Completed: Bioshock 2

I finally finished the single-player for Bioshock 2 on Friday night. I have been able to play some of the multiplayer and it's not bad, it won't compete with Modern Warfare 2 but it was a pleasant surprise.

Right now all I can say is if I had a choice between Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2, ME2 hands down. It's not a good sign when I would rather play multiplayer instead of the single-player.

No gamepad for you!

I actually saw this last night on the Bioshock 2 message boards, and again this morning on EvilAvatar;

Hey guys,

I talked to the dev team about controller support for BioShock 2, and I want to let you know that we won’t be adding this into the game in a patch. The decision not to support the controller was not made lightly, and to add it now would take a complete re-envisioning of the UI that the team worked so hard to create.

I’m sorry for those of you who are disappointed, and I want you to know that your comments and concerns have been heard and will be taken in to account when we are planning in the future.

Thanks,

-Elizabeth

For the record, the controls for Bioshock 2 on the PC are better than the first game. With that said, they are still not great and it would have been nice if the PC version had support for a gamepad or wired Xbox controller.

The biggest complaint for me has to be the mouse controls; you use the left button for firing weapons and the right button for firing off plasmids, pretty standard stuff. The problem is that on screen your left hand is your plasmids and the right hand is your weapons, so the tendency is to press the wrong mouse button because you are reacting to what you see on the screen.

Another problem regarding the controls, they differ some between the multiplayer and the singleplayer. Cycling through your plasmids and weapons works great in multiplayer because you have a limited number to work with, but it's completely different on the singleplayer side and it's frustrating.

But all of these problems would be cured if there was controller support for the game. The sad truth about Bioshock 2 is it's a console port in every way but the controls.

My bit of nerd rage.

Do you ever listen to a podcast and suddenly go into instant nerd rage over something that is said, or a certain topic of discussion? I did today.

The host of the podcast was talking about Star Trek Online and about how the community is really good for that game and just ignore the forums because of all the hate for the game. For some reason I had this knee jerk reaction and about turned off my mp3 player because of it.

But after writing this post three different ways, I realized that it's really much ado about nothing. I think my reaction came from the bad taste in my mouth left by Champions Online, Cryptic's other MMO. I do think that the official forums for any MMO only tell part of the story of the overall health of the game. But I guess if you were to use that same logic with WoW then one would think that game should have been canned along time ago.

I guess the morale of the story is not to take everything so personal, it's just a podcast for goodness sakes.

Mass Effect 2 done!

Well 2010 is already shaping up to be a kick ass year for games, that is if the rest of the year has games like the last two I just played then it will. I am attempting to finish Batman Arkham Asylum for a third time on a third format and I just finished Mass Effect 2 for the PC.

In case anyone was wondering, Mass Effect 2 is freaking awesome!!

Arrrrrrrrrrr.....

According to the email I received last night, Pirates of the Burning Sea are closing all but two servers and I can transfer any and all characters that I may have on those particular servers that will be no more.

One would assume that server closures are a sign of how healthy a game is doing which might not be so good, just ask Warhammer Online and Star Wars Galaxies. Personally I think it's an indicator that a game does not have a healthy player base, just my opinion.

The nice thing is that I don't need to have an active account to transfer my one and only character and I am getting a free month of play time to decide if I made the correct server choice. A free month of play time, awesome.

I really enjoyed my limited time with PotBS during the middle of last year, but like a few other MMO's that I was playing, I cancelled my sub because of Champions Online and eventually Aion, both games I was reviewing.

The great thing is that I have been wanting to try this game out again, but have been unwilling to spend the money to reactivate my sub. SWG is also free this month for me so I can log in and see all the cool stuff they have released recently is about, and then log out bored!

It's all about the attributes.

It seems that lately I have been in a MMO funk; I don't have much desire to play the two I have subbed at the moment, a desire to play MMO's that I am not subbing for now and a realization that I wouldn't play them anyways.

I then began to wonder what it was in or with WoW that compelled me to play that game for over 2200+ hours according to Xfire. I have been using Raptr instead of Xfire now, but Raptr pulled over all my games with time played when I signed up, nice! Here's something I didn't know till I looked; out of the top 10 games I have registered time playing, 6 of them are MMO's. The game I have played the second most is Star Wars Galaxies with almost 990 hours played! I do know that amount would be higher if Xfire had been out when I began playing SWG years back.

But back on topic, I was wondering why I have played so much WoW and why are there all these other MMO's that are good but are just not grabbing my attention like the big one did at one point. A couple of weeks ago I came to the conclusion that it boils down to the skills and attributes.

Hopefully I can explain this as well as it sounded in my head! I have played so much WoW that I have a pretty good grasp of the attributes do and how they affect the various skills. In LOTRO for example, I have very little idea what the various attributes do and how they affect skills for combat or what to look for in armor and weapons. It's the same thing with EQ2, WAR and to a certain degree AoC.

I understand that this is a simplistic view and that there are other aspects to a MMO like combat, exploration, questing, crafting, etc. But when you think about it, attributes affect almost every aspect of a MMO. Age of Conan back at launch is a great example of a MMO that had attributes that had little affect or made little to no sense within the game.

So my thinking is what if I take the time to learn how the attributes work in LOTRO, how they affect my skills and learn to play my class. Goes without saying right? But it is something I have not done much of since the game launched. So if I learn the attributes, finding a build and learning the skills, maybe the game will be that much more interesting for me and I will renew my sub for another three months!

So my goal is to do just that with LOTRO, stay tuned!

Weekend Edition

Please excuse the lame title of the post, I couldn't come up with something more witty. I was thinking that in order to give myself some motivation to continue to write I would start posting something on Saturdays just before my 'weekend' officially starts. Which will be when I get off work after posting this!

I finished Batman Arkham Asylum on the PC late last night, now I just have to finish finding some things and complete the challenges so I can get more achievements to add to my gamerscore. Batman is an awesome game, and it's best on the PC hands down. I have finished the game on the PS3, the PC and at some point I might play it on the Xbox 360, it's just that good.

The game I will be playing most this weekend will be Mass Effect 2. Bioshock 2 will release on Feb. 9th, so there's no need to rush through ME2 this weekend, but I wouldn't mind getting a big chunk of the game finished.

I haven't played WoW or LOTRO in almost two weeks and have been contemplating just un-subbing to both. I renewed my account so I could go play with the Casualties of War group in WoW and LOTRO is a game I should love and play more of, but just haven't. Really what it boils down to is time, I find it's being sucked up by non-MMO games, and it's only going to get worse in the coming weeks. Maybe I will just have one MMO sub, or buy a lifetime membership to LOTRO.

I have been thinking about giving EQ2 another go for what seems like the hundredth time already. I bought the game at launch, so I have a huge number of vet rewards that I haven't claimed, but I also bought the Echoes of Faydwer and Shadow Odyssey all-in-one compilations at one point and was thinking of pre-ordering Sentinels Fate. I see two problems though; if I haven't stuck with EQ2 after the countless times playing, why would I now. And, would it even be necessary to purchase the new expansion when my highest character is something around level 25. Something to think about.

