It’s that time gamers, Eric is leaving for the next 2 years, giving up the ability to game, to serve a higher calling. What better way to send him than a pLAN-b Gaming Event.

Date: August 28th

Time: Noon to Midnight(ish)

As requested by Eric, we will go for a few classics, namely a little old school Age of Empires…Yes, really.

We will also have out staple events; the UT 2004 Dethmatch Boil-off, and the Counter-Strike Head-Hunter tournament.

Check back for Sign-up to open in a week or so. Ironing out a few details to make this the best event possible.

Eric is excited to go, and we wish him the best of luck.

If you have time, please visit the following sites, daily…or even hourly, what ever you can manage.

Blog: http://sporksister.blogspot.com

Podcast: http://sporksister.podbean.com

The following is one of the high caliber reports that you will be able to view by visiting Sarah’s Blog site

I’m pleased to announce that info has been posted about…

MPCon XXV

Review barrowed from Gamespot.com

On the hostile, bandit-ridden planet of Pandora, there is one thing that draws off-world attention: The Vault. This mysterious alien structure is rumored to hold treasures of fantastic power and wealth, and so it attracts fortune-seeking corporations and individuals alike. In Borderlands, you are one such individual, but the satisfaction of unlocking the Vault’s secrets pales in comparison to the rollicking good time you’ll have on your way there. Borderlands is all about the journey, not the destination, and like most trips, this one is much better when you have some friends along for the ride. Solo players can still have a good time, because the bloody and entertaining combat is paired well with rewarding loot and engaging experience systems. But Pandora is a lonely place for a solitary mercenary, and lone wolves will find the pace deliberate and the friendly characters too few and far between. Those who take advantage of the four-player online cooperative mode will experience the game as it’s meant to be played. The pleasing rhythm of killing enemies, gathering loot, and cashing in is punctuated by fighting bosses, completing quests, and leveling up. As a solo merc, this rhythm is slow and methodical, but as a team, the pace quickens to an invigorating clip and pretty soon you’ve spent hours having a riotously rewarding time.

The world of Pandora has a dusty, run-down feel, yet it manages to be vibrant and eye-catching at the same time. The art style features black-line borders and a colorful palette that give the game a not-quite-comic, not-quite-cel-shaded look. It takes some getting used to, and its technical execution is less-than-perfect . Yet what Borderlands lacks in precision it more than makes up for in style, and hours into the game you’ll still be appreciating the thoughtful design touches that bring this world to life. Though the different environments occasionally feel too similar, there is enough distinct detail to keep them from blurring together. Your vanquished enemies also do their part to keep things visually interesting by dying in a variety of gruesome and entertaining ways. Bodies explode, limbs fly off, and burning enemies occasionally disintegrate from the ground up until only the mask of their face is left hanging in midair. It sounds (and is a bit) horrifying, but when the mask drops comically to the floor and finally burns up, don’t bother stifling that chuckle. The art design resonates well with Borderlands’ irreverent sense of humor, and the game is playful without feeling too goofy.

You travel through this world as one of four characters, each with a unique look and attitude. You don’t really get to appreciate the character designs if you play solo because you have no AI teammates, but you do hear frequent quips that give you a little bit of character-specific flavor. The most important difference between characters is the action skill, which is a special ability that can give you an edge in combat. The Hunter can release a vicious bird of prey, the Soldier can throw down an automatic turret flanked by shields, the Siren can turn invisible and speedy, damaging all enemies in the vicinity, and the Berserker flies into a damage-resistant rage and delivers brutal punches to his enemies. You unlock these abilities after playing for a short while, and not only are they all fun to use, but each one can be customized in a couple of strategically distinct ways. You can tweak and upgrade your ability by investing skill points in appropriate skills. So, for example, upgrading the Hunter’s bird of prey not only can increase the amount of damage it does, but can make it attack multiple targets, steal health from them, slow them down for easy sniping, and cause them to drop more loot. Expanding your action skill makes you more deadly in combat, and it’s one of the most rewarding parts of leveling up. Killing enemies, finishing quests, and completing in-game bonus challenges earn you experience points, which in turn earn you a new level. Leveling up boosts your overall fortitude and grants you a precious skill point to use however you see fit.

