Opinion

Playing Anything?

So what games are you people currently playing — or have played recently — of note?

I wrapped Rockstar’s “Bully” a couple of days ago. Good game. Basically the same concept and structure as the GTA series, but set in a somewhat smaller world and which substantially less complicated games and puzzles (only twice or thrice did I have to repeat a challenge because I failed it — as opposed to the last couple GTA games which both had some major difficulty points). It did, though, have plenty of the snarky cultural parodies that the GTA series was also known for (as Charles put it, sort of parodying the video game genre and even player themselves). Anyway, I enjoyed it. But it didn’t really break any new ground. GTA with slingshots rather than guns.

I also dipped my feet into “World of Warcraft” over the winter holiday. Which was… disappointing? I hesitate to call it, in my limited two-week experience, even an MMORPG. It’s a classic questing-kill-the-monster-get-the-trinket game except on a huge scale and with other human-played characters rushing around. Only on a couple of occasions did it feel substantially different than, say, the GTA series: Once when I happened upon another human character that happened to be on the same quest and we teams up for a bit and kicked some ass. Second when a group of human-played baddies raided my town and everyone fritzed out and got into a big kerfuffle. That was cool, except my sad little 14th level dude (or whatever) just got raked by the level 60 raiders. Oh, and my character was a Night Elf. Which, I gather from Chris P., is sort of the equivalent of posting whatever Cure song you happen to be listening to at the end of each of your LiveJournal posts. Or something. My free trial ran out, and I’m not particularly compelled to continue playing WoW. But it was worth trying out.

Anyway. Enough about me…