STRGamer Codcast - Episode 1

The STRGamer Codcast is a place for intelligent discussion about video games and games of all kinds. And pirates. Each week we bring you news from the games industry and analysis of industry trends, so you can get your fix of gaming news and opinions without having to troll the internet looking for stories (that's our job).

The Codcast is reborn! Check out the inaugural (for the second time) STRGamer Codcast below. This week we talk about Rift, Dragon Age 2, Portal 2, Battlefield 3, Wii 2, Anime, and gamification. Also, Cinderella Ninja Warrior and Sleeping Beauty Vampire Slayer.

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Rift Review: Hole in One

Rift is like a new set of golf clubs that fits your hands perfectly.

In the video gaming industry, there's a pretty hotly-debated discussion of iteration versus innovation. While companies like Activision are happy to deliver a slightly modified upgrade to the Call of Duty franchise every year, a lot of gamers are pretty vocal that they're looking for developers to create something new, rather than iterating on the same formula. This is especially true in the micro-community of MMO's, where a multitude of titles continue to follow the tried-and-true formulas established by games like Everquest and World of Warcraft.

Sometimes, iteration can be pretty awesome, especially when mixed appropriately with innovation. It's easy to get on the message boards and either decry formulaic MMORPG's or naysay every new addition to your favorite game, but seriously, TLDR. Rift builds upon the traditional MMO formula in such a polished, complete package, while adding enough new, crunchy stuff that it sets a new standard in MMO development, delivery and gameplay.

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The story of Rift revolves around the planet Telara, which is under assault by a pantheon of dragon gods, led by the evil dragon Regulos. Two factions, the gods-blessed Guardians and the tech-savvy Defiant, have taken up arms to fight Regulos and the other incursions, as well as each other. The lore behind the world is quite engaging and sets the stage for some great narratives and game mechanics, such as the opposition of the two factions in PvP, story quests and dungeons, and the eponymous rifts. Keep reading for more on each of these.

We've been following Trion Worlds' new game since its beta, which itself was a very polished experience, and the same holds true of the launch version of the game. Character creation is pretty much what you'd expect for an MMO, and you get to choose your faction and race from the Guardians' Mathosians (humans), High Elves, and Dwarves, or the Defiant's Eth (humans), Kelari (dark elves), and Bahmi (sort of giants, and very cool). You then pick your character's class from the Warrior, Cleric, Rogue and Mage archetypes. You get quite a few customization options to make your character look just like your favorite celebrity (tiger blood not included). It's very streamlined but still very customizable.

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After a quick cutscene that sets the scene for your faction's involvement in the story, you're dumped into a common starting area for your side's races. The starter area introduces you to the story and most of the game's different mechanics, with the exception of PvP and dungeons. If you've played an MMO before, it'll be extremely familiar and seem very well-polished, while introducing you to new things like the game's class system and public groups. The starter area is a great way to get familiarized with the game quickly (hit a few golf balls with those clubs and see if you like them, so to speak) and has enough story hooks to get you interested in the main game.

Questing is streamlined in all of the glorious ways it should be, without detracting from the immersiveness of the tasks that you're assigned. You've got a handy quest tracker (which you can turn off, if you like running around in circles looking for x number of goblins to kill) that shows your objectives on a neatly comprehensible minimap, and quest-givers in a given hub generally send you to the same location to kill/gather/spam the chat channel/etc., with minimal back-tracking. You're never in the same area for very long and feel like you're making progress as you move from hub to hub.

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One of the first things you'll notice when you get into the main game is how beautiful the game is (both starter areas are kind of dreary, with the world ending and all, spoilers). Rift shares some similarities with Warhammer Online and Aion in its art style, but is unique enough in its assets that it stands out with personality and flavor. It's a mix between photo-realism and cartoony graphics, and it works. You don't have to have an uber-system to run it, and it'll look pretty on most settings, but with the higher quality options turned on it looks fabulous. Character models are nice, but the vistas and lighting effects can be downright stunning in some areas.

If you're looking (or listening) for it, the sound can be quite detailed and charming as well. The game's music is very well-composed, and ambient sounds really add to the immersiveness of the game. Things like the sounds of your feet crunching differently on leaves and on snow, or the rattle of your mount's harness as you ride cross-country really stand out. Battle sounds are appropriately fighty as well.

