My Christmas haul consisted of clothing and video games. As a child I really didn’t care for getting clothing as a gift. Now, I appreciate the gift of clothing more. I purchase whatever video game I really want, intentionally avoiding what I know I won’t enjoy. I do this because I’m in tune with what games are out, what’s generally considered good or bad, and how a game plays without even having played it. So, when somebody gifts me a video game it’s almost always going to be a game I intentionally avoided or a game I already own. It’s the thought that counts, so I never take offense to a terrible gift.

This year I received Madden NFL 10, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and The Force Unleashed for the Wii. The first two are great gifts, which I am enjoying thoroughly. I didn’t intentionally avoid them, I just didn’t have the funds to purchase them and the games I did purchase. Consider them axillary choices that, if possible, I would purchase later on. This is true for Mario than it is Madden. Actually, while I’ve actually briefly played (and enjoyed) Madden 10, I was still skeptical of its quality because the past two iterations were disappointing. Madden 10 is not disappointing. I’d consider it the best Madden in many years. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is, to put it simply, brilliant. I’ve already played The Force Unleashed to completion on the 360, and enjoyed it despite being disappointed in its execution. The 360 and PS3 versions are flawed, mediocre titles. The Wii version is worse than that. I’ll leave it at that.

I would’ve been happy had I received nothing for Christmas this year. I’ve purchased far too many games this past year. I don’t think I’ve ever spent this much money on video games in a year; hell, perhaps even two. On Steam alone I’ve purchased Crysis and Crisys: Warhead, City of Heroes/Villains (no idea why…), Torchlight, Lumines, Evil Genius, Medieval II: Total War, IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946, Braid, ARMA 2, Empire: Total War, Dragon Age: Origins, Silent Hunter III, Company of Heroes, Borderlands, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Left 4 Dead 2, Overlord 1 & 2, World of Goo, and The Secret of Monkey Island: SE. Almost all of these titles were less than $5 each (many were only $1), so I didn’t spend as much money as it looks. Still, my bank account has taken a serious hit. These are all games I will be playing frequently into the future.

Despite my love-affair with new technology (which is more recently just a lust-affair), I am not much of a fan of digital products. I’m stuck in the ‘If I pay you I want to have something tangible in return’ mindset, and I admit that this is perhaps very backward of me. However, I don’t feel that digital downloads have actually brought everything they promised.

Take Steam for example, on the surface you’d think it would be a gamer’s paradise – a digital method of purchasing and distributing games, with no need to have pesky disks cluttering up the place, and the lower distribution costs.  The system is slick (despite the irritating need to update pretty much every time I open it), the achievements appeal to my inner trophy-whore and give more of an incentive to play, the social aspect is heightened, and it’s downright convenient

I have just one issue – price.

Since the distribution costs are lower surely the game prices will be lower than that of High Street or other online retailers, right? Wrong. For example, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Dragon Age: Origins and Borderlands consistently more expensive – in some cases they’re £10 more expensive (meaning Steam are pretty much charging an extra 33% just for the convenience). I understand that there are running costs to be considered here, but they surely do not amount to more than those of a retail chain?

Sure, with Steam you have access to additional content but you have to pay for that on top of the extra money you’ve already paid just for the convenience.  And sure, there are Steam achievements too, but should that entitle them to charge nearly a third of the RRP (in some cases) more than meatspace shops?

There’s no arguing that Steam is helping to widen the gaming market by making distribution fairer for smaller companies but is it really providing good value for money on the larger titles? Not in my opinion anyway.

It hasn’t been that long, really, since I decided that I should really start trying to play through some of the games that I’d piled up over the years of playing nothing but Everquest.

I say “decided”, but the reality is more that I realized I actually could finish some games; it was a mindset change from “I have too many games and will never play them” to “hey, if I just play through these, one at a time, eventually I’ll feel like I’m less buried”

I didn’t come to this epiphany by myself, mind you, it was thanks to a friend who pretty much forced me to sit down and play through Star Wars: Battlefront II, in co-op mode, sticking with the game even through the really nasty storming-the-blockade-runner level.

It made me realize a couple of things: 1, that game designers did actually design their games to be finished, but that 2, sometimes there’d be a really annoying bit and you’d just have to keep throwing yourself at it.

I’ve since come to realize that (1) doesn’t always hold true.  There are still some designers out there who design games so they’re hard to finish, so actually completing them is an accomplishment.

I have a couple of adjectives to describe designers like that, but I like to keep the language on this blog fairly polite so I won’t go into it.

