Welcome
to the 1,239th edition
of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily
MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
Some gamers are multi-platform wizards, easily hopping from
their PCs to console games without a hitch. But some old school PC
gamers don't quite have the skills to keep up with the X, X, square,
R1, triangle, X crowd. Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg shares her dismay
over her epic failure to bond with her kids' shiny new Christmas gift,
a Playstation 3, in today's Loading... All Thumbs.
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The Pulse
You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here
are today's top 5 Pulse results:
- World
of Warcraft - Dungeons
and Dragons Online - Lord
of the
Rings Online -
EverQuest
2 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/43">EVE
Online
Biggest
movers today:
-
9/22
- Aion
(release date) - 10/8
- Cities
XL (release date) - 11/3
- Dragon
Age:
Origins (release date) -
style="font-weight: bold;">11/10
- Final
Fantasy
XI Ultimate
Collection (release date) - 12/1
- LotRO:
Siege of Mirkwood (expansion) - 12/1
- EVE
Online: Dominion (expansion) -
12/2
- DOFUS
2.0 (update) - 12/15
- EverQuest:
Underfoot (expansion)
Releases
-
style="font-weight: bold;">1/26 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2389">Mass
Effect 2
(release date) -
style="font-weight: bold;">2/1
- Global
Agenda
(release date) -
style="font-weight: bold;">2/2
- Star
Trek Online
(release date) - 2/16
- href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion) - March
2010
- APB
Loading... Daily
Picture the scene. It's Christmas eve at the Hertzberg house. The hubby
and I are doing the obligatory messing-with-the-kids'-heads thing
regarding the one gift they absolutely want but have been convinced
there's no way in hell they're getting--a Playstation 3. My
son, 15, unwraps a controller. He looks at me expectantly and
says, "Um, was this supposed to be for my Xbox?"
"Yes," I say. "What? It's not the right kind?"
"No," he answers slowly, "This is for PS3." He's a sweet, sensitive
soul, so his expression is full of pity and verging on sorrowful. The
look says, Oh, my poor
poor mother; it must be awful to be so lame.
"Aw, crap," I say. "Geeze, I'm sorry. We can take it back to Walmart on
Saturday. I just thought you needed another wireless controller."
"It's all good, Mom," he says, laying his lame gift aside.
Then my daughter, who is 13 and a certified
style="font-style: italic;">Devil May Cry
addict, opens her gift. "Devil May Cry!" she shouts as the wrapping
paper flies, "It's Devil May...oh. Guys, this is number 4. It's for PS3
only. It won't work on my PS2."
"Sooorrry," my husband says. "My bad. I thought they all worked on your
PS2." We go through the same speech about taking it back to Walmart for
a refund on Saturday.
Finally, after we've seemingly unwrapped all the gifts, my husband
pulls the equivelant of a Red Rider 200 shot Frontier Model air rifle
(with a compass in the stalk and a thing which tells time) out from a
hidden corner. He places the box between the kids and says, "This is
for the whole family. Why don't you guys go ahead and open it."
They tear the wrapping paper and the air fills with resounding squeals
of glee. My son clutches the box, stroking it and crooning, "My
precioussss!" in his best Gollum voice. The de-boxing ensues, and all
is right with the world.
All is right, that is, until the next morning, when those kids have
their revenge on me for my duplicity. They have invited me to play the
PS3, and placed a controller in my hands, despite my insistance that I
am not a console gamer. I mean, I beat
style="font-style: italic;">Champions of Norrath,
and Champions of
Norrath: Return to Arms, and I could pwn just about anyone
in Gauntlet,
but...I have a feeling console gaming has evolved since those hack n'
slash wonders crossed my TV screen. Since then, I've watched my kid
play his Xbox 360, and I know that I lack the manual dexterity he
possesses. I also remember, with some embarrassment, that I
was a dismal failure at Super
Mario Brothers. way back in those heady Nintendo days.
Today, the kids are playing Ratchet
& Clank. It looks...hard.
But I find myself goaded into running through the
style="font-style: italic;">Ratchet & Clank
tutorial level regardless of my misgivings. At the beginning, it's kind
of okay, and although I'm decidedly clumsy, I'm at least not failing
miserably. But then the moves get a little more tricky. I have to do
things like time my jumps. I've already died a couple of times (in the
style="font-style: italic;">tutorial, for the
love o' cheeses!) and finally I thrust the controller at my son and
say, "I can't. You do this part. I'm a noob."
"Mom," he says, with just a wee bit of condescension in his otherwise
gentle tone, "This is a game for 10-year-olds."
"Yeah," my daughter adds. "Lauren's brother Elliot beat it, and he's 7."
And with this, I learn one of life's most important lessons--it's not
nice to mess with your children's visions of sugar plums. Especially
if, like me, you spend your gaming life mapping hot keys and
downloading custom UIs and working out strategies for taking down the
UberBoss du Jour rather than hitting X, square, X, X, triangle, L1 in
perfect sync with the action on the screen before you.. I have been
humiliated, and I have been humbled. I may be able to type over 90
words per minute, and I may be able to coordinate my attacks in a PC
game with ease, but when it comes to console gaming I only wish I was
all thumbs like my kids. Instead, my thumbs just don't seem to work the
way they're supposed to.
