Last update: 18 Jul 2008, v4.0
// carns.com :: games
"I never think of the future, it comes soon enough." - A. Einstein
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~ LISTEN M: Lord of the Rings L: Loreena McKennitt - An Ancient Muse ~ READ M: Magician: Master L: Good Omens ~ PLAY M: World of Warcraft L: Civilization IV ~ BELGARATH
MB: ASUS K8N-DL ~ XTHEN
MB: DFI nF4 SLI-DR ~ MITHRANDIR
MB: DFI nF4 SLI-DR ~ COMICS
Nodwick & FFN ~ BLOGS
Contrary Brin |
Playing :. Diablo IINeither Mike nor Laura had played this when it first came out. We were intrigued by the gameplay trailer for Diablo III and decided to give this a whirl. The UI is an extravaganza of mouse-clicks, a fast track to tendonitis. The concept of character skill trees looks like it was copied directly into WoW; same with rogue/assassin combo points. Interesting blast from the past.
Too Lazy :. Wii FitIt's quite amazing what you can do with a bathroom scale. Wii fit is an entertaining way to tone up muscles and improve balance. I don't think the running games will really improve your cardio that much, but the balance feedback on the yoga poses is awesome. I will say the amount of UI lag is a drag when you're trying to pack in a workout in a rush.
Playing :. Sid Meier's Civilization IVThe ultimate in micromanagement. But whoever wrote the AI should be slapped on the wrist for using a buggy Python implementation that has memory leaks. Laura got hooked for about a week before burning out.
Playing :. Sins of a Solar EmpireSpace-based RTS. Some very pretty explosions. Doesn't seem to have much depth.
Playing :. World of WarcraftYes, we've joined the biggest MMO out there. Laura got hooked when she played a Gnome Warlock "she's so cute, and she SUCKS SOULS!". Mike decided to give it another try with a bunch of his work friends wanted to play, giving us instant grouping. We started on a PvP server, but are moving to a PvE server to get away from the 1337 6@/\/\&|2z crowd.
Playing :. PortalThe cake is a lie. This is an awesome puzzle game, with a great sense of macabre humor. Mike ended up buying the credits song. Kudos to Valve for this game. We do what we must because we can.
Playing :. Lego Star Wars (Wii)This is a bundle of retro laughs.
Playing :. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)Mike likes this for the short "worlds" and easy UI. Laura hates the soundtrack :)
Playing :. Metriod Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)Mike is a fan of the Metriod series.
Playing :. Rayman's Raving Rabbids (Wii)This is hilarious and almost a workout.
Playing :. Wii PlaySome "blah" games mixed with some great two-or-more challenges.
Playing :. Wii SportsMike is having a blast maxing out his skill at tennis. Laura prefers bowling. Neither of us really like the baseball or the golf.
Shelved :. Neverwinter Nights: various Premium modules The NWN includes the ability for general users to author adventures for others to play. The Premium modules are the cream of the crop, turned into products by Bioware. They are shorter than expansions, and at a much lower price (usually < $10). Laura has played Kingmaker, ShadowGuard, Witch's Wake, Pirates of the Sword Coast, and is still working through Wyvern Crown of Cormyr. She finds the new storylines interesting to play through, and the fact that she pays for them is a minor guarantee of quality. She thinks Pirates is the best of the bunch, good storyline and decent balance; and the pirate-theme allows a good way to inject a little humor. Wake was too short, Kingmaker and Crown are heavily skewed to fighting classes, and ShadowGuard's plot was insipid.
Shelved :. EVE OnlineInteresting, but too many MMO's for Laura. Mike should write something here, since he's enjoyed it.
Shelved :. Fable: The Lost ChaptersLaura's enjoying this slightly-dated port of an XBox game. Good open-ended casual single-player RPG with fun humor and an easy combat and leveling system. She thinks it's better than Oblivion.
Shelved :. Myst V: End of AgesAfter finishing MystIV, Laura's over-quota on puzzle games, maybe later.
Shelved :. Lord of the Rings OnlineIt's like WoW, but much prettier; Mike's GPU (nv 6800) is too slow to see the pretties. The server population is a little light and Laura ran out of useful stuff to solo, so she's stopped paying the monthly fee for now.
Reviewed :. Neverwinter Nights 2Poorly implemented 3D graphics killed the game. 'Nuf said.
Shelved :. Sid Meier's Pirates! Yaaaaar! You're a pirate. You plunder ships and towns, you romance the fair maids, you rescue your family from the evil Baron Raymondo. Mind-candy-yaarrrr! Where's your parrot?
Shelved :. Elder Scrolls IV: OblivionOMG, how pretty. Too pretty for Mike's 6800, and even L's 7800 chokes in some areas. Fun gameplay, but L needs to turn her difficulty slider down, since she doesn't care to try for fancy mouse moves. The open-endedness of the game is interesting as well.
Reviewed :. Homeworld 2Interesting co-op multiplayer RTS, fast to learn if you played Homeworld 1.
Shelved :. Caesar IIIMike loves this RT(Strat|Sim). It's like a cross between SimCity and Age of Empires and... well, he'll have to explain someday. An interesting factiod: Laura's brothers helped Beta this for Sierra back in the day.
Shelved :. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic IIMike hasn't had a chance to play this much
Shelved :. FreelancerStoryline gets boring after a while, and yegads what a great chance for co-op play that they just missed. They have some net-driver issues too, which is wierd coming from a M$ studio.
Shelved :. Myst IV: RevelationLaura's gotta finish URU first!
Shelved :. Starcraft: BroodWars (Online)Mike's started playing this lately with some friends from work and Laura's little brother. Laura's thinking about picking it up, too. (She never liked the space-war theme in single-player.)
Shelved :. Warcraft IIIMike's also playing this with the guys from work. Laura doesn't get it, because Arthas is such a jerk.
Shelved :. Neverwinter Nights - Hordes of the UnderdarkWe were really disappointed at the lack of cooperative multiplayer support in this. We had a blast playing the original campaign and Shadows together and couldn't believe the lack of support for co-op. We struggled though it, but all the technical issues were really distractig. We've since started over in single-player mode to try out different epic character builds. Mike's been playing around with a rogue/fighter/shadow dancer build while Laura's been playing with a rogue/wizard/arcane archer build.
Reviewed :. Everquest IIWe like this, but need new boxes before we can play. Our poor darlings just aren't up to running thru Qeynos. Also they need to fix a few memory leaks, very noticeable when your box is chugging anyway. (Update) On second thought, EQ2 isn't getting any better, and WoW is damn fun.
Reviewed :. Battle for Middle-EarthGeez, this is bloatware. For what should be simple graphics, they can't even get decent performance on our (admittedly) aging boxes. EA does not impress, why do you need full-on 3d rendering (sucky, non-optimized) in what is essentially a top-down strategy game?.
Shelved :. City of HeroesSuperhero-based MMO was fun for about a month, then the lack of creative dungeon-crawling became boring.
Shelved :. Neverwinter Nights - Shadows of UndrentideA fun little update to the original NWN.
Shelved :. UruMyst, only a modified 1st-person camera following UI. Puzzles are slightly easier than usual for Myst series.
Shelved :. Star Wars: Knights of the Old RepublicGreat RPG based in Star Wars world, good plot, decent character-advancement and combat UI. And you can twirl your lightsaber(s) whenever you feel particularly spunky.
Shelved :. Neverwinter Nights (Original)The co-op play in this game makes it the best title in the last 5 years.
Shelved :. EverquestThe original 3D MMORPG: glue a 3D user-interface onto a MUD engine, and this is what you get.
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