Cataclysm: My Life for the Horde!!!

BlizzCon 2009 has wrapped up this past weekend and we now have time to reflect on what has been shown and where we, the collective fans of Blizzard Entertainment, shall come up with spare time to enjoy all these great titles next year. With Starcraft II, a new World of Warcraft expansion, and possibly Diablo 3 all coming in fiscal year 2010, Blizzard and its parent company Activision looks to destroy the competition with classic franchises that are known multi-million selling games. Of all the offerings Blizzard was showing last week, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is by far the most ambitious and powerful title. Lets look at the story behind the new expansion.

An ancient evil lies dormant within Deepholm, the domain of earth in the Elemental Plane.

Hidden away in a secluded sanctuary, the corrupted Dragon Aspect Deathwing has waited, recovering from the wounds of his last battle against Azeroth and biding his time until he can reforge the world in molten fire. Soon, Deathwing the Destroyer will return to Azeroth, and his eruption from Deepholm will sunder the world, leaving a festering wound across the continents. As the Horde and Alliance race to the epicenter of the cataclysm, the kingdoms of Azeroth will witness seismic shifts in power, the kindling of a war of the elements, and the emergence of unlikely heroes who will rise up to protect their scarred and broken world from utter devastation.

Now as a fan of the fiction of Warcraft I had to change my pants. Of all the end bosses that are in the Warcraft universe, Deathwing is by far the greatest threat. Poor Arthas wouldn't last 5 minutes in a battle with the mighty Neltharion. This character is going to be massive and hard and a dream come true for a fan of the universe, sorry I'm a fan and not impartial when it comes to this series so take my words with caution.

Looking down the list of features we have a massive update to the core world zones and a major step forward for the series as a whole.

1. Two new playable races. The Goblins for the Horde and the Worgen for the Alliance.
2. Level cap raised to 85.
3. Classic zones redesigned to to deal with Deathwings return. Every classic zone will be altered in some way and new quests replacing original quest content.
4. New high level zones.
5. High level raid content.
6. New race/class combination's. (Gnome Priest, Blood-Elf Warrior, Tauren Paladin)
7. New PVP zone and rated battleground.
8. New secondary profession Archaeology.
9. Guild advancement system with guild achievements
10. FLYING MOUNTS IN AZEROTH!

These last 2 are the most amazing features to be included. The amount of quality content is a great value to anyone who has left the game for an extended period of time. Also, the fact that the actual breaking of the world will happen months in advance of the official expansion pack. Once this event happens in-game all previous quests will be lost in favor of a new set of quests regardless of whether you bought the expansion or not. Needless to say this is not a hard sell for me. Now granted I love the changes but I have a feeling of guilt for not playing all the quests or dungeons. I mean I never ran Shadowfang Keep! I wanted to but by the time I was in that part of the world I was to high of a level to make it worthwhile.

So here I am running through the world with my 64 shaman and my 27 warrior trying to get all my achievements for running dungeons and exploring before its all wiped from the game. I've never played as much as I do now. This announcement is pushing me even farther. I will have that discussion on my next post.

Wolfenstein: Multiplayers Need Not Apply.....Yet!

The 18th of this month was a special day for me. On this day I bought my PC copy of Wolfenstein at the local Gamestop. Now after playing it for many hours and sifting through what other owners thought of the game, It was time for me to sit down and write about why I love this game even though it sometimes feels like a donkey punch to the nuts.

Nostalgia is a compelling factor here. Wolfenstein 3D was my first FPS and I loved it more than anything. I played Doom when it came out but I always went back to Wolf3D because, lets face it, killing Nazis is fun. In 2001, when Return to Castle Wolfenstein was released, I marveled at the beautiful graphics and sublime multiplayer. Coming in to 2009 I really didn't hear much of newest entry to the series. Other than Raven doing the single player, Awesome. With multiplayer, someone in charge chose Endrant Studios. (remember that last one because that's where your hate mail should go.) So I went into this game blind, I knew nothing of the story and nothing of the multiplayer.

First the bad news, Wolfenstein has one of the worst multiplayer clients I have ever witnessed in modern programming. Ugly, broken, and ugly this game should have never shipped with this code on disk. The lag was so incredible that I thought I was playing on dial-up. It is a serious step back for the franchise as a whole and a lot of fans are going to be pissed off because of it. People who are waiting for the multiplayer to be fixed are probably going to have to wait a little longer as the multiplayer developers, Endrant let go of a number of its employees on release day. So don't expect it to be fixed anytime soon. Why you ask? Let me ask you this. Do you think Activision is going to spend any more money on a multiplayer project when they have Call of Duty to work on? Nope, I don't think Activision cares about fixing Wolfensteins multiplayer. To them it is not worth the money to invest. Also this PC game has console port written all over it. You can tell that the consoles were the lead sku's here. The game was meant to be played with a controller and in fact I found the game more enjoyable with my 360 controller plugged in than with my mouse.