But as soon as the holiday break ends, and these pesky kids are back in
school, my time will come. I will take controller in hand and I will
learn. I will not only succeed at Ratchet
& Clank, but Little
Big Planet, as well. And maybe I'll set
style="font-style: italic;">Prince of Persia
before me as my goal.
Are you a PC gamer who feels inept when it comes to console games, or
are you a master of multiple platforms?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=48718">Join
the discussion in our Loading... forum.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=663">STO
News & Articles Discussion forum
style="font-weight: normal;">Going Klingon - A Star Trek
Online Q&A with Zeke Sparkes
We're still talking Klingons here at Ten Ton Hammer. And why not? Just
a couple days ago we published an interview with Cryptic bent on
clearing up some of the controversy surrounding the news that Klingons
in Star Trek Online will be primarily PvP. There's plenty left to talk
about, but now there are fewer questions left to speculation. Get the
scoop, and href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=48674">add
your voice to the com channel chatter.
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"Yup, the fact that
Klingons can't raid Federation border zones (I'm not
talking about inner areas that would normally be PvE only) and thus
become a danger to the Federation is incredibly stupid. Also the fact
that no spontaneous PvP (as in no Klingon will ever be able to attack a
Fed in open space without issuing a challenge that needs to be
accepted) basically means that PvP will get boring very soon as there
is absolutely no risk involved if the player decides to simply decline
entering a PvP battle or accepting a challenge."
- WZT
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
8 new Ten Ton Hammer
features today! 130 in December! 2,312 in
2009!
Exclusive Features and Guides
Today at
Ten Ton Hammer
-
style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek Online
Beta Journal #2 - Customize Your Captain, Crew and Ship
It
comes as no surprise that the creators of Champions Online would make a
great character creator for Star Trek Online but that's not even the
half of it. In addition to personalizing your character as its own
species, you will be able to customize your bridge officers and your
ship. -
Putting
the Gamer Back in Gaming A Dawntide
Preview
Dawntide
is a new classless, skill-based MMOG currently in early beta, and the
team developing it, creators of the most successful EverQuest emulator
of all time, Shards of Dalaya, seems hell-bent on bringing
that old
school style of play back to the mainstream. Join Eric Dalmarus
Campbell as he takes an early look at this ambitious title. -
2009
In EVE Online
- A Retrospective
For
EVE Online and CCP, 2009 was a year of innovation. For the in-game
corporations, it was a time of high profile struggles and
groundbreaking corporate espionage. Ten Ton Hammer Contributing Writer,
Space Junkie, reviews the past year and predicts what is yet to come. -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/newsletter/issue47">
style="font-weight: bold;">WoW Weekly Report -
The Overpull "Dragons? Why yes, we have them"
Our WoW newsletter this week goes over the lore behind dragons,
the dungeon finder, and whether TBC was a good expansion after a year
of being spoiled with WotLK. -
MMOG
Features Version 3.0 - A Wish List
As
2009 comes to a close and we look back at a decade of gaming that was,
in large part, shaped by MMOGs, its only natural to wonder what the
next ten years will bring. In that spirit, Medawky set out this week to
dream a little dream of what the next generation of MMOGs could
incorporate to improve our collective gaming experiences. -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/co/editoria/favesandhopes">
style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">
style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">
style="font-weight: bold;">Champions Online - 5
Favorites and 5 Hopes
Ten
Ton Hammer has looked back at Champions Online and compiling a list of
our five favorite things and five things were hoping for in the
future. Ring out the year by seeing if you agree or disagree with us! -
style="font-weight: bold;">EVE Online - Sins of
a Solar Spymaster #35: Chronotis' War
This
week, The Mittani returns with Sins of the Solar Spymaster #35 to take
a look at the cause of what he dubs the "Chronotis' War" as
alliances
battle for control over Geminate, a former place of economic
irrelevance, now containing a vital resource sought by many. -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/guides/crafting/handicrafting_pt2">
style="font-weight: bold;">Aion Handicrafting
100-199
In
this segment, things get dirty and you'll corner the gold market. As
sinister as that sounds, just remember that you'll need a lot of money
to proceed from here on out. Come prepared with a blank check and we'll
take you to the top in no time!
Today's
Hottest Content
- The
Ten
Ton Hammer Best
of 2009
Awards -
Going
Klingon -
A href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/78574">Star Trek
Online href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/78574"> Q&A
with Zeke
Sparkes -
style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek Online
Beta Journal #2 - Customize Your Captain, Crew and Ship -
MMOG
Features Version 3.0 - A Wish List href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/78585"> -
Putting
the Gamer Back in Gaming A Dawntide
Preview - Star
Trek Online:
Klingons and
PvP Q&A with Cryptic Studios - The
Cause of Mass
Effect
- An Interview with the
BioWare Founders -
Flying
The Drake
Battlecruiser in EVE
Online - 2009
In EVE Online
- A Retrospective -
style="font-weight: bold;">Dungeons & Dragons
Online: New Character Build
- The Summoner
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer
network!
- Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg
and the Ten Ton Hammer team
