I picked this one from a bargain bin. It's a fairly decent fantasy hack-and-slash. Graphics reminded me of Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom which is a good thing btw! The combat system was very crisp and character builds varied. One unique feature was the ability to redesign your character from the ground up - mid-game. That was a very nifty feature.

Unfortunately the game lacked a compelling story. The main plot was OK I guess, but too drawn out to really be captivating. Side quests were completely forgettable. NPCs were 2D (at best). I remember only two of them by name. "Love story" amounted to (barely) getting the girl to admit she "liked" you (if you had maxed out the persuasion skills).

Alyn Shir: rear view

Combat soon became repetitive, despite the nice control and options: In the end the lowly wolf was the monster that caused me the most grief. the rest were bland. Treasure drops were so numerous as to become annoying. And when I learned to craft my own great dropper loot became meaningless.

Dice roll: 3*

* I played it for quite a lot actually. But I think it was a combination of pneumonia and being determined to finish the game, come what may.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a single-player action role-playing game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.^[4] Ken Rolston acts as the game's executive designer, R. A. Salvatore created the game universe and lore, with Todd McFarlane working on the artwork, and Grant Kirkhope creating the musical score.^[5] It was developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games. The game was released on February 7, 2012 in North America and on February 9, 2012 in Europe. The first public demonstration was at the Penny Arcade Expo East 2011 on March 11, 2011.

I want this game...but to play it would require a new laptop I think.Not the kind of game you play on the PS3. So I guess it won't be happening after all...which is good, because that saves me from a lot of hours spent gaming! And that's a good thing, isn't it?

During my pneumonia period I didn't stop gaming. I just went with mindless slaughter in the PS3.

Amongst other things I downloaded Space Marine. It's a 1st/3rd person shooter. You get to run Captain Titus of the Ultramarines vs. hordes of Orks (and later some Chaos). It's surprisingly fun. Partly because it's 40k and I'm a fanboi, but also because it works rather well on it's own (and I'm not really  a big fan of shooters).

There is some lameness, like your two (yes, only two, there rest of the company seems to be 'elsewhere') companions, Mr. Gruff Sergeant and Mr. Doesn't Respect Your Authority Brother, who are entirely immune to damage and able to do very little damage to the enemy. But by and large the campaign works quite well. Story is basic, but not bad. The orks are more fun than the later Chaos hordes. Game is not short, but not long either.

Multiplayer is...different. Marines (in this game) move and fight like slow clunky tanks. Most weapons require multiple hit to kill. So it plays rather differently than most other shooters. For good and bad. For me the saving grace is playing Assault Marines. Since I suck at aiming charging into battle with jump-pack and chainsword is just perfect for me. And it sooo fun to see the other players panic when they hear you slamming down and reving up the chainsword...

All in all a decent game. I'd give it a 4 on a d6. It can be downloaded cheaply form Playstation Store. Many hours of gory fun!

Enjoy!

Recently finished the campaign in Crysis 2:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crysis_2

Gotta say that this is the first FPS I've truly enjoyed since...maybe Doom? Great graphics, cool gameplay and a very nice story.

The original Crysis campaign is also available for download to the PS3. I tried it, but it didn't really catch on.

Crysis 3 IS looking good though!

Picked this one up in a bargain bin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majin_and_the_Forsaken_Kingdom

It's pretty enjoyable actually. The story is basic, but OK. The coolest aspect of the game is your sidekick - a huge, slow-witted, magical creature that you can give directions. Puzzles and areas aren't too big or too complex. Which is good for a casual gamer like me. Combat suffers a little from you having too few combat moves - it's a shame because the different enemies are actually pretty good and your companion, the Majin, actually has some nice combat maneuvers. Another minus are treasures; if you're clever you can find various chests that give extra XP, new gear etc., but apart from the Majin-enhancing ones you might as well not have bothered. The gain is minimal.

All in all an OK game; I'd give it a 4 on a d6.

I'm not saying that the PS3 is necessarily BETTER than, say the XBox 360, but it's the only console I own so...although it actually IS better you know...but that's sort of beside the point. The point of this post is that I haven't played a PC game in ages, not since my MoM post I think (which was many moons ago - aka 'ages').

The only computer-related stuff I've engaged in recently has been on my mobile (not  relevant here) and on the PS3. Been doing a bit of The Force Unleashed and Lego Star Wars, the Complete Saga. But more than anything I've been playing Ratchet & Clank! Not sure what appeals so - this is quite unlike the stuff I usually play, which is RPGs and strategy. But Ratchet & Clank is just...great fun. I can't pin it down more accurately than that.

