A stand-up fight, or just another bug hunt? After finishing Aliens vs. Predator’s Marine story last night, I wanted to post some thoughts. In a nutshell, die-hard fans of the franchise need not despair at the game’s mediocre critical reception – AvP is solid, playable, and fun. Rebellion has done a fantastic job with pacing [...]
I came to an epiphany this morning. (Sure, it was a trivial and geeky epiphany, but don’t be judging on my epiphanies, man!) After reading the mixed critical reviews of Aliens vs Predator last week, I had decided not to purchase the game, or to at least hold off until the price dropped. I realized that [...]
I finally carved out some more quality time for Torchlight this week. My one-line take: this game is nearly everything that any Diablo fan could have wanted. Still, let us first tackle the oliphaunt in the room – we would have liked multiplayer functionality. That said, it must be noted that Torchlight was developed from [...]
I finally got to play a little Borderlands last night. I’m very pleased with the game, and Gearbox has delivered on the hype. The game is not perfect, but has attained that nebulous plateau of polish, charm, and great gameplay that earns it the title of Good Game (TM). Gameplay-wise, Borderlands is a fairly straightforward [...]
Flash back to the late 1980s. A Penn graduate student named Richard Garfield begins designing an interesting new card game called Magic: the Gathering. Several years later, the 1993 commercial launch of Magic dumps the gaming industry on its head, singlehandedly spawning the bold new genre of collectible/customizable games still thriving worldwide. Back to June [...]
Back in August, I had posted about a review article I’d written being slated for publication in the quarterly woods paintball magazine Recon. To the sorrow of legions of woodsballers however, Recon will no longer be gracing our mailboxes – the magazine folded a few months ago due to financial problems. I was surprised to [...]
Man, what a whirlwind this morning at work. Need a sanity check – Ditlog take me away! I got started with Fable II last night. Well OK, I played for like 6 hours… I’m really enjoying it. Not lightning-struck like I’d been with Morrowind or WoW or anything, but definitely enjoying it. The moral choices [...]
Well, I finally finished The Force Unleashed yesterday (on Xbox 360). Let me first say that yes, I enjoyed the game – as did my son. In retrospect, I think there are two major factors leading to the lukewarm reviews the game has been receiving. Kickin’ Butt Old School Firstly, in many ways the gameplay [...]
Due to the lackluster launch day reviews, I decided to rent Star Wars: The Force Unleashed from Blockbuster instead of buying it outright. Per the reviewers, the game is about 8-9 hours long, so I’ll probably get a dozen hours out of it (I like to smell the flowers and explore all the nooks and [...]
I picked up Guild Wars last weekend as another MMORPG to try during my WoW hiatus. I must say, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. A Different Kind of MMO GW differs from most other MMO’s in one notable fashion: as soon as you leave a town for the wild, you will be adventuring in your [...]