Wow, for nostalgia's sake only, this game rocks. I spent countless hours in Civ 2. I never made it all the way up to playing deity, but this game was the best game I played age 9-11. I spent so much time on it in England that I could tell you what technology led to which unit and what was the best way to get to where you needed to go.
Now, it's been close to 10 years since I last played it. I installed Civ 3 onto my computer last night and immediately all the nostalgia came back. It was almost like coming home. I've experienced this with games before. But I think this is one of the strongest. I now understand why Mario is so much fun to those SNES junkies. They vaguely remember so much of it that it's better than playing it for the first time.
Games don't do that anymore. 10 years down the road, I doubt I'll ever get into WoW (besides the fact that I'll be 31). Civ 3 or whatever is out, I think I might. The nostalgia holds strong. The game play is almost exactly the same. Everything is familiar enough to understand what is going on, but vague enough there's still a learning curve. I laughed the entire time I was playing it from sheer delight.
I haven't had this much fun playing a computer game since I first started KOTOR back in 2005. For nostalgia's sake I'll give it a 8.5, mainly cause I haven't played it all the way through yet. It's very confusing and I need to figure out everything once more. There are twice as many terrains and commands. But, if you enjoyed the first one, definately play this one.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
The Death of WoW
I started playing this game back in fall of 2005. I'm still intermittently playing it after 2.5 years, but it's more of a "there's nothing better to do". School is out, a lot of friends are home for the summer, you know... that sort of thing. I got back into WoW this time to play with some of my good friends over the summer. I enjoy it but WoW is dying and I think I know what it is.
The casual vs. obsessive debate rages throughout WoW. "Elite" players hate it when Blizzard gives the casual some epic for doing essentially nothing, while the casuals can't really enjoy the game without gear. Those are two opposite sides of the spectrum and 90% of the players fall somewhere in the middle. However, with the release of The Burning Crusade something in WoW changed. Blizzard started giving away epics.
It started with PvP. Well, first let's look at the history of PvP in WoW. Grand Marshal/High Warlord gear was some of the best in the game. It took months to get though. PvP was based off a ladder system of sorts and when you reached rank 12 or 13, where you placed the next week was in direct correlation to how much honor you got vs. how much honor everyone else received. The gear was amazing and rightfully so. It took nearly 6 months of 24/7 PvP to achieve it on some servers.
With the expansion Blizzard decided to allow you to save up Honor points. Now it doesn't matter when you do it as long as you get the honor. Someone could take a year playing a few hours a week and get better gear than those who spent the 6 months of solid PvP. Now, I don't have a problem with this. The problem is that back in the old days, someone could PvP and get gear enough to be effective in a 40 man raid dpsing, or someone could do PvE (player vs. environment) and get gear good enough to be effective in PvP.
With the addition of a single new stat, Blizzard has effectively destroyed the fun of pvp or pve. They claimed to not want to pidgeon hole you into doing one thing, but they have done precisely that. In a PvE gear, I can't kill anyone in PvP because my crits don't land as hard as they should, and because I don't crit as often. In PvP gear, I am in the lower half of the raid DPSing because the gear is more about mitigating PvP damage rather than outputing as much damage as possible.
All this to say that WoW has become to most of its clientele a "nothing better" game. As soon as a decent MMO comes out, and I'm not talking about Vanguard or Age of Conan. When a good MMO comes out, expect WoW to die mainly cause it pidgeon holes you into one thing, just like all the MMO's before it.
~J
The casual vs. obsessive debate rages throughout WoW. "Elite" players hate it when Blizzard gives the casual some epic for doing essentially nothing, while the casuals can't really enjoy the game without gear. Those are two opposite sides of the spectrum and 90% of the players fall somewhere in the middle. However, with the release of The Burning Crusade something in WoW changed. Blizzard started giving away epics.
It started with PvP. Well, first let's look at the history of PvP in WoW. Grand Marshal/High Warlord gear was some of the best in the game. It took months to get though. PvP was based off a ladder system of sorts and when you reached rank 12 or 13, where you placed the next week was in direct correlation to how much honor you got vs. how much honor everyone else received. The gear was amazing and rightfully so. It took nearly 6 months of 24/7 PvP to achieve it on some servers.