Speaking of Batman, I think I have finally figured out the secrets to the freeflow combat. I need to do a little more testing this weekend, but I think I might share my thoughts on it at some point.

Well that's it for this way to long post, hope every one is enjoying their weekend, mine starts in a few minutes!

A few Mass Effect thoughts.

I really wish I wouldn't claim a game is awesome after just a few short hours of play, cause inevitably there is something that starts to ruin the whole experience for me. So here are just a few random thoughts about ME2 before I go to bed.

Why have squad commands if my squad is not going to carry them out. Sure, there are only three commands, but for what ever reason the AI seems to think my commands are more like a suggestion that they will take under advisement. So far commanding a squad is utter crap.

Weapons still use Mass Effect for ammo, but to keep them from overheating I need to use 'Thermal Clips' now. For those who don't know in ME1 weapons would overheat. So let's assume that gamers are idiots and that they will never now that thermal clips are really just ammo, that must be what Bioware was thinking when they thought that this was a great idea. I find that I am spending way too much time worried about running out of thermal/ammo clips, a needless distraction.

These are just my initial thoughts for now, hopefully tomorrow night will not be as frustrating as tonight has been. I still like the game and I am very interested in the story, but it's not as awesome tonight as it was a few nights ago.

Steering clear for now.

Cryptic just can't seem to catch a break can they. First they have a brouhaha with Champions Online with regards to the lifetime subs and a day one patch, then there is the skill cap issue with Star Trek Online. But tonight I read that the player base is up in arms because the next significant content release will require a payment.

Frankly I think that Cryptic deserves all the heat they are receiving. Not for this most recent mess, but for the way management has handled both games. To be fair the new paid update has no price yet and no one knows for sure just how much content there will be. But it is hard not to get upset I think at something like this.

For now I think I am going to steer clear of anything Cryptic for awhile.

Arkham never looked so good!

Turns out that Batman Arkham Asylum was one of the best game purchases I have ever made because the game is awesome! There's not much more that I can say about the game that hasn't already been said, but I will try.

The game takes place all in one night on Arkham Island where the asylum is located. With a little help the Joker has managed to free himself and taken over the asylum. You as Batman trek around the island trying to figure out what the Joker is planning and capture him before he does it.

The two gameplay features most talked about in the game are the Detective mode and the Freeflowing combat. In detective mode Batman can follow footprints, hand prints, find secret locations and even see enemies through walls and floors. The only downside is that there is no penalty for using detective mode the entire play through, which can make the game seem too easy at times.

The freeflowing combat is awesome, it's just a tad difficult to explain. Essentially you can begin attacking one goon and by moving the analog stick towards another enemy you will continue attacking and if done right it will be one smooth flowing combo attack. The freeflowing combat system is revolutionary and I hope at some time we will get some type of martial arts fighting game that will utilize it!

I have only two complaints about the game; Batman's sluggish combat animations and the camera during combat. It would seem that the more enemies that Batman has to face, the slower the animations get when attacking or trying to counter-attack. The camera wants to constantly be at Batman's back, which makes fighting large groups of goons a chore at times, especially if fighting in a small confined area.

I played and finished Batman on the PS3 about a week ago. The game plays great and doesn't look too bad, but I had this overwhelming desire to play it on the PC. After downloading the demo and playing for maybe ten minutes, I immediately purchased the game on Steam, and it has been worth it even though I finished it on another platform.

If you have a wired Xbox 360 controller and a decent PC, do yourself a favor and pick up Arkham Asylum on the PC, you will not be disappointed. The game looks so much better than the console version. I have my resolution set to 1920x1200 with all settings maxed and with no AA, and it runs very smooth. You will get the occasional hitching at times, but it's almost like night and day when compared to the PS3 version.

For those who have Nvidia 9800 or better video cards will also be in for a treat, Batman uses PhysX. So random debris on the ground like leaves, papers or rocks will be kicked up when Batman walks or runs around. I think it's great and really adds to the game.

Batman Arkham Asylum is fantastic. It's easily one of my favorite games and would have been my personal game of the year hands down if I had played it last year.

Mass Effect 2 time.

I sit here writing this, waiting in anticipation to fire up Mass Effect 2. I have had all day to think on this moment and what it will mean to my gaming time. I also had some time to think about the few games that are upcoming in both February and March, and what I have concluded is that I may just have to unsub both my MMO's till further notice.

Right now I have a sub to LOTRO and WoW, and in both I have logged in maybe once or twice in the past three weeks thanks to Batman Arkham Asylum. So I have Mass Effect 2 now, Bioshock 2 in less than two weeks, Battlefield Bad Company in March along with the new Dawn of War expansion, and I am sure I am forgetting a game or two in there, but you get the picture.

So do I go MMO-less for one of the very rare times since becoming a MMO gamer, or do I just pick one and use my time wisely? What about the fact that I have been tempted to try out EQ2 or AoC again, or maybe a f2p one like DDO? I guess life could be worse, I could be in a position to not be able to make any choices right?!?

Gamefly thus far.

When I bought my PS3 at Christmas, a thought came to me and it was this; now that I have a PS3, a Xbox 360 and of course my PC, my game purchases are going to get quite expensive. So I thought 'hey, why not give Gamefly another try and just rent games for the PS3 and 360 and save me a bit of money'. And of I approved of the idea.

So far I have been sent three games from Gamefly; Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, Lord of the Rings Conquest and now Resistance 2. Uncharted was the first game on my list, but Conquest was not second and I did not want Resistance 2 before I had a chance to play the first one. My guess is that Darksiders and Bayonetta, numbers two and three on my list, are not available and so I am getting a game that has the most availability on my list. So why not send Assassin's Creed 2, or the first Resistance, or even Prototype which were all higher on the list?

Uncharted is a good game, but a frustrating one for me. My first thought after completing the game was how come everyone loves this game so much. I guess I had a preconceived idea of what the game might be like and it was just not that. Good game, but I do hope the second one wow's me like it's suppose to.

Lord of the Rings Conquest; if a developer crapped on a disc and then stuck it in a PS3, this is what you would get. The game looks awful, the controls are terrible and it plays like garbage.

That leads us to Resistance 2. And after a couple of hours I can honestly say that it stinks so far. The action is not bad, the aiming controls a bit on the loose side, but the game looks bad so far and it just seems kind of boring. I think I will keep it over the weekend and see if it gets better for me.

Honestly if it wasn't for Batman Arkham Asylum, I would be thinking that my investment in a PS3 was a bad one so far. There are a slew of good games being released starting next Tuesday with Mass Effect 2 so my time management skills are going to be put to the test.

Reader is full.

Not really, but there sure were a lot of blog posts that I needed to catch up on, 129 to be exact. I try to not let it get so out of hand, but I took a couple of extra days off and spent most of the time playing Batman on the PS3. Normally I will do some blog reading and maybe the occasional post from home, but I tend to do most of it while at work when in the office. Oh well, catching up will give me something to do in the office for the next few days!

I belong in Arkham.

