Aldowyn's Musings

Aldowyns Musings is BACK! With Let's Plays and Robots!

2011-04-19T09:41:00.003-05:00

So... I've been busy. Taking college courses in high school isn't a walk in the park, you know! And I've also been working on a certain awesome extracurricular activity - robots! More on that later.

Anyways, it's going to calm down in a bit soon. AP Tests are in 2-3 weeks, and the Nationals FIRST Robotics Competition is next week (Wednesday-Saturday). With all of that wrapping up, and summer coming up, I figured I might have time to get back to this. Plus I had a really awesome idea that I'm amazed I hadn't though of before - shouldn't be too hard, or take too much time, and I'm sure anybody who enjoys this site will enjoy that!

That idea was doing a Let's Play. For those of you who don't know, a Let's Play is where someone plays through an entire game, commenting on it. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're serious. Mine will be more on the serious side, with some humor thrown in there (my kind of humor). Oh, I haven't said what game I'm doing, have I? I'll give you a second, make a guess.

Made your guess? It wouldn't really have been that hard, you know! I'm doing Mass Effect! After that, I'll go through Mass Effect 2, and by that time ME3 will be just about out (I'll try to finish ME2 a week or so ahead of the release. It depends...), and I'll do that. At some point (this summer) I'll probably start doing some others, like Dragon Age 2 (Not Origins. It would make a really bad LP, the combat's too slow. And the game itself is too long.) I wouldn't mind doing some more retro ones, like KotOR, and maybe some space sims. That at least would be unique, since no one plays those any more... If you guys have any requests, ask and I'll tell you if I have it or can get it easily, and I might do it. Otherwise, you'll have to get it for me yourself. (Ha. I would be greatly impressed if someone did that!)

Back on the ME LP. I'll be playing Infiltrator, Renegade, probably Hardcore difficulty. (Not that Insanity is too hard, but it would take too long for an LP. Watching someone die several times in a row is kind of boring. Unless you like to watch someone suffer.) I'll do every main quest in ME1 and ME2, but only the interesting/plot important side quests.

I'm going to attempt to begin recording this weekend and begin posting next week, (planning on a MWF, 15 minute episode schedule, btw) but that may fall through. If it doesn't work out, it will be at least a week later, more likely two. It won't be that spiffy, (planning on just having the raw recording with the commentary spliced over it, and possibly the theme at the beginning)

P.S. Oh, shoot. I'm going to post it on Youtube, I think. If I was just doing it for here, there's other video hosts I could use, but I'm hoping for this to be like a synergistic kind of thing. The blog helps the LP, and the LP helps the blog. Hard to have an independent video LP anywhere but Youtube.

I'm also going to try to get back to doing the stuff I was doing before. DAII review, commentary, etc. in a couple weeks, and I'm planning on doing previews/commentary on the new information on ME3 (obviously) and Skyrim. (Those both look awesome, btw.) Any other games as I get (and play) them, obviously (Orange Box, Black Ops, Starcraft II. Hoping to get all of those soon. Portal 2 is making a case as well. Dang, I need a job >.>)

In other, not video-game related but still awesome, news, is robots. For those of you who don't follow my Twitter (@aldowyn), I'm on a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition Team. FIRST is an organization devoted to the promotion of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields, mostly through the organization of these competitions, from Jr. FLL (First Lego League) for younger grade-schoolers, to the "varsity" FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition). Anyway, long story short, we went to a couple of regional competitions, sucked at the first, did awesome at the second (easily the best rookie team there, and a couple of awards to prove it), and are going to Nationals next week. So, that's awesome. Before I forget, there's a Youtube video for the team, mostly as an inspirational/recruitment video, but in any case it's pretty awesome. Check it out here.

The Aldowyn's Musings Podcast: The Lost Episode

2010-11-22T12:57:00.012-06:00

From Deep in the Aldowyn's Musings archives... A Lost podcast episode was found...

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Assassin's Creed II: Assassination Complete!

2010-10-14T20:40:00.008-05:00

I finished! It was totally awesome! Post done! Back to Minecraft! Just kidding, I'm not done, though I do admit I probably would be if the server was up... ANYWAYS...

I'll be trying a more structured system for this one, like I did with Dragon Age way back in the day, because I said most of what I wanted to say in the last post.

For those of you who don't know, Assassin's Creed II is an action-adventure game (what would you call it?) imbued with platforming. It's developed and published by Ubisoft. They're not one of the huge publishers, but they're one of the bigger ones and they've got quite a few game development studios. This one was made by the Ubisoft Montreal team, and they've got others all over the place. (Check out the Wikipedia page. So many!) The first game was pretty good, receiving solid reviews (81 aggregate on Metacritic.), but was critiqued mainly for its annoying and unrealistic stealth system and incredible repetition.

Does Assassin's Creed II get past these issues and become a much greater game? What do you think? Read on and find out!

Gameplay

I climb up the rear of a building, finding and reaching for handholds in the facade. I reach the top in mere seconds, and begin to slowly make my way towards the other side. A guard on patrol begins to turn around, but falls to the ground as I fling a knife to his gut. I continue on, reach the edge, and look down towards my planned targets. There they are, four knights guarding the entrance to a codex page bearing untold secrets. I leap towards the edge, and fly down like an eagle swooping to the ground to catch its prey, and smoothly kill two of my adversaries with my dual hidden blades. The other two look up and begin to shout in alarm, but their voices gurgle and fail as my blades reach their throats. I enter the building and retrieve the treasure, now mine for the taking!

Yes, you can really do that. No, it's not a setpiece. In fact, you can do that literally dozens of times in the game! The combat in the first game was pretty neat, aided by the innovation of the free-running that is the series' signature. It's even better in this game, with many more choices for weapons, ranging from many simple swords, to short, brutal knives (you can use a cleaver), and massive hammers. There's even a metal cestus you can use. (A cestus is basically a really heavy metal glove you use to hit people with. Not as lame as it sounds...) You can also buy armor, with four different suits for sale and a fifth available to earn. The combat system is also much deeper than the first game, with most of the abilities you gained in the first game available from the start, and more learned as you go through the game. (Ironic, considering how most games have to take away the stuff you learned in the previous games, and in this one you're playing as an entirely different character!)

The biggest difference though, is in the platforming. It's enough better that there is an entire section of the game (6 dungeons, basically.) devoted to platforming. Let me tell you, those were my favorite parts of the game, bar none. It's just so fun, swinging and jumping from beam to beam, rising higher and higher towards your goal. It actually feels like you're doing something other than just holding the stick down, like it does when you're climbing. The interesting thing about this is that it's mostly just polish and level design. I can only think of two new abilities off the top of my head.. wait there's a third... anyways, the first is a high jump when you're wall-climbing, allowing you to climb walls with longer gaps between hand holds. The others are variations of wall jumps, one where you jump straight out from where you're hanging on to a wall, and the other that's more like classic wall-running: run towards the wall and kick off it to the side when you get up there. That last one in particular looks really cool!

Those make a relatively small difference, though. The real kicker is the incredible level design. It appears that Ubisoft Montreal learned a lot from the first game! The roofs are no longer flat, but it doesn't really matter as the simple free-running and climbing is much smoother now. They seem to have done a lot of polishing with those mechanics in this game, as you're more likely to go where you want to go. It's also much easier and faster to get up onto a building without just climbing up the side because of all the crates on the street and beams and lamps and balconies on the sides of the buildings, often forming a path that you can jump up almost as fast as you could run on the street below. The only issue with this that it seems contrived sometimes, but it's not that bad and helps so much it doesn't really matter.

The last addition is an upgrade system. You get a villa early on in the game, and you earn money and discounts at stores by upgrading the town you protect. These improvements range from a brothel and barracks to upgrades to the four kinds of stores in the game: Blacksmith, tailor, doctor, and artist. These improvements, along with items of all kinds, including the tons of collectibles, increase the value of the town, increasing tourism and in turn your income.

Speaking of collectibles, there are a lot. Way more than the first game, with its hundreds of flags. (Those were so annoying...) There's one set that come with puzzles and unlocks this really, really freaky video (glyphs), one set that you get by going through those platforming sections I mentioned that unlocks that armor set I also mentioned (Assassin's seals), one that unlocks a couple of items (including the last weapon you were looking for. Oh and it's the feathers), one that just gives you money (statues), and more that just give you more money.. but they're chests, so they're supposed to. The chests are also the only ones that don't net you achievements.

So, in short, they incredibly polished the game, added some new features, and upped the ante for the collectibles. These all help make the game the much better game that it is. On to the next section!

Visuals and Sound

The first game was praised for its visuals. It had sweeping cityscapes, and probably the best building design of any game I had seen. (Kind of important, since you were climbing up the sides of them so much!) Everything but the facial animations, plus some bad clipping issues, was incredible. (Clipping is when two objects go through each other when they're not supposed to. For example, when a cape goes through a leg.) The sound wasn't spectacular - it had a pretty good soundtrack, but the ambient sounds weren't the best in the world.

Assassin's Creed II doesn't improve greatly on these. The soundtrack is phenomenal, I admit, and the water is pretty neat -- important in Venice, I would say! Also nice that it doesn't act like quicksand or pools of acid when you even touch it, like it did in the first game. Also there's a ridiculous amount of customization for Ezio, and the character models are much, much more diverse. Actually, pretty much everything everywhere is much more diverse.

The biggest difference in this category, though, is the architecture. The cities are modeled after their real-life counterparts, and since Florence, Venice, and Rome are marvels of Renaissance and Gothic architecture, this is reflected in the game. Some of the buildings are just breath-taking. There isn't one tower that's just massively taller than the rest of the entire city, like there
tended to be in the first, but there are plenty tall enough to see large swathes of the much larger cities, and man does that look cool!

Story

Now we get to the tricky bit. The story was fairly simple in AC1: you're Altair, an assassin in the Third Crusade who breaks the assassin's code, is demoted to an apprentice, and you have to work your way back up to master assassin by doing the tasks assigned you by your master. You do, and gradually an evil templar plot to take over the holy land (Jerusalem and surroundings, basically), with both Christians and Muslims in on it, and eventually you discover the leader of the plot and kill him. It's obviously much more complicated than that, but that was the basics.

Simple, right? Wait, there's something else: you aren't actually Altair, you're Desmond Miles, his descendant by blood who is being kept prisoner by the Abstergo Corporation, the current face of the Templars, who are trying to find an ancient treasure by going through Altair's memory, hidden in Desmond's DNA, by using a machine called an Animus.

At the end, you find the artifact, Abstergo finds out where all of them are, and something very strange happens to Desmond. He gains Eagle Vision, one of Altair's abilities, and ends up seeing some very, very strange stuff.

Yes, I made that in Minecraft!

This stuff is explained... mostly... sort of... in the second game. Which is just as strange. Of course, Desmond end up joining up with the modern assassins and becomes quite awesome himself, but the story line while you're in the Animus 2.0 (assassin version.. looks so much more comfortable!) ends up being very, very strange.

At first, Ezio is just some kid whose male family is wrongfully executed and vows for revenge, learning the assassin arts in order to kill the ones responsible. He does so, killing some very lame, one-dimensional not even interesting characters in the progress (worst backstep from AC1), but one of the side-quests yields an extremely freaky video, and the very final part of Ezio's story is one of the freakiest things I've ever seen... not to mention putting a very interesting light on a lot of things. The problem is, it's so hard to make sense of it I still don't know what happened, and I finished it several days ago.

Basically, the in-Animus storyline is more about Ezio than the bad guys (I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and I am an Assassin. On the back cover, and so, so epic.), but the main, overarching storyline is interesting, but confusing and weird as anything you'll ever see. We'll have to wait until ACIII, or maybe the upcoming Brotherhood, to find out what everything meant.

Conclusion

Assassin's Creed II is one of the best action-adventure games I've ever played, miles ahead of its predecessor, and I'd say the second best implementation of platforming out of any modern game, behind Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. That's just a guess, and ACII may even be ahead. Mirror's Edge would be second, or maybe even first, but it didn't quite work as well as advertised... and it was the main focus of the game, which is actually a bad thing in my opinion. Anyways, you really should play this game if you can. It may not be a buy, as the main reason I would play it again is to get a second crack at deciphering the incomprehensible story.

So, have fun! Also, I'm going to make a snazzy new Review pic, so look for that soon.

And my PS Move post will be coming early next week.

Minecraft!

2010-10-13T19:22:00.013-05:00

So, the reason I haven't done the ACII review, or, well, pretty much anything lately, is because I've been playing Minecraft. If you haven't heard of it, it's an indie game being made by one, count 'em ONE guy. The main game is in Alpha phase (before Beta.. kind of...), but there's another version, free, that has the main idea of the game and nothing else, called Minecraft Classic.

My very first creation, at the very bottom of the map. It's gold, now, to fit with the gold city that I and a few others made down there.

That main idea is building. With blocks. Like, 16-bit blocks. It's like playing with Legos, but with less parts, less room, less stimulus (depending), and a lot. more. BLOCKS! You start out with a pretty bit randomly-generated map with trees, caves, hills, and rivers, are given an inventory of blocks to use, and set loose. You can make anything you want with the fairly diverse library of blocks.

But that's the single-player, and it can get awfully lonely out there in the black. (Kudos for those who get the reference that I suddenly had the urge to use.) There are multiplayer servers, quite a few actually, ranging from a dozen or so to 10 times that. I picked the biggest one I could find, on purpose, and it turns out for a very good reason.

It's amazing. Like, seriously awesome. Like, this next picture is only one of more than half a dozen worlds (albeit one of the better ones.)

The Zone2 world, with opposing Red and Blue castles. These are huge, BTW. Those little green dots, prevalent on the right side? Those are trees. Like, 5x5x10 (WxLxH), trees.

The way they manage to keep these worlds so nice and tidy is through a rank system that only allows certain ranks to build on certain worlds. There are only one or two that guests can build on, and these become crowded, busy, and annoying awfully fast. Not to mention full of griefers messing up your awesome creations.

There's a Museum, full of the most awesome sprites you'll ever see, the Zone2 I showed above, with opposing red and blue castles, an entire world for building the above sprites, and an Enterprise world with most of an USS Enterprise that actually fills the entire world.

One of my better creations, fail-modeled after the Spiral Minaret. Except for the cross.

The community is really awesome, too. The veterans (or relative veterans, anyway), are glad to help out a confused newbie, of which there are many, and it's not hard to find people willing to help you with a particularly large and time-consuming project - sometimes too willing. You work on your creations, submit them for review by the admins, and if it's up to snuff and you've played enough time, you get promoted, allowing you access to new worlds and sometimes new abilities (The most important one I know of is making water. You can swim up water, and it doesn't flow, so you can make "elevators" out of water) and admin rights, like kicking people.

Speaking of kicking people, this server does have an issue with griefers, which are people who go around messing other people's stuff up - usually with swastikas. You know, the Nazi symbol? (Well, mostly. The Nazis modified it a bit.) The higher-ranked people are pretty strict about this (Their stuff gets messed up too!), and you seldom see ten minutes go by without someone being kicked. Repeatedly, usually. The admins aren't afraid to ban people, either.

The Enterprise I mentioned. Not 1:1, but still HUGE!

That's just Classic, and absolutely free, too! That's not even talking about Alpha, where it starts getting even crazier! Imagine the capability to build all of these, but with limited resources you must mine for and determine how to create from basic materials, when at night you're under attack by monsters! I haven't actually played it yet, or even purchased it ($13 U.S, I believe), but from what I've heard it's hugely addictive. One article I read compared it in units of addictiveness (Pongs) to being like 100 times as addictive as WoW. (Shamus Young on 20-sided, if you want to know. Specifically, here)

So, yeah, it's awesome, and if you want to play go to http://minecraft.net , and the site for the server I play on is http://team9000.net. (BTW, the server is down right now, which is why I'm not playing. Will edit when it goes back up. Probably.) Oh, and I'll also tell you all about them, since I just love bragging about my own stuff!

At first I was completely lost, and I went down to the bottom of the map and made that Welcome sign, and came up with the idea to make an underground city. Well, I told someone else about the idea, and the following was the result.

Neat, huh? BTW, the one on the left is full of non harmful lava, and that blue pillar next to it is one of those water elevators I mentioned.

That was just the beginning. We made 4 or 5 rooms behind that gold there, none of them small, and all of them completely coated with gold, except for the white signifying the connecting tunnels and stairs. The last one was a fairly neat church with pews and flower beds (There's flower blocks) and a couple of crosses. Behind one of the crosses ended up what looked like a Nazi shrine, the best grief I've ever seen. Wouldn't even have been able to tell if it hadn't been for the upside-down cross he left behind. Someone else removed the swastika. I made a massive sign pointing to the entrance, and a gold road with metal (I suppose it's silver) lining it.

Then I started messing around in the same map, with the result of this triforce, complete with signature (I put it on the tag wall at the spawn point, too. I think it got griefed, though. Should still have a picture) For those of you that are curious, each of those triangles has a base of 15 blocks.

Bit egotistical, you think?

Then I made the tower that's pictured up in the main post. During the middle of construction, they refreshed the guest world (They make new guest worlds periodically when they get full, but they leave the old ones so they can move anything particularly spectacular. You can still edit the most recently archived world, so I just finished it and moved on.), so I didn't have much company here.

After that I just got bored for a while, I'd thought of some stuff to build but it was going to take a while so I decided to wait until I got promoted (which should be happening fairly soon now. First one doesn't take much, I've heard.) to build it. Eventually I thought of something relatively easy to build that I already had some experience doing, and this last one was the result.

My latest creation, and my favorite, just above the tower.

It's a 4 sided pyramid with Triforces for sides and a huge Master Sword in the middle. (Seriously, it's like 7 or 8 blocks high and your dude is only 2 blocks high. Really hard to make something small detailed here, with pixels half the size of your character!

That's all for today, I hope you enjoyed it! I'll do my best to do that ACII review tomorrow, and I've got a PS Move impressions post in the works for sometime... maybe tomorrow, if you're lucky! (I got personal experience at Sam's Club a week or so back.)

*edit* I was promoted pretty much as soon as I logged back on! :) Now I can build on the cool worlds (Literally, cool. Means that cool rank and above can build there.)

The Aldowyn's Musings Podcast Ep. 2: Halo: Reach, SMB's 25th, and more!

2010-09-27T22:45:00.000-05:00

In Episode 2 of the aldowyn's musings podcast, Aldowyn, Abujaffer and DarkPC talk about Super Mario Bros. 25th anniversary, Civilization V and the possible return of PC Gaming, Playstation Move, and Halo Reach

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Assassin's Creed II: First Impressions

2010-09-26T20:34:00.004-05:00

Today I'm talking about Assassin's Creed II. The first one is one of the two (yes, that few) titles that I have for my 360 that I got sometime last year, because it looked really cool. (Honestly, the AC1 cover is really awesome. I should post a pic of the drawing I did of the creed on the back, with the Assassin's symbol.)

Anyway, it was a good game, but nothing special. Among it's myriad drawbacks were incredible amounts of repetition, unrealistic level design (seriously, those rooftops are literally meant for running around on!), annoying sequences back at Abstergo, and really, really bad AI. Of course, the idea was absolutely awesome, it's the best usage of platforming in a game I've ever played, and possibly seen. Uncharted 2 probably outdoes it, but not by much.

They fixed almost everything. It's just... awesome. ACII has more depth than any action game in recent history: collectibles everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, these really awesome platforming sequences (my favorite part), much, much better pacing and overall story, a whole bunch of new abilities, weapons, and things to customize, and characters that are actually interesting and likable.