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So far, we haven't discussed anything too ground-breaking, other than the extreme polish that Rift has demonstrated since even before launch (no small feat, as the million or so players trying to get online during the pre-launch only faced server queues instead of server crashes). But Rift stands out in two very distinct ways: its diverse, customizable class system and its dynamic rift content.

Rift's class system is built on the concept of souls, which tie in to your story as part of the world's mythology. You're basically a resurrected warrior from an apocalyptic battle with Regulos, and as such are able to attune yourself to the souls of other fallen warriors. Based on your class archetype chosen at character creation (Warrior, Cleric, Rogue, or Mage), you'll have eight souls (and one PvP soul) available that can be unlocked over time. Each of these offers a talent tree of sub-specialization that you can mix and match with two other souls at a time.

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This means that you can customize your character as deeply into any given soul as you'd like, while adding touches here and there from your other two souls to augment your main soul, or create a more rounded-out combination from all three. It's super crunchy, and having played a variety of the souls thus far, we're happy to say that each soul is different enough from the others to provide for some real variety and coolness. Mixing your soul trees will open up different class abilities, too, which adds diversity to the standard but fast-paced and fun hotbar-based combat system.

Another incredibly fun addition that Rift brings to the table is its dynamic rift content. As we understand it, Trion Worlds has build its server architecture from the ground up to support the implementation of dynamic content throughout Telara's different zones, and provide server stability while thousands of people are interacting with it. This means that the game can spawn any number of local and zone-wide events that scale to the makeup of players in that region. These events can be things like random traveling merchants who carry rare items for sale, or rifts themselves, where denizens of the outer planes stage assaults against Telara. Players can then join public groups and fulfill quest-like objectives to defeat the monsters and close the rifts, getting currency for sweet rewards in the process.

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If rifts are like small uprisings on your minimap that appear randomly, zone-wide invasions are the apocalypse. Picture this: you're happily minding your own business battling goblins or buying and selling at a local vendor, and the sky darkens. Big-name leaders of the region's towns and encampments start exhorting you to come help them defend their locations, while named monsters explain the doom they're about to visit upon your zone. Then, all hell breaks loose, and monsters and rifts start spawning everywhere, intent on destroying major wardstones (basically big crystals that provide bonuses in encampments) and NPC's in the zone. Everyone in the area will get quest objectives to seal rifts or defeat a number of creatures, and when that's completed, a huge raid boss will spawn in the world for everyone to wale on.

Rifts and invasions are TOTALLY EPIC. They're also made vastly fun and easy to do by Rift's public grouping system, which allows you to join a group in your area that's fighting a rift or invasion by clicking a button. The group will automatically convert to a raid when it's big enough, and each player will receive rewards relative to their contribution. It's very easy to join and beat up monsters without feeling pressured to do well in your class role or having to compete with others for loot, and stimulates a great sense of community and camaraderie throughout the zone. Even if you're more into soloing through Telara's main content - which is totally doable - it's hard not to get swept up in the fun of no-pressure rifting with other people. There are also some great gear and item rewards that you can get with planarite, the currency you get from fighting rifts and invasions!

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Another form of group content in Rift is in the game's dungeons and raids. If you're into doing instanced dungeons and raiding, you'll probably be quite at home here. There are a number of dungeons and raids available at launch (including open-world rift raids and expert difficulty versions of the dungeons) and Trion Worlds has indicated they have a pretty comprehensive post-launch content schedule. The dungeons themselves seem to be very well-laid out and story driven; the one we've played so far has your party tromping around the realm of the fae, which is kind of a hedge maze that progresses through the seasons of nature as you run through it. Neat!

If you're the crafting type, there are nine professions to chose from: Butchery, Foraging, Mining, Apothecary, Armorsmithing, Artificing, Outfitting, Runecrafting, and Weaponsmithing. The first three are gathering professions, while the rest are production, and you can have a combination of three on one character. The crafting system is pretty analogous to those in other MMO's, but being able to chose three is fun, as many of the production professions require materials from two types of gathering professions.

