Blog FeedWhat have you been playing?
I like games again. No really I do. Why are you looking at me like that? I kinda quit liking games while I was going through a pretty hard bout of World of WarCraft addiction. I really had come to dislike games in general, even if I did play WoW twelve hours a day. So anyway for the last two months I’ve been playing games like crazy, so let me tell you about a few of them.
Elite Beat Agents
I got this game during winter break so it was the first game I got around to, and I managed to beat it on one and two-star difficulties. The mix of music is exceptional and the gameplay and story are both really quirky and weird. The gameplay has the player tapping in rhythm to the song. It’s a bit hard to describe and as the game goes on it gets very hard. However the eclectic combination of awesome music with the neurotic stories leads to a game that’s one of the most entertaining I’ve played in a while.
Gears of War
What can you say that hasn’t already been said. The best thing I can say about this game is that it lived up to the hype. The single player game is really fun. It is one of the most intense shooter experiences to be had on any platform. When you shoot someone with a shotgun at point blank range or chainsaw them or tag a grenade to their armor the results are just wonderfully atrocious. The use of cover is well handled with an ingenious cover system that’s so intuitive. The multiplayer is also quite a bunch of fun to play with friends. This was highlighted by the co-op and then the versus is pretty fun.
Oblivion
The funny thing is I bought this game on the PC when it came out and gave up on it pretty quickly and went back to playing WoW. Almost a year later I picked it up on the 360 and whoa I should have paid more attention to this one. The combat is pretty thrilling in the game and there is as always a pretty abundant number of things to have fun with. Also although you can’t mod the 360 version it’s got some real advantages as the menu system was pretty console-centric and the combat system feels more natural to me on the controller than it had on the mouse and keyboard.
Rainbow Six Vegas
I’ve been playing Rainbow Six since the first game on the PC way back when and this is the first game in the series I’ve really truly loved. It’s a bit casual, cutting the tactics down a bit and giving the player infinite health instead of finite health. Of course you can’t take more than a few bullets at a time but over the course of a mission you can take all the bullets you can eat so to speak. This allows it to capture the intensity of having to do very well in fire-fights and having to be precise with your movements and commanding your squad or you’re going to die. But at the same time it keeps the thrill of a more action oriented game. Additionally the use of the cover system is as well implemented here as in Gears, each of them really do unique things.
So I’ve been very busy playing games, a lot of them on the Xbox 360. And this doesn’t look like it’s set to stop anytime soon. I’ve got myself a copy of Call of Duty 3 sitting atop my bookshelf on loan from Gamefly and a copy of Crackdown should be shipping as soon as it becomes available. I suppose I chose a very nice time to get clean from the WoW junk and miss Burning Crusade in favor of catching up on all the hot games from the past year.
28th February | Reply
Of all those games you’ve listed, I’ve only played Gears of War. It was actually my first time using an Xbox 360 as well, my friend and I played coop for a few hours, and I thought it was great. The health system seems to be much like what you described in Rainbow Six Vegas, and I think it works well.
Lately I have (as usual) been playing plenty of Civilization 4. I actually have a friend coming over later today and we’re going to see how it goes on a LAN. I played it online once or twice with Thornhillboy and while it was OK, it was unbearably slow for me.
I also tried out SimCity 4 a couple of weeks ago, and while it’s a solid game in it’s own right, it just doesn’t feel different enough from SimCity 3000 for me to warrant buying it. It also didn’t come with a demo, so boo Maxis.
Finally, I’ve played the Supreme Commander demo (which you all know) and yesterday I downloaded the CnC 3 demo. I played the campaign yesterday and a skirmish or two today… review is pending.
28th February | Reply
I’m having fun with Counter Strike Source. Check it out!
1st March | Reply
Good to here! I can sympathize with WoW creating a negative outlook on games. I never got too ensnared by WoW. I think my ending contribution to the game was ~250 hours. When I saw that on my Xfire profile I gaped. But now I see that compared to the rest of the players I would be considered a… demo player maybe? Or perhaps the equivalent to “I tried it at a friends house”.
Anyways, when WoW started to get tedious for me I recognized it pretty quickly. About the time when playing other games seemed “pointless” because it wasn’t online or gaining ‘progress’ on my WoW character I had to stop. I didn’t take a break though. Instead I delved into very direct-control games: UT2004, DoD:S, Dawn of War, CS:S and all sorts of things. Ever since I play MMOs in a very relaxed way. I am still playing EVE when I feel like it and I try out a bunch of betas (LotR and Vanguard recently).
Also, ever since I stopped playing WoW I have loved gaming more than ever in my life. I find myself gaming more even. I seek out all kinds of genres and enjoy such a broad spectrum of games that there is always something to enjoy. And enjoyment is at quite the high. I am thrilled with Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, Gears of War, Crackdown, R6:Vegas, PGR3 (still!) and I still have Okami to start and bully to finish.
The CnC3 demo though… eh, hurts my neck…
1st March | Reply
Lol 250 hours is such small potatoes. Funny thing is we normally call a game “long” when it reaches the range of like 20 or maybe 40 hours. My playtime in WoW was somewhere in the range of 131 days with some rounding in there across my various characters. And a lot of my friends had way bigger playtimes than I did.