You can also spend your skill points on other improvements, and each character has three different skill trees that highlight different tactics and abilities. So the Soldier can essentially become the team medic by developing the skills that allow him to shoot teammates to regenerate their health and that make his turret create a healing radius. Or he could choose to become more deadly, increasing his turret damage and combat rifle performance. Though your weapon proficiency improves based on how much you use a given weapon type, different characters have skills that favor different types of guns, so it’s to your advantage to play to your character’s strengths. The Berserker can certainly become proficient with the sniper rifle, but his melee-focused action skill and preference for rocket launchers make him a better choice for wading into the fray. Though the branching skill trees offer intriguing ways to specialize, your initial character choice has the biggest impact on how you’ll go through the game. Fortunately, each character is fun and deadly in his own way, so you can’t choose poorly, and you’ll probably want to experience what each one has to offer. Playing cooperatively allows you to enjoy and benefit from the other characters’ abilities, something you don’t get to appreciate when playing solo, unless you start a new game.

Expanding your abilities and leveling up is one of the main ways that Borderlands consistently rewards you. Loot is another. Loot can be found in containers, dropped by enemies, or given to you as a quest reward. It includes money, ammo, shields, mods that boost and alter your grenades, mods that boost your skills, and, of course, guns. Guns are classified in familiar categories: pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, combat rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, and so on. Each class feels distinct, and the shooting mechanics are well tuned and satisfying, which makes it fun to blast baddies. Base damage, clip size, fire rate, accuracy, and bullet spread are just some of the variables within each class, and some guns have more exotic features, like bladed pistols that increase melee damage or a shotgun that also shoots rockets. They can also do elemental damage, which comes in a variety of flavors that put a special kind of hurt on and can even do damage over time. Equip an incendiary gun if you want to burn flesh, or a corrosive gun if you want to deal extra damage to creatures with tough hides.

Unfortunately, dropping items is also the only way you can give them to your teammates, and there’s no way to exchange ammo or money. If teammates are using the same type of gun, this can lead to some problematic ammo shortages, which is another reason to play to your character’s strengths. This can also lead to disputes over who gets that fancy new shotgun, so it’s best to have a gentleman’s agreement in place over how to handle these issues. Borderlands allows you to resolve disputes by melee attacking a friendly player and challenging him to a duel. If your teammate melees you back, a colored dome pops up and the two of you fight to the death. The loser doesn’t actually die, just loses some health, and there’s no way to put a wager on the match, so the victor doesn’t necessarily receive the spoils. As long as you’re playing with a respectful group, you should be able to avoid loot-hoggers and the like, but it’s still a bit disappointing that there isn’t a better way to pool and equally distribute your collective resources. Still, joining other players online is easy, even if you all have characters at different levels. Borderlands does a good job of adjusting enemy difficulty to accommodate more players, though the larger the level gap, the easier it will be for higher level players, and the tougher it will be for lower level players. It’s worth noting that the story-related missions–that is, the ones you have to perform in sequence–reflect the host’s progress, and players who are behind the host may not get credit for completing certain missions.

Having some friends on your side makes things a lot more pleasant, given that about 99 percent of life on Pandora is your enemy. Human enemies range from bandits that are smart enough to wear shields and take cover to psychos that light themselves on fire and sprint toward you, screaming about rending your flesh from your bones. The local wildlife is universally hostile and includes skags (toothy dog-beasts), spiderants (armored insect monsters), rakks (raggedy death bats), and scythids (wriggling prehistoric grubs). Every type of enemy appears in various incarnations, ranging from young and weak to badass and on fire. These variations are generated anew during each encounter, so even when you kill a clutch of enemies in that same gully for the fourth time, it will be a different bad-guy loadout. You’ll fight hundreds of each enemy type throughout the game, and the fact that groups are varied goes a long way toward staving off repetition. The two-seater vehicles also offer some locomotive variety, and many of the areas are much more fun to traverse on four wheels than on two legs. You can conjure the lone vehicle type from the many Catch-a-Ride stations. The touchy handling takes some getting used to, and you can run into some exaggerated physics problems when crashing into rocks. However, there’s nothing quite like vehicular homicide to stave off bandit-killing fatigue. In or out of a vehicle, the simple act of killing enemies is pretty fun, and since you’re constantly reaping loot and experience rewards, even repeated encounters have some incentive attached to them.

The combined incentives of killing enemies, gathering loot, cashing in, and leveling up are the main driving forces in Borderlands. The various quests you undertake cover a good variety of motivations, but most follow the pattern mentioned in the previous sentence. The 1 percent of life on Pandora that isn’t your enemy will often have quests for you, though only a handful of characters are voice-acted. Of these, there are a few standouts, including the bumpkin car-rental mogul and the borderline sociopath archaeologist, but for the most part Borderlands offers precious little in the way of non-player character contact. This makes playing solo a lonely experience. Though the action is still satisfying and the world is still interesting, solo players will have a slower-paced adventure in which the flashes of comedy also serve to underscore how sparse those flashes are. The main story is thin and the final encounter is pointless and thoroughly unsatisfying, so anyone hoping Borderlands will deliver a climactic conclusion is almost certainly going to be disappointed.

