Ready when you are

While I'm fairly sure many of you could probably care less, I have noticed that there has been very few updates with ARZ. Originally I intended to do at least one feature (or parts of a feature) a night but with work and a few crazy things going on at home, this hasn't been the case.

The biggest issue with me not updating has really been about my gaming drive being down. When I do hobby stuff, I need a strong sense of..well of guilt really. I like to have a game or games that I find so much joy in playing I'll put aside my other tasks and after I do sink some time into them, I'm feeling guilty and want to get some work done. While this sounds sad, really it makes for some strong enthusiasm. I play a game, get jazzed up remembering why I want to do this hobby stuff in the first place and then go back and do it. If the gaming gets pulled or becomes sparse, then I start to lose any will to want to work on my hobby stuff. Actually it is kind of sad but in the end its a system that works for me.

As for the title of the post, my new "juice" has been Wolfenstein for 360. Hot damn is this game good. I snagged the demo and really wasn't thinking much of if when I fired it up. After about 3 or 4 times going through it, I knew I was gonna be hooked. I never really played the CoD series so to me, all this intense fire fight action is brand new. The game has my "core" likes with any action game - tight firefights where I get to choose what I do, upgrades, and visiting familiar enviroments. Apparently the Best Buy copy is $10 cheaper and comes with the flamethrower download code. The weapon really is horribly unfair in the early game but there is nothing more satisfying then getting surrounded in a house by Nazis and hearing them yell out that they are coming in. My reply as I switch to the flamethrower and point at the front door is always "Ready when you are"

So now that I have juice properly filled into my gaming veins, its time to spend it. While there is a list of things to add to ARZ to help solidfy the core gameplay, I think the best thing to do now is establish greater context. To accomplish this, I'm going to get a level "play list" going which let you try out a set of levels and then record your scores against the high scores so far. This will helpfully let all the folks testing the game get a better idea of what they/the game needs to improve on. I'm aiming for about 3-4 levels but first I'll need that Level Manager....to the laboratory!