So my last blog mentioned how I had given up on games on the PC and went back to playing my 360. Well, that changed once again as I unknowingly found a hidden gem that sucked me in. This game is Fallen Earth and wow I'm really hooked right now.

It began as I saw an Open Beta for the game on FilePlanet and decided, sure, why not give it a try; post-apocalyptic setting, mmo, never heard of it or the developer----let's go! Wow! Was I pleasantly surprised. I was almsot overwhelmed at first. The game has a steep learning curve (good, keep the kiddies away) and really takes a bit to fully appreciate it. The game is massive and in 'sandbox' style, you can basically do anything you want, go anywhere you want. Instances are almost non-existent, though they do exist in a few places (I still have yet to experience one). Crafting is one of the deepest I've seen in an MMO and 95% of the things in-game can be crafted (and crafted real-time, while questing or even offline). Everything from your armor, weapons, horse (its 'trained' not crafted), atv, motorcycle, dunebuggies, cars. Its really incredible. I was never a real big crafter but this game has me a craftaholic.

One server rules all. That's right there is only one server. There is both PvE and PvP with PvP in certain zones only and in 'conflict towns'. The community is awesome, helpful, and for the most part great. GMs are always online and willing to help and police the chat channels (which I actually like, keeps the idiots in check). The game is a classless game where you earn AP (advancement points) and put them where you want, either into stats, skills, or mutations. This allows you to customize your playstyle to the game. Basically you will end up playing certain combat types: melee (in many forms), pistols, or rifles, with mutations that can compliment each. There are 6 factions but they are not all against each other. Each faction has an arch-enemy and two enemies, as well as two allies. This makes for some interesting combinations and each faction's areas are very different, offer different abilities, and are overall a nice feeling.

The game is a P2P (what good game isn't?), and is done by an independant developer, Icarus Studios. I always loved the indy-devs but quality always seemed lacking. That or they just did copy-cat games. This is one BIG exception. I cannot express how good and complete this game is for an indy group. Plus they have already stated more content already in the works with new zones and level caps coming often.

There are problems with the game. Bugs, lag in certain areas, and things go wrong. The game requires somewhat high system specs (again, bye bye kiddies). I have had no serious issues with any of the bugs or any lag. Most with these problems seem to have sub-par systems or a crappy isp, or just weird firewall/router settings that they just don't know how to deal with. The game runs perfectly smooth for me and that makes for one enjoyable experience.

I'm truly loving the game and have already subscribed and plan on playing for quite some time. So sorry, 360, Modern Warfare already preordered will have to wait till I get bored once more, hopefully not in the near future and I think this might be the case with this great game I found.

So besides the usual PC chores, I've retired gaming on the PC in favor of the 360, and am not disappointed yet. The graphics on the big LCD screen are not much different, even better on some games; gaming in my La-z-boy with controller instead of a keyboard and mouse is definitely more fun; and overall I am enjoying it much more.

Now some of this could be because all I played on the PC were MMOs and these don't exist on the 360. My multi-year MMO-burnout has contributed greatly. Mostly I needed change and coming back to the 360 after not playing it for so long has been an awesome relief. Lotsa new games I've been exploring and playing, lots of new fun over Xbox Live, and tons of new stuff I didn't realize I missed so much about the 360. Live is simply awesome and games are great. Plus, I'm limiting myself to hit games from awhile ago which are now a steal and loving every minute of it.

So gaming myself to death on the 360 here are a few games I've been playing: Gears of War 2, Resident Evil 5, Left 4 Dead, Conan, Bioshock, Army of Two, Call of Duty 5, The Darkness, The Orange Box, lots of Arcade games, and a few more I can't remember. And I haven't even begun to attack the games in my son's room; who never gave up playing the 360 and inherited mine permanently after I stopped playing. Now there are 2 360s in our house.

Oh, btw, playing on Live with the son is a big plus.

So like the commercial, WoW has sucked me back into the Lich. After getting a new computer (Alienware 750i) and hooking it up to my 47", I jumped back into gaming online. My first stop back in WAR showed the guild I was in had broke up and scattered. I went around a little on my 35 Engy and quickly logged off and rolled the new class Knights of the Blazing Sun. Even this couldn't keep my interest, unguilded in a game heavily dependant on groups.

My son kept bugging me about also getting back into WoW for the Lich King and I decided to try. Four 70s and many years of playing was a bit too much and we both upgraded our accounts to Lich. Even though I wanted to see the new content on one of my 70s, I rolled a Death Knight, loaded up Questhelper, and went to work. After whipping through the awesome DK starting area, I headed for the Outlands, where I had already grinded four toons through. Surprisingly, it wasn't that bad. The DK is incredibly powerful if played right and I believe I'm playing right. I ignored questlines and went straight to leveling with unrested exp. I hit zones briefly, grabbing quests and heading out quickly. I've never reached 68 so fast and headed straight for Northrend and new content.

Northrend so far is awesome. Not too much variety in terms of what the quests are about but I also haven't ventured too far and just touched most of the initial quests. But my son has been hitting the new zone and they sound huge and leveling slow. Than again, could just be his fury warrior and probably a lot more downtime than the DK which literally has zero down time when questing. So almost 69 and no regrets coming back to the game I said I would not return to. Thanks Blizzard for both putting out a good game and also cursing me once again.

