E3: A bundle of joy, wrapped in bacon.

E3 is fast approaching, and the world holds its breath for the heavy-weight developers to announce their similarly heavy-weight titles. I’d betting a fetching of rubles that we’ll see some excellent stuff come out of the Microsoft area. Obviously, Halo ODST is going to blow minds and melt faces.

Personally, I’m looking forward to more juicy details for Mass Effect 2. I picked up the first one many months ago not entirely sure what I was getting into, but had remembered that Gamespot gave it quite a lot of praise. I wasn’t dissappointed.

From what has been revealed of ME2 so far, it’s going to be better. Enhanced AI and combat systems, with some light vanilla frosting and sprinkles makes it look like Christmas has come many moons early.

More to follow.

I might just sell my soul for this game.

 

Assassin's Creed II

 

Gimme. Right now.

 

- Lux

I’m not dead. Yet.

My soul has been consumed by work, girlfriend, and games. Lots and lots of games.

 

In other news, something big here at Escort Service may or may not go down. Just so you’re somewhat in the loop.

Take it easy guys.

- Lux

Length

With the recent failing of everything Lord of the Rings related, I’ve been forced to interact with the Team Fortress 2 community. While I don’t hate most of the people, some can easily get on your nerves. I prefer to play on profanity free servers, it tends to weed out the immature racists. I also took some time for myself and played through Assassin’s Creed, and I have to say, I liked it quite a bit. Sure it was a pain to do all of ther errands before stabby time, but it payed off in the end. My most common complaint that I’ve had with recent games is that they are too short. Mirror’s Edge was about 5 hours, Assassin’s creed took about 10. Maybe I’m just used to open multiplayer FPS and long, drawn out MMOs, but I feel ripped off when I play fifty bucks for a game that will only have a 5-10 hour story. I’m sure I’ve said before that I prefer gameplay to say, open endedness, and I don’t really see myself thinking in any other mode. Sure its fun in Assassin’s Creed to run around shanking the annoying beggar women, but that only holds my attention for so long. Games like Call of Duty 4 with its spectacular immersion still keep me enthralled, and I’ve played through it many, many times.  I think that is how I decide if a game is good. If I can play through it again, and enjoy it just as much. The Half-Life 2 series comes to mind, while I don’t think the two episodes are quite as decent as the original, they do seem necesary to the plot, and I do truly look forward to what happens to the characters. It’s like a good book that keeps you up late into the night. I always want to know different situations and how the characters woul react. How would Alyx Vance go on if Gordon gets killed.

-attle

For that matter, how would any of the humans keep going? Gordon seems like the only person who has handled a gun before in that game.

Mirrors Edge

Mirrors Edge

While we wait for my full review, I thought I would bounce and Idea off  of you. For those of you who are familiar with Mirrors Edge, I think you will agree, and for those of you that don’t, I think you will look at the game differently when you get around to playing it.

As it stands, Mirrors Edge is decent at best. The game play works well, most of the time, but the poorly written story and undeveloped characters leave it flat and uninspired. Despite the fact that the voices don’t match the characters, and the game would be easier to follow without some characters, the game play is what holds it at decent. The simple fact that this is new and different gives it a pass on most of the flaws I would point out on a normal more used game type.

I bring the game play up because I believe it could have been used in another game type and been much more entertaining. If Mirrors edge were to be and RPG, I think it could have been truly groundbreaking. You would travel across the rooftops, meeting different clients wanting different things sent around. Sure it would get a little tiresome if there were only escort quests, but I’m sure those development geniuses at EA could think of more. What I’m trying to cough out is that I want a true free running game. One where there is more than a single path, where you are free to explore, and aren’t rushed. Rushing a player in such a visual game as Mirrors Edge insures that they will miss many of the subtleties you place in the game. Hopefully my dream will someday be realized, but it doesn’t look good.

-attle

To the future.

I know it has been a long time since my last post, but I thought I would take a moment to address where I am going to be driving this blogmobile.

I’ve been writing a lot lately, nothing to do with gaming, but it has started to peak my interest in reviews. I’ve always enjoyed games more that had a solid story, believable characters, and a realistic series of events more than a game that is simply well made. Games like Guild Wars come to mind when I start bring up story telling in games. For a game that most would classify as an MMORPG, it explains and details it story better than most single player games. Keep in mind (most) single player games are created solely for the story, while the game play comes second. If you need a single player game for contrast, look at Call of Duty 4. It displays its story is such a way that it is impossible to become bored. The characters are all excellently human without much of a back story. You play as either an American man, or a SAS, but your support characters work so well that it doesn’t matter what you do. It seems more like a modern day historical recreation than a story.