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For those that are of the mind that less QQ and more pew-pew are required in an MMORPG, Rift's PvP has got you covered. Offering four instanced warfronts (basically battlegrounds) at launch, there's plenty of room for you to stab the other faction in the face. The warfronts are unlocked over time as you level, and you can jump in them any time by using the cross-server queue tool. They also scale by every ten levels or so, and provide moderate level buffs, meaning that if you're playing in a level 10-19 warfront, a level 19 player will have an advantage over a level 12 player, but not hugely so. We've dipped in to one of the warfronts extensively so far, and it's very fast-paced and pretty tactical, and since the warfronts are cross-server, we haven't had to wait more than a couple of minutes or so to get in. In addition, Rift offers a bunch of open world PvP that we haven't seen yet, and the PvP rewards are nothing to shake a Kelari longsword at.

There are literally dozens of other things that Rift gets right that may not be new to MMO's, but are certainly improved and polished iterations of their predecessors. The UI is delightfully clean and has some great ease-of-use functions, like an inventory search. There are achievements and a guild leveling system already in place, and and a set of collections in your character sheet for the artifacts and books you'll find in Telara (totally addicting for you OCD types). There's a good, if basic, auction house and burgeoning player economy. Certainly, we'd love to see improvements that don't already exist in the game, such as a cross-server dungeon finder (go ahead and flame, but they just make life easier for everyone). The true test of time will also be if Rift's developers continue to support the game and deliver content on a regular schedule to keep high-level players happy, and it seems like Trion Worlds is on the ball as usual.

Rift is truly a love letter to fans of the genre who love the standard MMORPG formula but are looking for a new, evolved world to play in. Trion World's game is incredibly polished and adds enough innovation, background and personality to give it a character of its own, and will feel instantly comfortable to anyone that's played an MMO in the past ten years. It's also a very friendly introduction for newcomers to the genre, and provides a bunch of new mechanics and dynamic content to excite even the most decorated MMO veteran. Whether you're a pro or are teeing off for the first time, Rift is definitely worth your money - and ours!

Rift: "Planar War" Beta Impressions

Trion Worlds held their sixth beta for their upcoming MMO, Rift: Planes of Telara, this past weekend. The beta event, called "Planar War," focused on content for levels 1-35 of the game, and thanks to the folks at Massively for sharing beta keys, and Trion for letting us in, we were able to spend some time with this promising MMORPG pre-release.

The best way to describe Rift is as a traditional-style massively multiplayer online game with an innovative class system and a host of features that rejuvenate the MMO gameplay experience. It's traditional in the sense that everything you'd expect to be in an MMO is there, such as creating characters from a number of races and classes, two factions that oppose one another, hotbar number-based combat, quests, grouping, dungeons, guilds, PvP, and more. Yet, Rift gets everything so right, it has the potential to remind MMORPG veterans why the genre has become so popular in the first place.

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As with most MMO's, your journey in Rift begins with character creation, and you've got two factions to choose from: the justice-loving Guardians and the might-makes-right Defiants. Depending on the faction you choose, you'll be able to select from a total of six races, including Rifty versions of humans, dwarves and elves as well as other non-conventional races, such as the giant-like Bahmi. The character creator is very robust, allowing for all kinds of alterations to your character's appearance, ranging from facial features and hair color to height and tattoo markings. We suspect that more additions will be available at launch, allowing you to personalize that bow-wielding high elf named "Legolass023" to your heart's content.

Choosing a class is a deceptively simple affair in character creation, which we'll talk about more in a second. Before you jump into the game, you get to select from one of the four traditional archetypes - Warrior, Cleric, Rogue and Mage. Little do you know at that point how the incredibly deep "Ascended" class system will have you in its clutches in like 3 levels or so (we can hear you laughing, Trion).

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After creating a character, you get a quick and cool cutscene that whets your appetite for Rift's lore, which generally surrounds the two factions defending Telara from annihilation at the claws of the Dragon god Regulos and the planar rifts that keep threatening to destroy everything ever. Then you're dropped into the world seeking your first quest. If you're an MMO veteran, it'll quickly become apparent to you that questing is one area in which Rift shines. At least in the beta content, quests are grouped together intelligently, the quest tracking guides you easily to where you need to go, and you're moving pretty consistently from one hub to the next. The quests themselves are pretty standard in format but have enough newness and variation to feel exciting and fresh, and the lore behind them makes you feel invested and important in each task.

