Looking at some free games

So I decided to look at Sims Social, which is on Facebook. Some of the hardcore Simmers were flaming this title at first sight. Which as someone who used to be a semi-hardcore Simmer at one point, I wanted to try it out and see if the love/hate press is what its worth. Open it up, and its enter my name, gender, and make my Sim as I want. For being on Facebook, its pretty decent in the way of making an avatar. It gives you little quests of collecting and doing stuff, and you have energy, like in most Facebook games.

Its not great, its not bad. Its a decent Facebook game. I can understand why some people were not happy about the idea of a Sims game in this style, but if your a purist, you'd never buy the spin offs anyways and if you like these kind of games/ buy anything Sims related, you'd enjoy it.
In other news,

This is how I am right now, mainly using Steam, so I'll give a brief thought of some of the games I've played that are free. I've been playing Team Fortress 2 for almost two years, and despite it being swarmed by a lot of people loving it being free, it still is a lot of fun.

I really like playing medic and I'm giving the Quick fix a shot.

The only problem I have in the way of the paying for some things, is the fact of the crates. Crates are locked boxes that you need a key to unlock. Which you need to buy, sometimes you'll get a cool hat or the item you wanted, but a good amount of the time its an item you don't care that much for. 

Forsaken Worlds
It's another free one on Steam, and its an MMORPG. Its pretty good, if you like the genre, as usual. The graphics are pretty good, and aside from my issues with fantasy armor.

This is a good summary of fantasy armor in general. Penny arcade tends to explain most video game things well.

Although their not too bad in the way of fantasy armor, so its a step in the right direction. The controls are good but its repetitive after a while. The things that are pay are things like mounts, pets and outfits, so they're not needed, and won't necessarily make you a better player, but their not bad and its not pushy.

Age of Empires Online
 Its a decent RTS, my only problem with it is the way it pushes you to buy the packs. Some of the items in game were rewards, that you could only use if you buy the pack. I don't have the money to see if it makes the game amazing, but I doubt it and RTS games aren't my cup of tea anyways. 

Not bad graphics though, and I can play it on my laptop with out much lag.

Global Agenda
Its on Steam, but it was a little tricky to get it to run, and it would only tell me that I didn't have a certain thing installed if I downloaded it directly from Hi-Rez Studios. So after I learned how to set it up right, I start playing. After you sign on, you do like most, make a character.

The character making made me happy in that you only chose the class and the facial features. The girls are still girls, but its not a hyper sexualized look. And that's all I ask. And the graphics are beautiful. From the the graphics are beautiful and whole areas are very well thought out for a dystopian future look.The one downside   is that controls respond weirdly. At times they are super sensitive and at times, they barely respond. That and it takes up a good amount of space because of the awesome graphics.

Champions Online
Another Steam game, and it does the most are for free, but you need to upgrade to get some powers.
Its a system that makes sense and its not one that will badger you through the whole game about you not buying something, which I like.

It still has moments of upgrade pushing, but it doesn't distract from the people who don't want the extras. Its a decent game, but its not my favorite, the graphics are okay and they have cut scenes with voices which can be a little over the top in my opinion.

Ragnarok online
I've been playing this MMO on and off for about 3 years now.There are tones of different servers, some free, some not, some over crowded, some dead empty. It varies from one to another. The biggest perk about this game its easy to learn for a first time player. Its a good introductory in the way of MMOs. The servers that I've been on for RO, aren't really plot focused, so I wouldn't call it an MMORPG. There are no main quests, only ones for items and for job changing, but not even so much for the latter because most now a days has an NPC that will do it for you as long as you fill the prerequisites.

Its ok as a starting out game. Its not amazing, its not terrible, its just an ok MMO.

World of Warcraft
What's this WoW is free? Well sort of. WoW is free for up to level 20. And its not naggy about not upgrading, maybe once you get up to lvl 20.