I have been spending a lot of time playing Batman Arkham Asylum for the PS3 over the past week, and it's unfortunate that such an awesome game has such a crappy end boss fight. Truth be told I have no idea if you fight the Joker, cause I can't even get passed the battle with the two Titans and the mass amount of cannon fodder soldiers that jump in to help.

The combat has been the best part of the game thus far, but it does tend to get frustrating. The combat is really well done, but it rewards patience and timing, so when I screw up and lose my combo meter because of a bit of button mashing, it gets frustrating.

Because of the enclosed confines of the last fight, the camera takes a dump on you and the controls seem to decided to that you need to move as if you are walking in a swamp. So about half-hour, forty-five minutes later I am no closer to getting my hands on the Joker than I was when I started playing tonight. And for that I am frustrated.

STO first impression.

Well, I will start by saying that STO is not the complete failure that I thought it would be. So does that mean it's great, by no means. I have only played maybe an hour and just got myself through the tutorial and into the space station that orbits earth so far. STO is not Champions Online is space, but it does have some similarities, specially in the user interface and menu options.

My first impressions of the ground combat; it's ok. I like that there is sprint and a sprint meter, but the aim mode made little sense to me and it combat itself was very reminiscent of Champions Online.

My first impressions of the space combat; it's the strongest aspect of STO and a whole lot of fun. The space combat is what I was most interested in and also was curious if it was like the ship combat in Pirates of the Burning Sea. I would say that the only similarities between the two would be you have firing arcs and you fight in ships, and they are both fun. Space adds a whole new dimension to the combat because you can attack and be attacked from above or below your ship.

I did have fun in my first hour of playing and I felt like I was in the Star Trek world, which is a good thing. Yes there are some issues, it is still in beta, but I am looking forward to getting home and doing some more space content after the football games!

Who's not playing? Me that's who!

For those living under a rock or that just don't care about MMO's, Star Trek Online began its open beta play. Or what I like to call the 'come try our game free for two weeks before we screw it up!' time. Let's just hope that won't be the case this time around like it was for Cryptic's last game Champions Online.

Maybe I'm just being too harsh, or maybe it's because in a 24hr time span I have only downloaded around 1gb of the beta client. To be fair it would seem that everyone and their mother is trying to download this beta as well. But the performance of the fileplanet downloader has been down right atrocious.

I honestly don't know what time the client began to download, but I do know that the downloader said I had a 38 min wait till my download started, which is the same amount of time it said nearly five hours earlier.

It's frustrating but should have been expected really, seems like there are more than a few out there interested in this one.

Spring 2011

It appears that the wait is over, Star Wars: The Old Republic has finally almost sort of gotten a release date/window. Shacknews has an article about the recent announcement and Bioware has said it is targeting Spring 2011 for release.

So that means that the rest of 2010 will be spent playing every MMO I can to get them out of my system once and for all. I figure that my excitement and eager for TOR will be so great by then that I will not even think about another MMO for awhile, so might as well play as many as I can now!

Actually I may just stop playing MMO's all together this year, but that's a topic for another time.

Some added thoughts...

My last post I talk about not wanting to get over the NGE, but in my attempt to finish the post so I could finish some work so I could go home early, I forgot to mention a few things.

I don't want anyone to think that I am trying to tell them not to play SWG; if you are playing and having fun, then more power to you, I know I wouldn't. I also don't plan to keep beating this dead horse even more, it was just a thought that came to my mind and I thought I would share it.

A friend of mine who loved SWG before the NGE explained it in simple terms when I asked him why he was still playing, 'I try to forget that there was anything before the NGE cause it is never going to go away'.

I will not get over it...just yet.

I've had some ideas for topics for blogging just sitting in my head and percolating for probably a month or so. One of those ideas came from a comment on the MMO Voices podcast I was listening to a few weeks ago.

Some how the topic turned to how SOE added a map to EQ and there was some outrage from the player base at the time. I don't know that from personal experience, but the host Jeremy seems pretty knowledgeable about EQ, so I will take his word on it. The co-host Cindy makes a comment that when something new happens in games, gamers will freak out, and wouldn't you know it the NGE for Star Wars Galaxies comes up briefly.

The comment in question comes from the co-host Cindy; she says that in everything in life there is a time to grieve and a time to move the hell on, and that we should just get over it. I just want to know why I have to get over it, and what is it that I am having to get over?

The answer to that question is simple really, it's the NGE. The NGE came, Galaxies is never going to go back to the pre-NGE days, so that is what I have to get over and why. But I don't really want to. It's not a matter of being angry anymore, those days are long gone. Now when ever I think of SWG, I have a strange combination of sadness, pity and indigestion.

I won't lie, I do hope that The Old Republic crushes the life out of SWG. But just as much as a current SWG player is tired of hearing the complaints about the old days, I am just as tired of being told to get over it.

My new Zune.

I recently found myself in need of a new MP3 player. So today I hit up the local Fry's Electronics and found myself a refurbished 4gb Zune. It's one of the older models so it wasn't very expensive at all but it was a nice upgrade from the iRiver that I was using.

The Zune marketplace software has few settings and a bit of a learning curve, but I am very pleased with it thus far. iTunes I believe is probably more user friendly, but I just can't stand all the other crap that Apple makes you download and install just to use the iTunes software.

For the record I am not an Apple fan, never have been and never will. But after just one night of messing around with my new Zune, I am interested in just how cool an iPod Touch would be. The only hang up for me is the software.

EDIT: Apparently I forgot to put a title on this post, oops. Fixed.

No more Aion

It might have been a few months ago, I don't remember off the top of my head, but there was a rash of player accounts being compromised in Guild Wars. Having had my WoW account hacked in the past I felt sympathy for those players, but didn't think much more about it.

A few weeks ago I thought about checking to see how much more play time I had for Aion because I was interested in trying out the recent patch and if it made the game fun. But for some reason I was unable to log into my PlayNC account. The message that I received said either password/user id was wrong or the site was under going maintenance.

I didn't think anything of it till today while reading an article on Massively about how Aion players have been having issues with accounts too. You can read the article here if interested. I suddenly remembered my failed attempts to log into my master account a few weeks ago so I thought I would give it another try today.

And wouldn't you know it, I think my account has been compromised. I was unable to log in and I could not retrieve my password. I'm disappointed about my account being hacked, but maybe someone got some enjoyment out of the game at least, cause I really wasn't.

A look back, a reflection and a 200th blog post oh my!

It's hard to imagine that this is my 200th blog post and also my last for this year. I have spent the better part of a week wondering what I was going to do and say for this occasion; was it going to be something thought provoking, tear jerking, or just to say 'Hey, it's my 200th post, yay me!'.

If there is one thing I have learned from the blogging community over the year, it's that it takes just one blogger's thought inducing post to start a spark amongst other bloggers to share thier thoughts on the same subject. While browsing through my reader I came across Petter's end of the year post, and as he says any self-respecting blog needs a year end summary post, and thus came my inspiration for my 200th post.

BTW, if you are looking for an unbiased non-angry vets view of Star Wars: Galaxies, give Petter's summary of the game a read, it's quite good.

