Coming Out Of Lockdown… An Ongoing Saga!

I haven’t had a chance to post any rants or ramblings about all the fucked up shit happening in our country right now. There is so much going on that is well beyond normal for my weird shit-o-meter that I haven’t really wanted to go down this rabbit hole until I had enough time to put some actual thoughts together. For today I figured I’d start with the current status of the COVID-19 virus, what we are seeing, what we are doing and what it possibly could end up meaning for us. I do intend to follow-up with an additional post in the next day or two touching on the current unrest and protests in our country as this is an important topic we all need to be involved in discussing so we can work toward a better answer than what the status quo has been for too long (this goes for all parties involved, including law enforcement, but that is for a later discussion).

The COVID-19 lockdowns are starting to lift in parts of the country. Depending on which state you are in and what is happening with the virus in that region dictates which phase of the reopening your city/county/state is in. While it’s great to start seeing some restaurants, bars and other stores reopen the damage done to the economy has been pretty massive and will take a long time for most businesses that do survive to recover. That of course is only for those businesses that are able to reopen and make a go of it in the reality of these new times. There are a lot of businesses that with the current restrictions can’t re-open, or those that could re-open but due to the restrictions on capacity and available services they can provide it wouldn’t be profitable for them so they have to choose to still be closed, or in the worst cases those businesses that can’t re-open because the damage has already been done and is too severe for the survival of the business. I hope that I am wrong but I fear a good chunk of small business will be gone after this coronavirus fiasco and may never be able to come back. These are the business owners and employees I feel most for at the moment as finding a job in this economy and period of time is incredibly difficult (I unfortunately just found out that I will be losing my job at end of this year due to IBM restructuring and downsizing so I definitely share similar feelings as those who have already been affected… it’s a nice “thank you” from IBM after 13yrs of service… but that is for another tirade at another time).

It’s been interesting listening to the virus response info I’ve been hearing from my employer as well as friends who work for different employers and also what I’ve been able to find online from different companies in IT and other industries. For many companies it sounds like even by end of this year they are aiming for only 50% at best of the office staff being back in the office for work each day due to how the recovery phasing rules are working in each state and how each company is handling it’s work from home capabilities as well as what the in office work environment and whatever possible liabilities (both health-wise and legal) are present. This is quite a difference from the early days of the pandemic response when companies were initially telling employees they’d have the option of working from home until the end of that current month, March. Since then it seems like each week the forecast for when and how many employees are returning to work changes depending on what new information has come out regarding the infection/mortality rate along with any other important virus related news. If anything good comes from all of this it may be that companies return to expanding their work from home policies and programs so that more employees have the option of working from home during part or all of their shifts each week.

I am still looking forward to hitting a bar once they’ve opened up in my area. I even am looking forward to going to the Portland,OR IndyCar race in September, provided it isn’t cancelled or becomes a spectator-less event. Like nearly everyone else I too am chomping at the bit to get back to even a taste of what used to be normal for us. That all said I still support taking a cautious approach to help prevent infection and protect those who are most vulnerable in our communities. It seems pretty clear to me that we will have to learn to live with this virus, at least for the few year near term, while a vaccine is produced to help and try to stamp this virus out from becoming a yearly instance like the flu currently is.

Nintendo Switch – Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order – Thoughts So Far…

Nintendo Switch - Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order - Press Start Screen

It’s been nearly a decade since the last Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Ultimate Alliance 2) game released. The wait appears to have been worth it with what I have seen so far from Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3! The platform shift from the original Wii (the platform that both the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Ultimate Alliance 2 games were released on) is a big one going from SD to HD graphics in the latest installment, not to mention the change back from motion controls and the help of some extra horsepower from this generation of console CPU’s. With all that you see happening in just the opening levels the extra horsepower is definitely being put to use. The game has been very responsive in single player mode along with multiplayer on the same console mode (co-op console). I did experience some game lag in multiplayer online mode (playing co-op online with a friend) however I can’t confirm if this was due to the game doing more than the Switch CPU could handle or if it was network lag related instead. This is also the first release since the Marvel movies hit the big screen so some changes have obviously been made since the first two games. For example Nick Fury now looks and sounds like Nick Fury from the movies along with several other characters from the Avengers now resembling their onscreen versions. I’m putting a more detailed review post together and will go further in depth on some of the changes I’ve seen so far in the game. I must say the game play has yet to disappoint though. Also the expansion pack DLC looks pretty cool for after you’ve completed playing through the main story line (although it appears you have access to the first of the three DLC content stories via the Menu Select option from the Main Menu after completing the initial main story line levels where the first Shield Menu access point is unlocked). Even though you have access to this and the new Gauntlet Mode it brings with it I haven’t yet played around with this mode yet so I will have to update with more about it once I’ve had a chance to check it out myself. I will have more to share on this amazing game very soon. – Tom S.

