It's Monday, October 24. I've got a few thoughts about the recent gaming happenings and I figured I'd get them out here.

RAGE - I'm not enraged, but I am disappointed.

Aw, man. You let me down at the last second, id. I really enjoyed a lot of Rage. Especially shotgunning dudes, that is the best. But you only have three types of enemies - mutants, bandits, and soldiers - and your story sucks. It could have been interesting, too, but you killed it right when it could have gotten good. A lot of people ragged on you for your graphics but I didn't really mind - I'm willing to forgive a lot when you run as fast as you do - but you needed more in your game. I wish you had left out the driving part and worked more on the shooting and the story.

Batman - is freakin' great. But you don't need me to tell you that.

I will say, though, that making your lone enemies take three hits but your groups of enemies take like 10 hits each (on hard mode at least, haven't tried the others) is really irritating. Why do guys suddenly become iron men when they're in a group with a dozen other guys? I am now very practiced at using the combo takedown move.

Dungeon Defenders - blahhhh...

So yeah, I was taken in by this game. There goes 13 of my dollars. It's a real grindfest and totally uninteresting. On the other hand...

Orcs Must Die - is unexpectedly a lot of fun

Yes a lot of the attitude is kind of annoying, but the controls are awesome and the many different strategies to beat the levels are all really fun. Check out the demo on Steam.

Real Steel - DO NOT BUY THIS GAME

So I bought Real Steel for ten bucks after playing the trial version on XBLA. What a mistake that was. And I only played two matches. I stopped playing and deleted the game when I saw that in order to put designer parts on your robot, you have to buy them. In sets. For real money - 10 dollars PER SET. Wow. Screw you guys. This is the only time I have ever contemplated calling Xbox Live and complaining to try to get my money back.

Guardian Heroes

I like it. It's WAY old school, though. There can be like 15 enemies on screen at once, and when they can all blast you around and juggle you it can get sort of hectic. But I like it. It's definitely more worthy of your ten bucks than Real Steel. Ugh.

Ready Player One

Not game-related, I know, but I have to get this off my chest: this is not a good book. I am struggling to read it and I'm only in chapter 4. It's all written in first-person, too, so every sentence is "I went to this place" or "I picked up the thing" and that gets REALLY TIRESOME after a bit. Simply making references to every single videogame-related thing from the 80's doesn't make your book fun - it makes it monotonous, uninspired, and boring. The guy can't write. I even paid for it sight unseen, just like I paid for all four George R. R. Martin books on the recommendation of some friends and a million people on the internet. What a disaster that was. I've got to stop listening to people who are not me.

And now, onto the real topic:

WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME, BLIZZARD?!

So yeah, Blizzard has taken a head-long leap into Facebook casual gamerdom. They have taken the talent points AND skill points out of Diablo 3 completely, they added a real money auction house, and they are totally removing talent trees from WoW and in their place they are adding what amounts to Pokemon collecting and battling. I weep for the children. Thank God I have The Old Republic coming very soon. You know they even had the gall to suggest that because everyone was already using the same talent setups for their tanking/healing/DPS specs that it would actually be a good thing to remove almost all the choices from the game? How dumb does that sound? Now each tank, healer, and damage dealer really WILL be exactly the same. And I haven't even talked about that ridiculous one-year WoW commitment deal. Who do they think they're kidding, anyway? Thanks, Blizzard, you have lost your collective minds. And pandas as a playable race is stupid.

I haven't given up on Starcraft 2 yet (mainly because I really want to play through the story) but you're really pushing it Blizzard. I already moved from World of Warcraft to Rift to The Old Republic. If you don't straighten up your act real soon, I may decide I don't need you in my life. And considering you hardly ever release any games, it won't be that big of a sacrifice.