March Madness!

And no, I'm not talking about baseball. Or basketball. Or whatever sport it's referring to.

I'm talking about Games. Yes. The core of every intelligent, activity-hungry brain on this planet thrives on GAMES. Because honestly, what else is there to keep you occupied? What is that? Women, you say? Pfft. Too easy.

So after a year (or two) of crappy games releases, we have a TON of games coming out in march this year. After going through a few, I already have some you can scrape off your "to-get" list.

Dragon Age 2. Dragon Age 1 was a wonderful game. I'm not saying it was perfect, and it wasn't necessarily my cup of tea, but it was well crafted, gory, and sometimes fun to play. I never actually finished the game, because all my mage spells were just variations on damage spells and nothing actually useful, and I eventually began to pout about it and stopped playing altogether. Dragon Age 2, after playing the demo, feels completely different. It doesn't even seem like the same game. Nothing works the same, none of the icons are the same, everything looks and feels different. I've heard it's much like "devil may cry." I believe that's a console game. If you like console games, you might enjoy Dragon age 2. If you are a PC gaming purist like me, who absolutely refuses to play something that was dumbed down for people who can't figure out how to use a keyboard and mouse, you probably won't like this game.

Rift. The MMORPG market is pretty quiet lately. I don't know why. I'm waiting for Guild Wars 2. I've heard Rift was like Warhammer with all the problems fixed. I've heard it was fun. I've heard millions of people love it. I've heard nothing but positive reviews. They are all LIES. Don't give me that "it's on the internet, it must be true!" shit. I'm telling you the game sucks, at least as far as I am concerned. First, all of the "races" are basically just different colored humans. None of which are any fun to play. You get one attack at first level. And that's AFTER you do a quest to get attack abilities. That's right, you can't even fight when the game starts, you are USELESS. Aside from that, there's only two sides in this MMO. One is devoutly religious, and all the backgrounds show christian/catholic themes. As an agnostic/atheist type individual, this offends me. The other side is technological in origin, basically, you're a bio-negineered clone and why is there cloning technology mixed in with swords and magic? I don't like machines in my MMO's. So that background offends me as well. This game has already lost all appeal, and I hadn't even got a chance to fight something yet! Not that the comabt system is any good. I got one spell to cast, and I had chosen a summoning class because i am basically a lazy person and if I can get my pet to fight for me, I will. So, I set my pet to Aggressive, and wandered into the newbie area, waiting for the kills to rack up! Alas, my pet did nothing, just stood there like a funny looking rock. Okay, so maybe i had to initiate the combat? Seems odd for a lazy person, I mean, a summoning class to have to do that much work, but ok. My pet immediately attacked, and was summarily beaten and destroyed. Oh dear. Now i had to fight the newbie critter myself. That's just not working. Well, that game just lost even more appeal. I think i had it on my hard drive for 12 hours before i canceled my account and deleted it. I have heard since then that they added more servers to keep up with the demand for new players. HAH what new players? Please. Don't kid yourself. This game will fold in 6 months.

Also coming out in march is Shogun 2. Now this game might be worth a buy. I played the demo and it was fairly decent. Pretty much like the first Shogun but with much improved graphics, and of course it would be, so if you liked the first game, the second should be just as good. Personally, there's nothing i like more than commanding a province and making it's people war for me! MUA HA HA HA HAAAA! Which brings me to my next suggestion...

Stronghold 3. I loved the original stronghold crusader game. Well, technically, the crusader part was an expansion to the original stronghold game, but it still played wonderfully well. I didn't take it off my hard drive til late last year, and the game is easily 5+ years old. The new version has obviously better graphics, but also a day/night cycle, possibly a weather cycle, and darkness will play a role in unit visibility as well. I really can't wait for it. Really. No, really, I can't. I want it right now. But I can't have it now. And this MAKES HULK ANGRY.

I always thought how dangerous it would have been if the person who became the hulk had actually been a teenager, child or a person with poor impulse control instead of a restrained scientist with a keen mind. I can only imagine how the hulk would have just smashed up all the storefronts along a street because he couldn't have a piece of candy RIGHT THEN AND THERE. But that's really just a random train of thought. Then again, you are probably used to that by now.

That's it for today! Still playing minecraft. Yes, unbelievable, isn't it? It's been like 6 months now. This thing could have the staying power to beat starcraft! Of course, that lasted 3 years, and there wasn't much else to play at the time, but we'll see! :-D