Graphically, Rift looks extremely polished and is very easy on the eyes, leaning towards stylization over photo-realism. It's kind of got a Warhammer Online grittiness to it, matched with a little bit of Aion's fantastic sensibilities, and of course, its own great art style that makes it feel familiar and unique at the same time. The UI is very clean and streamlined, with some neat additions to the traditional user interface and inventory, such as achievements that are already built into the game at beta and a place for collections of books that you can find in the world.

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As mentioned, combat is pretty standard and hotbar-based, with traditional combo systems, threat management, spells, cooldowns and the like, but is pretty seamless and has enough additions to be exciting and fun, like teleporting at level 1. TELEPORTING AT LEVEL 1! Also, unlike combat in a lot of other MMO's, which can feel very slow and repetitive, Rift combat is FAST and sometimes very furious. Trion has found a way to make the hotbar system very fluid, and it goes a long way to make combat feel quick and responsive in Rift.

Rift combat also has the potential to be very complex and different from anything you've ever experienced in an MMO, depending on your choice of "soul" combination. This is where the Ascended class system, and Rift itself, really shines. The lore of Rift pits you as an "Ascended" soul from the great Shade War, and you've been resurrected to fight against the forces of Regulos. Depending on your class archetype, you have eight choices of "souls," or subclasses, to choose from, and you get to pick three during the first few levels or so. This combination of three souls is called your class "role," and as you level, you get skill points that you can put into your soul trees to earn bonuses and new skills. It's a very flexible system, and we think that you can swap out souls and change your class role at any time if you're in a party that needs specific skills, but we haven't seen how that works yet.

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The Ascended class system is probably the freshest, most innovative addition to traditional MMO gameplay that Rift brings to the table, and it's pretty incredible. Think of it this way: let's say you're interested in playing the Cleric archetype, because you love seeing "hael plz" spammed in your chat channel and ignoring it. So you select the Warden soul at level 1, which specializes in heals over time. You decide that you want to get in the middle of the action too, so you select Justicar as your second soul, to bolster your healing with combat. Then you add Druid because you love nature, and you've got your first class role. Obviously, combat will depend heavily on the souls that you choose, and can change whenever you want it to by switching out souls or altering how you allocate your skill points.

So far, the Ascended class system really has the potential to set Rift apart from other MMO's on the market. It's incredibly crunchy and customizable and has a little bit of the flavor of Guild Wars' multiclassing system, but in a traditional MMORPG framework. True, some of the souls seem to have a lot of overlap, and balancing all of the different soul combinations and class roles must be taking a lot of work on Trion's side. Still, so far it's crazy fun to play around with and infuses the game with the "it" that turns Rift from being simply a highly polished MMO to a fresh and unique gameplay experience that deserves playing.

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Trion's sixth beta was only open for the weekend, so we have yet to poke around any of Rift's other features, such as public quests, PvP, or any dungeons or raids. As with all other MMORPG's, the real long-term selling points for the game will be having higher-level content that's as polished as the earlier material, compelling endgame raiding and PvP, and an active community that will support post-launch content. We can say that the beta is incredibly polished, far more so than many MMO's tend to be at launch, and we're itching to get into the game itself and romp around in all of Telara's glorious content.

If Trion Worlds has followed up with the rest of the game in the way that they have produced the early beta content, then Rift is shaping up to be a new, exciting take on a traditional MMO format that is worthy of your (and our) $15/month subscription. We can tell you this so far: before playing the beta, we were mildly interested in Rift, and now we're so interested, it's become one of our most-anticipated MMORPG's of the year, along with Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2, and we're pre-ordering it. We'll need people to battle Rifts with and argue about best class roles, so you should too!

Need or Greed: Sony NGP (PSP2) and Xperia Play

Need or Greed is a regular column at STRGamer where we bring you the biggest stories in gaming news along with interesting topics that have gone under the radar. We figure that you're busy and don't always get a chance to scour video game news while you're supposed to be working (and neither do we, so stop trying to get us in trouble), so we'll bring you top stories that you need to know about and interesting trends that you may not have gotten your greedy hands on yet.