First: collectibles. The flags from the first game have been replaced with feathers, of which there are only 100 in the entire (huge!) game, but that's only the beginning! Another minor one is treasure chests. There's 330 of them, and they can have significant amounts of money, but you get more for completing the main storyline and there's no achievement for them. There are also two main side-quests involving collectibles (main meaning hey, they actually have story! Interesting story, too...), the first of which is finding these glyphs left by Abstergo's previous prisoner, known as Subject 16. There's several different kinds of puzzles you have to solve. I haven't finished this one yet, and I have no clue how it's going to turn out. The next one, and my favorite, is the Assassin's Tombs. These are platforming masterpieces unlike anything I've seen. They get steadily more and more complex, from crossing the rafters of a church (harder than it sounds) to a 4-part discovery that.... I haven't finished yet. Still awesome, though. The final one (I may have missed some) are codex pages written by the first game's protagonist's, Altair, that, when decoded, allow you to increase your health or gain new weapons. (One of the first: Double hidden blades. AWESOME!) Oh, and the guy that decodes these codex pages and makes the equipment is none other than Leonardo da Vinci. Who is also awesome. More on that later.

Slightly related is the upgrade system. You use Florins (money) to buy all sorts of things, from weapons and armor, to new shops at your villa (technically it's your uncle Mario's.), and paintings. This system is surprisingly deep, with the ability to upgrade all your different shops, increasing the town's value as well as giving you discounts, and renovating the town with everything from brothels to barracks to churches, which also increase the value of the town. The town's value determines how much tourism you get, and thus how much money you earn. The money is put into a chest every 20 minutes, but you have to come get the money every hour and 20 minutes or it's lost. The only reason I can think of for this decision is to remind people that they really do need to come upgrade the villa and buy armor and stuff, which is actually kind of brilliant--if they did it on purpose.

Oh, and I want to talk about the weapons, and then the combat. There's so many weapons this time around! There's two kinds, swords and small weapons, analogous to the sword and knife from the first game, and there must be well over a dozen of each, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. You can also disarm enemies and use their weapons, which is awesome to the point that you can easily win an entire fight just be disarming enemies and killing them with their own weapons ad nauseum.

The entire combat system is also considerably deeper. Along with the disarm move, there's also a strafe move that can be really cool if used right. One time I was fighting one of my main assassination targets and his guards, and, after I killed his guards, I just sidestepped around his attack, ended up behind him and stabbed him in the back. That move is pretty hard to accomplish, but it looks absolutely awesome when you pull it off.

The pacing is much steadier this time around. The main storyline isn't so sharply split into investigations and assassinations, but there are pros and cons. The build-up is much more enjoyable, with a lot more story, but the actual assassination tends to fail to distinguish itself from what happened before. I kind of miss the main assassination missions from the beginning, where you use all the information you gathered to find the best place to strike, and then go and carry out your plan. The enemies don't seem to get enough time in the lime-light either-- the story tends to focus on the people helping you accomplish your goal, instead of why your target is so evil. There are exceptions, and these exceptions are marvelous, but sometimes it's just a little anticlimactic-- probably my least favorite change from the first one. What I would have done is just made the build-up sequences more interesting forms of the ones from the first game, instead of random-seeming thefts and interrogations like the first game.

My last topic tonight is the characters. The total of likable characters went up from 0 (ok, Malik was pretty cool sometimes. Probably the most fleshed-out of the characters.) to 3. There are two new characters back in the real world, along with Lucy (who gained several levels in awesome) helping with the project, and both of them are pretty cool. Shawn is this British guy who investigated his way into finding out about Abstergo, and the assassin's picked him up before they could off him. At first, he seemed like just a jerk, but after a while he turned into that awesome British jerk kind of guy. The other one, Rebecca the Animus 2.0 tech, is less awesome, but still cool.

Finally, there's da Vinci. So cool. He's just so eager and nonchalant, going about building all these awesome inventions. He comes off as fairly innocent sometimes, but is occasionally surprising. I'm not quite sure why I like him so much, but I do. And I'm sure I will more once I get to test out his greatest invention...

Anyway, Assassin's Creed II is awesome. They've fixed almost everything about the first one, come up with a bunch of new awesome things, and put it all together seamlessly to make a really, really awesome game. Sign me up for Assassin's Creed III!

I should finish it sometime this week, and look for a more traditional review a little bit after that. Early next week, perhaps. Oh, and don't forget to listen to the Halo: Reach podcast that should be up fairly soon! (It's supposed to be up, I'm not quite sure what happened.)

The Origin of Aldowyn the Wanderer

2010-09-20T17:19:00.007-05:00

So, here's the origin of my D&D character, Aldowyn. He's a 25 year old half-elf sorcerer, with good INT and CHA ability scores and a really, really bad wisdom score. (4, if you really want to know.) I'm going to try to do a series of posts on his adventures, and this is the first. We haven't played any of this, it's just an intro so the DM can learn about my character and figure out how the PCs end up together. That's why the end is a little shaky, there's no story to put there yet!

______________________________________________________

The Origin of Aldowyn the Wanderer

I was 13 when it happened, when I was abandoned to my fate – maybe 9 or 10 in human years. My mother was an elf, the widow of one of the village champions who had died in an orc attack, decades before I was born. She had never remarried, and left the village for some reason I never discovered – to find her purpose in life, maybe, I don’t know. When she returned, she had a human husband and carried a baby beneath her heart, ready to give birth any minute. My father, that human, left as soon as I was born, leaving me nothing but my name as his legacy.

My mother tried to pretend nothing had changed, that I had just appeared in the woods one night, and tried to protect me from the discrimination of the rest of the village. In truth, the rest of the village treated her differently, to say nothing of me.

I was a bastard -- a half-elf, with a human father, and elven mother, and most of the adults treated me as one. The children, however, remained innocent, ignorant of the bigotry and racism of their elders. They saw me for who I was. With my natural affinity for people and my problem-solving skills, I quickly became their informal leader. We often adventured into the calm woods surrounding our village, foraging for nuts and berries, sometimes just to explore. All in all, it was a good life.

Or it was, until disaster struck me for the first of many times. I was only in my eleventh year, and I do not care to elaborate on the events of that day, even those that I haven’t blocked from my mind. All that needs to be said is that, after all that transpired, a child lay dead, and I was to blame.

I was very nearly stoned out of the village, but my mother and the chief, who had never really paid attention to me, intervened on my behalf, and in so doing saved my life. I know not why he did this – he had locked himself in his hut with an article he had possessed as long as I can remember, and when he came out, he knew exactly what was happening and proclaimed that I must live.

So live I did, though nothing was the same after that. The adults treated me worse than ever, and the children were almost afraid of me after the events in the forest. My mother tried to take me in, but I became almost wild, venturing into the woods alone for days at a time, contemplating my situation and praying for guidance to our god, Corellon Larethian, the Protector. Life passed.

The day it happened, I was out in the woods. The usually bright and cheery woods were dark and quiet, as if the forest itself was afraid of something. I had retreated into the woods because one of the older children had insulted my father and I. After dark, as I was preparing to sleep for the night, I heard a crackling noise. I looked towards the source of the noise, the village.

It was burning. The red glow stained the sky; the smoke obscured the sun. I rushed back, not knowing what I could do, but knowing I must do something to save the village that had succored me in my infancy. I slowed down as I neared the village, using my meager skills to hide in the forest, and saw for the first time those who were destroying my life.

They were drow, dark elves of the Underdark. I had never seen them, but they were unmistakable with dark gray, almost black skin, white hair, and malevolent red eyes. There were over two dozen of them, warriors, rangers, and mages with great evil beasts at their side. My eyes were drawn to one in particular, leaving the hut of the chief. He had the look of confident arrogance, and almost radiated the feel of magic. At his hip hung a cruel-looking scimitar, visibly crackling with electricity. A huge cat prowled at his side as he strode through the village, casting down any of our warriors who dared oppose such a powerful adversary. The last thing I noticed, just as he put it away in his pack, was the chief’s artifact. The drow leader, for such he was, glanced through the woods, and I jerked down, making so much noise I thought a deaf man could have heard me, but his eyes just passed over my hiding place.

I ran. I ran like a coward, no longer thinking of saving the village, just fleeing from that terrible mage with his piercing eyes and otherworldly magic. Before long, I tripped on a tree root and fell on my face. I quickly rolled over, only to see one of the drow warriors standing over me, looking almost as surprised as I felt. I yelled, feeling something stir deep within me, saw a flash of light, and the dark elf fell back, dazed. Not understanding what had happened and barely believing my good fortune, I leaped up and continued my flight. Nothing else of note happened, and I escaped the forest unscathed except for a few scrapes and bruises. I followed the moonlight and starlight to a nearby human town, where I found a corner in a stable and stayed out the night.

The following morning when I woke up, I thought it had all been a terrible nightmare, until the stench of the human’s mounts reached me. It all came rushing back, and with it came a cold, terrible feeling. Right there, in the muck of the stable, I vowed that I would discover who it was that attacked my town and killed my mother. I thought of my father, and reasoned that he would share my thirst for vengeance—as well as satisfy my own curiosity concerning who I was.

Thus my journeys began. I wandered from town to town, seeking information on the dark elves and my father. I learned little, although I did acquire some knowledge of my newfound powers of sorcery. I also acquired a familiar, a raven I named Nighthawk, who became my companion through out my travels.

Years later, as I was becoming disheartened, I fell in with a group of adventurers, on a great quest. Little would I know how this quest tied into my own, and how both would come to shape my life -- and indeed, that of the world.

September Update

2010-09-20T08:24:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone, I'm sorry it's been so slow this month. School is nuts, and I've been trying to start up a few things. There's the podcast we've started (DarkPC posted the link to the intro in the last post), and I've been trying to start up a D&D group with a few friends. I've also been actually playing some more video games lately. I was working on Ocarina of Time and Link's Awakening, and I finished Assassin's Creed for the second time, getting all my achievements back. I've borrowed Shadow of the Colossus (awesome game, btw) and FF Tactics Advanced 2, so I've been playing those, and I'm going to borrow Assassin's Creed 2 from a friend.

I'm going to try and get a job at Gamestop, at least for the holiday season. It just fits so perfectly with me... if I can get it in between homework, this, and my actual gaming.

That last bit isn't just video games, either. We're pretty serious about that D&D group. I even wrote up a pretty awesome origin story for my character, which will be the post immediately after this. It'll hopefully be the first of a series about the exploits of my character. I'm hoping to get in a session every week or so, and it should be pretty awesome!

Oh, one last thing. I'm going to try to get published (and paid by!) on the Escapist Magazine. They take articles from the community, and there's some issues coming up that I could come up with a pretty good article for, so hope I manage that!

So, you have the podcast, that new series on D&D, a bunch of random stuff like I've been doing, and maybe some other stuff to look forward to! It's been a crazy month, but it looks like I'll have some more time to work on the blog, so, I'll see you soon!

The Aldowyn's Musings Podcast!!! Ep 1: The Intro

2010-09-13T21:12:00.003-05:00

The First episode of the Aldowyn's Musings Podcast is Up!

A Very Quick Intro with DarkPC and Aldowyn!

Follow The Blog on Twitter @Aldowynsmusings

Follow Aldowyn, Abujaffer and DarkPC on Twitter

@Aldowyn, @Abujafer, and @DarkPCTV

Shoot us an email to aldowynsmusings@gmail.com

9/23 Update: We are now on iTunes!!!!!! Click The Link! >> Aldowyn's Musings Podcast on iTunes!

Directions to download on the Website: Right Click then Click IE: Save Target as, Chrome, Firefox: Save Link As, Safari: Download Linked File

Click on the post title to head to the page with the podcast, and it will be available on iTunes as soon as its approved by Apple!

September Poll: Favorite Post

2010-08-26T08:14:00.004-05:00

You may not have noticed, but there's this little thing in the top right corner, right next to the top of the latest post. It's a poll. For the last month or so, it's been asking what kind of articles you like best.

This month, it's going to be "Your Favorite Post So Far." The problem is I don't know which one's to add from my history of posts, so I'm asking you, my loyal (maybe!) readers.

Post a comment with your favorites, and I'll put them in the poll that I'll be starting on the 1st. (Probably any that are nominated, but if there's a lot I'll look for seconds. So second anything you like.)

So, don't forget to nominate your favorite, and come back and vote in September! (Which starts like next Wednesday.)

P.S. I have another post I'm working on, been busy past couple weeks.

Arcades and Casual Gaming

2010-08-24T08:53:00.006-05:00

Sorry it's been so quiet lately, I went on vacation with the family , where a few things happened that I'm going to be talking about the next couple days, and I just started school (Something from there I'm talking about too). Anyway I have an insane schedule. (4 AP, which means for college credit, classes.) I'm not quite sure yet how much spare time I'll have, but I'm going to do my best to keep up my gaming and blogging. (Plus I need a job. And to do all 3 of those I need to be practically superhuman >.>)

Okay, now for today's post. The first thing I'm going to talk about is the arcade I went to. It was small, only half a dozen machines or so, a pool table (with really crummy cues), and a ping pong table. Among the games were Pacman, Mrs. Pacman, Centipede, Mortal Kombat (I think that was the broken one, sadly), Time Crisis, X-men something or other, and one of the Street Fighter games.

Anyways, I played Pacman a little bit, did quite a bit better than I've done on web or console based games (really liked the stick). The experience was completely different. The music just seemed so much better, the art on the cabinet was just cool, and standing there using the stick was just an incredible experience.

I played a bit of Centipede. Interesting game, that. I even got on the high score list, albeit with a score of like 14,000. (You get a life every 12,000, I think, and it only took me a couple minutes) It wasn't Pacman, but it was still pretty cool.

Played Time Crisis, but the machine sucked and I've done that before, so moving on. I also tried out the Street Fighter game, but I was really, really bad at it because I don't have a clue what the combos are.

Finally, I played the X-men game. That was better! It was a button-masher, fortunately, as I wouldn't have a chance at anything else. Even came up with a few really cool looking moves as Iceman, and almost managed to beat the CPU after beating my sister. Personally I had a lot more fun with that than the move-oriented Street Fighter.

All in all, I had just enough of an experience to be able to imagine what an arcade might have been like in its heyday. Crowded, loud, full of people clamoring to be next on their favorite machine, a cluster around the Street Fighter game where the resident champion was beating up on a challenger, or around the Pacman or Centipede machines as someone tried to break the high score.

It was just enough for me to able to regret the loss of something I had never truly experienced. Amazing. Now I wish I could find a popular one in the area!

Make sure to check in a couple days from now, and I'll have something else up. Oh, and would you please nominate something for the vote? You don't have to think about it that much, just pick one (or more!) of the ones you actually remember, and the poll will be up all next month, so you'll have plenty of time to choose!

P.S. I can make a Java program that says "The cake is a lie!" or "The princess is in another castle.", or "Do a Barrel Roll!" now! Is that not awesome?!? That's all I can do so far, though.

Next year I think I'll be taking the graphics programming class, including making games like Tetris, so maybe I'll be able to make something cool!

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review

2010-08-08T18:13:00.009-05:00

Sup, @abujafer here for a review for Super Mario Galaxy 2 (I'm going to refer to it as SMG 2). Haven't been online in a while due to two reasons. First, I had to finish this game, and second, I had a new little sister. Plus, this game is HUGE. Now, for the review.

Gameplay

This is obviously the most important aspect of the game, and it is great and well designed. From simply running around to navigating gravity-defying jumps, this game has tight controls for every situation. Mario is extremely athletic, from acrobatic ice skating routines, to impressive triple jumps; Mario has never been better. And as if his own arsenal of jumps, spins, and stomps wasn't enough, he can use 'shrooms/flowers to power up into weird forms. There is a new Cloud Flower, and also a Boulder Mushroom (personally my favorite), while you can also use a drill, which isn't technically a power up, it's still one heck of an item. Now, all of these items would be useless without good level design, and boy has Nintendo outdone itself this time (literally, its way better than the original SMG that I borrowed from Aldowyn). The level design is the BEST I've ever seen, from the enemy and planet placement, to the creative locations Mario will find himself in. Also, gone is the central hub from the original SMG. Instead you have a Starship that is made for Mario, but, as a Toad on board puts it, looks much more like Luigi. From here you have an overworld map that shows the galaxies and helps go through them a lot faster. The starship gets a lot of visitors, and they help tell you about gameplay mechanics as you unlock them. And the camera is great too. When you're sliding down a giant tree, you have the camera right behind you to show you all the upcoming dangers, while when you're fighting against a boss that flies around, the camera dramatically shows the boss zooming in as he closes in on Mario. However, there were moments the camera didn't do what it had to; in one level, I had used a triple jump to get on the roof (not supposed to), and when I reached the fall at the middle (it was a maze-like place), the camera was stuck at what it thought was a wall, while I had to run around blindly waiting for the launch star sound effect to start so I could shake, after which the camera snapped back. These are petty annoyances, and don't even come close to ruining the experience. There are plenty of bosses, and they're all very well thought out and challenging. They also use whatever power up you have been getting acquainted with lately, and really test your skills.

This Is So Crazy, It Might Just Work!

Co-op is greatly improved, and it helps make the game A LOT easier. The second player has much to do, as he/she can kill certain enemies, stun others, bring star bits, coins, 1-ups, life mushrooms, and hold big enemies like chomps. In fact, it's a great way to integrate little ones into SMG 2, and it's how I had my little sisters get used to the game before they jumped in. Plus, Luigi comes in after 30 possible stars (I know because I'm sort of a perfectionist; I got all the stars I could before moving on, and so when I got Luigi I had gotten everything before that). This is way better from SMG, where you got him after finished the game and all of its 120 stars (That's when I gave my borrowed game back to Aldowyn..... right when I got my favorite bro. *sniff*). However, he only comes once a galaxy (for the most part) and its either your first time or your second time, after which a ghost takes his place that is essentially a time run, where you have to beat him (if you lose the level continues; he just lies down when he wins). However, when you finish the game with all 120 stars I think, you get the option to play as Luigi permanently; which I wholeheartedly did, and haven't played a single level with Mario since. Luigi jumps higher, however he slides a bit after running. This takes a bit getting used to, but it's worth it. This game plays great, and is one of the best-playing games on any console to date.

Presentation

This game looks fantastic. It uses up the Wii's hardware like no one but Nintendo can. The colorful, vibrant visuals beautifully compliment the great lighting and shadow effects, and the galaxies all have distinct visuals/enemies, be it a dessert themed galaxy, desert themed galaxy, a galaxy with planets made of lava, planets covered mostly in water, and lush, colorful flower planets.

Mario Doesn't Want To Step On Any Flowers.... Good Luck With That.

