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WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Now Available November 13, 2008

Posted by Lyle in News.
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wotlk

SOME THOUGHTS

World of Warcraft; sometimes I miss you, sometimes I don’t.  For me, this new expansion is intriguing because I played Warcraft 3 back in the day in which (SPOILER ALERT) the good prince Arthas pulled a Darth Vader and became corrupt.  It was a good, albeit dark story, and even though I wasn’t (and still am not) into Real-Time-Strategy games I played it because Blizzard usually = good games.

World of Warcraft was no exception.  I played the beta as soon as I could get into it and subscribed to the released game for about a year and a half before I quit.  I felt the same way about that MMO that I do about all MMO’s that I’ve ever tried: If I’m going to pay 15 dollars a month to play one game, then I need to put 15 dollars worth of time into playing it.  I levelled a Hunter up to the high 30’s and a Mage up to 17.  I enjoyed the game at a leisurely pace.

When the first expansion hit, I wasn’t really all that interested in signing back up since I hadn’t hit the level cap yet anyway; and the expansion was geared for high-level content.  As I mentioned above, the new expansion is a bit more compelling for me because I love the lore of the World of Warcraft and this one has to do with Arthas (the titular Lich King) from Warcraft 3.  A good story may just win me back for a few months.  Also the report that Blizzard have made it possible to level your low-level characters up faster in order to speed up to the new content of the expansion is fairly tempting…

WHAT PARENTS SHOULD THINK ABOUT

Parents don’t have to worry too much about the content of the World of Warcraft games.  There are high fantasy references to magic, the occult, and the like.  There is always the possibility of meeting fellow players who are nasty or mean or both.  Some players use voice chat through 3rd party programs, but the in-game chat is text based.  The game has lot of fantasy style fighting (think Lord of the Rings).  I would consider the game PG or PG-13 if it were a movie (and it will be a movie one day).  It’s character’s are very cartoon-like.

It costs 15 dollars a month to play (first month is free); and some folks think that it is seriously addictive (like medically addictive – like drugs), although I never really felt that way about it. If you or your kids are already playing WoW, then this article is probably not news to you and you have already bought the new expansion or are planning on it.  If you are not a current player then the cost to get into the game is fairly high…  To buy WoW and Burning Crusade (you can get them both for 40) and Wrath of the Lich King (40) brings you up to 80 bucks for one game – but that one game has a major amount of content that could keep you busy for a long time.

It can be fun for Role Playing Game fans and it is pretty easy to pick up and play.  Apparently they are up to 13 million subscribers for the game now which pretty much destroys the subscriber base of all the MMO games.  At this point I am not sure if you will find me back in Azeroth or not, but the expansion does have me intrigued…

Age Of Conan Comes Out To Play May 30, 2008

Posted by Lyle in News, Now Playing.
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There’s a new game on the rise in the industry, and while it won’t be outselling or outshining GTA4 in popularity, it is an interesting game – and it’s selling very well for a PC pseudo-exclusive (It will be out on Xbox 360 sometime in the future).  Funcom is already saying there have been 400,000 people sign up for subscriptions (yep, it’s one of those games that you have to keep paying to play) and the collector’s edition of the game sold out completely.

The reason I gave GTA the sword in the pic is cause, well, I’m done with it.  I made the decision that my initial impressions of the title were good enough to let parents know what they are getting into with the game.  And while the story was intriguing – it just wasn’t worth treading through all the junk to get to it (at least not to me).  So it’s on to other games for me; including Age of Conan, which has more appeal to my inner geek and though it’s a mature game for lots of reasons, there is significantly less nastiness.

Here are the basics on Age of Conan: The Hyborian Adventures

  • Based on Robert E. Howard’s brutal “low-fantasy” universe (this is NOT Lord of the Rings – no elves or silly hobbitses)
  • Online play only – Like World of Warcraft, which you may have heard of, this is an MMORPG (MMORPG stands for massively multiplayer online role playing game and means that you buy the game and then subscribe for 15 bucks a month – ouch).  You are playing on constantly updated servers over a high speed internet connection (required) with 1000’s of other people at the same time.
  • This is the first (popular) M for Mature rated online game (Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Nudity, Sexual Themes are the ESRB descriptors)
  • The game has incredibly steep computer system requirements – you will need a serious gaming machine to run it well.  Do not buy this game thinking you can run it on your office computer.
  • Real-time combat system is new to the genre.  Most MMORPG’s have auto-attack systems that can get pretty boring after a while – this one keeps you busy and features real combos and more action.

So far I have two characters; a level 10 Barbarian and a level 13 Ranger.  I love fantasy-themed role-playing-games and so there are parts of the game that I’m enjoying quite a bit.  But parents need to know that the game is not for kids.  Robert Howard’s dark fantasy world has been kept in tact in brutal detail.  The violence is strong with blood spattering, decapitations and removal of limbs possible (though not very realistic-looking), suggestive sexual content is in the game (nowhere near the level of GTA, but present), and language and nudity are there as well.

The themes found in the story are of a mature nature that most kids may simply find unappealing or gloss over completely.  Slavery, good vs evil, loyalty, greed, sex, situational ethic scenarios (can you be Jack Bauer) are all parts of different quests I’ve been on.  It’s story/writing is handled mostly with class and maturity (a welcome change to the dirty joke assault that was Grand Theft Auto IV), and it’s interesting and compelling.  My one gamer specific complaint is that the character models, though amazing-looking, are stiff and the animations and movements seem pretty weak.  Also the 4 hour downtimes that have happened are kind of a bummer (you can’t play when the servers aren’t up).

If you’re into rpg’s or fantasy settings, you may want to try it out.  As with most MMO games, you get the first month of play free, but after that its an allowance drain.  And make sure you have the system to run it before you buy it.  I’ve never played a PC game that asked for 32 gigabytes of hard drive space!  If your video card is over 2 years old, you may have to upgrade.  It’s an absolutely beautiful game graphically, but you’ll need some serious power to run it on high settings.  I’m interested to see when and how they will get it going on the Xbox 360.