With the expansion Blizzard decided to allow you to save up Honor points. Now it doesn't matter when you do it as long as you get the honor. Someone could take a year playing a few hours a week and get better gear than those who spent the 6 months of solid PvP. Now, I don't have a problem with this. The problem is that back in the old days, someone could PvP and get gear enough to be effective in a 40 man raid dpsing, or someone could do PvE (player vs. environment) and get gear good enough to be effective in PvP.
With the addition of a single new stat, Blizzard has effectively destroyed the fun of pvp or pve. They claimed to not want to pidgeon hole you into doing one thing, but they have done precisely that. In a PvE gear, I can't kill anyone in PvP because my crits don't land as hard as they should, and because I don't crit as often. In PvP gear, I am in the lower half of the raid DPSing because the gear is more about mitigating PvP damage rather than outputing as much damage as possible.
All this to say that WoW has become to most of its clientele a "nothing better" game. As soon as a decent MMO comes out, and I'm not talking about Vanguard or Age of Conan. When a good MMO comes out, expect WoW to die mainly cause it pidgeon holes you into one thing, just like all the MMO's before it.
~J
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Ninja Gaiden 2
Well, I was able to play the sequel to this Xbox hit for about 10 minutes last night. And my first impression was "wow". The fluidity of the fighting is unmatched in my limited experience and the blood/gore factor is huge. The controls are tricky at first if you haven't played the first one, and at times the attack button didn't seem to respond well to my button mashing, but that may be because my controller needs some oiling.
I've heard a lot of complaints about the camera. Again, if you haven't played the first one, the unconventional third person camera swings can feel very nauseous and unnerving at first. After you get used to it though, you won't want to go back to the still camera 15 feet above your character.
The fighting is what drives this game. It is amazing. As of right now I only have the dragon sword you start with but the additions they made to the fight were needed. You can now chop off limbs as well as decapitating enemies, like in the first one. However, enemies with just one limb off are much more dangerous and can still attack you (finish these off quickly). The game allows you a few finishing moves with a few different camera angles by merely pushing 'Y' near an injured enemy.
Another excellent addition to the gameplay is adding wounds to your health. In the first one, the reason it was so hard was because you had to use all your potions on the regular enemies and not the boss at the end of the level. This one will regenerate your health up to the most it can be after the fight is over. However, extra hard hits, or grappels, cause you to gain wounds which cannot be gained back without the use of a 'healing herb' or a save point (which also grants health now). Your health will regenerate to the max allowed minus the wounds received.
The best change that Team Ninja made was changing the action button from 'X' to the right bumper button. This makes fighting around doors infinitely better. And a welcome adjustment.
If I were to give it a score then it would have to be 8.8-8.9 right now. Slightly below the first one because of originality and it seems to rely on highflying gameplay rather than plot line. It seems that I will thoroughly enjoy the game but as of the first 10 minutes of gameplay that is my assessment. I'll keep you posted.
~J
I've heard a lot of complaints about the camera. Again, if you haven't played the first one, the unconventional third person camera swings can feel very nauseous and unnerving at first. After you get used to it though, you won't want to go back to the still camera 15 feet above your character.
The fighting is what drives this game. It is amazing. As of right now I only have the dragon sword you start with but the additions they made to the fight were needed. You can now chop off limbs as well as decapitating enemies, like in the first one. However, enemies with just one limb off are much more dangerous and can still attack you (finish these off quickly). The game allows you a few finishing moves with a few different camera angles by merely pushing 'Y' near an injured enemy.
Another excellent addition to the gameplay is adding wounds to your health. In the first one, the reason it was so hard was because you had to use all your potions on the regular enemies and not the boss at the end of the level. This one will regenerate your health up to the most it can be after the fight is over. However, extra hard hits, or grappels, cause you to gain wounds which cannot be gained back without the use of a 'healing herb' or a save point (which also grants health now). Your health will regenerate to the max allowed minus the wounds received.
The best change that Team Ninja made was changing the action button from 'X' to the right bumper button. This makes fighting around doors infinitely better. And a welcome adjustment.
If I were to give it a score then it would have to be 8.8-8.9 right now. Slightly below the first one because of originality and it seems to rely on highflying gameplay rather than plot line. It seems that I will thoroughly enjoy the game but as of the first 10 minutes of gameplay that is my assessment. I'll keep you posted.
~J
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