Let me start by stating that I remembered little about what I was playing, what I had written about or what I was thinking till I started looking back on the posts from the year. I will try to not bore you with every little detail, but instead just point out a few highlights from the year, hope you enjoy.

The beginning of the year started with me cancelling WAR and playing WoW while waiting for my copy of LOTRO Mines of Moria to arrive in the mail. I kind of laughed when I read my first post of the year and reading my plans to go back to WAR eventually, something I haven't done yet and still think about to this day.

WoW became almost a seven month thing for me with some single player games like FEAR 2, Dawn of War II and Sins of a Solar Empire thrown in. And of course there was the occasional giving LOTRO another try.

By the time May had come around I was laid up with a broken foot that should have had surgery on it and was so burnt out from helping a friend with his website and had little energy left for blogging.

Of course the gaming didn't stop; in fact I remember vividly having mutliple MMO subs going just trying to find one that would grab my attention for longer than a few days. In June I had cancelled my WoW account and haven't looked back since and by the time I returned to work in July I was playing Age of Conan along with various other non-mmo games.

Thanks to Ysharros I discovered something called Google Reader, and my blog reading became easier and more frequent, as did my blog posting. For the months of August, September and October I would post over twenty times each month, something I hadn't done before.

In that three month time I wrote about my exploits in AoC, my adventures in Champions Online and subsequent review, a game review for for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Risen. I also talked about my fun times in Aion, the family trip to Disneyland, some hockey tidbits, and of course my hatred for Activision and my displeasure with Modern Warfare 2. Oh yeah, another post about why I should play WAR, but still am not for some reason.

Novemeber and December not only brought on the Holidays, but a slowing down of the blog posts as well. Not a bad thing really, I don't think I could have continued making stuff up on a daily basis. In those two months I had an Aion review, some LOTRO talk, the blog being Multiplaying.net's site of the week, and of course more Modern Warfare 2 hatred.

It has been an interesting year; my game playing has been all over the place and I feel that my writing has gotten somewhat better too. My reader has grown to large proportions and I still enjoy reading, the site also went through a face lift and I have met some really great bloggers.

Now that I have a Xbox 360 and a Playstation 3, I find that I have less time for MMO's so chances are I am sticking to one paid subscription, but that won't stop me from going back to games like AoC or WAR I'm sure. For the new year I am looking forward to a whole lot of game playing on the PS3 and of course Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Well, that's about it for the year in review, I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Years. And thank you to all those who have put my merger blog in their blogroll and to those who took the time to not only read but post as well!

Happy Holidays!

I know I haven't posted much this month, but once the holidays are over I hope to get back into writing more, cause I need all the practice I can get!

But regardless, I wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays and hope all is well!!!

1.1.2

Just for the record, Vol. 1, Book 1, Chapter 2: Breeders of the Dead is NOT a solo quest, even if the quest log says so. As a level 33 Warden I am having a crap hard time just trying to finish this quest. I can deal with tough, I can deal with challenge, I cannot deal with a supposed solo quest being designed for a group.

Decision time.

With am increasing desire to play my Xbox 360, eagerly waiting to get my PS3, playing more Modern Warfare 2 than I wanted to with some friends and enjoying LOTRO, I am just not sure if I want or can manage my time for two MMO's.

There is a new patch for Fallen Earth today and I plan to play at least some of the game at some point. But my sub renews sometime in the early morning tomorrow so I need to decide if I am going to realistically play more than a few hours this next month or not.

Lost in Everquest 2

And when I say lost I don't mean that suddenly all I can play is EQ2, I mean that I am literally lost when I log in. I haven't played EQ2 since June so I have no idea what I was doing, where I am and what I am to do. This would be my one and only complaint about EQ2, it is very overwhelming because of it's plethora of content. At least it's overwhelming for me.

I had forgotten that I had so many characters and that my highest actually made it to level 28. It's hard to believe that my account was created a couple of weeks after launch, and the highest level I have made is 28. But none of these characters are from that long ago, I deleted them after on of the GU's, not sure which.

Because I am terrible with my spare time I think that two MMO's are the most I can run at any one time. I just recently paid for a six month sub for LOTRO, so I am locked into that for awhile, but I don't know if having two fantasy MMO's is a good idea. I could see myself playing EQ2, there is a lot to do, but I wonder if I will burn out on the fantasy setting. There's always the Station Access which would allow me to play Pirates of the Burning Sea so that might be something I look into.

But if anyone playing EQ2 has any hints and tips to help with the overwhelmingness, if that's even a word, then I am all ears.

Lord of the RIngs skirmish initial thoughts.

Most I'm sure are aware that Siege of Mirkwood for Lord of the Rings Online released on Dec. 1st. But because of my addiction to Dragon Age, I haven't tried the new skirmishes that came with SoM.

So today I played the tutorial and then ran two skirmishes of the only skirmish I had available, Siege of Gondamon. I will be honest, I did not have much fun the first time I played the skirmish and I learned that I am the worst Warden on Landroval.

After my first successful but not so fun skirmish I did find out how to change my soldier to a herbalist and equip talents for her. And what a difference having a healer made for my second play through, now I was having fun! But I did change the level from 32 down to 30 so I could at least have a chance to learn how to play my Warden in a skirmish.

But it's true, I am the worst Warden on my server. I felt so lost and confused most of the time, so I am glad to have the skirmishes to use as a way to learn how to tank. I did however almost make a full level in my two skirmishes and accumulate a nice repair bill too!

Brendon Witt 1, Moving Vehicle 0!

Being a hockey fan I like the read hockey news, so it should be no surprise that this article caught my eye. The short version; Brendon Witt was struck by a SUV while going to Starbucks. He then claimed that he was ok and went on to play 17 minutes in a losing hockey game that night. There is a bit more to the story than that, but you get the idea. All I can say is Brendan Witt is all that is man, cause I would be looking to take a few days off of work if I was hit by a SUV.

Dragon Age finished!

Well I lied, I didn't play any LOTRO or Fallen Earth on Monday. Instead I played a load of Dragon Age and late last night, early this morning I finally completed the game. Of course reinstalling windows and then installing DAO first didn't hurt either.

I don't need to tell anyone that DAO is an awesome rpg, but it is. And I would like to say that Oghren is the best party member due to his great personality.

But now that I have completed one of the better rpg's in recent memory, I suddenly find myself with a load of free time for anything. I must have clocked something around 100hrs total gameplay time with all my characters.

I will be getting a PS3 for Christmas, so I may just play loads of LOTRO till I am able to get my PS3 virgin hands on my new console!

Fallen Earth falling off the map.

I have been so enthralled with Dragon Age that I have left little time for myself to play anything else. One game the has really suffered from my lack of time is Fallen Earth. I'm not ready to give up on the game just yet, but I haven't missed the game which is not a good thing.

Part of my problem is that FE is so open that I feel a tad overwhelmed. Another problem for me is that crafting is such a large aspect of the game and I am not a crafter by nature, I am about combat, exploration and for some reason I have this fascination with resource gathering.

