So, As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve been noticably absent from this blog for awhile. I got sucked in to the beta of Guild Wars, which was visually very attractive, but the gameplay I found to be somewhat lacking. It’s an updated, 3D version of the Diablo style games which were never really my thing. Fun, but lacking in re-playability.
Then I got hooked into the beta test of World of Warcraft and was literally blown away by it. The graphics are cartoonish at times but they fit in seamlessly with the whole Warcraft universe as presented in the Real-time strategy game, Warcraft III and it’s expansion pack, Frozen Throne. Everything about the game has to do with fun and immersion factor… it’s a game that seriously makes you lose track of time. I had an absolute blast playing it and wish that I had the money to buy it and play regularly now that it’s gone retail. Maybe Santa will be good to me… who knows.
The one thing I really enjoyed about it was the humour embedded in the game. Almost all of the emotes have a funny visual or audio bit to them that makes me roll every time I see them. All the races have stupid and cheesy dance moves. The Human males dance like John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever. The human females do the Macarena. Night Elf males emulate Michael Jackson’s moves from Bad and Orc males would be perfect wearing a pair of parachute pants while they dance like MC Hammer.
Here’s a video capture of the Human Male dance that I took during the beta. It’s in Divx format and about 5mb so you might need the latest drivers if you don’t have them already.
In other news, I recently stumbled across Scorched Earth 3D which, for those of you don’t know (or were too young to remember), is 3-D update to the old 2-D Artillery game. In the original you would set your angle of trajectory, the power of your shot and take into account wind, weather and the physics of the screen walls (bouncy, wraparound or cement) then try to blow up all the other tanks around using a diverse variety of weaponry (such as funky bombs, MIRVs, sandhogs, napalm and nukes) that you bought at the end of each round. I used to love the game as it was always a blast and I remember having 4 or 5 people all huddled around the keyboard of my old 286 waiting to take their turn and blow the rest of us up. Yeah that’s how old the original is. Still it was a blast.
This new version takes things into the 3rd dimension with a bang and it’s a great update. The controls are a simple, but it takes a little getting used to aiming with them in 3 dimensions – (I suggest aiming using the Shot camera). And as it’s 3-D, it’s much harder to aim a Napalm hit or digger or roller but still just as satisfying when you land it. The big benefit to this update though, is of course, modem support! So while you can still have 4 or 5 people huddled in front of one keyboard if you like, you can also play over that wacky thing called the interweb.
Anyways… I’m off to blow some more tanks up. Look me up if any of you are looking to play.