Game Diary: July 15. 2009 - World of WarCRACK

After going back through all the old posts on this blog, I didn't realize it had been so long since my last gaming diary. My apologies as my summer has been relatively busy. I was on vacation for the weekend of the 4th in my home state of Washington and didn't get any gaming in. Now I'm back and as far as I know I am done with vacations for the summer, which leaves my weekends open for gaming, gaming, gaming!

After my hiatus of the 4th of July weekend, I spent most of this past weekend immersed in World or Warcraft. I can't deny that I love this game so much. It has been the sole game I've played on at least a monthly basis since I first started playing in late 2004. Granted, there were a few points during that span of time where I was unemployed and poor. This prevented me from paying the $15 a month to sustain my addiction, but other then those few breaks I've been playing this game pretty consistently.

Everything you've ever heard about WoW is absolutely true. I encourage anyone with a PC/Mac and an extra $15 a month to try this game out. It may seem tedious to some and honestly, from time to time it is, but it's oh so addicting. I'm not even sure why as most of your time is spend running around the world, doing quests and killing mobs, but it still maintains it's addictability (I think I just invented a word).

This past weekend I ventured through Outland. For those who know little about WoW, Outland is the area that was added with the Burning Crusade expansion. You have to take a portal from Azeroth to get to Outland. Honestly, it's quite possibly one of the most annoying things to do ever since there are no auction houses in Outland (places where you can sell items to other players and probably the best way to make money in the game) nor are there any trainers (as you level up, certain abilities become available for your specific class, but you must go to a trainer to learn them). This means you have to take a flight path from where ever you are in Outland to the portal. Then you must go through the portal which drops you off in the Blasted Lands with no flight path to a major city in sight. You have to get on your mount and ride from the portal to the Swamp of Sorrows to take ANOTHER flight path to get to a major city. It has quite possibly been the most obnoxious task since moving onto BC content. The good news is, they are adding a portal directly to the Dark Portal in the next patch, 3.2. Kind of crazy that it's taken them this long to do that.

I've been enjoying my time in Outland. I leveled up to 64 (oh so close to 65!) this weekend and moved from Hellfire Peninsula to Zangarmarsh. Hellfire Peninsula was as far as I had gotten with my first main, so Zangarmarsh is a completely new place with new mobs, new quests, new landscape, etc. This is the first time I've experienced "new" content since I started playing in November of 2004. I've never really hated going through old world content when leveling alts before. Yes, it gets sort of boring and old after a while, but the addiction holds strong so I've always enjoyed it for the most part. It's been refreshing to be somewhere completely new and I think has completely revived my love for the game. I won't lie when I say that I slightly yearn to play WoW every day I'm at work. I wish I could take a week off and completely immerse myself in the game. I'm even more excited to move through Outland and onto Northrend (Wrath of the Lich King content). I feel as though I'm one of the few WoW players that enjoys leveling more then anything. After I finish leveling Christilena (my level 64 blood elf paladin) to 80, I plan on then moving onto Walker (my original main, a level 60 tauren warrior) and getting here to 80. End game content doesn't really seem for me as I don't quite have the time to invest in it. I'm probably one of the few solo WoW players. WoW tends to be a relatively social game, but I somehow tend to avoid all that. I think it's mostly due to my lack of time to spend playing the game. I typically only get the chance on the weekends while my girlfriend is at work. This might change a bit come this fall as she's moving to a college that's 2 hours away, but we shall see.

In summary, most of my gaming weekend was spent playing WoW. I've sort of abandoned The Sims 3 for the time being (although I'd like to get back into it) and I also didn't play much Battlefield: Bad Company either. I did find out that I'm only a mission away from beating the game, so I think that's inspired me to play a bit more. With my girlfriend leaving this fall, that probably means I'll have more time during the week to get gaming in so maybe my weekly updates won't be solely WoW related from now on.

Gaming Diary: June 22, 2009 - It's Been a Little While!

Apologies for my lack of updates as of late. I was on a fantastic vacation last week and didn't play any games while I was there, so there was no update last week. This past week, however, I got in lots and lots of gaming!

There have been four games that I have been rotating lately: The Sims 3, Peggle, Battlefield: Bad Company and World of Warcraft. During the week I spent most of my time on The Sims 3, Peggle and Battlefield: Bad Company. The Sims 3 has been pretty enjoyable. There's a significant amount of customization available in creating a character compared to The Sims 2. It goes so far as to even customize the voice of your sim. Thus far I've recreated myself, my girlfriend, Nate's wife Cindy and Nate as Sims. Nate and Cindy are my neighbors and Michael (my gf) lives across the street and as of this last Friday, her and I are officially a dating couple on The Sims! Ahhh, to live life vicariously through animated computer game people! My sim is on the professional athlete career path. The game has some new personality trait features that allows you to pick 5 traits for your sim that influence their behavior. It makes things nice because when I don't want to tell my sim what to do, it just sort of does it on it's own. Thus far my overall opinion of the game is that it has a lot of great improvements on the previous game. I'm enjoying it thus far and it hasn't really lost its appeal yet. It probably helps that I only play for an hour or two, then go play something else so I haven't gotten burnt out from it yet.

I've finally beaten the master's section of Peggle! It took me long enough, right? I've since started working on all the challenge levels. I've made it past all the 35, 45 and 55 orange peg challenges. The 300k and 350k ones are giving me a bit of trouble, but I'm getting through it. I'm honestly quite surprise at the playability this game has. I was honestly completely unaware of all the challenge levels past the adventure mode. For $10-$12 this game is honestly a steal and it's a ton of fun. I'm definitely a Peggle fan now.

My favorite game (aside from Peggle and L4D) on my Xbox 360 is currently Battlefield: Bad Company. I love a good war/military shooter and this one is providing tons of fun. The unlimited amount of health you receive as well as the ability to blow buildings to smithereens are definitely the highlights of the game and that set it apart from other FPS games. It's the first game on my 360 that I've honestly been a bit addicted to and wanted to get in as much playing time as possible. I'm working through it right now on normal and most definitely getting my ass kicked constantly. Like I've said before, I've never said that I'm necessarily "good" at video games, I just love to play them. I die and I die a lot, but the fact that it "resurrects" you and saves all the kills you have made is fantastic. It makes life a bit easier for people like me. I think this will definitely be my first 360 game that I play all the way through. Now the question is, what to work on next after I finish this? Hmmmm...

I got a bit of WoW gaming in this weekend. I dinged 63 yesterday (w00t!) getting my closer and closer to 80. This is the furthest I've ever gotten in the game. I have another level 60 on a different realm that is just waiting in Outland patiently for me, but I've neglected her for the most part. I'm really enjoying the content in Outland. I played a tiny bit of it on Walker (my level 60 Tauren warrior), but not enough to get a good feel for it. It's nice to be playing new content. When I leveled Christilena (my level 63 blood elf pally), I played in places and did quests I had already done on Walker. Nothing was all that new. Now in Outland, I have all kinds of quests I've never completed before and that's fun and exciting. I'm enjoying all the new beasts and demons in Outland and I'm really anxious to get to 70 and head up to Northrend for more new content. In fact, all this talk about it makes me want to play right now! Hmmm, if there was only way to discretely install WoW on my computer at work at play....hmmmmmmmmm...