What's your game?

Halo 2 & World of Warcraft

Two games have completely owned me. I’ve barely touched anything else in the last few months, and I’ve got a stack of games that have received incredibly high scores sitting in my apartment.

Despite the gamepad handicap, Halo 2 is the first modern multiplayer first person shoot I’ve played. The game mechanics are rock solid, choosing between dual wielding and single weapon + grenade is brilliant and perfectly balanced. The weapons all have a place (except maybe the brute shot), and the vehicles are powerful without being completely overpowered.

Effective use of voice comm can make or break your game. I absolutely love that when people chat near you (either friendly or enemy) their voice comes out of the main speakers, but your team voice comms come out of your Communicator headset.

The thing that keeps me coming back is the way matchmaking works. I have a fixed group of friends I play with pretty much every night. The first person who logs on creates a party, then everyone else joins it. If we have a bunch of people, we just break up into two or three teams and play whatever we’d like. If there’s only three or four of us, we go straight to the online matchmaking and play versus strangers. Playing with your friends is absolutely brilliant.

On the other hand, there’s World of Warcraft. I reached level 26 last night, and I realized exactly what it is that I like about the game. It plays like a really good single player role-playing game, but when you need a hand with something, there are thousands of other ‘real’ people bopping around in the game world with you.

This is a much simpler game than EverQuest was. Instead of visiting spoiler sites to learn what your spells do, then memorizing 500 different spells, the game actually tells you exactly what each spell does. Instead of having 50 different damage over time spells, you have three that get better as you level up. Instead of having 40 different pets, you have 5 that improve as you reach higher levels.

Every class can solo—with differing degrees of success. My warlock has soloed or duoed through almost the entire game. I’ve got good gear, I’ve had a lot of fun, and I can stop and start anytime I want. It’s officially rad.

Of course, with any MMO game, the endgame is what matters, and I’m still a month or so away from seeing that.

Also on my plate: Metroid 2, X-Men Legends, Knights of the Old Republic 2, and the Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. When the hell am I going to find time to play this all!