ROBOT ATTACK!!

School's almost over. Couple more days and I'm home free. I need to get some exercise or something, cause I have a feeling I'll need a lot of energy when work at EA starts next month.

Anyway, I recently bought Warhammer 40k Dawn of War and its Winter Assault expansion for $15 shipped on Ebay. And I'm really dissapointed. There's only about 100 people playing the game at anytime online, and with good reason. There's no real logic to the game, IMO. No rules, no sense or balance. For details, try heading to the Gamespot forum for the game. It's a bit hard to explain..

Then there's massive latency problems in every game I've played. Meanwhile, Warcraft 3 boasts something like 30,000 players currently. The single player campaign was fun enough though, and the battles are still a blast to watch. So I'm not surprised the game is getting a second expansion. People must be enjoying Warhammer, but it sure ain't for the multiplayer.

Besides Warhammer, I had been playing the City of Villains and City of Heroes trials. Really enjoyed my time with these games, which is surprising since I usually despise MMOs. But the over-the-top battle effects, animations, and superhero powers are really cool. Gaining the ability to fly at level 14 was a trip, and the PVP zones where heroes and villains clash in mid-air were incredibly cool.

The games are set in a comic book-style universe. It's a huge breath of fresh air since nearly all MMOs are set in a sword-and-magic fantasy environment. After playing these games, I'm convinced that the Comic Book setting is a much overlooked gold mine waiting to be tapped by the video game industry. We need comic book Battlefield-style FPS games, comic book Neverwinter Nights-style RPG games... heck, comic book The Sims... comic book Nintendogs. I don't know. Comic book everything. I cannot stress enough how cool it is to shoot frikkin' laser beams out of your eyes while flying through the air without any form of mechanical assistance. That is pure awesome. Another major advantage of the comic book setting is that it's usually set in modern times, which, to me, makes it easier to immerse yourself in the game world.