My gaming life has been fairly hectic recently because of work and real-life issues (don’t you hate it when those get in the way?). So this will be a brief update on my meager gaming recently.
At the urging of a friend, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons Online. It’s a fairly neat game, and certainly has potential, but somehow, I wasn’t enjoying it. I tended to leave every play session a little stressed, which is not ideal when I’m trying to have fun. So for the moment, DDO is on the shelf.
I’ve played a little bit of Star Trek Online. I have 2 active characters, a Federation Tactical guy and and Klingon Engineer. I am impressed with the changes they’ve made to the Fed missions, and generally think the game has significantly improved since the open beta when I started playing. On the other hand, I still think leveling is too fast. I’m already a mid-level Captain and have had do to very few side missions, cluster explorations, or other things typically associated with MMO grinding. I think the rate of progress would be better if it were perhaps 20% slower, to give us more incentive to explore and do all the patrol missions and such. I’m also pleased with the Klingon story line so far, though much of it mirrors some of the Federation stuff. When I last tried a Klingon, there was no story, just PvE and PvP battles.
Both my primary STO characters are in fleets. The Klingon fleet is large, well established, and working hard on building an awesome fleet starbase. The Federation character is in a much smaller, younger fleet, so my character is leader in fleet projects to build the starbase, though a couple others sometimes take the lead. I used one of my established characters, a level 50 admiral, to help someone create yet another fleet, but I haven’t done much with that fleet yet. Maybe someday.
I started Final Fantasy XIII-2 on the PS3 last night and it’s okay. It is surely a pretty game, as one would expect, and so far, the combat is easy. They have added cinematic action, in which you have to hit certain buttons or move a stick just at the right time to land attacks, which is somewhat annoying. Some of the other features appear a little simpler than FF XIII was, plus now they’re trying to sell lots of DLC for companions and costumes and such. Pretty annoying. I’ll probably continue playing, but not very often.