Sean’s House

Ok, so for the past few months, Final Fantasy XI has been the bread and butter of my video game experience. However, my attention span got to the point where I had to play something else also…

Here’s the list of what else I’m playing right now:

XIII: VERY cool cel-shaded FPS. The single player mode is awesome. Multiplayer leaves something to be desired due to the relative fragility of players. Download the demo at the very least.

Call of Duty: Another FPS, this one set during World War II, with you engaging in “squad-lite” (you don’t actually tell anyone what to do) missions as either an American, British, or Russian soldier. Very well scripted, and very fun to play. Watching your squadmates land in a field via parachute in the opening mission is awesome, and the first Russian mission is crazy scary! While you can’t really compare the game to the real thing, it has definitely upped my respect level for the men and women who fought then.

Magic the Gathering Online: Online version of the “classic” (I can’t believe I’m saying that) trading card game, Magic the Gathering. In my mind MTGO takes care of the two major issues I have with MTG; One, hauling around a boatload of physical cards; and Two, actually finding someone to play against. There are definitely issues with the online version, but if you ever enjoyed the card game, you should definitely check it out. You can download the client for free, and play 8th edition preconstructed decks against others, but if you open an account (which costs $9.99) you get a $9.99 coupon to buy digital cards at the online store. Or if you prefer, you can buy the core game set for $15 or so and not only do you get all the physical cards that comes with it, but corresponding digital cards and an MTGO account for free!

Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds: I’m not particularly impressed with this game. Interesting concept, but the controls are awkward (being designed for console and adapted back to PC) and the graphics are sluggish, which is odd considering I’ve got a P4 2.6HT with 1GB of ram and a GF4 ti4600. And at 700MB to download the demo, I definitely think my time was wasted here.