Adventures of a Female Gamer: Weekly Gaming Diary - January 21th, 2010

Yea, so obviously I wasn't a big fan of my previous weekly gaming diary blog post name! It was a little stupid, so I had to change it up a tid bit. I wouldn't necessarily classify myself as a "babe" so the name wasn't really all that fitting. Moving on!

Oh hi! Do you remember me? I'm that girl that used to update this blog on a relatively normal basis, but since the new year has done a pretty poor job of doing so. There are really no excuses other then my own laziness, so I won't try and make them up. Something happened in my life that has prompted me to attempt to update a bit more often and that something is this beautiful thing:


Ah yes, that is a 23" ASUS HD LCD monitor pair with my old NEC 19" LCD monitor. I got the 23" in the mail yesterday and immediately had to set it up. I didn't get much WoW playing time in, but I loaded it up just to see how it looks and it looks GLORIOUS! I hope to get some more gaming in this weekend to test it out, possibly some Fallout 3 or some Crysis. WoW is nice and all, but I really want to test it out on some more graphically intense games.

So what have I been playing lately? Over the past few weeks there has been some Rock Band 2, some Scene It: Box Office Smash, some Left 4 Dead 2 and the oldie, but the goodie...WoW. I haven't really been spending a lot of time on any type of "hardcore" game lately. By hardcore, I mean mostly more serious games like Fallout 3 or Crysis or something of that nature. Life just hasn't allowed me to play any type of more serious game for a while, but that's okay, I've been enjoying being a bit of a casual gamer lately. I've gotten my toon up to level 72 in WoW, which is nice. I think once I get to 80 I'm going to take a break and try and dedicate my gaming time to other games that I need to finish. I have another toon I'd like to level to 80, but I think she can wait.

I've been enjoying Left 4 Dead 2 quite a bit. I've only gotten the chance to play a couple times and have played through maybe 3 campaigns completely, but it's been fun. The only complaint I have with the game at this point is the HUGE difference between levels of difficulty. While I was home for Christmas with Nate, we played on normal and that felt like it should have been advanced...or at least somewhere between normal and advanced. A couple days ago I played again with a friend, but this time on easy because he doesn't have too much experience play L4D2. Honestly, easy felt TOO easy even for him. We got through the campaign without any major trouble. The biggest difference I noticed between the two levels of difficult is the number of special infected you experience. In easy it felt like it wasn't enough. In normal, it felt like it was just a little bit too much. I must admit, while playing on normal was frustrating and felt too difficult (for a normal setting), it was much more enjoyable to play. Yes, there were extreme moments of frustration and I wanted to throw my controller a few times, but sharing THAT experience with another person was much more enjoyable then sharing the experience of quickly and easily getting through a campaign with a friend. I definitely need to get some more L4D2 play time in. Maybe this weekend. We shall see!

Adventures in Babeland - Weekly Gaming Girl Diary: October 26, 2009

There were two games that dominated my playing time this past week. The first is Borderlands. As I stated in a previous post, I picked this game up last Tuesday on release day. I had the opportunity to get in some SP time as well as some co-op time over the rest of the week. Thus far I am truly loving this game. I've played more SP than co-op, but I find the SP to be just as fun as the co-op. I finally unlocked a 3rd weapons slot and feel as though I have the appropriate weapons I need for the time being. I discovered that my purple sniper rifle (don't remember the gun's specific name) has the ability to completely blow the heads of skaggs in the lower level areas. This made me squee with joy.

My experience with co-op was fun, although I felt I was totally lacking and holding everyone I was playing with back. The ability to power level with friends is actually pretty awesome as you jump levels much quicker then you ever would in SP. It's a nice feature to have, especially since I didn't get the opportunity to play this weekend at all and feel like I've fallen behind others as far as leveling goes. The co-op plays much like if you were to group with someone in WoW. If you have the same quests, they show up and you get the same objectives. I don't have too much to report on the co-op front as the only time I played I was a bit confused and hadn't fully fallen into the ebb and flow of the game, so my personal experience wasn't all that great just due to my lack of knowledge. Definitely looking forward to getting in more hours on this game throughout the week.

Even though I was up visiting the girlfriend at college this week, I still had the opportunity to play some WoW. I finally got to level 70 (HOORAY!) which is quite the accomplishment for me. I've been enjoying the Northrend content, although I'm looking forward to getting out of the Borean Tundra zone and moving onto something new. Being a mere 10 levels away from "the end" is a nice feeling though. I think I might start leveling my old warrior main after I'm done with my current. Maybe I'll try out some different zones I didn't get to on my current to mix it up a bit.