Also, everything is crisp and sharp, and my little sisters who played co-op with me were all like, "Is that really not HD? I can't see how it can get any better?" Each galaxy is a treat for the eyes, while the sound effects compliment the environment perfectly. A challenging event has an upbeat music that speeds up as the time is used up, while a spooky mansion has slow, creepy music, accompanied with the growls, howls, and moans of a typical haunted mansion. You can often tell what enemy you're up against by the sounds it makes. A goomba scurries along as it attacks, meanwhile a chomp barks, and a Boo..... boos. Plus, in some levels the speed of the music is affected by how fast you are going. My favorite music is the Bowser/Bowser Jr. Orchestra pieces. Those were works of art, and sound delightful. I especially admired how the stars sound. It's a distinct tinkling, and especially when trying to get the green stars, you NEED to listen. I don't know how you can win without listening. Green stars are usually hidden in cleverly designed caves, ledges, and right by a black hole. Sometimes the only indication you have that this deadly fall will get you a Green Star is the sound it makes. The ONLY hiccup in frame rates was when I had a green shell and was swimming underwater. Now, this problem was in the first game, but it's much, much less noticeable now. If you have the camera right behind you, the bubbles from the green shell go right into the camera, and there is a slight but noticeable hiccup in the frame rate. Keep in mind, this only happens when there's a lot onscreen. In my case, I had a planet in the sky, the planet I was on, penguins running about complete with their own bubbles, enemies on both planets, light effects with water, and a whole contingent of star bits and coins. I don't think any of you will find this problem, even if you tried. But I did notice it, and it was my only frame rate hiccup in the entire game. This game's presentation is practically perfect, and it rivals that of X-Box/PS3 first-party game presentations.

Extras

Here I will state things that didn't really fit above, but must be noted. First off, I have to talk about Green Stars.

A Green Star A Day Keeps The Yoshi Away.

These are for the hardcore gamer. After getting 120 Stars, every normal star you unlocked will get a Green Comet, and as such will get a green star hidden somewhere in the level. These are sometimes put in plain view (yet still hard to get), while sometimes you have to listen for a tingling simply to get a general idea where it is to start combing the level. These Stars unlock a special surprise at the end of the game, and that surprise is only for the most hardcore players out there, and it is HARD. After that, you'll get a message in the Message Board with a picture showing all the stars you unlocked (boy they look a lot more when they're stacked up like that) and a message from the SMG 2 staff congratulating you. Plus your save file tingles a bit and looks cool, just like a star, and you get a special surprise on starship Luigi (not going to call it starship you-know-who). Also, Yo*** makes a horrible appearance. As a Yoshi Hunter, I personally throw him/her/it off the edge as many times as possible before getting stars, and if I accidentally do get a star with him/her/it/whatever, I simply play the level again and get the star without him/her/it. He/she/it appears in the second level, and is trapped in a bubble in his egg by Kamek. After reluctantly freeing him/her/it, He/She/It lies and says that he/she/it went off to help his/her/its lack of friends. Now, a trustworthy Luma on the side of the screen tells us that Yoshi ran around in circles and trapped himself/herself/itself in an egg, and that Mario should help *concentrate his abilities*. Proof of this is that after leaving him/her/it on the ground for 10 seconds he/she/it TRAPS himself/herself/itself INTO AN EGG. Exactly why I hunt him/her/it.

Anyway, besides that mutant dodo with a -2 IQ, this game is as close to perfect as a game can get. For now. Nintendo will just wow us again with some other jewel of a game, be it Skyward Sword, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Metroid Other M, or some other masterpiece. For now, this game is the best platformer in existence.

BTW, for those of you who go by numbers, I'm giving it a Te... Wait, there's Yoshi. Nin... Oh wait, he keeps coming back, so I have the pleasure of killing him/her/it OVER AND OVER AGAIN *runs to turn on Wii*. So it's still a TEN (10). PERFECT!

More Reviews! Indie Games, Blacklight: Tango Down, and as asked Limbo

2010-08-08T12:07:00.003-05:00

Hi Everyone!

8/4/10 Update: 1Up.com reports that the MW2 demo is now out on PS3 and Xbox 360, 6 months after MW2's release... now we wait for the Black-Ops Demo...

As Aldowyn is out of town, Me and Abujaffer have control for the next week until Sunday...
Now in the meantime Its time for more reviews!

We will start with a select group of Indie Games. (Note: I download the trial versions of games unless I like them)

The First Game Series is Avatar Run, Hurdle and Jump made by UFO Games. Each game Costs 80 MSP

Game 1: Avatar Run

Gameplay: Olympic Running. Short, sweet, to the point!
Controls: A , B in sequence to run
Plot: NO Plot
Final Verdict: Fun game, up to 4 Local MP, NO XBL MP but there is XBL leaderboards. 2 Stars out of 5 for the game it self.

Game 2: Avatar Hurdle

GamePlay: Hurdles Again short sweet to the point

Controls:A and B to run and Y to Jump

Plot: Once Again No Plot.

Final Verdict: Same as Avatar Run... Score Bumped up by half a star to 2.5 out of 5

Game 3: Avatar Jump

GamePlay Jumping game E.G. Pole Vault

Controls ...

Plot: and again No Plot

Final verdict: Not much to see here but its worth 1.5 out of 5

So The avatar sports series gets an avg rating of 2 out of 5

The next game is BlackLight: Tango Down

GamePlay: Futuristic Modern Warfare

Controls: Typical FPS Controls...

Plot: ??? i havent been able to figure out the plot...

Final Verdict: Get the trial first! you get 1hr of free gameplay and the Counter only counts when your actually playing it doesnt countdown during respawn time. But! for 1200 MSP it isnt worth it in my point of view get it at around 800 MSP or Less. 3.5 out of 5

And last BUT certainly not least Limbo!

GamePlay: Side Scroller (Platformer?)

Controls: LS Right , Left Movement A Jump, B Actions

Plot: A Boy doesn't know where his sister went so he enters limbo...

Final Verdict: One of the Best games of the YEAR The only thing that holds me back from giving Limbo a 5 out of 5 is the price. 1200 MSP? 800 MSP is perfect! 4.5 out of 5!

That is all for this post but GOTY nominees will be released on my Live stream on 9/19 at justin.tv/degenerationx123!

I will write later... Bye!

8/22 Update: Forgot to put these in earlier... but Picture Credits Xbox.com

Starcraft II: The Final Hurrah?

2010-08-01T16:11:00.003-05:00

In a continuation of yesterday's post, "Starcraft II: Savior of a Genre?" I'm going to consider whether there are going to be any more Starcraft games after the current stint is over. Remember, they are already dedicated to making two more, full-length games, Heart of the Swarm with the Zerg campaign, and Legacy of the Void with the Protoss campaign.

(Plus, this is going to be a ridiculously comprehensive overview of both the original Starcraft and Brood War, and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and its expansion, The Frozen Throne.)

You may ask why Blizzard would even consider ending such a widely-respected franchise with so many fans and so much of a tradition. You might think that they would turn it into an MMO, like they did with Warcraft. Okay, I admit that is a possibility, but I doubt it. Starcraft is the RTS, and fans everywhere would cry out in outrage if the series turned from its RTS roots. (Note: Starcraft: Ghost, the abandoned Gamecube project, doesn't count because it wasn't a direct continuation of the series, like Halo Wars in reverse.)

Two games isn't that much, you say? I say that you must consider how much time the franchise will eventually take up (at least 15 or 16 years, I'd say), and how big these games are. Starcraft, and the expansion Brood War, both came out in 1998, eight months apart. Both games had campaigns for all three races, with 8-10 missions each, coming out to a total of 56 missions.

I don't have any actual numbers, but Wings of Liberty has at least enough for one of these campaigns, and probably quite a few more. That's not even counting all the additions to the game, like the new Battle.net, the Hyperion home base, the new challenge modes, and the new branching campaign style, and probably many others that I missed.

That is only one of three. When this arc is done, I would fully expect Starcraft to have as much as more content as the Warcraft RTSes. (I'm not stupid enough to include WoW in any comparison of the sort!)

Also to be considered is the possible parallel to the Warcraft story. Ignoring the first two Warcraft games, which I don't have much experience with and aren't comparable to Starcraft anyway. (Two sides, with only slight differences, portrayed as good and evil.)

Essentially, Starcraft parallels with Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Brood War with The Frozen Throne, and the Starcraft II games will compare with World of Warcraft. You may not see the differences at first, but see as I go campaign-by-campaign with the first two.

Starcraft starts out with the Terran campaign, with the hero, Jim Raynor, helping your character (technically, you're a magistrate over Mar Sara that end up going on the run with Raynor) to protect the citizens of Mar Sara from the Zerg and, well, figure out what the heck the Zerg even are. Raynor runs into Arcturus Mengsk, leader of the Sons of Korhal resistance group, and his lieutenant, Sarah Kerrigan. Arcturus Mengsk sends them on a bunch of errands, supposedly discovering that the Confederacy created, or was at least using, the Zerg to destroy the Sons of Korhal. They end up luring the Zerg to the capital planet of Tarsonis, but Mengsk abandons Kerrigan on the surface, and she is captured. Mengsk becomes emperor of the new Terran Dominion (really cool coronation speech, btw.), and Raynor ends up forming the Raynor's Raiders resistance group. (I skipped a bunch of stuff, including an entire character, but he doesn't have a parallel in WCIII and it doesn't really matter)

Compare this to Warcraft III. Prince Arthas is trying to figure out the cause of the plague, and protect the citizens of Lordaeron, along with some help from a friend, Jaina Proudmoore. Jaina leaves, and Arthas goes on a vengeance trek to go kill the guy that was supposedly the instigator of the plague, Mal'ganis. Jaina abandons him after he kills a bunch of villagers to stop them from becoming Undead, and Arthas follows Mal'ganis to the icy continent of Northrend. He finds an old friend of his, Muradin Bronzebeard, who tells him a story of a enchanted sword, Frostmourne. (Honestly? Coolest weapon in ANY video game, possibly barring the Master Sword) He burns his ships and blames it on the mercenaries he had to use to do so, finds Frostmourne. The sword bears an inscription, warning Arthas and Muradin of a curse. Arthas says that he would "gladly bear any curse to save his homeland", and takes the sword, shattering the ice it is embedded in, a shard of which kills Muradin. Arthas then goes on a rampage and owns the undead protection Mal'ganis. Ner'zhul, the present Lich King, tells him through the sword to kill Mal'ganis, and Arthas does so. Then he goes back to Lordaeron, kills his father, the king (wow, that phrase sounds really cliche), assumes the throne, and the now his undead hordes annihilate the kingdom.

In both the Starcraft Zerg campaign and the Reign of Chaos Undead campaign, the bad guys (you) consolidate their forces while Arthas/Kerrigan grow in power (Technically Kerrigan has to hatch first. There's like 4 missions of protecting her at the beginnning.). The biggest difference is that the Protoss managed to slow the Zerg down by slaying one of the cerebrates using the energy of the Dark Templar, Zeratul. (Cerebrate: one of the commanders of the horde, resurrected when slain in battle by the Overmind which is.. well... the Overmind. The Gravemind from Halo reminds me of the Overmind, actually. Technically you are a cerebrate in the Zerg campaign. Oh, and Zeratul is awesome.) Somehow, the Overmind gets the location of the Protoss homeworld, Aiur ("My Life for Aiur!"), and the Zerg completely own it. Meanwhile in Azeroth (Back to WCIII), Arthas and company kill everyone on their part of the continent (I'm not kidding. You wipe out 2 kingdoms and one killer mage city in one campaign)

Now we go back to playing as the good guys. In the final campaign of the original Starcraft, you play as the Executor of the Protoss. You fight a defensive battle against the Zerg with your buddy, Praetor Fenix (another awesome dude. BTW, he starts out as just an infantry guy, but then he dies and comes back in this awesome mech thing. "I have returned!") You end up going to Char, the Zerg homeworld, to arrest Tassadar, the former executor who was basically fired for trying to save the Terrans from the Zerg instead of just bombarding the planets into glass. When you get back, the civil war is going badly because the Conclave (read: Parliament) sucks at fighting and you had much of the fleet. Tassadar tries to replace the conclave, but fails and surrenders. You bust him out, and then you attack the Overmind. The assault begins to falter (no matter how well YOU are doing on the mission...) and Tassadar kamikazes the Overmind with the flagship Gantrithor using both the Dark Templar energies and the energies of the Khalai (Protoss psionic powers) Zerg die spectacularly. Game over.

Back in the next Reign of Chaos campaign, the Orcs have left Azeroth and arrived on Kalimdor. Grom, one of the orc leaders, falls under the spell of one of the Pit Lords of the Burning Legion, Mannoroth, and Thrall, the chieftain, is forced to kill him, with the aid of the human mage Jaina Proudmoore. (Jaina ended up in Kalimdor when a prophet tells her Lordaeron is doomed) The orcs get kind of short thrift, mostly because they're just minding their own business building a new home. They don't even get a TFT campaign.

Now it's the Night Elves turn. They fight a desperate battle against the Burning Legion summoned by Archimonde. Tyrande Whisperwind, the High Priestess, has to awaken Malfurion Stormrage, essentially the high druid, and free Illidan Stormrage (yes, they're brothers. Nasty love triangle story way back in the beginning of the lore), a demon hunter who uses their own powers to slay them, but who was imprisoned because he couldn't give up magic. (It's really hard to talk about the Night Elves without bringing up thousands-year-old lore...) With the aid of Thrall and Jaina, they delay Archimonde from destroying the world tree until he can be destroyed. (It's complicated. Really neat mission, though.)

So, in short, good-guy (Kerrigan, Arthas) turns bad guy and all good guys (Raynor, Tassadar, Zeratul and Night Elves, Thrall, and Jaina) band together to kill big bad guy (Overmind, Archimonde), who was pretty much wiping the floor with good guys up until then.

Brood War and The Frozen Throne don't mesh quite so well, though. The stories are both REALLY messed up, with pretty much everyone (except the orcs, and they already did that, plus they don't have a true campaign in TFT) splitting into factions, people working with people they really have no business (well, they do. But Infested Kerrigan helping Raynor and the Protoss?), and Kerrigan and Arthas ending up supreme baddies over everyone.

In Brood War, the Protoss flee Aiur, going to the Dark Templar world of Shakuras. A bunch of Zerg inevitably followed. (Pesky things, they get everywhere!) Infested Kerrigan comes and requests help killing the new Overmind, explaining that it wasn't powerful enough to control her- yet. In return, she would help them recover two crystals, one of dark energy and one of light (Dark/High templar) that could be used to destroy the Zerg infesting Shakuras. They fail to destroy the Overmind to the intervention of a new human force, the UED (United Earth Directorate), but they still recover the crystals. Executor Aldaris tries to stop to stop the Dark Templar and Artanis, realizing that Kerrigan is manipulating them (Plus he still doesn't like the Dark Templar). Zeratul and Artanis (who effectively replaced Tassadar as resident High Templar) use the crystals, resulting in another spectacular planet Zerg-wiping explosion. (Actually, this was even bigger than the one that killed the Overmind, that's all the other one did. Poor Tassadar!)

(skip to 4:40 for cinematic)

In The Frozen Throne, a Night Elf warden, Maiev Shadowsong, chases Illidan around, trying to put him back in eternal jail. She ends up telling Malfurion Tyrande was dead, when she was only lost. Malfurion and Maiev, along with a Blood Elf (what's left of the elves of Lordaeron), Kael'thas Sunstrider, stop Illidan from using the Eye of Sargeras, which he was using to destroy Ice Crown and the Lich King (Still Ner'zhul, at this point. Plus there was the possible side effect of destroying the entire world.), but Maiev's lie is revealed, and Malfurion and Illidan go save Tyrande. Malfurion pardons Illidan, though he's still banished. Illidan leaves

Back in Starcraft land, the UED is trying to take over the Dominion. They work with the Confederacy remnants and make some progress, but they manage to anger both the Zerg and Protoss in the area. Mengsk's Dominion falls, though Kerrigan manages to convince Raynor to save him (what power she has over him...), and the UED fleet manages to capture and subdue the Overmind, despite a backstab by a Zerg-infested Samir Duran, thus gaining control of the Zerg.

We go back to Azeroth, where Kael'thas and his Blood Elves are being good Alliance citizens--until things go wrong and a racist Alliance knight imprisons them. They are saved by Lady Vashj and her Naga, and the two races go to save Illidan, who has managed to get into a royal mess in Outland, an alternate dimension originally known as Draenor, the former home of the orcs and still home of the Draenei. Illidan and Kael'thas enlist the Draenei and overturn the current lord of Outland, and Illidan thinks he is safe. Not so. The Burning Legion lord Kil'jaeden finds him, and sends him back to Azeroth to renew his attempt to wipe out the Lich King.

In the final Brood War campaign, Kerrigan is severely threatened by the now extremely poweful UED fleet and their Zerg horde. She manages to convince pretty much everyone else (Raynor and the Protoss) that the UED is the major threat. The alliance manages to slowly defeat the UED, but Kerrigan betrays the others with the aid of her agent, Samir Duran, and the Overmind is killed, thus making Kerrigan the leader of the entire swarm-- the self-stylized "Queen of Blades".

In the final TFT campaign (not counting the bonus one for the orcs), we go back to Lordaeron and the undead. The undead splinter into 3 factions: Arthas and Kel'thuzad, who were betrayed by the Dreadlords led by Nathrezim (who think that Archimonde is destroying Kalimdor), and the Forsaken led by Sylvanas Windrunner, a former elf that Arthas killed and resurrected as an undead in his campaign against the elves of Silvermoon. (These last are the ones you play as in WoW) Arthas flees to Northrend, slowly weakening (really annoying, btw. He levels backwards.) and summoned by the Lich King, and Sylvanas manages to gain the upper hand against the dreadlords, essentially gaining control of the Plaguelands. (What's left of Lordaeron)
Arthas meets the spider-race of Nerubians, and ends up fighting Illidan over the Lich King. Arthas wins, then goes up to the Frozen Throne and puts on the helmet of Ner'zhul-- thus becoming the Lich King himself. Oh, and Illidan isn't dead-- he goes back to Outland.

Definite parallels in this one as well, but not nearly as obvious as in the originals. The important part is that the final result is much alike: Good guys mostly victorious but battered, and the bad guys ready to start killing pretty much everyone.

The Warcraft saga is solved in WoW, with Illidan and Arthas being destroyed by your player character, although the undead survive. Logic says that we get a good ending with the SCII games, with Raynor and the Protoss playing the role of the PCs.

So, we have a definite parallel between the two franchises, and we can all agree that World of Warcraft is the end of the Warcraft story, right? So that means that this arc of Starcraft is the end.

Don't be sad, though. That's still a ton of content and story rolling our way in the next three, four years! A last little thing is parallels between the races and characters.

Character parallels:
Raynor=Arthas in the RoC human campaign, and PC in WoW. (protagonist)
Kerrigan=Arthas. (Kerrigan becomes Queen of Blades, Arthas becomes the Lich King)
Mengsk=Arthas (betray kingdom and become ruler)
Overmind: Ner'zhul, the original Lich King. (Original big bads, replaced by Kerrigan/Arthas) and Archimonde (big bads defeated by coalition of good guys--complete with awesome cinematic!)

Race parallels:
Terrans=Humans (giant DUH here)
Undead=Zerg (also easy)
Protoss=Night Elves, with a bit of Orc thrown in. (pushing it a bit)

The Protoss and the Night Elves don't quite fit together. The orcs take some of the Protoss roles, and the characters themselves don't translate well. If I had to, though, Tassadar would be Tyrandis, Zeratul would be Illidan, and Judicator Aldaris would be Furion.

One thing to note: There is no Burning Legion faction parallel in Starcraft. The Zerg are THE big bads, and thus end up playing the roles of the Burning Legion as well as the undead.

Questions From the Crowd Contest!

2010-07-31T18:59:00.005-05:00

Welcome to the Questions From the Crowd contest! I'm planning on doing this weekly, if I can, and usually I hope to have a topic for you guys, kick start your brains.

Today, though, I'm leaving it wide-open! Ask me anything, be it personal, like how I came to make the blog, technical, like how I do the videos or writing, or professional, like what I think of a particular game or genre.

