A whole bunch of mini-reviews

Between bouts of trying to level my WoW characters, I’ve actually played through a number of titles. Here are some of my random thoughts.

Fallout 3

I think this might be my top game of 2008. Before I had even realized what happened, I had finished the game after about 50 hours play time. There have been some complaints online that the main storyline was too short. I did a pretty good job of staying focused on the main quests… only did a few side quests here and there… and I finished the game in FIFTY HOURS. That’s a lot of gameplay in my opinion. And I still need to go back and play the evil and neutral paths.

Fable II

As far as RPG’s go, this seems like a very deep, very involved RPG. I need to spend more time with it. It’s a lot of fun. However, there are so many other titles to play right now… this will probably be a major title for me after the initial holiday glut of titles is past and I start getting tired of WoW again. (More on that in a minute.)

Force Unleashed

I wanted to like this game. It started out really well, but it punishes you SO MUCH when you make a wrong move. And sometimes, there is no obvious indication that you are making a wrong move. OH YAY I KILLED THAT BOSS! Okay, now I all I have to do is jump across this area… oh crap I died. WHAT THE HELL WHY IS THE CHECKPOINT BEFORE THE BOSS AND NOT AFTER I HAVE TO FIGHT HIM AGAIN BLARGGRLRGRLGRLLRRG!!!! Another notch in my “I Hate Lucasarts” belt.

Dead Space

I played this for a few hours. It definitely seems like it could be fun if I play through the whole thing. Feels like a 1-play-through kind of game, though. I don’t see myself playing through it multiple times, but who knows.

Mega Man 9

OH MAN! Not only has this game managed to completely, flawlessly capture every iota of nostalgia I had for the old NES titles, but it is a great platformer in its own right. It’s definitely challenging, but instead of driving me away, it just pulled me in deeper. Plus, it gives me an excuse to turn on my Wii! (That’s what she said.)

Gears of War 2

I played the single player campaign and it was pretty awesome. It added metric tons of story and plot. Can’t wait for the 3rd game. Multiplayer has been kind of fun, but hasn’t really been able to pull me away from…

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

The Death Knight is the single greatest class I have played in any MMO, ever. It just feels really powerful. It’s kind of everything that I used to love about my warrior. High survivability AND high DPS. LOVE IT! The starting area has got to be one of the best sets of MMO content, anywhere. Blizzard’s new “phasing” concept is fantastic!

Left 4 Dead

I just recently picked this up and it’s been the only 360 game lately that has pulled me away from WoW in a significant way. I’ve been playing a couple different modes. I hope that the multiplayer for this game stays active for a long time, because this is easily the best multiplayer gameplay of 2008.