GameZig

Hello World!
 
New to the site? So am I! As GameZig’s newest writer, I’m pretty excited to get started. Veteran readers, help me acclimate if you’d be so kind.
 
A little about me…
As a gamer, I usually enjoy plenty of different kinds of games. Having just come out of a stretch of overtime at work, all I’ve [...]

Games have told stories as long as they’ve been around.  The first digital games were text based and the majority if not all the enjoyment came from the story and the different avenues the player could take to reach the end.  Today it seems a games story takes less of an importance.  Is the game [...]

Jordan Weisman, the founder of FASA Corporation and creator of the MechWarrior franchise has reacquired the license for MechWarrior back from Microsoft along with a few other properties previously in the FASA catalog.  He has taken his newly reacquired franchises back and launched a new game company to boot, Smith and Tinker.  While he hasn’t made [...]

Too Human will be hitting store shelves sometime late next month, but as most of you know there is now a demo available on Xbox Live. How is it you may ask? Well it depends on what you expect from a game like this. Too Human is definitely different from a traditional RPG, it has [...]

 
 Sony Online Entertainment and DC Comics announced today at E3 DC Universe Online.  There really isn’t much available yet as far as game play type information.  The only thing I was able to take away from this is that a) it’s going to be an MMO based on the DC Universe, duh.  b) It’s goine [...]

A week ago I got that special email from the makers of Mythos inviting me to join their closed beta playground. Initially I had to create an account with the usual stuff; user ID, password, email, and etc. No problems on that end registration was simple and didn’t require any credit card information. Next came [...]

With the atom bomb that Mythic Entertainment dropped yesterday about the massive cuts for Warhammer Online it’s leaving many WAR fans in an emotional fog and just as many WAR haters saying, “I told you so”. It is a lot to take in for sure, I still can’t quite wrap my mind around whether or [...]

Mark Jacobs announced some good news and some bad news for Mythic’s upcoming Warhammer Online.  Well, he announced some good news and alluded to other good news, heh.  First we’ll start with the good news, the bit he alluded to:  Warhammer Online won’t be delayed, probably.
 
The other good news, the part he actually did announce [...]

Syp over at Waaagh! has a post up about the CE for Warhammer being sold out by this coming Monday, possibly.  This got me to thinking about my previous experience with a Collector’s Edition and whether or not it’s worth the money to buy the CE for WAR. 
 
First, we have to take into account what [...]

Electronic Arts announced they are releasing the MySims franchise to PC this October. Previously, the game was only available on consoles but they’ve gone and built a PC version and beefed it up with some new features. Ohhh the humanity! Why did they have to go and do this to me? I’ll admit I got [...]

Having problems playing in punkbuster enabled games?  Computer slowing down or crashing?  Frame rates getting horrendous?  There is a reason.
 
Ever since CoD4 patch 1.7 was released we started noticing frame rate problems in game.  At first we thought this was a problem related to the new CoD4 patch but unfortunately it appears to be a Punkbuster [...]

You see the ads for these two game economy wreckers all the time - power leveling and gold farming.  Hell you probably see one right now - wink wink.
 
World of Warcraft is a good example of how powerleveling and gold farming damage a games economy.  Now don’t get me wrong, farming in a game for [...]

 
 
The first of dungeon to be announced by the Warhammer Online team is The Bastion Stair.  Both the Order and Destruction are drawn to this source of Chaos power.  The Order will be venturing into the twisted and torn landscape of the Chaos wastes to attempt to recover Myrmidia’s Spear - the only remaining artifact from [...]

Today Jagex announced that the anticipated high detail version of Runescape is now available to subscribers in a beta release.  Also with this update, for the first time Runescape will be playable in full screen mode within your internet browser window.  The update utilizes new graphics technologies to enhance the games look and bring it up to [...]

Arcade games are a great way to relax and enjoy a little bit of downtime.Most are a coin-operated entertainment machines, typically installed in businesses such as restaurants, pubs, video arcades, and Family Entertainment Centers. These games are often converted into the latest titles, which is why you rarely see older games in your local arcade. [...]

Even though Diablo 3 is not going to be an MMO it is taking on some of the better traits of one.  One of the noteable changes to this version compared to the others is the character customization.  Gamers will be able to create both male and female versions of every class which has never been [...]

Shot Online is hosting a set of four tournaments in the month of July.  The overall prize for first place is a full set of repairable Hurricane clubs while 2nd and 3rd walk away with a full set of non-repairable Hurricanes.
 
San Jose, Calif. (June 26, 2008) - San Jose-based online game publisher, Gamescampus.com (www.gamescampus.com, run [...]

In my ever growing quest to see some changes take place in our fast-becoming stale MMORPG template I’m going to publish more and more ideas. Out of the box thinking is what it will take to spice up upcoming titles and give them something different from the World of Warcraft mold so many games seem to be [...]

Major console systems like the Nintendo Wii, the Sony Playstation platform and Microsoft’s X-Box 360 all seemed to be suffering from the same affliction that has hit our beloved MMORPG genre of PC games - no or low risk game design.  Games like the Grand Theft Auto series are to the console as games like [...]

GameSpot just did some research into what it takes to run Age of Conan and what it takes to run it well.  Unfortunately, the page with the full article appears to be down so I can’t get in and read what the post says - but I can read between the lines.  Having played AoC [...]

