Aftermath

I waited a few days before posting anything new. I wanted to give myself time to let it sink in that the vast majority of my previous game collection is gone. It has. I don't miss it. I was holding on to a bunch of crap titles that I had finished and kept around because I told myself I'd go back and get those last few achievements. Or for the mythical time that I "got into" the multiplayer. Well no more. A game surfaces in my head every few days that I miss for about 5 minutes, then I'm over it.
     Now: Portal 2. It was great. Finished single and mutliplayer. It was short, but I was anticipating that. It was also really fun (also anticipated that), but I think the multiplayer was stronger than the single player game. Some downloadable content is supposed to be out "this summer", whenever that is. And best of all, it's going to be free. Don't believe me? Check Joystiq!
     When I was talking about Dragon Age I had not yet given the game a fair shake. It is awesome! I am more enthusiastic about Dragon Age then I am about Portal 2. It's so good, and so similar to Star Wars: KOTOR that it makes me think: if I had KOTOR on console instead of PC, maybe I'd actually finish the game, instead of finishing the first 8-10 hours and never picking it up again. Wow. I really need to go back to that game once Dragon Age is done.

I also picked up Star Craft 2 for PC. I've played 3-4 levels of it and am overwhelmed with my lack of an opinion. Not that it's bad. It's probably really great, but I'm not feeling the Real-Time Strategy right now.

Last, and certainly least, I started playing the free trial of Warhammer online. I'll describe the game like this: World of Warcraft. Same thing. If you've ever played WoW you know exactly what to expect. I'm not criticizing the game; I haven't played enough for that yet, but I've already been there. Done that.

Game Collection: Purged

I made a rather rash decision yesterday. I sold the vast majority of my game collection back to a local imperialist game-trading company. I got  a surprisingly large amount of store credit for everything and left with Portal 2, Dragon Age: Origins (Ultimate Edition), and a new controller cuz my 360 thumbstick has been twitchy for a long time. In this case "a long time" means "since I bought it. A word to the wise: sped the extra money and buy a new controller, don't buy used.

So far Portal 2 is really fun. Valve has built on the concept significantly so that it's not just a longer version of the first one and the story has taken some surprising (and fun) twists so far. I haven't touched multiplayer yet, but I hope to do some of it tomorrow. I don't really want to rant about it because there are probably a million and one sites that expound how great it is. I will probably write at about it at length once I've done some multiplayer and have finished the single player which seems like it is going to be pretty short. It's not like the first installment which you could only call a full game if you had the most jaded sense of humor, but I'm going to guess that it will clock in at around 10 hours for a full play-through.

Dragon Age seems pretty good for the hour or two I've played. However, I think I had some misconceptions about it before I got it. I expected to be playing a Mass Effect clone in a fantasy setting. I think it would be more appropriate to say that Dragon Age spans the gap between Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. On top of that, considering the game is less than 2 years old (according to google) the graphics look disappointingly dated. That may not be the case if I has an HDTV, but I'm playing it on a tube television. That's not really a complaint, it's just that Mass Effect looks so good that I was expecting the same caliber of quality throughout Dragon Age. But, like Portal 2, I'll probably have more to say once I put a little bit more time into it.

My friend bought Descent: Journeys in the Dark the other day. As you can see above, it's an extremely elaborate boardgame. We had a good time, but no one had played before so we played this very complex boardgame and tried to learn the rules (rule book is like 30 pages) at the same time. It was fun, but it took forever because no one knew the rules or the strategy. The game is like an adaptation of an old-school Dungeons and Dragons dungeon crawl. What that means is that one player runs the dungeon and wants to kill the adventurers. The other players control said adventurers, they work together and try to kill all the monsters in the dungeon and steal all their stuff (gold, potions, weapons, etc.). It's a good game, but I think the intense learning curve would turn off players who are not pretty intense gamers.

To conclude, my EVE online subscription expired. Will I be renewing it? Maybe, but Portal, Dragon Age, and Lost Odyssey to play, so the jury is still out on weather I will come back to EVE or not.

Infection

I've not posted in a week or so because I had to prepare for finals. Also, coincidentally, I haven't had much to say about gaming. Now that finals are over I bought and have been playing Prototype like it's my fucking job. I rented Prototype about a year ago and played through it super fast. I thought at the time that I played it so obsessively because it was a rental, and had to go back in 4-5 days. I realize now that I played through it so fast because it's addictive and incredible.
     I feel a little strange bit of guilt saying that its so great because it was a big deal when it came out. It shouldn't deserve the hype it got on it's release because it's little more than a Grand Theft Auto clone. A clone that has super powers. Don't misunderstand me though. I love this game. Activision essentially took their Spider Man 2 game, which was total crap, and over hauled it to make Prototype. Prototype is so derivative of other games (GTA and Spider-Man) that I feel like it should have no merits of it's own, but I cannot stop playing it. And this is after already playing the game to it's completion. Not to belabor the point, but Prototype has so much working against in my mind that the fact that I'm giving the game a virtual "Thumbs up" should communicate that this is an amazing game. A little short, but unadulterated fun!
     Other than that I want to blab on about a couple up coming games. This year is going to be a big one for games that make me excited like a little girl. Mass Effect 3 is supposed to be out near the end of the year! Some people poo-poo ME and ME2. Those people are fucking dumb-dumbs. If YOU didn't like ME or ME2 than I'm including you under the dumb-dumb umbrella. Mass Effect 2 might be my favorite game ever. And I'm putting that up against titans such as Chrono Trigger and Metal Gear Solid. Needless to say, I'm highly anticipating Mass Effect 3. Another big 'un is Skyrim: Elder Scrolls V. I only got into the Elder Scrolls series in the last 4-5 years. I played through the majority of Morrowind and loved it, I played the fuck out of Oblivion and it took Morrowind and kicked it in it's dated-graphics ass! I don't have anything more to say about it. Finally, a game that is already out: Portal 2. I want it so bad it hurts. If anyone reading this has $60 to spare send it to me immediately and I will buy Portal 2. I hope against hope that there will be a tie-in to Half Life 3 because ***SPOILER ALERT*** Half Life 2 Episode 2 had Aperture Science show up at the very end ***END SPOILER ALERT*** Regardless, I got to play a little bit of Portal 2 last week and it certainly delivered on the Awesome-ness. Rant Status: Over