This is how you play Magmus with your head.
HAT-TRICK!
Use your head if you want to play Magmus
January 11, 2010
I am no longer a gamer
What is a gamer?
I am no longer a gamer. I used to define myself by either computer or video games. I used to think about video games all the time. I used to want to collect video games and computer games and peripherals and joysticks. Now, at 29 years old, I finally have come to the realization that I am no longer a gamer. Why? It’s not because I don’t like games anymore, or I don’t think they’re cool. The reason why I am no longer a gamer is because I keep getting my butt kicked in Heroes of Newerth and other games like Starcraft and Warcraft 3 and quite frankly games take too much time nowadays. Who has 80 hours to pound out an RPG anymore? That’s a donkey-load worth of time to grind out on a game. I don’t even want to think about how much time I spent playing Diablo 2 back in the day. If I had a nickel for every time I pked someone in hardcore mode I would probably be the “Nickel King.” Or maybe my clan leader would be the Nickel King and I would be the Nickel Knave or something.
I remember playing hours of Nintendo (NES) when I was a kid. I used to sit in my brothers room and play ZANAC and Strider for hours. When I got to the last stage in ZANAC these brains were there and I couldn’t figure out how to beat them. They were too strong. I decided that I wasn’t old enough to beat that game and so I shelved it for literally 13 years. I was like that with other games too. There was Alien Syndrome in the arcade and the game was really nasty gory alien imagery. I remember teenagers playing it when I was still in grade school. I was like, “I’m no way old enough to play that game.” I was almost self-censoring, there was a lot of organic semi-sexual imagery of guts and worms and orifices that was really intense for a 10 year old.
Playing games in the arcade with my brother was so great. I felt like I had a handful of coins and I could be entertained for hours. My brother would always come back and take some of my coins because I would be still playing Street Fighter II and others. I remember he said once, “You know you really shouldn’t beat the older people with the same move over and over again. They might get mad.” I took no heed. I thought I was the master. But now games have changed. There is this online/multiplayer fun factor that is tapped into for modern gaming. It does bring a level of excitement, but the overall gaming experience is just time consuming. I find myself feeling guilty after playing hours of Heroes of Newerth and thinking about how many blog articles I could have written in that time. Or how I could have typed up my book. It’s almost like challenge in games has been replaced by learning curve, specialization and time consumption. I miss the days of old Nintendo games where the game had relatively simple gameplay but the actual experience was intense and hard as diamond.
I guess it’s all a part of growing up. Some hobbies and lifestyles don’t survive into adulthood. It’s kind of like outgrowing old toys and finally not caring about any toys anymore. This may seem hypocritical but someone just messaged me on Facebook and he wants to play HoN and I said I’d play with him. Isn’t that funny? The difference between how I would play the game before this article and afterward is that now I won’t play the dumb game ’till my neck hurts! I saw this video about a girl who is angry about her boyfriend who played PS3 too much. Check it out!
-Tyler
Animals know it when you love them
Animals know it when you love them. My parents have this cute yellow lab and she is very loving. Tonight after my parents and I ate dinner I told her to sit. Then after she sat I whispered in her ear, “I love you.” Do you think she understood that? I do. Why? because she licked me in the arm and on the face after I told her that I love her. She is a very good dog and she is very kind but she is lazy. I am supposed to take her for walks at around 10PM and she is usually asleep in her bed or on her mat. When I bring the collar and tell her to wake up she just stays there and ignores me. Then I lift her head up and say, “Ok harvest! It’s time to go for your walk.” And I put the collar on. And instead of getting up she just plops her head back down with the collar on. Then I try and pull on her to get her up but she uses dead-man passive resistance like she’s from a 60’s civil rights campus movement. So I can’t get her to get up so instead I use gravity against her. What I do is, if she is in her bed I tilt the back of the bed so she gets dumped out like it’s a dump truck. Then she gets on her feet, but if I don’t get her moving fast she will just lay back down again. What a lazy dog!
When I am out front and I am switching from my sneakers to my boots Harvest will lick my face as I’m tying my shoes. What a funny dog, always sneaking in the smooches whenever I get on her level. Then when we leave the house and start the walk we go about 5 paces and Harvest will stand dead in her tracks and refuse to walk forward. She won’t budge even if I start pulling her leash. So what I have to do is either one of two things: 1-I remember to bring a small dog bone treat in my pocket and when she stops moving I let her smell the treat and coax her into walking with me. Then after we walk for about a block and I think she’s not going to stop anymore I give her the treat. 2-I don’t have a treat. (Maybe I forgot to bring one) And I have to actually walk around the dog and push her from behind in order to get her to start moving. Once she starts walking for a few feet she keeps the momentum up and we can proceed on our walk.
There’s something special about animals. There is this cat by an exercise personal trainer shop in Corona del Mar. She is so nice. If you ask her a question like, “How’s it going?” She will meow at you like she knows what you’re talking about. When I pet her she rolls over like a dog.
-Tyler
Heroes of Newerth makes my Neck Hurt
Heroes of Newerth makes my Neck Hurt! This game is addictive! I don’t know why I play this game so much. The game itself is setup as some kind of twisted mix between Warcraft 3 and football…NO JOKE. You pick a hero and play on a team and then go back and forth trying to score a “Touch Down” by getting to the opposing team’s Great Tree or Sacrificial Shrine. You also get “First Downs” by destroying enemy towers. The game takes about 30- 55 minutes every time you play a match and that doesn’t usually count the time you spend in the lobby and pre-match screen waiting for the game to start and character selection. I think the reason why this game makes my neck hurt is because you have to be in a constant state of attention in order to play and not get served by the enemy team. One misplaced right click on the screen can cost your hero to get killed and can put your team at a disadvantage for an entire game. Basically, this game is an hour of stress every time you play it.
But is it fun? I’d say it is pretty fun. Here’s an article that I wrote about Heroes of Newerth and how I wanted to start waking up early. How did it go for waking up early? Well I woke up early today, but I surely didn’t play Heroes of Newerth last night. That game drains my brain. But why does it hurt my neck. Well, the problem is that when you play the game, you don’t usually play just one round, you usually are playing with friends and talking with them via Ventrilo and after you win or lose you want to play again…and again. After a while you need to go to the bathroom while your character is dead and respawning and you are trying to hurry and take a leak at the same time and that experience is bad times, and when you come back your base is being attacked and your friends are like, “Where are you! Get over here and spider this scout!”
After playing one game of Heroes of Newerth I feel like I’m in a small fog. My eyes are kind of squinty and you feel an overwhelming desire to drink San Peligrino and eat Ritz crackers. After two games I begin to feel like I’m being sucked into my laptop and there is a tingling sensation and the base of my nerve stem. After the third game my neck starts to hurt and feel sore. It almost like that episode of Star Trek Voyager, where Janeway has aliens that are invisible that are sticking needles in her head causing pressure. Well in my case it’s like I’m sitting in a movie theater with crappy seats because I came too late to see Avatar or something and the angle is crunching my neck.
Is Heroes of Newerth going to cause you neck pain? I don’t know. Maybe. I suggest taking breaks every hour or so. Because pounding the game out over and over again not only is dumb because there are better things to do, but you will be giving yourself stress and disguising it as fun even tho it’s just an excuse for seeing some death animations of enemy heroes. The most fun part of the game is when people bicker and yell at each other anyway. Here’s a video where two people are yelling at each other on Heroes of Newerth.
-Tyler
PS: If you want to check out my Blood Hunter Guide then click here! It’s a little outdated but it still shows the basics.