Anyway.  Uh, Lara Croft.  Tomb Raider and the subject of many a geek fantasy since 1996 or so.  She was big in the mid-90s, hit some career downpoints in the late 90s, became almost completely irrelevant in the early 2000s, and then got a full-on makeover with Tomb Raider: Legend, which just happened to be one of the first games I played through after reaching the above epiphany.  It was actually the first game I completed on the Xbox 360, back in 2007, and I followed it up by playing through Tomb Raider: Anniversary, also in 2007, which was an eye-opener for me in that it was a PC game but one that used the Xbox controller and tried to be every bit as user friendly as a console title.

It was also blisteringly hard – it was the first game to send me to Youtube to look up hints on just how to beat certain boss fights.

Anyway, Legend and Anniversary formed the first two parts of a trilogy, with last year’s Tomb Raider Underworld making up the last bit – and after playing through the first two and enjoying them, I had to buy it.

Note: “buy”, not “play” – looking at my Amazon order history, I ordered it on December 1st of last year… and I then let it sit until Dec 23rd of this year, so almost 13 months, during which time I’ve seen it for as little as $7.49 on sale.

Oh, well.

Having now played it, I give it high marks for wrapping up the story from the first two games, in highly satisfactory fashion.  It also added some new moves to Lara’s repertoire of tomb-raiding moves, and actually took place, for the most part, IN TOMBS.  Moreover, it did away with both annoying QTEs (the bane of Tomb Raider: Legend) AND the sort of frustrating boss fights that pockmarked Anniversary; the result is that your enemy is, in most cases, the environment.  There are lots of assorted creatures that try to kill you, to be sure, but they rarely get in your way too much.

On the other hand, it was rather buggy in bits.  I managed to avoid triggering the set of conditions that actually result in a broken game, which was nice, but I did have several occasions where I’d walk onto a slight incline and Lara would suddenly die as if she’d fallen from a great height.

Also, the camera hates you and does everything it can to kill you.  And when I say “hates you”, I believe that the single-mindedness with which it obscures the precise viewing angle you absolutely need to see the only safe move is, in fact, a sign of emergent artificial intelligence, a malevolent and calculating proto-mind which knows only its desire for your destruction.

But that’s a minor quibble, really.

Oh, because I didn’t mention it before: between “World of Goo” and this, I played through “Mini Ninjas”, which was endearingly cute and generally enjoyable. It’s been written off as mostly a kid’s title, but this adult got a great deal of pleasure out of the attention paid to the environments and the streamlined (OK, OK, “button-mashing”) combat system.  Oddly enough that means that I’ve played through three Eidos games in the last few days, I think they’re rapidly becoming my New Favorite Publisher despite their widely-publicized review manipulating hijinks.

I have created a new blog to meet the topic of my blogs better. You can look at the new blog I’ve made at tgenews.wordpress.com.  Sorry if you liked the Daily Rampager better.

Thanks,

David Ali.

I have created a new blog to meet the topic of my blogs better. You can look at the new blog I’ve made at tgenews.wordpress.com.  Sorry if you liked the Daily Rampager better.

Thanks,

David Ali.

There’s a huge holiday sale going on over at Steam right now. If you are in the market for some cheap games, then head over. I know there’s been a lot of “hot deal” posts, but ’tis the season. Find somethings that’s a particularly good deal? Post it in the comments. I noticed the following:

• Eidos Pack – $49.99 (includes Batman: AA and Mini Ninjas)
• Ghostbusters: The Videogame – $6.79
• Torchlight – $9.99 (see my post)

Everybody has a college gaming story to tell…days spent unkempt & unwashed in front of a 14″ color CRT. You Single Person Shooter chaps, you! Squirreling away those ammo & medi packs. And reloading. Fuck! Sniper!! Duck!! OR those classic RTS tactics, more wood = more Eagle warrirors = Monetuzma is a happy camper. And those (groan!) technology trees.

Ah! Happy times. And all without PixelShader 5.0 or whatever. But Beer, Pizza, grubby keyboard & grubbier system specs are still on!

However, we must speak of the evil still to come. The decade is upon us. Have-blog, must-do-lists. Click-whoring traffic and all that. So without further ado, ta-da (okie, wait for it…)

Top 5: 20/20 in WASD*

aka Top 5 Games which made Q the gamer he is (pretty sucky, akshually)

1. Project IGI

And, as the Eagles sing, here’s where it all started. The gaming i.e.. Honestly. Yeah yeah, I know…it’s supposed to be Quake or Doom or Diablo or whatever. But this is my story and I am sticking with it

But anyway, on 20/20 vision, it’s a pretty generic shooter. With the out-of-control Russians as the enemies, (Yes, I know, ve should let Boriss know!!). A voice in the ear guide. Fairly difficult (Edit.-then!) and an insanely tough boss fight (Enya/Anya, I forget the name)

The tricky bit was that there was no way to save game. Yes, no save game. On a final boss mission which was nearly 1 hour long. The only freakin’ way to beat the boss was to modify the .cfg file of other NPC’s so that they won’t bleed your ass so bad. Alternatively, you could sit at your computer for a really long time. Either way, your call

Would I still play it™ = Fuck! No!!

