Project Lore

Can't post images from the other games in action. :*(

At the last minute I decided to take the short ride up to New York and stick around for this year's Comic Con.  I am not a huge comic buff by any means, but with the video game industry's annual trade show being nerfed a few year's ago, the comic con circuit has changed.  The publishers of the finest video games have branched out to other venues (PAX , San Diego Comic Con, the former Leipzig Games Convention, now Gamescon, and others) to reach their adoring public.  With no ticket to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this year, I took the plunge and headed to NYC. When I arrived at the venue I wasn't exactly sure I had the correct facility.   I expected there to be a good amount of fanfare going on outside the glass-enclosed venue, yet it lacked ridiculously sized banners, a steady stream of cosplayers or huge buses with teams of satellites on top.  Turns out everything was inside, rather than spilling onto the streets. I went to the show knowing that I'd miss Blizzard's presentations - and they won't be at E3 - but enough other anticipated games, including a pair of upcoming superhero MMOGs, were still available to me.

• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (Mythic Entertainment/Electronic Arts) - Mythic Entertainment's MMOG has been hit by some hard times lately.  The company - along with numerous other internal developers - has been handed down directions from their overlords to cut costs.  This has caused over 60 people to lose their jobs , including development staff.  There really wasn't anything new shown in their hands-on area, but the panel discussion talked about their upcoming Call to Arms Live Expansion (free is good).  I also scored the spiffy, reversible poster you see above.  Regardless of the lack of new material, I was happy to see that EA is still throwing money around for WAR.
• Champions Online (Cryptic Studios/Atari) - Cryptic's newly purchased intellectual property is shaping up pretty nicely.  While it essentially looks and feels like City of Heroes 2.0, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The developer purchased the Champions property outright, giving them free reign over the material rather than being hamstrung by licensing ties.  I played through a bit of a mini-instance - essentially a small dungeon designed to be soloed or done in a small group - complete with destructible objects and numerous mini-bosses wrapped in a comic-inspired presentation.  Champions Online is supposed to be out this Spring and is currently in closed-beta, which I scored access to.
• DC Universe Online (SOE Austin/Sony) - DCUO is still in its pre-alpha stage according to the developer.  The game looks more advanced - and less polished - than its superhero competitor above, but both are to be expected.  According to the booth manager, Sony is treating DCUO like Blizzard treats its titles, it will be done when it is done.  While it was originally announced for 2009, that can change at any moment.  PS3 play also looked surprisingly manageable. What had me most excited about the title was the licensing agreement that is in place.  Rather than SOE having have all aspect of the title approved, DC is apparently working with them at every level.  The comic company is helping and/or developing the overall story arcs, quests and encounters as a team with SOE, with Jim Lee at the helm of the creative side.  From what I was told, players that manage to stand-out from the run of the mill MMO gamer may even have an opportunity to have their character brought into the larger DCU, such as a limited comic appearance!

It may be my deep appreciation for the arcade days gone by, or my fascination with all things of B quality, but the title that stole the show for me was the latest entry in the House of the Dead franchise.  The campy series has longed needed a reboot - HotD 2 was the last good one - and the first game to launch on a console will honor us with just what the franchise needed.  House of the Dead: Overkill looks fantastic (for a Wii title) and plays very well.  The release is tomorrow and I am slated to review it elsewhere, hopefully we find out why G was bleeding. Did anyone else manage to swing by the con?

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Like 95 percent of the eyes on this page right now, I play World of Warcraft.  I am not one to shy away from the subject that I play WoW, unlike some people.  To top it off, I am actually proud of my nerdiness, displaying the titles I am playing in my living room as if they are trophies from the local bowling league.  This brings me to my point, I am a gamer - console, PC, handhelds, IRL sports, you name it. For nearly the past 20 years, the holiday season has become a video gamer's time to shine.  By that, I mean their time to get a handful of games, and lock themselves in a room in a vain attempt to finish all those news titles.  In recent years the holiday window has been extended further and further into the summer, with some analysts claiming that the new rush begins as early as September.  With all these triple A titles hitting the market, how is one supposed to find the time for them, as well as World of Warcraft? When I first started playing WoW, all other video games fell off the radar.  I let titles like Oblivion, Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, Company of Heroes, Neverwinter Nights 2, even Half-Life 2 slip by me.  Sadly, Resident Evil 4 (one of the best titles ever, in my humble opinion) and F.E.A.R. are the only titles released in that timeframe that I played and are worth noting - looking at you, Halo 2. Earlier this year I started a new regiment of gaming to compensate for all the missed material.  First and foremost, I cut back my World of Warcraft play time as a whole, and now play about half as much as I did during my high-end raiding days.  To accommodate this, I joined a raiding guild that was a close group of friends (I am not one of them) rather than a hardcore PvE guild.  Another simple change was to schedule things ahead of time and stick to it.  Basically, I only raid when I allocate the time a week or so in advance, as you would for any other activity that may take more than 30 minutes. Since implementing my new "life strat," I have been able to play dozens of other games, for better or for worse.  No longer am I missing as many big titles as I was before.  Portal, Team Fortress 2, Dead Rising, Halo 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mass Effect, all defeated.  I even found the time to go back and play the amazing Half-Life 2.  With titles like Fallout 3, Red Alert 3, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, Street Fighter IV, etc. coming or here, I am glad I made the new strategy.  Then of course, there is Wrath of the Lich King.  That may change things for awhile... Are you guys content with just World of Warcraft and everything it has to offer?  Or do you fruitlessly strive to digest everything the wonderful video game industry has to offer as I do?  If so, what is your strategy? For those who may be wondering, I am currently playing The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, Red Alert 3, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, The Incredible Maze (WiiWare - oh god, what a piece of trash), and still wrapping up Grand Theft Auto IV.  Fallout 3 is still in its shrink wrap, waiting for me to finish The Witcher.

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