Leif Johnson

If Blizzard learned one clear lesson from its last World of Warcraft expansion, it’s that you can’t go home again. Cataclysm is fueled by nostalgia, dragging us back to a world we loved when both we and the MMORPG genre were young, but the effect was like that of well-meaning friends dragging us off to all-night ’80s theme parties. In small doses, the outdated settings coax out a smile and jog a few good memories, but taken in excess, we leave wondering what we found so appealing about glam bands in the first place. With Mists of Pandaria, though, Blizzard reveals an understanding that WoW must remain on the move to retain its charm. It stays as far away from the old world as possible, returning only for visits to the auction houses in faction cities and three level 90 dungeons based on classic favorites. The approach works, especially since we’re forced to experience this new world on land mounts until Level 90.

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Despite its name, the historic War of the Roses was a savage, nasty affair; a time of usurpers and betrayals, of massacres and sieges, and in the words of Shakespeare, it all took place in “a world grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.” What’s more, it also served as the inspiration for much of the storyline of George R.R. Martin’s brutal Song of Ice and Fire series, which perhaps makes this an especially good time to release a game based on the conflict. Fatshark’s War of the Roses does little to immerse you in this rich setting aside from snippets of text from Richard III and the white and red roses of the houses of York and Lancaster on loading screens, but the combat goes a long way toward making up for this oversight. It’s like a Battlefield mod that swaps out the guns for crossbows and longswords, and for the most part, it works.

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It wasn’t until I’d played Guild Wars 2 that I realized how many other MMORPGs seemed intent on making me dislike other people. I hated the way I’d spend five minutes battling all the way to a named NPC for a quest, only to have some jackass swoop in while I was clearing the last two enemies and claim the kill for his own. I resented how people considered the numbers on my gear more important than my competence as a player in raids, and I loathed watching other players do their damndest to outrun me to resource nodes I approached. Things like this, I believe, contribute to the culture of petty vindictiveness in chat channels and forums that give the whole genre an inhospitable reputation, and that’s why I’m happy to see that they’re largely absent in ArenaNet’s long-awaited creation. Guild Wars 2 instead places a heavy emphasis on cooperation rather than competition and skill over gear, and that alone does much to justify calling it a giant leap ahead for the genre.

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You can already see the signs of dissention in Guild Wars 2′s official forums. One player complains that Guild Wars 2′s combat isn’t anywhere near as action-based as TERA’s (and therefore it sucks), another person says leveling feels too much like a grind, and some of ArenaNet’s diehards say it feels too different from Guild Wars 1 for their tastes. It’s the sort of critical ball that started rolling with blinding speed about a month after Star Wars: The Old Republic’s release and led to one of the most negative player backlashes in MMORPG history. But despite all that, I don’t think Guild Wars 2 will suffer the same fate. Sure, some of these concerns are valid, but I think ArenaNet has made enough good decisions to keep fans happy.

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When asked how we know one another, a close friend and I like to tell other people that we met in 2004 while killing a pig — only after the inevitable outrage do we clarify that the pig was a quest objective in World of Warcraft’s Elwynn Forest in 2004. On another occasion, a chance encounter brought me face-to-face with something of a nemesis: the leader of a rival guild. As it turned out, we actually had much in common, and our real-life friendship has now grown to the point that I often have trouble remembering his in-game name. I have about a dozen other stories like that, but I recently realized I haven’t formed similar relationships in MMORPGs in years. And now, reflecting on the last decade, I think that’s less because I’ve changed and more because readily available information and fewer reasons to rely on our friends have robbed the genre of that dash of magic — a magic that may never return.

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Considering that the Xbox 360 has been around for over six years, it’s a little surprising that we haven’t seen a port of the 1983 classic Dragon’s Lair until now. Not only is it one of only three games accorded permanent exhibition status at the Smithsonian Institution (along with Pac-Man and Pong), but it has also managed to worm its way onto everything from the Commodore 64 and NES to the iPhone in the intervening 29 years. Most of these were uninspired rehashes that brought almost nothing new to the experience, but this latest incarnation’s leaderboards and Kinect support at least mark a step toward variety. Unfortunately, that’s still not enough to make it worth your time.

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What exactly makes a game “super”? In some cases, such as the leap from the understated Mario Bros. to Super Mario Bros, it involves ditching 90% of a game’s entire formula and replacing it with a better one; in others, such as Super Street Fighter IV, it simply involves adding some features and tossing in a few tweaks. Super Monday Night Combat takes a middle road between these two extremes. You’ll still find yourself in a futuristic televised deathmatch complete with sultry pit girls cheering you as before, but you’ll also find that Uber chucked the first game’s focus on tower defense in favor of a gameplay more like that in DoTA 2.

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Combat is to TERA as global warming is to Al Gore. It may perform a variety of other tasks to varying degrees of competency, but combat is what defines it and gives it meaning. Purely academic arguments may abound as to whether or not games like Vindictus or DC Universe Online have better claims to being the “first true action MMO,” but several hours with TERA’s combat nevertheless left me wondering why I ever found swordplay in Rift or World of Warcraft remotely exciting.

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In the hands of another writer, Analogue: A Hate Story might have been a survival horror game. After all, its story centers on a derelict colony starship that just blipped back on the radar after an absence of many hundreds of years, and much like Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke, it’s your job to scrounge around and find out what led to such a sad state of affairs. But that’s where the similarities end. Christine Love’s Analogue isn’t without its own horrors, but they lie in contemplating the ghosts of an overly patriarchal society left to evolve without outside influences instead of bloody squabbles with nightmarish baddies. This is as much of a story about love, betrayal, and duty as it is about hate, and the questions it raises linger in the mind long after finishing all five of the available endings.

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As a cartoonish brawler centered on four-person hijinks, Fable Heroes resembles the chaotically entertaining Castle Crashers. Unfortunately, Fable Heroes never comes close to reaching the highs of that downloadable juggernaut, and even in its best moments it feels like it’s three steps behind gameplay developments that have kept the genre alive. While it’s not without its fun moments, Fable Heroes is a mere novelty that never establishes itself as a worthy offshoot of the traditional Fable adventures.

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