Its been a while folks, time to dust this thing off with a post about what I've been playing lately.
Its that time of the year again, and by that I mean its time for blizzard to release another expansion to WoW, this won called Wrath of the Lich King focuses on arthas and northrend. Of course I've already pre-ordered mine and cant wait to start, thats a sad little peak into my life. I had the opportunity to play some of the beta and have this much to say, they made the first few levels of 70-80 much more accessible with two different starting zones, also the death knight starting zone/quest line is some of the most fun you can have in an MMO style game.
Regarding WoW's most immediate competitor, Warhammer, I have not played WAR yet, because they don't offer trial subscriptions and I'm not gonna shell out cash to play something for a week and decide I dont like it. From what I've heard its almost entirely pvp balanced and focused, which WoW is not and that's what they are selling the game on: a fully realized pvp experience with a lackluster pve component. The reason why WoW is winning is that it can appeal to both audiences as well as the moderates. The hardcore pvper's already left for AoC and came back so now its something new for them to do.
FYI I'm almost wholly dedicated to pve content in warcraft (armory) primarily because I'm not that good at pvp and it would take up even more of my time.
on to consoles, 2 newish games that I've been playing on the sexbox360 include TigerWoods PGA '09 and The Force Unleashed.
Tiger woods is pretty much the only sports game I'll play. Its the best golf sim I've ever played and it looks fantastic. Granted there isn't a lot of playable content but its highly repeatable. The learning curve isn't too bad and theres tons of difficulty to add in as you get better at the game. That is not to say it is without fault however. While EA picked up a ton of liscences for the game and real courses, there are a few notable things missing, namely Pinehurst, Agusta National, and the trademarked majors (British Open, Masters, US Open). The FedEx cup is there but the feeling of epic golfy-ness seems missing. The most frustrating aspect of the game however is the camera. Occasionaly the camera will jump to the worst angle possible, or trees and shit is just in the way and you cant see anything. Seeing as in the easier difficulty modes you have some control over the ball when it lands, these shots are incredibly frustrating.
The Force unleashed had so much hype attached to it, and I dont think it lived up to expectations. The story was flawed and raised more cannonical questions than you can shake a stick at. it seems it was written for the audience that loved the prequals and loves to make connections between people that shouldn't exist, while other star wars games (namely KOTOR) were designed to be enjoyed by the true fans. That aside, the gameplay is fun, if not frustrating at times when IT WONT LET YOU MOVE AND KILLS YOU!! But thats a curse of most action "platformers" using that term loosely. Interesting to note is that I myself bugged out the game on 3 different occasions, which doesn't say much for the QC teams at lucasarts. For those of you going wtf KOTOR(1 and 2) had literally hundreds of little bugs, I'm not talking about a graphical glitch, I mean purpetually falling through a graphical glitch till you reset the game. Additionally Kotor is a 40+hour game with tons of content, I finished TFU in under 20 while exploring all the content I could find (and I looked), you would think they could have fixed some of those things? Maybe I'm being unfair, I dont exactly work in the gaming industry so take my comments with a grain of salt.
That is all for now
godspeed and good luck
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2 comments:
I purchased Warhammer with high expectations. I won't say that I was disappointed, but I will say that it made me miss WoW more than anything else.
Now, there are plenty of people who will disagree with me. But I quit and returned to WoW because it is simply a more mature universe. Warhammer has enough of a following that it may get to that point eventually.
I think the reason that the PvP/PvE blend WoW offers works so well (even on PvE servers) is that diversity keeps things interesting. Wow has a fairly deep crafting system, but Warhammer's is more complicated AND lacking in content.
WoW has fun world events and side quests (which Warhammer is rich in as well, but offers fewer silly goodies as rewards), as well as years of lore in which computer game fans have had experience, so there are lots of little throwbacks that people like me might pick up on (A lot of the hardcore Warhammer fans who would know the lore wouldn't play Warhammer online because it diverges too greatly from the experience of the tabletop game. For the most part, I'd agree.)
WoW's PvP servers also have the interesting dynamic of very real challenges while leveling and questing which cannot be replicated by AI mobs. Having to watch your back while questing and knowing how to deal with a dirty rogue trying to gank you is what has always made PvP servers fun for me. Warhammer captures this while leveling, but I fear that at endgame, because of the lack of raiding emphasis (and therefore the quest to do "work" to meet your goals), there will be less motivation to do things in the "real" world, and individuals will spend all of their time focusing on canned-pvp experiences. Again, this is perhaps a unique perspective in that I enjoy WoW world PvP much more than most, especially on the receiving end of things.
Also, I lagged horribly in Warhmmer. I know they can overcome technical issues like that, but I spent a month trying to play a healing class in PvP without actually being able to get most of my heals off. It didn't help.
Ultimately, I decided I would stick it out in WoW, and I'm incredibly excited for this upcoming expansion as well.
"WoW has fun world events"
It's as if my comment summoned the plague itself!
http://ratchethead.net/zombies/
What a fun event!
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