I mean, Warcraft.

First off, Age of Conan takes itself way too seriously. Sure, you get to chop off heads and taunt your victims while headbutting them in the face as they splash you with their blood. You also get to see boobies and cavort with whores and thieves. Yet, after a few levels of broken quests and memory leaks which crash you to desktop, the cool stuff is drastically overshadowed.

I would argue even, that the graphics try to be too good, constantly bogging down a decent system. A lot of my friends would have needed to spend mucho money upgrading their rigs to see the game at its full glory or even make it playable with frustration levels hovering around 5-8 FPS. Mind you, the world is absolutely beautiful if you’ve got the equipment to display it. With DX10 support coming soon, gamers who spend the money to upgrade to cards supporting the feature will probably be blown away.

It’s just a shame that the other 90 percent of the player base won’t ever get to see that except through screen shots.

Another thing not helping Age of Conan, is the art of the armor and weapons. Most people who play MMO’s take pride in beating a particularly hard boss for the loot. You can imagine the disappointment when you’ve reached the level cap of 80 and you still look like you shop at the Salvation Army. Frankly the NPC’s have better looking gear.

Earning money in the game is extremely hard to do as well, level 1-40. When AoC first launched, to purchase a mount at level 40, you needed a total of 3 gold. I was very well frustrated to find that despite the small and expensive bag space, no amount of selling vendor trash was going to get me a much needed horse. The zones are huge. At level 40, I had approximately 50 silver to my name.

They’ve since lowered the price of the mount to 75 silver, but I’m sure the riding book is still 2 gold. Unless they adjust the prices of vendor trash, one will need to be creative in obtaining enough gold to do anything. While the economy in the auction house was trying to settle, I took advantage of buying leather low and selling it for a profit.

I hate doing that. It’s such a waste of time.

Not to mention, once you hit 50, gold production is drastically increased, but at that point, it just sits in your bag. There is absolutely nothing to spend it on.

The good things going for Age of Conan are few, but they do exist. The combat system is beyond a doubt one of the best I’ve had the privilege to play. It’s not a one button click-fest. While most MMO’s depend on group strategy when working together, success hinges on the actions of each player, whether soloing an instance or working together in a group.

Speaking of solo instances, this is another feature that really shines in AoC. You can immerse yourself into your own little world away from guilds or parties while fighting instances specifically designed for a solo player. It fully enables the gamer to level up when the multi-player situation is too much, or not enough.

I do feel abit cheated now that I look back. AoC was released for mass consumption too early IMO and it seems that Funcom expected the player base to pay for a beta. With the impending (and now delayed) release of Warhammer, I’m sure they felt a product in any state would be a significant advantage over their newest competitor. The cool factor drew most of us in, but after escaping the first zone at level 20, there were significant problems waiting for us. In some cases, unforgivable problems that really minimized enjoyment of the game.

Lack of customer service added to the problem, and while the subscription service was easy enough to navigate, any in-game issues were for a good part ignored, due to lack of agents and GMs. If you do not have the infrastructure to handle a big player base, you shouldn’t really be in the MMO business.

I’ve since cancelled my monthly subscription and from what I’ve read, a lot of others have done the same. I was going to sit on my hands or finish playing CoD4, but instead was convinced to go back to World of Warcraft after a two year hiatus.

So far, it’s been nothing but fun.

Tomorrow, I will discuss the pros and very little cons that make up the biggest MMO in gaming history; World of Warcraft.

*warning contains spoilers of the video game*

I finished Bioshock last night at 2 a.m. My initial thoughts relative to the game are these:

a.) While I was happy with most of the game mechanics and overall story, I was terribly disappointed with the ending fight.
b.) This is one of those games that you don’t play in the dark.
c.) Barring a few fixes with the main themes of the game, Bioshock 2 (if there is one) should be amazing, although the “good ending” of the game, leaves little room for a sequel.

The world is beautiful, mysterious and deadly. A very wealthy man decides he has no room for traditional government any longer and builds an Anarchist’s paradise below the sea. Although the game is supposed to take place in the 1950’s, the scenery is rich in color and reminiscent of decor and art of the 1920’s and 1930’s where sin and sex was rampant and society balked at the idea of prohibition.  

The opening scene is a suspicious plane crash that has you swimming towards an odd looking oasis in the middle of the night. Instead of looking for a radio or some way to call for help, you get in an odd contraption which takes you to the bottom of the sea.

