03/19/13

Updates and Upcomings; SimCity Owners: Grab Your Free Game From EA

I apologize for the recent quiet, readers, but it’s for good reasons, I promise. Most prominently is that I’ve been kicking up my writing across the internet. You can find more from me at Hooked Gamers, Vagary.TV, and most recently MMORPG.com than ever before. My grad work also wants more from me than ever before, as does my family and good will efforts, so balancing time for games and blogging has been a challenge. I’m not content to let things sit over here, though, so I have a couple of things in the works. Here’s what’s coming.

More, shorter posts: One of the more difficult things to manage is the sheer bulk of words I’m responsible for. On any given day, I’m writing anywhere from 1000-3000 words and sometimes much more. I still follow bloggers and journalists like a hawk and have things I want to comment on, so my plan going forward is to provide more frequent, shorter posts. I’ve aimed at this in the past, and we’ll have to see how it turns out, but that is my ultimate goal.

Bridging the site-gap: Most of you that continue to stop by here do so because you enjoy my writing and I thank you for that. Rather than ask you to add multiple sites to your readers, I plan to provide more frequent link posts pointing you towards my most recent work. It’s all video game related, with the exception of my weekly reviews of The Following, so it should be right up your alley. I would also like to start sharing my thoughts as I travel through new games for my Tourist column. This week is Fallen Earth, so I should have something so say about that shortly. Still a great game, by the way.

Independent Game Reviews: This is a personal project of mine and one of the key ways I would like to evolve the site. I review for different sites but not so much my own. I suppose I always figured that I needed an association to develop relationships in the industry but I don’t think that’s the case so much. I started this with Persona 4 Golden and I plan to continue it with SimCity next week.

On that note, those of you who have already purchase SimCity should stop by EA/Origin and claim your free game. The issues of last week were no doubt strenuous, so take some solace in a free copy of Mass Effect 3 or Dead Space 3. Both are a great bang for your buck, I promise you. A full list of games and instructions on how to claim yours can be found here.

02/7/13

Persona 4 Golden Review (PS Vita)

Persona 4 Golden hits you like a ton of bricks. Here on the Playstation Vita, the best handheld nobody bothered to market, is a game that’s not just fantastic for appearing on a portable, but that’s a victory for video games in general. That you can take Persona on the go is just icing on the cake. Part high school sim and part dungeon runner, the game presents an enchanting mix of character based progression that becomes progressively more addicting the further you go.

Let’s get a couple of things out of the way up front. First, I didn’t play the original Persona 4. I understand this game is a port that offers a lot of enhancements over the original, but I really can’t speak to that. What I can say is that, unless you hated the original, everyone else should dive right in. Second, I’m not a fan of anime. Something about the animation style never clicked with me. That’s important because there are times playing Persona is a lot like playing interactive fiction. And yet, here I am telling you to sell the family horse to buy this game. You bet. Give Nessie a good home.

The basic premise is this: you play a big city kid transported to the country to live with your uncle, Detective Dojima. Shortly after you arrive, people start showing up dead, the first hung upside down from a television antenna. The friends you make all take a dare to look into the television at midnight the next rainy night. From there, you’re drawn into a mysterious world of fog and shadows, one with no humanly exit other than expiration. Someone is throwing people in there, even your friends, and your group is the only one who can stop the murderer.

But this is all at night. During the day you’re a teenager attending high school, taking a job, and trying to get a girlfriend. Fun dichotomy, right?

Persona 4 is anime in a lot of ways, but it’s also genuinely well written. It doesn’t overburden the Western player with long over-dubbed animations. Those sequences are there, to be sure, but they’re short and well placed such that they enhance the game rather than remove it from the easily identifiable. Instead, the bulk of the dialog is delivered through character stills and voice over.

The voice work in the game is generally quite good, but there are some instances of over-acting (I’m looking at you, Chie). For the most part, I quite enjoyed it. Even lines that didn’t ring quite right could often be forgiven with the mysterious detachment from reality much of the game demands of you. But not always.

The game is heartily Japanese. The main real world setting is in the rural Japanese town of Inaba but it expands from there. Since much of the game is founded in being a teenager, I found the depiction of the culture almost enchanting. Seeing a Japanese developer present rural Japanese life felt foreign and homey all at once. The real world setting and the characters that inhabited it were easy to relate to because they were so similar, yet ever so slightly different, from my own life here in America.

