The second in the series, of course involving Activision. The biggest entertainment release (money-wise) on record, and possibly one of the most mediocre games you’ll play this year. Most reviewers loved it, but you can’t talk to three people who bought this game about it without two of them hating on it. There’s a reason I don’t put much stock in reviews, either.

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This post is actually part of a two-part series on why I hate your average gamer. These people are willing to shell out cash for any piece of crap so long as it has a name they recognize on the box. Most realize afterwards that they’ve been had, but at that point it is too late. Their lack of caution makes it economically viable for the industry to shit all over everything. I’m going to give you two examples - an old one and a new one. Two examples of how your average gamer ruins everything.

I’ve mentioned Battlefield: 2142 before, usually in a negative light. It’s hard not to, since it’s one of the few games I’ve felt as if I had literally been scammed after I installed it. 2142 was a turning point for me; the point where I realized that there are publishers and developers who are actively seeking to rob me of my cash, either through incompetence or sheer malevolence. Of course, it had to be EA.

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This is rapidly becoming my favorite RTS. Basically, it’s a detailed nation simulator. You choose a nation that existed sometimes between the years 1399 and 1822 and you run that nation until the game ends in 1822. The game replicates history, minus the changes you are able to affect. To date I have taken over all American continents as the Incan empire, and kicked more ass as France than Napoleon ever did. I’ve yet to actually complete a full game beginning in 1399. Europa takes a long time to play.

I think the thing that endears me most towards it is that 75% of the game is in text files. Don’t like something? Change it. Creating your own mod is simple and easy.

The game is not without its flaws. It is buggy as all hell and there are a number of bizarre affects of implementation here. The version of your game can actually change depending on what mod you are running, and how many times you’ve run it, so you have to sort of encourage it to let you play with your friends. It crashes sporadically, usually for no apparent reason. It also has pretty crappy net code. But if you’re someone that can put up with a few bugs, it’s the best RTS I’ve ever played.

I’ve played a bit of Scribblenauts over the past couple of nights, and I really like what they’ve done. I am not aware of any other games that let you summon such a menagerie of things at will. I decided to solve one puzzle that the use of an ornithopter would be ideal, and lo, I had an ornithopter. I rode it to victory, laughing.

The game is a fantastic proof of concept, but as a game itself it falls short. You can summon just about anything you can reasonably think of, and sometimes the things you summon actually behave as you hoped they would. The controls are also a mess, tapping the place you wish for your literary avatar to place himself and hoping the AI doesn’t go too far or bungle it. It’s also difficult to get the things you are working with to behave in the manner you wish them to.

I applaud the innovation, and hope someone picks up on this and polishes it until it shines, for when they do I will never play another game again.

I recently had to wipe all comments since I’m pretty sure the 9,000 comments I had were 100% spam. If any of you fellows from Switzerland were real people honestly concerned with the size of my penis, I apologize.

As the more clever among you may have already deduced from the title, I enjoy coop games to an unhealthy degree.  Fortunately, I have an equally enthusiastic companion in these adventures, and our escapades are something I can only call precious. Like a downward slope to a fat man forced to hike, every step is a moment embodying joy.  I’ve recently picked up Saints Row 2 (which I’d never played) to play with someone whom I’ve not done a lot of coop, but it seems to be turning out alright in the few moments we’ve managed to squeeze into the game. I’ll talk more about that once I’ve tried out the game proper-like.

The coop releases encroaching on my wallet are fearsome in theoretical quality. Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days has been pre-ordered from Amazon, with their release-day delivery a kindness. I’m a fan of the entire series, but I’m glad to see the game is growing up with every iteration.  Borderlands was delayed for a week on the PC for “polishing,” which means it’s buggy as hell and I’ll probably need to wait to see how that plays out before coughing up some cash, which is annoying since it looks really good.

I have a friend that occasionally draws me into Battlefield: 2142. I resent him for this, since the game is so terrible and at the same time occasionally so fun. 2142 is a shining example of how much shit you can get people to eat by placing a brand name on it. If I had ever touched a bit of the code on that game, I would leave it off my resume in shame. This is the state of the game after five patches. Can you imagine a world where your average consumer refused to be gouged in such a manner? It is difficult.

You could say I was predisposed towards disliking this game, if only because the first Puzzle Quest was a crappy casual game within an even crappier game, but I really did try to give it a fair trial. I even tried to give it two fair trials, taking my bias into consideration. Then I gave it a third try, just for the hell of it.

Well, long story short, it’s utter shit. They somehow managed to make the characters even more uninteresting, the writing even more cliche and half-assed, and the actual Bejeweled-styled combat more annoying.

On the combat, it is not in and of itself more frustrating. The problem is that you can fail simply because you never receive the pieces you need, the result spending an unreasonable amount of time trying to accomplish the most menial of tasks. For a casual game, this is fine. For a casual game trying to be something more than a casual game, it’s not. Maybe I’m missing something here, but quite frankly the rest of the game doesn’t inspire me to continue my hunt for this secret knowledge.