As far as I'm concerned, you can ask DarkPC or Abujaffer something, too. It's up to them whether they answer, though, I don't really tell them what to do. (I gave myself the title of Editor-In-Chief-- and actually act as an editor. I go through their posts, checking facts, spelling, and grammar, then give the thumbs-up and post it. I have very little to no influence on what they actually choose to write about.)

Anyway, ask me anything you want, as long as it has to do with video games (or similar nerdy past times-books, movies, desktop RPGs, computers.) or my blog. Feel free to go as specific or as broad as you want, but be warned I don't know everything about everything. Don't be afraid to ask several questions. I'll go over the entries, pick a few of them, the number depending on the number and quality of submissions (I'd like to do maybe 5 or so), and answer them after one of my posts early next week (I decided tomorrow was too soon, and I'm gone this week.)

Hope to see some good questions in the comments!

Starcraft II: Savior of a Genre?

2010-07-31T16:23:00.011-05:00

Before I get started on today's post, including a sort-of scientific experiment, a couple of anecdotes, plenty of exaggerations, and one far-flung prediction, I want to announce a contest of sorts. That's all I'm telling you now, though. The details will be provided in a post to be done immediately after this one, so don't leave after you finish reading. (It'll be done well before you are with this, trust me.)

In case you've been living under a rock this week, Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, came out. You may be asking me why anyone cares about a sequel to a game in a niche genre that came out 12 years ago, especially when it's being made by the same company that developed World of Warcraft, the world's premier MMO, and Diablo, the definitive dungeon crawler.

In which case I would respond: "Have you ever been to South Korea? Starcraft, all by itself, is just as big there as, say, pro Football here in the states." There is at least one TV channel devoted solely to Starcraft.

Of course, that's far from the only reason. It was a hit here too, and has been accorded classic status like nothing else in the genre. That last little point, "in the genre", and the phrase "niche genre" up above, demonstrate the basis of this article.

Starcraft is an RTS, which stands for Real-Time Strategy. Other notables include the Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, and the more recent Supreme Commander franchises. I would say that none of these, except for the original Starcraft, and maybe not it, have ever achieved the notoriety of something like Halo or God of War.

Starcraft cover

Consider the possible reasons for this. First, the RTS is an extremely cerebral sport. It's all about the strategy, the counters, and the build orders. Even the basic resource-collecting, base-building system is much, much more complicated than most genres. In a shooter like Halo, the basics are move, point, shoot, jump, and reload. In an RTS like Starcraft, the basics are hub builds workers, which harvest resources (usually of 2 or more kinds), to build training buildings, which build units, which take up supplies, which need more buildings. That's just the base-building aspect, and you are expected to learn all of this in the very first mission. I'm not kidding. "Build 10 marines" doesn't sound very hard, but if you've never played an RTS before, it could take some figuring out. You don't just jump into an RTS and excel, like you can with most other types of game. Luckily, the combat itself isn't nearly as complicated, and much closer to other types of games.

The second reason is that RTSes are generally PC games. This is because of the controls. RTSes have so many different commands and require such precise movements that it is very difficult to work well on a console. In a normal RTS, it's not unusual to use most or all of the number keys, ctrl, shift, alt, both mouse buttons, the mouse wheel, and half the letters on the keyboard regularly. This isn't an exaggeration, either. At least not much of one. RTSes thrive on hotkeys. (Hotkeys, for those of you who don't know, are keyboard shortcuts to accomplish actions. B to build, for example) Hotkeys are kind of impossible on a console controller, with the result that we have a greatly dumbed-down control scheme, which results in annoyed veterans and unsatisfied newcomers.

Therefore RTSes generally end up as PC-exclusives. Many console gamers consider PC gaming to be "dead", so they think that since RTSes (which most gamers at least recognize) are on the PC, it must be a dead genre, or at least not important or viable. This is based on a misconception. PC gaming is not dead. Steam, Valve's content delivery and update service, is thriving, and it's a relatively recent addition, becoming common with the release of Half-Life 2 in 2004. Just because you don't know any PC gamers does not mean they don't exist. (BTW, it's impossible for you not to know any PC gamers. I am a PC gamer!) Okay? Good. Let's continue.

Although these are possible reasons, are they enough for us to consider them "dead", or "niche"? First, let's give a statistical definition for these terms: No game in this genre is main-stream enough to acquire a end-of-year award nomination in any category without limitations. This means no system or genre awards. Now, let's check this. (If you want to know, I'm using Gamespot, and IGN. as they have the most comprehensive and easy-to-use awards. Citations at the end.)

***WARNING: Lots of statistics here, results of the Best of 2009 awards. If you don't care about the specifics, skip to the next group of asterisks and capital letters.

... Ok, one site down. Grand total of one nomination from Gamespot, and that one is in Strategy. RTS didn't even have its own category. The game was Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II. (Made by Relic Entertainment, who also developed the spectacular Homeworld space RTS... in 1999.) To its credit, it's a fairly well known name and got an 8.5 at that particular publication. Interestingly enough, the franchise also has an MMO to its credit: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. For the purposes of this experiment, however, this nomination is disqualified for being specifically for the "strategy" genre.

Next, G4. As far as I can tell, there isn't a single one anywhere on the list. Of course, there wasn't a strategy or even PC category in this one either, at least that I could find. (If anyone find the official list on the G4 site and it has a PC category, I apologize for my inability to find it.)

Last stop: IGN. The aforementioned Halo Wars won the strategy genre award for the Xbox 360. Of note is the fact that the PS3 section didn't even have a strategy category. Might as well skip the Wii, but I didn't, and nothing there. Obviously the PC genre has a strategy category, and Empire: Total War wins it. The Total War series is one of the biggest modern RTS franchises, but it doesn't have base-building, instead focusing on the tactics and strategy of the combat itself, while also focusing more on realism. Also in this category is a repeat of Dawn of War II.
Empire: Total War also got nominations in Visual Excellence and, surprisingly, GotY, but, this being the PC category, none of these count. Worth mentioning, though. I give the DS and PSP categories a once-over, but nothing there. The only portable game I know of that could possible be called a RTS is Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, and that's being charitable. (I like the game, it's just pushing to call it an RTS)

Finally to the overall awards. Skipping most of the genre awards, I do stop by the strategy category to see no less than three, including the winning Halo Wars. The other two were also mentioned earlier, of course, those two being Empire: Total War and Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II. Nothing else in any of the other categories.

(Disclaimer: No, there's not more stuff about IGN's because I like them better. It's because there were more categories, and thus more nominations.)

***FINISH

So, in short, with the disqualifying of the console and genre awards, there are a grand total of zero nominations for an RTS game, so it qualifies for our definition of "dead". Note that if you took out either of these qualifications, it would have quite a few nominations. Only one victory in any category at all, though.

So, having covered the possible reasons the genre could be dead, and having come to the result that the genre is indeed dead, we bring ourselves to the obvious question: Will it stay that way? Or will Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty bring this tradition-heavy genre back to its glory days?

My first impulse is "Yes". Wings of Liberty will no doubt garner many nominations, if not awards. Personally, I think it's a shoe-in for best multiplayer and best PC game, and also for at least a nomination in sound and story. I also think it's in the running for overall GOTY--so far, anyway. (BTW, my top 5 so far: Mass Effect 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, Red Dead Redemption, and God of War III) We can also be reasonably sure that the Zerg and Protoss follow ups, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, respectively, will be similar in quality and critical acclaim.

We must ask ourselves, however, whether this will truly resurrect the genre as a whole, or just spawn bad copies that will fail to succeed and superficially impose the genre on the minds of gamers as a whole. At this point, there's no possible way to know. We can guess and predict, though, and that is the most important part of today's post.

Personally, I think it will. There are enough quality games of this genre lurking on the shelves and in the minds of today's gamers, and there is enough of a tradition and history to the genre that developers won't have to look far for inspiration. Many will try, but few will succeed. That's not rare, though. How often have you heard the term "clone" recently? (I'm looking at you, Darksiders, and you, Dante's Inferno. To be fair, though, the latter was actually a good game and brought a decent game of the style to the 360). I think in upcoming years, the term "Starcraft clone" may become nearly as prevalent as "Halo clone" or "Call of Duty clone". Enough of them will be original and polished enough to truly succeed, though, and someone will finally figure out how to do a truly amazing RTS on consoles. Though that last may be wishful thinking!

I may be wrong, though. I hope I'm not, but I may be. Perhaps one of you has the right idea. Think you do? Post it in the comments to preserve it, so you can point to it and say "Hey, I called it way back in 2010, and I can prove it! Look here!" Just keep in mind that I will do the same if I do turn out to be right, after all!

Sources: Gamespot.com, IGN.com

"Musings Update: Expansion and Polish"

2010-07-30T11:44:00.003-05:00

Welcome to something that may or may not become a recurring column: Musings Update.
Basically, this post is here to tell you What's New here at Aldowyn's Musings.

Expansion

If you've been following my twitter feed, @Aldowyn, you know that not only have I made a new twitter account expressly for the blog, @AldowynsMusings (Which you should follow ASAP, btw), you also know that I have been taking the blog and putting it on other sites. You can now find my blog on IGN, 1UP, and Gameinformer. Just search "Aldowyn". On 1UP and Gameinformer, you'll need to go to the blog tab. On IGN, you'll need to go to the people tab, and click on my profile, THEN go to the blog tab. (Also, I joined MyIGN, so friend me if you have! It's basically twitter, except only video games.)

I've even started a user group on the Escapist, here, so join that if you're an escapist.

There's a couple other things coming down the pipeline of my head, but I'm not sure if I'm going to do any of it and I don't want to bring your hopes up. Just keep spreading the word, and I'll be more likely to do something big.

Polish

This is a little more vague. You may have noticed that I actually have pictures and videos in my posts now. The main reason for this is to break up the text, but I may use them for other things in the future.

My posts are also a little bit more organized. There still aren't any subtitles or anything, but they should have a nice flow now, moving from topic to topic smoothly. I'm also going to attempt to put any game titles in italics.

Keep spreading the word! Tell your friends, follow me, @darkpctv, @abujafer, and @AldowynsMusings on twitter (make sure to RT whenever there's a new post up!), join the escapist group, do whatever! Thanks! See you tomorrow, for the first of at least two posts on Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty!

The New Xbox & Kinect Pricing and Split/Second Review

2010-07-29T19:30:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! In 360 News:

$149.99 Retail on Nov. 4

Just Released on July 25 is the Kinect and 360 S Pricing. First, Kinect will drop on November 4 for $149.99 with a copy of Kinect Adventures. Secondly the Xbox 360 S drops on August 3 for a retail price of $199.99 and last but not least the Kinect Bundle, which includes the Kinect system and a 360 S, retail pricing was released and it will cost $299.99 when it drops on November 4. Also something we weren't told about Kinect at E3 was that Kinect has 4GB of Flash Memory built in. Peculiar? Yes. Also, keeping in Microsoft's tradition to release special console bundles for big games a Halo: Reach Console Bundle was announced on July 22 and priced at $399.99 on September 14, the same day the game drops. And in new game news Street Fighter X Tekken (for SF fans made by CapCom) and Tekken X Street Fighter (For Tekken Fans made by Namco) were announced at Comic-Con on July 14. Both games will be on the PS3 and the 360 a release date is TBD.
Now that the news is out of the way the review can begin!Today, I am reviewing Split/Second on of course the Xbox 360. Split/Second was Developed by BlackRock Studios and Released by Disney Interactive the same team that put out Pure, a ATV racing game. Price: $59.99 (Authors Note: I got it a Costco for $30 with a MFR. Discount) GamePlay: Fairly simple! Right Trigger: Accelerator Left Trigger: Brakes A: LVL 1 Power Play B: LVL 2 Power Play RS: Down Backwards Left, Right Sides (Power Plays will be explained in a bit.)Power Plays: Power Plays are parts of the race track that can be blown-up. e.g. Tram Car rigged with explosives.Online MP: The online MP so far out of the 3 modes available only 1 has online activity.Achievements: Split/Second has a grand total of 46 achievements for 1000 Gamerscore. Personally on my gamertag, I have been able to get 27 out of 46 for 430 Gamerscore.

Final Verdict: Split/Second is a fun game but would I pay $59.99? No. get the game at around $25 to $30.Split/Second gets 3.5 out of 5

7/29 Update: 1 Vs. 100 on XBL has been canceled by Microsoft Game Studios as it was a Beta.

Thank you for reading, I'll be back soon -DarkPC

Picture Credits go to G4tv.com, Kotaku.com IGN.com

WoW and MMOs: Why the Love?

2010-07-23T12:26:00.010-05:00

One of the more controversials kinds of games today is the MMOG, or Massively Multiplayer Online Game. The prevailing kind is the MMORPG (If you can't figure that out, how in the world did you get here?). I'd debate the point, but I will admit that most of them do, superficially at least, have the trappings of an RPG. Of course, that's a pretty wide genre, containing anything from Mass Effect to Fallout 3 to Final Fantasy. My problem has stemmed from my very, very stunted firsthand experience with MMOs-- mostly limited to FTP (free to play) games. (I can almost guarantee you haven't heard of the one I've played the most.) Now, some of these are actually pretty good, but my biggest problem with them is that they almost completely dump the story in favor of grinding and PVP (Player vs. Player). See, I LIKE the story. It's often the main draw to a game for me, and it almost ALWAYS is in an RPG. I have issues with a game that thinks "story" is having you read a few paragraphs of incomprehensible text before telling you to go kill 10 rats.

The thing is, MMOs are almost their own genre. They WOULD be if they the standard trappings of one happened to include some kind of combat system, but as it is you can do just about anything-- despite what it looks like from the current market. (There is about ONE successful MMO that isn't fantasy, and EVE online is a whole other story.) My point is, THEIR point is that MMO thing at the beginning. That's what the entire game hinges on. In a way, you're not really role-playing your character, you're just being yourself without repercussions, in an arena where there is no penalty for failure and all the potential in the world to be a leader. There is nothing like gaining respect in an environment where the only thing you need is skill, reason, and maybe a bit of charisma -- not money, not experience, not even age. (If I had a level for every time someone said I was mature for my age...)

Imagine this scenario: You've been looking forward to this MMO that's been pretty highly anticipated. It comes out, you've preordered it, and you're all set to go. You manage to get ahead of most of the people in the starting areas, and eventually start a guild with the friends you almost inevitably made. The guild expands, and after about a year or so, you look around and all of a sudden you're the leader of the premiere guild on the server. You often end up leading your faction on raids against the enemy, and your guild is always the first to take down a new boss. You realize yours is a respected name, and people look up to you. Now, I haven't actually done this, but it would be pretty much my goal in life with an MMO. Of course this is far, far from the goal of many people. Lots of people are perfectly content with just BEING in this hypothetical guild, and more are just fine with being complete and total nobodies. My point is everyone has a role in the community, and you can interact with people in an environment unlike any other.

All this makes me willing to push through the ridiculous stories of some games and try to make a name for myself (I've done fairly well, occasionally), but eventually I get fed up with my lack of progress (levels, not social) and quit... or go play something else, which is the same thing. This is despite the fact that a large portion of the community is usually, to put it kindly, not very nice (in F2P games, anyway). Of course there were definitely nice people there, and once you graduate from noob-hood and become an equal member of the community, most people were bearable.

So imagine a game where there WAS a story, there WASN'T grinding, and the community WAS good. Sounds awesome, right?

Well, for the last, one of the fastest ways to get rid of the trolls is to make them have to pay. That INSTANTLY makes the community infinitely better. Of course, every game has their own community (like MP games on consoles, only more so). You can tell the difference between the different factions (Horde/Alliance) and even the servers have distinct communities, so it may take a bit of trial of error to find a community that fits you.

Grinding is simple, and a matter of how the game is structured. Somewhere along the line, if the production is at all competent, the decision has to be made whether to put grinding in the game or not. I can see why they would want grinding, but I have issues with a design that requires players to do something not fun to progress. Anyway, grinding is either there or it's not.

Story is a little harder. Most games HAVE a story, but it tends to be walls of text (Like mine, but with less spaces and more nonsense. Hopefully) that you get at the start and end of a quest. Many don't even have honest-to-goodness dialogue. (WoW's mission text feels like dialogue, and it usually at least makes sense.) Story gives you more of a motivation for what you're doing, and gives you something to think about other than "need to kill x more y to get z experience to get to level a". I've always thought that WoW didn't have much of a story. Kind of a stupid idea, considering the ridiculously detailed source material, but I did. I recently heard otherwise in an article I was reading. *FIND ARTICLE. XP on the Escapist?*

That recently having heard otherwise inspired me to try something I hadn't done in a while. In short, try WoW. I'd thought about it several times, mostly just to see what this huge giant thing that everyone talked about was like. I'd never really thought about the possibility that I might actually LIKE it, but now I was.

Part of what stopped me before was the requirement of a real name for registration and I didn't particularly want to do that. By now, though, I don't particularly care, as it's fairly accessible. So in I go... (BTW, I like the trial. You don't actually have to download the client, which is HUGE. It usually takes hours, but you can starting playing the WoW trial in minutes.)

I've played Warcraft III, and I've heard quite a bit about WoW through the years, so I know the factions, classes, and races pretty well. I decide for my trial to make a nice, generic character-- in other words, a Human Fighter. I go through the starting zone, studying the combat system in particular and reading all the text. The combat system passes inspection with flying colors and the story gets a "pass". It's nothing spectacular, but I wouldn't expect it to be. A lot of it comes up as "hey, these guys need help with this, go help them," but as you're a soldier, it doesn't seem too far-fetched. I don't remember exactly how I went from one zone to the next, but I had trouble with the second zone, and I decided I didn't like the class. (ended up as level 13, which is a fair trial of a class in a game where the level cap was originally 60.)

The next class I actually got interested in was an Orc Shaman. If you don't know the lore, Shamans are basically elementalists that use spirits instead of actual magic-- which is a big deal, lorewise, but not really gameplay wise. Silence still stops you from using your abilities, after all. I'm a fan of the shaman quests, and Durotar, the orc starting zone, seemed a lot more interesting than the human starting zone. I also REALLY liked the class, which is a damage-dealing class that can double as a healer. (In my dungeon runs later in my trial, I played as a healer. Did a fair job, too.) That combination tends to work real well soloing, and I eventually ended up as an awesome level 19.

One of the things that stuck out to me was the fact that, at least up to my level, there was NO grinding. There was always a quest to do, and chances are there was several you could do relatively easy. The number of quests was pretty good, enough to get you leveled up but not so many that you would spend forever doing all of them. This was a pleasant surprise, and bodes well for any future games I might play.

The people I met tended to be nice, surprisingly enough. There was a helpful mage that helped me kill an annoying boss as a fighter, and any time I rescued someone who bit off more than they could chew, I almost invariably got a "thank you." I didn't get much, if any exposure to the community as a whole though, due to the fact that trial accounts can't do ANYTHING. They can't chat outside of area chat, they can't invite to parties, and they can't even whisper someone without being whispered first. So I had to deal with whoever I happened to come across in my travels.

I particularly liked the dungeon system. Not only was there an automatic party finder, each player has a designated role and the game tells you which of the three (tank, damage, and healer) your class could fill. The dungeons themselves were nothing special, but I was usually too busy keeping up, messing with the loot system, and chatting with my party members to pay much attention to the layouts. The early dungeons weren't even particularly hard, and I got the hang of the whole healing thing. I've never liked being a healer, but I really liked healing as a shaman. More on the loot system: It's called "need before greed" and requires everyone to Need, Greed, or pass on every item above a particular quality. Then, the people who picked need are rolled for, and the highest roll wins the item. If no one needed it, then it goes to the people who picked greed. It's one of the best systems I've seen, as they are either random or based on damage contribution (really not fair in a role-based combat system.) I just wish they could find a way to automate who needed which item. It doesn't even seem hard to do.

