I've been very bored on the game front as of late; which has led to no posts here. I've not been gaming because there's been nothing good to play!
However, there are some interesting looking games on the horizon, and one current new game that's excellent.
Articles to come soon on each, but here are the ones to try and why:
RIFT - amazing new game from Trion. Watch out for one of their free trial weekends. Think WoW, but updated, different, with some tweaks. Excellent graphics. Excellent character creation. Excellent skill sets and talent tree design. Craving playing this game so much after the free weekend, that it looks like it's going to be a purchase and sub for me. More to come on this game.
Coming 2011:
Guild Wars II - I want it because it's supposed to be a great game, and it's a one-time purchase, no subscription fee MMO. These gaming companies make TONS of money off the customer purchase of one game package. I don't know why companies like Trion and Blizzard can't change over to the format that the folks who make GW have. Buy the game, online play free. They're still making tons of money off the expansion packs.
Skyrim - this is THE 2011 game. You must buy it. I can't wait. It's due out 11/11/11.
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Dungeons and Dragons Online
I've been exploring Dungeons and Dragons Online. This was a subscription game, and then they adopted a free-to-play format recently.
DDO is really fun at first. I made a ranger and she can summon animals as well as tame animals in the wild to assist. She's an Arcane ranger and can conjure her own arrows. Later she'll be able to conjure fire arrows, poison ones, etc.
It's easy to get through the starter area alone. However, the game is built for grouping. You really have to get into a guild, and go on runs together, or make good use of the Looking-for-Group tab, to either find groups or post for help for your own quests.
Lately I'm annoyed with it. I've spent hours standing around waiting to try to get a group, or for guildmates to login. They take me regularly (three times a week at least) but in evenings. Sometimes I want to play in the day and can never find anyone to go with. If you go alone, you die fast.
Anyway the game is really fun when you go with others. I find it a LOT less stressful than WoW grouping. So that's a positive. I guess because it's free I should try to be more patient with it but it's tough when you have some time and want to game but can't.
News about the Free-to-Play Model
Since DDO (a Turbine game) went Free-to-Play, they brought in a whole new set of folks who knew nothing about the game, who at the very least add life back in the game, and at most could be potential paying customers in the DDO store. The DDO store sells things like Adventure Packs (not all areas are free-to-play), cosmetic changes, hirelings to help you solo some dungeons, and tomes that give permanent status buffs.
Other games like Lord of the Rings (also a Turbine game) and EverQuest 2 have announced they are moving toward the same model. There will be differences between each game of course. For example, Unlike DDO's pay-to-play adventure packs for certain quest lines, LoTR will have every questable area free to play, and there will be other things that folks can purchase from their store.
WoW has also made an announcement that they want to go Free-to-Play in the future. I can't see that happening any time soon with Cataclysm fast approaching. They'll make a lot of money on return players, who will undoubtedly play at least 3 to 6 months to check out all the new content.
Playing games with friends is always so much fun, whether it's kick-the-can, online games or MMORPGs. Even single player games have their connections with other folks via forums.
So why do some games and game types succeed when others fail? Example: recent GoPets closure. GoPets was the best pet game. A very social, very cute, very customizable game. Just the best. But I could never get any of my friends to play it. I tried and tried - no interest whatsoever. You'd even think they hated games by the looks they gave me. So ok, gaming is not for some people.
Then GoPets gets bought by Zynga. What comes out shortly after? Petville. Who makes pets and plays Petville? Some of those folks who wouldn't play GoPets before! Why is that?
- Facebook games are very lazy games - it's possible the simple do-nothingness of the games draws folks in. Yes I'm saying most folks are lazy by nature. :) At least we like to take the easy road lots of times.
- People are on Facebook daily - add some games and you increase the chance that people will play them. It's kind of like that people will do the crossword puzzle in the paper, but most won't go out and buy a crossword puzzle book and do them regularly in there. (why, I don't know, because I do buy game books and magazines. Maybe I'm odd!)
- The social connection is there. Your best friend plays Farmville? "Oh maybe I'll try it too!" could likely be someone's thinking.
That's where the Jumpstart series of games come into play. My children enjoyed the Jumpstart games on their computers years ago. Today your children can play Jumpstart games on the Wii, making it easier for you to watch while they learn.
The Jumpstart folks have asked me to review for you their latest release, Escape from Adventure Island. I'd not played one of these educational games for quite some time and expected a simplistic set of learning tools. However, I was in for a surprise!
You start out by creating your own avatar - hair, face, eyes, clothes. You have a restricted amount of items you can use and you learn immediately that if you want a particular hairstyle you need to earn sand dollars to obtain the changes you want.
You start out on a beach and are introduced to a local, who tells you about your treehouse that you can decorate and other things you can do. I didn't find my house right off, but went straight to exploring. Along the beach are entrances or portals to different types of games. Enter one and you'll find that there are series of games that you can play in this portal. There are lessons, with curriculum levels set at Easy. Medium and Hard. I found that the Hard level is the same lesson type, just with more in-game obstacles.
For example, your child's goal may be to target the written word "eleven" from the vocal clue "Find the word that spells eleven." Your child moves the avatar through the field of obstacles (sometimes having the capability to shoot the obstacle) and through the card that reads "eleven". If "Hard" is the chosen level, there would be more obstacles to shoot to get to the word "eleven".
Other fun things included riding a mantra and shooting shapes or colored targets, or squasing punk punks to get to the target. As you complete lessons you earn those sand dollars to buy more items for your avatar.
This style of game makes learning fun for children. They get to practice their skills, while enjoying fun game play along the way!
There are a lot of areas to explore. There's a DDR-type of dance game that's cute. You can ride the slide and go underwater and be part of the fashion clothes show beneath the surface. There are plenty of learning games both underwater and on the beach.
Don't forget your house! When you find your treehouse you can decorate it as you like. I liked having a house, but tired of it quickly, because it was only exterior decorations. I didn't find that you could actually go inside and arrange furniture or the inside of the house. Too bad - that would have expanded on the game nicely.
Some things I would have like to have seen done differently:
* You have to earn more sand dollars but it never says how many more you need to get particular items. You just have to play and keep checking back as you get more.
* The treehouse customizing is only external - would have loved to decorate inside as well
* In one game I had to shoot colors and their yellow looked like olive-green so much so that I couldn't actually find the yellow colored cards. It's not like yellow wasn't displayed properly elsewhere on that same screen.
Things I really liked:
* The RPG-ish-ness of the game (avatars, quests, squashing beasts, shooting obstacles, riding mounts)
* Wii remote technology - good use of the remote+nunchuk
* The fashion show - you can try on a bunch of different clothing styles on your character, even though you can't afford them yet
* That there are worlds both above and under water
* That there was a LOT to do. There were lots of areas to explore, and each was full of lessons of different difficulty.
The kids can really get a lot of playtime from Escape from Adventure Island, and lots of practice on their basic skills as they progress. Learning really is fun!
Learn more about Escape from Adventure Island at Jumpstart
Supposedly, today and tomorrow is the Holiday Day of the Dead. I heard it's an EU holiday but I was also told we can do it too in the US. Going to check it out later.
You can get a "pet" - make some bread from the recipe you can get, then give it to the Cheerful Spirit:
"Your reward is a Macabre Marionette, a small pet that looks like a skeleton wearing a sombrero and holding a pair of maracas. This pet can only be used during the Day of the Dead event - it cannot be learned and kept like other small pets."Too bad. :( But still fun to look into.