I really like the combat mechanics; switching from a combat stance to a none combat stance, the ability to play in a third person or first person perspective is nice. But the area that I am in with one character has been experiencing some lag during combat, so the mobs tend to warp around making ranged combat a pain. One thing I did do was remap my key bindings for switching weapons, and that has helped out a lot. But at times the combat feels like Star Wars Galaxies. That's just a personal observation, every player's experience might be different.

I like how involved the crafting is and love scavenging and gathering. But to me the crafting is the focus of the game and combat is a means to getting the necessary components for recipes. That's where I think I am having the biggest problem, cause I do myself a huge disservice if I don't do any crafting. Actually it's probably more of a requirement to do crafting in FE than it is in any other MMO, but I don't know that for sure.

So what this boils down to is that I am on the fence as to whether or not I am going to renew for another month in FE. With Dragon Age eating my time, Siege of Mirkwood now released and my overwhelming desire to play all things LOTRO and my possible tour in EQ2 to check out some of those new features, I just don't know if there is a place for FE. What I plan to do is not play anything Dragon Age on Monday, and use my day off to spend large blocks of time playing both FE and LOTRO.

What I really need it a beginners guide or a road map for some progression ideas and hints for FE. But in the end the only way to learn is to play right?

Sucked In.

It started off slowly. I would play a few hours here, a few hours there. But then it happened, I have become sucked into Dragon Age, unable to get away for very long to play anything else. One problem I am having is that I tend to jump between the different characters that I have, one for each origin.

My rogue has progressed the furthest of all the characters I have. He is has already convinced the Dalish and the Templar's to join the cause against the blight and is currently working his way through the Deep Roads in the hopes of getting the Dwarfs to commit as well.

There must be a lot more to do after this because I have barley finished a third of the game. The rogue has been played for almost thirty hours and that is with me skipping most of the side quests in each area.

But I will need to break away some because I have been neglecting Fallen Earth and that sub expires in the middle of the month and I need to spend some quality time with the game to see if I am going to be renewing for a third month. Also, the Siege of Mirkwood expansion will be released on Tuesday, along with it comes some new features and a few changes as well.

Happy Turkey Day!

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! I plan to watch the Raiders hopefully win against the Cowboys, hanging out with the family and going to my brothers new place. It will be a nice way to spend a paid day off.

Fallen Earth tidbits.

I haven't spent as much time with Fallen Earth as I would like to have, but so far I am enjoying the game. Ultimately it's the sandbox openness of the game that I really like, among a few other things. Alik on the MMO voices podcast said something to the effects of it's the feeling of being able to do anything you want without having to be lead by the hand from quest to quest.

But I do have one complaint, and that is the combat. I actually think the combat quite neat and can be fun if everything is running smoothly. I am experiencing a bit of frustration right now using the crossbow at close range because mobs have been warping some around my guy. The bigger problem is the clunky way to switch weapons. Instead of using a crossbow at close range I should be using a melee weapon, but's such a pain so switch weapons.

It's just a minor complaint and it's not enough to ruin the game for me.

Return to Middle Earth.

Recently Turbine had a welcome back week just this past week for LOTRO, so I decided to give the game a try, again. I have played LOTRO off and on since beta and for what ever reason the game just doesn't hold my attention for very long.

I suspect that the reason for my eventual lack of interest in the game comes from a few factors; the endless running around to get anywhere, a general lack of understanding of the combat at times and the repetitive nature of the none group quests.

Even so, I still had a feeling like I hadn't accomplished all I wanted to do in LOTRO. If you think about it, it's this nostalgia feeling, this sense of not accomplishing all that I could have that is the reason why I tend to jump from one MMO to another. It's hard sometimes to stop thinking that if only I had been more dedicated or used my time wisely that I could have accomplished more in a game. But regardless that's probably a topic for another day.

I have two characters that I play, a Champion and a Warden, both

on separate servers unfortunately. My Champion is my original character but the Warden is the one I have been playing most recently. My problem is that I don't play much and the Warden gambit system is such that I would end up spending endless amounts of time trying to refresh my memory of the many attacks.

I have been following Doc Holiday's blog for sometime now, and it's been such a reliable source of info for how to play my Warden. So what I did is print up a list of all the Warden gambits, arrange my hotkey bar like Doc does his and then write down all the gambits that I can currently use. The difference has been like night and day. No longer am I wasting time trying to remember gambits and trying to remember the combat, I now have my cheat sheet and I am playing more because I am having a lot of fun.

Knowing that the 18th was the last day to reactivate my account with a multi-month sub to get Siege of Mirkwood, I decided to do another three month sub. I noticed right after that I had to upgrade my account, and in doing so I ended up choosing another three month sub on top of the three I just done, meaning I now have a six month sub to LOTRO.

Oh well, six months at ten dollars a month sounds like a good deal to me. Maybe, just maybe I will get a character up to max level, would be nice.

Dub's Diatribe featured at Multiplaying.net

The good people at Multiplayer.net have featured yours truly as their site of the week. It's a great honor and a nice surprise. I know that I am no Syp, SynCaine or Tobold, nor do I aspire to be those guys, but I am really humbled when I am added to a blog roll or list, or in this case featured as site of the week. Thank you guys, I really appreciate it.

I would encourage everyone to check out the site and give a listen to their podcast, it's actually quite good.

Chaos Rising Dev Diary

This looks awesome. The corruption system with multiple endings is great, but my favorite part is the Space Hulk. Seems to me to be an homage to the awesome board game I would play with my buddies in high school.

Happy LOTRO time.

I just noticed that Xfire says that my most played game of the week is LOTRO at 7 hours. That is honestly amazing. I don't think I have played that much in a week since the game launched and possibly when I got Mines of Moria.

Since Turbine is having one of those come back and play free deals, I thought I would give it a try again and see if there was enough interest for me to resub and get Mirkwood. I am having some fun, and I was bummed that I wasn't able to play any last night, again very amazing.

Putting my Modern Warfare 2 disdain aside, I found this pretty funny. Seems gamers these days do not know the definition of boycott.

Enough said.

Finally a real PC review for Modern Warfare 2.

The early reviews of this game were conducted at a hotel under Activision's supervision, using the console version of the game. The launch party in New York featured the 360 version of the game. We were sent the Prestige Edition of the game the day of release for coverage. Very few people at the company seem to care that yes, there is a PC port of the game.

Well, we care, dammit. Call of Duty came from the PC gaming scene, and it was there that it was popularized. Yes, consoles are now the dominant form of gaming from a financial standpoint, but it's sad to see a game that has such a rich history on our favorite platform feel so neglected in its newest incarnation. The port of the single-player campaign is strong; the game looks, plays, and feels incredible on a capable gaming PC. The Special Ops missions are perfect if you're in the mood for a teeny-tiny LAN party (although of course you'll both need Steam accounts to play), but the multiplayer offerings feel like Infinity Ward is trying to cram a round peg into a square hole.

It's not what we're used to, it's not what we want, and the changes made to the online matchmaking set-up and lack of dedicated servers negatively change the online experience. It's just that simple.