I think my biggest problem with the Puzzle Quest series is that it takes a casual game and tries to justify a larger game pricetag by wrapping it in crap.

Since the last update, I’ve spent a lot of time sitting in cars and attending boring lectures, which means I’ve spent a lot of time playing DS games, which means I’m going to spend a lot of time talking about DS games.

I had never actually beaten Chrono Trigger. Something had always come up that diverted my attention. This happens a lot. With the release of CT for the DS, I decided I was finally going to sit down and beat the damn thing. Not only that, I was going to get all the endings. So far I’ve gotten 3, and they’ve all been pretty amusing. I like the game a lot. I usually despise the actual gameplay of most JRPGs, so the fluidity and efficiency of Chrono Trigger’s system is pleasant. They’ve also added a few things for the handheld release like new dungeons and nifty new features, and I’m liking them all so far.

Anyway, I’m not going to review Chrono Trigger because I’m not a complete ass. It’s Chrono Trigger. Go play it and find out for yourself.

If there’s one thing that could get me to play an MMO, it’s the idea of running about a virtual world full of strangers and acting like a jackass. Finding especially tall cliffs to leap off of, trying to sneak through dungeons full of monsters I can’t fight yet, things like that. I’m sure it’s purely coincidence that my standard massive online gameplay style largely consists of suicidal actions.

Anyway, so I’ve recently taken up World of Warcraft because Nick finally wore me down through means of horrid temptations. When he told tales of sailing through the air while turning people into sheep, I was sold. I had played the trial a while back, and it didn’t do much to impress me, but never let it be said that I’m not willing to give something a second try.

I’ve probably mentioned before that I have played many an MMO, and generally hated each and every one of them. The ones I didn’t hate quickly failed, because the entire entertainment industry and mankind itself is out to spite me and rob me of every earthly pleasure. Imagine my surprise, a couple of months into the game, when I come to find that I do not, in fact, hate WoW. I’m not saying it’s a good game, I’m just not disliking it.

There’s something about riding mechanical raptors off of cliffs, or battling it out with remote controlled tanks, or flying. There are just things to do that aren’t grinds. Lots of things. Make no mistake, the game is still based around unending, agonizing toil and I will not forgive it this; but there remains enough things to break up the tedium that I’ve yet to grow bored of it. Blizzard seems to understand that grinding is not fun, and they break it up by giving you cool things. Not just something insignificant, something that may actually change how you play the game in some way, or at least an engaging activity that is not killing 50 Shit Gazelle Paratroopers. For example, in one level I will be able to turn into a bird. That’s some shit right there.

WoW will probably last me until I run out of cool new shit to try. It’s a step in the right direction for MMOs (the right direction being the direction I feel they should take, obvoiusly), but it’s only a very small step. If I’m ever to actually enjoy playing an MMO for any length of time, as if it were a good game, there will have to come an elimination of the grind without losing the volume of content. Is that even possible? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter to me. Either it changes and I end up liking them or it doesn’t change and I continue to stroke my chin in an arrogant manner and cast a disdainful eye on the entire genre with an expression of smug superiority.

Single-player is pretty much the same ordeal as multiplayer. Every problem with CoD4, and there are a multitude, is present in World at War. Infinitely respawning waves of enemies, threats that you can do nothing about (hooray enemies that cook grenades), and for Christ’s sake was goddamned martyrdom necessary in single-player? I still need to know whether Activision or Treyarch is responsible.

On the up-side, Treyarch managed to pull off some stages in a World War 2 setting that actually felt fresh and new to me, so go Treyarch. It’s no terrible secret that I love WW2 games, and being able to pull that off is one shoe in the door of my heart.

I’m writing only about the multiplayer because so far I’ve only worked through the first couple of stages of the main campaign. I had really hoped Treyarch would have taken the opportunity to clean up the mess Infinity Ward made of CoD4’s online experience, but it seems they followed IW’s lead on just about everything. The multi is basically CoD4’s multi with a WW2 paint job. This, of course, makes it better, but that’s not saying much. They dispensed with the helicopter bonus and replaced it with dogs, which is simultaneously more frightening and more managable. I’ve noticed a lot less dying at the spawn locations, so it seems they cleaned that up a bit as well. The maps themselves are better designed, but sniper rifles are still largely useless in hardcore mode. Instead of varying shades of brown and grey, everything is represented in varying shades of brown and green, so there’s that splash of color for those spoiled fools who seek variety in their color palette. The italics represent sarcasm, and the bold represents my undying hatred for design decisions I don’t like.

At this point I really only have one question: did Activision put pressure on Treyarch to use IW’s buggy engine and horrible design choices, or was that all Treyarch? I really need to know who to blame here, or I just won’t be satisfied.