was a must play since I enjoyed the original Mass Effect so much back in 2009. The chance to revisit the Normandy spaceship and meet up with my old crew and set about on some amazing side quests to help them (and ingratiate them to me) was why I could see why the Editor in Chief of PC Gamer, Mr. Logan Decker said the Mass Effect series was the game series he would recount on his deathbed. But then I got weary, and the game seemed to last forever. I decided to tackle it again a few weeks ago. To my surprise I progressed quickly. I even cultivated an amorous love affair with the alien, Tali. My heart skipped beats as she shed her helmet for me. My heart palpitated again as I got to the end of the game. This was the stuff of epic Hollywood features. This was a grand Star Trek and Star Wars ending rolled into one. My friends gripe because I’m reluctant to join them in multiplayer games. Never have I felt so much a part of something bigger in which little me makes such a huge difference in the outcome, and never have I felt as if I were really going places from the comfortable seat of my computer chair than playing single player games like this. Now you know. Single player is where it’s at. I got to save the universe single handed in a total time of 40 hours.

 

6. Sid Meier's Railroads! on PC

 

Railroad Tycoon way back in 1990 was the third computer game I remember buying. It also hatched an Edward Burton original word: dawn game. The meaning is simply this, no matter what time you start the game it's going to be dawn when you look out the window when you finish playing it. The game has certainly gone through its iterations over the years, and unfortunately, it somewhat dumbed down in 2006's RailRoads! but it's still hellaciously fun, so what if it's more reminiscent of a child's electric train than the schematically oriented stock/economy simulators of previous games in the series. I've finished the game all the way through twice, and now I'm attempting my third time. It's unfortunate that Firaxis Games who made it decided to smack it to users of Windows Vista and Windows 7. The game crashes a lot, and they refuse to do anything about it. They released the game AFTER Windows Vista was released yet refused to support Vista. This, my friends, is the stuff class action law suits are made of. And it definitely makes Firaxis a fail dog in my book. Still the game exudes a certain charm that I simply can't refuse.