In GameDrone Monthly I give a recap of my gaming activities in the past month, some new articles on GameDrone that you might have missed and what I expect to be doing in the coming month.
Maybe you’d like share your experiences, send in a game you’d like me to cover on GameDrone or team up for a multiplayer or co-op game this month. Whatever the reason, feel free to leave a comment and we’ll discuss :)
Now April was a month filled with indie games and older games, not just in terms of game releases, but also in terms of what I played and covered on GameDrone.
April on GameDrone
The month obviously started out with a lot of April Fool’s Day pranks. There were a few really good ones amongst them, such as Blizzard’s Battle.Net match making service and those beautiful Diablo 3 gaming blankets. I think they might actually be able to earn some money off of those…
Playing through Command & Conquer 4 resulted in an article detailing just how much the singleplayer campaign sucked, as well as a guide to that very campaign. Not the most logical of combinations. That did get me in the mood for more strategy gaming however and I soon followed suit by playing through WarCraft 3 and demonstrating how to survive without a StarCraft 2 beta key! Ironically, I received a beta key a few days after that article.
Meanwhile I made the monthly release date list a permanent page on the site and added a vodcast category with a clumsy first attempt at a Shattered Horizon vodcast. All the while posting guides to fix the performance of BioShock, improve the graphics in Mass Effect and make WarCraft 3 playable in high resolutions.
The month ended with a critical look at Modern Warfare 2′s failed multiplayer component and a barrage of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 info. This ranged from the new Guild Wars Beyond campaign in the original game to gameplay details and combat information for the upcoming sequel.
It was a very busy month in all and I fully intend to provide even more interesting articles in May. There are a few indie games I really should be writing reviews for by now, as well as a new vodcasts category that’s begging for more content, so expect to see some improvements in those areas as well.
WarCraft 3 was the game that got the most attention in April
Games I played
I started April with the singleplayer campaign of Command & Conquer 4. It was fortunate that I didn’t expect the game to be much fun, because it wasn’t. EA had entirely thrown around the gameplay mechanics, but rather than ending up with an innovative and enjoyable game, like Dawn of War 2, they ended up with mediocre muck, like Tom Clancy’s Endwar. I got in a few 5 vs 5 multiplayer matches, but those weren’t much of an improvement, so I haven’t really played it all since early April. I really should just uninstall it already.
Then I got a shot at earning a StarCraft 2 beta key – which I did win – so I set about playing through the WarCraft 3 singleplayer campaign as indirect practice. Now I’m almost halfway into The Frozen Throne expansion pack and it’s become more of a thing that I really want to play through to see how it all culminates into World of WarCraft’s setting. I’d never actually finished either game before, but unfortunately my StarCraft 2 play time is suffering from this as I’ve only gotten around to playing a handful of games.
Inbetween all the strategy gaming, I also teamed up with some friends for a few Modern Warfare 2 matches. It’s definitely not my favorite shooter, but with a lot of my friends playing it exclusively I find myself joining in more than I’d expect. Fortunately a few of them have moved on over to Battlefield: Bad Company 2, so I’ve been playing more of that recently. The infantry combat still isn’t up-to-par with most other shooters, but it’s a definite improvement over previous Battlefield games and I the sheer intensity of the game, with cover crumbling under heavy fire and extremely loud gunfire, more than makes up for it.
Lastly I played a few hours of Outcast, Quake Live, Shattered Horizon and some indie games. Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West, Plain Sight and Shatter were all good fun. There are few things crazier than going from bunny hopping, sword wielding robots in space to arkanoid with powerups, bullet storms and level bosses.
I hope to be playing a lot more of this than that other shooter
Games I intend to play
In May I hope to finish WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne and then get some real StarCraft 2 gameplay in. I have a few friends in beta now as well, so hopefully I can get a few good games and upload some nice replay videos to my YouTube channel to give an indication of how it plays, as well as the new Battle.Net features. I fully intend to get a good deal of StarCraft 2 coverage going here.
Guild Wars also ranks high on the list of games to play, with birthday festitivities and a Guild Wars Beyond campaign that beg attention. I’ve still got a fair few empty character slots, so I may do a play-by-play-ish segment with a new character. I also intend to do something similar for Mount & Blade: Warband, but I’m not certain whether I can fit that game in this month.
I do have reviews for Lead and Gold, Shatter, Plain Sight and Hazen: The Dark Whispers that I want to write. I know that three of the four are decent games at least, but I’ve yet to boot up Hazen and want to get some more play time in with each of these games before attaching any ratings to them.
There will of course be some hours spent in Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2, but I want to try to fit in some Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends and Settlers 7 as well.
That’s a rather lengthy list, so I hope I can at least get a few of those done. Regardless, it’ll be a busy month and I’ll have plenty to write about on GameDrone, so I’ll see you next month for another GameDrone Monthly.
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