2. Max Payne

To the game which introduced bullet-time to the world, you don’t just say Yeah! I liked it, you might too. You say which rock were you freakin’ plodding under, to have never heard of Max Payne.

Would I still play it™ = Hell! Yeah!!

(What? Waiting for a review??)

3. Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

Move over sneaky kids. (sounds of sneaky kids moving)

The grand (clone) dad of all stealth shooters is here!! Yes, I am looking at you Thief (n), Splinter Cell (m), Solid Snake (k). With this concept of ratings after a kill and multiple ways to make that kill happen…mark me for the AAAaaaAAAaaaAAArrrghhh category (yes, I know it’s the name of a new parkour game n all, sue me).

I mean, I got Ninja as a rating. How cool is that

Would I still play it™ = Maybe! Blood Money’s on the money too!!

4. Serious Sam

Sorry, but I need to borrow that AAAaaaAAAaaaAAaaaAAA from before. (Yeah, I know, scraping the sad barrel of borrowed creativity)

But hey! This is Serious Sam guys. The one with THE B-F-G**. Serving Plutonium cannon balls on a platter since 2001©

And those enemies, from the skeletal dogs which don’t seem to get hit by bullets (only ‘cuz their bodies were only skeleton and no tissue and NOT because I am a crap shot), to those massive bulls massing their massiveness in Luxor and the final boss battle (which was pretty tame, or maybe I had toned down the difficulty a bit. Memory fails me at this point)

Would I still play it™ = Dude! I bought Serious Sam (freakin’) HD!! How much more gaming manliness can I exude!!!

5. Call of Duty

Russian or No Russian, CoD set THE benchmark for smarter AI’s and WWII shooters. Which takes cojones. And game design. And something else also⁺. I have no idea what, but it is still awesome⁺⁺

Squad-based shooters have been around for some time (Operation Flashpoint, I am looking at you), but making it into a cohesive single player experience was where CoD made its bucks.

On a related note, wtf was the difference between CoD & Medal of Honor? Don’t ask me

Would I still play it™ = I got no reason to, right? There’s practically no difference between CoD 1/2/3. Unless we get to modern warfare and start killing civies in airports and all that

And Cut. It’s a wrap!!

Okie, so we’re all done with the nasties for FPS. We still have to do the best of decade list, which looks at, you know, the actual game, rather than what I remember from the game. And also, that very short retrospective on RTG/TBS (preview – there are just 3 games there). Till then, keep sniveling for medipacks!

*WASD is the default movement control keyset of any FPS, but you already knew that, din’t you? Alas for the fleeting moments of artistic cleverness

** B-F-G = Big Fuckin’ Gun

+ If I knew that, i would be running Infinity Ward, wouldn’t i?

++Hey! Did you realize that you almost made through an entire retrospective review without reading the word “awesome” anywhere. Don’t get your panties in a bunch, I am that good

It’s my opinion that the absolute best time to have been an animation fan in America was the early 1990s.  Not only was anime starting to really take off, but Western animators were at the top of their game.  We got Animaniacs, Eek! the Cat, Talespin, Tiny Toon Adventures, Chip & Dale’s Rescue Rangers, and a little show called Batman: The Animated Series, which represents, even 17 years later, the best version of Batman and his supporting cast ever.

Now, to be honest, even when I was nursing a 15-title-a-week addiction at the local comics shop, I wasn’t really into the core Bat-books, so I can’t back my opinion up with any kind of authority.  I did buy some of the side titles – Robin, Catwoman, Nightwing – but the core books were always a bit meh to me, too prone to crossovers and seemingly unable to start and finish a story in the same title.

I did buy quite a few back-issues from the 1960s, mind you, though I was mostly going for camp.  If an issue had Bat-mite, Ace the Bat-hound, or Batwoman in it, I bought it.

For example:

…and I think we can all agree that these are probably not examples of “good” Batman comics. 

But now that I’ve established that I am not really speaking from any kind of position of authority when I say that Batman: TAS was the Best Batman Ever, I am going to take another leap and say that Batman: Arkham Asylum was the Best Batman Videogame Ever, eclipsing the Genesis-era movie tie-in game which I previously believed represented the pinnacle of Batman-themed gaming.

I suspect I’m preaching to the choir here, though – if you’ve got any interest whatsoever in the character and keep up with the video game market, you’ve probably already played this, or at least played through the demo, and if you’ve done so and not been absolutely stunned by it I’m going to argue that you have No Soul.

