What’s the deal with WoW mechanics? A gaming catch-22

The gaming world this week is awash in MMO news.  Star Wars: The Old Republic lost close to 25% of its player base and the newly announced Elder Scrolls MMO was kind of a disappointment.  TERA also released to positive fanfare and Guild Wars 2 recently hosted a weekend-long beta for pre-orders.  And, should we say it?  Diablo 3, while not an MMO, is right around the corner, sure to steal away the attention of the grinding hordes for at least some time.

But something more interesting is beginning to bubble up to the top of gamer’s interests.  Is WoW-style gameplay finally stale?  A lot of people seem to think so, a lot of other people completely disagree.  For a game-type that’s been around for nearly a decade (and really now, longer than that if you want to include some of the pre-WoW era MMOs), its not surprising to consider the idea that maybe people are getting a little bored of it, or they want something that just feels fresher.

Indie Spotlight: ep. 1

Hey everybody, sorry for the extreme lack of content, but I hope the wait was worth it!  I got to rethinking about some of the videos I’m currently doing, how I’m doing them, what I’m presenting and even where this blog is going.  The result was a few new ideas regarding what I’m presenting and the first one of those ideas is a resurrected Indie Spotlight.  Hit the jump for the first episode of the new format.

Turn-based combat is not dead

Rowan Kaiser’s article on role playing game systems seemed to cause a bit of an uproar the other week on perceived disdain at turn-based combat.  Gut reaction I had to reading the article was just: people are not going to like this, and it turns out I was right!  Its not because I inherently agree or disagree with the points made, its because its a touchy subject that, frankly, needs to be discussed a little more in length.  People are just now starting to discover that JRPGs don’t need to fall into the rigid status quo of the last 2 decades when it comes to combat systems and similarly western RPGs could probably benefit from some of the ideas of the past.

First Impressions: Syndicate

I like to take chances on games a lot, especially when they have some sort of promise of originality.  I took a chance on Brink last year and it turned out terribly.  I took a chance on Sonic Generations and was incredibly impressed.  This week I took a chance on Syndicate and came away, as Charlie Sheen would say: winning.

First Impressions: Amalur tastes good, but a bit undercooked

I’m knee-deep in Amalur now, a game that I can tell has a rich amount of content and some very stylish artwork.  Yet something about it feels just a little…off.  Its hard to put my finger on it, but maybe we can figure it out in this round-up of some of the early game’s highlights.

The Old Republic: First Impressions

Thursday night my brother calls me up to inform me that on complete accident he purchased two copies of The Old Republic, a game I know he was personally looking forward to (he was both a huge Star Wars and World of Warcraft fan, I guess I see the appeal).  I had just about decided I wouldn’t be getting the game for the same reasons I decided to stay away from World of Warcraft.  He informed me that he’d be giving the game to me immediately as a Christmas gift and wanted me to get on it as soon as possible.  I reluctantly accepted and began a weekend of getting as much time as I could into Bioware’s new title.

DmC: Devil May Cry looks like a game to take a chance on

I’ll just be honest, I’ve never really been into Devil May Cry-style games, or the whole Devil May Cry series for that matter.  The franchise is now getting a reboot of sorts where the story now takes place in an alternate universe that is constantly shifting with a much younger-looking Dante in the simply-named DmC.

Best games of 2011 preview

Now that I have my own game blog there is something I’ve been wanting to do for years: make my very own arbitrary list of what I think the best games of said year are.  There’s also this nagging feeling that I need to somehow be creative, however, so I’d like to submit several categories that don’t feel extremely obvious.  This is a preview of what those categories will be, the actual winners will be announced later this week: