Back in black

Well, that was a longer than expected hiatus... sorry about that.

Since that last post, I've experienced picking up a game at launch (two, actually, including my first pre-order in over a decade), a controversy involving fanboy trolling, and my first multiplayer beta.  (Amongst other things, including my first Call of Duty game on a current generation console, being the glorious Black Ops, which I should devote some posting time to.)

The two launch games were the previously mentioned Halo: Reach and Dragon Age 2, by the way.

Anywho, a brief rundown over some of my thoughts about gaming over the past nine months, which I may expand upon later: 

• Halo: Reach was a fun experience, as I really do like the Halo franchise, and it was my first foray into online multiplayer.  I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I haven't played an online multiplayer game since the original Doom, unless you want to count my days MUSHing and my brief stint with WoW, and my first exposure to online co-op play.
• Dragon Age 2 was an interesting case study in a few different ways.  Firstly, it was an interesting look at revamping the RPG experience into something that the developer was hoping will appear to a broader market.  Secondly, it was interesting to see how those changes were accepted by the Bioware fans.  And thirdly, it was interesting to see how a seemingly rushed development cycle effects a game with as many variables as a Dragon Age RPG has.  (For brevity's sake, the 'answers' are: A. rather unsuccessfully due to B. not very well in quite a few (and loud) cases, and C. it creates a ridiculous number of bugs that are probably the reason why Mass Effect 3 was pushed to Q1 2012.)
• The Gears of War 3 beta was my first experience with online multiplayer where my hand wasn't being held by a friend.  It's changed my perceptions of multiplayer, and I think I'm a lot more open to it now.  I'm still not much of a competitive player, but I can definitely see the appeal.  I'm contemplating a pre-order for the game, but I don't know how my funds are going to look this fall.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops was simply a divine experience, and I really can go on at length about how well it developed its secret 60s setting.  It hit all the right notes, and added enough cinema realism to really sell itself.  I don't know if the previous games hit these same notes, and I suspect they didn't, but I know that Black Ops sold me on the franchise.

There's a lot of other stuff to go on about, but I'll save them for another day.  The blog will be sporadically updated as I have time, and will probably slip into hiatus again come September, and my return to school. 

Note:  The background and colour scheme are temporary.  I need to put together a catalogue of  game images, so I went with the current background.  I'll probably change things on a monthly, or quarterly basis, or not... if it works out well.  We'll see.