Other than the fantasy armor that bugs me at all times, its not bad, but its pretty overcrowded if you're a night elf. One of the reasons I'm a blood elf. Don't comment about me being a horde if you don't like me being one. I don't care what you play It doesn't nag about you not having the full version as you're a lvl 5. I like that

Dragon Nest
Its well done, I have one and only one issue in this game. Lack of gender choice. If you want to be a cleric or swordsman, you have to be male. And if you want an archer or sorceress, you can't be a sorcerer. It sounds trivial, but I know guys that love being rangers and spell slingers, and I know I'm not alone in being a girl that wants to beat the living tar out of something with a sword.And its the oldest form of stereotyping genders. Dungeons and Dragons switches from doing it and not doing it, and they're back to it. Its on the books themselves. But I digress. I don't like being forced to be a guy or girl based on my class.

So that's a few of the free to play games out there. I don't know if this is helpful or not. Please comment and tell me what you think.

Una the Blade

Una the Blade

First off: http://myfacewhen.com/371/

Second, as much as she's wearing fantasy armor in some ways, she's not disproportional, she's not first and foremost wearing it to be sexy, she wants to protect her children first and foremost, and that capybara with a horn, its a unicorn according to the artist. So this looks amazing and I really want to see the comic when it starts.

Everyone was thinking it, I couldn't say it

I'll start off by saying that at times I can come off as cold or social awkward in general. But, I'm not going to talk about my lack of social skills, I'm going to talk about how I sometimes can't use the few social skills I have when I'm gaming or even in class, because I'm a girl.

I'll start when I played Dungeons and Dragons with my friends at one of their houses. There were about 11 people in my campaign, and it made for some chaotic moments, and I, being the only one noticing that we had gotten distracted, (besides the DM, but he never did anything about the chaos), would try to get us back on track.So I would try to quiet the group politely, but that never worked. So I resorted to one thing, yelling at the top of my lungs "SHUT UP!" And it was effective, the room went silent after that and we continued playing. And I know they called me a bitch behind my back, because I kept trying to keep the game going and we could barely play more than five minutes at a time. And I heard them too.

 After a while, I got tired of policing 10 boys at a time, and would rarely do it. My newly acquired boyfriend at the time did support me in my yelling for order. But him and the DM were the only ones. Looking back at it, I would bet that if anyone else in the group yelled at them to shut up, they wouldn't have said anything bad about him. But because I was a girl, I was being bitchy.

Fast forward a few months, I'm in my Government class and my teacher is the worst teacher ever. She's not cruel, she's not overly nice, she's lazy and sarcastic. I turn in a quarter of my work in that class and I have an A because she doesn't want to grade most of the busy work she hands out. I played through most of Pokemon Soul Silver in that class, and not in secret, right on the desk. I'm not alone in thinking that there's something wrong about the fact that I'm acing a class that I know nothing about while playing Pokemon. But my friends in that class and myself were scared to say anything. Not because we were girls, although she did make fun of me for being a feminist, but because we were out numbered by the people who loved her class for exactly what we found wrong about it. One girl was brave enough to call the teacher on her crap, and the teacher made fun of her in front of the whole class. She switched classes before the teacher did her public humiliation, but the idea stuck in my head that if I tried to make things right, even if it was common sense, I shouldn't speak up, I would be mocked for it.
My Women's lit class was vaguely similar in the way of challenging the girls who thought makeup was empowering, but I was still vocal in that class because of, well why is it that I was more vocal in that class? Was it because I knew they already thought I was a bitch, so its not like they had anything else I could be called? Was it because I wasn't challenged by an authority figure in my thoughts that were logical? Was it because of the number of guys in the class was so low, and they didn't care anyway? I don't know, but something about that class did make me not fear to stand up for myself.

