So you think you can contribute, eh?

Saw this today about the contribution system in WAR. Just more evidence the the system is flawed.

I personally have had issues with the contribution system since beta, and I am surprised that Mythic has not addressed the issues that many players have with the contribution system.

Vacation time, woot!!

Well today is the beginning of my five day vacation. How did I manage that you ask? Pretty easily actually, I normally have Monday and Tuesday off, Thursday is Thanksgiving, and I had asked for Friday off a few weeks ago, and I was able to con, I mean talk a co-worker to cover for me on Wednesday. How sweet is that!

So I am pretty much going to kick back and relax, enjoy the time off and watch hockey and football, and play as many games as I can!

I do want to play WAR this week as I am really enjoying my Chosen character, but I do need to create an Order career too. Of course there's NHL 09 I can play as well, but I think I am going to concentrate mostly on Fallout 3. I still have an active WoW account, but I've had little motivation to go and play the game.

There are other Xbox and PC games I have that need to be played, but who am I kidding, I know I am not going to get to them anytime soon.

Devine Intervention?

Well, looks like my goal of posting at least once per day will not be met this month, oh well. I really should pay more attention to this blog in case someone actually reads this!!

The heavy metal patch for WAR was released on Tuesday, but without the combat changes I was looking for. I was disappointed, but it's understandable that Mythic wants to do right by this and not screw things up. But lately I have been feeling torn about which MMO's I am going to play. I currently have a sub to WoW, and I did buy Wrath, and of course I have a sub to WAR as well.

But I have been thinking of giving LOTRO or EQ2 another run, but I still want to play WAR, and I don't want to feel like I wasted money on Wrath....argh! So after much debate with myself, and not being happy about the WAR patch, I figured I would play out my WoW sub, cancel WAR, and just forget about MMO's for awhile.

So on Tuesday night I log into my account on WAR, see that the next payment is due on the 19th, and I cancel my account. Well, two days later I'm doing my normal blog reading, I come across Ysharros and JoBildo's blog and find that Casualties of War now has open recruiting for WAR.

Well isn't that just great. I cancel my account, and the one thing that I know I would stay for, people to play with, finally happens. For some strange reason, I decided to fire up WAR while at work after reading that (yes, I get to play games at work, muuuahahahah), and wouldn't you know it, the account is still active. What I figured out is that the account renewed on Tuesday, but wasn't billed till Wednesday. We what luck is that, I tell myself.

So I naturally apply for membership to CoW, thinking that if I get to join then I'll stick with WAR for awhile, cause I was having fun and I would like to play more of it. Lucky for me I get accepted to the guild, and now all I need to do is get in touch with a GM and get my characters a guild invite.

WAR review.

I am happy to announce that the wonderful people at GameSquad.com have published my review for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. You can read it here.

This is my second review, and I hope do be able to do more in the future. The review is two months after release, so I'm sure that most people have already decided whether or not they are going to buy the game. But I decided to take my time and experience what I can and then write about the game without being caught up in the early hysteria that can happen when a game is released.

A little disapointment here, a bit of unsatisfaction there...

I was really looking forward to the beginning part of the week with two big updates coming, the Heavy Metal 1.05 patch for WAR and the NXE for the 360. But I have to say that I am a tad disappointed with both.

The new 1.05 patch for WAR was more than a couple week event, it was suppose to have some changes to careers that I was very interested in. So imagine my surprise when I read that the career changes did not make the patch, all the while as the patch is downloading. Mythic has decided to delay the career content in order to do further testing to make sure they get it right, and that's not a bad thing. The new Heavy Metal event stuff is cool, and I am always for content, but I really had my heart set on the new combat update stuff.

So next comes the NXE. Like an idiot, I stayed up way too late to get the new update so I am just a tad tired at this moment. I was looking forward to the new look, but I was really excited that my resolution for my 19" monitor will finally be supported. I have been running my res at 1360x768 and it worked, but I was itching to play games at 1440x900. So I fire up a game, and right away I noticed small black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, WTF!?!? So if I run a rez that is not native to the monitor, then it's full screen??

So to sum things up, it was a very disappointing day yesterday for me.

Soylent Green is people!!

I really couldn't think of a good title for this post, but it works, lol.

When is choice a bad thing? When there are too many choices, and I am specifically talking about gaming.

I've been playing WAR since day one, and I am still enjoying the game a lot. But, I noticed yesterday that for one reason or another I had not logged into WAR in almost a week. That got me thinking that if I don't have an overwhelming feeling to log into the game, then is there any reason to keep on paying for a subscription?

Another reason for this line of thinking is because the other night I was at Gamestop to exchange my red ringed 360, and made an impulse buy of WotLK. I did resub my WoW account because I wanted to try out the new talents in the 3.0 patch, but I was not looking forward to playing Wrath at all.

I couldn't help but feel a little guilty about the purchase because I was also thinking about getting the new EQ2 or the LOTRO expansion instead. And now I feel that I have to play some WoW at least till my sub runs out in order to feel like I didn't waste my money buying Wrath.

But what about WAR? Well, I still like the game, and I am having a blast with my Black Orc. I prefer a deeper PvE experience, and WAR is lacking a bit of that. But on the flip side, I really enjoy the PvP that WAR has, a lot more then I did with WoW.

I just can't start dabbling in MMO's again. With my time being split between family, work, the 360 and other PC games I want to play, I can only give attention to one, maybe two MMO's now a days, but that might be pushing it. I know my wife would like me to just pick a game and stick with it!