There is no easy verdict here, but I'm going to say skip the PC version. Why? The single-player is over quickly. The Special Ops missions are great but there are better co-op games out there. The multiplayer is going to be huge on consoles, but on the PC it's just crippled. There is a lot of fun to be had here, but there are way better ways to spend your money, especially with the $60 price.

GamePlanet has a pretty good review of the PC version as well. These reviews confirm what I already felt, that the gameplay is awesome. The single player is fantastic and the Spec Ops mode sounds really great. But the gimped multiplayer kills the value for me personally and I don't feel that the game is worth the $60 price on the PC.

Aion Review

Well it's finally here, my Aion review. To summarize, I thought that Aion is not a bad game, in fact it's pretty solid; but not being able to experience the PvPvE till level 25 and the grinding gameplay was too much for me.

I could live with the level 25 requirement if the game didn't punish you for trying to get their. If the level grind isn't brutal enough for you then it's time to give Aion's crafting a try, uber brutal. I eventually swore off crafting because I could but upgrades faster than I could make them. It was amazing how much money I saved not trying to raise my crafting expertise a few points.

If it sounds like I hated the game, I did, at first. But once I gave up on the Assassin and went with the Chanter, things got much better for me.

Because I have to give the game a number, I gave it a 7/10, primarily for the grind and the lack of anything real unique in the game. If down the road NCSoft allows a free trail, I would recommend that everyone give it a try at least once, specially if you like WoW, WAR or EQ2.

I do have some free time left and I do want to try the new xp patch that came out after I started writing the review to see how much of a difference there is. But I don't miss playing the game, and not playing it has freed me up to play something like Borderlands which I do look forward to playing.

No more to say.

It has been brought to my attention that maybe I have been a little to negative in my posts towards Infinity Ward and Modern Warfare 2. Upon further reflection I would agree. Maybe I should have just focused one post about my displeasure and moved on.

Feature wise I am not happy with the use of IWNet which means a loss of dedicated servers and matches capped at 9v9. IWNet is a console style matchmaking service and if it's anything like it was on the Xbox then the host will always have the advantage because of lag.

My favorite servers to play on in Modern Warfare were 24 man and 32 man servers, so I can live with the 9v9, but why the console matchmaking service. I'm not interested in mods of console commands but the PC games that use P2P matchmaking generally fade away quickly because it stinks. Ask FEAR 2 or Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising how well there multiplayer is going on the PC.

But my biggest complaint is a personal one. It seems like years ago, but I was in a clan called {DRI}, we played Modern Warfare and even had a server. But as interest wained and real life called many of us went our separate ways. World at War did bring some of use back, but not for long. So I had hoped that MW2 would bring back some of the old {DRI} members, just like old times.

PC gaming will not die from a lack of interest alone, but from a lack of interest due to developers taking features that PC gamers have come to expect and substituting them for second rate console features.

It's not Steam.

Those few who have read the blog lately will know that I have been quite upset with Infinity Ward's handling of Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer. I feel that MW2 is nothing more than a console port and is a slap in the face to PC gamers.

So when I saw this article at Shacknews, I was both happy and confused at the same time. Basically Direct2Drive, Impulse and GamersGate are refusing to sell MW2 because it requires players to use Steamworks. But one rep went as far as calling the service a 'Trojan Horse' which I thought was odd.

I was happy because I want the game to fail on the PC market. At least at first so that IW will realize just how much we PC gamers do not like the console treatment of the games multiplayer. But after some thought, it would seem that those three digital distribution companies stand to loose out on a lot of money.

If anyone has bought a game off of Steam, then you have used Steamworks, it's not a 'Trojan Horse' like these three services would like people to think. I think that Steam is great, and is the main reason why I purchase games from them over the other digital distributors.

Now if these three companies were against MW2's console makeover, then I would support them 100%. But to me it appears that they are trying to capitalize on the growing discontant from PC gamers. To what end I do not know. I think it's a bad move on their part, they have the potential to lose out on a lot of money and I think this will just drive buyers over to Steam.

All I can now about this is thank you Infinity Ward, you have saved me sixty bucks!

Infinity Ward loves consoles, hates PC's.

I found this over at Evil Avatar:

Gamestop today hosted an online chat session with three Infinity Ward employees (including Mackey McCandlish & Ryan Lastimosa) concerning the soon to be released Modern Warfare 2.

Questions were fielded live by online users, and understandably there were numerous questions concerning features of the PC version in light of various controversies which have surfaced on the web lately.

A transcript of the session can be found on mygameclan.

Notable answers on answers to questions raised include:

there is no console command menu to tweak settings;

confirmation that there will be no modding;

confirmation that there will be no dedicated servers whatsoever;

• the ability to lean has been removed;
• there is no function to record matches;
• the largest matches will be limited to 9 v 9 players;
• IW.net will determine who should be the host player.

When directly asked if MW2 on PC was simply a port of the console version, Mackey responded "No, PC has custom stuff like mouse control, text chat in game, and graphics settings".

This just in; Dragon Age is awesome!

I have spent about four hours playing the PC version of Dragon Age, and it is sweet. The game is beautiful, there is a ton of voice acting and the combat it great. The best part for me is that Bioware has finally solved the camera issues that plagued both NWN and NWN2. The camera in NWN 2 was tolerable with some tinkering, but still a pain if trying to play from an off the shoulder camera angle. I figure that developing a console version at the same time helped.

My two complaints; trying to redeem my promo codes for my preorder was more than a pain, and there just is TOO much blood in the game. I am all for gore, but this is silly honestly.

The first pic is of me and dear ol' mother after a battle with some intruders, the second one is of my human warrior named Cypher.

It's Dragon Age Day!

If you didn't know, it's Dragon Age day! I pre-ordered mine from Steam last night, so it's ready for me to play. I am just sitting here in eager anticipation waiting to leave work, only a few more minutes...

Sid the Kid.

I have always been a fan of number 87 Sidney Crosby from the Pittsburgh Penguins, but I found this to be most impressive.

I honestly don't know how much of a fighter Zidlicky is, but I do know that superstars such as Crosby are not fighters and rarely if ever drop the gloves. Sometimes I wish the days of feuds would return, like back when the Redwings faced the Avalanche and it wasn't a matter of if but when the gloves would come off.

Just a bit of warning, this next video is long but you will get the idea pretty much right away, and there is a bit of foul language at the end from the song.

Risen Review

My review for Risen is finished. You can check it out here.

I was looking forward to this game, so I was really disappointed when it turned out to be a stinker.

Borderlands

I finally picked up Borderlands last night for the Xbox 360. It was tough for me to decide which platform to get it on, the PC or the Xbox. In the end I chose the Xbox version because I know how there will be some people who will play the game online. With the PC version I wasn't sure how the multiplayer was going to be handled and if people were going to play it.

My first impression; the game starts off a bit slow. You aren't doing much for the first half dozen levels and it seems things open up gradually.

I will admit that even after reading about the game and watching videos on it, it still wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. There is a slight ounce of reality injected into the combat. You will get the best accuracy when aiming down the barrel as opposed to shooting from the hip, and short controlled bursts more effective that trying to go full auto, which is a bad idea most of the time.