On the single player side, things were a lot better. Raven shows you how to wrap a solid gameplay around decent tech. For me, Wolfenstein has always been a single player game first, multiplayer second. The storyline of this game does feel a little stale. But the simple, fast gameplay along with pretty visual effects and sound really go a long way to make you forget that this all seems familiar. Raven should be commended for the effort they put into their part of the game to save it from the feeling it was being rushed out the door.

In conclusion I feel that we are at a crossroads with Wolfenstein as a franchise. Do you remember Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory? Remember that it was suppose to have a single player and a multiplayer mode? They took single player out because they couldn't get it to work. That's what they need to do here. Take the multiplayer out and just have the single player on store shelves. There is no way I can recommend this game for multiplayer when you have so many other good multiplayer games on the market. As a single player game it might not appeal to everyone, but if your a fan of the series and the character B.J., you will enjoy the story and the game. I just wonder if this will be the last collaboration between id software and Raven since id is now with Zenimax and Raven is owned by Activision? Only time will tell I guess.

Has the Game Enthusiast Press Failed Us?

At the beginning of 2009 game hobbyists everywhere received a near fatal blow to the way they get their information on the industry. When UGO bought 1UP and subsequently killed off Electronic Gaming Monthly they ended a 20 year legacy of honest reporting and thoughtful articles geared towards a growing, mature audience. EGM's closure and Computer Gaming World's (sorry, I'll never call it Games for Windows Magazine) shuttering the year before marked the end of a sad chapter in the history of video games. A chapter where politics, style, PR, and hype overruled logic, integrity, solid reporting, and industry insight. What were left with is untrustworthy magazines with their eyes on exclusives (PC Gamer and Game Informer). On the internet, venerable websites like 1up.com and Gamespot.com change their format and attitude enough so that they have sunk to a special level of irrelevancy.

Lets start with print media because this is where I have had the most problems when it comes to reviews. The December 2007 issue of PC Gamer had on its cover a beautiful Hellgate: London spread with the words exclusive review under the logo. Now I knew a little about the game, and the developers Flagship Studios. I knew that the studio was founded by Ex-Blizzard employees and that Hellgate was billed as a spiritual successor to the Diablo franchise. These 2 issues brought with it a serious amount of hype and expectations reminiscent of a previous Blizzard release. The review from PC gamer was very positive, giving the game an 89 out of 100. The final piece which I copied here from Metacritic (I normally would just credit the PC Gamer issue and not use metacritics summery but I destroyed that December 2007 issue in a Voodoo Ritual so i had to find the summery online). PC Gamer stated at the conclusion that "It dosen't redefine the action RPG, but in a genre laden with derivative games, Hellgate is a refreshing concoction that's likely to have enduring appeal. [Dec 2007, p.48] That along with the Game Informer review that gave Hellgate a 8.5 compelled me to purchase this "great" game. Hell I even bought the collectors edition. I gave the game about a week of consistent game time and finally "I" came to the conclusion that Hellgate London was the biggest piece of trash I have ever installed onto my computer. In fact, I am pretty sure I've had computer viruses that were more enjoyable than that buggy mess. So, now that I was pissed I started looking for answers. How could this game get released like this and how could a game this bad get an 89 from PC Gamer?

The problem is I couldn't find any answers. What I did hear were rumors that floated around that went something like this, "If you want to release a review as a exclusive or get your review out early, the game has to score high in your magazine!" This can't be true, can it? Yep, and with what happened with Jeff Gerstmann at Gamespot.com as evidence I can say that the threat is real and it is wide spread. Well, we all know how Hellgate preformed at retail. That terrible release along with a sad online model crippled the franchise and the company. When Flagship Studios closed its doors, it drove home a point that rings true to computer gamers. A game that is "like" Diablo STILL wont be Diablo.

With Hellgate behind us you would think print and online media would realize that exclusive reviews are fundamentally bad for the industry because it taints the objectivity of the reviewer. Assassins Creed was another example of a game that received exclusive review scores that seemed unbelievably high. Even when the reviews acknowledged the repetitious game play and poor design choices, the games graphics and open design trumps everything. Now granted this game is not a bad game by any means but was not a 100%, A+, perfect 10, or the second coming of Christ. It wasn't even a 9.0, 90%, B+, or an Editors Choice. No, I believe that the IGN.com and EGM/1UP reviews were probably the most fair to the game and to the public.