Need: Sony's NGP (PSP2) is announced, looks awesome

At Sony's business and strategy meeting last month, the technology megalith revealed the long awaited and highly rumored PSP2, codenamed the "Next Generation Portable" (NGP).

First things first, can we just say, OMG IT LOOKS AMAZING WTB??!?!@@!!

Engadget was the first among many sites to report on the many features of this handheld powerhouse, including a quad-core ARM Cortex A-9 processor, 5-inch OLED touchscreen display, dual analog sticks, a rear touchpad, front- and rear-facing cameras, motion controls, 3G, WiFi, GPS, and more. It'll feature a new type of proprietary media akin to flash, rather than the increasingly unpopular UMD format, and will integrate a new type of cross-media bar and store called "Live Area."

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Among the games demoed at the conference were first-party franchises Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, Resistance, and Uncharted, along with a cutscene from Metal Gear Solid 4, to showcase the NGP's capabilities. Sony also mentioned that the handheld will be backwards-compatible with downloadable PSP games and will support the new Playstation Suite framework, which allows games to be played on Android devices. There's also been some discussion about the possibilities of cross-platform trophies and seamless play between the PS3 and NGP (meaning that you could be playing Uncharted on your PS3, then hop on the train and keep playing on your NGP), but nothing's been confirmed yet.

No games, release dates or price were actually announced, but the system itself is scheduled to come out Holiday Season 2011 in Japan. Eurogamer also recently reported that the NGP might come out in (at least) two SKU's, with one sporting 3G and the other only having WiFi.

We have many questions about the price, launch lineup and software support, cross-platform functionality, and 3G service, but one thing is clear: it's cause for some serious nerdgasm, and if it's reasonably priced, we're totally getting it!

Greed: PlayStation Phone is real, and it's called the Xperia Play

Hot on the heels of the NGP announcement, Sony has revealed a pretty unsuccessfully-guarded secret, the PlayStation Phone. As Engadget reports, the new phone, called the Xperia Play, will support PlayStation gaming on the go.

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The phone has a 1GHz single-core processor, Adreno 205 GPU, 512MB of RAM, 4-inch multitouch LCD screen, rear-facing camera, and will likely run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. More importantly, it has a slide-out control pad, complete with a D-pad, touchpads, face and shoulder buttons.

IGN reports that the Xperia Play is indeed official, with the airing of its first commercial during Super Bowl XLV last week. No games have been announced yet for the phone, and the system itself has gone a bit under the radar among NGP news and 3DS hype. We're interested to see if the Xperia Play can make a name for itself in a market dominated by more traditional gaming handhelds and the iPhone and iPad.

Need or Greed: DCUO and Portal 2

Need or Greed is a new regular column at STRGamer where we bring you the biggest stories in gaming news along with interesting topics that have gone under the radar. We figure that you're busy and don't always get a chance to scour video game news while you're supposed to be working (and neither do we, so stop trying to get us in trouble), so we'll bring you top stories that you need to know about and interesting trends that you may not have gotten your greedy hands on yet.

Need: DCUO is SOE's Fastest-Selling Game Ever

John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, recently tweeted that DC Universe Online has become their fastest-selling game ever. Their newest MMO, based in the DC Comics universe, has attracted the attention of MMORPG gamers and comic book aficionados alike because of its superhero-style gameplay and licensed world and characters.

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Smedley also commented on the shortage of retail copies of the game in stores, saying that more inventory is on the way. Whether this means that DCUO is great and must be bought or is simply benefiting from the hype machine remains to be seen - especially after the game's free first month of subscription is over.

We'll tell you what - if DCUO can finally answer the question of who would win a fight against Batman, and that it's a party of level 15 villains with names like "LexNoobth0r" and "Catwomansmom," we're in.

Source: MMORPG.com

Greed: Portal 2 Will Have Cross-Platform Play

What may be cooler than Portal? Portal multiplayer. Valve has announced that not only will Portal 2 have multiplayer, but that it will also feature cross-platform functionality between the PS3 and PC.