As the title of the post makes obvious, this was a very slow gaming weekend.  I messed around a bit in Call of Duty 4, working toward getting my gold AK-47 (I have no idea why I want one) and spent an hour or so in World of Warcraft leveling up my mage to level [...]

Oh the great debates we could have!  I hear people complaining in World of Warcraft battlegrounds all the time when a twink kills them.  They complain because he is uber powerful with all that extra gear!  Being that I’m usually playing a twink myself the complaints go in one ear and out the other without [...]

I just finished reading a post from Syp over at Waaagh about his predictions on how Warhammer Online will fair in the MMO market and what he thinks are the keys to getting it there.  Syp lists 10 points that he believes will influence the outcome of WAR’s fate down the road, starting with number one, [...]

Well, that feels like a waste of $90.  I have this fancy box, this cool leather map and a game account I’m no longer going to play - at least not in the near future.  Age of Conan for me was a fun break away from the normal MMORPG in it’s unique style of combat [...]

I remember the thoughts that ran through my head when I first started reading pre-release info about Star Wars Galaxies, my first step into the MMORPG world.  Before this I was an FPS ’stat’ whore and competition shooter.  I only played first person shooters, mostly in the Delta Force series from Novalogic back in those [...]

Getting back to the MMORPG Cookie Cutter topic, to keep MMORPG’s from getting stale and give developers a fresh perspective on things gamers want, I started thinking about some interesting ways to bone up on features in new and even some current MMORPG titles.  Now, these aren’t necessarily a major overhaul on the whole MMORPG [...]

I recently read a few posts at various other sites talking about how all the MMORPG’s coming out as of late have been pretty well cookie cutter games.  In other words, the same game repackaged with a few ’stand out’ features.  Like AoC for example, a lot of people are comparing that to WoW in [...]

Awhile back, I went to visit my brother who plays a lot more console games than I do and he had rented Mass Effect for the weekend from Blockbuster. I’m not big on game pads but he coaxed me into trying it out, since it’s more fun than just watching him play I gave it [...]

GameZig is currently accepting applications for reviewers, game journalists and fictional writers for short, ’serial style’ stories in all genre’s of the video game industry!  If you have strong opinions about video games of the past or enjoy talking about games of the future, we want you!  Single player, Massively Multi-player, Consoles…we need good writers [...]

Open beta for Rohan Blood Feud has begun and is already jam packed with testers, so much so that YNK Games has more than doubled their number of servers in the first few days of testing to accomodate the huge influx of fans and they promise to continue to increase capacity as demand also increases.  [...]

One of the longest running MMORPG’s is getting a much needed upgrade. Runescape, which is the successor to DeviousMUD, is a popular persistant online world that has been running since 2001 and has retained a respectable player base, due in large part to it’s free to play option.  For the past 7 years, the game [...]

 
Cursed.com has launched a beta of the Age of Conan Armory.  The beta version of the Armory currently supports a functional feat calculator as well as community driven feat builds for players to show off their PVP feat setup.  The beta site also features a feat commenting and rating system for players to chime in [...]

There are rumors floating around that Bioware is working on two things right now, first they seem to be working on a new MMO project.  Kotaku has an article about some of the MMO rumors and is speculating that the new MMO is not going to be based on KOTOR.  However, if you look at the team [...]

If you’re like me, you probably get bored playing the same game day in and day out.  You don’t necessarily want to abandon your favorite game but you want to break the cycle a bit and find a few others to play when that favorite MMO starts feeling more like work than play!  That’s how [...]

One thing I’ve always talked about and have thought is missing within most major games since my early days of MMO’s have been the ‘game within a game’ idea, or mini-games.  Star Wars Galaxies had the concept in early development with some mini-games but they quickly were moved to the back burner and never made [...]

One game I’ve been watching lately has been Stargate Worlds, an MMO based on the popular television series, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.  I’ll admit, I’m not to up-to-date on the story line in Atlantis, I’ve maybe seen 2 episodes but SG-1 was a real favorite of mine.  At least it was until Richard Dean [...]

There is never an end to the constant acquisition of gear! This is one of my posts on the downfalls of what had been one of my favorite games. It really is difficult for me to pick at WoW to much because I do still have a love for it, although that last few months [...]

If you pre-order Age of Conan you will get one of three bonus items depending on where you order from.  From what I’ve been able to tell so far, pre-ordering from Amazon.com awards the Amazon Curved Bow as your pre-order bonus item.  Gamestop awards the War Mammoth and I assume the War Rhino comes from [...]

Well, as I mentioned before, there are many things I love about COD4. Helicopters is not one of those things. The helo in COD4 is my worst nightmare! I swear I think either I have some weird, come shoot me bug or who the helo targets is based off of that players performance. Either theory [...]

I will delve more into my past gaming experiences in great length a little later, for now I haven’t been doing a ton of gaming thanks to life getting in the way.  I’m not going to complain at all, I recently married a wonderful woman and in the process gained a new addition to the [...]

I’ve been playing games online since before the internet was a household term.  Guess that kind of ‘dates’ me a bit, but just want to give you an idea of the spectrum of games I’ve played.  I started out with text or ASCII based games on local bulletin boards running on an 300 baud modem.  [...]