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October 04, 2004

Bored! Send Help!

I've hit the lull. This is the scary time when I think that I'm done being a gamer. It comes around every year, usually sometime between the Jerry Lewis Telethon, and my birthday. This year has been a little bit of a disappointment. Because I'm only following a few select titles for the remainder of the year, and I have an undying dedication to our reader, lets look at the first 3 quarters of the year in review:

Battlefield Vietnam Yep, we loved it. We drank every precious drop of thirst-quenching FPS goodness, and asked for more. Helicopters? I love 'em. Thank you EA for allowing that incorporation that made our illicit love affair so much the sweeter while it lasted. Still a great game, but after playing several hundred hours, doesn't have the magic anymore. Perhaps the release of some new maps would help, perhaps not.

Joint Operations I read the reviews and picked this up the day it was released. I only played for a few weeks, and my strongest impressions were as follows. Big Ups: Sniper rifles have to be ranged to be accurate (where has this been for the last 2 years?); using an ammo supply allows you to change weapons; and a waiting que for joining a full server. Yeah neat huh? Unfortunately, every step forward this game took, it took 2 steps backward: helicopters that behave like flying cars (personal sore spot); directional audio was a nightmare; maps the size of Wyoming; 3 year old multiplayer interface; mystery scoring system. I hope we see some future works that incorporate the "what worked" section.

I was looking forward, really looking forward, to, Doom III. JB no doubt clued you in that we were watching that title like children with our noses pressed against the glass of the front window of Macy's in December. And like the spoiled child, I played with it for a day and forgot about it. Yes, great graphics, neat ideas for interface, but after that, I'm running around in the dark shooting monsters, again. Don't the Monsters know they can't win?

Anarchy Online was not released in this last year, but I spent some time with it in the Spring when they gave 2 free weeks of account time to previously cancelled accounts. As it was when I left the game: great graphics and potential, bogged down with linear play, repetetive content (go to the cave/ship/temple/house and kill everything), and lack of any ability to be different from anyone else while being effective in the least.

Star Wars Galaxies was another from last year that I picked up this year. Content wise, it has much more support for people who don't want to play cookie-cutter characters. Despite this, it still falls victim to a lack of low-level play for casual players. Your time invested in the game yeilds you very little. Did you know that Verant originally wanted to charge by the hour for people to play EverQuest? It's sad that there are still game elements that harken back to the call of time-sink design. One thing that I'm looking forward to is the expansion pack coming called "Jump to Lightspeed" - as I have wanted "X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter" to come back for years now. The expansion, which will cost $30, grants you access to the space sections and flight related combat. It does not, however, gurantee that you'll have anything to fly. Check back in another month, I'll be whining about it again.

Posted by at October 4, 2004 01:44 PM