Games of the Week: finally having fun edition

Ever since my WoW trial expired I haven't really taken initiative to find another MMO. Even if the trial could have gone on longer I am frankly glad to be done with it. I talked about my myriad issues with the game and unfortunately none of those problems had been fixed by level 20, the level cap for the trial. Like I said last week, playing the game kept me bored b/c I hardly felt that there was any worthwhile player interaction going on and there was no in-game motivation to keep performing the same uninteresting fetch quests. That said, playing WoW has sparked my interest into playing a fantasy RPG that I find fun, and suggestions have come in that I should begin playing Guild Wars. I just might go ahead and do this, because even if the game itself is lame to me, then maybe having friends that I can play the game with would make up the difference (not like the WoW trial and its frustrating decision to not let me create a party with other newbies). Also, no subscription fee makes me a happy lad. So, what have I been playing this week? Remember last week how I made reference to Oblivion and Ninja Gaiden? Well, those are exactly the game's that I've been playing, and as the title of this post suggests, I am finally having fun.

lol, it's Oblivion with guns

Starting with Oblivion, it is thusfar very similar to how WoW plays out. I'm getting the same overall vibe from the world, with the same choices to make in class and skill sets. I also like how the fighting makes me try much harder than WoW's ever did. Right away I had to time, to some degree, my attacks and blocks. If I missed with an attack or didn't successfully block an attack, then that was all my fault, and not the result of some algorithmic calculation. The missions have also been more varied, which is nice. I'm still early, but I haven't really encounterd many fetch quests. The only quests I've done so far have been to trail a shady shopkeeper to try and deduce where he got his cheap inventory from, to convince two townspeople to testify against a corrupt watch guard, and to talk with the town beggers in an effort to reach a famed thief by the name of Grey Fox, who I am supposed to meet at night at some place near the harbor. 

Anyhow, none of these are as blandly derivative as "fetch X amount of these items andY amount of these other items and bring them back here for some cockamamey reason that you don't and shouldn't care about because nothing you do will make a lick of difference in this world." I understand that many of my prblems with WoW are endemic to the MMO genre, but they are yet irreconcilable for me. As for other technical preferences in Oblivion, I kinda like the level up system in the game, but know from experience that I hated having to jump, crawl, swim and summon ad nauseum until the skills leveled up. At least there isn't an arbitrary amount of XP that I need for each new level, just an arbitrary number of jumps, etc. My favorite thing by far is the ability to mod the game, making an alright game fantastically better. Mods really let me tailor the experience to suit my specific needs, something that Blizzard doesn't, and really can't do, in WoW. 

A Very Nice User Interface Mod that fixes the orignal crappy one.

Lastly about Oblivion, there is a weak story keeping me going on to each quest. What I like about this is that the main quest takes me to new towns, and once I get to a new town because of the main quest I then find dozens of quests within that town that are unrelated to the main quest. What this does is it creates for a very organic adventure, because even though I am supposed to deliver an amulet to a monk in the mountains, I am first forced to pass by a hillside town to rest and upgrade my equipment. When I get to the inn, the innkeeper may tell me a rumor of strange goings-on, or I may be confronted by a citizen in need of help. What I'm trying to say is that I really like how my own story unfolds so naturally, and how what I do is reflected in the world and the comments of the people.

I've been rambling for a while now, so I'll just say that Ninja Gaiden is so much freaking fun. I haven't felt this excited playing a game for quite a while. Oblivion ain't got nothing on the combat in Ninja Gaiden, and even though there's kind of a story to lead me along (one I frankly couldn't care less for) the gameplay itself is so fun and addicting that I don't need any other motivation to play.

Fuzzy Pickles!

I'm glad to be having fun again. I should also say that I'm playing Earthbound on a NOT-emulator and that I am also loving that, but I'm not sure why I dig JRPGs but generally don't care for games like WoW or Oblivion (b/c if I could only choose between Oblivion and Earthbound, I'd choose to keep playing Earthbound without a moments hesitation). I realize the hypocrisy this creates with many of my complaints leveraged against WoW, but as yet cannot justify it...