Now lets fast forward to the present. 1UP is now owned by UGO. UGO didn't bring many people from the old 1UP into the fold. Now the 1UP.com site looks like any other blog site. Their podcast while better than the competition are a shadow of the 1UPyours of old. I think the turning point for me as a fan of their podcast / site was during the E3 podcast. They really lost me on certain comments that they made regarding certain games. One that comes to mind is the PS3 kart racer ModNation Racers. Their ability to condemn it as a generic kart racer an really not talk about the concept of creating, sharing, or playing really bothered me especially how much they "LOVED" Little Big Planet. Objective? Maybe. Short sided? Absolutely. To me, the old days where we had a crew every Friday that tackled subjects that were important to the industry not just gamers really appealed to me. It made me feel like I was a part of that industry. It just dosen't feel that way anymore.

I have now come to the conclusion that the enthusiast press has failed us. But I dont think that it is their fault. Game companies who reward early reviews for high scores are to blame. Companies that buy a gaming site then sack the staff that made it what it was are to blame. Consumers that get burned by tainted reviews still read that trash thinking its still objective, so we are to blame.

There is going to come a day where we will no longer need these sites and magazines. With people sharing on facebook, twitter, and blogs like the one your reading now, we will be able to share our ideas about our hobby and the games we play. Those views will be more valid than the gaming press because it comes, not from the PR that trys to regulate the press, but from the heart of what makes us a gamer.



The views of this post reflect the views of Jared Ball, co-creater of the Epic-Geek site and as such do not reflect the views Brian Allen, the other co-creater of the site who thinks that ModNation Racers looks good but wont be as popular as Little Big Planet. Jared thinks that ModNation Racers will be a bigger seller than Little Big Planet.

"Gamer's Period" The Times Are A-Changin'

I have noticed over the past couple of years a changing of my play style that has me questioning my love for this hobby. When I first began playing games many years ago simplicity was the order of the day and complex controls were pushing 2 buttons in succession. Games like Zork, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros, and King Quest defined my childhood. More so than Sesame Street, Smerfs, Fraggle Rock, or as I learned later Reganomics. As I got older, games started getting more complicated. Tecmo Bowl gave way to Madden and Test Drive gave way to Gran Turismo. Kings Quest gave way to Myst. These complex games made you feel more mature because you were dealing with in depth control and challenging puzzles.

But no matter how complicated games got I, as a game enthusiast, never looked back to the more simple graphics, control, and design. I respected them, but always to the future I looked. As Mario took the plunge into 3D, and as Street Fighter 2 faded because Virtua Fighter, Soul Edge, and Tekken battled for its mainstream crown, I kept learning the more complex controls, ever evolving. Always in the back of my mind there was yearning for the past endeavors. But my hardcore voice overruled and would not allow it.


That all changed when I got my Nintendo Wii. The first games I bought for the system was Super Mario Galaxy and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. My god, those are fun games. But even with all the enjoyment there, something was wrong. As I sat down wagglein' my Wii remote I came to the realization that these controls sucked compared to a good ol' fashioned analog stick controls. As I saw it, the old way was easier, better, and more enjoyable. Especially in Zeldas case, I eventually bought the gamecube version because it controlled better.

Slowly but surely, I began to regress to an earlier state of game playing. Complex controls disappeared from my collection and as did deep storytelling games. Goodbye Splinter Cell, hello Peggle. Metal Gear Solid 4, which I never got around to finish, was replaced with The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. Most importantly, My beloved Mario Galaxy had its crown usurped by 'Splosion Man. Oh how the mighty have fallen in favor of simple story and design choices.


Then another change came over me back to the more complex. ArmA 2 started the trend back toward these core gaming experiences. Now with Uncharted 2, a "game of the year" edition of Fallout 3 that has ALL of the DLC, and Batman: Arkham Asylum all coming soon, I feel the winds a-changin' again. I see my habits go in cycles. I go from playing consoles to only playing PC and then back to consoles. I go from complex games to simple ones then back again. I see now that I have been afflicted with the gamer equivalent of a female period. When I'm off of my "gamers" period, I enjoy games for the simple pleasures they provide. When I'm on it, the bloated controls, complex game mechanics, and abstract stories are tolerated because that's what gamers are expected to do for the sake of TOTAL control and DEEP storytelling.

Now I have noticed that this affliction happens later in life. I didn't notice the pattern till I was almost 30. And thinking back, I was cycling steadily for the last couple of years. So lets say 28 to 30 as a ballpark. This is something that makes me wonder if other people go through similar cycles when it comes to the types of games they play. I hope I'm not the only one suffering from this. Please visit our forums and tell us what you think.