After you uncover the secrets of the Vault, you are once again set loose into Pandora, where you are free to quest on and remember why you enjoyed your previous hours with the game. Borderlands has tens of hours of quests to fulfill, and you’ll likely find yourself enticed back to explore new skills, find new guns, and kill more enemies. Though the core action doesn’t change drastically over the course of the game, it is woven together in such a way that once it ensnares you, you’ll want nothing more than to plunge into Pandora at any chance you get. Combat is satisfying, and upgrading your skills and equipment is engaging. The constant stream of loot and experience is rewarding, and sharing it with some friends makes the experience that much richer and more exciting. Despite its hostile (albeit stylish) environment, Pandora is a great planet to visit if you want to shoot some stuff. Just be sure to bring some friends along for the ride.

Warning: This video contains mild to sever expletives. You have been warned.

After a few rounds of Counter-Strike: Source I decided to check the stats, and what I found had me a little miffed, the_Gatekeeper has once again become the player with the highest kill rate…422 kills, and in close second…QW3RTY with 184 kills. What you say,184 that’s right,  a difference of of 238 kills…what the <censored>.  I know what your thinking..”well, he has more time to play on the server“…but I say nay, he only has 20 minutes and 30 seconds more playtime than QW3RTY. At this point the_Gatekeeper has a kill every 45 seconds, while QW3RTY has one every 96 seconds, that’s over double the kill rate…is he really that good, or just that lucky, it’s as if his shots are guided by the hand of some digital god, and No it’s not google. Who can stop this seemingly unstoppable force.

The danger when discussing such a classically constructed game, of course, is that it’s tempting to rely on a soundbite tick-list of influences to set the scene, so let’s get that out of the way. The obvious reference points are the side-scrolling exploration of the original Prince of Persia and the three-way ability-based puzzling of Blizzard’s cult 1992 gem, The Lost Vikings. Mash those two together, add a splash of LittleBigPlanet’s physics-heavy gameplay, and you’ve got Trine.

You’re in control of three characters. The first we meet is Zoya, a thief. You guide her through a sacred temple, in a neat opening section that doubles as a simple tutorial, until she stumbles across the Trine – a magical artefact of unknown power. Next we meet Amadeus, a wizard, who investigates the disturbance in the temple and also finds himself bound to the Trine. Finally, there’s Pontius, a gruff knight whose bullish determination to defend the realm makes him the third hapless soul to be caught up in the adventure about to unfold.

From this point on you can swap between each character at will, and use their unique abilities to explore each stage. Pontius has the most obvious default ability – he’s a fighter, and his sword and shield offer essential protection against the various foes ranged against you. His strength also means he’s ideal for smashing through weak obstacles or cutting ropes, and he can also lift heavy blocks and throw them. Zoya, on the other hand, excels in ranged combat. Her arrows can be charged up to shoot across the screen, while her grappling hook makes her the most nimble of the trio, able to swing and swoop to platforms and areas beyond the reach of her companions.

Amadeus is mostly useless in a scrap, but his magical powers prove central to many of the physics puzzles. Click the right mouse-button on an object and you can levitate it around the screen. The left button allows you to draw objects that will appear in the gameworld. To begin with, you’re restricted to summoning a simple box, but as you progress through the game you’ll collect XP vials that allow you to upgrade the powers available to you. The same is true of all the characters.

It’s a testament to how well balanced the game is that while the abilities develop in lots of interesting ways, they never overwhelm the gameplay. The three characters always form a neat Venn diagram of overlapping skills, all of which are intuitive in their use. Levels are linear and traditional in their side-on 2D design, but what brings them to life is the often-wonderful animation, full of lovely little touches, and a robust physics model that is central to most of the key challenges. Combined with the carefully chosen abilities of each character, the heightened reality of the environment is liberating. Sometimes the solution to a problem is obvious, but there’s rarely just one way of tackling a given situation and unlikely ideas often reward the player with hidden bonus items.

It’s this flexibility that ultimately makes Trine more than just a pleasant trip down memory lane for puzzle-platforming fans. Between the balanced abilities and the engrossing gameworld, it’s a game where the unspoken question, “I wonder if I can…” is almost always answered in the affirmative. As a result, progress always feels delightfully organic and logical, and while it’s possible to get a fair distance into the game without too much lateral thinking, those who take the path of least resistance start missing out on more and more useful secrets. Before long you’re using Amadeus to conjure boxes above skeletal archers, crushing them flat before jamming the box onto deadly spikes, which provides a safe haven from where Zoya can grapple up to a hidden area, to open a chest and find a bonus item that benefits Pontius.

Yet another whimsical game that has potental replay value