The controls for the vehicles are almost too responsive, I find myself over correcting a lot. I am also struggling with steering; the left thumbstick moves you forward and reverse, the right thumbstick controls left and right steering. My problem is that I want to just control the camera with the right stick and use the left stick for steering, kind of like when you are on foot.

Borderlands reminds me a bit like Too Human. Both games are combat focused, have limited rpg elements in the for of a skill tree, and you get tons of loot which I like. Too Human is more story driven and Borderlands seems more open with you getting odd jobs in between the story, which works for me because it fits the setting.

An hour into the game I was questioning my purchase, but after looking at the clock and realizing that I stayed up way too late playing, I came away from my first time with Borderlands happy. I look forward to trying out some online co-op at some point.

How to Make an Unsuccessful MMO.

For a small indie developer it would be to make a blatant copy of the most successful MMO to date, but make the game less fun, less interesting and broken. I am of course talking about Alganon.

I would like to direct your attention to That's a Terrible Idea first. Once done there I would suggest heading over to Eldergoth next. Both sites feature a preview from the beta of Alganon, and they echo my sentiments exactly. I was given the opportunity to play Alganon this week and do my own preview for the game as well.

Alganon is a terrible WoW clone. I'm not talking about taking ideas from WoW, it looks just like the game. The menus, the graphics, the interface, everything looks like an exact copy from Blizzards behemoth. What might be the worst sin of all is that Quest Online thinks they can fool gamers into paying $15 a month for this game. Alganon should be avoided at all costs.

Champions Online Blood Moon is Live!

The new Halloween event Blood Moon for Champions Online starts today. There's a pretty significant patch that not only includes the event but some other content and of course fixes and tweaks. I am not going to list the patch notes, you can read those here.

Not only is there the new Blood Moon event, but the new Celestial powerset can be unlocked early and all characters created before today will receive a free retcon. I am really pleased with the changes to the mission sharing and the addition of some level 18 content in Millennium City.

I think I will be playing some Champions tonight, I want to get that new powerset! In case anyone missed it, here is the trailer for the new Blood Moon event.

Assassin's Creed: Lineage

The first video in the new Assassin's Creed: Lineage miniseries is all kinds of awesome. I'm looking forward to the other parts to the miniseries, but more importantly I can't wait for Assassin's Creed II.

The blog.

I spent way too much time today updating the blog with a new template. It took a considerable amount of time to search for a template that would look right, and then try to edit the html to remove anything that I did not want on the blog. All I know is that my html-fu is very rusty, but in the end I happy with the way things look now.

Blogger blues.

Earlier tonight I was messing around with some custom templates for the blog because I would like more space for the posts so I don't have to fiddle with the video sizes, and I thought a change would be nice too.

But what I didn't realise and I just noticed is that I am now missing my blog roll widget. Not sure how it happened, but it did. There were these warnings that popped up when I uploaded templates, but I ignored them, oh well. No time like the present to change things up right?

I don't pretend to imagine that I have a ton of readers, but I do like to link to blogs that I like to check out on a daily basis. So hopefully tomorrow I will have a new template up and get the blog roll fixed!

Can you say Knuckle Puck!

How would feel if you were this guy? Not good I would think.

Busy weekend.

Things are going to a bit busy for me this weekend. The wife has to work both Sat & Sun, I have a review of Risen that I need to type up, doing a preview of Alganon, and on top of that I want to play some Aion and Fallen Earth, and maybe a bit of Champions Online.

I was just browsing Gamerankings.com at how Risen has fared, and I noticed something; the PC version has an average score of 80% and the Xbox 360 version, not released in the US, has an average score of almost 59%. As far as I know they are the same game, so why such a wide spread in scores. I really can't explain it, maybe hardcore rpg's are loved on the PC regardless of faults and not so much on a console.

More Modern Warfare talk.

1up has posted a article trying to explain what has the PC gaming community up in arms about Modern Warfare 2's lack of dedicated servers. For those interested, you can read it here.

I would like to quote the last part of the article:

"Whether Infinity Ward caves in and provides server browsing support at a later time remains to be seen, but for the time being, they seem to be sticking by their guns. And rightfully so -- no one has actually seen IWNet in action, so it'll be interesting to see if the hardcore crowd's fears are alleviated when Modern Warfare 2 is released."

As far as I can tell, no one has seen how IWNet works. But the description of IWNet would make one believe that MW2 is adopting the console matchmaking service. What would be great is if Infinity Ward would produce some sort of video that explained and demonstrated in detail what IWNet will be like for the PC gamer.

But in the end this IWNet is probably what us PC gamers believe it to be, a console port. Really what it boils down to is that Activision wants us to pay now for DLC just like the console crowd does, no more freebies like we have grown used to over the years. Infinity Ward can say it's about ease of use, about keeping cheaters out of the game or trying to stop piracy, but really it's about money.

I think I will just buy Activision games used from Gamestop, that way the developers and Activision will not recieve any of my money!

Finally!

It has finally happened. I am finally having some fun in Aion, and it only took about 45 hrs to do so. Basically I decided to give up on the Assassin and play a Chanter, and so far it has been the best decision since I started playing.

I played a Scout in closed beta and went Ranger instead of Assassin when the time came to choose. The Ranger wasn't bad but I wanted to try something different so that's why this time I chose the Assassin. I should have known the headaches that I was going to have because Scout became a huge pain to level up to 10 once the game was released. But I stuck with it and it's been anything but fun.

I have actually leveled all four archetype classes to 10 where you get you ascension quest and then choose your secondary class. If this sounds familiar, then you probably have played EQ2 back at launch. Of the four I would say that the Warrior was the strongest in the ten level tutorial and the Scout was the worst. The Mage and Priest fall somewhere in between, but both were pretty strong too.

Of the eight secondary classes I have yet to play the Cleric and the Spiritmaster. The Clereic would be the dedicated healing class and the Spiritmaster is a mage with a pet, and a stupid look pet.

The Chanter is a priest class and would be secondary healers. They could be compared to the Paladin in WoW, the Bard in DAoC, or better, the Warrior Priest in WAR. The Chanter is a melee class that has a decent heal and heal-over-time, but it's the Mantra's that make Chanters useful in groups.

Needless to say, I am having fun, the game finally feels a bit less like a grind, and I am living longer.

Response to Modern Warfare 2 for PC

It appears that Infinity Ward is aware of the outcry from the PC gaming community over the recent announcement or about Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer. FourTwoZero has a post with information on the new IWNET, how it works and why it will be better. You can read it here.

Now that you've read it, I would like to say that it sounds an awful lot like how multiplayer matchmaking is handled on a console. Rainbow Six Vegas 2, FEAR 2, OFP: Dragon Rising; these are a few of the shooters that I have that I can name off the top of my head that have similar matchmaking multiplayer and they all blow to play on the PC. The model seems to work great on the console, which I like when playing on the Xbox, but not on the PC.

I do like that the friends list that was introduced in World At War is coming to MW2, but that's about it. Which is unfortunate because I was really looking forward to getting this, but the increased price plus the crappy matchmaking has convinced me to scratch this off my list for now.