The game seems founded on Studio Ghibli-esque foundations, so it wasn’t surprising to find the writing permeated mythological quirks equal parts mysterious, disturbing, and non-sensical. One of the first other worldly characters your group encounters is the Humpty Dumpty-like Teddie. In a rather uncomfortable moment, Yosuke tries to remove his “costume” only to detach his head and finding him completely empty inside.

That mysteriousness accompanies the player throughout the game. Through expertly crafted musical cues and haunting environments, to delightfully spooky unfolding events — even conversations spoken directly into your character’s mind! – Persona 4 Golden is a game much about leading the player through its dark corridors.

What’s wonderful about Persona is that virtually everything ties into character progression. Nearly everything you do in the real world relates back into your adventures. Whether it’s attending class, joining a sports team, or flirting with a cute girl, you’re able to earn bonuses to knowledge, understanding, courage, diligence, and expression. These, in turn, help you build social links, which empowers their and your abilities in battle. More importantly, earning points here can just as often come from choosing different options in conversation. By the end of the game, you really feel like your experience and your character were your own, not unlike The Walking Dead: The Game. The path is linear, but the journey is unique.

In the fiction of the game, your character doesn’t have magic abilities of his own. Instead, these abilities are cast using creatures called personas. With over 150 of these to collect, combine, and evolve, it’s easy to think of them like less-cute Pokemon. When you complete dungeon encounters, your persona earns bonuses to core stats like strength, magic, agility and luck and can gain levels. The sheer amount of personas can be a bit overwhelming for completionists but the longevity they add to the game is outstanding.

Gameplay is turn-based like the best JRPGs of the past. Completing battles involves choosing to attack or defend, analyzing your enemy for weaknesses and exploiting them, and proper use of personas and items. It’s a strategic affair that gains depth the further into the game you go; however, grinding for levels does become an element later on in the game. Going in under-powered can be downright punishing.

p4g2

Let’s talk about grinding for a minute. I don’t like it and haven’t since I was a teenager. Now, I avoid it like the plague. And yet, it doesn’t really bother me in Persona. Since the game is portable, playing it in short bursts meshes extremely well with battle system and grinding, really, lost a lot of the monotony it might have had on a full console.

Graphically, the game looks great on the Vita’s OLED screen. I especially liked how the dialogue brought high-res art to the forefront drawing the eye from the actual graphics. The game looks great, don’t get me wrong, but during these dialogue sequences, the characters aren’t doing much, so the transitions between character art add some extra movement. The audio in the game is also great. The music really sets the mood and is about pitch perfect for tracks you’ll hear over and over through the game’s 40+ hour runtime.

So for all of these things that I liked about it, what didn’t I like? Well, put simply, the game takes too long to get into. The first few hours are spent mainly clicking through dialogue as the story sets up. It’s all good and I enjoyed it, but after a while I really just wanted to start playing. The game is also huge. I can’t take points for this since that fact is also one of the game’s biggest selling points, but played in short bursts, it will likely take quite a while for the commuter-player to see it all the way through. In that area, it comes down to taste. JRPGs are known for their length, however, and P4G packs an epic scope.

If you have a Vita and are a fan of RPGs, you owe it to yourself to play Persona 4 Golden. There is nothing quite like it yet available on the handheld and it’s rightfully held up as a beacon of what the system needs more of. Without a doubt, this is a recommended purchase.

Final Score: 9 out of 10
Pros: Story, character authority, depth of options, persona collecting, classic and strategic combat
Cons: Long set-up, could be a little overwhelming at first, some poorly delivered lines

09/9/11

The Worst and Deadliest Spy [Deus Ex]

If I had no arms, I'd look that good too. Exercise has got to be easy when you can just program yourself to do set after set until you're ripped. ON: Crunch like hell. OFF: Kiegels.

I got into the PC gaming scene late. As a result, I missed a big chunk of classic games. Deus Ex was one of these. When Human Revolution started advertising, I pretty much wrote it off as another Square Enix non-RPG. (Their history isn’t very good in this regard). Without knowing anything of the franchise’s pedigree, I can honestly say that the most resounding part of those commercials was the music track, which, while pretty darn good, is no reason to buy a video game. Then, internets, you all started raving about it. Finally, hearing Casey talk about it on Player vs. Rift, I decided to give it a shot. Holy. Friggin. Crap. That’s a bad thesis statement, so let me try again: Since diving in, I’ve found it one of the most entrancing and unique game experiences I’ve played this year.

