Now Playing & Why Anyone Cares

Hello. I'm here to tell you about the games I'm currently playing. You're going to give a damn and read about it.

Do "play lists" bore you? Doing play lists is a tradition now in our age of blogs and podcasts. It's customary for podcasters now to open or close their shows with a rundown of what all the hosts are playing at home. Sometimes these segments stretch on for an eternity, as is the case when the discussion goes off on a tangent or someone is playing a particularly controversial or provocative game. Other times, people are playing fantastic games and can't help but gush on and on about the amazing time they're having.

There was a period not very long ago when I really resented the play list format on podcasts. I thought it wasted time and found it to be indulgent of the hosts to presume their listeners gave two shits about their personal gaming time and would dedicate 15 minutes or more to it. Then I realized the whole idea of sharing play lists is what the foundation of gaming communities are built on. To ask someone what they're currently playing really isn't so different than a sports fan asking another fan, "Hey, what about them INSERT TEAM NAME HERE?". As generic and lazy as it is, a question like that is a great opener. Similarly, asking a games enthusiast about the things that are keeping them awake at night is probably one of the easiest ways for gamers to start talking amongst themselves. Throw in some cold beers and a bag of potato chips, and you've got yourself a night-long, roundtable discussion.

So without further ado, here's my play list for last couple of weeks. Hit the jump if you care (and you do, don't you?)

Puzzle Quest
"Cheat any?"

I have some seriously unresolved rage issues reserved just for this XBLA gem. This seething anger is probably a very unhealthy thing to harbour within my heart and I should get it looked at by a professional. Until that happens, I'll find myself returning to the game like a battered wife, too abused to derive any pleasure from the relationship, yet too weak and demoralized to find something better.

Puzzle Quest has the usual variable difficulty settings, such as Easy, Normal, and Hard. But we all know these settings may as well be renamed "Cheats a Little", "Cheats With No Shame" and "This game is RIGGED: You'll Hate It". Full disclosure: I haven't even touched the Hard difficulty and I have no intention of ever doing so. In my mind, the AI on Normal cheats plenty enough. I know this sounds like sour grapes, but I can never shake off the suspicion that the opponent AI in Puzzle Quest knows something that I don't. Luck does play an enormous factor in the game's "match three" style of play, however, the occurrences of lucky breaks really does seem very heavily skewed towards the computer.

Steve Fawkner and his merry band of programmers have insisted time and again on Puzzle Quest forums that the AI plays on an equal footing with humans. That's cold comfort for when I'm sitting there, glancing at my watch as I wait for my turn to come while the AI sets off a fortuitous chain reaction of skull attacks, 4-of-a-kind and 5-of-a-kind matches. When my turn does come, I'm maybe thrown a bone of getting a skull attack set up for me, then it's back to my opponent for another domino-style drubbing. What exacerbates my perception of cheating is the Hint Arrow. This aid is great at helping me spot 4-of-a-kind matches that I've overlooked. When no such matches are on the board, however, the Hint Arrow behaves like a mole for the AI opponent, often suggesting matches that set me up for an easy counter-attack on the next turn and alternates between being glaringly obvious about it or even worse, not obvious at all.

The developers seriously need to tweak their algorithms. Even if the game is completely unbiased, that's not the perception its giving off. And as we know, perception can count for a lot. Every time I sit down to play this game, I don't feel like the luck is not on my side or there's a deficiency in my skill. No, I feel cheated, time and again, and that's a terrible feeling to give to a player.

Oblivion
"It's a wide open world out there"

I really didn't mean to go off on Puzzle Quest for so long but that game just steams my bean so much. I've also been trying to put a dent into Oblivion for the last few weeks. I love coming to this game so late because I feel like I have the entire experience at my finger tips. I bought the Game of the Year edition, which includes the larger DLC of The Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles. In addition to those, I also have the Thieves Den and the Wizard's Tower quest lines courtesy of an old OXM demo disc.

There's just so much content to dig into but I've recently lost my momentum with the game. While it does scratch that basic, traditional RPG itch that I developed after playing Mass Effect, it suffers a bit for being so wide open and almost desolate. The NPCs in Oblivion are really not very engaging and I keep thinking how much better the game would be if it supported some co-op multiplayer. I really am just this faceless, nameless hero character who has no real sense of identity or place in the world. In contrast, Mass Effect did a marvelous job of establishing your identity and situating you within its world. Other characters reacted to you based on your social position and your reputation, as well as the choices you made within the game. It's this sense of identity and place that is so sorely missing from Oblivion.

Mass Effect
"How many play throughs do I need?"

I'm blown away by people who have finished the campaign upwards of 3 or 4 times. This is a good game, but it's not that good. I restarted with a fresh Vanguard character on Hardcore difficulty. I got thoroughly thrashed, so I restarted using my Level 48 Soldier. It's a bit of a slog, even though I'm making an effort to pick different dialog choices. The conversations are becoming a chore to skip or sit through and the story of course holds no more surprises. I just want to blaze through, pick up a few more achievements and then shelf the game until some worthy DLC gets released for it. Then, and only then will I even consider restarting the campaign yet again. I admit to being curious about playing as a female Commander Shepherd. I hear the voice actor for the female is several degrees better than the generic male prick who voices the male version.

Rainbow Six: Vegas
"A hunting we will go"

RS:V snuck back onto regular rotation after I started reading previews for the sequel that's due out sometime in March. That's two more months for me to grind my rank up to Elite and finally find some closure with this game. My ongoing issue with this is the fact the game is still relentlessly buggy and offers a surprisingly unstable online gaming experience. When you couple that with the stuttering performance of Xbox Live, I've probably spent more time looking at loading screens and the opening Xbox 360 splash screen than actually playing a match.

Condemned: Criminal Origins
"The best and only First Person Beater"

I come late to the party once again. This game is often cited as one of the best and most ignored launch titles for the 360. I can see what this is. The quality is there, but the subject matter is more on the mature and disturbing side of the spectrum. This is not something you play right after a fun-filled hour with Wii Sports.

The story has me drawn in despite the ridiculous premise used to justify all the level designs and plot twists. Seriously, how many homicidal hobos can you fit into one subway system? According to this game, once night falls, the city's populace becomes a teeming mass of gas pipe wielding psychopaths. And dead birds. Lots of dead birds.

Xbox Live
"I'm thinking that I want more than a free game now"

As much as I'd like to derive some joy from "playing" Xbox Live, it's really been just a big headache lately. The situation is a bit of a joke if you really think about it. While I wouldn't go as far as to file a lawsuit against Microsoft as others have done, I'm expecting the big wigs up in the corporate towers to really think long and hard about how they plan to improve the reliability of Live and to set things right with the legion of subscribers who have had to endure regular disconnections and high latency. Playing single-player games doesn't help you much either, unless you disconnect from Live completely. A sluggish Live connection still has an adverse affect on load times in single-player games. It's a total joke and I'm at a complete loss for words on why something so glaringly basic has not been corrected yet.


As you can probably tell, I'm in a pretty grumpy mood when it comes to gaming. I think the only antidote to my foul mood would be to play some Guitar Hero 3. Sadly, the bundle is still sold out everywhere I go and I'm starting to feel the withdrawal symptoms after having spent so much quality time with the PS2 version last week. Just give me GH3 and all will be forgiven.