Thursday, May 28, 2009

Rumors of my demise...

Sometimes you sign up for 17 hours of class thinking you will have an above-average workload, only to discover that the two 1-credit labs you have actually demand 3 credits' worth of work. Ah, the joys of a science major.

Anyway, here's 6 months' worth of posts, condensed down to a series of bullet points:

  • WAR is a fun game, but their shitty fucking code means that I can't do large scale keep sieges or any of the higher rank scenarios on my aging dinosaur of a computer. Subscription Canceled.
  • Fable II puts the "RP" back into RPGs, and that makes me a happy nerd.
  • Portal is the best puzzle game ever.
  • Team Fortress 2 kicks ass, but I suck at it. ='(
  • EVE can actually be a lot of fun, but you can't treat it like an everquest-type game. Also, you need to be borderline OCD and not afraid to lose your shit (more on this in another post).
  • Left 4 Dead is awesome. In face, pretty much anything with a Valve logo would be worth buying even at twice the price.
  • World War II shooters need to die.
  • Aion: Tower of Eternity looks potentially sweet.
  • Even though I'll get pissed and stop playing for a month because some emo pretty-boy asshat villain has to be killed half a dozen times before it sticks, and the character that I based my entire playstyle around will get kidnapped/imprisoned/killed, I will still buy and play Final Fantasy XIII when it hits shelves.
  • Mass Effect is one game where I would actually be happy to see a near endless train of sequels.
  • If your epic boss fight requires nullifying a specific playstyle in order to be challenging, then you fail as a game designer. If it relies on numerical challenge, you get a D-.
  • I am on a self-imposed dwarf fortress ban, because otherwise it would ruin my life. This game is proof that a good idea and solid execution are all you really need to make a fun game.
  • David Sirlin's article on the scrub is a must read, if for some reason you haven't yet. In fact, the entire Playing to Win series is great, and it now comes in book form.
Annnnd that's about it.