Recent reviews by L34RY

Recent updates have given me less desire to play the game. The XP required to get max level gathering and crafting skills were raised giving early/max level players a distinct advantage. This is backwards from long running MMOs like WoW where the XP requirement is reduced after a certain time period. The economy is completely broken and the house points are very misleading. Having a fully decked out home with over 100k points got reset 2 days later and beat out by some newbie with a table and a chair who has done a ton of quests in the area. The game is unplayable for higher level players that are not already max. Probably headed towards a P2W model.

I wanted to play this game. I REALLY wanted to play this game. I got on an MMO kick and did not want to resubscribe to WoW. This looked really good and was F2P so I thought, "Why not?"

I played for about 2 1/2 hours and it was pretty cool, I got to level 5 and the game kicked me out. Probably a server reboot or something. No big deal, it was late anyway. I didn't get a chance to play for about 2 weeks, you know, work and stuff. So, when I tried to log back in... MY ACCOUNT WAS BANNED! What the actual f*ck? So after 2 more weeks of back and forth with customer service, it turns out my account cannot be reactivated because I breached the TOC.... How did I breach TOC by NOT PLAYING THE GAME? The most I could get from them, was that I apparently did not enter my birthday correctly? I'm 31 years old, I promise I'm old enough to play.

I resubscribed to World of Warcraft.

I love this game! The topography was spectacular for its time. Unfortunately, the PC version is a crash-fest. I have not been able to play the game for more than 15 minutes continuously. This is the base game, not the multiplayer mod! I still reccomend the game since this is most likely a system issue that I have not yet figured out, but consider yourself warned, lots of people are experiencing stability problems.

Terrible... just, terrible. How anyone has made it through an entire level is a mystery. I'll recap my first few attempts:

*Attempt 1*
Spawn in a room with 2 Kobalds
Miss, miss, miss, miss, die

*Attempt 2*
Open door
Enter room with a single goblin
Miss, miss, hit, miss, die

*Attempt 3*
Spawn in a room with 3 rats
Alt+F4

My initial opinion of this game was that it is boring and pointless... actually, that's still my opinion of the game. The experience is more like an interactive screensaver. There are no action buttons, no sprinting, no jumping and no death. You simply walk around and enjoy the ambience. There are no goals or objectives other than the ones you set for yourself. Even those were simple tasks such as, make it to the top of that mountain, chase the squirrel, or try to find that tree that played bagpipes. I owe my positive opinion of the game to a gameplay review that I was attempting to record. After several takes, the environment started to grow on me. It was amazing how long I found myself wandering around while still trying to make myself hate it. This is not for everyone, but I see the appeal now. While this is not a must buy or must play, the experience is unique and enjoyable.

This is a fantastic addition to the series. The previous iteration by Raven Software was... bad. I have enjoyed the ability to choose whether I Rambo my way through the map dual weilding assault rifles, sneak through a hidden corridor to come up behind a commander and slit his throat, or a combination of the two. The graphics are great and will really shine on Ultra settings, provided you have the GPU to support it. There have been a few instances where the automatic weapons will have a stray shell casing stuck next to the gun, but this was a minor glitch.

One neat little gameplay element that I have enjoyed so far is the way the map is unlocked. Of course as you progress through the level, you reveal the places that you have been, but say you find an emergency exit map on the wall... pick it up and you reveal the entire location. It was a subtle gameplay presentation that I really enjoyed; however, I can see this getting redundant and losing its appeal over time.

In past reviews, other players have reccommended starting on Hard difficulty for experienced FPS players and I agree. I usually start on Normal difficulty on all games just to get a feel for it before I crank it up on a second playthrough. In this case, I started on Hard and have not been disappointed. It definitely presents a challenge, but it is not overbearing so long as you take cover when necessary. The ammo and health are abundant between firefights and I'm often forced to leave bullets behind due to max ammo cap. This, of course, could be due to my playstyle.

Overall, in the crowded genre of FPS, this game does not introduce any gamechanging mechanics. The story is well written, the graphics are great, and the gameplay is solid. The lack of multiplayer may decrease the replay value, but some games just don't need it. While a co-operative campaign would have been a good addition, it would not have fit with the story, and a hastily thrown together adversarial multiplayer would have detracted from the overall experience.