Can I tell you, though, that I was extremely hesitant when I actually looked at the game? It’s a good thing this is a bastion of pure honesty, reader, because otherwise I might be tempted to hide the fact that graphics mean something to me. I might gloss over that great gameplay probably takes a backseat when the visuals look like they’re from 2004 and the game costs more than $15. I might hedge my bets and not mention my habit of cringing when facial animations have more in common with bad martial arts flicks from the 1980s than modern video games. It’s a good thing, because that’s pretty much Deus Ex in a nutshell.

Honesty, my friends.

Following that theme, let me also say that the voice acting is ranges from the surprisingly good to the eye-rollingly bad (I didn’t ask for this), animations can be stiff and the camera jarring, and the world will undoubtedly cause you to wonder first, why there are so many damn boxes everywhere, and second, why you can pick every one of those up and not the pop bottle spilled on the desk. In these ways, the game feels like it’s from a previous generation.

Long neck, tiny head.

Now let’s swing to the other direction. The world is static but generally non-linear. Even though you can’t interact with everything, you can interact with just enough to feel something real behind the surface. And detail, oh the detail! This is a world where everything has been placed with care, from debris, to vents, to NPCs, to sound effects. It is atmospheric enough to OVERCOME the graphics and that’s huge. You look the first time and see a game that’s not cutting edge. You look the next and see the world as it may someday be. And there’s simply so much of it. Eidos Montreal gave us the ability to break into apartments, hack into computers, climb to rooftops, and invade gang territory, all aside from the main story. You can do these things simply because you’re able to, and you will, because it reveals more of the world and adds to the atmosphere which propels you forward.

But, let’s talk about actual game play, the main reason I sat down to write this. Where Deus Ex succeeds and is in providing options. I absolutely LOVE that there are multiple ways to solve each mission and conversation tree. I LOVE that I can be a ruthless killer or a silent spy. I enjoy that I’m rewarded for every single thing that I do, no matter how I do it. Character customization is real and impactful and only ever provides options for how to complete missions instead of taking them away. If you’re patient, and willing to overlook boss fights, you can play through this entire action-RPG without every killing a soul. Or you can kill everyone and pick their pockets when you’re done. There is no one path to completing a mission. You can go in guns blazing or sneak through a ventilation duct, robbing offices along the way. You can tranquilize your enemies, disarm them, and move on, or climb into the rafters while their backs are turned. If you can think of a way to do it, you probably can. It’s that good.

How many games allow you to do that? Not many. When I first started playing, it felt like Fallout or Borderlands; first person, big guns, iron sights. I shot my way through the first mission. Then the game startled me and I was responsible for a room full of hostages being suffering from poison gas. It shook me out of my first-person-shooter mold. When I got to the last room and the rebel leader held an office worker hostage, I stopped and talked. I played mind games with him and saved that hostage without ever firing my weapon. Since then, I’ve discovered how much fun it is to stealth and tranq. until I’m spotted, then to fight my way out of a tough situation. I am the deadly but not-so-secretive spy.

What I love about Deus Ex is that it’s the RPG player’s shooter; it is the thinking man’s a stand-off. It isn’t your story but it is Adam Jensen’s, and you’re guiding him on an intricate path of conspiracy and intrigue, deciding when to kill and when to save. The narrative forms around you, conforms to your decision making. In short, it has me hooked.

05/29/10

First Impressions: Split/Second (PS3)

Since I’ve been piecing together my new and improved rig the past couple of days, I thought I’d take a minute and recommend to you a game that I’ve been in fallen in love with: Split/Second.

Now, before I go on, let me make a disclaimer and say that I’m not a fan of racing games. Well, since my days of working in an arcade, anyways (I loved some of those). Driving Sims don’t do it for me; I have a car, driving a virtual version of it in a game doesn’t really ring my bell.

Enter Split/Second, a game good enough to convince me to go from ‘rental’ to ‘purchase’ three days before it was due back. Split/Second is a high-intensity racing game that focuses on the speed and flair of racing as only Hollywood can show it: fast cars and big explosions.

