The single player campaign of CoD4 reminded me of first grade, when I had to raise my hand with a desperate thrust and wave to get the teacher’s attention, just so that I can go to the bathroom. Even then, it was up to the teacher’s discretion to decide whether or not I really had to go, as if my own biology had somehow betrayed and lied to me. The single player experience in CoD4 is essentially the same kind of hand-holding buddy system that we’ve grown out of (at least some of us) by the time we hit second grade.

Although I understand that the CoD series has always been about scripted battles, being a “shooter-on-rails”. The end result is that I am pointlessly bored as our team moves from point A to B, with AI constantly yelling at me, “Soap! Where are you?!” Let’s not go into how any respectable mercenary/militia man would allow himself to have a call sign that reminds one of a bad shower experience in prison. Give me Halo 3 anytime, even with Master Chief’s strangely erotic relationship with a piece of software (granted, a piece of translucent, glowing, and oddly sexy one at that).

So why did I even get CoD4? Part of it is peer pressure, all my friends were doing it. Part of it is that mixture of RPG and various online multiplayer modes are supposed to be fun. After several grueling hours of “grinding” myself to higher levels, which made me wish…

Through a sequence of unforeseeable events, I ended up becoming a XBox 360 owner over Christmas. I have never been one to adapt a new console platform upon its initial release, since I was burnt by NEC’s vaunted PC Engine platform as a kid. Given that, I had plenty of catching up to do.

I was a happy XBox owner, happy enough at the time that I sold my PS2 for a very cheap price including a bundle of games to a friend. That turned out to be one of the worst decisions I had ever made, because PS2 continued pumping out quality games for another two years, while XBox failed to pick up much more momentum and lacked quality title until the introduction of the XBox 360.

With that aside, Halo was the reason why anyone bought the XBox at all, even though it was not a particularly innovative game at the time. First-person shooter was already a very well developed genre, although it never fared quite as well on outside of its computer-platform origin. Halo marked the first time, that anyone was able to prove the FPS games can be done just as well on console as they have been on PC.

That brings us to the point, that Halo wasn’t a genre-redefining game of any sort; it is however, very much a genre-refining game.  Very much like Blizzard software, another company that’s been known for their refinement of existing genre, Bungie Software’s accomplishment with Halo is not to revolutionize, but…

As I’m sitting here re-ripping my entire CD collection into MP3’s again (something I should probably detail in another mundane & boring post), it made for a perfect chance to put down a few thoughts I had playing through the beta of Tabula Rasa, well, what little I can stand of it anyway.

With Tabula Rasa, I had the same problem getting into the game as I did with all other sci-fi-oriented or alternative MMORPG’s that tries to defy the traditional fantasy convention. There are a lot of game-related knowledge that doesn’t have to be explained in fantasy-based RPG’s. A lot of conventions are inherited, preached, rehearsed from years and years of fantasy literary work. Even those who aren’t into the whole RPG scene, understand the basic nature of the medieval-derived culture.

Here’s a pack of hungry wolves, they’ll probably bite me. Here’s a dragon, that’s really bad. I have just acquired a new plate mail armor, which is definitely stronger and sturdier than my previous chain mail armor. Picking up a bigger, two-hand sword probably means I do more damage than a one-hand sword, but swings much slower. Learning a new fire spell that shoots out a bigger fireball, is probably better than the one that shoots out a smaller one (unless, the smaller one is a completely different spell with a bigger concentration of heat in a small package!). Lastly, a blacksmith does exactly what a blacksmith does, and a leatherworker or an alchemist is unlikely to be taking care…

Metroid Prime 3 Corruption is almost without a doubt, the best game released on the Wii thus far. It pushes the Wii’s graphic engine to show that pretty games, even though not at HD resolution offered by other platforms, is still possible. It also shows that the Wiimote control scheme works almost (and I do mean almost, because it doesn’t quite get there, read on…) brilliantly with the right software programming. However, that is not to say that the game itself is without flaws. Despite the fact that Metroid Prime 3 garnered good reviews from just about any major outlet, I found some of the gameplay elements lacking and frustrating.

First we have to talk about the control of the game. Even though it is indeed the most fluid and well-calibrated use of the Wiimote so far, it still isn’t quite accurate enough to really get it right. There are basically two options to how you control the game, you can opt for the traditional, complete lock-on as offered on Gamecube before; or you can opt for the semi-lock-on, which allows you to lock onto the enemy and strafe around, but still aim your gun manually. The full lock-on makes encounters against non-boss enemies a joke, just lock on, move around and fire away blindly until the enemy dies, and find another enemy to lock onto. In contrast, the “advanced” mode controls is accurate most of the time, but it does lose tracking once in a while, and it’s easy to…

Courtesy of WoWInsider again, there are a bunch of news in regards to the upcoming 2.1 patch (that isn’t just relegated to the new instance contents). First up, there are all the profession changes in the new content:

Full 2.1.0 profession patch notes

Then there are some comments that Tigole apparently posted on the Elitist Jerk forum here, that talks about reducing the effectiveness of flasks and retuning the raid bosses. Lastly there are also some tidbits about new Darkmoon Faire cards that’ll be much better than the level 60 trinkets & items.