In other news, I’ve been playing tons of Team Fortress 2, plenty of Left 4 Dead, and a smidgen of Garry’s Mod. A friend and I have set forth on an epic journey to finish some of the hardest tf2 achievements. The two we are focusing on, which are connected, are Division of Labor, and Big Pharma. Each involves killing 20 enemies as a heavy medic combo with neither of you dying. It is rather challenging, but we have been playing it risky. If we finally decide to sit and camp we can probably get it no problem.

The scout update was a little unexciting for me. I never really liked the scout to start with, and his new Bat seems woefully imbalanced, but that is another topic for another day.

More updates to come, I promise!

-attle

P.S. Any suggestions for a game I should review? (PC only please.)

New Screen!

I’ve recently been enjoying my new Samsung 2233 22″ screen! Its great, and the only problem I have with it is trying to fit it on my desk. Also, I got myself an Xfx 9800 gt.

I’ve been going back through some games to try to capture what I had missed before. Playing on an old 7600 gts was fine, but I never got to experience the fullness of next gen graphics. Call of Duty 4 is by far the nicest looking game, with lotro coming in a close second.

In other news, I purchased F.E.A.R, X3, and Crysis, so over the next few weeks, if I can pull myself away from the games, I’ll post what I think about those. I have mixed feeling about F.E.A.R, I don’t want to be scared when the lights flicker in my room, but I find myself drawn to that game. We’ll see if I turn into a psychopathic insomniac over the next few days. I mentioned to my friend that I loved the story in Freelancer, but it didn’t have enough of an open end. To be fair, you can do anything you want when the games story finishes, but there is no reason to. You’ve been to almost every place already, you have no real standing in the game, and you have a ship that is close to the best. My friend assured me that x3 will fill the desire to pirate the trade lanes once more.

More info to come! As well as my take on Lord of the Rings expansion: Mines of Moria.

attle

For the Emperor!

For those of you who are totally NOT amazing and don’t know what the above quote is front, I forgive you. Not many people do! It is the 41st millennium, blah blah blah. WH40K: DoW2!!!!!!! I gotta say, I am gearing up for this one. Sporting a very, very familiar engine and cover system from Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2 improves upon it’s predecessor in nearly every way imaginable. Graphically, the game looks nearly flawless. The only gripe I have is the space-marine scaling. The size and shape of the helmets in the original were more faithful to the table-top, and I think it should stay like that. But who can argue when they take off the helmet and look around?! THEIR FACES ARE STINK’IN BEAUTIFUL. I need to see more screenies of the Eldar though (the “elvish” ones). As an Eldar player on the tabletop, I expect them to be as fast and as furious as they’re supposed to be. In the original DoW, the Eldar were EXTREMELY underpowered and didn’t abide by much of the fluff they are known by. Examples? On the table-top, each aspect warrior is EXTREMELY effective at some… well… aspect of war. Banshees are insane at CC, Spiders against light army and infantry, and the Dragons absolutely mutilate tanks. Dark reapers also mutilate infantry, and the shuriken weapons sported by most Eldar infantry to excellent work against horde units (I.E. Orks). Now, in the VIDEO GAME, the only truly amazing units are the Spiders, Avatar, and yeah. The rest die too easily, deal almost no damage, and yeah. If going by the fluff, the eldar units would do more damage, come in fewer number, and die less. Yeah.

Does this look Infected?

I wish I could offer you reader(s) a witty insight into the next big game, or a sneak peak at what MMO is going to be huge in a few months, but I’ve really just been sitting around playing Tf2, CoD 4, and L4D. I’ve been getting into versus a lot more than before, and I really do enjoy it. One thing that does bother me is the people that leave once their run as infected is over. I mean, is it really that hard to sit through a round as a survivor? I think its almost as much fun to send the Hunters flying with a head shot as it is to drag old Bill off of a roof. The true colors of versus mode really shine when you have a group of people playing and planning together. When 3 of my friends and I get together on a server, there are only a few people that can beat us. We know how each other think and we use that as a strategy. Each person knows their job as each type of infected, and with each gun. Smokers need to stay behind or pull off of ledges, and the person with the m16 needs to kill the infected before they can get close and do harm(usually focusing on the smokers). We don’t run the risk of having a new playing not knowing what to do, and because of that, we usually win. And winning is fun, isn’t it?

-attle

More Free!

Tabula Rasa is now offering their services for free! If you never tried the game, or want to come back, now is the time. New content is still being added, as well as a now playable Earth map(at level 50 or so…)!

attle