Bioshock on play

Well, I picked up Bioshock.

First impressions: Death is not penalizing enough, story line is cool, random spawn is too Doom-ish (not a good thing), sound is awesome, presentation is awesome.

I will play through it some more and we will see how it goes!

Tabula Rasa Open Beta ...

... is going pretty well so far. There have been some server instability issues, but in a completely unexpected move, Richard Garriot (designer/producer of TR) chatted with people IN GAME (in chat) about them and what they were doing to fix.

That really impressed me.

The game play is surprisingly fast and fun, even though it is still an MMO. There are no "headshots" a`la FPS style games, but there is enough battlefield tactics to still feel pseudo-FPS.

The class system is reminiscent of SWG in that you choose how to level up as you go along. And I really liked that system, so I was happy to see it here.

Pleased enough, I pre-ordered.

I will probably post a more comprehensive view post-launch. I don't like reviewing pre-launch games. I find that to be a violation of the gamer/company trust with an open beta offering.

Next up: FEAR

So, I saw FEAR Gold Edition on the shelf for 20$.

It's one of those games that never attracted me (bad marketing IMO) but that I would periodically hear people say "I should go play FEAR again."

The latest person to say that was a coworker of mine who's opinion on video games I hold in higher regard than most.

So I grabbed it.

And last night I fired it up.

And I should have done this game a lot sooner.

Once I finish it (by the end of the weekend, tops) I'll have a review.

But so far, I've been pleasantly surprised.