It all started with this game; Quest for Booty. It's the second in a trilogy. I got it for free after Sony got hacked earlier this year, and for wont of anything better to do I started playing it. It's not really a full game. Very short. But packed with fun.

I already owned the last game in the trilogy, A Crack in Time. Got it along with the console last summer. Played it a little, but it never caught on. So it sat on my shelf for a while, until I got Quest. But once I was done with Quest I felt a need to play the first game...first...so Crack has to wait a tab bit longer.

So I trawled through some game stores and finally found the first game, Tools of Destruction. It was used and I got it for next to nothing. Now I've played through it and is ready to go back and finish A Crack in Time. Good times!

Someday, when I'm done with Ratchet and Clank, I might play some real games again :-)

Computer games used to be sooo much better than they are today...well, not really :-)

There are still good games being made, games that have sound and graphics and whatnot that are lightyears beyond what you had ten or fifteen years ago.

Old games can't compete with that. But they can compete when it come to gameplay, at least some of them can. Two types come to mind; simple, but addictive strategy games...and roleplaying games where dialogue and story is the focus, not combat or graphics. The former category includes things like Master of Orion 1 + 2 and Master of Magic. Not very complicated games, but you just can't stop hitting that 'Next Turn' button! And things like Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate might not be much to look at, but the gameplay is way beyond much of what is made within that genre today.

Anyway; the best place to get these old classics is GoG.com - literally filled to the edge with Good Old Games ;-) GoG will charge you a few pennies for the games, but there are some advantages - they generally include ALL expansions, patches etc. for their games, and they are optimized to run on modern-day Windows OS.

You can find many of the same games floating out there in pirated versions - on 'abandonware' sites like Abandonia.com. But why spend time hunting down a torrent, searching for patches, and trying to get it to work on your 64-bit Win 7 if all you are going to save is 5-10 USD? So not worth it. Granted there are many games which will run using DOSBox (a brilliant piece of software!), but others will not. Especially those pesky WIN95 games! Win 3.1 is often better...since many games of that era came packaged with a separate DOS version :-) But still so not worth it!

So go GoG and enjoy loads of fun titles!

I'm pretty much done with MoM for now. It was quite fun for a few hours, but although ever game is different it is also largely the same. Explore, expand, exterminate. Repeat.

Anyway, I found an active MoM forum here: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=56

Also found a fan-made patch for the game - it actually does fix a number of crash issues, plus a number of in-game features: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4211

It made the AI harder to beat and also seemed to make neutral cities and marauding monsters actually mean something. Still, it's a fairly simple game, so once you've found a working strategy just stick to it and you'll win.

Look what I found!

An old classic from 1994...Master of Magic, turn-based strategy game in the Civ family. I had completely forgotten about this game...and how addictive simple turn-based strategy games can be.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/master_of_magic

It can be yours for $5.99...that's almost nothing. And since GoG.com accepts PayPal you can be playing the game in about 2 minutes - that's how long downloading and installation is going to take you.

I'm currently playing as Moerdred the Death Mage, directing legions of Draconians out of my capital of Kal-Shaitar.

Great fun!

...every summer I boot up Master of Orion 2 for a few hours of fun!

Now you too can revisit this excellent strategy game too; available for download with the original MoO for next to nothing, ready to go on any Windows OS. The provider is Good Old Games - gog.com - a veritable treasure trove for those of us that like older games.

Actually I run the game from my original game files using DOSBox, my favorite DOS emulator. Perfect for use with your old games that you thought you'd never play again. Or maybe some games downloaded from Abandonia.com

Yeah, yeah. I'm just being nostalgic here, but honestly, some of those old games also provide some excellent gameplay.

Who doesn't love Battletech and MechWarrior? I certainly do. Never did play much of the tabletop mini game, but I certainly did my fair share DMing MechWarrior back in the day. I also played a couple of MechWarrior games for the PC, and found them entertaining enough.

Last summer (2009 thay is) I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was to be a MechWarrior computer game reboot. If you have a look at some of the footage released you'll understand why (there was a couple of neat live clips involving a Warhammer and an Atlas, but I can't seem to find them anymore). At any rate there was some legal trouble and when I had a look again today there wasn't really a lot to new stuff to be learned. Maybe it died before it was born...

At about the same time there was an announcement that the aging MechWarrior 4 would be released for free download. It never happened either. But you can find plenty of torrents out there, so no worries. The reason I mention this is because I actually ended up playing it, finding that it had an active modding community that had put out several expansions. And even after I got tired of it my then-eight-year-old son continued playing. Customizing mechs and then blowing up stuff - what kid can resist that? So now I can check off MechWarrior on my list of things-a-father-should-teach-his-son :-P