First, before the egg nog goes to my head, I’d like to congratulate our chief editor, David Laprad, on his upcoming wedding this month. And ask the question, who gets married over Christmas? He may think that he’s going to save on the gift giving, but as the only woman on staff, I must warn him and any of you that might consider it, you can’t count something as both a Christmas and an anniversary gift. She’ll smile, and “say” it’s okay, but she’ll never admit it to her mother.

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I’ll be the first to admit I’m ignorant when it comes to storylines that deal with the sciences, resonance cascades (which I do know are fictional) or anything technical. My fortes are writing, sex and eating chicken, and as I’m sure you might be able to tell, I’m not too great at those things either. However, despite my disdain for all things involving critical thinking and intellect, I was deeply engrossed in the world of Half-Life 2. I’ll be bold and say it has one of the most gripping video game storylines of the new century. The reason I was so caught up in the goings-on of the HL2 world, despite some of the story’s deeper scientific hullabaloo, had to do with the fact you were always Gordon Freeman.

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A few weeks ago, I started playing World of Warcraft. I’ve come up with a short list of aggravating things about the game:

The Horde: You guys are jerks. I’m minding my own business, killing hundreds of bears, when all of a sudden three guys come from out of nowhere and destroy me. The next several minutes is spent running to my body, reviving myself and then immediately getting killed again. It’s almost sad, because even though I know they’re hiding there, I still go to revive myself, thinking this time will be different. I’m sure that when I’m high enough to destroyhilate those much weaker than me, I’ll love it. For now, it sucks, and I hate you.

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As those who have read my bio on Avault might have noticed, I claim to have very little skill in multiplayer. (If you haven’t noticed because you haven’t read my bio on the main blog page, just smile and nod.) While there are probably a thousand reasons why I’m not brilliant at multiplayer, what’s more interesting is that despite my obvious failings when facing humans in mortal combat, I actually do enjoy it. However, I don’t find myself playing against my human friends very often. Instead, we play co-op: two humans, battling together against the forces of [insert currently preferred antagonist here] and triumphing against carefully constructed and measured odds.
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Unless you live in a cave (in which case you probably don’t have Internet and can’t read this anyway), you’ve heard by now that the WGA is on strike and your favorite television shows might run out of material by Christmas.  Now, I’m all for turning off the tube and talking to your family, but let’s be practical here.  The prime time television schedule is set up the way it is for a reason.
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BioShock is overrated.

Now, before you reach for my head to uncomfortably detach it from my body, let me explain.

BioShock isn’t a bad game. Not by any standard. It’s just not the second coming of first-person shooters reviewers all over the world are proclaiming it to be. And not to take anything away from Andrew Clark’s extremely well written review (the best I’ve read on Avault), but BioShock doesn’t deserve anything higher than a 75 percent.

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Every once in a while, when problems in the apartment get to be too much, I make rash decisions. And so, it was one fine day, almost a year ago, when my cat Iago was busily chewing on yet another network cable only minutes after he had chewed completely through the mouse cord, that I decided wireless networking was for me. Without checking online for hardware reviews, I jumped in my car, drove to Best Buy and practically ran to the networking section. Much to my delight, NETGEAR products were on sale. For around $100, I walked out of Best Buy with a NETGEAR WGT624SC router and three WPN111 USB wireless networking adapters. It seemed I’d have my apartment networked in about 30 minutes, and this time there would be no cords for Iago to chew upon.

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I thought I’d start off this puppy by telling you a bit about myself and how I ended up here.  As you probably read in my bio (hopefully, you skipped right over my pic), I’m a grad student in Information Technology Management.  Basically, that long identifier just means I’m a tech geek that hopes to land a real job when I grow up.  Last spring, while studying for exams, I came across a link. (You know, the ones they put in the back of textbooks that say things like, “Would you like to know more?”)  I followed the link due to my obsessive nature to know everything I can about a topic so as to avoid any essay surprises on exam day, and found my way to Avault.  They just happened to be looking for new reviewers that day.

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Hollywood can get away with rehashing old movies and TV shows, right? Well, what about games? If an obscure classic like Logan’s Run is to be remade, then Dungeon Keeper 2 certainly deserves a face lift as well!

Here’s a game that exhibited what interactive entertainment could be. The atmosphere was creepy, quirky and funny all at the same time, the voiceover and sound effects were satisfyingly comical, and the organic method of digging out your own custom hovel for your minions meant you could create different choke points and layouts practically every time you played! Grab baddies by the handful, drop them on the unsuspecting and watch chaos ensue! Heck, even jump into the fight by possessing character and lay on a personal beat down if you want. Frankly it surprises me that more RTS games don’t offer this feature as standard. It was such an enjoyable way to feel like you were in control, and as we know control was everything in Bullfrog’s games. (See Populous and Theme Park.)

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One of the fascinating things about studying English literature, or any other literature for that matter, is how the literary conventions used by an earlier author are “used and abused” by later writers. Stories of heroic knights in shining armor fighting one another or monsters pervade the Middle Ages; however, by the time Shakespeare writes plays such as 1 Henry IV, characters such as Falstaff denounce such heroism and valor as foolish even as various other characters in the play speak in the language of chivalry. The fact that in the 21st century we gamers find ourselves playing CRPGs which further mutate the tradition of the questing romantic hero indicates that the form and structure of such literature never really goes away. It just gets subverted and used in new ways. I can only imagine what Chaucer or Malory would think of CRPGs such as Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights. The number of magic items even a single character equips would probably flabbergast them.

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You know what I hate? Team-killing. Nothing aggravates me more than getting whacked by someone wearing my colors.

Last night, while playing Warhawk, I got team-killed so many times, I was convinced I had the words “F*** the red team” written across my forehead.Team-killing is bad for everything. It lowers the killer’s stats, and then it lowers your stats when you go and get revenge, which you will do.

There I was, standing on a bridge, converting it back to our color, when a Warhawk flies down and hovers next to me. I was alarmed at first, but I noticed the red name, and realized he was friendly…

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