Despite my dislike of stealth games, I was looking forward to Velvet Assassin. I'm rather fond of strong female leads, whether they are in comic books, movies, or games. Velvet Assassin appeared to have the type of protagonist I wanted to play. Unfortunately, the game I was hoping to like wasn't forgiving enough for a newbie like me.

I understand that cover is a very important part of stealth games. I was doing my best to utilize the cover system, but Velvet Assassin didn't make it clear enough for me. I could tell that I was in cover when I was hidden in shadows, but other objects made it less clear. For example, some bushes were cover and some were not, despite their identical appearances. This led me to be spotted by an enemy while I was crouched in some bushes, falsely believing that I was safe.

I felt very limited in the game in general. There were mechanics that seemed to serve no purpose and mechanics that were missing. I could drag bodies around, but there was little point. My movement speed was greatly reduced while dragging a body, and where was I supposed to hide it? The bushes were clearly not a good place, as the cover was inconsistent. Adding to my frustration was the lack of melee mechanics. While I am no stealth expert, it was my understanding that stealth games should at least have a punch of some sort. My character was left with no way to defend herself once my bullets were quickly expended, making her seem pitifully weak.

I ended up dying three times in the tutorial, and I couldn't get past the second group of enemies. The tutorial did little to motivate me to play through the rest of the game. There was a lot of terrain but not much actual gameplay. The art style looked flat, the game had an overly serious tone, and there was a very poor introduction to stealth. The tutorial narration and tips would disappear instantly when I pressed the action button; I accidentally skipped through what little information I was given.

Velvet Assassin provided me with an incredibly frustrating twenty-minute experience. Perhaps my inexperience with the genre or my high expectations colored my view. Regardless, I didn't feel anything like the powerful female I had wished to be; I felt like a pathetic, frail woman who had no business being a spy.  

It's no secret that I have a strong preference for Lord of the Rings: Online (LotRO) over World of Warcraft (WoW). I recently began playing as a new character to directly compare the opening 10 levels to those in WoW. I quickly realized that, despite the many similarities, LotRO has a much more epic and engaging opening.

LotRO begins with an instance specific to the race of your character. The elf instance starts in the crumbling remains of a small elven village. The instance was catered to be exciting and make my player feel epic. I had to defend the town from goblins sprinkled across my path. Soon a troll stomped in front of me, and I watched from behind the safety of a gate as Elrond defeated the foul creature. I knew that I was in way over my head, but I was never faced with anything I couldn't handle as a level one character. Although I was unable to group from the very beginning (which some argue is an advantage in WoW), the brief instance immersed me in the setting of the game and the conflicts that I would continue to face each time I logged in. My character was already an integral part of the struggle, having hid precious relics, and facing a terrible foe named Skorgrim just minutes from the start. It was an exciting experience, and a great way to start the game.

LotRO contains many other elements that help to create a very polished gameplay experience. The quest flow is fantastic. The quests are centered around the conflicts between races and regions. The quest dialogue is more detailed than that in WoW, so the lore is there for those who care. I constantly felt like a hero, whether saving a lynx cub or gathering allies to defeat an evil wraith. The areas are also catered to gameplay. While an area may appear to be a wooded field from a distance, the trees are placed in clusters to allow for proper combat and gameplay space. Also, areas are often full of quests. When I left a town, I could frequently complete five quests before I returned.

LotRO is certianly more exciting in the beginning than WoW. I found that starting in an instance was a fantastic way to immerse me in the lore of the game. Although I have skimmed my fair share of LotRO quests, I am always glad that the lore is there behind every quest I complete. LotRO's world feels more real to me, and it is a place where I feel respected as a player.  

One of the most challenging issues to deal with in our society today is a lack of productivity. People can spend eight hours at work and come home, feeling as if they got nothing done all day. Yet games such as World of Warcraft (WoW) provide a very rewarding structure. In just half an hour in WoW, a player can kill 20 vermin and complete a quest or two. In a night, a player can gain an entire level, especially at lower levels. WoW is excellent at providing rewards, but is it fun?

In the early levels, playing as a draenei paladin, I found WoW to be both fun and rewarding. In just four hours, I reached level 10. The game is cleverly tailored to beginning players; the opening area is easy and harmful creatures are clearly marked. Enemies are often not hostile until attacked.

Blizzard added a lot of very thoughtful design concepts to the opening quest flow as well, making questing quite painless. Players are given just a few quests to manage at first - no more than five or six. Breadcrumb quests are given to lead the player to the next area, and there are often additional quest-givers along the way, providing both a visual cue for the player and reinforcement that he is on the right path. Quests given out the same time are often grouped in the same area, reducing frustration for a player, as he can often get rewarded for killing the enemies on the way to a quest item. The actual numbers of items to be collected are also kept to a minimum, often between 1 and 8, reducing tedium. Another nice feature was a remote quest giver, such as a scout in an enemy area, that could give the player credit or move him forward in a nearby quest without the need for the player to return to town.