The story (remember, the reason I'd actually tried WoW) wasn't anything spectacular, but I hadn't expected it to be. I mean, I did only get to level 19, and I was only in the first couple zones- and those in the middle of my side's territory. I'm sure it gets infinitely better later, when you're fighting more than bandits and wildlife.

The problem with a trial for any MMO, and WoW in particular, is the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get to the good parts, the reason you are playing an MMO in the first place. There is no way you're going to find a good guild and contribute, even at low levels, let alone get to the PVP and high-level dungeons that are the best part of the game. You barely get enough to make an educated guess. Personally, I can definitely see the potential in WoW, but I also have a lot of secondhand (or thirdhand, even) knowledge of it, and MMOs in general. The problem is there's next to no way a newcomer could see any of this from a trial, and that's a shame, because there are things in MMOs that you can't even come close to in any other game. Or anything, really.

One last thing that I want to mention is the culture in WoW. It may just be me, someone VERY aware of what they were playing, but it seemed to me that the people were very aware that they were playing a game that pretty much spawned an entire new culture, and extremely proud of it. WoW is an MMO like no other I've ever seen or heard of, and it can be felt everywhere, from the dungeon system using the roles it practically created, to the achievement "Jenkins" that wants you to kill 15... somethings in 3 minutes. (If that last one didn't make sense, shame on you. It happens though, so watch this video and now you do!)

In closing, I give to you an invitation. If I ever do manage to get an MMO at launch (at this point, either SWTOR or Jumpgate Evolution, hopefully both) and get the opportunity to seriously play it, I will most assuredly be making a guild ASAP, and any of you that want to get to know me (or already do and just want to play with me, or any other reason you can think of) will be more than welcome to join it. The game, my character's name, and the guild name will all be on here, and I'll remind you guys of the standing offer when it comes out.

P.S. There we go! Finally figured out an easy way to get videos into the post. Should be MUCH easier on the eyes now. Oh, and it's pretty much all the trailers/intros for WoW (not sure if the Cataclysm one has been released.)

P.P.S If anyone knows how I can fit the whole Youtube video player in the column, please tell. As it is most of the options are cut off. You still see the whole video, though. I think.

P.P.P.S (lol, never done a 3rd one) Hey guys! I need your help! Right now, very, very few people read the blog, and even fewer regularly. I'd like to change that! So tell your friends, retweet my tweets, use the #AldowynsMusings hash tag, vote in the polls, comment, anything you can think of! :)

Mass Effect 2: Polished to (Near) Perfection

2010-07-23T12:18:00.006-05:00

Those of you who know me at all know that the Mass Effect series are some of, if not my all-time favorite games. They combine my two favorite genres (story-telling RPGs and shooters) and are set in one of the most fleshed out universes I've ever seen (They didn't make that codex just out of thin air, you know), with one of my favorite premises and settings. I've discussed this before, but none of the other RPG/shooters quite manage to hit the right buttons like ME does. Thus, I'm sure (or I hope, anyway) that you've been awaiting my review/discussion/whatever on one of the best games of the year, Mass Effect 2. (I know at least one place where it's the GOTY so far... I know it's mine) That's what this post is.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (Thanks! Oh, and if you don't, I'm @aldowyn, and it's also on the sidebar) know that I recently finished ME2 on Insanity (the hardest difficulty). In case you're curious, it was my second playthrough, and I was playing as a Renegade Vanguard. (BTW, you know that really cool looking Vanguard move, Charge? The one where you charge through pretty much everything and slam into your enemy, knocking him down? Useless on Insanity, you get mowed down almost instantly by anyone else in the area.) This was no mean feat, and would (probably) have been blatantly impossible in the first one. More on that later. MOST of this will be based off of that playthrough, as the first one was several busy months ago.

Anyway, I'd just like to say now that I would especially enjoy comments on this one, as there have been several times where I've gotten pretty close to having a full-blown debate over it, and I'd rather enjoy having a nice big one with all sorts of people in it.

Mass Effect 2: Review

Mass Effect 1 was a really good game, but it definitely had issues. The combat and inventory systems were clunky, and it was one of the glitchier games I've played. It was a good start, but definitely a start.

Mass Effect 2 fixes almost everything anyone complained about-- almost too well. The inventory system was completely scrapped, in favor of a loadout system with the capability to upgrade each class of weapon (heavy pistol, SMG, shotgun, assault rifle, and sniper rifle), and different pieces of armor that you can wear. The ammo types from the first one were changed to abilities, which, however unrealistic, worked quite well for the combat and management. One addition to the combat that was especially welcome was heavy weapons, from a grenade launcher for taking out several small fry at once, to a mini-nuke launcher that I'm pretty sure could take out anything short of the final boss in one hit on anything other than the final difficulty. (I managed to unload one to aforementioned final boss' eye. Needless to say, it died.)

They also pruned the skills and leveling system. Now, each skill has only 4 tiers, successively more expensive and more powerful, and each character only has half a dozen or so, max. This contrasts sharply with the first, where you could spend around a dozen points on each of your many skills, unlocking abilities and new skills as you upgraded the skill. This new system is just as dynamic and customizable, but also much easier to make sense of and use.

Also scrapped was the Mako from the first game. Although I personally didn't mind the vehicle sections as much as some, they didn't seem to serve much purpose other than getting you to the next cookie-cutter location for the next mini-quest. These monotonous vehicle sections were essentially replaced by something even more monotonous-- scanning for minerals. It's made pretty much a requirement, as you need minerals for the upgrades I mentioned above- along with a few other things, such as upgrades for your ship, shielding, armor, etc. etc. It's incredibly boring, but I at least managed to find a system for doing it where it only took a minute or so per planet. You'll still be spending an hour or two of your game time scanning, though.

Mineral Scanning

The minigame from the first game is now completely gone, replaced with separate hacking and bypassing minigames. One, you have to match three sequences of code with the extra sequences scrolling up, and the other is almost like Memory. Both of them are fairly interesting, but easy if you know what you're doing-- even easier than the one in Mass Effect, which at least got semi-difficult by the end of the game. I'm not sure the new ones even scaled up, they were so easy. For me, anyway.

The combat system has also been revamped. Instead of the annoying cooldowns from the first game, we now have traditional ammo. It's hard to run out, though, and you can always switch to another gun. You can also bend biotic powers to get around cover and such by aiming slightly away from your enemy, and enemies are more likely to be resistant to your powers. For example,you can't use most powers on a shielded enemy, but you can use powers meant specifically to be used against shields-- like Overload. Some enemies have several tiers of defenses to be overcome before you get to their actual health-- at which point they become sitting ducks for your powers. Aside from all of this, the controls are just a lot tighter. The combat isn't based on the stats of your gun any more, which means that when you aim and pull the trigger, you hit where you aim. (They also got rid of the waving around with the Sniper Rifle, so I can actually hit stuff now. I love sniping in ME2) You now have to hit a button to enter and exit cover, as opposed to sticking to it when you get close, and you can vault over most cover by moving forwards and hitting the button. This can lead to complications, but they are caused more by the user than the controls. The combat feels much more visceral and hard-hitting -- in short, a lot more like a shooter.

There's one mission in particular that sums up all these improvements to gameplay and atmosphere. I was on a derelict ship, and it felt almost like a survival shooter, zombies, creepy music, everything. I was running flat-out, shotgunning enemies as I went, and every once in a while I would get mobbed and die. Then you run into a boss, which has a ranged attack and a ton of health. It steadily moves towards you, acting like a ticking clock spelling your death if you don't kill it as soon as you can. It's a really cool sequence, and I wish the game did that kind of thing more often.

That's not to say that the story is lacking. Bioware has delivered once again, with a new stock of amazing, deep characters and the remarkable story we've come to expect from one of the best developers out there. In fact, the writing is at least as good as I've seen. It does feel quite different, though, largely because of the focus on the characters in your squad. Most Bioware games have a pretty predictable layout: tutorial area, 3 or 4 areas that you can do in any order that are the meat of the game, some areas that advance the story and that you have to do in between the main areas, and the finale. The original Mass Effect followed this formula, but ME2 has completely obliterated it. Now, you have a short tutorial, and then are set to

gather your squad of nearly a dozen people and gain their loyalty. Mixed in this part are a couple of missions to remind you that the bad guys are still there and that stuff is still happening. (One of these was particularly awesome) Then, of course, you go off on the fabled "suicide mission" and kill everything.

One drawback of this is the flow of the game. There aren't really distinct chapters that each have their own boss and finale - or at least they don't feel very final since they happen about 20 times.

These chapters in earlier games also provided a platform for the signature Bioware "choices." Mass Effect had them, Dragon Age had them, even Knights of the Old Republic had them... but Mass Effect 2 doesn't. Well, it does, but apart from the final one, they are hidden in the unnecessary loyalty quests and don't feel as... well, epic as they did in the original game. They

are still there, and most of them seem to be setting up for ME3, but they just didn't feel right to me.

One problem I never noticed about Mass Effect was how black and white it is. This is probably for two reasons. One, it's not good and evil, it's Paragon and Renegade. (Goody-goody or get the job done.) Two, I recently played Dragon Age: Origins. To put it bluntly, Dragon Age: Origins was not black and white. It wasn't even close. Of course, that was the point. I realize now that if a game tells you that the top right of the conversation wheel is one way and the bottom right is another, it's not exactly going to be hard to figure out which choice is which side.Part of the reason the story doesn't flow as well is because this is the middle chapter. We're continuing from the first and leading up to the second. This is the one that can't stand alone as well. The entire game is partly one huge hiring and audition to get ready for the finale, only none of the characters know it yet. This was a suicide mission, and anyone who died is not going to be there next time, and you're not going to be able to replace them. (Note my prediction that ME3 won't

have as many new characters)

Another issue is the complete lack of a strong enemy for most of your missions. Apart from the few times you fight the bad guys, you're fighting mercenary groups. I probably killed 10 times more mercs than I did Collectors. Even with them, who are essentially playing the roles of the geth or the darkspawn, there's not really a big bad, like Saren or the Archdemon. Sure,

there's the general, but you kill him (or his avatar, whatever) repeatedly as you go through a game, and it's never explained who or what he actually is or what he represents. Your interaction with him is limited to a few battle catchphrases (so, so creepy) and a couple cutscenes. You never actually talk to him, thus demoting him to some random guy you have to kill, instead of an intelligent adversary.

Most of these "drawbacks" are nitpicks from a devout fan of the series and a hardcore story geek, though. They aren't going to affect your game, and they didn't even really affect my experience of it. It's just me literally looking for something wrong with the game. and those are always going to exist -- perfection is a goal to be strived for, not attained. All of (or most, anyway) of this ends up contributing to the final effect of a much more polished game. Mass Effect 2 IS, in most ways that matter, vastly superior to its predecessor, and a very strong contender for Game of the Year. In other words, if you haven't played it already, GO PLAY IT. Besides, then we can talk about it more. I can almost always talk about Mass Effect!

P.S. Sorry for the delay on this particular article (I finished the game over a week ago) and the drought this month, I've been kind of busy. Don't worry, though, I've got two more articles lined up for the next few days, and I'm working on a few other games. (Oblivion, Assassin's Creed, Halo 3, etc.) Oh, and I'll have an update on Dragon Age 2 by Monday. (Remember I said that, me.)

P.P.S I'm trying to put some more pictures and videos into my posts to break up the text, but I'm on my laptop so it's a little hard to do. I'll try to update with trailers and stuff ASAP.

*edit* DONE! Hope you like it better, this one was a pain! Quite sure how to do it from now on, though.

Dragon Age 2 Reveal

2010-07-11T20:25:00.005-05:00

If you're anything like me, you were probably wondering about the lack of Bioware news at E3- other than SWTOR, anyway. We've heard before that Dragon Age and Mass Effect both have something coming out this next spring, and there was that teaser in the casing for Dragon Age: Awakening.

Wonder no more, for Dragon Age 2 has been announced! The official Dragon Age 2 site is UP. Very few details have been released as yet, but Gameinformer magazine has revealed that the game is the cover story in the August issue. They've only released a few details, but more will show before the August issue is released.

Gameinformer's August cover

Chief among the details that have been released is the reveal of the protagonist for the new game. Gone is the classic put-yourself-in-their-shoes protagonist of the first game, and in with Hawke.

Hawke is a human that was living in Lothering at the time of the Blight from the first game. He (or she) escapes the destruction of the town, and heads to the Free Marches of the north, ending up in a city named Kirkwall. This does mean that you won't be able to choose your race, but that had little to no effect on the gameplay in Origins, instead driving the origins stories.

Instead, Hawke will be the focus of the story. The game will span an entire decade, following Hawke's rise from penniless peasant to the "most important character in the world of Dragon Age". I'm sure there will be plenty of disasters to fight off, but it seems we won't have any Blights or Reapers in this one.

Also, Hawke will be fully voiced, ala Commander Shepard. This may not sound like much, but it makes a huge difference, and an essential one in a story where the main character is the story. It allows the main character to be their own character, instead of completely determined by the player (don't worry, there's still plenty of customization), and aid immersion incredibly.

About all else we have so far is a list of features from the official site, which I shall copy and paste to you verbatim:

Embark upon an all-new adventure that takes place across an entire decade and shapes itself around every decision you make.
Determine your rise to power from a destitute refugee to the revered champion of the land.
Think like a general and fight like a Spartan with dynamic new combat mechanics that put you right in the heart of battle whether you are a mage, rogue, or warrior.
Go deeper into the world of Dragon Age with an entirely new cinematic experience that grabs hold of you from the beginning and never lets go.
Discover a whole realm rendered in stunning detail with updated graphics and a new visual style.

It looks like Bioware is edging Dragon Age towards Mass Effect, with the main character being such a big deal (even bigger, here) and a renewed emphasis on action in combat, but have faith in Bioware. I'm sure they will keep Dragon Age the strategy-heavy RPG it has been up to now.
Otherwise, I'm looking forward to the upgraded graphics we've been promised, and it might kind of be nice to focus on my character instead of saving the world for a change!

Sadly, the promotional teaser or whatever in the packaging for Dragon Age: Awakening either wasn't talking about Dragon Age II, or it was delayed (not unlikely). It had said 2.01.2011, or February 1, 2011, but EA has said in a press release for the game that it is slated for a March release. Maybe they got it wrong, but I doubt it. At least, not wrong that way.

I'm a little curious as to why Bioware didn't reveal this at E3, but it looks like they may be doing exclusives. Gameinformer is the only place with any detail on Dragon Age 2, and there was a G4TV exclusive demo of The Old Republic during E3. Let's hope that they'll give the ME3 story to someone else, because I really want to hear about that!

I'll keep you posted on any new details that surface, probably as a footnote at the end of my regular posts. I'll also try to get a copy of the August issue of Gameinformer and fill you guys in on it. (Not a perfect substitute for getting it yourself, though)

Roger Ebert: Maybe video games CAN be art!

2010-07-01T08:01:00.005-05:00

Yes, I know I already talked about this debate. Sorry, you're going to get a bit more. Just a bit though. Before I do so, you do need to go read my first post on this topic, way down in like April. (April 20, in fact.) It's very possible that it's still my best post yet.

Now, if you're still with me or have come back from reading that one. you have something else to read, assuming you haven't. Roger Ebert's concession, which is here.

If you noticed, he said that he personally still thinks video games can't be art, but admits the validity of one of the most common arguments--that he shouldn't be talking about something he has next to no experience in. I can agree with that, but he also says a whole bunch more. (He can be just a bit long-winded sometimes) Eventually he gets around to repeating his reason for video games not being art, that being they're not static. Video games are interactive, and the player controls it. Thus, it is no longer controlled by the creator, and thus is not art.

Ok, that makes sense. It has a problem, though. This assumes that the amount of interaction is infinite-- that the player can make anything they want happen. As we all know, this is far from the case. The creator personally creates everything in the game, controls how they interact, and finally determines how everything will come together to the endings that he decides. It is very, very finite, and it shall remain finite until at least true virtual reality is brought to the medium (At which point the playthroughs themselves will become art, but that's another story.), and if and when that happens I shall accept that those games are not art.

Also, somewhere in there, he gives a textbook definition of art.

This belongs more with my previous post more than with this one. In that one I argued for the capability of video games to elicit emotions, and that video games will be considered art by the masses when their main purpose is considered to tell a story, or make you feel a certain way. Almost directly supported by that definition over there.

Lastly, I want to comment a little bit on the poll he made and tweeted out to his followers, many of whom retweeted it in turn. I don't remember if I retweeted it, but I did participate. The poll asked "Which would you value more?" in between Huckleberry Finn and a great video game. (Obviously I voted for the game)
I just want to say this is flawed. To be fair, it should be simpler: in between a great book and a great video game. I would still vote for the game, but this one is a lot closer. If the vote was in between Harry Potter (one of my favorites, just so you know) and say, Modern Warfare, I would say Harry Potter. You may have noticed before, but I'm not the biggest FPS guy. They're fun, but they're just time-wasters, for me.

What do you guys think? I don't really have a specific question this time, but there is plenty to discuss, and I always like to discuss, so find your own question, opinion, or comment, and I shall respond.

Mass Effect: What's the Big Deal?

2010-06-30T09:52:00.004-05:00

A lot of people, me included, weren't quite sure what was so important about Mass Effect before they played it, so I'm going to talk about why it was (and still is) such a big deal.

I got my (first) 360 not long ago, less than 2 years. I had to decide what games I wanted to get. I researched it a bit, and I decided I had to get Halo 3. (To not do so would be like not getting Twilight Princess for the Wii!) Other than that, I thought I should get one of those action games.. I don't remember what the choices were, but I ended up with Assassin's Creed. Finally, I wanted an RPG. I had the choice between Mass Effect, and Bioshock. (Note: I ended up getting ME on PC, mostly for the benefit of the rest of my family.) At this point, they were a lot alike: incredible, groundbreaking RPG/shooters. I don't quite remember why I chose Mass Effect. It may have been because of the sci-fi setting, maybe because of the developer. (I'd played several Bioware titles, like Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur's Gate.)

I still haven't played Bioshock, and Bioware has come to completely dominate my gaming life. I can't wait for news of the new Dragon Age game, I hang on every word I can find on Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I will die of anticipation for Mass Effect 3.

Why? In short: because the entire concept of Mass Effect is awesome, and Bioware is awesome. For the first, apart from my natural affinity for the setting, it, along with a few other games, essentially spawned a new genre that I have decided to call the Role-Playing Shooter (or RPS, but that doesn't sound right). Bioshock and Fallout 3 have also contributed, but this genre is just as varied as RPGs are. Mass Effect is decidedly different. Story and characters are the dominate aspects of Mass Effect. Bioshock is allegory, a story about a dystopia based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand that happens to be told to a guy with a gun and super powers. (Which look really cool, btw.) Fallout 3 is an open-world RPG (Bethesda FTW), which tend to be light on story. (I think it's because they're too busy building the world) Not that Fallout 3 or Oblivion have bad stories, they're actually both really good, but my point is they aren't what you play the game for. (mostly, anyway)

Mass Effect is a blend of what I would call a true western RPG-- you know, the ones that are essentially based on Dungeons and Dragons, (Speaking of, Bioware made the franchise that is one of the best games actually based on D&D, Neverwinter Nights, and what is IMO the best game that feels like D&D, Dragon Age: Origins) and FPS. RPGs, not necessarily this kind, and FPS are arguably the two most popular genres. I acknowledge that Mass Effect's blend of these is far from perfect, but it was a really good attempt-- and Mass Effect 2 capitalized on that and made it almost seamless.