If, however, you have not sampled this game yet, and you have any degree of interest in the doings of costumed nutjobs – and I’m throwing Bruce into this category without reservation, mind you – you should check it out.  It’s a very darkly-themed game, much more so than versions of the characters I’m familiar with, but I enjoyed it throughout.

…OK, so the very last boss fight was three kinds of lame, but that represents only a tiny tiny portion of the game and I think you should probably just try to forget it happened after you beat it.

As an aside, this was the first “Games for Windows: Live” title I’ve played – it was pretty neat to see Achievement messages pop up that showed up right along the achievements from Xbox 360 games.  Microsoft, much as I love to bash them, gets some points from me there.

For all of those full-time employees out there, how many times have you wished you could sit at home? How many times have you wanted to finally quit that dead-end job? If you are like me, I have thought about these things a little over a billion times. Heck, I’ve even have a plan for the day I finally storm out of my work place! For the gamers out there, I may have found a way to make your wish come true.

I stumbled upon this website the other day and thought I would share it with you game enthusiasts. It’s called Only 4 GamersThey will give you all the tools to successfully find a job as a video game tester. The site was recently updated to show how, with a little work, you can work at home, doing what you love!

Your dream job is just a few clicks away! What do you have to lose?

This weekend Steam is running a sale on Torchlight. Torchlight is a single player only RPG that has a very “Diabloish” feel to it. The musical score was composed by the same person that worked on Diablo (and you can tell it). Anyway, you can pick it up this weekend for only $10 ($9.99, but who’s counting). There is a demo, so you can try before you buy.

I enjoyed the demo, so it’s worth the $ for me.

Millions and millions of gamers, casual and hardcore can distinctly remember what fun it was to play Blizzard’s enormously popular “StarCraft”. “War Craft” has instead taken center stage for the past half decade because of the insane following and cash revenues that “World of Warcraft” takes in year month after month. ActivisionBlizzard will be releasing the first part of “StarCraft II” sometime in 1st Quarter of 2010 says IGN, not far off at all. Blizzard tends to keep their games as TBA releases until they’re pretty sure, but they aren’t afraid to delay games either.

For those that still haven’t heard “StarCraft II” has been split into 3 parts. The first release, “StarCraft II Terrans: Wings of Liberty” is the one that will be coming out in the next few months. Whether this is Activision hoarding cash or if this IGN quote is more apt, “Blizzard defended the move, saying it was intended to make each individual chapter to be a full, engrossing single-player experience,” we won’t know until the game is actually released. While you will be able to play as any of the three types in multi-player, the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss, the single-player aspect of the game is fully centered on the Terran.

If this pisses you off a little, considering that it sounds like 1/3rd of a game and Activision’s openly greedy CEO Bobby Kotick seems like the only man with the balls to do this, then I have even better news! Do you remember how Activision arbitrarily charged $60 dollars for the standard edition of “Modern Warfare 2″ on PC (If you are a very casual gamer and you have a 360 or PS3, you might be thinking, “That’s standard price.” Not on PC. On PS3 and 360 Sony and Microsoft take 20% of every game sold for their hardware, meaning about $12 per game. On PC this does not happen, therefore there is no reason to price a PC game the same as a console game.) just because they could? Well this “1/3rd” of the full StarCraft II will be retailing on PC for… $60!

Wow, Activision sure brought Blizzard with it to the dark side. This move will simply piss gamers off, and help the game sell less than it would have otherwise. One of the reasons “StarCraft” sold so much in the first place was it’s low price battle chest. The $40 set with the game and a couple of expansions helped the game sell extra copies to casual gamers, and helped to make the game a mega-hit. With a retail skew higher than normal and a three part game, not including about any future expansions, I don’t doubt that some gamers have already been alienated by these corrupt-looking business practices. The other two parts to “StarCraft II”, “StarCraft II Zerg: Heart of the Swarm” and “StarCraft II Protoss: Legacy of the Void” will be released at an unknown date this year.

Looks like the soldiers squeaked out a win. This is from the Team Fortress 2 Blog:

Sorry, Demomen. You fought the good fight and kept it far closer than anybody could have predicted. But in the end, at the noon Thursday deadline, the Soldiers kept their razor-thin lead, with 6,406,065 killed Demomen to the Demo’s score of 6,372,979 killed Sollys.

To celebrate the new updates to both classes (soldier and demomen), Valve has a 50% off sale going and kicked off a free weekend. Happy ending all the way around with perhaps some bad feelings on the Demo side of things. My boys already have their update for TF2 and are busy picking up achievements. I guess I may dust off my copy and jump in there with them.

…busting DID make me feel good.

I’ll explain.

A couple of months ago, I bought the PC version of “Ghostbuster” from Direct2Drive’s Halloween sale.  I’d heard it was a pretty short game, but it was $10 and the writeups I’d seen on the game made it sound very much worth playing.