Adventures in Babeland - Weekly Gaming Girl Diary: October 20, 2009

The past week or so has been relatively boring in relation to gaming. I was busy taking care of my sick girlfriend and didn't get the chance to play many games. The games I did play, however, were World of Warcraft, Company of Heroes and League of Legends. First and foremost, lets start with some WoW chat.

As I stated last week, I finally got into Wrath of the Lich King content. I'm finally in Northrend and working my way through Borean Tundra. So far the zone has been a bit difficult to navigate, mostly due to the fact that it's brand new, but as of yesterday I got the hang of it a little bit. The thing I enjoy the most about all this new content are exploring the new worlds and fighting new mobs. Most of the old world and even BC content I've done before with my first main. It's fun and enjoyable, but it's the same old, same old. Being in Northrend is fresh and new and definitely enjoyable. Getting into new zones definitely sparks up my desire to play WoW more so then when I was working up to 60 on my current main. I always like seeing what Blizzard comes up with. Quite honestly, the level of creative and intelligence that is put into WoW by Blizzard never ceases to amaze me. World of Warcraft will probably go down in history as my favorite game of all time and Blizzard will easily go down as my favorite gaming company of all time. I'm currently at level 69, about half way through inching closer and closer to 70...a place I've never been before (hell, everything up to this point is somewhere I haven't been yet). I'm excited for 70 and I'm excited to finally have a mere 10 levels to go before I reach the end...hopefully I'll get there before Cataclysm is released.

This weekend I also worked through the tutorial of Company of Heroes. I picked this game up a few weeks ago from Direct2Drive when they had it on sale for $5. It's been a while since I've gotten into an RTS, so getting back into this has been a bit difficult. The tutorial was nice, quite honestly one of the best I've experienced (I typically skip them, but it was a bit necessary for CoH). Once I worked through the tutorial I started up a campaign, but didn't get too far into it as it wasn't quite drawing me in at that moment in time. I hope to get into this a bit more in the future, but for now it might have to wait on the back burner.

I was also lucky enough to receive a League of Legends beta key recently. I honestly have little to no knowledge of League of Legends or what it's about other then what I've heard Ryan Scott on The Geekbox. He seemed to love the game, so I thought I might as well give it a try. I mean, it's in beta and it's free, why not? I played a teeny tiny bit of the game this weekend, but not enough to give any sort of honest review or opinion of it. Once again, hopefully getting more into this in the future.

The last thing I want to touch on in this post is my current urge to play a certain video game...Fallout 3. I started FO3, LOVED it and never finished it. This is my typical routine with most video games. Lately, I've really felt like I wanted to get back into it, but haven't actually started yet. I think the couple things that turned me off from FO3 was all the freakin' walking and some of the attacking mechanics. I always felt like even though my aim was on point at enemies, I always missed and this annoyed me. I suppose this is just something I need to overcome and hopefully in the new couple weeks I'll get back into this game and possibly finally beat it.

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.

Adventures in Babeland - Weekly Gaming Girl Diary: August 24, 2009

Not sure how many have noticed, but I’ve been a bit absent in doing the whole weekly gaming thing for the past few weeks. My apologies, but life has taken hold of me a bit with my girlfriend moving away for college and I just haven’t had the time to get a lot of gaming in nor have the time to sit down and really write about it. This weekly gaming update will be a bit more then the past week or so and will cumulate a few weeks of gaming.

I’ve been putting in some time on quite a few games lately. I purchased Battlefield 1943 a while ago and have been sitting down and actually playing a bit over the past few weeks. There are two things I have learned during this time spent with the game; the first being that overall the game delivers and is a ton of a fun and the second being I am not very good at it. I probably average maybe 3 kills a game and when compared to the 10-15 or so that the top leaders average I’m doing a pretty piss poor job. Regardless, I’m enjoying the time I’ve spent with the game and it is definitely a load of fun. More often then not, I find myself left at the base initially without any sort of transport so I eventually get to the firefight a lot later then everyone else. Maybe my strategies suck? Maybe I’m just not that great at FPS games, but I’m still enjoying the time I’ve spent with it.

