0 fer 2 again

...so I guess that's 0/4 total. I barely gave Dark Reign 2 the time of day, though that's not really due to any fault of its own. I've spent more time with games that were undeniably inferior. I think Dark Reign 2 just had the misfortune of meeting up with me at a time when my patience for its genre was severely taxed. Oh, looky, a cookie-cutter RTS, but in 3D! Same ol' rote gameplay, only with a more frustrating UI. Wheee. Given my current frame of mind, the odds aren't looking good for Earth 2150 or Ground Control. No sir, not good at all.

As for Battlezone 2, well, I think it too fell victim to my own ennui. I actually gave this one four or five nights worth of play, and admit to seeing some fun poke through. But I'm moving on without finishing the single player because frankly the single player mission designs were actually impeding the fun. I'm going to try to get some friends to give multiplayer a go. I really dig the idea of being able to pilot different vehicles, manually control gun towers, etc.. but the UI is cumbersome enough that it makes it tough to do the resource/building chores and still have fun being a commander actually in the field. Pandemic really should have just allowed the player to freely toggle between 1st person mode and the "satellite view", instead of forcing them to find and enter a relay bunker. Still, I'm intrigued enough by the recipe that I might pick up the original Battlezone if I see it. The consensus seems to be that it's a better game anyway.

I really wanted both of these games (or at least one) to come through in spades. They both sport cooperative gameplay, and God knows how rare that is. It's killing me to pass up a strategy/action game that actually has co-op. But my tolerance is inversely proportional to the number of games I want to play and haven't, and the list is long.