Adventures in Babeland - Weekly Gaming Girl Diary: October 14, 2009

I've found most of my gaming time lately to be overwhelming. In the past month I have purchased 6 new games for my PC, thank you Direct 2 Drive sale! This influx in games and the ability to purchase them for cheap has been fantastic, but it has largely left me feeling overwhelmed. With my girlfriend up at college, I have a lot more time after work, but more often then not I find myself sitting at my PC or in front of my 360 trying to figure out what I feel like playing. You think this would be an easy decision, with so many choices, right? That's far from the truth. More often then not, I find myself unable to make an actual decisions so I end up watching TV or doing something else instead. It's an odd phenomenon considering I have more time then I've ever had to play, but I probably play less then I ever did. Oh life, why must you be so confusing?!

My most recent Direct2Drive purchases include Company of Heroes and World in Conflict. I've been itching from some RTS action lately and heard so many good things about Company of Heroes, that I had to pick it up. Thus far, I've completed the tutorial in COH and that's as far as I've gotten. The tutorial actual took a decent amount of time and also got me excited to play. I've always enjoyed RTSs, but I've also always never been that great at them. I tend to avoid any online gameplay as I will most likely get my ass handed to me, so I tend to just stick to the SP campaigns to avoid embarrassment. It's been a relatively effective strategy that has still given me hours upon hours of amusement.

I also got some brief playing time in for Battlefield: Bad Company. For no particular reason, I abandoned playing that game a while ago, even though I was so very close to the end. I've decided that I need to make a point to actually beat the game, since I tend to play through games and abandon them before completion. Getting back into playing it was...different. I had forgotten most of the controls and had left myself in a situation where I needed to relearn them rather quickly. I hope to get through this game before Christmas, but we shall see.

Finally, there's always the oldie, but the goodie and my normal staple: World of Warcraft. I FINALLY got myself into Wrath of the Lich King content. I only purchased the expansion, oh, a year ago? It's kind of sad, but I've finally been able to venture to Northrend and check out all the new content. I leveled to 69, so I'm inching my way closer to 80. My goal is to reach 80 before the next expansion comes out, but I don't see that being too difficult considering we're probably a year away from it's release.

My final note for this update, is a question for fellow gamers. Do you ever find gaming to be "work?" I've noticed that lately it's felt that way to me. I have a hard time playing just to play. More often then not, my brain says "OMG YOU HAVE ALL THESE GAMES, YOU NEED TO BEAT ALL OF THEM!" I think that's what has been my major turn off towards playing lately or the feeling that has left me uncertain as to what I should be playing. I've invested so much money in the last 6 months or so into games and I have more games then I could ever imagine that I have yet to beat or have barely played at all. I feel the need to play and beat all of them as to somehow justify my spending money on them. If I'm not playing them, I'm wasting my money, right? I need to abandon this idea and these feelings and get my head back into the game and play because I want to play and play because it's fun, not because I need to beat or play something I paid money for. I'm not quite certain how to rid myself of this feeling, however, considering I full understand why I feel the way I do, yet those feelings remain. It's a strange predicament to be in, to have so many games and so much more time, but to have that desire to play somewhat missing. I need to get it back, I'm just not sure how.

Game Diary: August 11, 2009 - Monkey Island SE Edition

At the beginning of last week I still found myself playing a lot of Battlefield: Bad Company but as the week progressed I found that I wanted to play something more story driven for a change. I am fully aware that I could have played the story portion of BC but I was looking for something fresh. I found something fresh in a revamped game from 1990... go figure.

At this realization I decided to pick up The Secret of Monkey Island SE on Xbox Live Arcade. I had a ball playing it all week and at some point I decided that I was going to get all 200 gamerscore.

Mission Accomplished!

The achievements were clever but not hard and even speed running through the game was easy because once you are aware of the puzzle solutions the game becomes that much easier to beat.

I also had the pleasure of discovering that Orson Scott Card wrote the insults in MI. This was a funny little happenstance because I have every intention of making the next book I read Empire, the book that Shadow Complex is loosely based on.

I do not want to say too much about MI though because that would spoil the review that I have been hacking away at for a few too many days.

I did just want to point out that I had little to no interest in Shadow Complex and now I am counting the days until next Wednesday when the game is released.

WAIM (What Am I Playing): August 3, 2009 - More Battlefield Please! Edition

Though I played nothing over the weekend - which coincidentely makes me feel as though I have played nothing all week - I did play a lot more Battlefield (of both variations) this week.

I learned how to fly the planes in 1943 so I have been enjoying that a lot, often finding that I am enjoying flying and doing tricks more than actually playing the game.

Other than flying in 1943 I have been exclusively playing Bad Company. I find that even after I am passed my breaking point of playing (that point where something inside of you breaks and you find yourself not even trying) I still continue on to see what other ridiculous feats I might be able to accomplish.

I managed to place first in match (BC) overall (netting myself that achievement) so the amount of achievements that I have left for multiplayer are no longer numerous in nature.

Other than that I have been fiddling with new features from the Xbox Preview Program and as a result I have considered changing my "in-real-life" style to SteamPunk. Lastly I think I will also commission a life-size cotton swab so that I may carry it around at all times.

Game Diary: July 29, 2009 - Bet You Guess What This Week Is About

And the answer is............World of Warcraft! I really haven't had much time to play much of anything lately. Nate and I keep trying to meet up to play some Battlefield 1943, but alas, things just aren't lining up right. I've been wanting to and meaning to finish Battlefield: Bad Company considering how close I am, but I still haven't felt inclined to do so. My gaming tendencies typically depend on what time my girlfriend is or isn't working and she's been working about the same hours as I have been working and she always trumps playing games.

