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December 10, 2004
World of Warcraft -- The Dark Side
World of Warcraft (WoW) is, by the Star Wars definition, the Dark Path of the Force. I think about WoW far too often. It's engaging, engrossing and most importantly, entertaining. When one wants to just cruise around, it's easy and spectacular in environment variations. When one wants to group up with other adventurers, it's easy and much can be accomplished. When one wants to play solo, there isn't a problem of being the wrong class/skillset/level/race/etc. When one isn't playing, one wants to play.
Simultaneous curses and kudos to Blizzard for WoW. Now I just have to make it another 3 hours before I can play some more. ;)
Posted at 11:06 AM | Life and Work | Comments (0)
December 01, 2004
Back in the Gamer's Zone
It's been the better half of a year since I faithfully dedicated too much time to gaming. The drudgery that EverQuest had become wore thin and while City of Heroes was an incredibly entertaining replacement, sadly the best part of the game was creating new characters.
Enter fourth-quart 2004: Sims 2, Doom 3, Evil Genius, Half-Life 2, Halo 2, EverQuest 2, World of Warcraft. Here's a short breakdown of how I see these (some of this is also in the gaming section).
Sims 2: Fun romp thru familiar Sims territory and had other, more actively stimulating games not come along, I would have put more time into this one. Definately a game to revisit on the next games dry spell.
Doom 3: Engrossing, entertaining, and tired. It was fun to play thru once, but without a $600 video card, it's not astounding. It basically brings nothing new to the FPS genre.
Evil Genius: Fantastically fun and humorus until the weight of micromanagement crashes down upon the player mid-game. There are three aspects of the game that require full-time attention: base building, base protecting, and world map activity management. Two of these can be managed fairly well, but adding a third just makes the game more frustrating than fun.
Half-Life 2: By far the best FPS I've played and definately in the top ten games of all time. Was a bitch to install and get to work initially and suffers from frequent and long "Loading..." interruptions though. Still, immediately after beating the game, I played thru it again.
Halo 2: Haven't put much time into this game yet, but so far it looks polished and entertaining much as the previous one, but suffers greatly from the lack of a usable controller. Using a console controller on an FPS is like paddling a canoe with a two-by-four.
EverQuest 2: Basically only a sequel in name as this game "borrows" so many corrections to EQ1 that other games had made. It suffers from heavy video card requirements like Doom 3, but I imagine with the right hardware, both games are simply stunning visual masterpieces. But, after my fifth run thru the Isle of Refuge, trying different characters, it got old. Really fast.
World of Warcraft: Here's where the majority of my time will be spent. Polished, clean, forgiving, generous, and a visual treat, this game has a lot going for it once you can log in. I had to move off the PvP server where other friends were because the anti-griefing hasn't been implemented and getting cleaned out by bullies unwilling to pick on people their own size/level.
Now, back to work so I can pay for all this gaming. ;)
Posted at 07:43 AM | Life and Work | Comments (0)