Command & Conquer / Red Alert Remastered Update #2: It’s Alive!

C&C/RA Remastered Start Screen Origin Ver.

I must say I can’t think of a better birthday present from EA than for the C&C/RA Remastered Collection to release near my birthday! I spent a good part of this weekend playing the game and I must say it was well worth the wait. I’m working up a quick review of how things look and feel launching and starting to play the game. However a couple of things I will note now is that the graphics look amazing! You can switch between standard and HD graphics in the game (by pressing space bar) to see the difference in real time. The remastered cut scenes definitely look better than the original graphics do at high resolution although you have to remember they weren’t the greatest looking cut scenes to begin with so don’t expect everything to look real life all of a sudden.
Honestly the game play is near identical to the original. There are options to change up how controls and different aspect of the game function but it was easy to set everything to Classic (minus the graphics of course) and jump right in and play like it was the mid-90’s again.
I haven’t played Red Alert much yet but when I do my next update here I will have more info to include about how that game is looking and playing as well. One other cool addition is the Map Editor being included (however it wasn’t wanting to work properly when I initially launched it…) so you can create your own maps in both C&C and RA! More info to come soon but I will end this post with the words I was waiting a long time to hear until Friday morning….. “Welcome Back, Commander”! – Tom S.

Command & Conquer / Red Alert Remastered: Update

C&C/RA Remastered Origin

I can’t wait until Friday! Are we there yet?!? Yesterday the preload process began for the new Command & Conquer / Red Alert Remastered release. So of course I immediately got that started. Now that the game is installed I want to play it damn it! Unfortunately the game still doesn’t technically release until Friday so I have to wait until then to get welcomed back as the commander by EVA and get a taste of what has been the most anticipated game in years, at least for me anyway!
I still haven’t heard if any of the old hacks/mods will work with the Remastered version or if there will be new hacks/mods available instead. Once I hear more I will post an update with that info here as well as on my Command & Conquer Gaming Zone website. Of course I will also be sharing my feedback about how the game looks/feels/plays along with any other observations I end up having! Please post your feedback and experiences with the game in the comments as well. I will definitely be posting more about the game as the week goes on and have a 4 day weekend starting Friday, so I promise there will be plenty of information to share as I rack up the hours of game play over my birthday weekend! – Tom S.

The Anticipation Builds…

The anticipation continues to build around the upcoming release of the Remastered Command & Conquer / Red Alert games. I am waiting with baited breathe as it were. Especially with so much insanity currently about in our world, from fear of the COVID-19 pandemic to seemingly meaningless things like masks becoming politically charged topics, the release of this game not only heralds with it numerous hours of gaming enjoyment but also the promise of plenty of nostalgia to go with it. Right now that is something I know I could sorely use between this crazy world we live in and the impact that craziness is having on my life personally now. I know plenty of you are in a similar situation!
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve probably been playing more video games since the stay at home orders went in to effect than I have at any point in the last several years and my video game library has grown by a few titles in that same time period (sadly I can’t say I have completed any games in that same virus time period so I definitely have plenty of catch-up to do to finish up some of these new and old games before jumping in to more… which is easier said than done with all of the game sales that have been going on… but I digress). Some of those games have been new titles that have been a lot of fun while a handful have been re-releases of older titles, whether they be under a Remastered or Definitive Edition type label, and have been as much fun or more so than I remembered them being from years ago (which is my hope with the new C&C/RA Remaster release in a couple weeks). I look forward to firing up my MCV for the first time in 4K and start cranking out some Mammoth Tanks to go after NOD! Or fire up some Tesla Coils for base defense as the Soviets in Red Alert! All of those bring back memories of fighting with DOS to free up enough base memory to play the game well on my 386 along with all of the other hacks and tricks necessary to play games back in those DOS days. There’s a lot of great old memories of days and years past well before any of this pandemic stuff. Each of those re-releases definitely brought with them those memories of video gaming days past and a hope that someday soon we can get back to the corner Gamers Cafe, office LAN parties and video games galore…. wait…. Internet Cafe’s and LAN parties may not be coming back as they were already gone from our previous “normal” but a man can dream still can’t he? – Tom S.

