Gaming Update
Jan. 20th, 2006 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caraigJust plain worn out, but I'll try to give a few gaming reviews here. Why? Just 'cause.
Civilization IV: It's crack. Every Civ is and has always been some form of crack, and Civ4 is the same. Sid Meier is adding more and different elements with each iteration, and this time it's the influence of Religion on a civilization's cities. Unfortunately, I don't think it really hits the mark as well as it could this time. It's Civilization. If you played the first one, you've played this one, except this has additional nuances and factors to keep track up. However, it never seems to scale out of control... unless you're playing on a Huge map and you're managing the production of fifty cities. Yow.
Oh, yeah, and the music rocks completely. I love the main titles. Music is a little skimpy through the game, but it's keyed to the era that you're in. Part of me misses the spinoff of Civ, Test of Time. There were some funky science fiction units in that game and the game felt like it really went beyond the early 2000's well, rather than just countless iterations of 'Future Tech.' Still, Civ is a lot of fun, all in all.
EVE Online: Well, I took the plunge and started subscribing to EVE Online, and for the amount I play it I think I'm getting my monthly money's worth so far. Skilling up is a grind but because you train skills even while you're offline it's not nearly so bad as with other games, and since skills are such a huge thing, that's a nice touch for the casual gamer. It's very open and wild and wooly, though; if you're coming in from FFXI or WoW you're going to be a bit lost after doing the first few storyline missions, unless you played and loved games like Elite and Privateer. Because at that point you can literally go in any direction: mining, bounty hunting, trading... it all depends on what you want to do. The economy is completely player-based, and the overal maturity seems to be markedly higher than a lot of games I've seen. Of course, I'm still in the newbie areas and corp/guild, so I don't know what things are like in the cutthroat, lawless '0.0 security' areas. For the time being, I'm having fun exploring a bit -- "Space is big, space is dark, it's hard to find a place to park." -- and building up my skills and ship modules. I don't yet feel any particular attachment to the game, though I understand there are some RP corps out there. More on this game later
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves: The entire Sly series has been called 'light.' I refer to it as 'light' in the sense that I can enjoy it and play it and gain a sense of accomplishment in making visible progress in the game without needing a strategy guide to hold my hand. I play the Sly Cooper games and I feel like I'm having fun, as opposed to... say, for example, Digital Devil Saga which changes the rules on you just when you think you understand the game, and ratchets up the challenge rating higher than you thought it could go.
So. Sly 3. Some definite improvements over the previous two games. Some more of the same good stuff. The voice acting remains great, the writing remains entertaining, the characters remain intriguing and fascinating. The secondary characters make quite interesting additions to the storyline. The many new options for what your characters can do are a plus. The writing does fall down a little when it tries to shoehorn in characters from previous games; a certain lounge lizard does not fit all that well. On the other hand, a certain pyromaniac panda leads to what is arguably the best chapter in the series I've played yet. (The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon stage is really fun! There should be a fighting game that does that. There are a lot of other homages to various Chinese myths and pop culture in that chapter, as well. Just don't cringe too much at the main villain's name.) I would recommend the Sly Cooper series to anyone who wants a light gaming experience and who doesn't want to be locked into something long, ponderous, pretentious, and/or superhumanly difficult that only a handful of people in the WORLD would be able to do really well at.
Not much else as far as gaming goes lately. More later, and more news from the job front soonish. For now, I'm just glad I'll be getting a day or two off sooner than expected.
Civilization IV: It's crack. Every Civ is and has always been some form of crack, and Civ4 is the same. Sid Meier is adding more and different elements with each iteration, and this time it's the influence of Religion on a civilization's cities. Unfortunately, I don't think it really hits the mark as well as it could this time. It's Civilization. If you played the first one, you've played this one, except this has additional nuances and factors to keep track up. However, it never seems to scale out of control... unless you're playing on a Huge map and you're managing the production of fifty cities. Yow.
Oh, yeah, and the music rocks completely. I love the main titles. Music is a little skimpy through the game, but it's keyed to the era that you're in. Part of me misses the spinoff of Civ, Test of Time. There were some funky science fiction units in that game and the game felt like it really went beyond the early 2000's well, rather than just countless iterations of 'Future Tech.' Still, Civ is a lot of fun, all in all.
EVE Online: Well, I took the plunge and started subscribing to EVE Online, and for the amount I play it I think I'm getting my monthly money's worth so far. Skilling up is a grind but because you train skills even while you're offline it's not nearly so bad as with other games, and since skills are such a huge thing, that's a nice touch for the casual gamer. It's very open and wild and wooly, though; if you're coming in from FFXI or WoW you're going to be a bit lost after doing the first few storyline missions, unless you played and loved games like Elite and Privateer. Because at that point you can literally go in any direction: mining, bounty hunting, trading... it all depends on what you want to do. The economy is completely player-based, and the overal maturity seems to be markedly higher than a lot of games I've seen. Of course, I'm still in the newbie areas and corp/guild, so I don't know what things are like in the cutthroat, lawless '0.0 security' areas. For the time being, I'm having fun exploring a bit -- "Space is big, space is dark, it's hard to find a place to park." -- and building up my skills and ship modules. I don't yet feel any particular attachment to the game, though I understand there are some RP corps out there. More on this game later
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves: The entire Sly series has been called 'light.' I refer to it as 'light' in the sense that I can enjoy it and play it and gain a sense of accomplishment in making visible progress in the game without needing a strategy guide to hold my hand. I play the Sly Cooper games and I feel like I'm having fun, as opposed to... say, for example, Digital Devil Saga which changes the rules on you just when you think you understand the game, and ratchets up the challenge rating higher than you thought it could go.
So. Sly 3. Some definite improvements over the previous two games. Some more of the same good stuff. The voice acting remains great, the writing remains entertaining, the characters remain intriguing and fascinating. The secondary characters make quite interesting additions to the storyline. The many new options for what your characters can do are a plus. The writing does fall down a little when it tries to shoehorn in characters from previous games; a certain lounge lizard does not fit all that well. On the other hand, a certain pyromaniac panda leads to what is arguably the best chapter in the series I've played yet. (The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon stage is really fun! There should be a fighting game that does that. There are a lot of other homages to various Chinese myths and pop culture in that chapter, as well. Just don't cringe too much at the main villain's name.) I would recommend the Sly Cooper series to anyone who wants a light gaming experience and who doesn't want to be locked into something long, ponderous, pretentious, and/or superhumanly difficult that only a handful of people in the WORLD would be able to do really well at.
Not much else as far as gaming goes lately. More later, and more news from the job front soonish. For now, I'm just glad I'll be getting a day or two off sooner than expected.
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Date: 2006-01-21 04:10 pm (UTC)Got a few friends who get into EVE Online, as well as some co-workers. Been pondering trying the free trial (if it's still going on) to see what it's like.
How's things going, otherwise?