A Green Mushroom

Everywhere I look, people are writing about Pandas and how Blizzard is mis-stepping with the new WoW expansion.  I looked at the news, shrugged, and moved on.  I guess I really am done with WoW. On the other hand I read everything I could find about the new StarCraft 2 units!  They look awesome.  It's much more exciting news for me because adding new units totally changes the game balance and the flow of battle.  Here's a full list of the new units and changes. Protoss are (finally) getting some more anti-air and an intriguing new unit that can become any other unit in the game.  Unfortunately Carriers are being pulled from multiplayer all together.  Some Zerg units are changing or gaining abilities, like the awesome burrowed charge for Ultralisks.  They're also getting a new siege unit which resembles a burrowed Broodlord.  Terran Hellions will be able to morph into what looks like a giant mechanical firebat.  A Terran pl...

Gears of War 3 has been out for a few weeks  but I put off writing about it until now.  I've been playing it off and on since it's release because I really wanted to like it.  The problem is... I don't. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game.  Unfortunately, it's just more of the same.  I liked Gears of War and it's sequel a lot but this third installment isn't doing it for me. The problem is that it plays exactly like Gears of War 2.  Granted, now there's four player co-op, a couple new guns, and some new enemies... but it all feels like it's been done before.  Probably because it has. There are a few other new features.  Horde mode, one of Gear's crowning achievements, has some added base building features.  Beast mode now let's you play as the enemy killing the humans.  Overall, the whole package is tied into a nice online system too. But I have to be honest.  If you didn't absolutely love Gears of War 2 then do not spe...

Recently I’ve been playing two separate games which go by the names of Starcraft 2 and League of Legends. Both games are highly competitive. Both pit players against each other in deadly head to head combat. And, without a doubt, both are ruthlessly brutal to new players. Yet, only one of them frustrates me beyond belief. League of Legends. It’s interesting that two games which are so competitively similar can affect me in two vastly different ways. So why is that? I believe the key lies in how information comes across, or does not come across, to the player. Starcraft 2 is very transparent, while League of Legends is extremely opaque. In Starcraft 2 most information is telegraphed to the player. It’s pretty obvious to anyone that an army with 30 units is better than an army with 15. While unit composition can muddy the water of army size comparisons, most of the time, it still takes a miracle to beat an army twice the size of yours. This transparency also extends to...