It is, by the way.  I’ll get back to that.

It also has excellent controller support, which is handy because my gaming PC doesn’t have a keyboard hooked up to it usually.  I have a mouse connected to launch games and a 360 controller connected to play them.

Problem is, you can tell that this game was designed with the PS3 controller in mind, because the developers liked to make you use the left bumper AND the left trigger at the same time.  This is easy to do on a PS3 controller because of how it rests in your hands, but a 360 controller gets really uncomfortable if you’re holding it like a PS3 controller, especially if you settle in for a marathon play session.

Anyway, OW.

But back to the game.

I remember reading that the goal in making this game was to make something that was, for all intents and purposes, “Ghostbusters III”; that is, a sequel to the movie.

Sadly, it is a sequel to BOTH movies, but I will cut them some slack.  Ghostbusters II came out in 1989, and the world was a particularly tasteless place at the time; they were making a movie for the age.

They did one thing particularly right:  There’s no Louis.

By putting the player in the role of a “5th Ghostbuster”, they actually do pull off the effect they were aiming for; you can be in a scene watching the other four characters, and the writing is easily up-to-par with the movies.  You don’t feel like a fifth wheel, though: while you do have the other characters with you most of the time, they’re… well, competent but not brilliant at fighting.  They’ll help you, but you do most of the Cool Stuff.

In another immersion-enhancing move, they stole the HUD-less status indicator idea from Dead Space.  All of your important information is reflected in indicators on your Proton pack.

Between missions, you can roam the firehouse at will, which lets them stick in all kinds of neat touches.  Listening to Janine take phone calls is particularly fun.

I did have one bug related to this, though:  I had a mission end and put me back in the firehouse with a task of “go talk to this character you just rescued” – instead, I saved the game figuring that I’d come back and talk to her.

Instead, when I reloaded, it put me directly into the next combat mission, so I missed out on some story there.  You can replay some cutscenes from the menu, but not all of them, and not that one.

Minor quibble I guess, it wasn’t a game breaker by any means.

Playing it on the medium difficulty level, it took me just under 8 hours to play through.  It’s pretty tough on “medium” – I wound up having to redo several fights, and there’s one particular one near the end of the game that took me about 10 tries to get through.  Came close to my controller-throwing-tolerance level, there.

Anyway – it was fun AND it represents, in my mind, a redemption for the disappointment that was the second movie.  Shame it took them 20 years, but I guess some things just shouldn’t be rushed.

Oh, and a small milestone: This is, if I believe WordPress, my 500th post.  Not exactly daily updates… but, I think, not too bad.

Modern Warfare is already a success for Infinity Ward. It’s sold roughly a gazillion copies in the first 2 seconds of availability (that’s not an exact figure, but it seems close). I didn’t particularly care for the storyline, but it has an amazing single player game which is almost worth the price of admission itself. It also has an expanded and highly successful (yet glitched) multiplayer mode. I’m up to level 18 or so and still learning the maps / taking my lumps. But if you aren’t into the public deathmatches, then you’ll be well served to check out the new Spec Ops mode.

Spec Ops mode can best be described as a cooperative mode where you (by yourself or with a fried) are presented with a scenario and associated goal to complete. Sometimes these are timed and others are open-ended. Some of these are stealthy and others are “in your face” action. There are even a couple that require one player to provide air support (one map with a helo and another with an AC-130 gunship) while the other moves along the ground. In all there are 23 different maps that you can play. On each of these maps, you can obtain from 1 to 3 stars (3 being the most difficult).

Bill & I have been working through the missions and are down to the most difficult ones (yea, we did the easier ones first). Overall, if you don’t care for playing in the big MP matches or perhaps feel intimidated by jumping out on the net then you might just enjoy Spec Ops. I’ve found it to be pretty spectacular and definitely provides an opportunity to jump into a quick round with a buddy. Got 15 minutes? Cool, play through one. Not sure if it’s for you? Then pull up YouTube and watch a few of the scenarios yourself. Overall it’s a great concept and one that’s been lacking for some time.

What’s this? Crafting in Team Fortress 2? What are those crazy SOBs at VALVe going to think of next?

All those duplicate items players might have received (before they caught on and decided to just delete them or pass on them) now have a use. And players might be able to create items they wouldn’t have otherwised unlocked in a very long time.

So, VALVe, when are we going to see leveling, raids, and clan management tools? How about that monthly subscription rate?

Seriously, if you don’t own TF2 now, then what the fuck is wrong with you?

(Now I sit back and wait for my check.)

