On the Horizon

Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King is winding down, with the populous becoming bored of the current content (which never came close to the levels of fun in Burning Crusade, in spite of the subject material). Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is also suffering from rampant hacking on the PC platform and ordinary players are getting frustrated at the diminished gameplay. Fortunately, these games are seeing sequels in the coming months that should cure player malaise.

World of WarCraft: Cataclysm has an (unofficial) official release date of December 7, 2010. In two months' time the new addition to the WarCraft universe will bring forth Goblins and Worgen as playable races, and the mighty Deathwing as a major villain. It remains to be seen if the class/talent changes are viewed favorably or if they are too limiting, and if the Archeology profession helps cure the between-content blues during this xpac.

There are still no features on the horizon that encourage creation over destruction (player housing, armor dyes, building construction, etc.) and in some ways the trend is further against them. The new talent changes are going to box players into a single talent tree for most of their development, and leveling will require fewer visits to trainers. The city portals are also being removed from Dalaran and Shattrath, which will require more travel from players, and make mages a class in high demand for casuals. This should be another well-crated expansion from Blizzard, but I'm having a hard time getting excited about it. So far it only feels like more of the same.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is arriving a little sooner on November 9, 2010, and offers a cure for what ails the legit FPSer - dedicated servers. Peer hosting was a low-cost solution, but it was rampant with hacks and cheats and offered little fun in exchange for a lot of diminished gameplay. With dedicated servers the Steam network can easily identify client hacks and disable accounts, and at $60 a pop it's not likely that gamers will risk having their license banned from network play.

The game itself offers character customization that we wish WarCraft had - everything from face paint to weapon mods and textures, when someone gets the knife up close they're going to remember you for a long time. They've added new killstreak rewards and battle types, including wager matches. For my dollar this is more of a must-have upgrade than Cataclysm.

And if either of the big 2 coming out this fall doesn't appeal to you, there are still more games coming soon. DC Universe is dipping a toe into the MMO genre and available for preorder, and SWTOR is approaching ever closer on the horizon. In all, there should be plenty to do to entertain yourself this winter.