Wednesday, March 23, 2011

World of Tanks

OK.  World of Tanks is pretty fun.  It's only pvp play; just like the Battlefield series of games, there are several maps to choose from, several styles of tank to choose from, and you can form 'guilds'.  I think they call them 'tank brigades' in this game.  So it's fast paced, WW2 style tank action.    As you play, you earn cash, that you spend on upgrades and research for your tanks.  You can make them faster, more heavily armored, bigger/faster guns.  You can train/recruit your computer controlled tank crew.  You can purchase consumables, different types of ammo, and repair your tank (when you get blowed up - and you will).  You can buy bigger/different types of tank.  And the whole time, you get to learn about the benefits of cover, and trying to get the best angle on your target. 

 And I'm enjoying it.  After spending years playing slower paced MMOs, the quick action is a nice change.

I'm still pretty certain that I'm going to be phasing over to RPGs, like Mass Effect (and ME2), and phasing out MMOs.  I guess things just change over time.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

It's March!!

And the first post I have for the month of March comes more than half way through the month!  Yay progress...


Anyway, today's post is brought by an interesting new game that I found just this morning.  It's apparently a free-to-play MMO called World of Tanks.  It appears to be set in WW2 (gauging from the style of tanks) and is essentially a full on melee brawl of mayhem and destruction.  I admit the notion tickles my fancy.  So I went ahead and registered for the beta and am currently (at the time of this posting) downloading the client.

While on the subject of MMOs, It's been about 2 months now since I quite playing WoW cold turkey.  And I have felt no urgings to go back.  I know, I know: "But Bonzo, you've said this before.  World of Warcraft is like the bad girlfriend that you can ever rid yourself of..."  Perhaps you're right.  Perhaps not.  I'm still having quite a lot of fun playing DCUO, but lately I've been feeling the urge to play more RPGs and even...First Person Shooters...

It's been close to a decade since I've played an FPS.  Mostly because I suck at them.  But I've had the desire to blow some sprites to smithereens lately, and a FPS game will let me do that.  So will some RPGs.  And there are some games that crossover between them, like Fallout and Mass Effect, and Portal.  All of which have been recommended to me.  So I'll probably end up downloading Steam in the next few weeks and try them out. 

Now, back to the WoT (World of Tanks).  No grinding for XP, check.  No endless questing, check.  Lots of explosions, check.  It sounds pretty fun.  I'll check back with you all in a few days


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On another note, we finally (FINALLY) started playing our 4e game again.  Three months with no table-top gaming was really, really, REALLY starting to make me twitchy.  You don;t notice how much you miss something until its gone and you start to get the notion that you can't get it back.  But now that we're playing again I can start to relax and get back into the swing of things.  So to speak. 

Also, in table-top news - today I start the actual campaign for my CthulhuTech game.  We've had two sessions so far on character creation, and everyone has done a bang up job on coming up with characters.  Some of my players have even gone so far as to come up with background information that has been censored by the NEG Intelligence Corps.  Lots of black censor bars of lines of text.  It brings a tear to the eyes.  Of course, this is still a Cthulhu universe at the end of the day...their characters will all go mad and die.  Those are the breaks.

-Bonzo out.