The first thing that makes Mass Effect different from others like it is the story. It's one of those games that you could reasonably put it on easy difficulty and coast through the combat, just for the main story. You could do the same in an open-world RPG, but that's usually for the little things everywhere, (which are actually one of the weakest points in the original Mass Effect) as opposed to the actual, main story. Mass Effect creates a universe and story that, at least in my opinion, is worthy of the biggest sci-fi franchises out there. The world Bioware has created is, quite possibly, the most in depth universe ever created for a game. They managed to detail the last several centuries or more of the history of the current people, plus the overarching cycle of the entire universe, through dialogue. Then there's the codex- a partly voice-acted repository of almost everything you could imagine in the universe. (Of course, there's dozens of races, thousands of worlds, etc. etc., but it does detail everything you actually see.) There's even several paragraph long descriptions, and, when applicable, histories, of every planet in the entire game. Literally.

Tangent here: I figured out a while ago that I think there are 3 main differences in between Star Trek and Star Wars. 1: The world. Star Trek is the future of this world. Star Wars is in a galaxy far, far away. 2: Humanity's position. In Star Trek, humanity is just another race. In Star Wars they are dominant. 3: The Force. Star Trek doesn't really have any magic, apart from the tech. Star Wars has the Force. Notice that Mass Effect comes out decidedly on the Star Trek side, and the one that is like Star Wars (Biotics = the Force) is far from a central point of the story, like it is in Star Wars.

The second thing is the emphasis on characters. Look at the recent RPGs. (and as far as I can remember, all RPGs) There are western RPGs, and Japanese RPGs (as represented by Final Fantasy). Ignoring the JRPGs, look at the western RPGs. How many of them have companions, ala D&D? All the ones I can come up with from my admittedly biased memory are made by Bioware. Mass Effect takes this to extremes, though. Mass Effect 1 was fairly typical for Bioware, with maybe a few less than normal, with varied classes and races of companions, each with extensive dialogue trees, opinions on your actions, and their own quest.
Mass Effect 2 took this and literally made it the basis of the entire game. There are nearly a dozen characters, most of which have their own recruiting quest and all of which with their Bioware-signature quest-- which are actually an important, necessary part of the game. They are the stars of the game, and Bioware seems to have skimped on the rest of the story in ME2 to focus on them.

In conclusion, Mass Effect is important because it helps to create an entire new genre, but it is so enjoyable because it does it well, and Bioware made it. (Bioware made it = one of the best stories ever. ALWAYS.)

Indie Games for 360 Reviews!

2010-06-24T21:59:00.001-05:00

Hello Again!

Today's is on Indie Game Reviews on the Xbox 360 (of course).

The first game I will review is Super Avatar Hero Force made by UberGeekGames . It is a very simple game to get use to!

Controls: Move RS or LS toward the way you would like to attack but you have to get the timing right or else you would DIE by being eaten by zombie avatars (although they don't look like zombies).

Plot: You become a part of the "Super Avatar Hero Force" and you have to defend the world from a zombie infestation. There are 5 levels in this game, 1 training level and there are 4 other levels that have to do with the plot.

Price: 80 MSPoints || Final Verdict: I bought it for 80 MSPoints and it's price point is spot on for the kind of game it is. I give Super Avatar Hero Force 2.5 stars out of 5.

The second game is Avatar Paintball made by DigitalDNA. Once again a very simple game to get if you play alot of shooters because it is a shooter type of game but you are playing paintball.

Controls: Same as any FPS

Plot: THERE IS NO PLOT! its a Online MP Only Game but there is a 1P training mode

Price and Final Verdict: 240 MSPoints The verdict is that this game is fun BUT it is WAY over priced. for a MP only FPS that really should cost maybe 120 MSP but its best price point should be 80 MSP. I give Avatar Paintball 3 stars out of 5.

And my last game is Avatar Racedrome made by Juan Alberto Munoz. (yes I know I put a name instead of a company because one person [supposedly] made this game.)

Controls: Like any race game

Plot: No real plot but there are Practice, Single Race, and Championship modes and a XBL

MP mode.

Price and Final Verdict: The price for Avatar Racedrome is 80 MSP and it is one of the best XBL Indie Games on the marketplace! I give Avatar Racedrome 4 out of 5

The First Post

2010-06-23T23:12:00.004-05:00

Note from the Editor: Welcome our first new author, DarkPC! This doesn't mean I'll be doing any less; rather, it means that there will be more content for you! DarkPC will be focusing on Microsoft and the Xbox 360. Occasionally he might do posts on other topics, and I'll still be doing posts on 360 things, especially on the games themselves.

Hello Readers, I am Christian Canales AKA DarkPC on the internet.

I will be blogging with Aldowyn on video games. Specifically I’ll be blogging on Xbox 360 and other Microsoft video game musings which includes reviews and news. Also you can contact me via Twitter, @DarkPCTV, and on Xbox Live, GamerTag: e345., or shoot me an e-mail to darkpc2@gmail.com Now that the introduction is out of the way let’s talk Microsoft!

Update: New Avatar items coming to the Marketplace on 6/24. I will check them out and tweet later on.

Now, first things first, we have to talk about Kinect and its reveal at E3. Kinect is Xbox’s venture into the so called Motion Control “hype.” I for one believe the hype and actively embrace the motion control gaming “hype.” Kinect in my opinion is the best motion control gaming device with the Wii coming in close second. (Author’s Note: Before all the PS3 Fan boys call for my head, hear me out. I have not tried the Move YET! I’m only listing the motion controls that either I have seen been demoed or I have actually tried. So calm down I will get to the Move Eventually, once I get to either see it being demoed or actually demoed it myself.)

Also a new Xbox 360 Model was revealed at E3. It has a 250GB built-in HDD and built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi. Also it is supposedly slimmer than the current model 360 Elite. No major re-designs on the controller or any other peripheral. I have also heard on the internet via kotaku.com that this 360 doesn’t Red Ring but that was quickly shot as Microsoft said that the ring of light are ONLY green the power sign will be red to signify any errors. Would I get a new 360 slim? No, unless something catastrophic would happen to my 360 elite.

Among some of the games that are coming to the 360 in the next 6-9 months are all the Kinect Games including Dance Central, Kinect Joyride, Kinectmals, etc. The retail games that were announced were, Gears 3, Halo Reach, MGS: Rising, CoD: Black Ops, Fable III (finally!), Crackdown 2, and for anyone loves Sports, ESPN is coming to Live!

That is it for now! I’ll be posting more as more Xbox/Microsoft News comes out!

Thanks for Reading and comeback for more if you can!

-DarkPC

Picture Snippet from news.cnet.com

3DS

2010-06-23T21:22:00.014-05:00

Also welcome our second new writer, Abujaffer, who will be writing about Nintendo. As before, this doesn't limit anyone-he can also write about other things, I'll still write about Nintendo, and you just have more content to enjoy!
Now we just need a Sony writer, since I don't have a PS3...

The 3DS was announced but a week before the release of the DSi XL. This premature unveiling was due mostly due to the fact that hackers had gotten information already that Nintendo was developing a 3D DS, and Nintendo wanted to beat them at their game. However, little to no details were revealed, other than that it will have 3D, better graphics, and an analog stick. Now, flash-forward to the E3, and Nintendo has finally revealed their latest spectacle, the 3DS. Here I will go in depth about its many features, rumours, specs, and launch games.

Features
The 3DS will, obviously, have a screen that produces 3D without the use of glasses. It will have full 3D, similiar/equal to the IMAX 3D. This will be the top screen. On the side of the 3D screen is a 3D slider, a plastic slider that you use to control the depth of the 3D, or, if you so choose, you can completely remove the 3D. Now, on the bottom screen is the touch screen. This is a normal screen and doesn't have 3D. Another new feature is the slide pad. This is pretty much an analog stick that stands a bit above where the original D-pad was. The D-pad is a bit underneath where it originally was. The power button is on the right side, as opposed to the DSi's left side power button. The touch screen has a cool new feature on the bottom. There are 3 buttons in a line, Select, Home, Start. The Home is the new button. Its sort of like the Wii's home button, and I'll explain the rumours later on. The 3DS will have improved wireless internet options. First, it downloads faster. Then, it can download and connect to other people on the go. It will download high scores on the go. This has been confirmed (see the rumour below).

Rumours
First rumour is that the 3DS will have an install feature. Think of it like WiiWare but with full games. Like, all those launch games? You can supposedly download them. These are all unconfirmed rumours, so don't get too excited. Next, theres a rumour that the 3DS will be released by the end of the year, while Reggie Fils-Aime has confirmed that its coming out in all "major markets" by the end of march 2011. Now, the rumour about the connections options. Since the 3DS can connect to people on the go, people have gotten to the conclusion that friend codes will be dropped, or at least the 3DS can exchange friend codes. Thats the only way you can connect to other people, so it has to be one of them. Third, theres a rumour that the Home button will be like the Wii home button. Click it, it shows the battery, info on the device, etc. Others say it'll be like the PSP Go Home button. That one pauses the action, allows you to go to the internet, watch a movie, anything that isn't that game, then come back to it later. Finally, theres a rumour that the 3DS will have a connection to Hollywood movies, which is probably true. This is because in the Nintendo booth during E3 there were trailers/clips for movies like How To Train Your Dragon, Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Gahoole, and Tangled. All in 3D of course. These are all cool rumours that hopefully will all be true. (The rumours are written from least likely to most likely)

Specs
These specs are really long, so I'll just write down the Nintendo E3 website, which will be updated so you can see how the specs change.
http://e3.nintendo.com/3ds/

Launch Games
Kid Icarus:Uprising
nintendogs+cats
HIDEO KOJIMA'S METAL GEAR SOLID SNAKE EATER 3D "The Naked Sample"
Resident Evil Revelations
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Animal Crossing
Mario Kart
Paper Mario
PilotWings Resort
StarFox 64 3D
Steel Diver
DJ Hero 3D
The Sims 3
Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle
RIDGE RACER
KINGDOM HEARTS
DEAD OR ALIVE 3D
SAMURAI WARRIORS 3D
Battle of Giants: Dinosaur Strike
Hollywood 61
CODENAME: Chocobo Racing 3D
SUPER STREET FIGHTER IV 3D Edition
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon

That is the BIGGEST launch support I have ever seen. Man. Talk about hype.

Heres a video showing the maximum potential of the 3DS video processor. It looks pretty epic, and I'm sure Nintendo will use the best looking handheld on the market to the advantage.

It may not look like much, but check out the glare on the samurai, the shadows, the blanket billowing on his side, the leaves rustling in the wind, and, finally, all that detail on the dude. The guy's fully decked out to kick some butt!

Sony and Big 3 wrap-up

2010-06-20T16:34:00.008-05:00

Don't forget to read my summary of Nintendo's conference, which I just posted, and with no furthur ado:

Sony

Sony was also last at E3 2009, and they had to push the PS Move through as "new", despite the fact that Microsoft had just finished announcing their motion control. That wasn't an issue this year, as both of them had their motion controls, and we knew that, so Sony wasn't at such a disadvantage this time.

Sony opened with a bit of a speech, saying that this year would be the year Sony "brought 3D to games". They quickly followed it up with Killzone 3(D). Which has jetpacks... and aliens... and all those other things that make Killzone Killzone. You'll be able to get your hands on it in February 2011.
Sony also announced that several other games will be coming out in 3D, such as the long awaited Gran Turismo 5 and MLB: The Show.

Then... more speeches. This time about their new motion control, Playstation Move. A fairly big deal was made about the fact that it actually has buttons.
They then informed us that SOCOM 4 will be using motion controls. Yay! I guess...

One of the most unique games I saw this entire E3 was a Move-centric game called Sorcery. As is obvious, you'll be playing a wizard, and you'll use move to aim your spells, draw glyphs on the screen to cast different spells, and all sorts of awesome stuff like that. It actually looks like it works pretty well, as the guy demoing it was able to hit the enemies reliably.

Then they demoed PGA Tour 11. Fairly standard, but it uses Move, which really does make the difference. It seemed remarkably close to 1:1-and the golfer made the hole within par. If you like golfing (or your dad does), this might be a good game to have.

Next came Heroes on the Move, starring such Sony heroes as Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Dexter, and a couple others. Okay, it's a platformer (I think all the heroes are from platformers, or at least pseudo-platformers) where you play as all the different characters, simple enough.

Sony then gave a release date and some prices. It comes out September 19, and the original controller will be $50, the sub-controller will be $30, there's a bundle with both and Sports Champions for $100, and that with the PS3 for $400.

After that came several games with pretty much no information provided, those being Eyepet, The Shoot, and Echochrome ii.

Kevin Butler came on stage and announced a new advertising campaign for the PSP, starring one Marcus Rivers, and a slogan of "Step your game up!" Basically, it's the PS3 commercials with Marcus instead of KB and a different slogan.

Then, predictably, came several games for the PSP. Among these are Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Invizimals, and God of War: Ghost of Sparta... and a stat. That stat is 70+, yes seventy plus PSP games by December of this year, and there's quite a few that look pretty good.

Finished with the PSP, we move on to one amazing looking game. That game is LittleBigPlanet2. The first one was pretty amazing, but this one steps its game up. (See what I did there? Too bad it's not on the PSP) The first one focused mainly on platformers, but you can make anything in LBP2. Some talented individual made an RTS. Yes, a real-time strategy game. You know, like Starcraft? They added so many new features, they decided they weren't even going to talk about them and just showed a montage of awesome games made by players of the first game who were invited to see what they could do with the new game.

Then came an unusual announcement that I've oddly heard next to nothing about: Playstation Plus. It's a subscription based upgrade to PSN that lets you get all sorts of cool stuff-supposedly worth hundreds of dollars, including discounts and free PSN games. We weren't provided with many details, but we did get a price. $50 for a yearly subscription which is the same as Xbox Live.

Sony then declared war on Microsoft. Well, in the FPS arena, anyway. Here comes the reboot of Medal of Honor, and guess what? Goodbye, WWII. We had a good run, but I think it's time to move on. Mostly because CoD did, and look what happened! Moving on, they announced a new character, Deuce, and showed off a map, located in Afghanistan, called Diwagal Camp. Also, a new HD version of Medal of Honor: Frontline will come with it.

Continuing from the EA conference the night before, we saw more on Dead Space 2. Which looks incredible. The dark, lonely, creepy atmosphere from the original is still very much in force. There will also be a limited (to PS3) edition, including Dead Space: Extraction (originally a Wii exclusive) with Move support.

Then Valve gave us their "surprise". Portal 2, via the most awesome medium ever-GLaDOS. From the trailer we saw, it will be much more complicated, and we know its going to be longer. Valve also announced that the PS3 version will be the best console (important distinction. Don't forget about the PC!) version of Portal 2, due to the inclusion of... Steamworks. This means that Valve will be able to conduct their signature after-launch support much more easily.

We next saw a pretty cool looking, but not incredible, trailer for Final Fantasy XIV, the new MMO coming from Square Enix. Not much else to say, just go watch the trailer if you want.

Then came Mafia 2, and an announcement that there will be PS3 exclusive content

After that came more Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (it was shown at the Ubisoft press conference the night before), along with an announcement that there will be a PS3 exclusive multiplayer beta/demo.

Also shown was Metal Gear Solid: Rising, and a really cool trailer showing Raiden as the protagonist slicing up bad guys with the sword--which you are precisely controlling with Move. The trailer ended with an impressive display of control: A watermelon being sliced into wedges. Very clean wedges, too.

And then montage time of new games that apparently didn't rate much time-- despite the fact that there were some pretty cool games in it. Included were Tron: Evolution, DC Universe Online, True Crime, Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat 2, and Castlevania Lords of Shadow.

Nearing the end, we saw a trailer for the long-awaited Gran Turismo 5. Graphics amazing as always-- that's pretty much all you can see in a racing game like that. It's main hook, as far as I can tell, is the ridiculous number of cars in the game. Hundreds of cars, about 100 of them with fully detailed interiors. What's the point of detailing the interior?
After that we saw the sequel to Infamous, one of the most promising PS3 exclusives to come out in recent years. You'll be seeing Cole, with new ice powers to supplement his lightning powers from the previous game, in Infamous 2 sometime in 2011.

Finally, we got proof that David Jaffe is a liar. Twisted Metal and Sweet Tooth are coming back to the Playstation. Twisted Metal is the longest-running series on Playstation, but it hasn't had an installment on the PS3. In case you don't know, Twisted Metal is a car combat game. As opposed to Mario Kart or Blur, where you're racing and getting ahead using weapons, defeating enemies is the goal in Twisted Metal.
It was a particularly spectacular reveal, complete with an ice cream truck and a guy dressed as Sweet Tooth. (Proof that clowns are scary.) Includes new Nuke mode, which happens to be one of the most complicated ones I've seen. You have to capture the enemy leader (two sides, the clowns and dolls), take him back to your missile launcher, keep it there for a while, and then hit the enemy's flagship thing with the missile. Do this 3 times before the other team and you win.
In short, it looks to provide what nothing else can, and well at that!

So, this year was a pretty good year, as far as I'm concerned. None of the conferences were complete flops, and there seems to be dozens of games coming in the next year or so. The motion controls appear to have some potential, but more traditional games are far from being neglected- in fact, Nintendo, known for its focus on casual gamers, had a remarkable line-up of almost retro, hardcore games.
Personally, Kinect looks like it has more potential to be incredible, but PS Move looks like what potential it has is being used. I'm definitely glad that Nintendo is getting back to its classic franchises.
I give the win of this year's E3 to Nintendo. Admittedly, Sony's conference was definitely the most fun (Kevin Butler is awesome!), but it was full of montages and claims that Move and 3D are the wave of the future and completely revolutionary, even when it's obvious that Move is just a more accurate, even stupider looking version of the Wii's controls. Microsoft, despite quite a few big games coming out this year, didn't do anything unexpected, so it takes last place for me.

Tell me in the comments what you guys think!

P.S. Considering adding new writers to the blog. I'd still do more writing, but I think it would expand what we can cover, and have the end result of more information for you guys. Besides, it'd be kind of cool to be a senior editor of my own site! If you actually know me, or have a particularly interesting topic you know about and want to write on, feel free to ask!

Nintendo conference

2010-06-20T15:06:00.010-05:00

I did the summary for Microsoft's Press Conference last night, and I'm going to finish the other 2 today, but before we start I need to tell you to watch the "Hope" trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic that was shown as the closer for the EA conference, and I won't even make you go find it! Here it is, in its full HD glory from GameTrailers.com!
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2010-star-wars/101162

Awesome, right? I thought so. There was also a bit more news for SWTOR at E3, I'll probably talk about that later. (And I will certainly review SWTOR when it comes out) And now on to the Nintendo Conference!

Nintendo

The first conference on Tuesday, the first official day of E3, was Nintendo. Last year, their press conference was a complete laughingstock, in no small part due to the announcement of the Wii Vitality Sensor. (Which is still in the works, apparently) Despite this, there were some things to look forward to, like the new Zelda that had been alluded to at the end of last year, Metroid: Other M, being developed by Team Ninja, and the official reveal of the 3DS.

Personally, I certainly wasn't disappointed, but you can decide for yourself.

