Out of the Park Baseball 2007 will be officially released tomorrow. However, as a customer who pre-ordered, I was able to download it today, a day early. The installation and registration were successful. I haven't had a chance to play with it much but it looks good so far. I need to import my North American League Baseball season from OOTPBB 2006. Then I will be ready to pickup the season from where I left off. I will use this new version to play through the 2006 NALB season. I anticipate that I will start up the season in a few months, probably in early summer.

I completed Elwin and Shaera, my first campaign after a long hiatus from Heroes of Might and Magic IV. Elwin defeated the evil Lord Harke in the final scenario. Lord Harke was quite tough (level 39 general) but I commanded a sizable army that was more than a match for his troops. I also had Lord Gramin, Shaera's father, at my side. He was an accomplished General in his own right (level 27).

These campaigns are a lot of fun but it takes a while to complete them. I'm not sure if I will move on to the fifth campaign or take a break and play another game for a bit. Decisions, Decisions...

After finishing up The Ur-Quan Masters last weekend, I needed to decide on my next computer game to tackle. Instead of installing a new game, I ended up going back to Heroes of Might and Magic IV. I had played through the first three campaigns a while back but never finished the last three campaigns. This is one of my all-time favorite series. I'm not sure that anything can ever equal Heroes of Might and Magic III. I know that HoMM4 was much maligned. However, I still enjoy playing it a lot. Campaign 4 is called Elwin and Shaera. It is about an Elven druid and his quest to be with his true love. Along the way, he finds adventure and treachery. So far, I have finished the first two scenarios, The Lovers and Mark of the Tiger. I have enjoyed the story line thus far and still have three more scenarios left to play.

Wow! What an incredible gaming experience. I completed The Ur-Quan Masters last night. As I mentioned in a previous news entry, this game is actually an updated, free version of the original classic, Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters. I now know why Star Control II is frequently on lists as one of the greatest games of all time. I heartily agree with this assessment. The game play was fun, the story was well-conceived, and the humor was top-notch. In fact, the sense of humor in the writing was one of my favorite parts of the game. Plus, the voice acting enhanced the dialog for me. That is not something I can say about every game. I thought it was one of the cleverest and funniest games since the Fallout series. I just added it to my All-Time Favorites list.

I made it through all eight of the mansions included with Midnight Mansion. In order, they were Falcon Manor, Nightmare Mansion, Knight Mansion, House of Baron Garneau, Castle Doom, Cathedral Towers, Chateau de Medusa, and Spider Palace. I completed them on easy difficulty level so I still have the normal and hard levels to try as well. I have enjoyed this game much more than I thought I would. A good old platform game has been a nice change of pace for me. Other players have created custom mansions of their own. I plan to download some and give them a try. With these add-ons, Midnight Mansion still has quite a bit of life left to it for me.