I got to do my typical World of Warcraft play this weekend. I average about a level a week with my playing habits. This weekend I dinged 66. I'm working slow, but surely, up to 80. I finished up quests in the glorious Zangermarsh and moved onto Nagrand. I'm really enjoynig playing BC content and discovering all these new worlds. Really revitalizes the game for me after about 4 years of playing essentially the same content. It makes me even more excited to move onto Wrath content in the (hopefully) near future. I had reached Outland and BC content on my very first toon (Walker) a few years ago, so I knew what to expect once I got Christilena there, but I haven't stepped foot in Northrend yet, so it will be an entirely new experience.

BC content has been really fun though. Nagrand looks like it'll be a blast. I haven't started any quests there yet, but just getting to the closets Horde city made me excited. As soon as I stepped into the world, I was instantly reminded of the African safari. Definitely a lot different feel then any other world on WoW that I've been in.

Hopefully this weekend I can sneak in some 1943 with my WoW time. I'm also itching to play some L4D again after listening to Rebel FM talk about L4D2. I'm also itching to play every video game I currently own and have yet to finish. These include: Fallout 3, Oblivion, Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty 5, Crysis, Grand Theft Auto 4 and The Sims 3. I also feel inclined to purchase Age of Empires III and play that again. AOE was easily one of my favorite games growing up. It's sad to think that Microsoft shut down the studio that made those fantastic games.

Game Diary: July 28, 2009: What war are you in soldier? Edition (Battlefield: Bad Company and 1943)

"WHERE ARE YOU SOLDIER?"


"I'm here Sarge, in the pacific circa 1943!"


"AGAIN SARGENT!... we need you to help us take all of these flags on this... uh... golf course dammit!"


"But I am only a private over here and the planes are much more fun to fly."

Alright, enough lame dialogue... that is obviously not the profession I should be in.

I have been fighting some ill advised internal war on which Battlefield game that I should be playing at any given moment. I am trying to only play 1943 with friends (not working, it is too addictive) and I have been playing Bad Company at every other turn.

I love the guns and classes in Bad Company but the feel of 1943 is amazing and the Air Superiority game mode is tons of fun.

What I love most about the Battlefield games in general are the in game rewards. They keep you playing in between achievements and a lot of the time they have me not even thinking about the achievements. The longevity of the 1943 achievements, patches, postcards, etc. are nothing when compared to all of the same from BC.

This leads me to believe that there is going to be a lot more content to download in the future or that this will truly be an arcade version of the Battlefield series. Just so you know, I am severely doubting the later.

Last but not least... we (I) have this to look forward to.

Gaming Diary: July 20, 2009 - The I Suck at Multiplayer Edition

The majority of my weekend was spent in a cabin in the mountains or on a boat on a lake so needless to say, not much gaming got done. Before I left, I had the opportunity to get in a few games of Battlefield: Bad Company with Nate.

I have been the first to proclaim my own inadequacies at playing multiplayer games online. I haven't really played any multi games online since Return to Castle Wolfenstein (where I dominated the beach map with the sniper rifle, I might add) so one could easily say that I'm a bit...rusty. I tend to stay away from the online gaming community because over the years as console gaming popularity has grown, so has the level of talent playing. My level of talent tends to fluctuate from poor to average so I tend to stay away to avoid a good ass kicking. I've played multiplayer campaigns of Left for Dead with friends, but that is limited to only friends so my level of humiliation is very small.

With all that being said, I did enjoy my time playing BF:BC with Nate, even though we most definitely got our asses handed to us time and time again. I might see myself venturing on the BF:BC multiplayer universe again someday.

Game Diary: July 20, 2009: Too Much to Play Edition

At the beginning of this week in gaming goodness I was still playing a lot of Fable 2.

I became the richest person in Albion and earned the Queen and Mayor titles from the Town Criers. I also, at some point, went totally evil, murdering the entire town of Bloodstone so that I could earn one or two new expressions. I was then working my way through the my Castle Fairfax. I got to a point where I had to shoot targets in a specific time frame (and now that I think about it I am wondering if I would be able to use the time control spell in order to get past this...) and it really is no fun.
Update: I just finished that part in Castle Fairfax and I have to say that what you get as a result is pretty cool.

It was one of those discouraging moments where I decided to just put down the game and play something else. So the next day I ended up playing the trial version of Sam and Max Save the World. I enjoyed it, though not as much as I would have been lead to believe. It was humorous and clever in all of the right places but I did not feel any compelling reason to continue and I even got stuck in the trial somewhere. Perhaps it will merit a purchase on another day.

Something that will merit a purchase just as soon as I get the cash is Battlefield 1943. I did not get to play it all that much but I now can officially call myself a Battlefield fan since playing and loving Battlefield: Bad Company.

Which brings me to the last of what I have been playing: Battlefield: Bad Company. I started the campaign on normal because I only ever got the hard difficulty achievements and unfortunately this is one of those games that is not intuitive enough to know that you should get the easier difficulty level achievements when the harder ones are unlocked. Regardless it gives me a reason to play the campaign again and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

I also got into the multiplayer again with Kara and despite our inability to do well we still had a lot of fun. The squad mechanic of these games (Battlefield) is some of the best implementation of a "party system" I have seen since Halo 2 introduced it.

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...