Sunday, March 7, 2010

Shooting Lots Of Guys (Slicing A Few)

It's been a violent week in gaming. Aside from the odd game of Chess or Words With Friends, there's been a whole lot of dying going on.

It started with the bitter rivalry between two warring factions of an unnamed African nation coming to a head. I was put in a position to help an infamous and terminally ill arms dealer known as The Jackal bring to an end this conflict, and at the same time to help millions of refugees find a safe way out of the chaos. This was the final resolution of the mission given to my character in Far Cry 2, which was a very satisfying game in the end, and one of the most well-realized worlds I've had the pleasure to play in; a feat that was aided, no doubt, by it's novel choice of settings, a lush and realistic cross section of Africa's many types of geography.

I ordered Battlefield: Bad Company 2 from Amazon on the strength of it's multi-player demo for the 360, and the game arrived this past Tuesday, ushering a renaissance of XBL/PSN fragging into my living room. Together with MAG, another arrival this week, I've spent as much time shooting guys online in the last five days as in the last five months. Both games are a ton of fun, and both have the ever-addicting experience point and unlock system. I'm still level bullshit in BC2, but I've reached level 8 in MAG, which is when you get access to the biggest (256 players) game mode. EA has been having problems maintaining the servers for BC2 (guess it sold big), so this weekend I've mostly been playing MAG instead. I really like it, but the selection of maps seems pretty limited. I'll need a lot more time with both of these games to come to any real conclusions, but at first blush both are brilliant.

For some reason I got the itch the other day to finally start the God of War series. No one needs any explanation of what God of War is, but I have actually never played one up until this point. I played for a few hours, enjoying it, to a point where Kratos is storming his way through Athens on the way to encounter Ares. I have no real idea of how long the game is, but I'd guess it's 12-15 hours or something, putting me probably 1/5 of the way in.

7 comments:

Greg said...

FFXIII is starting to look a little bit better. Story and characters still seem cheesy and a common complaint is that it is very linear.

However, I hear the combat is different and very good. I'm a bit torn; part of me wants to buy it to experience the combat, especially the big boss battles, and part of me is hesitant because I think I will be disappointed.

Has your level of interest increased at all since the latest reviews and footage?

Count Elmdor said...

No, quite the opposite, actually. I've read a few reviews and seen a lot of impressions, also listened to 2 pretty in depth podcast discussions about it.

It all tells me to stay the hell away from XIII, lol, and for the first time I think I will skip a main series Final Fantasy.

It just seems to add up to something I don't want to play, and there's no shortage of things I do out there!

Greg said...

After listening to many podcasts over the past few months, I have to say I really don't care for the Giant Bomb podcast.

They have far too many people involved which often leads to a very sloppy sounding mobcast where people talk over one another, interrupt each other, and regularly burst into group laughter.

I'm unsubscribing today.

Count Elmdor said...

That's one of my favorites each week, lol.

Have you given a listen to In Game Chat? Another of my favorites. Their format is mostly dominated by one strong personality, but I find it's a good discussion every time.

What are some of your favorites?

I think for our show it's best to try to keep it at about an hour max. Being just a discussion between 2 people, you can run out of steam if you don't watch it.

Greg said...

I don't see the draw to the Giant Bomb show.

I have listened to In Game Chat and think it is ok.

Of course, I enjoy Call of Podcast. Other favorites of mine include Joystiq, Mid-Life Gamer, and CAGcast. The CAGcast has grown on me quite a bit even though I think they spend a lot of time off topic or tangentially on topic.

Greg said...

Your comment got read on the Lizard Wizard episode of In Game Chat.

Count Elmdor said...

Oh, cool. I've been so busy with my parents in town since last Thursday that I haven't gotten to hear it yet.

Tbh, I don't even remember what the comment was...

Those are cool guys. Once a year or so ago, James mentioned that he and his gf might be moving to Portland, and I sent in a comment offering to show him around if they ever did. He responded and seemed like a really cool guy.

I also met Scott and Daniel, who used to be on there for a while, at PAX 08, and they seemed pretty cool.

The best part is they're just random dudes who like to game out, not press d-bags looking for a job at some dev.