November 2008 – Page 3

There has been an absolute flood of new games that have either came out recently or are coming out very soon that interest me. Unfortunately I’m both wrapped up in my Warhammer Online addiction and way too broke to actually buy any of them at the moment, currently wondering how I’m even going to be able to afford Christmas presents this year. I’ve got plenty of games to tide me over, particularly a few old Xbox 360 games, some ongoing PC infatuations of mine, and a ton of retro PC games I’m pining to play again and (hopefully) review here, but the collector in me really wants to rush out and get them as soon as possible. Must… resist.

Mercenaries 2 was released and, while apparently very buggy, it has gotten a lot of great praise on various forums and podcasts I follow. I was a big fan of the first game, being one of my favorite games of the last console generation. It is sad that this one isn’t apparently as polished as the first one but on the other hand it does sound just as fun.

Dead Space could have easily flown under my radar. EA trying to make a new franchise based on survival horror… in space? with shooting? Great, a generic Doom 3 cranked out by some crappy studio? Apparently not. Dead Space loots excellent and has been getting great reviews all around. Must acquire!

Stalker: Clear Sky. I still haven’t played the original but it is only a matter of time. At this point though, I know it is a game that I am absolutely going to love, period, so I might as well keep my eye on this light weight sequel. Initial reports mention tons of bugs and other issues, as with the first game, yet for the most part fans of the original like Clear Sky.

Gears of War 2 is coming soon. I don’t expect that it’ll fail to live up to the hype. The first one had plenty of hype and, though I bought it quickly, it took quite a while to rise up to the surface of my backlog. By the time I finally did get around to playing it I was pleasantly surprised by the unique style and high production values.

I still really want to play The Witcher and the new Enhanced Edition is very inviting. I really need to snag an import copy of this while I still can.

What can I say about Spore? I’ve been anticipating it forever now and, now that it is out to mixed reviews, I still can’t wait to get it and fool around with the various creators and modes. I know in many respects it didn’t live up to the hype but in many others it seems to have delivered. The only question I have at this point though is whether or not I should just hold off for five or so years and buy the ultra deluxe edition that includes the 25 post release expansion and parts packs for one low cost. 🙂

Saints Row 2: Saints Row was a game that I had my eye on for a long time before I ever got an Xbox 360 but eventually decided to hold off for the release of Grand Theft Auto 4. Now that GTA 4 has come and gone Saints Row 2 has been released and the reviews have been largely positive. Now, because of much of what I’ve heard and seen, both games have ended up on my wish list.

Oh my goodness how I cannot wait to play Fable 2. The first Fable was, again, one of my favorite Xbox games. It didn’t quite deliver on all its hype but, taken on its own merits, was a really fun, really polished action adventure RPG with lots of neat little touches that ended way, way too quickly. I never did go back and play the Lost Chapters version but from what I hear Fable 2 is more of the same, and better to boot. The buzz around this one is intoxicating.

I never played Far Cry 2‘s predecessor, somehow, despite coming out during a heavy period of PC gaming in my life and sounding totally up my alley. I had considered getting it on many occasions but somehow let it slip by. Far Cry 2 sounds quite different and totally excellent. Some have described it as Far Cry meets Stalker and others have compared it to more GTA inspired sandbox games such as Mercenaries. In any case it looks excellent and I’ve got my eye on a copy of the PC version of this one.

I still can’t wait to get my ass beaten viciously by Ninja Gaiden 2. Again, the first one was one of my favorite last gen console games. There’s a lot of those on this list it seems. 🙂

Probably most importantly is Fallout 3. I loved the original two Fallout games, particularly the first one, and I’ve also really dug Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls games. This marriage of the two seems like a no brainer and I’m having a hard time resisting going out and picking this one up right now. Reviews and discussion on the forums look very promising but I have a feeling that I won’t really know what to expect from this game until I’m playing it myself.

I must also give shoutouts to Mirrors Edge and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Despite not having a PS3 I’m also going to mention Resistance 2 and Little Big Planet while I’m at it.

Argh, so little money, so little time, so many great games!

There’s not a whole lot to talk about in Warhammer Online land but I plan on continuing to mention it frequently since it is what has largely kept me from playing other games lately.

One of my only real frustrations with the game lately has been my ability to progress the way I want to – in WAR there are essentially two leveling treadmills, the normal levels (“ranks”) and RVR levels (“renown ranks”.) Your renown only raises from doing RVR related tasks (scenarios, battlefield objectives, and PVP in general) and therefore it is quite possible to get to the endgame and still have a very, very low renown rank. Indeed, a lot of the people who raced their way up to 40 in the first couple of weeks after released had pitiful renown ranks. Renown rank also has double the cap of normal rank (thus providing a more long term goal at the rank endgame) and generally seems to progress a bit slower to boot.

My personal strategy for leveling so far has been to absolutely burn through all of the PVE quests, including grinding for chapter influence, and once I reach a point at which the PVE content for my tier (in my race’s area, as I don’t want to go through other race’s areas and ruin the experience for any alts I roll if I can help it) is dried up, or it out levels me significantly, I PVP as much as possible be it constantly queuing for scenarios while screwing around or running objectives with warbands. So far, about to enter tier 4, my problem is that I can run through PVE content at any time, with the exception of dungeons and public quests which require other players to fully complete, while doing RVR related activities is simply not possible at off hours. Scenarios will only pop up if enough people are queued up for them and RVR objective open parties and warbands, even small ones, seem to be nonexistent. What this basically means that until I get past these “must RVR!” humps, I can only play during primetime, and given my schedule lately, means that much of my only viable playing time is worthless for my purposes.

I started actually putting some effort into my first alt lately, a Dwarf Engineer, and quickly reached the same place with him. Now I’ve got two characters I can’t really play. This leaves me concerned for the endgame as until the vast majority of players have at least one rank 40 character who knows how active rank 40 RVR will be at off hours. Even all this aside, PVPing as much as I can while still trying to make the most of the PVE content, my renown rank on these characters continues to lag behind my actual rank. I almost flipped out the other day when after describing my main character to a friend and him noticing the disparity between my rank and my renown he said “you don’t PVP much do you?”

Here’s some new screenshots. Note that these are several weeks old and don’t represent my actual, current progress. I’ll have to catch this blog back up sometime but I was trying to avoid flooding the front page with WAR images.