It's been a while, hasn't it? No, contrary to appearances, I did not disappear into a crippling WoW addiction. I rode out the trial and left it at that. I was just being lazy again.
The apparent irony of that last post was pretty funny though, wasn't it?
Even if it wasn't true.
I have to admit that I sometimes feel a slight temptation whenever I walk past a retail copy of WoW though. It's a very polished game, and Azeroth has a lot of sights to see. And I can definitely see why people get stuck in it. There's always a new little reward. *ding* You reach a new level. *ding* You get a new spell. *ding* You find a nifty item. *ding* You learn to make a better sandwich. *ding* You fi- *ding* Y- *ding* *ding* *ding*
It's a constant barrage of little happy pills of accomplishment.
It still can't escape the fundamental rubbishness of the genre though; the inability to affect your world meaningfully, all the while maintaining that you're super awesome one chosen hero of singleplayer rgps. But you can't fool me. I possess cleverness and functioning retinas. I can see that those nasty critters I genocided the minute before spawned back and nothing changed.
Which wouldn't be that big a problem if your genociding the evil critters was fun, but WoW's combat is neither visceral nor tactically challenging enough to make it entertaining. It's easy to do the math and see how an engagement will end the minute it starts, and then it's a dull couple of minutes to execute your plan. Unless of course an angry bear spawns in behind you, and then you die, because you're as fierce as a soggy kitten and can't handle angry bears in addition to the other enemies, and the camera refuses to let you spot their filthy spawning hides before you pull aggro. And then you swear copiously, while wondering why you're supposed to put up with this on the promise that it gets better after the first 20 or 30 levels.
Which leads you to putting the box back down in the store and move on to purchase other, more appealing games. Like Fallout 3. On which there will be many words later.
Unless shiny things happen.
You can't trust those shiny things.
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3 comments:
So far I'd say Fallout 3 is pretty shiny.
Welcome back to the tubes.
Thanks! And Fallout 3 is quite a distracting shiny thing. It ate my weeekend completely.
Your adoring readership was beginning to worry.
And yes, it was rather funny.
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