Last week, IGN reported that the PS3 version of Portal 2 will come with Steamworks, Valve's answer for a console version of Steam. Steamworks will make way for cross-platform chat, software updates, saving games to the Steam cloud, and a free copy of the game for PC and Mac. Yes, you read that correctly - if you buy the PS3 version, you'll get the PC version too.

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Why is this important? Other than being a way to try to disrupt the space-time continuum by firing two portal guns at one another, it's another attempt - and a good one - at promoting online functionality between console and PC gamers. If Valve can do it right with Portal 2, we may be seeing the beginning of some real possibilities for cross-platform gaming in the next wave of MMORPG development. DC Universe Online is being taken seriously as both a PC and PS3 game (at least until the console owners learn about the $15 monthly subscription fee that PC gamers are used to), but you still can't play with your buddies if they don't own the same version of the game. Portal 2 might just be the next step in getting more people to play EverQuest III and Lolcats Online (both unconfirmed) from their couches.

WoW: Here I Go Again On My Gnome

Do you have a comfortable pair of shoes that you keep around and wear now and then? Maybe for long periods of time, addictively? Especially when they get upgrades like new races, graphical overhauls, a new crafting profession and high-level content, and receive Cataclysmic reconstructions of their game worlds? Are we even keeping up any semblance of talking about shoes anymore?

In a recent interview with Kotaku, John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, mentioned that SOE has been considering a Cataclysm-style reboot for Everquest II. He explained that while he has confidence in EQ II's player base and success, he still has a lot of praise for Blizzard's latest expansion: "I think World of Warcraft is looking great...it's going to bring a lot of people back into the game; they hit the reset button."

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By a lot of people, he probably meant STRGamer (and 3.3 million other people), as we've logged in to our accounts after a long, Burning Crusade-induced hiatus and are happily grinding away in Azeroth again. I received a free "return to Azeroth" trial and got suckered in to resubscribing after figuring out how the heck my character works again, and Brian's had a similar experience without the free trial.

You've probably already read about (or are playing through) all of the massive changes included with WoW's latest expansion, beginning with the pre-patch destruction and reconstruction of Azeroth's landscape (and flying mounts in classic areas!), restructuring of talent trees and starter areas, new race/class combinations, and a bunch of graphical upgrades. With Cataclysm, you've also got two new races to muck around with, an increased level cap and 80-85 content, a new profession, guild advancement, new PvP battlegrounds, and a host of new dungeons and raids for you to /ragequit your guild over because they gave the tier 10 boots to some other noob who doesn't know how to manage aggro.

Why are we excited about this expansion more than we were about previous ones? Simply put, because it's a completely new game. We've both dabbled in free welcome-back trials now and again, but haven't played WoW consistently since the Burning Crusade. Blizzard's first expansion typified the kind of grinding, repetitive quest structure that we had become accustomed to and bored with from the vanilla experience. The following entry, Wrath of the Lich King, looked a lot more promising and exciting, but was mostly higher level content and would require us to finish the BC expansion first. The thought of killing 30 clefthoofs in Nagrand just to get to Northrend took a back seat to anything remotely interesting at the time.

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However, Cataclysm is offering more than enough to bring us back into the game. We're finding that Blizzard has implemented a smorgasbord of streamlined features into their flagship MMORPG that they've learned from six years of updates, third party addons, community feedback, and industry trends. Some of these updates have been around for a while, like quest tracking, in-game voice chat and cross-server dungeons and battlegrounds. Others are more recent, such as the revamping of classic areas, new and engaging quest structures that are story-based, varied and funny, and an increase in the use of phasing, which really makes you feel like the actions you take have an effect on the game world around you.

All of these elements and more have changed the overall game experience significantly enough to draw us back to Azeroth. Sure, we had to grind through the BC content (who knew that such a drab and desolate area like Netherstorm could be so drab and desolate?) to get to the much improved WotLK areas, but we're now finding it to be completely worth it. The implementation of location tracking makes questing infinitely more manageable, without having to run around endlessly looking for the right mobs or spamming the Trade channel with "ware do u get [12 Felboar Tusks] ne1 no ware u get them??!!11"

The WotLK and Cataclysm quests themselves are better designed by far, having more varied objectives in more centrally located areas, continually leading you to the next quest hub without making you feel like you're drudging around in one place for too long. I also can't say enough about the battleground finder tool, which allows you to join cross-server PvP battles and earn XP among players of your own level bracket. It's a great way to jump into some player-vs-player action at any time without having to worry about if your server has enough people online for a match, and encourages PvP at all levels rather than just for the endgame.

