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.  

For months, it seemed like all I heard about was Fable. As an RPG fan, I considered it my duty to at least try Fable II when it was released, as I had never played the original. I rented it with a friend, trying to keep an open mind.

The game began with a sweeping, lovely cinematic typical of many RPGs. The narrator had a lovely voice, and I happily got lost in it for a few minutes, until it ended rather abruptly, after following the path of some bird poop. I was willing to let that slide, and decided to focus on the gameplay. The character I played was a young girl with an older sister to introduce me to the world. My sister had the annoying habit of constantly calling me "Little Sparrow". I tried to ignore her, hoping that she would soon leave me alone.

As the game continued, I grew more and more frustrated with it. The dialogue was often laughable and sounded ridiculous for a fantasy setting. In a time of games such as Lord of the Rings: Online and TV shows such as Legend of the Seeker, the dialogue in Fable II had no excuse. In addition to the poor quality of the writing (at least in the opening area), the conversations were slow, taking forever to start and forcing me to wait an eternity to get a response. The voice-overs were slow, and it was difficult to tell from the audio cues if a conversation was starting or if something was simply an NPC bark. Poor conversation mechanics such as these are unacceptable in a game like an RPG that depends heavily on dialogue.

However, we persisted with the game, hoping that it would get better past the tutorial. Unfortunately, the game continued to aggravate me, with tedious mechanics such as holding down a button to collect experience from defeated enemies. Then the game only had one save slot, which seemed ridiculous. If I made a choice that did irreparable damage, it would become very difficult to get back, especially with just one save. Then the quest path was outlined in a conspicuous glowing highlight, which distracted greatly from the world around me. Although I can suspend disbelief by allowing game interfaces, this type of glowing path seems more distracting than if the developers had used an actual interface.

Still unwilling to give up hope, I wondered if there was something else that would make this game redeemable for me. There was, in fact, an interesting element similar to emotes in MMOs. Fable II has a social menu that allows the player to do certain actions, trying to gain or lose favor and other social elements from bystanders. There seemed little point to it, other than trying to amuse yourself with farts or get some helpless NPC woman to marry you. I was opposed to the idea of this - Fable isn't WoW or The Sims - and the whole concept of treating NPCs as expendable resources who are so easily influenced. This seemed to detract from the authenticity and took me out of the game.

I'm not sure what there is to love about Fable II; I found a lot that drove me away. While I respect what the developers were trying to do, they seem to be creating games for a very different type of RPG player.  

I really wanted Mirror's Edge to be my next favorite game. It started out so well. The only issue was that it was a little too challenging for my taste. But no game is perfect, right?

I found out at the end of chapter four that Mirror's Edge was just too difficult for me. The end no longer justified the means - I was attempting jumps over twenty times and turning off the game out of frustration. And I wasn't even to the fifth chapter. I read through the rest of the chapter on a walkthrough and found that I would not only have to jump onto a moving train - I'd have to dodge cement columns and jump onto other moving trains. The thrill of a challenge was gone. I lost hope.

I talked with my friends, wondering if I was just an inferior gamer and if I was really missing something. One of my friends finished the game, carefully explaining that there was little reward in the story or the gameplay. Enemies became nearly impossible to avoid, and the unpolished combat system became crippling. The game was tedious and expected the near impossible, requiring more luck than skill.

I was hesitant to give up on Mirror's Edge, but, after hearing my friend's bleak report regarding the rest of the game, I lost all motivation to continue. Mirror's Edge had so much potential with the sleek aesthetic, fantastic parkour mechanics, and solid opening level design. It's unfortunate that the attempt to make it more difficult seems unbalanced, perhaps by developers and testers too familiar with their game to see the unrealistic expectations on the player. If the entire game had been scaled to match the levels from the beginning chapters, it may have been a fun experience. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to give up on Mirror's Edge, as it is simply too difficult.  

I was really excited to check out Hotel Dusk. After watching a friend play it, I was intrigued by the art style. The box described the game as an "interactive mystery novel" and, unfortunately, they take the "novel" part quite seriously.

As an avid RPG fan, I'm no stranger to large blocks of text and dialogue. In fact, narrative is one of my favorite parts of RPGs. However, narrative at the expense of gameplay throws a game far out of balance. Hotel Dusk does just that. The game is weighed down by long conversations that offer only a few choices with seemingly little influence on the world. Most of the gameplay involved clicking through rooms, tedious searching of rooms, and looking for the person that would start my next lengthy dialogue.

On the rare occassion when I got to solve a puzzle, I often had trouble recognizing the situation. I often had to look online for help, as I was completely stuck. How was I to know that a utility closet which was locked the last four times I checked suddenly opened? And how was I supposed to know that there was a tool in that closet that I could use to cut off a length of a coat hanger firmly rooted to my closet? And then I was magically supposed to assume that I could use this to unlock a briefcase. The puzzles are mostly like the one I described - intensely elaborate and complicated. The people around were clueless to my problems and failed to offer any hints. Puzzle solving became a tedious endeavor in which I had to search through every room in the hotel again, engage each person in repetitive dialogues, and wonder why the logical answers never seem to be the right ones.

I really wanted to like this game, as it had a gorgeous art style and an interesting premise. However, this game is much more a novel than a game, and a boring novel at that. If solving mysteries in real life is this tedious, then perhaps it's good I'm not a detective.  

Last Thursday night, I was too restless to sleep. I usually take some time to relax after my late class, and I found the perfect way to unwind. I cracked open my brand-new copy of Mirror's Edge and played until two in the morning.

It's been a long time since I've loved a game enough from the start to play for hours. I had a feeling that I would like it from the demo, but I didn't know that it would be this much fun.

