I managed to squeeze in a little bit of game time this past week. It feels like last semester all over again, except this time the exams are actually difficult. I’m spending more time studying and finishing work that gaming, which is rare.  The semester ends in June and it can’t come quick enough. Okay, so what have I been playing?
Aside from Darkfall and Warhammer which are just a bunch of the same old same old…
FreeRealms launched this past week. I have not subscribed yet because I’m still not sure if the Wizard, Warrior, Medic or Archer are worth it. Anyone paying and know if these jobs are better than the brawler or ninja? If they are significantly better or more fun then I will become a member. For now I’m enjoying the race car driving and the demolition durby more than anything else. A couple of my friends joined me for a dozen or so matches and we crashed cars for over an hour.  For solo play I’ve been leveling up my brawler job and doing quests to earn gold.
I really, really want SoE to add housing and clubs (guilds) to the game. I’ll become a member instantly if they do. I want to be able to decorate a house with the type of customization that EQ2 has and collect trophies, invite friends over for parties, and make it an extension of me. Clubs would be great because more people I hang out with regularly are giving FreeRealms a try and it would be nice to be capable of communicating with everyone playing at once.
The plan this next week is to decide whether or not I want to become a member and then level a class up significantly to play around in the harder dungeons. Some group dungeon runs are in my future here soon.
I decided to begin playing Saints Row 2 again and finish it. I struggle with finishing console games because I don’t play them near my computer.  It always happens the same way: I start playing a game, get over halfway done, then my attention is grabbed by a PC game and I forget about the console game until I’m in a rut. The nice thing about console games though is they’re mostly single player and easy to pickup and play again.
Saints Row 2 is like GTA but better. The storyline is great, the gameplay is great, and there is so much to do all the time that I never feel bored while playing it. Right now I’m about halfway done with the game. My gang has half the territories on the map and I”m capable of grabbing up another 25% or so if I attack. I dropped half of the cash I had saved up (150,000) on a new crib and I pimped it out to raise my style rating.
Tons of story missions, tons of side quests and activities, lots of vehicles (air, land, sea), tons of guns = tons of fun in a sandbox city.
Graev played Spore when it first came out and ran through the game several times. He always spoke highly of it but I never found the time to install it and play it for myself. Yesterday was a day of painful boredom so I went to the wall of games and browsed game boxes dating all the way back to the days when they were enormous and cardboard. Graev pointed out Spore, and thus my creature was born.
I’m going the route of a herbivore to dance my enemies into submission! I played several hours yesterday and the time flew by without my knowing it. I went through the cell stage really quickly, but I think I did everything there was to do. Having played feeding frenzy, it wasn’t too difficult at all. I plowed right in to the next stage and I’m about halfway through now. My creatures get picked on quite a bit by aggressive neighbors and this enormous epic dragon that gobbles me up if I leave the nest in the wrong direction, but I’m making headway with these monkey-looking-things.
Finishing Spore should be easy enough since it is relaxing (when I’m not screaming at the not so nice neighbor duck-like dinosaurs with five mouths) and it reminds me of the type of gameplay I enjoy from Black & White games.
A long list of Alphas and Betas
Lastly, I spent a good deal of time playing some alphas and betas this week. Can’t talk about them, but I will say that some of them should never see the light of day and some of them have been ready for launch for months. I’ll be sure to tell you which are which once I’m able.
I’m looking forward to the quick dungeon runs in Freerealms (FR) but putting together a group looks like it will be difficult with no global chat available.
I also think FR should or could become the MMO we all fall back to when there isn’t much to do.
A. Its free
B. Lots of jobs to level up
C. I find it the most relaxing MMO I’ve played.
D. It just a no worries game, aka whats the rush.
If they do put in guilds and or player housing I think it will become just that.
Re: Free Realms – I was at Target the other day and noticed they have a game card that gives you a month of membership for 99 cents. I couldn’t pass that up. Once I was back in the game, I became a warrior. (In fact, I became everything.) During the missions, it felt like I was hitting harder, so I tried running through some of the instances that I had not been able to beat as a low level brawler. I successfully made it through. (I had been trying to collect all the warpstones, and there’s one that lies on the backside of an instance. X( Now I’ve gotten it.)
The downside to the 99 cent card was that it was for new accounts only, so I had to make a new account and abandon all the progress I had made last week. I hadn’t gotten too far, so it wasn’t that upsetting. But if you don’t want to lose your progress, I personally feel like I’m getting $5 worth of fun out of membership.
