Not so much gaming lately, but of the games I have picked up, BioShock Infinite stands out as one of the best and certainly most interesting games that I have played in recent memory. I didn't know too much about BioShock Infinite other than it had received high remakes all around, as it was kind of an impulse purchase. I guess personally speaking, I enjoy playing most game types of more when half the game isn't spoiled by trailers, previews, etc. If at all possible, I would highly recommend playing this game with a fresh perspective, before the Internet spoils it too much (though I guess it's a little late for that).

Thematically and narratively, BioShock Infinite offers depth that is seldom seen in a game. A lot of the story is told without explicitly being said. The environment is littered with clues and puzzle pieces; Not only the voxophones (be sure to listen to these as they explain much of the story), but details placed about Columbia; A pristine 19th century classical American city contrasted by ugly dark undertones. Elizabeth is a good companion who is around just when you need her and not when you don't. Which is nice, otherwise BioShock Infinite could have been the most irritating and longest escort mission ever. I am pretty sure that she is explicitly programmed to never ever stand in front of you during combat or in the line of fire. She cant die in combat and her pathing is pretty solid as well so you don't really have to worry about her.

The actual gameplay the weakest part of the game in my opinion. BioShock Infinite is extremely fun to play, but not mechanically groundbreaking in any way. The weapon choices for example, were decent in that they were sufficiently varied, but the upgrade system was sub-par and the gunplay was so-so for a triple A game. The vigors were also introduced too fast during the later half of the game. The first 2 or 3 or so were fine, but past that I swear that new vigors were basically shoved in your face at the pace of about 2 or 3 per hour of play. The gameplay isn't bad by any measure, but it feels pretty average, which is kind of an shame because the weak gameplay elements were the difference between a very good game and what could have been an exceptional game.

I think a contributing factor to the original BioShock's appeal was how unique it felt in regards to the narrative and environment were integrated into the gameplay experience as a whole. BioShock infinite treads on the same ground, but it does so gracefully. Highly recommended.

Regarding this article and this statement:

...that only a small percentage of players would use it and that the price of items would limit how many were listed and sold.

I do appreciate the admission of fault, no matter how late but, what? How could you not have expected absolutely everyone to use the auction house, especially when everyone has been bitching about it from day 1? Low hanging fruit theory states that players will more likely than not, take the path of least resistance to upgrade gear. In Diablo 3's case, that is the auction house, as it is the easiest if not the only way (good luck with actual drops) of obtaining high level upgrades.

I mean, this game is so centered around the gearing treadmill that just about everything that you do is influenced by how well equipped you are. D3 almost forces you to use it.

HearthStone: Hah Blizzard the Gathering; My prediction was right on the money. I was expecting either a CCG or a mobile game since Blizzard, if i recall correctly, either outright stated or implied that the new title would be relatively minor. I was hoping that it would be a crossover between all of the major Blizzard franchises instead of just Warcraft, but it is what it is. All jokes and unreasonably butthurt comments aide, HeathStone is certainly new and actually looks fun in my opinion, but that is coming from someone who likes card games and the like. I guess popular speculation states that Blizzard is likely testing out the F2P model with HearthStone.

WoW: After about 8 years and change, I ended up canceling my WoW subscription last week. Panda time was fun, as was playing with most of the old crew again but I just haven't really had/felt the need, interest, or time to login to the game enough to warrant $15 a month. Quit permanently? No, of course not. Come next expansion pack, I am sure that I will be back for a few months. But honestly? I think I am mostly done with all MMOs until something significantly different is released. The genre as a whole just feels really outdated.

BioShock Infinite: It's funny how the games I haven't been giving much thought to are the ones I end up buying and visa versa. Popular positive internet opinions drove me to impulse buy BioShock last night. I have also heard that it is a very spoiler sensitive game, so I wanted to buy it before I end up spoiling it for myself on Reddit.

Hmmm, I wrote this bit earlier:

Is there even anything noteworthy coming out in the near future?

On second thought, it's actually been a fairly release heavy quarter so far. I know that Crysis 3 came out at the end of February and aside from SimCity and the new Sims 3 expansion, I had totally forgotten about Heart of the Swarm among other things. I think I sill have an $18 credit on my Battle.net account from selling some crap-ass item on the D3 RMAH. That credit if present, will likely be applied to the expansion at some point. As far as everything else, we will have to see as time and money permits.

Just to continue beating the dead horse: I am uncomfortable with SimCity's multiplayer focus which to be honest adds very little to the game in my opinion. It is nice being able to build on the same region with your friends, but interaction between players is pretty minimal. When you are forced to start removing features to allow customers to play a singleplayer game (with marginal success at that) you should probably a few items to reevaluate. But that said, I did purchase SimCity with full knowledge that it had always on DRM, so as long as the servers work, whatever.

Overall the gameplay itself is incredibly intriguing and addictive, though the AI can use some work to say the least. The crap-ass traffic AI and what not are really the only serious points of contention that I have with Simcity, which in theory should have been corrected with the most recent update. The traffic issues were bad to the extent that they make the game almost unplayable past a certain point. I mean, absolutely everything boils down to traffic at some level: Trade deliveries, fire/police services, happiness, and so forth. I do really like being able to create a working supply chain within and between cities though. If I recall correctly, this particular gameplay element is new to SimCity.

Against my better judgement (always on DRM), I purchased SimCity off of Origin. It is to say the least, kind of sad that I never really expected to be able to play this game on launch because of the expected massive server fail, particularly for a title that is and always has been a single player game as a whole. As a general rule of thumb, I try not to pass judgement on an MMO based off of launch performance but Sim City? Isn't this supposed to be the game that we play when the Internet is down?

I will try to evaluate this title as a new game or more accurately, a series reboot rather than a true sequel to Sim City 4 because from for everything that I have heard it really is most definitely not a true successor to Sim City 4, and if that is what you are expecting, disappointment will be had. But that said, aside from a fairly slow initial download ("processing large files"), I was able to connect to the west coast US servers without any queuing, play as well as resume my saved games without any problems for the entire evening.

The smaller city sizes do feel fairly restrictive. Within one evening's worth of play, I was able to build across the entire map. The trick now, will be to grow via optimization in place of map expansion. Despite the DRM hoopla and what not, SimCity is an extremely engrossing and fun game to play.

Edit: Not so much luck tonight! It took us about a half hour to successfully create and then join a game together after many failed attempts at relogging into our Origin accounts, readding each other etc. We were actually able to play for about an hour and a half until we got booted again. Poop.