The main trademark of the game is the Power Plays. Power Plays, in short, let you blow the track to hell and back, taking down the other racers in the process. By drifting (sliding around corners) or riding nearby to another racer, you earn points that you can use towards executing these plays; if you save them up until your power bar is maxed, you’re able to initiate some of the most powerful explosions of all. These range from detonating a nuclear power plant, to totally changing the direction of the course. One blocks off the lane you’re in and sends you down an airport tarmac as a passenger jet speeds at you in mid-land.

Real blockbuster stuff.

I don’t know if the cars are real or not, and I don’t really mind; usually, I would. This game isn’t about realism, so much as it is about getting to the core of what made racing games popular in the first place: speed (and boy does it feel like you’re going fast) and the thrill of intense competition.

The game also features a full-fledged online multiplayer system, so you can race with players from around the world. The only real drawback is that the progression system pales in comparison to the likes of Blur. You’re also limited to only racing with vehicles you’ve unlocked in the Single Player campaign, but it’s so good, I don’t even care – though, I’m sure some people do.

As an MMO player, I’ve found the game to be an excellent change of pace from the slowed combat of questing. It’s very different and, yet, seems to address that social desire I crave in games too—even in single player, though multiplayer is obviously better. The game does this by displaying the names of your opponents prominently above their position: you always know who you’re racing, and you will develop a nemesis. Online opens it up to voice chat, which is surprisingly appropriate compared to the likes of Call of Duty and Halo.

So, if you’re interested in spending a little time with your console, and are looking for a exciting, rewarding, and, most importantly, refreshing game experience, I recommend Split/Second for at least a rental. It takes a little practice, but, once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to sink in to.

03/17/10

God of War III: I’ve hit another milestone in my gaming career

Ladies and Gentlemen, without exaggeration, I’ve just witnessed the single most epic video game sequence in my life. I’m talking about the opening to the third installment in the God of War franchise: the final, culminating, game. I’m coming into this thing as newb as they come, having only spent around an hour with the PSP iteration, Chains of Olympus.

Click to enlarge

Imagine, you’re riding on the back of a giant woman made up entirely of rock and tree. She’s as tall as a skyscraper and as she climbs, enemies are landing on her left and right, jumping down from the peak above. Then, out of nowhere, Poseidon shows up. Except, he’s not in his “man” form. Instead, he’s a towering cyclone of water with a man’s body and snakelike arms that end in watery horse heads with spiky, crablike arms. He attacks you one arm at a time while the other (including his human shaped arms) attacks the creature that’s still climbing to the precipice.

Crab arms slam down around you causing trees to fall and the titan to cry out in pain. The first horse head sends a massive plume of water at you and then electrifies it to finish the job. But you’re Kratos and this is not the day you die. You slash away at the crab legs until you’re able to slice the spiked end of one off. Then, you hack away at the head until it rears back, allowing you to thrust the dismembered claw into its beating heart.

This all makes sense in the battle, I promise.

Click to enlarge

The titan, freed thanks to you, grabs Poseidon’s body and pulls him back. You leap and swing from her hands, sending your sailing to and through the man-form of the Sea God, landing on the other side with Poseidon in the flesh. You headbutt him, and slam him against the walls, finally dispatching him off the side of the cliff.

Sounds incredible, right? Well, it is.

I may sound like I’m easily impressed to those of you that have been console devotees for years. But, let me tell you, I’ve spent the last three immersed in MMOs where this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.

The combat was absolutely sick. You start off at full power with a bevy of incredible skills to use. Cutting through enemies is like using a steak knife to cut butter. It’s that good.

But don’t misunderstand, the game is not easy. I died several times just in the tutorial with the game set on normal. There are several different encounters with Poseidon and each one requires a different strategy. There’s a lot of trial and error until you find the right method of winning the day (at least for me, GoW vets may have a different take).

I usually play through single-player games on easy, since I’m notoriously bad at finishing them. The game seemed to pick up on this because, after a few deaths, it asked me if I wanted to lower the difficulty. I said no, though, because I always felt like grasping the fight was just beyond my reach and that I’d get it if I kept trying. I was right.

Overall, I’m am thoroughly excited to get more into this game. So much so, I could see myself choosing to play it over even Final Fantasy 13, which I would’ve never believed to be the case. And this is with only about 45 minutes played.

Has anyone else tried it yet? I’m considering picking up the collection, just from playing the tutorial.