Perhaps the best part of Mirror's Edge is the sensation of flying. Sometimes this comes from familiarity with a level; after failing a certain part several times I would find the swiftest path. However, good level design can create the feeling of flying without practice runs. For example, when running through a particularly intuitive portion of a level, I found myself suddenly faced with just one option for escape: jumping down the steep side of a building. To my surprise, I slid smoothly down and then used my momentum to complete a particularly long jump. It was a great feeling, and the fantastic sensation of flying felt completely natural in that environment.

Aside from flying, I found many other areas to commend in Mirror's Edge. The first couple of levels that I played through were quite intuitive. When running through small spaces at high speeds, this is a particular accomplishment. I was impressed with the level design, since players need to run through the level as fast as possible, and ordinary platformer and adventure game rules do not apply. I was also glad that the enemies were not an issue, at least at this stage in the game, since I could avoid combat. The combat system seems less refined than other mechanics, and it's nice to have a more peaceful option.

My greatest challenge when playing action-adventure games like Mirror's Edge is jumping. I don't know what it is about me, but I seem to be lacking a key skill in the spatial-relations department. For a game that I enjoyed so much, it may seem surprising that I swore like a sailor half the time I played. I have an odd habit where I almost never curse, except when playing games. Perhaps that was the release I needed to cure my restlessness.

My love-hate relationship with Mirror's Edge became more of a love when I discovered how forgiving the game was regarding death and respawns. Most of the particularly difficult jumps only had to be completed once, which made them much more accessible for people like me. The game had a plethora of triggered spawn points that minimized the time it took for me to reach the points where I got stuck, which also reduced my frustration. No matter how hard a part may have seemed, at least I knew that I only had to complete it once.

I'm excited to play more of Mirror's Edge. The sleek aesthetic, modern music, and HD graphics round it out to create a very enjoyable experience. I hope that it continues to be this fun. If so, Mirror's Edge could easily become my next favorite game.  

When a classmate showed up at a study session proudly clutching the strategy guide to Warhammer Online: Age of Reconing (WAR), I rolled my eyes. For the past week, he had talked of nothing except WAR. Clearly, his obsession had only gotten worse. I initially dismissed him as a lone fanboy, but then I saw how more and more of my friends were joining this WAR. It was time for me to log on and check it out.

I was initially hesitant to play WAR given my aversion to PvP experiences. Yet I wanted to give it a fair shot, and at least take the time to explore the opening PvE gameplay.

At first, I was impressed with WAR. A fantastic opening cinematic sequence clearly established the characters of the world, from the goofy goblin squig herder to the seductive and deadly dark elf sorceress. There were massive enemies, brutal attacks and flashy effects, all of which helped create a welcome sense of chaos.

Then I was asked to create a character. After consulting some friends, I decided to play as a dark elf sorceress. While I normally like to create a little blonde girl that's a glamorized version of myself, I decided instead to make a fierce Megan Fox lookalike.

Once I got to the gameplay, I became disoriented. The UI was unnecessarily cluttered and confusing; for a game that plays a lot like World of Warcraft (WoW), the UI was rather unintuitive. I wouldn't have minded getting used to a new system, but I felt that a lot of UI decisions didn't make sense to me. For example, the colors for quest givers didn't clearly indicate to me which I had visited and which were strangers. While I did appreciate the indications of quest locations on my map, I found that a lot of the UI changes made from other MMOs (such as Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) or WoW) were essentially less user-friendly. If I were new to MMOs, my eyes surely would've glazed over.

However, the opening quests in WAR were decent. While the quests themselves weren't written with at the same level as MMOs like LotRO, the actual quests were interesting and went beyond the simple "Kill 5 Generic Enemies" quests. I don't expect WAR to be as detailed as LotRO since WAR is a PvP-focused MMO. Yet the PvE quests still had fun details like firing a special weapon at enemies and unleashing creatures resembling dinosaurs.

I must commend WAR for some great scripting, which helped to create a fantastic atmosphere. It was very rewarding to watch the dinosaur creatures I unleashed run to the nearest enemy and attack. I also liked how the elves I needed to defeat were already engaged in battle, and my allies would aid me when nearby. Then there was the quest that gave me a fantastic bird's-eye view of the war around me.

While I enjoyed playing as a lovely avatar, I have to admit that WAR seems to be more clearly geared toward a male audience than other MMOs. My Megan Fox lookalike started out in what amounted to a bra and skirt. I kept trying to buy clothes, but I couldn't at my low level. So when I finally got a new gown, I was excited to try it on. But then I saw that my new outfit was composed of even less fabric than my default bra and skirt. I wouldn't object if I could choose between the shamelessly exhibitionistic lingerie and the skintight leather catsuits, but there were no catsuits to be found. I also wouldn't have minded if there were more shirtless males running around, but, at least in my starting area, all the men seemed to be fully-clothed. Yet all the women I encountered seemed to be wearing things like Nehmora the Hag, dressed in essentially a bikini and thigh-high boots.

I must admit that WAR does seem to do well sticking to their theme. WAR stays consistent with many details. For example, as a dark elf sorceress, I could choose abilities that followed the paths of agony, calamity, or destruction. When I was continually asked to "kill the poet high elves," I began to feel slightly guilty for being so evil. Despite my feelings, I was glad to see how deeply the developers had explored the dark atmosphere.

As a single-player PvE experience, WAR didn't pull me in like LotRO. While I appreciated the quests and themes, I don't feel that WAR's PvE has the same level of polish as some other MMOs on the market. However, WAR was not made to excel as a PvE game. I tried to explore more of the PvP aspect, but I gave up after queueing for a PvP quest for half an hour. I think I will reserve judgment until I've played more of the PvP. Unfortunately, I fear that I may not be the right person to appreciate WAR, given my preference for the "care bear" experiences.