The game industry as well as my family have had a busy summer so far.  So much so, that I probably should have taken the time to compose posts about things as they were happening.   *shrug* Oh well, this summary of thoughts will have to do.

The List starts here:

• I want to see a 3DS with my own eyes, and evaluate how well the 3D works.
• I am not interested at all in playing any of the Move or Kinect “games” that were shown off at e3.
• Blur Studio and Bioware should make a Starwars Anime.
• The gameplay for SWTOR looks fairly standard. And while it made me sort of sad to not see anything really innovative, I suspect they will sell a lot of copies.
• Crackdown 2’s demo left me a bit stale. It felt more like a expansion than a new game, so I will hold off until the price drops.
• APB launches to lackluster reviews.
• Several other MMOs follow Blizzard’s lead and launch “sparkle ponies” of their own.
• My D&D campaign while slow, continues to live on which makes me happy.
• In WoW I am still focusing on leveling up my new Rogue, she is level 73 now.  Though with work and my other gaming projects (see below) I have reduced my play time.
• World of Warcraft Cataclysm beta starts, and follows up with news of HUGE talent tree changes. My initial reaction to the announced changes is one of hopeful optimism
• Blizzard Launches its RealID chat service to  mixed response.
  • I think the system as it launched is missing key features. Once they add the ability to quick hide yourself and the ability to opt. out on a per-character per game basis, I will probably start using it with my real life friends.
  • Then Blizzard announced their intent to display player’s RealID on their forum posts, and the internet exploded, and Blizzard relented.
  • My thoughts are really irrelevant but here they are:
  • I have been operating with my real name in several places on the internet (and in real life).
  • I see the ability to post game forums as a privilege (not a right), and an optional one at that.
  • I am positive some people will stop posting on forums because their name is displayed, I am also fairly sure it won’t be the people we all wish would stop posting.
  • I have been against Blizzard using email address as log in names, since they switched to that.
  • I would have liked to see Blizzard switch to a unified Battle.net ID system that used a single pysdonymn for log-ins and communication.
  • I think it would be cool if blizzard pulled all of the characters/profiles on that one psydonyms account, onto a single facebook-esq profile page. Make players always post under the meta name, and allow players to link their characters.
  • This would provide a bit more accountability to the meta name owner, without exposing their real names or email addresses.

Game Re-visitation Project
One of my other gaming projects has been my ongoing re-visitation of old MMOs, the latest of which I started a couple of weeks ago when I reactivated Eve Online(after 7 years idle) and started a new Guild Wars character.  Thus far I am having an some fun with them and maybe later I will write up a post about them, but for now here are my first thoughts on them:

Guild Wars:

• Camera Control is Very loose, and yet flails around poorly when near obstructions.
• Lack of voice over is very evident. Voice emotes, greetings, barks, etc. would go a long way to making the world feel less mute.
• Lack of Jump, or really I should say lack of z-axis movement, pulls me out of the worlds illusion.  Yes people jumping everywhere also has that effect.

Eve Online:

• High Learning Curve still exists, but CCP has done a great job of improving their interface and player education systems.
• I really like the amount of depth the game seems to have.
• Thus far I have played it as though it was a Single Player space game, and while I am enjoying it I also wonder how long that “wonder” will last.
• While Starship Command is squarely in the “you are managing the flight of a large Starship’ flavor and not the “you are piloting a fighter ala Wing Commander, x-wing, or last starfighter” flavor, I am oddly enjoying it.  There is real player skill involved in keeping up with all the variables that can occur.

Movies / TV

I don’t see many movies, and most of them are not exceptional or memorable. But this summer I saw Toy Story 3 and it was both Exceptional and Memorable.  You see it was my daughter’s first “at the theater movie”, and it was a great movie.  We skipped the 3d knowing she probably would not be able to keep the glasses on the whole time, but even in 2d the movie was a wonderful sight.   Funny, tense, scary, sad, and happy all rolled into one awesome Toy Story package.

And finally for summer TV, we have forgone most of the traditional shows and have found ourselves fascinated with the HGTV show Holmes on Homes. We all enjoy watching Mike Holmes and his crew helping people out of bad remodeling/renovation situations.

Well I think that about sums up the Summer thus far. I am sure I missed something, but it will not keep me from sleeping at night 🙂