Upcoming Release of Remastered Command & Conquer and Red Alert!

When I first read about a year or so ago that most of the original Westwood Studios team (now working for Petroglyph) was developing a remastered version of the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert games I about exploded with joy. The original C&C and RA were two of my favorite games ever. I still play them on occasion and my first webside (www.toms-games.com) was a C&C Universe gaming page that I worked on constantly and even got some good press for back in the day. Feel free to check it out as it’s still in about the same state I left it in over a decade ago when I got too busy to keep up the site or play the game often. So needless to say hearing that the original Westwood team was putting this game out had me waiting with baited breath.

Fast forward to now… the game is currently slated for a June release (provided the COVID-19 situation doesn’t cause delays), the trailers and screenshots are amazing looking and I am stuck working from home so I want this game to release as soon as possible! I’d love to say I’ll have enough time to bring the old website up to speed but at this point I’m just hoping the game releases on time and that I still have some time available to play it.

If you haven’t already go check out some of the game trailers on YouTube. It looks incredible. The 4K capable graphics upgrade is definitely going to look good! – Tom S.

The current state of things: social distancing and shelter in place orders!

It seams so long ago now when I think about it but it really was only about 2 months ago that I recall hearing about the first confirmed case of Coronavirus COVID-19 (it hadn’t been named yet, or at least the name wasn’t being used much then as I recall) being found in my home state of Washington. I’d obviously heard about the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China, it’s spread to other parts of Asia, along with stories of cruise ships changing routes and destinations and airlines limiting service to China in the news in the previous weeks. Unlike previous virus scares like SARS and MERS, this one had been found in the US rather quickly and instead of it being found on the East Coast of the country as the others were when they were found to have arrived here, this one was in my own backyard.

This week the governor of Washington State announced a shelter in place (also known as stay at home) order for the whole state. There had already been steps taken to get folks to work from home in the greater Seattle area. Downtown Seattle has looked like a ghost town for a couple of weeks now and the additional businesses closing for this shelter in place order will make every town statewide start to look this way. Part of the reason for such a strong response is that Washington State now has the 3rd highest number of COVID-19 infections and the concern is that if folks don’t socially distance to the extreme of a shelter in place order now we run the risk of the infections continuing to increase exponentially and will have no hospital capacity nor supplies for those patients.

The economic impact this virus and it’s response has already created is immense. I fear there are already businesses that will close for this shelter in place order and won’t be able to re-open when the order is ultimately lifted. The stimulus package the government is trying to pass currently may help some but I still worry that a prolonged shutdown would crush a lot of small businesses and squeeze the middle class further. It’s just amazing how much has changed in a few months. While this new normal hasn’t fully set in yet I’m hoping we can somehow find our way back to some sense of normalcy before end of the year. I had hoped maybe by this summer but considering the rumor is the schools are preparing to possibly be out the rest of the year it’s hard to see things truly returning to normal anytime soon.

Stay safe and be well out there. I know there is little written here that is more than a summary of what everyone is currently living and feeling but I felt I needed to record a short summary of the current state of things. – Tom S.

The Journey Begins…

I titled this first blog post “The Journey Begins” initially because this is the beginning of my journey in to blogging. However this has taken on an additional meaning because of how all of our lives have been changed by the current Coronavirus outbreak that in a few short weeks has radically changed how our world looks and works. We have all begun a journey with the ultimate goal being some sense of normalcy being restored at the end of all of this. The path to that end will be interesting to say the least. The social distancing efforts currently being advocated by the government and health officials stand a good chance of limiting the spread of the virus and limiting its impact on our social and health services. It will definitely take some getting used to not being able to go to a bar or restaurant for the next several weeks to few months (depending on how long that restriction stays in effect). Parents (which I am not one of) also have the challenging reality of kids being out of school for the next 6 weeks which, again, was unthinkable a few weeks ago but is now our current reality in this quickly evolving Coronavirus Response World that we find ourselves in now.
It will be interesting to say the least to see where this all goes over the coming weeks and months. I hope you all stay safe and healthy during all of this and wish you good luck on your journey in this Coronavirus Response World we now live in. – Tom S.