I had a few people at PAX ask me to post more often and talk about what I'm currently playing. So this is for you guys!
As Tycho mentioned the other day I am a big KH fan. So intense is my love of the series that I actually ordered the special edition KH DSI from Japan. I did this before I realized that (unlike the DS) the Japanese DSI has no option for changing the language to english and will not work with the US DSI store.
I hit the four hour mark with the game last night just to let you know how far I am. Nearly three hours of that was spent in tutorial. I have to say I feel like this was a bit excessive. Now that I've started the game proper though I'm really digging it. The game is broken up into bit sized missions that you take and complete in whatever order you like. This makes putting it down difficult as I keep saying, "well I'll just do one more mission."
The story is much less convoluted than previous games in the series. It covers the time Roxas spent as a member of Organization XIII. You could probably pick up the game and have some fun without understanding that Sora became a Heartless or that Roxas is Sora's Nobody. I'm not sure there's enough there to keep you interested though unless you really love the world and want to learn more about the characters.
This game is really a mixed bag. I'm only on chapter four and already I've seen more bugs and glitches than I've ever seen in a single game. I've experienced one bug that actually stopped the game and forced me to turn of the Wii. Beyond that I've seen a bunch of odd little glitches. Things like the camera (which is on rails) turning away from a group of monsters before I have finished killing them so that they just attack me from off screen until I am dead. I've had issues where, even though I have a weapon and plenty of ammo, I can't select it. I've seen characters pop in and out of the frame and textures not load. The crazy thing is that even with all that bullshit I keep going back to play it.
It turns out, shooting an alien with a stasis field and then blowing off all its arms and legs is just good fun.
I came to the realization at PAX this year that I needed to own a PC. There's just no way I could miss playing Star Wars:The Old Republic. I ended up buying myself an Alienware laptop for my birthday and I've really been impressed with it. Since my beta invite for Star Wars has not arrived yet (Hint Hint) I decided to toss Aion on there. It runs beautifully and I really like a lot of the game's mechanics.
The main reason I play video games is for the art and Aion is just fucking stunning. I hit level 11 and realized that the game doesn't really "start" until level 10. That's when you get your wings and the world really opens up. I'm playing Aion a lot differently than I play WOW. Since none of my friends are playing it, I'm essentially coming at it like a single player game. I play WOW as a part of a gild and our goal is to progress through the content. In Aion I'm actually reading quests and taking my time. I don't feel any rush or pressure to level so the experience is much more relaxed.
I don't know how long I'll stick with it though. At the end of the day I'm still just killing monsters and collecting spleens for some guy back in town. Sure sometimes the monsters are in the air and I get to fly around while I kill them but without all my friends in the world with me, I don't know how long it will be fun. If my entire guild had switched over things might be different. For right now the novelty of a new combat system and game mechanics is enough to keep me entertained. My guess is that will wear off long before I reach any kind of level cap though.
So there you go. Those are the games I'm playing right now and how I feel about them. Is this sort of thing useful? Should I do it more often?
-Gabe out
