Pollywogs!

It has been so long since I last posted, I updated WordPress and never used the shiny new interface…so I’m taking advantage of this micropost function and jotting down a few quick notes.

Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/about/) is a piece of software that functions as a content publishing platform. It handles your transaction, your installation and your account information. I love the shit out of it. Recently I saw a game for sale for $7.50 that I was slightly interested in, but had poor reviews: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulstorm Since Steam makes impulse buys so easy, and often runs decent sales on software products, I occasionally pick up games that I may or may not play for a few bucks. Despite the poor reviews, I’m glad I bought Soulstorm.

The main criticism leveled at Soulstorm seems to be derivative gameplay. If you’ve purchased the previous installations, and this new one is just a rehash, then I can understand being underwhelmed. Having never played this series before, I find the game challenging and engaging. It is a solid, entertaining game. The units of each race are very different and still balanced, and each map responds differently to varying approaches: you simply can’t zerg or turtle any given map and expect it to work. I usually bail on a game when it smacks me around too hard, but this one rewards you for sticking to it, even in defeat. One mission, I was beat back to the very steps of my base, as my troops melted under a sustained onslaught. After frantically reinforcing and watching my resources drain away, I was ready to throw in the towel, only to have finally the smoke clear with two broken squads left who had held the line. Oh, and the metagame played through the system map works perfectly fine as well.

Well worth the $7.50 download and the 45 minutes to download and install (again, all effortless thanks to steam).

Oh, and if you have a sound card, say an old SoundBlaster Live! card, don’t get rid of it. I finally bent to the pressure Creative Labs was pushing and drank the koolaid, buying a new X-Fi Gamer card. Have. Not. Noticed. One. Difference. In. Any. Game. Oh, except I guess that Creative stops driver support on older cards (not that their driver support is ANYTHING to be proud of on any of their equipment:http://www.maximumpc.com/article/daily_news_brief_creative_publicly_denounces_modder_sparks_internet_backlash)

That is all. Pretty damn uninteresting huh? I’ve got a couple other things floating around up here, if I’m holed up due to snow tomorrow I’ll try banging out another entry…