Today, my friend wanted to give another friend an unfair advantage in a game, and even though both my boyfriend and I both find it unfair, I couldn't bring myself to speak up, because even if I phrase it exactly the way he does, it will probably come of as bitchy with me saying it, versus a guy saying it. Is this not how I should act? Probably, but unfortunately, most girls are conditioned to not speak up for some of the things that matter to us. Whether it be civil rights, or just having a fair game.

Plastic Man TV Pilot

Plastic Man TV Pilot - YouTube

It never went anywhere, but I kind of wish it did for how weird it is. But that works for Plasticman, although I'm confused at who its aimed to with that last line in there.

I'm sorry, Lara Croft

When I was about six, I saw my sister, who's eleven years older than me, play Tomb Raider on our PC. And I didn't know much about it because she'd shove me away. And about a year later after freaking out about me killing my only Sim, I could understand why she did what she did.

This box art has been burnt into my mind for a good 12 years.

Fast forward years later, I'm an incredible nerd in my senior year of high school. I have a Women's Lit class and we get on the topic of women in the media. I make the mistake of mentioning video games.

Them: Like Lara Croft? 

Me:Yes but she's not the only one and in-

Them: Angelina Jolie played her, making her the best woman character ever!

Me: But...

Them: makeup is empowering! http://myfacewhen.com/389/

Me:http://myfacewhen.com/312/

So through the rest of the year, I learned to despise Lara Croft, because they equated empowerment with a character that was equal parts sex object and protagonist. It was like Stiletto spy school, where only some of they school is about actual defense and fighting, the rest is being a sexy Bond girl. 

To her defense, Lara Croft was very progressive for her time, but that was about 12 years ago. Sure Samus was around then too, but only people who actually played video games knew that one. And I am in no way saying Samus is perfect. 

Congrats, you win! Btw, you were a woman the whole time.

The difference between Samus and Lara is that Samus, for the whole game, was androgynous for the whole thing. I guess what bothered me even more than the fact of Lara Croft topped the bounty hunter that I had a nickname after, was that she was the modern day. I know they'd scoff if I tried to pass off my old clothes as modern to them. Like if Chell, Alyx, Samus, Jade from Beyond Good and Evil, all the rpg games that have relatively ambiguous protagonists (partially because they're about 10 years old, but that's another subject), Lita and Ophelia in Brutal legend, who, although you can't play, are mainly a "we're here to rebel against the empire!" and are pretty strong. And Commander Shepard, where the story its self does not change because of gender.

And Lara has gotten better over the years, I'll admit it.

So I'm sorry Lara Croft in that I took out my aggression on you because of girls that don't know anything about video games or feminism. 

What If Male Superheroes Posed Like Wonder Woman On The David Finch Justice League Cover? Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors

What If Male Superheroes Posed Like Wonder Woman On The David Finch Justice League Cover? Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors

This is so awesome, I'm really glad I'm not the only one to point things like this out

Old Sonic games

So I've been playing Sonic the Hedgehog games for about 7 years, and still love some of the older games to this day. And to my happiness, I finally got my copy of Sonic Mega Collection back. So I played Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic 3. I forgot how much I hated water stages, the warning music still freaks me out.

 for those who don't know the fear of it.

 Then Sonic and Knuckles, which takes me back to my fan girl days. Then there are locked games, then, of all games, Sonic 3D blast.

Dear God, where do I begin? It hurts to watch, the controls are terrible, and why do you give your friends rings? How do they access the Secret zone? Why are Flickies now important? They are in almost every other game, and find their way home fine on their own once you release them. The worse part is the controls, some people love this game, but it just hurt my eyes and my head with what a pain it is.

Then redemption came in the form of pinball. The game, Sonic Spinball is a good old pinball game for the Sega Mega Drive. The controlls are simple, and even if you die often (which even good pinball players regularly will) its fun enough that you don't care.

I haven't played any other games on the collection, but I'll play the others enough times to unlock them soon andreally debating if its worth the unlock to play Sonic 3D Blast a lot more. I might to a part two later once the rest are unlocked.