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None of these features are new to the MMO scene. Games like The Lord of the Rings Online have established a reputation for well-designed and immersive story-quest content, Warhammer Online offers the most streamlined in-game PvP matchmaking that we've seen so far, and things like quest tracking are commonplace to most MMORPG's nowadays. Still, the fact that Blizzard is committed to continually improving World of Warcraft and even completely overhauling its core game experience is noteworthy. Not content to sit on their laurels with 12 million players, they're making a smart move by updating their game's scope and graphics to remain competitive with advances in the industry, and we think it's pretty worthwhile. The changes Blizzard has made to the core WoW experience and the additions brought by the expansions as a whole, especially Cataclysm, are more than enough to get us excited about resubscribing.

In addition to the new features and high-level content, the new starter experiences are jewels compared to some of the slogfests we trudged through in the early days. All of the classic zones have been revamped in some way, and most notable are the Gnome and Troll starter areas, which are completely new and worth rolling an alt to experience. These poor saps were homeless until the world exploded, and now have fun and interesting areas of their own to explore.

Even more exciting are the new Worgen and Goblin races, who really demonstrate the work and detail that Blizzard's designers have learned to implement since launch. The Worgen, basically Alliance werewolves, have a spooky Victorian-esque beginning area with a great use of phasing and a dark, immersive storyline. Goblins, the Horde's comic relief answer to Gnomes, are wheeling and dealing merchants and engineers with a funny and lighthearted starter area to match. Both are totally worth checking out, especially if you're playing an alt or new character through the revamped 1-60 experience like we are.

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Another interesting addition is the Archaeology secondary profession. Somehow, even though I'm generally not into crafting, I've gotten back into leveling my primary professions on my main as I play through the higher level content. Probably because I'm crazy. But because I've slept on crafting for a while, I've had to revisit a couple of classic areas to grab some materials and level up my gathering profession, and took up Archaeology at the same time. The concept is simple: the Cataclysm has unearthed tons of artifacts in Azeroth, and you can find the pieces and put them together to make new items and learn about the world's lore and history. This basically adds up to you finding dig sites on your map, running around and using a survey tool to triangulate on an artifact's position, digging it up and adding it to your collection to make new stuff. It's really quite fun and a great way to explore the remade areas with a higher level character and learn more about the world's lore.

WoW's lore, once convoluted and nigh-impenetrable, remains complex but is actually quite interesting, especially if you're into backstory. If you're the kind of gamer that clicks through quest text to get to killing mobs, you'll obviously be right at home with the new quest content. But if you're like me and 10 other people, and like to read quest text, you'll find that quests are more interestingly written and either fit in nicely with overarching themes in the goings-on of the world or are entirely meta and tongue-in-cheek (the D.E.H.T.A. quest line in Northrend, which revolves around druids fighting against animal cruelty and the infamous questgiver Nesingwary, comes to mind).

Some gamers might decry Blizzard's ventures into streamlining their MMORPG as giving it the "easy button," and simplifying it to the point of making it "for babies." Our response to this claim: cool story bro. We originally left the game, and have left others, when the core game experience became too repetitive, boring or grindy to keep our ADD attention spans satisfied. It's lured us back because Blizzard has eliminated the archaic aspects of the game while increasing everything that makes it exciting and entertaining, streamlining the whole experience and simply making it fun again.

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In his interview with Kotaku, Smedley related that he has a lot of respect for Blizzard because "they don't make massive mistakes...They have the goods and they know it. So why not take a risk like [Cataclysm]?" I think this is a valuable and germane assessment. Blizzard knows they're working with gold, and are prepared to make changes to their product to keep up with other advances that have become commonplace in the industry. Many companies are offering new and interesting takes on the core online game experience, and the MMORPG scene remains excitingly competitive with the types of games coming down the pipe.