11/3/09

First Impressions: Dragon Age: Origins (Xbox 360 Version)

My plans for a midnight pick up didn’t quite work out but I was able to snag my copy this morning, just before noon. I eagerly brought it home, applied my codes and downloaded the included bonus content. I even decided to spring for the Warden’s Keep DLC.

It’s worth noting that, even though the content itself is only 560 Microsoft Points (about $7), points begin in increments of 500. So, to get the $7 content, I had to pay $13. Still, that’s Microsoft trick and nothing to hold against the game.

After that, I spent the next 20 minutes making my first character, a Dwarf Commoner. I went with this origin because, well, I have a soft spot for dwarves. I won’t spoil anything but dwarves in this universe are a lot more bigoted than in other games. There’s a rigid caste system and, before the end, you work your way out of it to become a Gray Warden.

I found this introduction to a lot of fun. The storyline was interesting and sometimes it paid off to revisit people I’d already spoken to. New dialogue trees will open up based on your interactions with other NPCs. I have to note, though, that you’ll spend the first couple hours of going through dialogue with very, very little action. You can skip most of the dialogue but if you plan on dodging the story, well, I’d have to suggest moving to another game. Dragon Age is all about the narrative but I’ll

Left-Trigger Hold, Control Stick Upper Right, Select Skill Upper Left, A button, Release Left Trigger!

get into that a little bit more soon.

Let’s get right into what I thought about specific aspects of game play.

Combat

Combat in Dragon Age can be a little daunting to a new player. There’s very little in the way of a tutorial, so I kept my game manual nearby to answer any immediate questions I had. For this version, combat is controlled by mapping up to six abilities to your color keys with an RT modifier. It’s a little limiting, so you’ll probably do a lot through the radial menu opened using the LT key. From this menu, you access everything from your inventory to your talents.

While this menu is open, combat is paused and you can freely move between the different members of your party and select their next combat action. For your average fight, however, this won’t be necessary as NPC party members come pre-loaded with some basic “tactics” that tell them how to respond to certain situations in a fight. These are fully programmable, so you can customize everything they do.

Before getting the Xbox version, I’d watched a lot of videos from its PC counterpart. I can tell you without a doubt that the controller layout is far more cumbersome and clunky. It does, however, work and, after a little time, it becomes a fairly fluid system.

As I played, I was reminded of Neverwinter Nights more than KotOR, not only thematically, but the radial menu is almost identical. Combat reminds me a lot of the game as well, although I’ll admit I didn’t spend too much time playing it.

Like KotOR, you can queue up the next action for every party member. Unlike it, you’re limited to a single skill. At first, I didn’t really care for this because I like to plan ahead for non-main characters and focus my attention on the players I care about the most. Yet, the tactics makes up for it in many ways. Still, it’d be nice if you could queue up more than a single action. As it stands now, it’s a lot more micro-managy as you pause-and-play through combat. Like the menu system, it becomes more fluid the more you use it.

Story

This handsome beast wants to take you out for coffee

The story really begins to pick up once you’re in the main game. There’s more combat and you can really start to see how your choices may come back to haunt (or help) you later. For example, I took a quest to find and herb to help a darkspawn tainted dog but, after I returned it, had the option to kill it. I didn’t and the quest giver suggested I come back later to see if the dog would take to me. Possible party-member? I hope so. I love it when games let me have pets.

There are some really awesome things that follow and you’re thrown into the middle of a war quicker than you’d think. The outcome rests on your shoulders and an awesomely epic cut scene gets your adrenaline pumping before you’re sent on your way. Playing through these starting quests got me excited in a way I haven’t felt in a long time in an SRPG. It was a blast, especially so because by the time I was on my way to complete this quest, I had the combat system fairly well down and the micromanagement had become a lot more fun. Again, I felt like I was playing NWN again.

Graphics/Performance

It’s a console game, so there were no real performance issues. The framerate seemed silky smooth the whole time; however, graphical fidelity really wasn’t where I’d thought it’d be. Character models are great but some of the textures are just plain bad. There’s a scene in the origin where a character is sitting on a stone chair. NPC good, chair texture horrible. The two together really made it look like they’d intentionally blurred out the chair for some reason but, no, it was just a bad texture. There are other issues like this as well. For example, your first foray into “The Wilds” will show you how poorly certain pine trees can be rendered.

