New Youtube Channel – For Gaming

I know this wont be of interest to most of my followers, but I know SOME of you are into video games and gaming.  Heather and I have finally started putting more work into our other blog, Very Busy Gamers, and have set up a Youtube channel as well.  We plan to do some “Let’s Play” style videos and will likely be posting other game-related content too.

If you’re interested, head over to our page and check out what we have so far.  It’s a work in progress but we’re going to be updating it pretty often now.  So far we only have videos up for Bioshock and Alan Wake, but we’ve already got enough content saved up for another week worth of videos and we’re making more every day.

If you’re NOT interested, or the sound of our voices drives you insane, that’s fine too.  No hard feelings.  🙂

Zombie/Survival Game – DayZ

Over on my other blog I’ve been talking about a new video game I’ve been playing.  Since the gameplay is relevant for this blog, I decided that I would share it here as well.  The game is still over a year away from being complete but already I’m hooked.  I’ve been playing it just about every day after work . . . chores be damned!

The scenery in this game is also pretty incredible. I play on very low settings to make it smoother but on high-res settings the game is BEAUTIFUL.  

So far, there aren’t a lot of guns in the game, but there are a few to play with like the Mosin, M4, and the SKS.  They seem to react in a real-enough way to simulate what it might be like to use one in real life.  Bullet drop as well as a delay for long distance shots is realistic and poses quite a challenge sometimes.  Ammo is also pretty scarce so you have to choose carefully whether or not to pull the trigger.

Surviving is hard and you’re required to stay healthy, well fed, and well hydrated, all while trying to live among zombies and other players.  The game demands that you prioritize medicine, food, and water, with firearms and other gear coming as you find it.  This part of it is a bit limited at this time.  Things are going to be added at some point like hunting/fishing so that should definitely add another element of survival to the game.  Currently you can only get food and water by venturing into towns and cities.  In servers that have a lot of people, this can be very dangerous and can keep even the most prepared players on edge.  Even without other players there are zombies to worry about too (although at this point they’re very buggy and not very much of a threat).

This is Phil. He was friendly and we traveled together for a bit before going our separate ways.

What I like most about this game is that it sheds a light on what civilization might be like in a post-apocalypse type scenario.  Every human encounter I’ve had in the game has been very tense.  Sometimes that heavily armed guy running down the road waving in your direction might be bringing some supplies to weary travelers, but he might also be looking to put a bullet in your head for sport.  You never know what will happen; anyone can turn feral when survival is on the line.

If you like video games, and preparing for disasters, this is a fantastic game to try.  Its currently available on Steam for just $30.  As I said above, the game is still under development so there are a lot of bugs and glitches that occur, but you get all updates and patches for free.  When the game is complete and released it will likely sell for around $60.  Buying now is a great way to help the developers and just might save you some money in the long run!