The quest flow in Ammen Vale and Azuremyst Isle was enjoyable, but still not quite satisfying enough for me. There were only a couple memorable quests out of the many that I completed. I was very impressed by the Prophecy of Akida quest chain, in which I could turn into a panther and travel through the world as if I were in a spiritual realm. The game took on a sepia tone, and the screen swirled into a haze. It was a fantastic experience, but, unfortunately, such quests are the exception. Most of the quest writing is somewhat bland and uninteresting; while WoW does have a fairly consistent writing tone, it seems to be written for those that only wish to skim the text. For this reason, I felt that, although I was generously rewarded for completing quests, the rewards themselves were hollow. The people who gave me the quests were not characters, just resources. The work I did seemed to have little impact on the world around me.

Although playing through WoW at a normal pace was more satisfying than playing with triple experience, I found that it is still not the MMO for me. The unmemorable quests encourage the player to push through the levels without much thought. It seems to promote instant gratification with minimal effort or investment in the world. I prefer a world that encourages me to be invested in the story and to reward me only when I deserve it.  

Blizzard has a recruitment promotion for World of Warcraft (WoW) that gives the recruiter and a new member triple experience while questing together. I'm interested in working in MMO development, so I thought this might be a good way to get to the endgame in WoW. While it seemed like a good idea at first, I soon found that this type of unbalanced leveling led to a host of problems.

I began as a blood elf hunter and my friend chose a blood elf warlock. The first few levels felt easy, which is typical and helps to get players hooked. There were some nice areas, such as Farstrider Square, that had a lot of quests and were well-designed.

The problems started occurring after the first few levels. I actually got to a point where I had absolutely no quests, perhaps because I had missed a breadcrumb quest or leveled too quickly for the area. There were too few quests to start, and then there were too many. My friend and I began abandoning more fun but time-consuming quests for the kill quests, as they would provide more experience points for our time. The quest flow was completely thrown off by the triple experience. We were abandoning quests that would unlock other quests, and leveling became a dull grind.

There were other problems caused by the unusually fast leveling. We had too little money, as items we would normally gather and sell in the completion of quests were no longer acquired. This led us to be too poor to buy some skills unlocked as we leveled beyond our financial means.

I may have enjoyed WoW more at a normal pace, but the triple experience seems to turn leveling into a grind. I would hope that a lot of the fun in an MMO could come from the journey, not the destination (or endgame). If I'm going to spending hundreds of hours in that virtual world, I want to enjoy as much of it as I can.  

I was thrilled and devastated to finish Prince of Persia today. The game that had been my welcome obsession and favorite form of relaxation had ended. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I won't share the ending, but I was more than a little disturbed by what I saw before the final credits rolled.

Fortunately, there was an epilogue released recently, which I hastily downloaded. I paced back and forth, wondering what would happen. How would they resolve the story?

I started up the DLC, and found it to feel entirely different. There was a dark tone, and Elika and the Prince had been reduced to bickering children. The DLC takes place inside a deep, cavernous palace, eliminating the lovely vistas and scenic views I so loved. The incentive to explore is all but eliminated, and the healings are gone. The lovely rewards of this level are gone and all that's left are the dank, diseased areas.

I would feel better about being stuck in diseased areas if they didn't become so dramatically difficult. The game was clearly trying to stand up to reviewers that criticized the game for being too easy. Instead of a relaxed, balanced level, the game resorted to annoying arcade mechanics to make it more "difficult". For example, when there was once one patrolling enemy blocking my path, there were now two or three, each on their own timer. While the Prince could often narrowly miss each enemy with one fluid, carefully-timed run, he now was stuck waiting for three balls of goo to line up just so. It completely ruined the momentum and spirit of the game.

Another frustrating element added to create a greater "challenge" was giving the player no clue as to where to go. At one point, I had to slide down a wall, dodging almost 12 diseased balls of goo. When I finally made a successful trip to the bottom, I had no idea where to go and fell to my death. Finally, I figured out that I had to jump offscreen to an area that I had no clue existed. This creates a lot of unnecessary frustration for the player. Developers should recognize that those who buy and play the DLC are those that finish the game; those who complain wouldn't bother. The DLC should be modeled to match the game, not to punish those who enjoyed it.

My final frustration with the DLC was the boss battles. I encountered one boss in the course of my time playing the DLC, and I chose to quit the DLC forever in the middle of the boss fight. The boss was invulnerable until knocked off the edge (a process I understood, as I often defeated a boss that way in the original game). It took about five minutes for me to knock the boss off the edge. Then I had to attack the boss in his alternate form. I began an attack, but, given the acrobatic nature of combat, attacks take some time. I got one hit in on the boss before he became invulnerable again (about 15 seconds after becoming vulnerable). I tried again, with the same result. I was so frustrated and felt completely defeated. I was not going to spend an hour fighting a boss, most of which would be spent trying to coax an invulnerable monster off a ledge. That was when I quit.

