Console games are fun for a week. MMO's are a lifestyle. Where are all the fun games!? I spend a great deal of my life playing games. Currently I own and still use (frequently) a XBox 360, PS3, DS Lite, PSP and even my PS2 on occasion. Problem is nothing sticks like it used too. The last game I got excited about was Gears of War 2. That lasted four days. I really miss the games that had followings. HUGE mod communities. New skins for your in-game character. It seems today you need a subscription to play the great community games. Even those are lackluster at best. You play up to a set level. Then your stuck with a few fun people and a bunch of jerks. Guilds used to stick together for years. Now they number in the hundreds and a small handful stays for 6 months. Games are just not lasting as long as they used to anymore. People move on quickly because they have nothing to contribute to games and nothing new and exciting from the developers (is why I personally feel this problem exists). Game developers used to reach out to the fans who contributed quality mods and had mad skills. This contributed to the games hype and continued fun. With MMO's we should all have a huge community with regular bonus content updates for the $15 a month subscription. Right now Mythic (my current mmo dev) is only doing the big holiday extras. The droves of WOW fans left and the community is balanced to small faithful fans. I dread these times when I have to return to old games just to have fun while I get through the boring months.

This game feels right. It truely is in the Conan world. It uses strategy in battle by controling your melee weapon. You can attack left, right, and above. The characters are from three nationalities. You can be from Cimmeria, Aquilonia or Stygia. The real enjoyment is choosing the class. The classes are:

Assasin

Barbarian

Bear Shaman

Conqueror

Dark Templar

Demonologist

Guardian

Herald of Xotli

Necromancer

Priest of Mitra

Ranger

Tempest of Set

You can also choose professions but I won't go into any detail on crafting. You enter one huge zone to quest and to epic quest. After you reach a certain level you go to another huge zone. Before I go any further I have one complaint. In the first zone you have all the NPC's to interact with ...talk. Yes actual voice acting with quest NPCs. No longer the eye-straining reading. Just kick back and listen to what you are going to do in your quest. Even has a nice bit of story to it. I was impressed. After reaching level 20 and returning to my homeland (the next zone) which is in the midst of war. The interactive NPCs no longer talk. Talk about a huge tease. Complaint over.

Overall, the game is great despite the fact that it is riddled with bugs. If you are MMO savvy you know work-arounds for most the bugs. The game has so many though it feels more like a closed beta. Everyday I send a new bug/bugs to the developers. I can only imagine how many they get frome the millions of subscribers. Yikes.

On the other hand, this game is very addictive because it has more interaction than any of the many MMOs I have played. The special combat moves are wicked. No click on a rival and tap abilities when they time out. Like boring WoW. Yeah I said it. I played WoW for 3.5 years before I got burned out due to lack of an engaging game. AoC has replayability from the beginning. There is more to do while questing because the towns have quests galore. Replies can also be different when talking to quest NPCs.

Currently I am only level 24. I will add to my blog again when I reach level 40. Good hunting fellow AoC fans.

 

I have been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XII the past five days. I love the story and the cutscenes. Like many fans. But.... the gameplay polys and texures are far too low to be a great game. When you see the game on a 63 inch HD screen it all becomes noticable. You will see the obvious sprites. the poorly made models and the ugly textures stretched too thin to look good. The characters are written very nicely. Cid looks better in XII. Vaan is a cool main character compared to past games. His history is fresh and interesting. The battle system was a much needed over-haul. It is a good game that is just not up to current standards. They should have raised the bar on poly count and texture quality in the design notes. The game is huge yet you see Kratos and wonder why the current Final Fantasy game doesn't look as good as God of War I & II. I would rather have quality over quanity any day. I'll buy two games to make the one if needed. Just make the game look better than 1997 poly count and 256 textures. 

I hope the next game has an Xbox 360 version because I cannot justify $600 for a couple games. If you are new to the Final Fantasy Universe. This is an ideal game to start playing. The gambits make life easier and the ability to turn them off or on is wonderful. Problem is you keep getting guest characters that have useful abilities (Lamont's healing ability) and cannot tap into them. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing FFXII. Now that I am back online FFXII falls to the wayside of better games on the Xbox 360 and World of Warcraft. 