Most importantly:

Changes to fishing -

• The fishing timer has been reduced from 30 to 20 seconds and it now takes less time to fish.
• The fishing timer can no longer run through its duration without a fish biting.
• Fishing has been removed from Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley.
• You can now fish in Underbog.

Now the world is a better place.

Found this post on WoWinsider:

Instead of going for the usual hunter staples of agility, intellect and attack power, Grimhorn has invested entirely in green plus stamina armor… This has given him a whopping 1074 stamina, which means he has 17134 health (at last count.)

OMG… are you kidding me?!

Following that into the forum thread where he talks about how he plays, you can expect that his pet does most of the killing; but several good points were also made, that many of Hunter’s abilities doesn’t really scale with their stats. For example, all of their stings are just as usable, and even Aimed Shot doesn’t scale much with AP.

This goes to show, with some classes, thinking outside of the box really works well. Perhaps more than anything, it also shows how overpowered Hunters are, in that they actually have the flexibility to persue such an endeavor.

Via WoWInsider

For those old enough to remember it, Wing Commander was one of the most revered PC gaming franchise ever. It was a “space combat simulation” (which is an oxymoron on itself, since there are no combat in space yet to be simulated) game which rich and deep storylines. In its last few years, the game was taken to CD-ROM and started filling up with full motion video up to the brim. To the point where gameplay and even some of the story telling eventually suffered.

Electronic Arts acquired Origin, the original maker of the series, somewhere in between. The creator of the game left the company a couple of years after. Since then the franchise has been shelved in vague memories of PC gamers everywhere.

Well, EA resurrected the franchise with this utter piece of crap. So the new generation gamers will know nothing of the greatness that was Wing Commander, but remember this game that shouldn’t even garner $20 at Walmart. Thanks Electronic Arts!

(GASP!) What has EA done to Wing Commander! (via Joystiq)

I think part of this tale could be considered ironic. Although in the strictest sense, the word “irony” is often misused to characterize what could purely be coincidental and unfortunate. Even more confusing is the association of irony, “dramatic irony” in particular, as a common device of literary tragedy.

A high school English teacher I once had, made it a point to have a 40-minute class dedicated to the differentiation of the common usage of irony as we know, versus the literary device & meaning of the word. Perhaps it was only fitting, that this particularly bright & dedicated teacher was fired at the end of the semester, due to many student issued complaints about her moodiness; ironic indeed.

Either way, I’m not sure if these particular events in my life qualifies as irony, or maybe coincidence, and for those of us who has more faith in the unseen, perhaps we could call it fate.

As I’ve mentioned before, a surgery scheduled around Christmas was what started me off on World of Warcraft two years ago. That surgery, was a combination of chance, timing, and my own choice. I could’ve had the surgery earlier, or later, but the only time slot that seemed to make sense, was to throw it into the middle of the Christmas season.

However, it also is not the first time I’ve had surgery during the festive seasons. My first surgery (and only other surgery in my life) was also performed around the same time. It was…

With the expansion around the corner, Blizzard saw this as an opportunity to implement a lot of changes which are long overdue. The scripting language engine behind the user interface has been updated to the newest version of LUA, and a lot of UI functionality has been modified. Some of the changes are more or less just for maintenance, some of the changes impacts gameplay greatly.

For example, a very popular addon, Decursive, no longer works. Which doesn’t bother me a bit, not because I don’t often play a class that needs to cleanse/decurse; but there was a long standing tradition for hardcore raiders to not rely too heavily on addons that make choices for you. Decursive was one of those addon that clearly would deteriorate a player’s ability to play the “right way” if used too often. I never used it even when I played my Priest, running through Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. In fact, I much appreciate the fact that Blizzard finally made a strong stance on how people should have to learn certain skills to advance in the game, rather than relying on addons that will perform the duty for them.

What really grinds my gear, in a Peter Griffin-like fashion, is that the patch has been out for almost a month now, and there still isn’t a single reliable and flexible actionbar addon.

The previous “king of actionbar” addon has to be Discord ActionBars. Which is all but defunct given the release of WoW 2.0. The…

I first started playing World of Warcraft two years ago, when I had a surgery scheduled right before Christmas. Given my work schedule at the time, the only sensible way to get a surgery done was to mix it into the Christmas/New Years season and lump it into my vacation to give myself adequate time for recovery.

Knowing that I wouldn’t have very much physical activity for a while, I decided to give World of Warcraft a try. WoW had already been released for several months, and garnered many good reviews. I haven’t been a steady gamer for quite a while, although I dabbled in various MMORPG for a bit (anything from the pre-alpha, beta of Ultimate Online, to a few months in EverQuest amongst other various MMO’s that came and went), I’ve never found any of them to be a satisfying experience. I liked Blizzard’s games from before, and WoW was getting enough good press to garner my interest.

To my surprise, WoW was not only a great MMORPG, but it was a great “game” by any standard. Up to that point, MMO’s has always played second fiddle to your regular PC games. Yes, they have a huge community that may suck you in, but generally the grahpics and gameplay was sub-standard compared to what you would get from a single player experience. WoW was really the first MMO to bring it altogether, great interesting play on a single-player level alongside of the massive world and community. Before you…