Checking In

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here, but I’ve been hard at work. Gaming. Yeah, hard life. Here’s what’s on my mind right now as far as gaming in general, my favorite titles at the moment, and other miscellanea.

• Spore: Galactic Adventures slipped past it’s once-presumed March ship date, leaving me rather disappointed. I still like Spore to an extent, but it needs this new expansion to suck me back in. My favorite phase is still Creature Phase, and Space Phase is too monotonous for me, so I’m looking for this expansion to change that.
• If you own Unreal Tournament III but haven’t tried it with the new patch and the Titan mini-expansion, I implore you to do so. In my opinion, many of the flaws that made it a good-but-not-great game have been ironed out, with the menus getting overhauled and features/modes/gimmicks added to bolster the experience. I’m back in the game and it’s finally approaching UT2k4 in my heart.
• I finally bit the bullet and picked up Left 4 Dead. I’m not a gore-and-guts guy, to be honest, and the thought of this brutal game turned my stomach. I kept hearing great things about it, though, so I tried it and I am very, very pleased so far. I’m having more fun mowing down the undead than should probably be allowed without a prescription. Another home run for Valve Software. Review forthcoming.
• I’m still trying to convince myself that I can enjoy MLB 2K9. I can’t seem to get a decent game out of it with all of it’s bugs, and I’ve not heard a peep from Take Two about a patch for PC gamers. For shame!
• I bothered to pick up Neverwinter Nights 2 and it’s expansions this month, and it’s about the worst $70 I’ve spent on a game in a long, long while. I can’t find anything redeeming about it so far, and I’m seething that Direct2Drive lopped about $20 or so off of the price of the pack after I bought my copy from them. It’s been a bad month for me, purchase-wise.
• This is a little off subject, but as long as I’m calling out the worst gaming bargain I’ve had, let me share the best: Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy, for $20, is the best gaming value I’ve ever had. For twenty bucks in 2004 I got hundreds of hours of fun, made a ton of friends, and got to taste minor ‘net fame with my AON Bot Wars video series that’s still a hit on YouTube. Unlike most bot building games, you have just about absolute creative freedom to place parts where ever you want. And, if that’s not enough, you can use external tools to make your own parts, making for an endless experience. I actually got my RA2 break while posting Robot Wars replicas on the old AceUplink forum, getting me invited into a mod team to make a Robot Wars AI pack. My work on RA2 is still some of my finest to date, in any field. You can still buy a copy, I believe, through Trymedia, so I recommend everyone try the demo at least.

That’s all for now. Alphasim out.