I also recently purchased three XLBA games; Castle Crashers, ‘Splosion Man and Shadow Complex. I’ve played a bit of the Castle Crasher’s demo and enjoyed it, but haven’t gotten around to playing the full version. I have spent a bit of time with ‘Splosion Man and I’m definitely enjoying it. First thing is first, that game is difficult. Haha, I typically start out any game I play on the “normal” difficulty as easy tends to be too easy and anything higher then normal tends to be too difficult for me. ‘Splosion Man may seem like a very simplistic game as there is really one only thing and one thing only you can do; explode. These explosions allow you to kill enemies and climb walls, but that is all you do. Run and explode, run and explode. Based on that simplistic premise I didn’t really know where they could go with the game, but damn they went places and they went places that are difficult. The game gets progressively more and more fast paced as you move on and had me sitting on the edge of my seat many times and induced the desire for me to throw my controller at the TV screen. I’m pretty sure the face paced action of the game also set my blood pressure into overdrive at some points. I’m not really sure how far into the game I am, I believe I’m at level 1-10 and I don’t know how far the game goes on, but I’m loving it. Definitely a game worth purchasing and definitely a game that has a lot more then it appears.

I’ve also spent a tiny bit of time playing Shadow Complex. I initially downloaded the trial because I heard so many people talking about it and I wanted to know what it was all about. I enjoyed the trial enough that I purchased the full game later that day. I haven’t had enough time to get very far into it, but so far I’m enjoying it. It’s interesting to see and play what is essentially an updated side scroller. Maybe I haven’t been playing console games long enough, but I haven’t seen a lot of updated side scrollers like this one, at least not in the sense of the art style. This game could easily be an FPS and has the generally same graphics as most FPS games, but you only have 4 options for movement; up, down, forward and backward and that’s it. I’ve gotten to, I suppose, what could be the first “boss” in the very beginning of the game. I haven’t gotten around to beating him yet, but I might take another shot at it tonight after work. Definitely enjoying my time spent with the game and would highly recommend.

One of my most recent “boxed” game purchases is Wolfenstein. I never played the original Wolfenstein games…well, I suppose that is incorrect…I played one of the very, very first versions of Wolfenstein on my parent’s old Apple IIe. I’m talking about a game with stick figures played on a black and green screen. I never played Wolfenstein 3D, but towards the end of high school I did start playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein and it quickly became my favorite FPS and most of my evenings after school and soccer practice were spent on an empty hill on a beach, with a sniper rifle clutched in my grasp, picking of Nazi’s. I continued to play the game through college and eventually stopped at some point to start devoting my free time to World of Warcraft. To this day, RtCW is my favorite FPS MP game ever. Forget Halo, forget Counter Strike…for me it’s RtCW. So needless to say, I was elated to hear iD and Raven was releasing a new title to the franchise. I picked it up on release day and have put about 30 minutes to an hour into it. Now, that’s not enough time to write a decent review of the game (which I intend on doing by the end of this week *crosses fingers*), but it was enough time to explore the world a little bit and get used to the game. So far so good, but I haven’t played enough to make a solid opinion of it. As soon as I installed it (I bought it for my PC since it was $10 cheaper, I knew none of my 360 friends would be purchasing it, it came with a $10 gift card…which I lost …and I’m much better at PC based FPS then console) I fired up the MP since the reviews for it have been relatively “meh” and that was the one thing I was most looking forward to. Unfortunately, there was barely anyone online and I didn’t get the chance to jump into a game. Hopefully since the game has been out for about a week, I’ll have better luck in the near future.

Aside from all these new games, there is my good old standby, World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten too much time to play recently due to the girlfriend moving and life being hectic. I’ve gotten my blood elf pally up to level 67 and with the release of patch 3.2, was able to purchase a new flying mount. Holy cow, having a flying mount is damn near the best thing ever. No more having to find the appropriate path to avoid mobs or having to find the appropriate path through a valley…I can just jump on my flying mount and get the f*** out of there. It’s glorious, truly glorious. If you pay any attention to the WoW universe, you’ll know that Blizzcon happened this past weekend. There are a lot of exciting things happening in the next WoW expansion and I think I might write a feature on it later this week or next. I realize this isn’t a WoW blog and there are a lot of other places out there to get a lot more information on these things, but I’ll probably put together a quick write up of what I’m most excited for. I consider myself to not be an a-typical WoW player (maybe I am?) in the sense that I don’t raid and haven’t really reached any end game content so I think I get more excited about things that people are less excited about. The main thing that makes me squee with joy is the fact that they are REDOING ALL THE OLD WORLD CONTENT, OMG! But I’ll get more into that in my feature.