Graphics on the 360 seem to be hit or miss. I’ve heard the PS3 is worse.

Let me be clear though, the graphics are not bad. Just certain textures. Some of the graphics are phenomenal. It seems strange to me that the game represents both ends of the spectrum as much as it does. Yet, the gameplay and story are there, so it’s not a big enough issue to really be a problem for me. But, this may be one more reason to get the PC version if you’re big on graphics.

Open World/Linear Path

At this point in the game, I don’t know if I can really attest to this part. Bioware reps have said that it’s not so open world as Oblivion and, so far, I’d whole heartedly agree. The Wilds are incredibly linear with non-sensical boundaries. Who would’ve thought that, even though I can cut down mighty darkspawn with a swipe of my axe, cat tails would stop me from going off the beaten path?

Yet, I’m still so early in the game, it could be linear for the sake of the learning player. I would hope so, anyways.

Final Thoughts

On the whole, I really enjoyed my play time today. I sat and played for over four hours. I haven’t done that for any game in a long time. If you’re anything like me, the story will grab you and hold you until you’re left begrudging turning off your console.

That being said, I got the definitely feeling that this game would play better on the PC. The menu systems, while intuitive, just don’t as smooth as they really should. Combat cries out to be played with a mouse and keyboard. Is that a bad thing? Probably. But such is the price we pay to be able to enjoy this game from our sofas.

Dragon Age is an awesome game. All issues aside, five hours in, I have no problem recommending that you buy this game immediately for your console of choice. It take the best parts of hack-and-slashers, adds strategy and micromanagement, and wraps it all up in a cinematic experience unlike other games I’ve played on the Xbox. It’s not as open as Oblivion but the fun is right there where it should be.

In short, if you can’t look past the issues I mentioned above, get this PC version. If you can, and would like to play it from your favorite recliner, get the Xbox version. Don’t wait. Get it now.

Oh yeah, and enjoy

08/27/09

Champions and the rest: just go for it

leap Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been excited for a game and let a review talk you out of buying it? If your answer is yes, let me encourage you to throw that hesitancy to the wind and go for it. Don’t let someone else’s opinion of the game ruin it for you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this very topic lately. Gordon of We Fly Spitfires posted a piece that really encapsulates the core question here, do we expect too much of MMORPGs? On the whole, that answer is an unequivocal “yes.” Compare them to any single player game on the market and, even the most barren of MMOs is likely to give you more playtime for your investment. Is spending $50 on an MMO you’ll play for a month worse than paying $60 for an Xbox game you’ll play for two weeks? That’s Gordon’s point and it’s a good one.

If you’ve ever been excited, really and truly excited, for the release of a game, you’re probably going to get more than your money’s worth even if that shine fades faster than it would with another MMO. That first month is probably going to be great because of, if nothing else, the famed “honeymoon period” that follows our pre-release excitement. Isn’t that first month (or more) worth it? Is it fun? Apparently so, because even the much maligned Age of Conan received an 80, or generally favorable reviews, on metacritic.com. Now compare that to the blog scene.

So, take every review with a grain of salt. So much of everything we as bloggers rant about is subjective that it’s not even funny. I hate the idea that my not liking a game might spoil your chance to love it. Bear this in mind, for every game that the “majority” dislike, there’s tens of thousands that love it. The amount of people that enjoy the game probably outnumbers the amount of people in your city by a ten to one.

I had to catch myself recently. I was really beginning to look forward to Champions Online and after reading the various impressions around the internet began to give up on it without ever trying it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s something to be said for concrete flaws, bugs and poor coding, that can destroy the potential of any game. But that wasn’t the case here. It was simply, well, these people don’t like it and we usually agree so I probably won’t either. Then, I went and got Batman: Arkham Asylum for sixty dollars knowing that it had a 15 hour playtime. For all of the things that rubbed those writers the wrong way, I might have seen them as non-issues. That was certainly the case when it came to Vanguard, last time I tried it.

In the end, it comes down to what you think an MMO is worth. Saying that $50 for a month in an MMO isn’t worth as much as $60 for a console game is saying that an MMO is worth less by the dollar… even though it provides more content. That fact, all by itself, tells me that we expect too much. I think that what we want is for an MMO to be a complete hobby experience but at the same time want to pay less than we would in any other walk of life. I’m as poor as the next guy but that standard just doesn’t make much sense.