2nd March | Reply
Unfortunately, I haven’t been playing too much. Being away from home doing an internship has left me with my sub-par computer and my stellar Nintendo DS.
I had been playing Contact on that, which is a very fun, quirky action/RPG that I could recommend to anyone with an interest in that genre as a solid “rent.” It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it may grab some of you.
I started playing Hotel Dusk but haven’t been able to give it the proper attention. The art style is amazing and I have a feeling that regardless of the actual gameplay, I’ll more than enjoy playing through this book. (Tycho)
Otherwise, the old standby of StarCraft: Brood War has been getting some attention on the PC when I have some time. Brain Age makes an appearance every now and again for some Sudoku.
Finally, when I’m home, I’m playing my current favorite game: Final Fantasy XII. I don’t particularly care for the License Board system. While it does allow you to tailor any character to be any “class” the game progression rewards you placing all of your license points in the Augmentation skills, generally making everyone the same.
However, the Gambit System allows you to customize the AI routines and I’ve found programming classes to be more rewarding than actually making the skills available. At this point, I’m much happier when I find a new gambit than I am when a new spell becomes available.
In any case, the art direction, story, and yes the gameplay, make this Final Fantasy probably the best yet. Then again, it is set in my favorite Final Fantasy world: Ivalice and was, if I remember correctly at least conceived and originally directed by the man and team responsible for the absolutely stellar Vagrant Story.
Now, if that’s not a game deserving a sequel, I don’t know what it is.
I do love playing games. It is funny how much World of Warcraft seemed too leech the joy of playing for me. It has taken a while not to feel guilty about playing games, compared to how much time I spent with WoW. But with games like Final Fantasy XII and playing Gears of War co-op with my best friend, I’ve remembered why I love this hobby so much.
3rd March | Reply
Ive been playing a lot of things.
Just finished FFXII finally with 100% completion. Danjuro was crazy. It took so much time!
Also I’m still working on Oblivion, which has its flaws but the sandbox world is way too enjoyable.
Twilight Princess is sitting in my pile of shame, but I will get to it eventually.
On the PC side, Ive actually tried these free games from http://www.kumagames.com. Theyre fps. Im not sure how its free but its pretty awesome and all it takes is a download.
4th March | Reply
I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying games again. I went through a period a few years ago when I didn’t play any games. I just got sick of them, but eventually I started again.
For the past few months I have not been playing many games, but I do enjoy them. I used to play for hours every day when I was younger, and now I play for a couple hours every week.
Every Tuesday, I meet with friends at our church and we play some Halo or Big Bumpin’ (Burger King bumper car game). Besides that, I occasionally play Super Bomberman with my girlfriend. That’s about all the gaming I’ve been doing for the past few months.
4th March | Reply
At present there’s a veritable mountain of titles ready and waiting for me. My fixation with CoD multiplayer and TrackMania: Nations continues in an off-and-on manner, I’ve finished out Flatout 2 to 101% completion (in DKC terminology), and I’ve recently started Planescape: Torment and — prior to that — Deus Ex. On a nostalgic note, I went back earlier this month and played again through an old NES favorite, Super Spike V’Ball. Managed to open up a final match with Russia in the World Cup I never knew existed all those years ago.
My general problem, however, has been to start all manner of games and never stay with them long enough to finish (assuming they have some overarching goal to achieve or story to reveal … Flatout 2 being the rare exception — CivIV, The Sims, or similiar open-ended or casual fare are somewhat removed from this class). Thus Planescape & Deus Ex may soon join ranks with the likes of FF Tactics, Ico/SotC, Tron 2.0, GT3/GT4, Arcanum, CoD:UO (campaign), Grim Fandango, the Total War series, Psychonauts, Thief II, Majora’s Mask, KOTOR, FarCry, and so many more caught in digital limbo.
With that said, I always retain the possibility of revisiting those titles at a moment’s notice. For instance, I’ll occasionally sit down for an evening with Tactics, just entering one random battle after another with no care for progressing the story. If the mood strikes, I could very well be sitting in front of a screen with any one of those titles by later today, even though I may never see its end credits roll.
I do miss the days when I felt justified (or at least at peace) with spending a week or two straight with a single game…
8th March | Reply
I’ve done the unthinkable, and left my computer back in my town… Not that I have any time for playing now… Last thing I was playing was Lego Star Wars II… Fun and Funny, although the whole collecting things mentality might get annoying.
I did a tiny bit of BFME II: Witch king, but only skimmed it, so no comment.
29th March | Reply
As I am back home from Uni, I am playing a few more games again. As usual, gravitating around consoles but with the PC (Civ IV) thrown in.
So, my short list.
Civilization IV
This is a sort of constant. I’ve been playing it on-off since I got it last summer. I always enjoy games, especially as I have been playing it more and I am starting to understand it more. I remember first playing it and not realising the workers could be automated (thanks Cyrris for that)!
Okami
A great game. I’ve been playing this every day since I have had it. It’s similar to Zelda, and that is always a good thing. I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Timesplitters 2
Ah..a classic for me. I rebought it recently and just been having fun with it.