I've just recently started reading Karen Travis' "Republic Commando" series, which started as an adaptation of the game from last generation. This got me, slightly, in the mood to reinstall the game on Steam and play some of it again. Other than having to set bump mapping to low, the game ran perfectly fine (outside of the fact the game doesn't hold up well). I remembered the game had MP so I jumped in, surprised to see what I did. People actually playing the online? Mind blown. Seriously. I tried to ask several players why they still played to get a sense of if it was a community thing over a game thing, but I never really got an answer. I did get accused of being a hacker, so there was that.

What Games Am I Currently Enjoying?

1. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection

2. Sleeping Dogs

3. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

4. Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

5. Guild Wars 2

6. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

Also had the pleasure of attending DragonCon 2012 in Atlanta, Ga for the first time. Definitely going back next year as it was incredibly fun. I had the honor of meeting James Callis three separate times over the weekend, which was amazing. I may include the story in the next blog post as it is really cool.

I'd still like to play Darksiders 2 but I feel like I can wait for a $35 sale on it as I know for sure I want to get the Ratchet and Clank HD collection...seriously love those games.

CS:GO has been an interesting transition for me. I've played CS since the early betas (around 3 or 4) so it has a special place in my heart. Some guns feel great while others (see: AK-47 and the M4) feel stilted and worse than even their older versions in something like Counter-Strike: Source. I've put maybe 10-12 hours in so far. If possible I'd like to get into playing CS:GO at least 8 hours a week, if possible. Then again, at one point I said the same about Team Fortress 2.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron's multiplayer seems worse than the original, in my opinion. The locomotion of the vehicles forms is far less satisfying and fun, some weapons and classes are incredibly overpowered, level progression is broken and used mostly as a way to dominate other lower leveled characters, and they removed the vehicle specific abilities like the leader class (who has been renamed) had an ability to, in vehicle form, ram into others...I miss that...or the infiltrator class being able to do barrel rolls after high jumps...I miss that too. Did I mention the game feel broken and unbalanced to me? One word, at least: Scrapmaker. Also, why does the tank class move faster in robot form than in tank form? I have noticed my fair share of lag in almost every server as well, so I'm not sure what's going on with that.