I absolutely loved Prince of Persia. Despite its shocking ending, I enjoyed everything in the original game. It was a wonderful experience for the many reasons that I mentioned in my previous post. I was so disappointed with the DLC; they removed almost everything that I loved about the original game. I would not recommend the DLC to anyone who enjoyed the original.  

I admire Valve and the work they do, but most of their games have been far too scary (Half-Life series) or require too much skill (Team Fortress 2) for me to enjoy. For this reason, I was hesitant to try Left 4 Dead (L4D), but I finally did upon the insistence of a few good friends.

I played L4D on two separate occasions: once as survivors against an AI enemy, and later against a rival team of players, switching off between the survivors and the zombies. Although I enjoyed both experiences, I enjoyed being a survivor against the AI best because the game was more predictable, and no one had to be a loser. Regardless of the mode, I really commend Valve for a return to a more close-knit co-op game, which provides a fantastic opportunity for teamwork and tactical thinking.

While I still enjoyed playing L4D when I was fighting other players, it wasn't as fun for me. The other team seemed to understand how to use the zombies much better, and the fact that they had human reasoning behind their strategies became annoying. The other team would know the perfect spot to stand to drag me down, throw up on me, or otherwise hinder me. When I was a zombie, the other team continued to win, and I was dead in just one or two hits. I would wait forever to respawn, then wait in what I thought was a good spot, only to be foiled by those more experienced. L4D, like many online games, has a steep learning curve for novices.

Despite solid mechanics, friends are what kept me going in L4D. I'm not a big fan of shooters, and L4D is a shooter at heart. I lack the skill of many experienced FPS players and online veterans. However, the encouraging words and amusing comments of my friends via voice chat kept me going. I really enjoy the camaraderie of co-op games, whether it's online or in-person.

While I did enjoy playing L4D with my friends, I'm not sure how often I'll seek it out. A dark city overrun with creepy zombies and scary noises is not exactly a world that I would want to escape to at night for entertainment. Perhaps that is why I seem to find myself allying with friends in Lord of the Rings: Online more often. Regardless, I glad to see that Valve is bringing back this type of small-group co-op and encouraging teamwork in games again.  

When I first saw my friend playing Prince of Persia, I thought it was a beautiful game. Screenshots couldn't capture the beauty of the game - it looked like a painting in motion. There were beautiful vistas, fluid animations, and an overall fantastic flow. My friend claimed that it was fun to play, but I had no idea just how fun it was until I got to play it myself.

After so many frustrating game experiences, Prince of Persia is a welcome change. The game is an absolute pleasure to play. Much like one of my other favorite games, Okami, the game involves traversing through diseased areas and healing them. As a player, my job is to beautify the area, bringing light to it and driving out the evil. I could heal an area in about half an hour, creating a very satisfying experience, much like a good TV show. Each level had a beginning, middle, and end.

The best part about Prince of Persia is that I enjoy each part of every level. While traveling through a diseased area, I have to solve small puzzles and do some amazing acrobatics. Unlike Mirror's Edge, I am completely relaxed about doing ridiculously acrobatic moves. The Prince is drawn to nearby holds almost with a magnetic pull. Then, if he dies, his companion will rescue him and place him nearby. I absolutely love this feature - it greatly reduces the stress and cuts down on time spent fuming over loading screens. The player is punished enough for missing a jump with their frustration; the Prince's companion simply brings levity to annoying but inevitable situation with clever comments.

After traveling through a deserted area, there is usually a boss fight. There are a few main bosses, each providing a different challenge. The combat moves are beautifully acrobatic and fluid. Fights are an elegant dance. Although I have had a few frustrating moments, mainly due to movement limitations during fights, I have been impressed overall with the fluidity and grace of the fights.

Once a boss has been defeated, the area can be healed by the Prince's companion, Elika. After the healing, the area becomes beautiful, and the level then becomes a playground with collectable light seeds scattered about. The levels are cleverly designed to be fun not only with the enemies as obstacles brought on by disease; they are also great fun to traverse once cleared. The Prince can travel with a speed and fluidity reminiscent of flying. This is a wonderful experience that I had not had in a game before, with the exception of a few moments in Mirror's Edge.

Another clever element of this game is the dialogue. The game took a risky move with the narrative, breaking the story up into mostly on-demand story chunks unlocked by sub-areas. I really enjoyed it, as some nights I wanted to chat with Elika and other nights I didn't. I love the relationship between the Prince and Elika, and the comraderie that comes from being in such a situation. The Prince is arrogant but undeniably amusing, and Elika is intelligent with a wicked sense of humor.

I'm really looking forward to playing more Prince of Persia. It has become a wonderfully relaxing way for me to enjoy my evenings. It is an unusual game that took a lot of risks that I really appreciate and it is a fantastically immersive experience.