We're excited for games like Rift and TERA, which we keep confusing with one another, for their promises of polished MMO experiences and interactive combat, and Star Wars: The Old Republic for Bioware's touted story-based experience and cover system. If NCSoft makes good on its ambitions for Guild Wars 2, we might see a completely different type of MMO with its launch, and I'm more excited for that game than I was for George Michael's "Twenty Five" album (seriously, that's a lot).

In the meantime, Blizzard is aware that it has a great thing going, and is taking great steps to ensure that its product keeps up with the times. Say what you will about the megalith and its hold over the MMO market, but they know how to make polished games that keep us coming back for more. We're certainly not the only ones who keep putting on our WoW shoes every now and again, especially when Blizzard keeps outfitting them with rockets and giving us tons of more fun things to do with them. We're not fanboys, except about LOTRO, and SPvTW, and also Men's Pocky, and we tend to jump around to whatever MMO suits our fancy alongside our PC and console gaming habits, so for WoW to keep bringing us back in says a lot about their work. Shoemakers FTW!

I'm Cheap, and GameFly Helps

It's no secret that we're cheap at STRGamer, and are constantly looking for deals and ways to not pay full price on things. Sure, some of us may have loads of cash and can buy every game when it comes out at $59.99, and by some of us, I mean none of us. That's why I started a GameFly membership, which is proving to be a great solution in supporting my miserly consumerism.

You've probably already heard of GameFly, but if you don't know the specifics, it's basically a kind of Netflix program for video games. For $15.95 a month you can rent one game at a time from their extensive library of console and handheld games, or upgrade to two games at a time for $22.95. They're often offering discounted trial months for under $10, which is what attracted me to their rental program in the first place.

I bought a PS3 earlier this year, and being the completist that I am, wanted to play through all of the first iterations of the console's exclusives before getting into the newer sequels. So, I first picked up Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet, and inFamous in preparation for their sequels' releases next year. Having read up on games like the original Uncharted and standalone titles like Heavy Rain, which are known for being shorter, contained experiences without multiplayer or as much replay value as the others, I was a little reluctant to shell out the funds to buy them.

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GameFly was running an $8.95 trial month promotion at the time, and with me figuring that a 5-day rental from Blockbuster would come to about that much anyway, it was ON LIKE DONKEY KONG. The first game I rented was Uncharted, and I played it over a weekend or so, sent it back, rinsed and repeated. So far, it's been an excellent service and value, and I highly recommend it for anyone that a) loves playing a large variety of games, and b) likes not spending money.

GameFly's also great for buying used games, as they have a lot of great regular deals on pre-played titles, and you can always choose to keep a game that you're renting for a discounted price. However, while it's really good for a lot of things, there are some games and genres that it's not the best for, like big new releases that everyone's trying to get their grubby, greasy, Sour-Patch-Kids-sticky hands on. We've put together a couple of lists to help you decide what GameFly's good for, and what you should still go out and buy:

GameFly's great for:
-Shorter titles with little replay value, getting the most out of your 15 or 22 bucks a month
-Older games that are not in huge demand
-Console/handheld games for any of the current-generation systems, as well as older ones (including PS2 and GBA)
-Games you're looking to try out before buying
-Used games at hugely discounted prices (Batman: Arkham Asylum for $16.99? That's unpossible!)
-Renting Demon's Souls and returning it after getting your arse handed to you in the tutorial

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Even though we're cheap, we still buy games:
-Longer titles with high replay value, which are going to suck that $15.95 a month faster than a Twilight collectible card game
-New releases, which generally don't have huge availability in their library
-PC games, which they don't stock, most likely because of DRM issues
-Impulse buys, which are way less exciting if you have to wait five days for them to arrive

Overall, it's a great service if you're into renting or trying out games, and for getting great deals on used titles. Companies like Redbox are starting to get into the rental market as well (via Engadget), and there are always places like Blockbuster and your local rental stores, but Gamefly seems to be the best value and convenience out there at the moment.

You're still going to have to get your PC games elsewhere (Cataclysm digital upgrade FTW), and we recommend sticking with buying new releases and longer titles (you'd better believe we're getting Mass Effect 3 at release, full price schmull price). Still, for renting shorter, older console and handheld games, as well as buying used titles, GameFly is totally worth your money!