Well I’ve now had sufficient time to digest the meat of Black Ops, and so I’m back with another journal review of the game. I was just starting out before, trying to get a feel for things, but now I’m fully in the groove and in a better position to talk about it.

I’ve beaten the single player campaign, which, I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed in. Yes, I appreciated the covert ops nature of it, and the framing device of Mason strapped to a chair being interrogated by shadowy figures was suitably mysterious, but the game relies heavily on a Fight Club/Manchurian Candidate plot twist that’s meant to shock, but you can see it coming from a mile away.

Black Ops is just less…spectacular than Modern Warfare’s 1 and 2. And really, how could it not be? The first game had your character dying from a nuclear explosion, while the second had you murdering an airport full of civilians and watching Washington DC get taken over by Russia. It’s pretty hard to top any of that, and Black Ops simply doesn’t.

A game needs more than just a ton of bad guys in one place to be actually grand in scale and difficulty. Fighting a line of enemies in various random cityscapes across the world pales in comparison to trying to siege the White House occupied by invading forces, or hold off waves of soldiers in Chernobyl with only a sniper rifle as you wait for evac.

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I wasn’t planning on picking up Call of Duty: Black Ops for some time as Modern Warfare 2 didn’t feel like that long ago and there were better games to purchase. Big mistake in dropping $60 on Fable 3 instead.

But I recently received the game in the mail from some divine benevolent badass I know, and so I get to play and write up my thoughts on the game for you all to enjoy. No epic 3,000 word rant here like I dismembered Fable 3 with. Rather, I’ll be doing a few journal installments as I progress through the campaign and multiplayer. I’ve had the game three days now, and these are my initial thoughts.

I’ll start with the campaign, as that’s relatively easy to cover. Campaigns in nearly every COD game over the years have tried to top themselves in being action packed, and so far, Black Ops has taken the crown from any past entry. There are few moments in the game that aren’t insane massive gunfights, and sometimes it can approach overload and you barely feel like you’re contributing to any of it.

I had thought Black Ops was set in the present day, but it appears Treyarch didn’t quite make it all the way there. Rather we’re stuck in and around the Vietnam era with the Russians set up to be the main villains in yet another war game, despite us never actually fighting them.

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Fable 2 was my favorite game of two years ago. It grew leaps and bounds over its predecessor, offering a lengthy story, better combat and more detailed customization than ever before, and simply, it was a blast to play.

I hadn’t realized Fable 3 was en route already until about a week ago, but naturally I went out and scooped it up immediately yesterday, and have been playing it ever since.

It’s a new era, as we’ve gone from a medieval landscape in the first game to an industrial one here. Nevermind that took like 800 years in real life, this is Fable! They can do what they want.

The changes are mostly cosmetic. There are a few steam-powered machines lurking about, and everyone dresses like 18th century British naval commanders, but other than that, the look and feel of the game is the same. In fact, it’s so much the same, I’m almost having trouble figuring out what’s different.

The plot of course is an evolution of the last two games. Your character from Fable 2, king of all Albion has passed on, and had two sons, one is a dick left in charge of the kingdom, the other is you, who is trying to figure out whether or not to be a dick as well. But when your evil brother forces you to decide between executing your girlfriend and a bunch of random protest leaders, you storm out of the castle, and vow to overthrow him.

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(Read journal #1 here first)

It’s been about a week since I picked Reach up, and I’ve now had adequate time to dive into the game and so we have a lot more to talk about this time around. As it turns out, I had almost beaten the entire campaign on day one, so we’ll only briefly touch on that, and the rest of the time I’ll be discussing multiplayer, the meat of any real Halo game.

The campaign was fine, it was as enjoyable as any Halo campaign that’s come before it, but really did offer nothing new from start to finish. There was maybe one new enemy type at the most (little jumpy guys with shields on their wrists), but other than that, it was more of the same from previous games, which is a bit disappointing for those who wanted something more than what seems to be Halo 3 DLC.

I simply do not understand why everyone was raving about this game’s story so much. There flat out isn’t one. You’re part of a team running around a planet that’s completely fucked, striking minor blows against an overwhelming enemy that you know will ultimately crush you. Bungie describes this as a “tragedy,” I just think it’s poor storytelling.

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The prospect of a “last” Halo game is kind of a sad. Many of us have been playing this series since our early teens or before, and the fact that the series is “ending” with a prequel is a bit disconcerting.