First off, to the surprise of no one, the new Zelda was announced. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is destined to hit store shelves in 2011. The surprise here was the heavy emphasis on motion controls. They have completely redone the control scheme, and now it's supposed to be realistic motions for the sword and shield and all your normal Zelda items--plus a few new ones, which include the kind of odd Beetle, which is basically a remote control spyplane that can pick stuff up (Including bombs. BOMBS AWAY!), and the much-cooler Whip. Which is a whip.
So now you have to pay attention to how you're swinging the sword. For example, for the classic Deku Baba enemy, you now have to swing the sword at the same angle its mouth is open, and enemies with swords and the like can block your sword. Overall a nice addition in theory, but I'm not sure how it will hold up when I'm actually swinging my arms around for hours at a time.

Next up was Mario: Sports Mix. Basically Wii sports, plus buttons and an analog stick, and MARIO! Simple enough. Sports include Hockey, Basketball, Volleyball, and Dodgeball, and that's just all I saw in time to write down. So, sports games are a lot more fun with the ability to actually, ya know, move, and time has proved that everything is better with Mario. (And his friends, of course.) It's set to arrive some time in 2011.

Now Reggie Fils-Aime, President and COO of Nintendo America, comes on the stage again and starts talking stats. He rebukes the notion that the Wii is slowing down, saying that since last E3, the Wii set the record for console sales in a single month. He then rebukes another common notion, that people don't buy very many games for the Wii, stating (or statting, if you prefer) that the Wii has sold more titles in its 43 months than any other console did during its first 43 months.

Then he starts talking about "bridge" games, meant to bring casual gamers over from games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit to more traditional games. As examples he provides Mario Kart and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Ok, that makes sense. Now for the logical follow-through.

Following this trail of thought comes Wii Party. Mario-party style game with over seventy mini-games. That's about all I saw, but isn't that enough? Seventy. To top that, it's coming out soon, as in Holiday 2010 soon. Also coming soon is Just Dance 2.

Now back to the more hardcore gamers with a game that's been wanted for quite a while, a sequel for Golden Sun. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn essentially has two parts, adventuring and combat. The adventuring looks a lot like 2D Zelda, and the combat looks a lot like early Final Fantasy games. With that as a description, what's not to like? Oh yeah... maybe the fact that it is also coming out during the holidays of 2010!

Nintendo next confirmed a vague, hopeful rumor of many people older than I am that remember drooling over the first truly good multiplayer FPS experience out side of a PC. That rumor is a Goldeneye remake for the Wii. It's not an exact remake, as it's being "updated" to modern times. Things like new gameplay features and a different story line are there to bring it to 2010, culturally and in gameplay, and guess what? It is being brought to you in 2010! During the holidays, no less.

After that came Epic Mickey. If you haven't noticed this game and have a Wii, notice it now. It's an action/adventure with, you guessed it, Mickey Mouse as the protagonist. If you thought that meant this was going to be a little kid's game, think again. It looks to be a completely awesome, deep game that you must get if you own a Wii.

But if you just like Nintendo's old franchises better than Disney, I sure have a treat for you. Several, actually. The first of these is Kirby: Epic Yarn. The title has a double meaning. Yarn can mean a story, and it can also mean, well, yarn. Kirby is made of yarn in this game, and not just him. The entire world is made of yarn. Even the background is made of cloth. This makes for a huge difference in gameplay, as you can't swallow enemies. Never fear, though, because there's a whole bunch of interesting features to come with it. Kirby can transform into all sorts of things, and you can manipulate the environment using some interesting techniques... such as unzipping zippers. Yes, there are zippers in the game. Cool. Looks like another fresh creative game from Nintendo. Soon, too, slated for release in Fall, not holiday (!!!) 2010.

Just in case you would prefer something a little more traditional... how about another installment in one of the longest running JRPG franchises? (No, not Final Fantasy. That would be the longest.) Dragon Quest: IX comes to the West from Japan, where it's been an incredible hit, selling 4.2 million copies, July 11. THIS YEAR. Apparently, it's huge. Seriously huge. Like 14o hours in and feeling like you "haven't even scratched the surface". Yeah, that huge. 120 mini quests, over 300 monsters, nearly a 1000 customization items huge.

Nintendo also showed more of a game they announced at last year's E3, Metroid: The Other M. (What does that even mean?) While the game is being developed outside of Nintendo by Team Ninja, it is meant to retain the "sense of isolation and exploration" classic to the franchise, while providing some awesome action. It largely departs from the almost FPS style of the recent Prime series, going instead for 2D. Not your old 2D metroid, though. This game is going for pretty, cinematic, and very fast-paced. The best way to explain it would be to tell you to go watch the gameplay trailers. Apart from that you will be able to switch into FPS mode to shoot stuff by pointing your wiimote at the screen, at the cost of being able to move. (You control most of the game with the Wiimote held sideways.) This game, to the chagrin of many fans, will have an increased increase in story-- and a Samus that talks. OH NO! On the flip side, it is coming very soon, August 31, 2010.

If the return of all these storied Nintendo franchises isn't enough, it's okay, because there is yet another one. That game is Donkey Kong Country: Returns, just as full of bananas, barrels, and ridiculous mine kart levels as the original. There will be co-op, beautiful graphics, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff coming to you holiday of 2010. (Busy holiday.)

You might have noticed something was missing. Nintendo kind of saved the best (or at least most amazing) part for last. The glasses-less 3D of the 3DS works, and it is going to be incredible. It is the actual next generation of Nintendo handhelds, unlike the DSi, and it comes with increased graphical capability, two cameras (supposedly for taking 3D pictures), and the capability of playing 3D movies. Not bad!

Oh, and there's some really cool games coming for it. Including Pit's triumphant return. Yes, there is a new Kid Icarus coming to the 3DS, titled Kid Icarus: Uprising. The trailer looked incredibly fun, with Wii-level graphics of Pit swooping about, shooting his bow at everyone, and generally just doing awesome soldier-angel-kid stuff.
Nintendogs (and Cats) is also being developed for the 3DS, but it was kind of just slipped in there, so it's probably not going to be ready for a while.
The really amazing thing about the 3DS is the amazing level of third-party support that it's getting. Apparently the makers of everything from Kingdom Hearts (YES!) to Metal Gear to Assassin's Creed (and more) are considering putting games from these fabled franchises onto the 3DS. Developers, as provided by Nintendo, include (take a deep breath, there's a LOT): Activision, Atlus, Namco-Bandai, Capcom, EA, Harmonix, Square Enix, Sega, THQ, Ubisoft, and more. Incredible.

Then they showed this hilarious trailer showing Reggie, Satoru Iwata, and and Shigeru Miyamoto getting sucked into the 3DS and/or getting owned by Bowser, and here's the link to G4's HD video:
http://e3.g4tv.com/videos/46521/E3-2010-Nintendo-Press-Conference-Nintendo-3DS-Trailer/?quality=hd

E3: Big 3 Intro, & Microsoft

2010-06-19T20:38:00.010-05:00

In case you've been living under a rock in the gaming world, this week was E3- short for Electronic Entertainment Expo, held annually in June, usually in LA. (Its history is a little spotty, but nevermind that, it doesn't matter.) E3 is THE conference of the year, where developers and publishers announce their games and provide demos for the press-- all in the name of publicity.

What's really cool about E3 is you get to see the future of video games happen- and most of that happens during the big 3 press conferences. (Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony.) This is when and where they announce new consoles, new features, sometimes big new exclusive games, and just generally brag about how awesome this next year is going to be for this console and why YOU should get it. So I'm going to do a summary and short analysis of the big 3 conferences, each one with its own post and with a tie-in analysis after the last one (Sony) about where the industry seems to be heading, according to the tone of the conferences.

Considering doing a highlights of E3 post, but I probably won't because I didn't take notes for enough of the coverage... shame on me. I guess I'll just have to find a way to go next year, huh? :D

P.S. With a lot of these my knowledge from outside the conferences is going to be mixed with actual stuff from the conferences, especially with Microsoft. I'll try to keep to the most salient points of the games, but if you just want to know what games were announced instead of reading all of it, just look for the bolded and italicized (boldicized) words. Also, if there's something written about it, it probably had a trailer, and if it doesn't it was probably just in a list of stuff thrown out there.

P.P.S. If there's a particular game that you'd like me to take a look at and muse upon, put it in the comments! I really want to make this as informative for you guys as I can, as well as getting all this stuff in my head onto paper. (figuratively)

MICROSOFT

Microsoft started their conference with Call of Duty: Black Ops. While it's being made by Treyarch, the studio behind World at War, instead of Infinity Ward, who made the hugely popular Modern Warfare series, lots of people don't know that, and Treyarch isn't bad anyway, so this was a pretty good way to start.

Black Ops is going to be a FPS based throughout the Cold War period (Say 60's to 80's) in several different locales, as several different characters. (obviously. This isn't Metal Gear, where the protagonist remains the protagonist even when he's old and crippled--literally.) So there's going to be parts in Vietnam (I believe they showed this in particular), Russia, and a whole bunch of other places in SE Asia, Eastern Europe, Etc. It is logical to assume it will cover the story of all the secret stuff we did during the Cold War that we really weren't supposed to be doing.

Anyways, they showed a trailer, and it looked awesome. Graphically, I mean. The gameplay didn't seem like anything special, despite a cool-looking helicopter sequence, but the graphics... wow.

Following the trailer, Microsoft announced an unprecedented arrangement: All DLC, map packs, etc. for the Call of Duty franchise will come to the Xbox 360 FIRST before any other console, for the next 3 years. (Technically through 2012, I believe.) Obviously a good deal for Microsoft, and I imagine Activision (the CoD publisher) is getting quite a bit out of it too. In other words- get CoD on the 360 or be prepared to wait for after launch content.

Next came a 4-player co-op demonstration of Gears of War 3, with Epic's own Cliff Bleszinski (hey I spelled it right first time!) doing all the necessary on stage stuff. In this trailer, you fought all these mutated Locusts, called Lambents, which can do some really freaky stuff, and at the end you fight this giant... monster... thing. Not sure what it is.
ANYWAYS, Epic also announced a new Beast mode, where you play as some of these creepy beasties and try to kill the COG soldiers. From what I've heard, it sounds pretty deep and fun. Don't worry, everyone's favorite Horde mode will be returning as well.

Then came Peter Molyneux from Lionhead Studios to talk about Fable III and show a trailer. More blah blah blah stuff. So, Fable III is basically divided into 2 parts, the first part you are trying to overthrow the tyrant king, and in the second part you ARE the tyrant king-- or you can be. Well, you're the king. So you can be a tyrant if you want. So Peter Molyneux being typically ambitious, if not as much as some other times. (Remember Milo?)

Next came my personal favorite of the Microsoft conference, largely because I actually have played the earlier games in the series, Halo: Reach. (Notice all of these are later in a series. Interesting, no?)
Halo: Reach is Bungie's last hurrah with the Bungie universe, and it sure looks like its going to live up to the lofty expectations that are inevitably being placed on the last game in such an iconic franchise. The graphics are better, the physics are better, there's new weapons, the equipment of Halo 3 has been replaced with some cool looking "armor abilities", and it just looks all around awesome. What they actually showed at the conference was a trailer (it looked like gameplay, but it may have been scripted gameplay that was recorded for the sake of the trailer, thus making it a tiny bit suspect) for the campaign. It shows Noble Team (The protagonists. Halo: Reach is squad based, folks!) fighting through some Elites (who, btw, are MUCH bigger and stronger than the Spartans-even in multiplayer.), and eventually culminating in a space battle. Yes, playable space battles in Halo. Awesome, yes?

So that was basically the first part of the conference, and the part that you all are probably more interested in-- despite being unimportant, overall, to the game industry. So the second part of the conference is about that one big thing that's coming to the 360... Oh yeah. Motion Controls. Newly named Kinect, after ditching the code name, Project Natal. (They should have called it Kinetic. More accurate, and pretty much the same.)

First off, they talked about how it's going to revolutionize your dashboard experience. Yes, all I ever wanted my Xbox to let me do is to swipe with my hand to select what I'm going to do, even though it probably takes MORE effort than using a controller! Ok, seriously, it does sound like it could be pretty handy. Apart from the obvious camera, Kinect comes with a microphone, so you can control videos and the like with your voice. Example: "Xbox: Stop" stops the movie. Simple! You can also do video chats, and all sorts of other neat stuff that really has nothing to do with games. You can go watch the conference if you want, just pick a gaming site, it'll probably be there.
Oh, I almost forgot. This one's actually kind of cool: Microsoft has made a deal with ESPN to stream games straight to your Xbox, at no additional charge. Of course not even all major sports are represented, most notably (at least to me) the NFL. So no, you can't watch the Super Bowl on your 360 next February. Sorry.

Then they got down to the actual games, of which there were... six? launch titles specifically shown at the conference. A lot of them just seem to be Wii knockoffs, most namely Kinect Sports, which I'm not going to even talk about because it's Wii Sports with different sports (didn't write them down, sorry) and a different controller. Then there was Kinectimals, which had an admittedly adorable demo of this little girl playing with her pet tiger, names Skittles. Yes, a pet tiger named Skittles. Obviously not going for realism in that one. Kinect JoyRide is fairly self explanatory, though the controls seem to have been dumbed down to accommodate Kinect. Brakes seem kind of important to me, but it's their call. I guess. Kinect Adventures is a game where you raft around, striking poses to collect the coins. Interesting, I guess. Not really. I believe all these were developed in house at Microsoft, unlike these next two.
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is a superior (yes, I said it) version of Wii Fit being developed by Ubisoft. It's a lot easier to tell what you're doing with a CAMERA than with a glorified scale.
Dance Central is the one game that actually seems fairly innovative, and above all- well implemented. The premise is simple- do whatever's on the screen, almost Rock Band/Guitar Hero style. There's 2 different modes, one which takes you through the moves of the dance one by one and teaches them to you, and one which, guess what, goes through the actual dance. The interesting thing about this game is that apparently, it's not beyond imagining for it to actually teach you how to dance. Pretty impressive, actually.

Microsoft also showed a really impressive, tech demo I guess it'd be, for a 2011 Kinect Star Wars game. Kind of like TFU, but not. For one thing, you are actually swinging the lightsaber. SOLD. Except, as I recall, it looked more like the cartoon than TFU. Not good.
Also shown was a demo for Forza Motorsport... whatever. Didn't actually get named. Forza Motorsport: Kinect (working title)... Back on track! Also coming out in 2011, they showed a guy... using Kinect to "walk" around the car and point out features of the car like the brakes and the engine, and then he "entered" the car and looked around. Amazingly detailed, but that's not the point. Of course I do believe you'll actually be driving with Kinect--- Hopefully with brakes. Buttons are important, guys!

And then the big shocker! Microsoft announced a NEW XBOX! Wait, sorry, not the next gen. This is the Xbox version of PS3 Slim. It IS significantly smaller, if not to the extent of the PS3 slim, and it's also quieter, comes with a wi-fi adapter, 250GB HD, and should be more reliable than the other 360s. Oh, and it can't RROD. Literally, it CAN'T. As in they took out the red lights. Instead, the green lights are going to flash. Umm, I sense confusion.
And then the REALLY big shocker-- Microsoft gave, gave, one of the new edition Xbox 360's to every person at the conference. I'm not kidding, they did.

So, the Microsoft conference essentially had two sides- the serious, normal, hardcore games (3 of 4 were shooters. Something's wrong with that. At least only one of them was the modern, realistic kind), and the new, family-friendly, Wii ripoff games, along with a few that actually show some promise, and even fewer that actually show promise for hardcore gamers. Overall, not bad. Definitely not a complete failure, fairly good organization, but not a stand-out performance either. Obviously trending towards motion controls, but that really started last year so it doesn't count this year.

Mass Effect: Showing Its Age?

2010-06-06T19:14:00.003-05:00

We all know that Mass Effect was a marvelous game- when it came out over two years ago. But how have the years treated it?

Short version? Not very well. It suffers in comparison to Bioware's more recent games, Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins.

Mass Effect was rife with problems, but most people got past these problems and enjoyed the experience and world that Bioware had crafted for them. But now that the sequel has come out and improved on it in almost every aspect, Mass Effect doesn't seem quite so incredible. The combat system seems clunky, the levels poorly designed, the inventory system a mess, and that there's a bug everywhere you look.

The cover system works okay, but sometimes it's hard to get out, and the peek and shoot function doesn't work as well as it could. It's annoying to pause in combat, at least for me, and the AI doesn't seem to act logically. I had a bunch of rocket-wielding robots rush me one time, and I just couldn't hit them because they're moving so quickly and are right in front of my face. The skill system seems pretty well designed, but I prefer ME2's idea of having a cooldown skill after any skill before you can use the next. Oh, and it takes a really long time to get up when you get "pushed", but that's to be expected... I guess. Sometimes you'll go into a fight against biotics, get pushed immediately, and never get back up.

The levels are extremely repetitive. This was a big issue with the first one, and it's even more evident now, after having played ME2 and DA:O. There are maybe half a dozen layouts for the dozens of side quests, and the only differences are the enemies and the way the boxes are laid out. I didn't know caves were being mass-produced now! Combined with the relative (and I mean relative) lack of story in the sidequests, it seems the only reason for the sidequests is to level up and get the completionist achievement.

Aside from that, occasionally there will be an annoying fight that you have trouble with simply because there isn't enough cover in this very cover-based game. The ONLY time you should ever be out of cover is fighting melee enemies, and those are relatively rare. Having an invincible boss be able to shoot at you pretty much where ever you are is not a good idea. (ok, only in about half the room-the half you start in.)

Another common area of critique is the inventory system. I've never seen so many USELESS guns. You'll change guns maybe a dozen times (not quite arbitrary, but pretty close) per type and character, (which, assuming you're not giving people guns they can't use, comes out to 20 or 30) but you get and sell hundreds, maybe a thousand. The upgrades are even worse, and I much prefer ME2's system of having the different ammo types as skills-despite how unrealistic it is.

ME is fairly glitchy. You can get caught somewhere without being able to get out, freezing when you open the inventory screen (hey, I would too), and one time I even had half the ground disappear while I was in the rover on one of the main missions. Really annoying when you can't see the deadly lava.

All of this seemed like minor issues with the game originally, but taking out the still incredible writing and voice acting and the revolutionary conversation wheel, it is definitely starting to show its age -- at least compared to Bioware's more recent games. ME2 has been so thoroughly polished it shines, making ME seems a little rusty in comparison, and Dragon Age is so incredibly deep and varied, it makes ME seem like you're doing the same thing over and over... which you are, sometimes.

Don't let any of this fool you, Mass Effect is not a bad game by any standards, but if you've played it before and know the story, as well as played the ever-so-much-cleaner sequel, it's kind of hard to go back. I can't get into as much as I have before for the character I'm making now for my second ME2 playthrough, but I'm also trying to do it as fast as I can- which means skipping dialogue. That doesn't help immersion very much, especially considering that is easily Bioware's strongest point.

In some ways, ME may even be better than ME2- the pacing is more traditional, and there seems to be more major choices. I think this is less because the devs thought ME2's way was better, so much as the story in ME2 dictating the way it had to be.

Mass Effect was an incredible game, way ahead of its time. Overall -- its still ahead of its time. Other games are starting to do what it did, bridge the gap between action and story, shooter and RPG, but ME is still ahead of the curve. The only problem is, ME2 is even farther ahead!

