Because the internet needs another gaming blog.

I was all set to finally start playing Dragon Age: Origins last night.  There was nothing planned on my schedule, so I figured once my daughter was in bed I’d be able to sneak in a solid two hours of game time, three if I was lucky (and willing to be a little bit tired at work the next day).

Things, of course, didn’t go according to plan.  As usual I spent the evening playing with my daughter and our rousing game of hide-and-seek around the house riled her up a bit too much because she was way too wired to fall asleep after going to bed at 8:00.  It wasn’t until 10:00 that she finally closed her eyes and drifted off to never-never land.  Unfortunately, by the time 10:00 rolls around, I need to start heading off to bed myself, otherwise there’s no way I’d ever hear my alarm go off at 5:00 AM.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d gladly trade any amount of “free time” to play with my daughter, but there are certainly times that I miss the days when I could get home from work, have a quick supper, and then game all night.  It’s incredible to think of all the time I spent playing EverQuest II for instance.  In fact, it outright blows my mind.

This is the big reason I don’t really play MMO’s any more; I just don’t have time.  Games like Braid, my game “du jour”, are perfect.  I can pop in, play for a few minutes, and pop back out.  Brad is even extra cool because it saves your progress in such a way that I launch the game and I’ll be standing exactly where I was when I previously quit.  No load screens, no menu screens, just instant gratification.

I think I may have trouble getting into, and subsequently through, Dragon Age.  There have been times where I’ve had a few minutes of free time but I gather that you can’t really play a game like Dragon Age in twenty minute chunks, so I’ve played something else, or just browsed the web.

Is this what it feels like to be a grown up?

There was a time where I’d buy just about any gaming related magazine off the store shelves, but these days I don’t buy any.  The last one that I read with any sort of regularity was Games For Windows magazine, but that died some time ago.  Before that, PC Gamer was my mag of choice.

I can actually remember picking up the very first issue of PC Gamer, complete with a demo of Theme Park on a floppy disk.  For several years after that, I purchased and read every single issue.  I tried a subscription once but that was a horrible experience.  My issues would show up a solid month or two late.  The following months issue would already be on store shelves before I got my subscription issue for the previous month.  I could understand that if I lived in the North Pole, but I’m in the middle of Canada for crying out loud (insert North Pole joke here).  Needless to say, I didn’t renew and just continued to purchase them off the shelf.

If I had to guess, I’d say it was about five or six years ago when I stopped buying them every month.  I’d still get the occasional issue here or there, but it was mostly restricted to when I was really bored and wanted something simple to read or when I was traveling somewhere.

I would suggest that it was around the time when Greg Vederman left as editor in chief that the quality of the writing took a steep nosedive.  Just a few months ago I picked up an issue on a whim and it was littered with potty jokes and all manner of sophomoric “humour”.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good poop joke just as much as anybody, but it was pretty bad.  The layout was also terrible, using some ridiculous font which made the whole magazine look completely low budget and ugly.  Finally, the articles themselves were poorly written and extremely short, presumably to make room for all the pretty screen shots.

The point of all this is to say that I’m not surprised to notice that PC Gamer has all but disappeared from all the stores I normally would have bought it from here.  It’s been about two months since I’ve seen one on a shelf in the grocery store I shop at, the local 7-11, or even the bookstores.  It all feels eerily similar to the situation leading up to the close of Games For Windows magazine.  I checked the PC Gamer website and it appears as though the magazine is still operating, having just announced another new editor in chief, but from where I am it looks as though it’s going belly up.  Any word?

I stupidly made some gaming resolutions at the beginning of last year.  The truth is, I was probably desperate to post something to the blog, and resolutions are easy to pronounce.  Living up to them is harder.  Probably the only kind of blog post that’s easier to do is a recap of past resolutions and seeing if you did or did not live up to them.  So in that spirit, here’s my first (of many more to come) lazy post of 2010.

The first resolution I made in 2009 was to cancel World of Warcraft, which I did in July.  I have not been back since time expired on the account, although I have felt a pull now and then.  I’m hoping that playing Runes of Magic can satisfy my MMO urges in the time being to keep me from re-subscribing to WoW.

