Game Samples

Don't let my previous post fool you.. I have not reactivated my WoW account yet. It was just something that occurred to me while reading about private (aka. pirate) WoW servers.

EVE ONLINE
No, I'm also not playing Eve Online, even though I've advanced enough in that game to be able to play for free, It demands a certain consistency and time spent on "upkeep" and not really playing the game, for as long as I want to play for free, which is always.

DIABLO 3
I'm giving the free trial of Diablo 3 a shot, didn't make it very far yet though. Took a little walk to town, killing some undead on the way, and logged off in town. I haven't formed an opinion on it yet, since I've barely played it so far.

STARCRAFT 2
Another freebie I'm trying from Blizzard is the Starcraft Starter Edition. I did the tutorials and first mission. I'm completely unfamiliar with the terms and abilities, but since I have experience playing Warcraft 3 it's pretty intuitive. The characters and story are interesting enough for me to come back at some point and continue.

HEARTHSTONE (BETA)
Then there's Hearthstone, the upcoming "card" battle game from Blizzard. I signed up for the closed beta and got in. I liked it a lot, and did my duty as beta tester, sending a crash report to Blizz. For now I don't think I'll be going back to play it again though. You see, at the beginning you get a "starter deck" which happens to be a Mage deck. Each deck has a Hero character that acts as your avatar in the game.

I have nothing against mages, but I wish I could have chosen my starter class. I would have picked Paladin, because that would be in line with my WoW character. Anyway, once you do the tutorial, you're ecouraged to play Practice games, where you can challenge the different classes in easy difficulty, gain points that eventually unlock more cards specific to your class, and unlock the classes you win against so you can play them as well.

So, I challenged the Paladin first, of course, and after refining my strategy I eventually beat him, but by then the Mage had a good deck set up and had many unlocked cards. Instead of switching to Paladin I decided to waste no time and just use the Mage to defeat the rest of the classes, which I did, and some on the first try. I then collected my rewards and wondered what to do next. I could go try the classes on "expert" difficulty, or go challenge other players, each would help me unlock more cards and play modes I reckon.
Well, this is where I decided to just leave it. It felt like having killed the last boss on LFR in WoW, and thinking "What now?" The last boss is dead, and you can go try it on a higher difficulty, but it will still be the same boss. It's either that or PvP. And PvP can be nice, but it has no story, and I like a good story.

PATH OF EXILE
Yesterday a friend told me I should check this game out, it's free, and so I did. From playing it about 1hr 30 mins I can say it's like an instanced open world Diablo MMO. It's dark and gorey like Diablo and has a similar hack n' slash gameplay. I do like it and will play this occasionally, until I reactivate WoW.. most likely a few weeks before WoW's next expansion gets released, so I can kill Ordos (unfinished business).

That's in a nutshell what I've been up to game-wise.

Have you tried any of these games? Do you like them? Have any questions? Let me know in a comment!

Thanks for reading!