I think that’s about it for my gaming activities as of late. I really need to sit down and finish Battlefield: Bad Company considering how close I am to beating it. I think I have this disease that prevents me from ever completing games. I always buy them, start them and at some point abandon them. I’m pretty sure Portal, Half Life and Bioshock are the few games that I’ve actually beaten and completed. I didn’t even beat Diablo II or the SP campaign of RtCW. That’s definitely something that needs to change.

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 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...

Gaming Diary May 30, 2009 - No Longer PC Exclusive

Since my "big" purchase of a brand new (well, not BRAND new, but new to me) Xbox 360 I have been completely immersed in the 360 gaming world. I've downloaded tons of game demos trying to get my hands, eyes and ears on as many games as possible. Some of the first games I picked up were Mass Effect, Madden '08 (for the girlfriend, not a big fan of sports games), Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Braid, Peggle and Left 4 Dead. I've played at least a little bit of all of them, with the exception of Madden.

Upon the urging of Nate, I tried out Mass Effect for a little bit. I didn't get all that far before I died. I'm still trying to adjust to the world of buttons and joysticks. The PC mouse and WASD combo is so easy compared to a console controller, but I'm getting used to it. I actually am starting to prefer it for some games. Anyway, I started up Mass Effect, but didn't get all that far. Same situation with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. I like both games, but I'll definitely need to invest more time before I make a final decision on them. I have been investing a lot of time in Peggle, which I actually initially wasn't a big fan of. I checked out the Peggle demo on my PC and played it a few times on flight paths to WoW and it never did really grabbed me, but now playing it on the 360 is different. I'm totally drawn into it and have made it relatively far (well, at least for me) in a short period of time.

One game I haven't played much, but am loving is Braid. It's not even the gameplay yet that I love (as I really haven't gotten that far), it's the visuals and the music. The music reminds me a lot of Firefly. I would honestly just open up the game just to listen to the music. I'm not really sure what it is about it, but I just think it's beautiful. The game so far has been enjoyable, although it's probably going to wreck my brain a good amount. I tend to fail pretty hard at puzzle-type games and often resort to the good ol' internet to help me along. I'm going to try as best as I can to figure things out on my own, but we'll see how it goes.

The highlight of my 360 gaming experience thus far has to be Left 4 Dead. I got some campaign and survival gaming in last night with friends and absolutely loved it. The best part was, I even got my girlfriend (who tends to avoid gaming in general other then sports games) into the action. So much so that she said she wanted to play again today!

It was definitely worth the money to get the 360. It's providing a significantly more enjoyable multiplayer gaming then my PC ever did. It's difficult to find friends that PC game these days. I suppose we are sort of a dying breed of sorts, with the exception of PC exclusive games like World of Warcraft. Most gamers have become more involved in the console gaming community then the PC. It was awesome to be able to sit down and play with my friends, friends I don't typically get a chance to see all but a few times a year. Honestly, I think if Left 4 Dead was the only game I owned on the 360 it would still be worth the investment for the enjoyment I got out of it.

Now, I praise and praise and praise my new 360 gaming experience, HOWEVER, I still am at heart a PC gamer. I feel like the 360 will hold most of my casual gaming. Stuff that I'm not sitting down for hours for. Stuff I can just jump in and jump out of. I don't see my 360 ever being my "hardcore" gaming device. I still love my PC and still intend to use that as my main gaming "console." World of Warcraft will always have my heart and with Blizzard coming out with Starcraft II and Diablo III in the future I will definitely be investing a lot of time into my PC. I think the 360 will be my casual gaming and multiplayer gaming console while my PC will remain as my intense gaming and single player system. I currently own COD4 and COD5 for my PC with no intention of buying it for the 360. I'm not big into multiplayer on either of the games, but do love the single player aspects.

Other then 360 gaming throughout the last week I have been investing a bit of time into WoW. I got a few hours of WoW action in this morning. I'm currently level 61 working my way up to 62. Leveling is somewhat of a slow process for me since I really only play on the weekends. Today I ventured into Outland (a level 60-70 zone for the non-WoWing individuals) for the second time. My first time traveling to Outland was with the first character I ever made; Walker, a Tauren warrior. I didn't spend too much time in Outland then and honestly, it bored me a little, but I'm finding this time around to be more enjoyable. Blizzard has definitely made leveling significantly easier then the first time around. I anticipate at this pace I'll be making level 80 by sometime at the end of the summer. That's slow, I realize, but I just can't invest hours upon hours into the game like I could in college when I had significantly more free time. I'll probably just end up leveling a new character once I reach 80 anyway and then I'll just start the whole process all over again.

