08 March, 2009

Keepalive: Perfect World, Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

written on Sunday, March 8, 2009

And that is why I often abbreviate game titles. I haven't stopped gaming just because I'm working on the Heart of Evil walkthrough.

I have mostly stopped playing Perfect World. It's nice if I want to take a break. But I'm getting back into gaming, so I don't really want a break.

I also tried Ether Saga Online, thanks to a beta key from What They Play (a web site targeting parents). ESO wasn't my cup of tea. But I will say this about What They Play, John Davison knew what he was doing. Every time I hear about the average age of gamers, it's my age (35 at the time of this writing). And normal people my age have families.

I also am dinking around with the ten day trial of Warhammer Online. I like it better than WoW. Just the fact that PvP matches are limited to 15 minutes, win lose or draw, makes it a far superior PvP experience. And the public quests are also pretty cool. Basically, once you enter a certain area, a quest appears. It's usually something like "kill 35 fire monkeys". But everyone in the zone is on the quest, and as they kill, they each earn points. They get XP, they get influence in the region (which can be exchanged for gear), and if they're one of the top contributors, they can win some extra loot, as well. It's a welcome change of pace from standard questing.

All that said, it's still not nearly good enough for me to pay a subscription fee. I like action, and at the end of the day, Warhammer Online is still mostly math.

If I want math, I can play Mafia Wars of Vampire Wars on Facebook. They're boring, but I just log on, press some buttons and feel like I accomplished something. Well, in Mafia Wars I do. I'd put money on Vampire Wars being a much earlier effort as it's very poorly designed. But I was invited by someone on Facebook, so I'll waste a couple minutes a day on it.

When I call something a waste of time, that should get your attention.

Enough math. More pummeling.

Thanks to not having rehearsal the past Tuesday night, I got to play some co-op Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. It's basically a brawler, but with more air combos and fireballs than most. It's probably my favorite Mortal Kombat game, as I'm not into spending the time it takes to get good at fighting games and always considered the Mortal Kombat games shallow, poorly animated, and tacky compared to Street Fighter. But shallow and tacky are par for the course for brawlers, so it works fine, there.

Shallow and tacky are also par for the course for $5 games, hence me buying Lost Planet during a recent Steam sale. The game is pretty much nothing but running through icy wastes, shooting alien bug things. But at $5, I found it quite satisfying.

I also played a bit of VtM Bloodlines. I ran into a gamer I don't see very often who said he likes FPS with a lot of exploration. I decided to play some Bloodlines with a ranged weapon build to see if it was feasible. It was a strange coincidence because I was listening to a podcast a couple days later where some people were saying they'd play Stalker again, but not Bloodlines. I always intended to go back to Bloodlines. I still haven't played through as the shape changer, sewer dweller, or crazy ass vampire types and would like to. I found Stalker so monotonous I wouldn't even play the sequel.

Well, maybe for $5. :)

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