/neglect

Alas, it is true. I have neglected this site - my blog. As you can see my last post was made in July and featured my own half-baked (or totally-baked, depending on how you look at it) review of a review. The horror! And when I say horror I mean the really nasty moody French existentialist malaise sort of horror, not your average Freddy vs Jason blood-spatter horror.

So what have I been up to in the intervening four months? Oh, the usual ... living under the diffused haze known as Lord of the Rings Online. Would you believe, not that my highest level character is 37, but that my highest character is level 37 and I created him on opening day. That is a testament to me of how much this game has to offer in role-playing and meta-gaming - that I am still playing and having fun with a character who is 13 levels away from cap.

I took part in the Warhammer Online open beta and played it for part of my subscription's free month. There are a lot of things to like in that game - case in point: the Book of Knowledge. I love having access to statistics, statistics and more statistics. I want to know percentages, have comparisons ... I want to know how many times I've one-shotted a newb on the toilet reading the Utne Reader vs. how many times I've been one-shotted while navigating a pvp zone with my big toe because I am using both hands to hit the four-footer. That is what I need and the Book of Knowledge approaches that.

But alas, Warhammer has not been enough to hold my fickle, fickle attention and I have allowed my subscription to lapse. It isn't actually the game design's fault, however. I think it's a great game with a great future - they just need to fix the memory leaks.

I've also been playing a solid amount of Colonization. I still have yet to win on the Pioneer setting. I am getting better, though. Just need to keep reading.

In the last couple weeks, I've also bought Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (price dropped to $10), Red Orchestra (on sale for $5) and Hinterland. So far:

I can't get into Red Orchestra. I find myself spending significant chunks of time downloading server mods only to have the connection fail or be kicked. The single-player practice was pretty cool, though. But I don't see myself playing it. Oh well, $5 wasted.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is an extremely good game so far. I'm really enjoying the RPG-lite aspect of it. I've been itching to make another run through Half-Life 2 lately, and this is the perfect scratch. This game reminds me of a cross between Vampire: Bloodlines and Half-Life 2 in a fantasy setting. Pretty solid over-all if you are into that.

I'm officially regarding Hinterlands as a hidden gem of PC gaming at the moment. It's a Diablo/Caesar hybrid which seems like an odd combination but works fantastically. Diablo-style questing to build a Caesar-style town. Though it is an extremely simple game, I think this is one I'll be coming back to on and off, like Tetris or Bejeweled.

And as October is beginning to come to a close I find myself happily re-subscribed to Dungeons and Dragons Online. Like LOTRO (but for different reasons) I just love this game. The combat controls and quest-based advancement are two big reasons. Sometimes it gets a bit lonely (I haven't found a guild yet), but it has a lot of the magic that made me fall in love with Dungeons and Dragons in the first place.