Oh, and I wrote all of this entry outside enjoying the beautiful weather with my laptop and headphones on. Oh to be a geek!

PC Gaming Diary #2 - I Remember When 60 Was Something Special

My girlfriend works weekends, so that's when I get most of my gaming in. This weekend I spent a good time on...you guessed it! World of Warcraft! I think my appeal towards WoW on the weekends is also due to the fact that I don't have to give the game 100% of my attention to play (lets be honest, it's just a lot of right click target, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 7 then walk to the next target and repeat) which means I also get to devote some time to watching some of my favorite TV shows. This weekend it was finishing up Firefly. Other games such as COD4, COD5, Crysis, GTA4, FO3 need a bit more of my attention. But enough about TV!

This weekend I made a relatively large achievement. I leveled to 60! Now, if this were a few years ago that might actually mean something, but with the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions it really means nothing other then I was final able to purchase my epic mount giving me a 100% speed increase on the ground. Amazingly (and I honestly don't know how) I had the 700ish gold it cost to purchase the training and the actual mount. This is a new achievement for myself as I have only leveled one character to 60 thus far (and that's honestly as far as I have gotten in the game) and I never had enough gold on that toon to purchase my epic mount. So hooray on all accounts! Even though 60 doesn't really mean anything anymore, I'm pretty excited to have finally reached it and reached it significantly faster then my last toon. Seriously, Blizzard has made the grind from 1 to 60 WAY easier then it was a few years ago. Only 20 more levels to go and I have achieved my final goal!

Aside from all that WoWery this weekend, I got to playing a bit of Halo 2. See, I owe our friend Nate a replacement Halo Edition original Xbox so I found one on Craig's List and traveled down to Baltimore this weekend to pick it up. Nate won't be able to get it from me until Memorial Day weekend so I hooked it up and sat down to play a bit of Halo. Being the PC gamer I am, it's a bit awkward switching from the standard WASD and mouse one two combo of the PC gaming world to the console controller. I typically find the two joysticks confusing. I think I'm getting the hang of it, but I still have a difficult time being quick and accurate with the right hand joystick when aiming. I suppose it just takes some practice. I didn't spend too much time on it though and really didn't get very far, but I found it relatively enjoyable. There's one aspect of the console gaming world that I want in the PC gaming world and that is sitting down on a comfy couch to enjoy a game. There's something significantly more relaxed about console gaming to me then PC gaming. When I sit at my computer and play, I have to sit in my cheap computer chair and lean over my desk a bit. It's not as enjoyable or comfortable as a nice, plush couch. I have been toying with the idea of buying a 360 in the semi-near future, but it's the cost that's really keeping me from it. We shall see, maybe Halo 2 will make my urge to make that purchase even stronger.

PC Gaming Diary #1: It's a Game Within a Game!

My roommate walked by my desk last night and simply stated "You are multitasking like crazy, are you playing two games at the same time?!" Well, in fact I was.

I've spent most of my recent days playing World of Warcraft. I own a good amount of games, but the one that usually consumes the most of my time is WoW. I have been playing for going on 4 years now and I have yet to level a character to 80. There was one point in time prior to the Burning Crusade expansion that I did in fact reach the maximum level at the time (60), but since then I have been a bit behind the pack.

Yesterday I leveled my latest toon (a female, retribution speced, blood elf paladin on the Skullcrusher realm) to 59. WoW involves a lot of non action at times. When you fly from city to city you have no control over your transport and are sort of left in limbo. Usually I'll alt-tab out of the game and do some web browsing or some chatting, but in the past month Pop Caps games has released two add-ons for World of Warcraft; Bejeweled and Peggle. You can customize the add ons to automatically open up when you get on a flight path and automatically close when you are done. You can also customize it to automatically open and close in other occurrences such as death, but I just chose the FP option. Bejeweled plays as it would normally play, although as points increase you also gain levels in regards to your Bejeweled skills. Peggle offers extra WoW specialties such as leveling and earning talent points that can be used to your liking (very similar to TPs in WoW itself). I tend to spend most of my FP time (which can sometimes take up to 15 minutes depending on where you're traveling) playing Bejeweled, mostly because I find it more simplistic then Peggle. I haven't quite caught on to the Peggle buzz yet as I find the game to be mostly luck. Maybe I just haven't realized the strategy behind it yet. It's fun though and props to Pop Cap for the add ons. It adds an entirely different level to playing World of Warcraft as well as casual gaming.