But make no doubt about it, Reach is most definitely trying to be the Halo 4 we’ve all been waiting for. A series like this always needs to change things up in each new outing, while fundamentally keeping things the same, always a tricky prospect. Halos 2 and 3 I’ve felt have done that extremely well, but after one day of Reach, I’m a bit hesitant to say the same. At least not yet.

Keep in mind I’ve played the game for maybe, six hours at this point, so my observations may reflect issues that are resolved as I put more time in, but here are my thoughts so far.

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(Read journals 1 and 2 here first)

This is the furthest out I’ve ever done a journal entry from the initial purchase of a game, but considering the fact that Starcraft 2 will most likely be a PC staple for the better part of a decade, I figured it was appropriate.

SC2 has been my game of choice for the last two months or so almost exclusively, as I just haven’t been curious to play anything else, but now that Halo: Reach is arriving at last, I’ll be likely shelving my mouse and keyboard for at least a little while.

In the interim since my last journal, a lot has changed. I’ve almost been exclusively playing multiplayer, as I’ve exhausted pretty much all there is to do in the campaign, outside of a handful of super hard achievement I neither have the time or the patience for.

I’m currently  a mid-level platinum player in both 1v1 and 2v2, and in my lesser played categories of 3v3 and 4v4 I’m gold league. What that essentially means is that I know my shit, but am far from a pro. It’s been a mix of joy and frustration, though I will say I’m not sure if the satisfaction of winning outweighs the despair of losing in this game. After a hard fought battle, you’re usually too mentally exhausted to celebrate.

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Read Journal #1 here first

Alright, I figured it was about time to check in with another Starcraft journal, as I’ve had the game for about a week now, and I’ve got a decent amount more to report on. Last time, I spent awhile griping about my PC issues, where my work laptop doesn’t have anywhere near the musclepower it needs to play the game with reasonable graphics.

I’ve decided just to ignore the blocky polygons for the time being while I contemplate whether or not a new $800 system is worth it just for Starcraft. Thanks to all of you who have written in with suggestions, but no matter the scenario, it seems I have to spend a lot of cash to get the game working right.

But anyway, no more graphical moaning, onto the content! I’ve done a huge number of campaign missions since I last wrote, I think I’m currently at 20/26. It does now ring a bell that once upon a time Blizzard announced they were splitting the game into thirds, with one race’s full campaign accompanying each new expansion. I would complain about this, but as I get further into the campaign I realize just how expansive it is, and they’re right, it is about as long as the original storyline in SC1.

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Alright, well it’s going to be a pretty monumental task to review Starcraft 2, as I might have mentioned before that I’ve been waiting over ten years for this game, and now that the beta is over and I’ve got an official copy on my computer, it’s time to dig in.

I’ve spent the better part of the day throwing myself into the campaign, as well as playing a few multiplayer matches as well to see if the crowd has changed since beta. This will be the first in a series of journal reviews I post as I go, and they’ll probably last past my usual three-ish week limit that occurs with most console games.

And speaking of console games, this is a PC game, and I’m actually quite bummed out about that. Why? Well, up until today, I thought that my Sony VAIO that I paid well over a grand for a year and a half ago was a perfectly nice computing machine. But trying to play Starcraft on it has been an immensely frustrating experience.

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Read Journal # 2 HERE and Journal #1 HERE first.

After a very substantial 20+ hours of gameplay, I’ve finally completed Darksiders.  Sure, I probably could have blazed through the game in two or three fewer hours, but even then I’d have experienced more than my money’s worth of actual playing time.  All in all, Darksiders wasn’t revolutionary or anything special – in fact, as I’ve explained before, the game is almost wholly derivative save for the character design – but it did enough things right that I’m glad I spent the time playing it.

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If you haven’t yet experienced Chat Roulette, you’re either missing out or incredibly lucky.  Allow me to explain.  Chat Roulette is, as you’d probably expect, well, chat roulette.  Simply by going to the website (you can access it by clicking HERE), you’re paired up in a video chat room with a total stranger.  If the person has a webcam (and really, it’s not much fun to chat with someone who doesn’t), you’ll see the results of your roulette “spin.”  It could be a cute girl from Brazil, it could be a man dressed as a cat, or it could be much, much worse.  I decided to spend some time on Chat Roulette and for the most part, it was pretty interesting.

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