I have been playng the PC version of Godfather the Game for a week now. The controls were awkward so I opted to get the 360 version. Fortunately it had a recent price drop to $39.99.  I also updated to the 360 version into the Don's Edition via Xbox Live. The graphics are noticably better on the PC version. This is the first game created from a movie that really shines as a great and fun game. The game has unlockable film clips from the movies. Another aspect that adds to the game is the voice talent. They got most of the original actors to do the voice work. The gameplay itself is remarkable. You can grab and beat the marks to an inch of their lives or do one of the 50 execution styles. As the game starts out you learn that your father (a made man) was murdered when you were a child. The Godfather is there to comfort and protect you. Nine years pass and you are at The Godfather's daughters wedding. Your mom asks for help from the Godfather because you are a small time crook running around with the wrong crowd. The Godfather sends his best man out to teach you to fight. The first couple missions you don't need to learn to block attacks. But when you do the challenge level really takes a fun turn. The fighting controls are similar to Fight Night Round 3. You have quick jabs, hook shots, head butts, grabs, kicks and even stand them back up to get more pain dished out to them. Overall you really do not need to be a fan of the Godfather movies to enjoy this game. It has a strong story and soundtrack from the movies. The gameplay and controls are a nice mix of GTA and Fight Night Round 3. If you are a fan of those games this is a definate buy.

There are a lot of great MMORGS out today. WoW, Guild Wars (1-3), Lineage 2 and Final Fantasy IX. But which one is the best? I am lucky enough to be able to play all the games listed above. Each is great in their own way. WoW is community-based. If you want to socialize and play/talk with others. WoW is the game for you. Final Fantasy Fan... the choice is obvious. Then there is Guild Wars and Lineage 2. Both made by NCSoft. Each very different. Guild Wars can be played for no subcriber cost. All three Guild Wars Profecies, Factions and Nightfall stands as its own whole game. Lineage 2 is pay to play. It uses the new Unreal Engine so the graphics are tight. Out of all these games I personally like Lineage 2 best. It uses default keyboard/mouse controls. Unlike Final Fantay IX which you need a 360 controller to play (with inverted X, Y axis). Lineage 2 looks great and plays a solid 10 out of 10. As stated before all these games are truely great in their own individual ways. It just matters what type of gamer you are.

The wait for Halo 3 is still a long ways off  from now. I asked about the release date and it went from TBA to not released until next September/November. I was floored by this news. Luckily I got Burning Crusade at a midnight release party today. Granted it is 2:15am and I still got an hour of updating before I can play. I love games. But somedays it doesn't seem worth the hassle.

Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon had one thing in common. You are covered in kevlar yet you go down in 3-4 unkown hit enemy shots. Sorry but that makes no sense. Rainbow Six Vegas has been re-vamped. You now start to blur vision as you are shot. Finally a warning to take cover. I own both GRAW and Rainbow Six Vegas on PC and 360. I just can't get enough. Rainbow Six Vegas is the best tactical shooter out there. You can go full assault with your team or ease into kill nests.
Ubisoft has had my respect for many years. They did a great job on three Tom Clancy games this years and truely earned the business being in the green at 13%. Rainbow Six Vegas is THE Rainbow Six to get this year. Ghost Recon does come in a close second.

Been playing Elder Scrolls Oblivion for a week now. Started out with the PC Collectors Edition. This was frustrating because it kept freezing up. This poor quality programming on a high-end PC that was hand-built with a passion for gaming. Fortunately, the local EB Games let me trade for the XBox 360 version. Granted now I can play and have played many hours over the last 5 days or so. The environment and AI are amazing. Oblivion is a huge leap ahead of Morrowind. However, it still carries the same poor programming problems that is prevalent in Bethesda Studios. What tears me apart is they KNOW about the problem but never fix it. Same problem as before in previous revisions of the game engine. The game holds a huge memory of the game and enviroment interactions. Then freezes the game when it is trying to dump the last area that was loaded. Such a simple fix for a frustrating common error. My advice is to save VERY often. I got the premium xbox 360 and my pc is comparable to current Alienwear PC's. A great game that lacks great programming.

Finally bought an XBox 360. The top end version ofcourse. This system is amazing an I've barely grazed the surface because I've been sucked into Obilvion.