It’s war in Team Fortress 2 right now! As the new update gets closer, there is a contest right now that will determine which character class gets an extra weapon. The update which will add new weapons, achievements and probably hats is coming up and a secret seventh weapon goes to either the Soldier or the Demoman (depending on which one is killed less by the other). It’s funny that I have one son pulling for the soldier and the other one the demoman, so it’s been an interesting weekend with them trying to do their part in the war. I know you guys don’t play much TF2, but I thought the whole thing was humorous. Check out the blog linked above for some creative writing.

In late November I received an invitation from Blizzard to re-activate my World of Warcraft account and try the game free for 7-days. Initially, I was tempted just to delete it because I hadn’t played World of Warcraft since March of 2006, over 3 1/2 years ago. But, something in me said, “Just wait…maybe it’ll come in handy…” and over the next week or so I started getting all these subliminal hints (the email, my buddy starting up WoW again, me finding a WoW guide at a thrift store, etc.) that a return to Azeroth might be worth doing at least one more time.

I won’t go into detail…but the installation/setup process for WoW is still as annoying, long and convoluted as it was in 2006 and in late 2007 (when I attempted to play WoW again but gave up after a never-ending loop of installation issues). Blizzard and other similar MMORPG companies who force constant updates need to be shot for not coming up with a better, more intuitive way of handling updates now that this genre has been around for over a decade. Case in point: Why, if I’m just a low-level character playing on the original WoW world w/ an original WoW race do I need to have GBs of updates for content ONLY found in high-level areas and in the expansion packs?

By the way – what’s up with the required Battle.NET account merging? I’m never a fan of forcing users to merge accounts against their will and while I know what Blizzard wants to do with Battle.NET (make it into its own version of Steam…whcih is why you’ll probably never see Diablo or Starcraft on Steam), I still don’t like it. Shame on you Blizzard.

Anyways, once the game finished setting up though I was happy to find myself playing the game once again. Props still must be given to Blizzard for their excellent work in sound, music, cinematics, rich world/history and sheer scope of environment design. If it takes me ten minutes to cross an area on foot, just imagine how long it took to make all that content I traveled by in that time! On the downside though, the game still looks as dated and crude as it did in 2004 –and– if we all think back to then, it was far from pushing visuals at launch (EverQuest II was and still is gorgeous and the Doom III/Half-Life 2 great looking releases came out in Fall 2004 as well). In terms of graphics, it’s pretty bad Blizzard has done zilch over the past half-decade to make it look better. Also, even though it’s neat to have a world in scale by making zones so big they take 10 minutes to travel on foot…my idea of playing a game does’t usually involve just moving in one direction doing nothing else for 5-10 minutes at a clip. *yawn* That’s one reason why I want to get a mount…because I think they significantly decrease travel time, one of WOW’s biggest annoyances.

In terms of gameplay, this time around I avoided the Night Elves and went for a Tauren named Mootaur so I could be on the Horde side and try a new class/race. You can find my profile of Mootaur here on WoW Armory. Compared to my buddy’s character, Demesria, my little guy is nothing when I finished up my trial. I was able to get Mootaur up to Level 16 before I quit (the same level my original WoW character was when I gave up on it…though that character took longer to level up even to that point) and based on the stats my friend has accumulated over the years (he recently got to a Level 80 character), I have completed approximately 5% of the game. I’ve probably spent 15 hours total with Mootaur in my second trip to WoW and have killed 691 enemies (4% of Demesria’s #), died 14 times (8.6% of Demesria’#), completed 62 quests (3.3% of Demesria’s #), etc. (all other stats seem to fall in the 3-10% range).

Basically, after seeing my stats, I came to the conclusion that if it took me 15 hours to get 5% of the game done (if I think Level 80 is “finishing the game”), it would take me about 300 hours to get to Demesria’s level. I have never in my life played any game for 300 hours…or even 200 hours. I think the games I have played the most over the years were Phantasy Star Online (100+ hours), Persona 4 (80+ hours), Civilization 4 (70+ hours) and maybe 2 or 3 others past the 60 hour mark. Most game nowadays seem to be finished in the 10-15 hour range, so that’s why I think me putting in that much effort on two ocassions for WoW is more than fair in coming up with a review of it. In fact, I still don’t disagree with my review and rating of WoW that I made back in 2006.

I will say I enjoyed WoW more this time though simply because the quests and exploration seemed to progress faster and more naturally with the Tauren and the beginning zones you deal with. That being said, I still feel as though one of WoW’s biggest issues is that there’s no real, significant, worthwhile, meaningful, experience-changing moments, enemies, quests, items, areas, etc. in the first dozen or so hours of the game. The quests are very much a boring mix of “Kill X amount of this” or “Collect X amount of this” or “Deliver this to that” sortof thing. I’m sure once a player gets to the mid-20s they become strong enough to party-up and take on some big dungeons and monsters…but it seems like Blizzard has never, ever had any intention of making the first 25 hours or so of the game be anything BUT monotonous grinding/boring quests.

