Update - Car Stuff

Been making a big push to get the 1979 Camaro done. Engine is complete, all that is left to do is paint it and redo the entire interior before May when some members of my immediate family host their car show.

I did pick the new rims finally. Cragar SS.

The trunk lid is painted along with the door jambs. Now we need a decently warm weekend to paint the rest of it. Color is called Pepper Grey.

The engine is complete and sounds freakin amazing. Should be a monster pro street car.

No other real plans for the other cars yet this year. Other than the standard pre-spring maintenance like changing oil, coolant and such. After the 79 is done, I may work on my long forgotten car trailer or I might even start restoration on the 69 camaro.

My poor car trailer, I purchased it last year and found out it was built in 1970 and I think it looks damn good for its age but needs some attention to be road legal now.

Shogun 2 : Siege

Just a quick post showing off the impressiveness of the siege battles in Shogun 2 and its ability to have thousands of units on screen at once without any drop in FPS.

 This siege was 3v3. Each army had roughly 3500 soldiers in 20 units. Each solider is individually animated and controlled by the computer during battle.

A zoomed out shot of the siege.

Shogun

"They say Japan was made by a sword. They say the old gods dipped a blade into the ocean and when they pulled it out four perfect drops fell back into the sea, and those drops became the islands of Japan.

I say, Japan was made by a handful of brave men. Warriors, willing to give their lives for what seems to have become a forgotten word: Honor" - Opening words of Shogun 2

If you don't play this game you need to. Shogun 2 and the Total War series have been the best of the best in the turn based/real time strategy market. First and foremost this game is beautiful and with sometimes upwards of 50,000 soldiers on the screen it doesn't even flinch. Game play is unmatched in real time strategy or in the turn based world map. As a long time player of Total War series I am finally in gaming nirvana with this latest addition. I can rattle off about 3 hours worth of great things this game does, but I will let some screenshots tell the story.

 Open field battle.

 Siege battle

 Naval battle

Campaign map

Flood over, time to rant about EA

Floods over, not as bad as initially feared. Flooding still happened but we dodged a bullet with this one. Now that I have time to be on a computer again, I decided to change the focus of this blog. Not only will I cover DC Universe some more I also plan to cover more games that I am currently playing, along with the random rant.

Which brings me to EA. This company simply needs to die, why you ask? Because they ruin everything they touch by rushing development , forcing content they want and limiting creativity. Case in point, Dragon Age 2.
I loved Dragon Age Origins, so much that I have a copy for the X360 and PC along with a unopened collectors edition for PC. Yeah i know, 3 copies I'm freakin cool.

I know Dragon Age 2 was facing a HUGE change, not only graphically but game play and story wise. A completely new art style and faster paced, almost hack and slash combat meant for the console. The combat actually is almost a complete ripoff of WoW . Your character auto attacks and you can use random skills.
I can stand the new art style and NPC models that add a somewhat darker feel to the game. I can even stand the new combat, it's nothing special but it is functional. The DA:O tactical pause and play seems shallow in DA2, you can tell this game was built for fast paced console action and they left the old combat system to die.
The most atrocious crime committed in DA2 was how obviously rushed this game was by EA. The story fails in comparison to DA:O. Literally it seems like the there was 6 hours of main plot and 30 hours of side quests in the same 4 recolored dungeons over and over again. It is clear that EA forced Bioware to rush DA2. EA took advantage of the name Dragon Age and rushed DA2 just for quick cash. Now that I see what EA has done to one of my all time favorite games, I fear what they will do to Mass Effect and Star Wars : The Old Republic in the name of money.

The game looks good, but that's about it.

But at least they still have the old Bioware stand by, the sex scenes.

AFK

Just a quick update, I won't be around for at least a week. Snow melt plus the impending 3 inches of rain is going to cause serious flooding. Our local huge river is expect to crest at 32 foot and flooding begins at 21 foot. It's going to be a long week at work.