As you exit your submarine into ruined darkness of what used to be called “Rapture”; angry and bitter masked monstrosities greet your path and must be taken down.  You find out that freedom from normal top-side rules allowed doctors to practice their craft and manipulate the human body without consequence. From the first look, you realize that messing with DNA in such a way, has had disastrous consequences.  

Through radio communications with a man named Atlas, you are persuaded through various stories, that Andrew Ryan, the man who built this underwater city needs to be stopped. While welcoming those who would join in his paradise, he will not let anyone leave, branding them traitors.

After injecting yourself with a blue substance called an EVE hypo that just happens to be lying around, you find that you are now able to ingest colorful bottles called ‘plasmids’ that give you amazing powers. Through the game, you find and are often times given these abilities, some of which let you freeze your enemies, burn them, electrocute, send a swarm of insects, and/or wrap them up in tornado winds. With the various weaponry you pick up through the game, you are suddenly a one man army. While I found the plasmid powers to be useful at some turns, I heavily relied on the tradition weapons given throughout the game; (i.e. pistol, crossbow, flame thrower). Ammo was constantly short, but I actually found the weaponry more effective against the inhabitants than your jacked-up DNA.

Atlas leads you through different parts of the city on the quest to dispatch Andrew Ryan, claiming that his family has been held in an submarine that is not being allowed to launch. Wanting to be the hero, I followed every single twist and turn, and hoped for my own survival in the process. Free the family=free myself from this hellhole.

As you can imagine, something goes terribly wrong with the launch and Andrew Ryan destroys the submarine holding Atlas’ family. In a heart breaking turn of events, you are sent running by Atlas, who’s shocked, mournful and angry voice tells you to get out of there and kill Ryan as revenge.

With little subplots that have you running from one end of the complex to the other in order to advance, there are definitely some well timed scares. The one that made me get up and walk away until I could control my heart again, was that I was rummaging through a desk looking for more blue syringes, and first aid packs, when I turned around and had a murderous doctor standing behind me with a large weapon. Had he been yelling as he approached would have been expected, but to turn the 1st person camera into a facade of quiet craziness, there was a split second where I think my heart actually stopped, until I fired my shotgun into his face.

The two other characters that ultimately dictate which ending of the two you’ll get at the game’s conclusion are the gargantuan “Big Daddies” (the mechanical diving suit-thingy on the Bioshock cover)  who protect red-eyed, genetically spliced little girls known as ”Little Sisters”. Once you dispatch those bodyguards, you have an option to harvest the little girl or to rescue her. Harvesting gives you more ADAM, which allows you to buy more plasmids or slots in which to hold your new powers, but ultimately kills the girl. Rescuing them, doesn’t give you nearly as much ADAM, but as I found out, tends to balance out in the end of the game.

Don’t listen to me though, I could be completely betraying you on this. You should really make up your own mind with what you want to do…you’ll certainly have alot of influence from the main players of the game.

While I’ll leave most of the plot points from here for anyone who hasn’t played it, I must say, that the end battle pretty much sucked. I found it easier to dispatch of the end villain than some of the ’splicers’ you meet throughout the game. While I thought it would be a bigger battle, or one that heavily relied on your plasmids, it really turns out to be a shooter in the end. In fact, had I used the plasmids through the battle, I probably wouldn’t have beaten the guy on the first try.

Regardless, I do think you should try the game. It does have some great cinematic game play, along with a great story. The only thing that it’s lacking is a decent balance on the shooter aspect at endgame.

3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

I finished Half Life 2: Episode 2. Using my free time, I worked my way through the first one, all the way to the end and boy, I really gotta tell you; it’s a wild ride from start to finish.

I don’t think I’ve been that scared in my life playing a video game. Between the head-crabbed zombies and the alien creatures called the Combine, it’s really crazy. Of course, I had to maximize the fear by turning off all the lights and wearing my noise cancelling headphones, which just make you feel like you’re actually in the game.

It’s so weird, when I’d play and had a huge battle scene, I’d get chills like every five minutes. I wonder if faced with real combat, I’d do the same. It must have been a fight or flight reaction that kept my adrenaline pumping and alert.

Regardless, if you haven’t tried out this game, I highly recommend it. It’s obviously for mature audiences only, and be prepared to be frustrated and exhilarated at the same time while playing. I may have one gift on my steam to give out, so if you’re interested, drop me a line and you might just get to play for free.

