It seems like only a short time ago I was scratching around for new games to try. Not any more. They're coming in clumps now. Too many to keep up with. Just this last few days I've turned down two, tried and failed with another and spent an enjoyable hour in a fourth. And I'm positive there were a couple more I read about but didn't even get round to bookmarking. I'm finding it tough to keep up. Beginning with one of the two I chose not to bother with, does anyone actually remember Infantry Online, because I certainly don't. I thought I at least knew the names of all the games in the Sony Onl ..read more

EverQuest II's Origins/Anashti Sul beta began yesterday. This morning I took a very quick look at it. I'm not intending to spend much time there but I couldn't resist the temptation to remind myself what  Freeport used to be like. Having spent half an hour or so walking the streets of the old city I can sum it up in a couple of words: shabby and inconvenient. Before I get to the details, I'd just like to complement Darkpaw on the beta process itself, which is exemplary. I haven't bothered with an EQII beta in a long time, one of the reasons being that it used to be something of a pain ins ..read more

I've been threatening to do a Covers post for a while now. The day has finally come. I wasn't planning on it but then the former drummer of the Kaiser Chiefs introduced me to my new fad band and I thought yes, it's time. It's funny how these things happen, isn't it? Synchronicity, I suppose. Or maybe quantum entanglement.  I'm not sure I've ever consciously listened to a Kaiser Chiefs' song. I certainly couldn't name one. You'd think I'd have less than no interest in clicking through a link to read about some new band their old drummer'd put together.  And I wouldn't, if Nick Hodgs ..read more

I said I'd consider playing World of Warcraft again once Blizzard had shifted over to Microsoft but that happened a while back and until today I'd never done anything about it. It's not surprising. I've always had the loosest of connections with WoW. It wasn't like I was desperate to get back to Azeroth. I'd go there when I was good and ready. It seems I'm ready now, although I'd be lying if I said it was much more than a whim. Mostly it was the buzz building for Cataclysm Classic bumping up against a distinct lack of ideas for anything to post about today. Whatever the reason, this morning I ..read more

There's just one more day left for New World's Springtide festival, after which any event currency left unspent will melt away like the morning mist. So I thought I'd better get on and use mine, while I still had the chance. No sense leaving right to the last minute then forgetting about it. Of course, there was the slight problem of what to buy with the fifty or so tokens I'd collected. I'd been logging in to grab them most days while the event was going on but I didn't really stop to ask myself why. Free stuff, y'know? I did take a quick look at the holiday vendor right at the start and I co ..read more

Since I ran up against the buffers in Nightingale I've been game-hopping like crazy. Typically, when I was spending all my time in one game, I complained about feeling trapped. Now I'm back to jumping between half a dozen games it's giving me the jitters. There's no pleasing some people. The games I'm "playing" just now (Although that's a very fancy word for what I'm actually doing when I log into some of them.) are: New World AdventureQuest 3D Once Human Closed Beta 3 EverQuest II Nightingale The Dungeon of Nahalbeuk: Amulet of Chaos I don't have one of those fancy apps that tallies exact ..read more

It's been three weeks since I last played Nightingale. Back then, I was still enjoying the ambience and there were things left I could have done but it was all starting to get a bit what's the point?"  I'd reached the end of the narrative, seen all the main biomes as well as most of their variations, and while there were still plenty of upgrades I could have made to all my gear, the stuff I had was already more than equal to anything I was likely to ask of it. Everything left to do seemed like it would become incrementally less engaging the longer I carried on with it, so I stopped. This ..read more

Chris Neal at MassivelyOP raised an interesting question ths weekend, when he asked whatever happened to Atlas, the piratical MMO that went into Early Access all the way back in 2018 and never came out the other side. I bought it shortly after it became available and posted some extensive First Impressions (1, 2, 3, and 4.) based on the week I spent there, after which I pretty much never set foot in the game again. In fact, according to Steam, my total playtime in Atlas comes to less than seven hours. I currently don't even have it installed. I suppose I should probably be annoyed I ever boug ..read more

It's been a whole month since the last What I've Been Listening To Lately. That's why I have nearly a hundred tracks bookmarked. I really need to make this a weekly feature. Or once a fortnight. Oh, hey! Now there's a honking great 1970s-style AM pop radio DJ link if ever there was one. All I need to do is talk over the intro and we're set! Fortnight - Taylor Swift I guess there's no escaping it. As Stereogum put it, this is the track from the new album that she's personally selected to debut at #1 next week and who are we to argue with Taylor Swift? Luckily, I like it and I have plenty to ..read more

Did you know yesterday was Superman Day? I didn't and Bree at MassivelyOP didn't remember the date either. It turns out there's a good reason why we might have been confused. There's more than one Superman Day. Bree was reporting on what she'd read in a press release from Daybreak Games' subdivision Dimensional Ink, which confidently begins "April 18th marks the official celebration of Superman Day across the web, the world, and the DC Universe." And that's the truth. Or one of them. The DC establishment backs April 18. James Gunn is Mr. DC for the moment and he certainly thinks April 18 is Su ..read more