Forza 4

So a few weeks ago I downloaded a few different racing games from the Xbox Market.  I grabbed Shift and Forza 3.  Shift 2 demo wasn't available and Forza 4 hadn't come out yet, I knew I wanted one of them but I really want to try them out first.  I was pretty sold on Shift but hesitated because of the awful reviews.  I messed around with the Forza 3 demo and really liked it, then a week later the Forza 4 demo came out.  All I have to say is wow!!!

I have been playing this demo non-stop, the same tracks and same cars, just different settings.  The graphics are intense, the sounds are awesome and the playability is top notch.  I really liked how you could control the level arcade-ness to the level of simulation in the game.  Also with the ability to play in the gray to get just the right feel.  Personally I love the sim feel but if you take someone like my Fiance who is not good at racers can feel competitive on the easier setting making it much more enjoyable for her.

Now I just need to save up the cash and go buy the game.  This is the first time I have ever really wanted to get an Xbox game and pay full new release price for it too.

Back to the Followship

So I have been playing Lord of the Rings Online quite a bit lately.  I started playing this game years ago back in beta, I was also one of the early access pre-order people.  As I think back to those times that game has changed since then, but it changed slowly overtime.  I noticed last night I had items in my inventory that no long exist in the game and have no function.  Main main character is a Champion which had a major over haul to the class.  They redid the stance making it useful to actully use something other than Fervour.  However I do still spend all my time in Fervour mostly because I traited myself down that line.  Fervour will still be your bread and butter stance and is designed around being your high DPS single target stance.  Ardour will now be focused around AOE damage as well as group/raid play as there will be built in de-aggro bonuses.  Glory took a big change with the removal of the heavy shield use and is more or less an off tank stance.  Traited correctly and geared correctly will be good for self healing and parry/evade tanking.  For the first time in a long time I am actually having fun again on my Champion. 

Been a long time...

Well it looks like it has been a long time since I made a post.  I remember I wanted to be one of them people that maintain a blog where other people would go and read stuff and say thats pretty cool.  Looks like I am staying true to at least that first pat of my name and I remain Mercurial.  To be honest only reason why I make this entry is because for the lif of me I can't sleep for more than a few minutes.  I think I am starting to go crazy.

PAX East Day 2

Day 2 of PAX East was quite crazy, there was a lot more people there.  There was also a lot more booth babes, actors, and promotional events happening.  However the crowd size made doing or seeing anything pointless.  For as big as the venue was they can definately do bigger. 

Biowar's SWTOR booth was still the most popular one.  The line to play was well over six hours and they even made an anouncement that people waiting in line may not even get a chance to play.  Lucky they had large screen showing people playing so I could at least watch that.  The graphics are really starting to grow on me and he animations are pretty nice too.  I like how there is a good mix of story telling and action.  I was a little disappointed with how they chose to do the demo.  It sounded great in theory but not sure it was so great in practice.  They arranged it so that was a demo of higher level group content that lasted about 40 minutes.  This is great except you are tossed a character with about 20+ skills and you have no idea what they are or do.  Also there appeared to be a lot of people that got a chance to play who I am pretty sure have never used a mouse.  Since it is group content with story involved the pace is then that of the slowest person.  Now in live released play this is fine, but in a time limited demo this could get fustrating, especially when someone has a hard time walking through a doorway and keeps walking in the wall.  With that all aside it looks really good and can't wait for beta or at least a beta invite.

Because of the large number of people at the exhibit hall we found ourself in the tabletop area.  This was great because we had planned to see what Wizards of the Coast had to offer these days.  We all I can say is the tabletop market is getting pretty popular again if the size of the crowd there is any indication.  Nice thing about this crowded area opposed to the Exhibit Halls crowded area is you get to sit down and it is a lot quieter.

We got into a Dungeons & Dragons Learn to Play session for 4th Edition.  I really liked the changes that they made to the character setups.  They really streamlined it and made it much simpler to get into.  I can imagine some old schooler not liking the "dumbing down" but I am sure they must like the new blood willing to learn now.  I ended up playing a Human Cleric Storm Warpriest and I loved it.  This would not have been a class that if I had to create a character would have picked.  However after playing one and reading through the class a bit more in the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials: Heros of The Fallen Lands I think I might acutally make a character for myself with this class.

Picked up a few other games like Pirate Fluxx which is awesome and a ton of fun.  Also picked up this interesting card game for 2-3 people called Haggis.  We took Haggis with us to the bar when we out for dinner and it caught the attention of a few patrons.  It looks and plays very much like traditional card games like Bridge or Hearts.

Had to check out the game Action Castle.  This is a funny game because it is like the old text based RPGs.  Spin is that everyone takes turn doing only one action.  The game took place in one of the theaters so you have 30+ people playing it, so it gets really funny.

We finally capped of the night with a play session of Dungeons & Dragons board game Castle Ravenloft.

PAX East Day 1

Well today was the first day of PAX East that is being held in Boston.  This is my first time to PAX and it is absolutely awesome.  I am going with my Fiancé who is also a big fan of games, so I will have someone to keep my company while in lines.  We got there a little over an hour before they opened, so we were sent to the queue room.  There we were able to get our lanyards and swag bags.  The swag bags contained various little promotional items; nicest of all was a 30-card deck of MTG which came in handy for the hour wait to get into the main Exhibit Halls. 

After making our way through the Exhibit Hall to the Alienware Arena we made our first major stop, Guild Wars 2.  They demonstrated the new class the “Thief”.  They also had several playable 40 minute demos running. 

After drooling over the amazing graphics and audio of Guild Wars 2 we decide to take a little walk around the exhibit floor and see all the cool stuff coming out.  They had Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3, Duke Nukem Forever, Portal 2, L.A. Noire.  Tried to get into the Bioware SWTOR but the line and crowd was just insane. 

The next big highlight of the night was Premier of Kingdom of Amalur: The Reckoning.  I was pretty excited to see this as I have been following Curt Schilling since he won us the World Series, of and because I love anything written by RA Salvatore.  I was completely blown away by this demo and will give a much more detailed review of this in a later post.

The big highlight of the day came that evening when we got into the Meet and Greet for NC Soft’s Guild Wars 2.  Was open bar and included some really nice swag and a 40 playable demo.  Nice thing is they had the demo area fenced off so you didn’t have people breathing down your neck.  Also we were given cards that listed the time for our play session so we were able to mingle until it was time for us to play. 

All in all we had an absolutely great time.  The Guild Wars 2 Meet and Greet will be something I will remember for a long time.  I am hoping that we can get in to the SWTOR Meet and Greet that is happening for Day 2.  For Day 1 we spent most of our time in the video game area, for Day 2 we will focus more on tabletop gaming.  We plan to sign up for some the Dungeons and Dragon 4^th Edition introduction sessions.  We are also hoping to get into some other tabletop games that will be on display.

Now time to head on out for PAX East Day 2!!!

Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning

Guild Wars 2