I have to give it to Free Realms for being the first MMO ever to make resource gathering addictive.
Kudos for that.
I decided to grab a membership since $5 is no biggie and I wanted to see the other classes. Only been playing the warrior so far and it was a nice change over the brawler. I’d be level 10 by now if it wasn’t for Mining and Blacksmithing calling my name every time I log in.
I still have yet to find that pesky ninja trainer. grrrrr
I’m taking it really slow in Free Realms, and have actually avoided the combat jobs/missions for the most part.
I decided to pay for a membership yesterday because (a) $5 isn’t a whole lot given that I only have one other game sub (WoW), and (b) I wanted to show my support for the excellent quality and promise that Free Realms has.
I don’t know why, but I’m really enjoying cook. The thing about being a cook is I still get to travel the world, seeing new places, and making new recipes and gathering materials. The mini games for cooking are quite fun too.
“Saints Row 2 is like GTA but better.”
How can anyone find either SR game fun?
Ken- what is the name of your toon in FR? I would like to add you to my friends list
As far as the membership, I got it immediately. The member quests are pretty decent, overall, the quest limit of 30 instead of 10 is much more convenient…and yes, Fighter is a pretty darn good class. It’s for a different situation than Brawler’s bonus–Fighter’s first special attack stuns an enemy for a little while. So while not as good at group bashing–wonderful vs single enemies, especially ‘bosses’.
Medic I’ve found fun–it’s predictably about the healing at low levels. Still, the few duels I’ve taken part in on here have been as a Medic, and the healing meant they all went in my direction.
Blacksmith is a pretty good crafting job, for what it’s worth. I can’t speak for any other jobs, simply because I haven’t gotten them yet.
And I too, would like to know your toon in FR. I’m Tialla–on far too often during the evening. 😉
Why not try Aion? Every english blog seems to be allergic to this game, its great. Really!
Larek: it’s the angel wings 😉
I don’t know what it is, but FreeRealms is kind of addictive!
Larek: They are all under the assumption it is a gigantic grind fest (better then L2 but still a bit grindy). US preview events will change that.
If someone could tell me how to play Aion easily…without trying to navigate through a Chinese web page, i’d be all about trying it.
I can’t ever figure out how to create an account or download it.
@Larek: Where can I get my hands on Aion? I would play it if I knew.
@SwS Saints Row 2 has plenty of the mindless fun and over the top destruction that GTA4 seems to have misplaced. It doesn’t take itself seriously or require you to continually babysit other characters in the game. Apart from a lack of overall polish (especially on the PC version) its a lot of fun.
@Keen
Isn’t Aion just another NCSoft title? It shouldn’t be hard to get a copy of it….not that I’ve actually tried.
@Blacknimbus: Aion has been only released in Asian market as far as I know. US release is in Fall and I have not seen any detils about beta. The only way you can play Aion right now is if you are invited to closed beta (if it’s even going on) or if you have a Korean copy of the game.
I’m getting quite into free realms too 🙂 It just does my head in at how much more fun and interesting even a basic job like mining is in FR compared to … crafting in just about any MMO ever.
@Farquaad
Ah, gotcha. I saw it listed under the NCSoft banner when I briefly considered reupping my sub to CoH and figured it was widely available.
Well, its pretty hard. Its live in China right now and obviously requires payment. You’ll have to create an account with an ID of some random Chinese person. Then you’ll get 5 free hours. After wich you have to pay. Pretty cheap. You buy units, and each unit is 2 hours and 5 min playtime. I got it fixed for my by a guildie so can’t really help, but there’s loads of guides on the webz.
Good luck. Its really awesome.
And oh, Aion is scheduled to go live in EU/NA autumn this year. They are busy with the Westernisation process or something. Rewriting quests so that jokes are actually funny, to make up for the cultural differences. There are preview weekends planned aswell, no dates. http://www.aion-online.com
If you are hestitant on doing it due the ID part, I might be worth to orient yourself on the game. There’s great footage around. Youtube is your friend.
Community website #1: http://www.aionsource.com (Basicly the Warhammeralliance for Aion.)
After all of the posts on Aion, I just had to research and try it. Thank god I did. 5 hours on a chinese server with gold spammers out the ass, and I had the most fun EVER. I can’t wait for the game to come out. Keen, you gotta tell me what server you roll on come release. ;). By the way, for Aion: The Tower of Eternity information, aionsource.com is definitely the best website to go to and trust, as Larek said ;).