I should also point out that since 2006 my MMO-ish gaming cravings have been answered with Capcom’s Monster Hunter series, a series I feel is much more accurate, challenging and rewarding than WoW or any other standard MMORPG simply because it’s truly real-time and reflex-based. If you are good at Monster Hunter, it’s because you are GOOD. If you are a super high level character in WoW, its because you have nothing but time on your hands and don’t mind spending $15/mo. to pursue your gaming goal. I’m not saying WoW players are dumb or bad players…I just mean that you don’t have to be that coordinated or fast-thinking to succeed in WoW (in that respect, WoW is a lot like everyday life, huh? )

Like I was telling my friend, me not continuing my account this time doesn’t mean I hate WoW. I don’t. Like I said, my experience was better this time around and I was progressing faster in leveling, items and quests than I was in my first go-around. However, my schedule right now, tight finances and other non-game obligations would not work well with the all encompassing/engrossing experience that is WoW. So, for now, my account remains inactive.

Should I ever decide to return to Azeroth, however, Mootaur is waiting for me, hoping, praying and mooing for me to buy him a cool mount and get him some much need Axe Proficiency lessons.

I received my copy on Monday and finished it up on Thursday.  Total game time approximately 7 hours.  The game was essentially a shooter but did give you the feel of a ghostbusters movie.  The game is very linear and has no side missions at all.  It includes what game developers sem to think is obligatory these days which is the collect all the <insert item(s) here> task.  I paid $30 for the game and will probably play through it a couple more times and will soon begin experimenting with the multi-player co-op modes.  It’s probaby a rent/borrow title unless the multi-player changes my opinion.  Anyhow the status will now be “Available” in the PS3 game sharing database.

yay. new Kill Brown People shooty game thing.

as per an EA press release, spotted second-hand on Rock Paper Shotgun:

“The Tier 1 Operator is the most disciplined, deliberate and prepared warrior on the battlefield. He is a living, breathing, precision instrument of war.”

“EA has always been an advocate for telling the soldiers’ story. The new Medal of Honor follows that tradition. We felt it was important to tell the story of today’s war and today’s elite soldiers via today’s most relevant medium – videogames. We are so proud to bring together two powerhouse development teams to make this game a reality; EA Los Angeles and EA DICE. Medal of Honor promises to be an unforgettable entry in the modern shooter genre.”

will there be any oh, I don’t know, insurgent/taliban/alQ/iranian intelligence/whatever operators on hand to give advice?

i dunno. i was under the impression the [anglo-western] “soldiers’ story” has been told and continues to be told ad infinitum. a constant shock-and-awe campaign of embedded journalists, million dollar hollywood productions (many of which are suitably reflective, but still), games, books, magazines and crazed internet gun freaks.

i wonder what our next all-american combat boot stomping ground will be, with its weird and not-really-quite-human inhabitants. south america: the bolshie bolivars?  samoa: polynesian uprising?

Assassin’s Creed II makes major improvements upon the first game in the series (AC), by providing players with more variety in missions; with practically 200 missions to boot. The combat system has been tweaked, with new style assassinations ranging from “air”, “ledge” and “haystack”, while blending takes on new shapes with the aid of female escorts who seductively distract guards for a handsome fee. Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad is a descendant of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young nobleman who becomes an assassin after his father is betrayed and killed. Desmond Miles continues to be the focus of an upgraded machine; the “Animus” 2.0., and still seems unable to decipher what appears to be a “bleeding effect” of his genetic code.

One thing I find useful in AC2 is the new “Fast Travel Station”, which places you at any major point of destination previously explored for a small fee. The game now features an economy system, allowing you to acquire larger amounts of income based upon investing money towards renovations for the city. Tailor shops provide dyeing services, enabling color configuration of Ezio’s attire. This feature is distinct from most games I’ve played, with the changes of color even appearing during in-game cut scenes; something I’ve yet to see take place in any other game. “Art Merchents” sell paintings made during the Italian Renaissance which give clues about the “Apple of Eden”, and feathers are found atop buildings that are then placed in a chest, comforting Ezio’s mother.

The “Leap of Faith” is always exciting to perform, but it could be time to add a new variation to this unique AC action. The new weapons are wonderful, and the game itself is visually detailed; displaying alluring and lush graphics with deep brooding sounds provided by Jesper Kyd. There are “Assassination Tombs” which individually contain a combined total of “six seals” that unlock a hidden mystery through the attainment of Altaïr’s accoutrements. Despite these advancements, the game still seems somewhat repetitive in its presentation albeit much more diverse in its choice of assignments. The biggest blunder that this series continues to suffer from is that the artificial intelligence of the non-player characters (NPCs) is incredibly unintelligent. That being said, there is more than enough potential for this action-adventure stealth trilogy to end on a high note, with its final installment (perhaps) that’s yet to be released, Assassin’s Creed III.