Activision screws PC gamers.

Before I say anything, I will direct your attention to the Joystiq article that I read about some not so great news about Modern Warfare 2.

The article itself is not very long, but the news alone is enough to make any PC gamer upset. So MW2 will not have dedicated servers like past CoD PC games did and instead immolate the console peer-to-peer model that does not work worth the damn on the PC.

If that wasn't enough, Activision has decided that the PC community has been treated way well so now we as PC gamers must now pay for DLC and the game will have a $59.99 price point as well.

I can understand paying for DLC, I have done it for a few games. But no dedicated servers and sixty dollar price tag? No thanks.

A couple years ago I wouldn't have cared about the multiplayer stuff, but that changed with Modern Warfare. I will play through the game once, but I will play online for months. The game itself looks awesome, and I am sure it's great, but why the need to charge more and cut out something that is synonymous with PC online gaming? If I wanted an console online gaming experience, I would buy the game for my Xbox. But I don't, I want it for the PC.

I was really looking forward to this game on the PC, now I am in wait and see mode. Guess that means more time for some Fallen Earth and Borderlands if I pick that up.

Dragon Rising Review

The awesome folks over at GameSquad have decided that my review for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising was good enough so they posted it on their website!

You can check it out here. Please feel free to give out any constructive criticisms!

GameStop blues.

All I wanted was the amount of credit I would get for a couple of Xbox 360 games, that's it. So knowing that stores can be busy I decided that I would call a few different locations and ask for the amount for one game only.

The first store told me they were busy and to hold, but just set down the reciever on the counter or something. So for roughly the next ten minutes of so I listened as the associates helped a couple of customers and then proceeded to talk amongst themselves, not realizing I was still on the phone.

The next store actually did give me a quote, $9.00 for Resident Evil 5, rip off.

The next three stores all told me about the same thing; that they could not give me a quote over the phone and that I would need to come down to the store for that. I asked one associate if that was a store policy or corporate policy, and she said it was the store policy. I thanked her for her time and hung up.

So then I decided to call the corporate office for customer service to get some information and to complain. After having to explain in detail twice to the guy on the phone, he waffles some stating that he doesn't see how stores can give a quote without seeing the game because there are many factors involved in the pricing. I asked him if that was a corporate policy and he said no, and I told him that I worked for the company, I know they have prices on the computer and it's really poor customer service on GameStop's part. Then I thanked him for his help and I hung up.

Truth is that I did work as a store manager at GameStop almost seven years ago. My store was one of the best at customer service both in the store in on the phone, and my employees dressed well and the store was always clean. I rarely find a store that has those standards anymore.

I would not be nearly as upset if the policy of not giving quotes over the phone was something that was handed down form corporate, and it was explained to me in a professional manner. But to have one store give me a price, another going to but have crappy customer service skills, and then three that wouldn't is just no acceptable.

Ok, thus ends my rant.

Fallen Earth

I finally did it, I took the plunge and bought Fallen Earth last night. I didn't really want to but it from Steam of D2D so I was going to just pick one up at the local Fry's till I saw that I could purchase the game straight from the Fallen Earth website. I thought how awesome, I will save a few bucks and some time by doing the purchase this way.

So the download and install went ok, but that's about all that did. The downloader that I used from the email that I was sent only installed a small portion of the game and the other 4.0gb of files needed to be downloaded.

No problem I thought, I have stuff to do and I can always play on the Xbox to kill time. Don't know about anyone else, but that sounded like a great plan to me, but the Fallen Earth patcher apparently had other ideas as to what I was going to spend my time doing.

The patcher for some unknown reason will only download a certain number of files before it decides that it needs to take a break. It could be five files, it could be five hundred, either way it was going to be a long night if I was going to have to cancel and restart the patcher each time it quits out.

I did check the forums for some information and it seems that I am not the only one to have this problem. There were a few suggestions like try a different downloader or download the beta client from Fileplanet. Being the tired and not thinking one I chose to go with Fileplanet, but no matter each method was going to take me a while.

One everything was downloaded, installed and started patching, I decided that it was time for bed at 0230 in the morning and just left the computer running for the rest of the night to finish with the patch. Woke up this morning to find that the patcher had quit not too long after I had gone to bed. Eventually I was able to get the game to finish patching, but what a hassle. Not a great start.

But I did get to play for a short time today before work. I was able to make my way through the tutorial and am now hanging out in Depot 99.

Disney Pics

Just thought I would share a couple of pictures from the family trip to Disneyland. There are more than these, a whole lot more believe me. But I like these two.

Aion continues.

Aion continues to dominate my game playing time, and for good reason. I feel that it would be beneficial to play the game as much as possible and get as far in the game as I can in order to write a well informed review.

Right at this moment things are going a bit on slow side and I have only reached level 17 with my Assassin. The assassin class is proving to not be as fun as I had hoped and have many times wished I just chose Ranger instead. I do however have a level 11 Sorcerer and he's so far pretty fun to play.

The problem is that Aion is just not grabbing me like I had hoped it would. But niether is Champions Online for that matter, a game that I played a bajillion hours during the first three weeks and now have hardly touched over the last two. Good thing is that Champions will be active to at least the middle of December, so I have lots of time to play and get a few characters to level 40. That's the plan anyway.

In other game related stuff; I am putting the finishing touches on a review for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, and have started playing a game called Risen and will be doing a review for that one as well.

My Age of Conan account was canceled for now because of Champions and Aion and LOTRO has only about a week left till it's done. Here's the curious thing; I logged into LOTRO and I was having fun, and I was beginning to question why I am quiting that game. Damn you LOTRO, why can't I just quit and be done with you!!!!!

Sabre Highlights

Here's some highlights of the Buffalo Sabres just smacking around the Detroit Redwings. Go Sabres!

MUA2 Review.

My Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 review has been posted thanks to the nice folks at GameSquad. You can read it here. Any questions, comments or concerns, please ask!

Been a bit busy.

Well, no sooner do I get back from Disneyland then I had to drive up to Eureka for a friends wedding. It was nice, small and great to see some friends. But I am tired, tired of traveling, tired of not having a nice home cooked meal, and just plain tired. Thank goodness I get the next couple of days off to recoup and play some games.

On the gaming front I continue to play Aion and I hope to have a review for that by the end of the month. I also received Risen just before I left so I will be playing that and eventually reviewing that as well. I have played enough Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising to do a review, so I will be working on that this week.

Right now I continue to play Champions and Aion, but I really want to pick up Fallen Earth and am still have tempted to give WAR a try. But November is coming soon, and that means Modern Warfare 2 and Dragon Age and that should keep me busy for awhile.

It's a small world after all!

I am alive and well and happy to be back home! The family and I went to SoCal for a nice vacation at Disneyland, and we all had a lot of fun. But I will say that three days in the Magic Kingdom is just about my limit that's for sure.

It was nice to get away, not worry about work or play a video game and just spend time with the family. The worst part, other than having to be in SoCal, was coming home to the 100+ posts in the reader awaiting me. Oh yeah, and realizing that I forgot to set my fantasy football lineup, ergh!