What I Am Playing: December 2006

I finished Quake 4 Special Edition. It is an adequate sequel to Quake 2 produced by Raven Software. The Extras DVD is totally not worth the fuss. It contains Quake 2 and both expansion packs (er, already got 'em) and some marketing videos that are heavy on hype and scant on details.

The most disturbing part of the game is the hovertank. I blame Half-Life 2 for introducing this concept. Lately, I have also seen these sluggish borefests in the Battlefield 2142 demo. If Unreal Tournment 2007 has them, I am going to make a sound like a tea kettle. Seriously, sliding around in a hovertank is not a gameplay innovation. This reminds of when the game Thief introduced stealth as the center of its gameplay. There were a lot of game companies that latched on it as a great innovation. In fact it is boring and leads to a lot of frustration. Thankfully, games are finally starting to move on from stealth. Lets hope that the same happens for hovertanks.

This game has completely unnecessary cursing. It's pointless really. I want to play a game and not have it curse at me. Thank you.

I wouldn't recommend this game for anyone but the hardcore fans.

Now, I plan to go back and finish Titan Quest. I had a lot of fun playing it when it first came out. Lets hope that recent game and video card patches fix the issues I had with the image getting trashed.

Posted at 1:44 AM