The second resolution was to become competent with the Source SDK and make some levels.  I got as far as actually downloading the SDK, which really isn’t difficult through Steam, and I may have even launched it one or two times.  That’s it.  Apparently I’d rather play games as opposed to make levels for them.

The third resolution was to learn to program C++ or C#.  I went with C# given its similarities with Java, which I’m already fairly competent in.  I bought a book and everything.  I got a few chapters into the book and have enjoyed it, but it’s stalled somewhat of late due to various other reasons that I can’t think of right now.  I think my biggest problem is that I’ve got too many hobbies.

Finally, I mentioned a few games that I wanted to finish and I managed to achieve a fifty percent score on that, which in my book, is a passing grade.  I finished both Oblivion and Fallout 3, but failed to get through Baldur’s Gate 2 and GTA IV.  I don’t think I even played GTA IV once through the entirety of 2009.  I did start playing BG2, and it was great fun, but like a moth to a flame I was distracted by other newer, shinier games.

As for 2010, I don’t want to make any resolutions.  There, that was easy.

I bought Dragon Age: Origins a while ago but put it aside for a future day for two reasons.  The first being that I have too many games as it is and not enough time to play any of them.  The second being that I wanted to finish reading the prequel novel, Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, before diving into the game.

The Stolen Throne is not typical of the books I read, and to be honest, I didn’t really expect it to be any good.  I picked it up on a lark, thinking it’d be interesting to get some more background info on the lore of Dragon Age.  The reader reviews on Amazon were surprisingly positive however, so my hopes began to elevate a little.

I finished the book over the Christmas holidays and quite frankly, it’s kind of bad and I had to push myself to continue reading it.  I will not be reading the follow-up novel.

There are a lot of problems with the book, but my biggest issue was the over-use of tired, old, fantasy clichés.  There’s the prophesizing witch that lives in the mysterious foggy forest, the over-the-top evil guy, and the young, naive prince who rises to heroic stature seemingly overnight.  I kept thinking that the book felt like the final project of a “How to Write Fantasy in 21 Steps” course.

I really hope that the game does a better job than the novel at providing a sense of scale to the world.  In the novel, it apparently doesn’t take any time at all to travel from one edge of the map to the other, as the characters in the book end up criss-crossing the map seemingly at random.

Fortunately, the book has not dampened my enthusiasm for the game.  Like I said, I bought the book thinking it’d probably be bad, and it lived up to those expectations.

EverQuest II and World of Warcraft are the two MMOs that I’ve spent the most time with; three and a half years subscribed to EQII, and approximately one and a half with WoW.  Despite no longer having an active subscription to either one, I still follow the news from both games as much as I can.

Both games received major patches recently and both released cinematic trailers for their respective patches.  The first one I saw was for EQII’s Game Update 54, Will of a Tyrant.  Here it is, courtesy of YouTube:

I’ve always thought EverQuest II could use some work in the advertising department.  The trailers they’ve released over the years have never really done much for me, but my immediate reaction to this one was generally positive.  I find it to be more “cinematic” than previously released trailers, with the sweeping camera movements, the music, and the semblance of a story behind it (albeit small), as opposed to randomly inserted action scenes without context.

Soon after, World of Warcraft released a trailer for Patch 3.3, Fall of the Lich King.  Once again, courtesy of YouTube:

World of Warcraft, in contrast to EQII, has never lacked for advertising, consistently releasing top quality trailers.  To me, there is an obvious difference in quality between these two trailers, and yes, I think the WoW one is significantly better.  The camera work, the pacing, and the music are all masterfully executed, not to mention the story.  Anyone who has played Warcraft III and its expansion will be familiar with the story of Arthas and its significance in Warcraft lore, and for over a year now, WoW has been re-telling that story, building its players up for the events depicted in the trailer.  For over a year now, players have been chomping at the bit to get at Arthas/The Lich King, and as I watch the trailer I can’t help but feel an epic sense of anticipation.  Even though the chances that I’d even be able to take part in any of the fights depicted in the trailer are slim to none, I still feel an urge to resubscribe.  That is some great advertising.