WAR has been awesome and while my computer is down I thought I would post a small update on the game. My computer's video card went bad and ended up buying a whole new computer which I am waiting to arrive. My current computer got an old vid card and will be my son's.

So I have been away from WAR for about 3 weeks so far, missing it dearly. Mythic has been awesome at regular updates, fixes, and patches since release. They continue and are soon releasing a big one already with 2 new classes (or old ones that didn't make launch). They have had several 'events' already complete with special rewards, daily events, a new scenario and more. They continue to impress me with their consistent listening of the communities' concerns and incorporating most of them into the game as improvements.

I have been away since our server got an influx of new players from transfers and from what I've been reading on WarhammerAlliance, this has vastly improved Open RvR and gave us more numbers to fill up areas, better battles, etc. The RvR(PvP) is incredible and hasn't disappointed one bit. My Engineer is now 36 and would of made 40 if my computer had held up. I've been through a couple of guilds trying to find the right fit and the one I'm in now is a small group of players who were much more serious about doing things with a purpose and not just having large numbers but never doing anything. The Engineer has been nothing short of a blast since I last reported. I have stuck with the grenadier tree and tossing grenades that do lots of AoE must be really annoying to enemy players.

The break from the game has been tough. I was even tempted to play some WoW when the new computer arrived for the sake of great leveling/questing/PvE fun that WoW is so good at. I've pretty much decided it ain't happening.

Also will be moving my PC gaming from my old 19" square monitor to my large 47" LCD. Am also going to try a few of the PC games out there instead of being trapped in WAR. Want to try Fallout 3 and a couple of others I can't think of right now. Otherwise just really anxious to get my new computer which will be a big performance upgrade from my old computer which I built (and was my first build) over a year ago. The old comp had an older Athlon x2, Windows XP 32 bit, single 8500gt. My new computer is a 950i motherboard, Intel dual core, dual 9800GT Sli, Vista 64 bit, 4 gb ram. So I'm really looking forward to cranking up my settings on many games and enjoying them on a much larger screen in all their glory. I can't wait. Look for a review on my new system in the near future based on the experience from start to finish and how it buying it from a company compared to building my own.

Well Warhammer is shaping up to everything I expected it to be and more! I found a great guild, Domination, on Red Eye Mountain server after joining their warband on a whole day of keep-sieging and defending. Most fun I've had since starting and huge amounts of renown. I originally started destro on another server but got sick of the horrible RvR happening because of long scenario queues and server queues. So went Order on REM. I have a level 30 Warrior Priest right now who I have relegated to pretty much only healing, which she does very well. Our hots are huge and powerful with lots of AoE hots. Slowed down on leveling and doing much solo until there are more people in the T4 areas to run with. Pretty much trying to catch up on my renown and get it equal with my level. Few more levels of renown to go, but working straight 12 horu graveyards isn't helping much at all.

So for the short periods between work and sleep I started an engineer since the dwarf areas are one I have yet to experience and the engineer seems underplayed and I wanted to know why. The forums make them out to be a gimped class, but after playing one now to level 10, I beg to differ. We are a great support class with still strong burst damage and lots of good AoE and CC. Plus, and maybe more importantly, they are a blast to play with lots of fun things to do besides mashing one skill. Turrets, grenades, barbed wire, landmines, knockbacks...really having lots of fun with them so far.

Overall, the game is progressing very nicely. Lots of updates and patches that have really made huge differences to gameplay, and I didn't think there was much wrong to begin with for a game in its infancy. In my opinion, this is the best MMO out there right now with so many elements that are unique and really make it stand out above others as well as on its own. With so many different things to do at all times, the leveling grind never feels like a grind. The only downside I can see is the crafting professions which are unique but complicated, time consuming, and not very practical. Otherwise the game is very polished, very clean, and a whole lot of fun!!

So work is boring and all I can think of is getting home and playing more WAR. Now for a 40 yr old who has played many MMOs and played some (WoW) for way too long, this is a rare feeling. But this game really is a nice breath of fresh air in the MMO market. Currently I am still in the Tier 2 area at level 16, playing a Warrior Priest. I left an Open RvR server playing destruction basically because of the LACK of PvP on a PvP server. That and the log-in ques were too big, and the scenarios never popped up. So I decided to play the underdog on another server where order was medium and have loved the difference so far.

Scenarios are popping up faster than I even want to go in to them, and haven't once had a log-in que. But of course this does have a down side. Destruction has such a high population that world RvR is rough, every keep belongs to Destruction, and if we do manage to grab one, it doesn't last long. Of course with renown gear sucking so bad, keeps aren't a big thing but even the renown gear is a nice fill-in for gear I haven't found in questing.

Been thinking a lot about guilds and how I really need to find a good one with good numbers to enjoy the 'group' things like raids, siege keeps, and even scenarios with people I know instead of pugs every time. Though, I'll have to say that Order holds their own quite well in the scenarios, even with pugs.

Still love the insta-group concept, finding a group in your area and then joining it without the usual lfg aspect. Makes things alot easier to get things done.

Anyway, really wasn't planning on writing this much, and I could probably write for days about what I love about WAR....but not tonight.

After playing the preview weekend, this game promises to be the best game for a long time to a die-hard MMO/PvP player. Great, huge, immersive world. Awesoem cast of classes, great storyline, incredible RvR (PvP) without the usual gankfest. This game will not be a WoW killer but only because WoW players play with blinders on and are unwilling to see or try other games they are so wrapped up in WoW.