I give this game a score of 9/10.

Splash Damage and Bethesda Softworks have a mouthbreathing problem.  Their upcoming multiplayer shooter, Brink, proves it.

According to the flacks, Brink is notable for, among many other wondrous properties, its “extensive customization options ….”  And not just any customization options.   “Near endless” options!

Brink’s advanced player customization offers a near-endless combination of looks for your character – allowing for the appearance of your character to be truly unique. As you progress through the game and acquire more experience, you’ll have even more opportunities for customization.

Except.  No female characters.  Just a near-endless array of hulking, cretinous male characters.

Apologists for this almost quaintly regressive practice, still endemic in the games industry, will invariably haul out the same old chestnut: making girls is too hard. It’s twice the work for no good reason.  You need twice the faces, twice the clothes, twice the hairstyles.  Art takes time and costs money. And cetera, and cetera.

I call horseshit.  Making games is work.  If we want to cut corners, why bother with shadows? Dynamic lighting?  That stuff is hard, too. Why bother with graphics at all?  I’m old. I remember Zork.  It was fun.

Come on.  It’s quite nearly 2010, i.e., the future.  Girls play games, and some like to play them with female avatars.  Some guys who play games like to use female avatars.

In my view, the industry and the underlying tech have matured to the point where there is little if any excuse for games not to include certain basic features.  Chief among these are multiplayer and cooperative functionality and, for games utilizing avatars, fully customizable avatars. Brink almost gets it right.  But despite what the boys behind it (and an unfortunately large cohort of like titles) will tell you, “extensive customization” means being able to make your  guy into a broad.

I’ll be giving Brink a miss.

Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate how greatly the English language fails to convey context and meaning behind words at times. I figure that you all would have much less to read here if this was not the case.  Let me give you an example.

I hate the spy class.

It’s not a simple matter of not enjoying the class when I play it, or disliking the class when other people play spy.  I have a deep, irrational hatred and utter loathing for not only the class, but everything it stands for, to the point where I can not honestly justify in any rational terms or argument, any real justification for such hatred.

I think that more than anything else, the spy serves as some kind of freudian object for me to vent dislike and negative emotion into.

With all that said, I’d like to separate all of that from my real criticisms with the class.  Some people who have seen my hatred of the class might be surprised to find that such criticisms aren’t all that great.

As much as I hate to admit it, the spy does have a purposeful role in the game, and is somewhat balanced.  I’d rather not go into too much detail  defining what I feel that role is, preferring to focus more on where he seems to be too strong in the context of spy versus engineer.

First is the revolver.  The revolver is unique in the fact that it is very effective at everything up to very long range.  It is very accurate, holding about the same spread as the pistol, but inflicts around 50-60 damage per shot before damage drop-off.  The shotgun will out-damage the revolver at point blank range, but suffers far more from damage dropoff than the revolver, giving it the edge at close/medium range.

One might point out the engineer’s answer for this is to engage a spy at point-blank, but the engineer rarely engages the spy on his own terms.  Added to this is the fact that all a skilled spy needs at point-blank is a swift strafe movement and a little lag and he’ll get himself a nice side-back stab, rendering the confrontation over instantly.   Defending against a side-stab is almost more a matter of having good ping and luck as it is a matter of skill.  Most good spies I know will simply disengage, heal up and come back again if they don’t find a fight to their liking.

Should they nerf the revolver? I’m not sure.  I just find it very frustrating to usually have myself out-gunned by a class that can disable at-will my primary assets in a game, assets that took anywhere from ten seconds to two minutes to establish.  I would be in much less of a situation to complain if the spy was the only class that was effective in countering a smart sentry setup, but I also have soldiers, demomen and medics who can just blow through my stuff, and for the most part, are supposed to outgun the engineer class.

Fine, so I have to rely on my team to help me kill spies, as I’m not completely balanced to always deal more damage to a spy  than he can to me. I can accept that.

I cannot accept the dead ringer in its current form.   I would be fine if the spy got away scot-free from the hit that triggered the dead-ringer.  But why the hell does a class have access to the effective equivalent to an Uber shield that lets 10% of the damage through and lasts for six and a half seconds.  To add insult to injury, this shield makes him invisible and allows him to heal himself and recharge said shield from metal pickups.

With enough map knowledge and planning, a spy can antagonize an engineer at his choosing almost indefinitely, given that engineers prefer locations that have plentiful metal drops, usually accompanied by health drops.   It’s hard enough to kill these bastards with a pyro, much less as an engineer.  What incentive does a spy have to take any other cloak when he can simply make himself almost impervious to damage almost limitlesly, given enough thought and metal?