I have once again cancelled my World of Warcraft account.  It has been quite a while since I last played, and I can’t see that changing any time soon, as I need a break from MMOs. If I find myself needing a fix in the coming months, I’ll likely give the free-to-play Lord of the Rings Online a go. I haven’t played that game since it was in Beta however many years ago, and even then I didn’t spend too much time with it.

Looking for something to play, my willpower was once again overtaken by a Steam sale, and I purchased Crysis: Maximum Edition this past Friday. It’s several years old now but I had never played it and the sale was good, so I picked it up, and thus far I’m impressed. The graphics are amazing (pictured above), and I’m having a blast with the game play. My expectations weren’t super high for it due to some unfavourable forum comments about the game, but I certainly don’t have any complaints at this point.

When not playing Crysis I’ve been dabbling in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion again. I had abandoned the game after finishing the main quest, but I’ve always planned to return in order to finish the Shivering Isles expansion and the multitude of other quests still available. Currently I’ve been going through the Fighter’s Guild quests, and there’s no denying it, this is still a great game.

I finished the main quest at level 14-ish, and I was very careful to level my character as “optimally” as possible. For those that don’t know, Oblivion features a complicated leveling mechanism that I will not bother trying to explain here. I kept track of my progress with a spreadsheet in order to maximize my skill increases, and my character was just about as powerful as he could be in Oblivion’s “monsters level with you” system. Coming back to the game now, I decided I just wanted to see the content and not worry about how I level, so I decided to cheat.  Using the console I leveled my character (“properly” and “efficiently”) up to 26. Of course, given that the monsters level with you, I am not an all-powerful uber-god; in fact, all it really did was populate the world with different monsters that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise, which is pretty cool.

I always find it so refreshing taking a break from MMOs.  When I’m actively playing a game like World of Warcraft, I tend to shut myself off from any other game, slavishly devoting myself in the name of “progression”. Now almost two weeks into my latest break from WoW, I’ve settled into a few games, each a bit different from the other, and I’ve been having a blast.

Of the games downloaded off of Xbox Live, I am particularly enjoying Ticket to Ride and Castle Crashers. Both games are great for the times when I just want to power on my Xbox and play a quick game.  I had tried the demo of Castle Crashers quite a while ago, and didn’t think much of it back then despite its presence on most “best XBLA games” lists out there.  I decided to buy it when it was half price and after spending some time with it, I don’t regret the purchase at all.  It’s really quite fun.

When I have a bit more time to spend in front of the Xbox, I’ve been slowly making my way through Darksiders. There’s no denying that this game is an exact Zelda clone in every way except the setting (I haven’t played all the Zelda games, but I’m assuming none of them involve the legions of hell romping through a post-apocalyptic world). The graphics and imagery are fantastic, and the game itself is enjoyable enough to keep me interested (that’s a good thing). I almost whipped my controller through the TV though after reaching the boss Tiamat. The difficulty of that fight was so disproportionate to all that had come before it, it was ridiculous. My first few attempts at the boss were abject failures, and I was ready to quit and never play the game again.  I decided to give it just one more go however and everything clicked for me, and I was able to bring the boss down.

On the PC, there have been two games that I’ve been playing; Magicka (pictured) and Borderlands.  To date I’ve only made it through the first two levels of Magicka because I’ve become quite consumed with Borderlands.  The two levels of Magicka have shown me enough to know that I like the game, but there’s something “missing” from it for me.  I have to play it in windowed mode because it’s pretty choppy and slow-moving if I have it full-screen, which is odd, because I’ve got a pretty powerful gaming rig.  According to the forums, lots of people with high-end systems are having the same problem, and yes, playing in windowed mode fixes it.  Aside from that quirk, I find I don’t really love the control scheme, mostly because I have difficulty setting up the spells that I want while fending off the onslaught of the monsters.  My “micro skills” just aren’t uber enough I suppose.

Finally, there’s Borderlands, which, as I mentioned previously has reeled me in hook, line, and sinker.  I love it.  I’ll expand upon that sentiment in upcoming posts, but for now, the one observation I had was that I find it funny that the game I’m most drawn to during my break from MMOs is a game very much like an MMO.

I have been telling myself lately that I need to take a break from World of Warcraft, and MMOs altogether, so that I could finally start chipping away at the pile of games I have but haven’t yet touched.  Dragon Age: Origins for example. Purchased on launch day back in November 2009, and played all of an hour or so, put aside to return to at a later date. Then there’s Mass Effect, and its sequel, both a part of my Xbox 360 library, yet neither of them have even been placed into the machine.  I think my Mass Effect 2 is actually still in the shrink wrap.  I could go on; the population on my Island of Misfit Games is quite large.

I’ve been thinking a lot about which game to hit up first, now that I’m no longer actively logging in to WoW.  Dragon Age was the logical choice, as I’ve been really chomping at the bit to get at it, but I still haven’t brought myself to play it.  No, instead, as though suffering from some kind of “idiot disease”, I have decided the wiser course of action would be to buy more damn games.

