The Video Game Revue

Trackmania Nations and Other Developements

Sunny and I are headed off to PAX next weekend. It's our first time going and we're really psyched up about it. Unfortunately, I've been working some pretty heavy overtime at work lately and it's interfered with my personal life quite a bit. PAX will be a short break from that.

Matt got me hooked on Trackmania Nations, which is a free PC racing game with some simple rigid-body physics (no damage modeling, though), modern graphics, and controls that are reminiscent of F-Zero. I'm really, deeply impressed by this game so far, although I've only just started playing it today.

I was making pretty good progress in RE4: Wii Ed. and the ever-present World of WarCraft (Xzi recently hit level 50; only 20 more to go!) until work started to ramp up. When Steam unveiled Id Software's classic lineup with an option to buy the whole lot for $60 (we're talking Wolf3d, Spear of Destiny, Heretic, Hexen, Hexen 2, Quake I through III, Ultimate Doom, Doom II, Final Doom, Doom III, all of the expansion packs for all of those titles, and even the complete Commander Keen) I jumped at it. I don't really have the serious intention of playing through every title, but I like to think that I will. I've started with Wolf3d and have already finished the original trilogy of Eps 1-3. I'm now about half-way through Ep 4, the first of the Nocturnal Missions expansion pack. That represents about four hours of gameplay so far, and a whole heck of a lot of 1990s flashbacks. :)

Today I picked up my pre-order for Persona 3. God only knows when I'll get around to that. I also have Heroes of Mana which I expected to suck utterly, but the first half-hour was really good. I need to play further, obviously, before forming a solid opinion of the game. Finally, I have Metroid Prime 3 and World in Conflict on pre-order. My only consolation here is that when my crazy crunch-time at work is finally over, I'll have some vacation time and, theoretically, enough time to play all of those awesome games.

I'm also a hair's width away from buying a PSP. As if I didn't already have enough in the way of tantalizing reasons to pick one up, I just read the news about Level 5's latest production (those guys made Dragon Quest VIII), Jeanne D'Arc, and aside from being almost too anime-style for even me to stomach, it looks like a solid game with the potential to be truly great.

posted by Parappa @ 6:04 PM