As if I didn’t have enough to do, I’ve revisited www.travian.com. It’s a webbased browser game in which you build a city from the ground up. Think Simcity but with less micromanaging. It’s quite addictive, and sometimes very frustrating as established cities try and raid you. I learned the hard way that it’s probably not a good idea to build troops in the early stages until you’ve upgraded your cranny. Also, joining an alliance is very helpful as they watch your back and will send reinforcements should you be attacked in your beginning stages.

Regardless, check it out. It’s free and it’s fun. Just keep your resource level under your cranny level in the beginning and you should do fine!

On Sunday when the kids went to bed, I broke out both Peggle and Portal. The games came with the Orange Box offered by Valve. Needless to say, I had a ton of fun with both games, and ended up beating each of them in one sitting.

Peggle took about 30 minutes, while the intense puzzle game, Portal, took about 3 hours. (I took breaks in between levels).

Along with Team Fortress 2, this is probably the best ’set’ of video games that I’ve ever bought. It’s well worth the money and Portal is so addicting that I keep going back to play it when I’ve nothing better to do.

As proof that I tell no tales, the game menu/entry screen changes when you beat it. It’s behind the cut if you want to see it, but be aware; it is a mild spoiler, so avoid if you like surprises. Also, the song at the end of the game, is well worth making your way through the 19 fun, surprising, intellectually challenging and sometimes insanely frustrating levels.

Read the rest of this entry »

So I finally caved under pressure and bought a Nintendo Wii. I have been having a lot of fun with the console, so much so, that I’ve been taking time away from my computer gaming at night once the kids are in bed.

If you are in the market, let me make a few things perfectly clear. The guys at Best Buy will try to sell you the following things:

1.) One Nintendo Wii console

2.) One Wii Play (which comes with an extra controller)

3.) One Wii Controller recharging station

4.) An extra Wii Nun chuck.

5.) The extra 2 year warranty

 6.) Various other assorted accessories.

Obviously you need #1.

The Wii Play is not as good as they promote it. “Oh, it’s got like, 8 extra games and it comes with a controller for just 20.00 more, instead of paying the 30.00!”

First of all most of the turn based games, you can share on one controller. Don’t spend the extra 50.00 on Wii Play. It’s not worth the controller. The only fun game in the entire thing is the shooting game. The cow racing game is highly amusing although it gets boring rather quickly.

Unless you are going to spring for Excite Truck or Mario Party 8 while you’re there, don’t even bother with the second controller until you’re ready. The Wii controller recharging station was a waste of money and I decided to bring it back. From what the sales guy said, I thought I’d be running out of batteries every day. We’ve had the Wii for over a month now, and haven’t changed the batteries once yet. Save the 30.00 bucks and just buy yourself batteries. It takes up less space, and probably less electricity!

I bought the 2 year product replacement plan, because I do have young kids. Instead of the 1 year manufacturer’s warranty that automatically comes with the console, Best Buy offers the 2 year warranty that runs concurrently. The significant benefit being that should the Wii break, I walk across the street and they hand me a new one. This includes the controller that comes with the console as well.

So seriously, if you’ve got a limited budget, but want to surprise the loved ones for an upcoming holiday; just get the console. It comes with Wii Sports, and a controller. If you can afford an extra 50.00, spend the money on Mario Party 8. Once you get the extra funds to afford another controller & nun chuck, it’ll be a much better option for you than Wii Play.

Avoid Wii Carnival at all costs unless you have smaller children. If you’re an adult, you’ll find the entire game tedious and boring.

If you’re an adult, Zelda Twilight Princess is teh bomb. I’ve never had to be that coordinated in my life, but I’m managing quite nicely. It’s a lot of fun to actually have to swing your hands for the sword or lock onto and select targets for the boomerang. I will tell you, if you’re not used to two handed play, either on a video game console or via your computer usage, there will be a little bit of a learning curve.

So in a nutshell, the Wii has been fun. The new Metroid will probably be my next purchase, a long with another game that the kids and I can all play.

After over a year of playing and getting my ass handed to me on a silver platter, I have never won a round of gun game, although I have come in second a few times. Today — was my lucky day.

Click on the picture for a bigger version and thanks Static, for having that capture key at the ready. It’s a great shot to boot!

Here is a nice stop motion vid that pays tribute to some of our most beloved video games of yore.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhbt9z4fkWo]