Hiatus - Cataclysm (slight spoilers) and various other games

Hey everyone, It's been a while but for good reason!

Well maybe not... I sort of got sucked into a lot of games at once and put my blogging on hold. ANYWAYS. To the games I was playing and how awesome they are.

First off was playing the new WoW expansion. Took a few days off from work (That's dedication!) and hit 85 on my main, still a druid, but is now a Troll(olololol).

 The picture below is me in my completely awesome troll cat-form. Pretty epic, I know.

This expansion feels great. Almost a "back to basics" if you will. The heroics don't throw epic level gear at you, you have to actually think (which is pretty shocking to most people just hitting 85) and they have some pretty amazing quest chains especially in Twilight Highlands.

I have also created a character of both new races (worgen and goblin) so that I could check our their starting areas. So far I vastly prefer the worgen. You are in a Victorian era-esque town, plagued by werewolves. Pretty awesome.

The goblin area starts as a thriving, polluted, roadway filled gangster paradise. I'm thinking America. Anyways, that goes downhill pretty fast as the island "paradise" you're living on erupts into a violent volcano.

Speaking of WoW, I also want to say something about their real ID system. I think it's amazing. The ability to give your real life friends access to you regardless of your race/faction/server or even game that you're playing (as long as it's a Blizzard game) is pretty fantastic. The only think I would like to see Blizzard implement is  an "appear offline" feature. I have a friend who hates his other friends, and doesn't like it when they see him online all the time, so the ability to block other people from seeing you would be pretty nice.

In other gaming news, Maple Story had a HUGE update, in which they added 2 new classes (One I'm in love with...Battle Mage :] ) and greatly increased the experience you gain. The game (for me) started to drag around level 50 because of the sheer ammount of monsters you had to kill in order to gain a level. The recent update takes a HUGE step in the right direction allowing you to enjoy more of the game, with less of the mindless grinding/questing (which normally involved a fantastic goal of "Kill 1,000 of these monsters").

As it stands now, I'm having a pretty hard time deciding which characters to play, my girlfriend and I have quite a few of them. I can see myself sinking a legit amount of time into this game as well.

And for this, I'll do a greater post later, but I was just giving an AMAZING mega-man game from my girlfriend for Christmas. Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker x Ninja . Yea, it's a mouth full. I link the gamespot link because, quite frankly, I think they are completely wrong in their review. This game, at least to me, is a fun-fresh new take on megaman.While yes, it's not side scrolling with the 9 bosses you pick which level you go to, I think it's pretty amazing. It's an adventure game, in which you play a human who can fuse with an electronic "spirit" to become megaman. The battle sequences are fun, you fight enemies by attacking them and dodging their attacks in a third person platform.

You use a "deck" of cards to select your attacks from, using either ranged weapons, weapon boosters, or melee attacks. Needless to say, I'm not incredibly far in at this point, but I love what I've played so far.

Anyways, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays and I hope to be back to posting regularly before long!

Runes Of Magic - World of Warcraft

My girlfriend and I have been playing a free to play game called Runes of Magic lately. She plays a Warrior/Rogue class combo, and I play a Rogue/Knight. More about the dual class system in a minute.

My favorite part of the game is the soundtrack, it's very soothing/calming, and perfect if you are going to work on some of the gathering/creation tasks. I've never gotten much into professions in other games, only when absolutely necessary. I think the main reason I enjoy it in this one is due to the abundance of materials available. There are a large number of mining deposits, herbs to pick, and logs to chop. And it's actually a lot more addictive than I'm sure it sounds.

The other fun part is their dual class system. It's unlike most others that are out there in that you can litteraly switch between classes, but retain some of the abilities of the other class. The downside is that when you switch your primary job (Rogue to Knight for example) you begin as a level 1 Knight but keep level 1 Rogue skills. Again, I'm sure I'm not making it sound as awesome as it is. :)

On the World of Warcraft end of thing's I've recently decided to make an Undead Death Knight, Blood Specialization. Basically a vampire. And yes, I am as creepy as it sounds it is. I decided to take a break from being a nice kind hearted Night Elf and switch over to the Horde. We'll see how it goes. I've already gotten to 70, which is pretty quick considering how little I play these days.

I hope to raid in Cataclysm as a Death Knight, because I like the way they tank. The rune system combined with the Runic Power (the way I use my abilities) is hectic at times, but completely enthralling when you're listening to blasting techno. I'm starting to see some striking differences in Runes and WoW, although the two are so similar.

My friends and I also did a few rounds of League of Legends this weekend, and I really hate being in the jungle. I tried Fiddlesticks attempting to perfect my jungle strat, but I really just don't like it. :( However I do love being Master Yi. :)

Anyways, will keep you updated on how it goes in both games. Happy Gaming!

Marines, Marauders, Medivacs and Selena Gomez

Lately I've been messing around on Starcraft 2. I'm more of a custom map kind of guy (Tower Defense owns) but I've been working with friends on playing the actual RTS (GASP) as the Terran faction in 1v1 games.

The strategy I've been working on is a basic MM build (Marine, Marauder, Medivac). The biggest problem I have been having is knowing when to attack. I'm like a turtle, content to sit within my walls and deplete my resources to death. The second would be having enemies focus my Medivacs.

I have fleeting moments where I think I would like to play Protoss lately, Zealots look like lots of fun, but never Zerg. Zerg are jerks, I hate them.

I'm also finally getting good at fast movement, although my actions per minute are still fail at this point.

On a lighter note, my girlfriend and I both just dropped 15 dollars into Wizard 101 to get our mounts. I chose the black feathered angel wings, she went for a purple broomstick. Pretty epic.

We also just rescued Selena Gomez from marrying a crab-king. No joke. They then decided to be her backup dancers as the crab kingdom "Has 100% unemployment." Anyways. I found this video, pretty bad quality, but you may chuckle at the dialogue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh1nQziqwhg

So It Begins

Hi everyone. My name is Mark and I like to play video games.

I play with friends ( Hi Derek!), my girlfriend  (I love you), and sometimes by myself.

I work full time about 45 minutes from my home, and have a full time girlfriend (haha), so my time to play is not immense at the moment, but I love to play whenever I have free time. (Pretty much only when when my girlfriend is working or in the mood to play something with me...)

With friends I play things like World of Warcraft (totally hyped for the new expansion), I also play Starcraft 2 and League of Legends currently, however I own a lot of different games, and have played many over the years.

With my girlfriend I play Lord of the Rings, Wizard 101, and sometimes even Hello Kitty online or Maple Story. We have dabbled in a large number of free games over our time together, but we'll talk more about that later!


Anyways, I am starting this blog to catalog my progress with various games. Other than playing games (And my girlfriend) one of my greatest passions is writing, so here's hoping you'll enjoy these stories and recounts of my travels and conquests across the gaming world. Hey, you may even try out something you never thought you would!