Moody Gamer

Just after the release of Crysis Warhead and on the 18th of September 2008, Mythic Entertainment has released the much anticipated MMORPG game based on the popular Warhammer franchise: Warhammer Online – Age of Reckoning. You can learn more about the game and how it fared by reading MEGamers Warhammer Online Review.

Today also marks the game’s first month since release and it is going strong. With 750,000 accounts and being the smoothest MMO launch ever, Mythic are off with an impressive start. All that remains is to see how WAR will fare against the test of time. Read up more about the first month of WAR.

For me, WAR is currently the game I am playing and, until now, plan to play for maybe a couple of months. At least hit the level cap which is 40 and am currently level 24 (Rank 24). I play as a Black Orc, named Grimaxe, which is a tank class but can play as a melee dps class (damage per second class, also known as damage dealers). The game is quite enjoyable and my first impression is better than when I started WoW. You got a lot of things to do from the start and there is that sense of no need to rush to Rank 40. You can experience almost a huge portion of the game from the start and during leveling.

When I do reach the level cap, I will evaluate if it is still fun to continue or stop. Keep in mind that even though I am limited by Rank 40 (Which is harder than getting WoW level 60 btw), there is a lot to work on to reach renown rank 80 (renown is like experience for participating in RvR activities like killing players from the other faction).

I have some concerns with the graphics engine since even with 3GB of RAM, it stutters, which can only means some sort of optimization is required. The other thing is the animation, Mythic really need to work on it and get it in sync with the actions. There are some other bugs and concerns but nothing to take away the fun and/or obvious. I log in and check for an open party to join for PQs (Public Quests), do normal quests, queue for scenarios or join a warband to siege a keep.

I managed to get into some of the dungeons but still have to clear one. Being a player who farmed WoW dungeons heavily, things are different and don’t work the same way. I guess with time we will figure it out.

If you are interested to joining the WAR then you can find me on the European server “Sea of Dreams” (not to be confused with the upcoming Bioshock prequel). Keep in mind that the monthly fee for the game is 15$ and you do get a one month free trial when you purchase an account.

Feel free to ask me any questions about the game.

Since I updated. Lots happened during that time: Ramadhan, Eid, started Masters program, excessive workload and working on some new reviews at MEGamers. So on the gaming scene, a huge amount of new stuff came out and/or happened that I don’t know where to start. Maybe a good starting point is what was I doing related to gaming.

First of all, I played and finished Devil May Cry 4 on the PC. Easy recommendation for button mashing players. You get to play as both Nero and Dante with each having their own play style. The game does suffer from one of the most horrible repetition of levels and boss fights. It is also worth to mention that it runs great on the PC compared to it’s older brother DMC3, so good job Capcom.

I also managed to grab a PS3 and a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4. All I can say that it is AWESOME. I can’t remember a game having a more complicated, twisted and emotional story better than this. I must warn you that it is very much recommended that you play MGS 1 to 3, which you can play on the PS2 (MGS1 was released on the PS1 and PC, while MGS2 was released later on PC after PS2 release). Keep in mind that MGS4 is about granting the player an experience through both cinematics and gameplay which both complement each other very well. The game is quite lengthy since I managed to go through it in about 19 hours without checking many features out because I aimed for the story. Though that time can be extended thanks to the replay value MGS games have. I haven’t checked out the multiplayer part of the game but from various feedbacks, it seems to be a blast.

Going back to PC, As I told you before, I purchased Crysis Warhead from Steam. Being in Oman, I totally recommend against this. It is both slow and expensive to get the game that way. Since you will have to pay 30$ for the game and then pay for the gigabytes to download through Omantel which many of you know, is bloody expensive (1RO per GB or about 2.6$ per GB). So you will end up paying more that 60$ for the game over here. Check out the review of Crysis Warhead to know more about the game.

One thing many of you know, Warhead is quite demanding on the PC, so I went ahead and bought me a Gigabyte Radeon 4870 512MB card (Contact me if you want to know where to get one in Oman) and am happy that I did. The game is now very playable on Enthusiast setting at 1680×1050 resolution. Though I can’t enable Anti aliasing ore Anisotropic Filtering. I also got me an extra 2 GB of RAM which helps a lot since Warhead is very resource hungry. Of course I did suffer the penalty of using Windows XP 32Bit version hence my PC shows only 3.25GB instead of 4GB. I guess 64 Bit OS is the way forward, but an extra GB is still useful.

I still have a lot to write about and because of time, I have to stop here and will update another day. Feel free to let me know of your experiences about the games mentioned above.