On a side note, you know you have a cool wife who can identify which MMO you are playing just by watching me without me telling her, I love that!

So, my WAR sub ends tomorrow, so I have all day today to make up my mind if I am going to continue playing WAR, move on to another game, or even just take another break from all MMO's for awhile.

Gears of War 2.

It's no secret that I did not like the first Gears of War. I thought it was highly overrated.

So when GoW2 was announced, I figured it would be this over hyped piece of garbage. Well, not quite so.

As it turns out, I had the chance to play through the campaign coop with a friend, and I had a great time.

The graphics are better and more colorful than the GoW, there are some additions to the gameplay that work great, and you get a better sense of just how epic the war really is in this game. And I really like the changes to the multiplayer, no more rolling shotgun one hit kills anymore.

My only real complaint about the game is that the difficulty can border on the impossible at times. And I though that Epic tried too hard to give the game a story.

But I want everyone to know that I was wrong about GoW2, it's a great game and I would recommend it to everyone!

Console Goodness.

Well, I had a three day weekend, and I spent 90% of my gameplaying time on the 360. First up was a heavy dose of Gears of War 2, a game that I have not been waiting for. But, a friend of mine talked me into getting it, and I'm glad I did.

We spent the better part of three nights playing through the game coop on hardcore. One thing I noticed was that the game starts off much easier than the first, but Acts IV & V get extremely hard. I was also glad that multiplayer was changed some. No more rolling shotgun one hit kills, but the match making needs to be looked at. I will admit that I enjoyed Gears 2.

The other game I played when not doing Gears coop was NHL 09. I was able to participate in a large number of club games, and had a blast. I did play goalie for two games and got rocked. I know I'm better than that, but I think lack of play with nervousness did me in.

I was able to get a bit of time in with Fallout 3, but not much. I have been focusing my time trying to complete the survival guide chain quest, and right now I am on my way to River City., wish me luck!

Some random stuff...

Since I don't really have anything to talk about in depth, I thought I would just throw out some random thoughts.

I am in the process of finishing up my review of Warhammer Online. It has taken me way too long to finish it, but, the extra time does allow me to play the game longer and get a better feel for it.

Speaking of MMO's, I am thinking that I really need to just choose one MMO to play, and stop dabbling. I recently resubbed to WoW, and even though I am having fun now, I am just not looking forward to WotLK, not one bit. I am however thinking of reserving the Moria expansion for LOTRO and even doing the lifetime subscription. That way I can play as little or as much as I would like, and not worry about feeling like I am wasting $15 a month. So do I stick with WAR? I or how about going back to CoH, that game is pretty awesome, and it's not fantasy based!

I completed Fable 2 last week. That game started off so great, but turned into a series of time sinks with a shallow main story. The game is much better than the first Fable, and I would recommend it to everyone who likes action-rpgs. My two main complaints would be with the ranged combat and the short and disappointing story. As I played the game, I felt that the game was punishing me for trying to play as a ranged combat focused player. It seems that focusing in either melee or will and using ranged periodically is the way the game was built. Also, the two important parts of the story, the spire and the ending, are two of the worst examples of story telling ever!! The spire was bad enough, but the final confrontation is extremely disappointing.

Fallout 3 is AWESOME!!

And finally, I am looking forward to the new Call of Duty game for the PC, finally I can get back to fragging my buddies online.

No words...

Foul play not suspected in missing Barrie teen case

As a parent of two, this truly saddens me to the point of tears.

A win for America!

Last nights election for Obama as president has been seen as a win for America. And that the nation has changed, and that America will been seen in a different light from now on.

Or so I am lead to believe. For the record, I voted McCain, and my feelings about Obama have nothing to do with his color. But I will say that it is sad that it has taken this long for a person that is not white to win the Presidency, and hopefully I will be alive to witness the first woman to be elected as President.

I am personally fearful now that the Democrats hold all three branches and have little in the way of opposition to push through their liberal agendas. All I can hope for is that there are still some old school Dems in the House and Senate that are not too keen on the new Presidents way of doing things.

I'm afraid that the time when someone ran for President because they felt that they could make a change for the better for America is long gone, that died out after FDR left the White House. Maybe Obama will change that, maybe he will deliver on what he has promised. I will wait and see.

Fable 2 is done!

Well, I just finished Fable 2, or rather the main story about 30mins ago. And not to spoil anything, but the ending is crap. In fact, the more I played, the more I was becoming more annoyed with the game itself.

The controls are unresponsive at times, most of the game itself is a huge time sink to mask the terribly short story, and using firearms in aimed mode is very frustrating. The game was great for awhile, but it really looses its appeal around half way through.

I'm glad that I completed the game, but I would have to say that I am disappointed with the game as a whole.

A little bit of WoW.

I finally decided last night to re-sub to WoW. Some of my friends have decided that WAR is not for them and have gone back to WoW. I've been interested in the new 3.0 patch content since reading about many months ago, but I am just not all that interested in WotLK right now.

the thought of grinding my lvl 70's to lvl 80 is just something that I am not looking forward to, no matter what the content is. The first expansion should not have raised the level cap, and been more focused on adding content to the 'old world' instead. But, it doesn't really matter now does it.

But I did have fun last night. I respecced to Prot for my warrior since I was the one needed to tank last night in the group. Prot is something that I have very little knowledge of, but I do know that I has alot of fun doing it.

As of now though, I still like WAR, and I really like my Black Orc. Who knows, maybe I'll just cancel both my MMO's and just play the Witcher Enhanced version that I bought recently!