This week alone, thanks to sales on Xbox Live and Steam, I have purchased Ticket to Ride (XBLA) plus all of its DLC, Castle Crashers (XBLA), Shadow Complex (XBLA), PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX (XBLA),  Magic: The Gathering duels of the Planeswalkers (XBLA), Magicka (Steam) along with its DLC, and Borderlands Game of the Year Edition (Steam).

I tell you, it’s a sickness, which I’m going to guess several people reading this also suffer from. So, I have yet to touch Dragon Age, but I did finish the campaign in IL 2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey a couple weeks ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it; easily one of the best games I’ve played in some time.  I’ve also been delving into the three board games that I have on XBLA; Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and the recently acquired Ticket to Ride, which I am loving. Those board games are perfect for a quick session when I’ve got the baby sitting in my lap and I can’t keep both hands on the controller.  I’ve played a bit of PAC-MAN and that game is fun, but crazy hectic.  The other XBLA games I’ve listed have been placed on to the “digital pile” and are still awaiting my attention.  I’ve gone through the first two levels of Magicka, and it’s pretty cool so far.  I’ll have a more in-depth post on it in the coming days.  I’ve also managed an hour or two with Borderlands, and it seems like a game I’ll quite enjoy.  Perhaps some day I’ll get around to trying out Just Cause 2, Amnesia, Dawn of War II, and Neverwinter Nights 2 which I purchased during the last Steam sale.

It took forever, but I finally reached level 85 in World of Warcraft.  There are two main reasons it took me so long; the biggest of course, is just a general lack of playing time due to the demands of being a father of a four year old and a six month old.  Those dang kids are so dependent!  I’ve mentioned the second reason a few times lately, and that’s just a dwindling desire to play WoW.  I’m ready to move on to other games.  Or so I thought.  While I pretty much hated the first two Cataclysm zones I did (Vashj’ir followed by Deepholm), I really enjoyed Uldum and have enjoyed the first few quests in Twilight Highlands.  I may just stick around and finish off the Twilight Highlands quest achievement.  I’d also like to quickly run through the Goblin and Worgen starting areas, just to check them out.

I’ve still got a level 80 Shaman, who I suspect will remain at 80 for some time to come.  I have no desire to play him at this time and don’t see that changing.  My Warrior, currently 61 is the other character I’d consider leveling to 85, but honestly, I can’t see that happening any time soon.  I’ll keep my WoW subscription active for a bit, but it’s time to tackle my ever-growing pile of games and live outside the MMO space for a bit.

In other news, I was bored the other day, so what else should I do with my time besides hauling my huge PC upstairs to hook it up to our LCD TV.  It looked great, and I’m now wondering if my wife would notice if I brought the TV down to my comptuer room and plopped it on my desk.

I’ve been logging in to World of Warcraft less and less these days, and I have suspected for some time now that my time with the game may be coming to an end, and were it not for the release of the expansion,  I feel fairly confident in saying I would have already un-subscribed.

I just recently reached level 84 on my Mage, spending all of my time questing in Vashj’ir and Deepholm, earning the quest achievements for both zones.   I found it pretty tough forcing my self to continue playing through them, but I’ve vowed not to quit playing until I’ve got one character at 85.

I have two main complaints with my experience so far.  First,  both Vashj’ir and Deepholm lack many unique features or areas within the zones.  In Vashj’ir I was constantly using the map to find my way around because everything looks the same; an endless jungle of seaweed and coral.  The same holds true for Deepholm; just a whole lot of rock, lava, and crystalline formations.

My other complaint is with the way questing works, where you complete all the quests at a given quest hub and stay in that general area before moving on to the next hub.  I realize that it’s relatively unchanged from Wrath of the Lich King, and even Burning Crusade, but it seems a lot more obvious in Cataclysm.  There is really no incentive at all to explore the zones, nor is there any reason to because you never need to stray too far from the current quest hub to reach your objective.  Plus, the map points out exactly where your quest destination is so that’s one less reason to explore.

I actually much prefer quests that have you traversing across multiple zones and areas, but there’s none of that to be found.  More so than the previous expansions, I just can’t stand the “quest hub” system.  At the very least it would be nice to have to travel more than ten feet from the quest giver.  As it is, it feels as though the designers don’t want the player to stray too far from a predetermined path.  Not to mention the fact that all of the quests at each quest hub generally follow the same pattern.  There’s always a “gather x number of y” quest, along with a “kill x number y monsters” quest, which will be followed up with “go kill named monster x”.  Once the named is killed, the quest giver sends you off to the next quest hub to repeat the same quests but with different collectibles and creatures.  It’s horribly boring, and the pattern has become so noticeable because of the slower experience gain.  In order to stretch the level progression out, your forced to do a tonne of quests, so obviously quest originality gets tossed out the window.

I’m now a couple of quests into Uldum, and it appears as though it will be more of the same, but at least Uldum is a visually interesting zone.  I did a quick fly-around and it was nice to see several unique features in the zone; it doesn’t all look the same.  I’m still faced with a dilemma however; I don’t want to quit until I hit level 85, but I don’t really feel like playing because I find the whole thing kind of boring.