June Preview

2010-06-02T19:37:00.002-05:00

So, trying out yet another new thing: preview for what I'm going to be doing this month.
(Really it's to give me a schedule of things I need to do this month :P)

I'm going to review ME1 and ME2, since it won the poll, getting almost as much as everything else combined. (I'd post something on it tonight, but I haven't really played enough of it yet and I need to work on it.)

Somewhere in there I'm going to talk about Awakening, the expansion for DA:O, since we (my family) got that recently.

As you should know, E3 is coming (two weeks!) I probably won't be done with ME and ME2 by then, since I'm gone next week, but I'll do one post concerning the big 3 press conferences, and another post with... well, anything and everything else that catches my eye. Hmm, maybe I should take notes.

After that I'll cover Super Mario Galaxy, since I suddenly felt like playing it after hearing how awesome SMG2 is, and if we're all lucky SMG2 as well.

And, finally, either at the end of this month or the beginning of next month, I'll hopefully kick off a rash of shooters with Halo 3. (Hopefully as I'm going to try to get MW2 and Borderlands) Anyone who wants to help with campaign or play multiplayer, or just feels like it, feel free to add me on Xbox Live. Gamertag: Aldowyn. Oh, and post a comment here with your gamertag so I know who it is.

Also I'm thinking about starting out some reader segments, like user-suggested polls, and answering questions from readers, and anything else you faithful readers come up with.

So, that's my plans for this month! Anything else you guys think I should do, comment, please!

Dragon Age: Origins Review

2010-05-27T12:25:00.004-05:00

Dragon Age: Origins, is a very traditional RPG. I've said this before, but I can't stress it enough. The gameplay is nothing like anything I've played in years. It reminds me most of Neverwinter Nights 2, which is a really long (like recent Final Fantasy games long) RPG based on Dungeons and Dragons' Forgotten Realms.

Story
The subtitle of the game comes from the 6 Origins stories that you choose from at the beginning of the game, with limitations from race and class. These are short (relatively, anyway. They're a couple hours long) introductions to the world and your character, and they all converge into the actual game when you are inducted into the Grey Wardens, an order devoted to defeating the evil Darkspawn, blah blah blah.
The basics of the plot may sound very cliched and boring, but it's the writing and the details that make the game what it is. This is where the developer, Bioware (best known, now, for the Mass Effect series), shines.
The game is laid out like pretty much every Bioware game I've played: introduction area, several middle areas that you can choose to do in whatever order you wish, and then the (epic) finale.
These middle areas are the meat of the game, and unlike in even other Bioware games, feel very diverse, which is a very important thing in a game as huge as this one. You do everything from saving a town from a zombie invasion, deciding the result of a civil war, to finding a sacred relic to heal someone. These quests all feel very different, and that's a combination of several different aspects, including the writing (phenomenal, as always), art, and level design (I especially liked the part finding the sacred artifact).
The biggest problem I have with the story is sometimes it's a bit too traditional. There's a part in a forest where I'm talking to this giant talking tree that's decidedly reminiscent of Treebeard, and just a few minutes later I'm falling asleep next to a river. (Go read Fellowship of the Ring, if that didn't make sense) That's a minor flaw though, and almost unavoidable in a game as huge as Dragon Age is.
There's also TONS of sidequests. A lot of them don't really have much story, as in get them from a quest board, go do them, and turn them in, but some of them are pretty good. Of course, there's the obligatory companion quests, which are awesome as always, if not as good as Mass Effect 2's. (which are the high point of that game, so they shouldn't be.)
Overall, the story is the main draw of the game, and definitely lives up to Bioware's ridiculously high standards.

Gameplay
This is where the game got a bit iffy for me. It works pretty well, but it's immensely complicated, and if you're not very good at strategy, it will be quite hard. For some reason, there was a really big jump in difficulty, so big that easy is pretty much just going from room to room killing everything, and Normal is a complicated test of strategy. I'm not sure if I'd like to see the guy that could beat Nightmare difficulty or not...
Anyways, there's three classes and three races, and they're so cliched you can probably guess them without me telling you, but I will anyway. You can be a Human, Dwarf, or Elf, Warrior, Rogue, or Mage. What makes this work is that each class has around four different tacks you can take. Each class has several different talent (or spells, for Mages) trees. For example, the Warrior has the main warrior talent tree, and then the Weapon and Shield, Two-Handed, Dual Weapon, and Archery trees.
Each class also has four different "specializations" they can learn, further customizing the character. For the Warrior, these are Templar (mage-hunters/paladins), Champion, Reaver, and Berserker.
These work really well in customizing your character, and even though you get nearly a dozen characters in your party, they end up being very unique and different in their playstyle, let alone the way they act.
I think my problems with the gameplay are just that, my problems, and it just depends whether you will enjoy it or not. It's made and balanced really well, so it just depends on you whether it's the kind of thing you like to do, and if it isn't you can always just turn the difficulty to easy.

Visuals and Sound
Nothing too specific here. Good soundtrack, nice and epic, very reminiscent of classic fantasy movies and the like. The combat sounds awesome, and the voice acting is incredible, as always, though I wonder why they give other nations real-world accents. (seriously, there's a nation that sounds French, and one that I'm pretty sure is Spanish.) Ironically, my biggest problem with the sound is that I can never find a player character voice that I actually like when it gives you the choice. It would be the lack of your character talking, but I accept the fact that it's just impossible to have the PC (player character) talk in a game as huge as this with as much diversity possible.
The visuals aren't the best in the world, but it still looks awesome when you take down one of the big boss monsters, especially something like the High Dragons. (I can post some pictures, if you want.) There's blood and gore everywhere during the fights, and occasionally you'll do something fancy like slice their head off, and the weapons and armor look suitably epic.

Conclusion
Just bear in mind that this is probably the most traditional RPG you will ever play, and you'll be fine, as it's also probably the best RPG of this kind you'll ever play. It does have some issues, but these pale in comparison to the sheer experience you'll have if you enjoy RPGs.

Decisions, Decisions -- Dragon Age: Origins

2010-05-19T15:28:00.005-05:00

First off, I want to say that Dragon Age is a very different game from other contemporary RPGs, even western RPGs. RPGs seem to be leading the charge of the melding of genres- either RPGs taking on action/adventure or shooter aspects, like the Bethesda open-world RPGs or Bioshock, or them taking on RPG aspects, as in Modern Warfare 2. Dragon Age is NOT this way. It is pure, unadulterated, RPG. It may not follow the Dungeons and Dragons rule set, or a variation thereof, but it definitely has the feel of it. This game is based on character constuction, skillsets, and tactics, which requires MUCH different skills than something like, say, Mass Effect. Such a difference, apparently, that I kind of sort of suck at it. Normal is, I am afraid to say, too hard for me. I switched to the easy difficulty, simply because I was running into parts I couldn't pass and it took forever to do the parts I could, and it was just taking entirely too long. Of course, now it's too easy, but that's preferable to not being able to progress-- mostly.

Anyways, on to the topic of the day: the decisions you make in Dragon Age, and how this could affect the industry. There are decisions galore in DA:O, from which characters you bring in your party, to whether to kill that traitor, to things a little deeper and wide-reaching. It is one of these last that I'm going to be using as an example, hopefully as free of spoilers as possible.

Gamers are used to simple decisions, black and white, good or evil. Even Mass Effect, famous for its far reaching consequences and their impact on the later games (will talk about that later), has relatively simple decisions-- so simple, in fact, that the wheel used for conversation has areas that are for the good decisions and the bad decisions, and the interrupt feature tells you whether the action is Renegade or Paragon.

But, in some games at least, the decisions are getting more complicated. What do you do when there's more than two decisions- and none of them are clearly good or evil?

Take, for example, one decision you have to make in Dragon Age. There's a boy, a mage, who has been possessed by a demon. You have three options: kill the boy for the greater good, use blood magic, with someone willing to serve as the required sacrifice, and essentially exorcise the demon, or travel to the Circle of Mages and acquire their aid to banish the demon, taking the risk that the demon will wreak untold havoc in your absence. (Ok, I told you the options, but I doubt you'll figure out when this is going to happen much ahead of time, and I don't tell you the result.)

Gray. All I see is gray. (Good thing I'm a Grey Warden then! Sorry...) In my opinion, this is a good thing, at least for RPGs. Life is complicated, and never (ok, rarely. Never say never!) black and white. RPGs especially should reflect this.

It also allows for a deeper character development, story, and much more character variation. Despite all the different choices in Mass Effect, I bet they are mostly polarized into Renegade and Paragon camps. Dragon Age is not like this. Your character can be closer to truly unique than in any other game I have seen. And that is a truly wonderful thing. (Yeah, I like that line.) I hope that, in the future, game developers continue to develop this idea, and provide us with the tools to make our own stories.

And now, I end with a question for my readers: What do YOU think? Is there something to be said for simple good and evil? Or is realism and complexity better? Tell me why!
If I see a really good comment, I'll give it a shout out on my next post and respond, so do your best!

P.S. Sorry it's been so long, I didn't have access to computer for several days and then it took me a while to tear myself away from Dragon Age. Will attempt to repeat the supernatural feat Friday, or maybe this weekend for Monday's post.

Creative License

2010-05-05T21:10:00.005-05:00

I would be talking about the Halo: Reach beta, but there's one huge, gaping problem with that.

I don't have a beta code. I never even played ODST (except for maybe an hour of firefight where I just sprayed everything in sight with the Warthog machinegun), let alone bought it, despite the minor reunion of characters from Firefly and Serenity. (Why, oh why did it have to get cancelled!!! Ah well, I'll just have to stick with Castle and Chuck.)

In lieu of that, I'm going to be talking about something inspired by something the creators did.
You probably know already, but Bungie has signed a DECADE long deal with Activision! You know, the publisher who just completely messed up Infinity Ward, who have made what was probably the most commercially successful game in a VERY long time, Modern Warfare 2. But, wait! There's a catch here. Bungie owns whatever it is they're making, outright. (Tell me what it is, ASAP!!!) The problem with the IW-Activision (#FallOfDuty) thing is that Activision owned IW and MW and could tell them what to do. Not so with Bungie, they own this new IP and will completely determine what they do with it... for the next ten years...

So I'm going to be talking about the importance of owning the IP (Intellectual Property) for the development of the game.

Bobby Kotick made a speech a little while ago, where he said that Activision wanted to take the fun out of making video games. That is very, very stupid. It is an acknowledged fact (to me, at least) that work you don't believe in end up... well, bad.

Think about it. I'm going to take a general example from school. You have a project, and you think "Hey, that's actually pretty cool!", you work on it and enjoy it and do an incredible job.
The next week, you get a project in another class, maybe one you don't like as much. You think "This is so stupid...", you don't really work on it, and it sucks. How often do you do really well on something you care absolutely nothing about?

This concept applies to almost everything, but especially well to video games. If you're not having fun making it, how is it supposed to be fun for the people playing it? With the best games you can tell there are a labor of love by the developers, cutting no corners and polishing it to perfection.

In short, you MUST want to play the game you are making, or no one else will want to play it either! Don't force people to make games when they want to make something else, you're just depriving us as the consumers of the opportunity to play whatever it is they DO want to make.

P.S. And, happily, we WILL play whatever it is that West and Zampella want to make at Respawn. Sadly, not for several years...

Creativity's Cradle, and Braid Review

2010-04-29T19:02:00.003-05:00

Ok, this is something that I'm probably going to do quite a bit. I'm going to do a segment inspired by the game I'm currently playing, probably referencing it quite a bit, and after that I'm going to do a review of the game, or at least a post. Sometimes they might be integrated together.

Creativiy's Cradle

Independent games, like Braid, are important. They give up-and-coming developers with absolutely no connections or record an opportunity to test their skills, and show the world what they can do. It's kind of like a flash game, but less (MUCH less) competition and you actually make money for it. (Of course you could with some flash games, but probably less of them than XBLA games and the like, and there's a LOT more flash games.)

They also are (relatively) unhindered by restraints. You would very rarely find something even remotely like Braid, even in spirit, in a multi-million dollar blockbuster. Of course, they have awesome physics engines and unbelievable graphics, but those are, in some ways, not as important. You're free to do pretty much whatever you want with an independent game. You think of something cool, you talk with your partner, or partners, if you have any (seems like a lot of these are one or two-person deals), you just put it in the game. If it doesn't work or just doesn't appeal to a lot of people, it doesn't really matter that much. Would you care THAT much if something you spent a DAY on didn't quite work out the way you wanted it to? (I forgot what game that was, and it may have been a couple of days, but still!)

Some incredible ideas that could never make it as a full-scale game can do really well in the downloadable game format. Can you really imagine Braid as a $60, full-length game, complete with all the bells and whistles? It would (probably) never work, and I really wouldn't want it to. Small indie games are better than the big ones in some ways. They have charm and distinctive identities that the major games simply can't quite manage. The big games all borrow from each other and have similarities, but indie games have the opportunity, more than anything else, to be unique and creative. And that is a truly wonderful thing.

Braid

I said a fair amount about this game in a post last Wednesday, Braid part 1, so go read that first, if you haven't.

My final opinion is that it's like a good flash game, squared. You know how some good flash games, especially platformers, have that one gameplay hook? Take, for example, Shift. If you haven't played it, it's a puzzle platformer where you can shift from the white squares upside down to the black squares, and vice versa. It gets more complicated than that, but not that much.

Then there's Braid. The rewind is essentially equivalent to the shift ability, but Braid also has the unique aspect for every world, and they all have to do with manipulating time. Pretty creative, if you ask me. I'm pretty sure most of them have been done before, but not as well as this, and certainly not in the same game. ... I can't imagine how hard it would have been if all of it had been on the same stage, instead of individual worlds. REALLY messed up, I'd imagine.

The puzzles are wonderfully made, too. I don't think there's a single one that's actually physically hard to do once you figure out how you're supposed to do it. Sometimes there's really annoying, lucky ways to find a puzzle piece, but usually, or maybe always, a good way to figure out the puzzle and just put the pieces in there place. One puzzle that's easy for one person could be really hard for another.

It seems to me that the more people you have working on a puzzle, the easier it is. They seem to have different mindsets- maybe different level designers?- but some of the solutions I just flat out wouldn't have thought of. I won't give any examples, as you really should try to figure it out for yourself, but the puzzles are very diverse. Some of them you just need to go out there and experiment, and some of them reward sitting and actually looking at the problem, and searching for a logical solution.

Braid also has a story. I'm not going to talk about it, because it's incredibly confusing and I didn't actually pay that much attention to it, and frankly, I don't care that there's some deep embedded message that no one can agree on what it is, but seems to be worthy of Plato. The story is told as a story at the beginning of the half a dozen or so worlds. Having stories play out in that stop-start fashion would usually be bad, but it works because the world's aren't actually that long (I think there's an achievement for doing the entire game in 45 minutes), and the environment in the actual game very much contributed to the atmosphere of the story that is being told to you.

Which brings me to the music and art design. Incredible. This is what art, music and visual, should be like- not the style and all that, but the purpose. It is the main thing that makes Braid feel the way it does, solemn and contemplative and all that. I believe all of the art was hand painted, and it shows. You can tell that the developers really cared about this. The music even rewinds along with you, and it still sounds good, no matter what speed you're going at. I don't know about you, but that sounds really hard to me.

It's not that long, but it would vary from person to person a lot. One person who's mind just works the right way could (probably) do it in a couple hours or so, but for someone who is more straight forward and action-oriented, it could take several times that. Of course, they'd probably give up long before that...

In short, Braid is an incredibly unique, creative experience, and I hope that many nerds in their mother's basements will look to this game (and others like it) for inspiration and bring to life all those crazy ideas that they inevitably have circling around in their heads.

Dragon Age: Origins: First Impressions

2010-04-26T20:29:00.005-05:00

Ok, so I've been playing Dragon Age: Origins the past few days. I've gotten just past the first ogre at the top of the Tower of Ishal with my newest character, but with a previous character I went a little farther. Anyways, the main thing that strikes me is how different it is from all the other RPGs I've played in the past few years. It's very traditional- about the only thing the gameplay is missing that would make it more so is a D&D ruleset. This is by no means a bad thing. It's an awesome game, but if you've been playing Bethesda's RPGs or Mass Effect, this will take quite a bit of time to become re-accustomed to. As the game progressed, it kept getting harder, and I think it's because I continuously messed up my character, but I didn't like the auto-level for myself. What's the point of an attract aggro skill if you don't raise your constitution at all? This got to the point where I restarted, and we'll just have to see how this works this time around.

You may have heard that DA:O doesn't look that good. Maybe it doesn't look as good as Uncharted, but it's still amazing. The cutscenes seem to be done with the ingame engine, but they still look incredible, mostly thanks to Bioware's awesome story-telling ability and soundtrack.
The combat animations are great as well. The fighting is really good, and it's pretty good at disguising the very turn-based nature of the game, but that's nothing compared to the awesome kill animations. It's pretty cool when you're fighting this enemy and you chop his head off, or stab him with your sword and push him off with your shield, but that's nothing compared to some of the bigger ones.
There's a fight early in the game where you fight this huge, ugly ogre. The kill animation, should you get it, is absolutely epic-on the scale of a QTE finishing move in something in God of War, albeit with worse graphics and from the same perspective. Slash, slash, leap to his head, stab, ride him down, stab him AGAIN in the face. I managed to take a bunch of pics this last time, and they looked really cool.
The sound is pretty good too, and I especially like the soundtrack-but that's me, I like video game soundtracks.

Anyways, one thing that DEFINITELY bears mentioning is the lack of an alignment system. Surprised? I was. You can definitely be as mean as you want, on the order of a Renegade from Mass Effect, but there's no scale for this. The closest there is is the approval ratings of your companions. I definitely prefer it this way. I think there should be one, but it should work more as a reputation, allowing people to know what you've done in the past, etc. etc. But the way Dragon Age works is a good thing for the game. I haven't gotten to most of the major decisions, but the one I HAVE done was the grayest decision I have EVER made. I still think it was the best option for everyone involved, but Alistair seemed to disagree on principle, which makes sense all things considered.
This is a VERY good thing. Mass Effect's decisions, while they influence the story more and are decidedly more epic, are amazingly easy to choose from. Good, or bad? Dragon Age actually makes you choose, and it feels much more real and adds to the overall experience.

The amount of replay value is going to be absolutely through the roof. The different origins stories, the different tacks you can take in the missions, the different classes, the different companions to focus on, and everything, makes me think that I could spend a couple hundred hours playing this.

Personally, I like Mass Effect better, because I really like Mass Effect's universe, and its combination of RPG and FPS-possibly my two favorite genres. Dragon Age is awesome (I especially like the dwarves-Lord of the Rings was awesome, but their portrayal of dwarves was just sad), but the world and playing style just doesn't cater to me quite as much.

Well, that was a long first impression. From here on until I finish it, I'll just talk about the things that occur to me as I'm playing, specific aspects that I want to focus on. When I finally finish I'll do an actual review, and we'll see how it works.

Super Mario Galaxy 2, Halo: Reach and Starcraft 2 Previews

2010-04-23T16:17:00.001-05:00

Super Mario Galaxy 2, Halo: Reach, and Starcraft 2 are some of the most anticipated games in the latter half of these year, and as they all look incredible and some new information on all of them came up recently, I decided to do some previews.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

When I first heard of SMG2 (no, nothing to do with sub-machine guns.), I was disappointed in Nintendo. I thought they were letting up on the creativity that has made some pretty good games, and just making more levels for the old Galaxy.

Gladly, this is far from the case. They are ramping it up in every way possible-including the difficulty. They've added Yoshi (TY!), there's a cosmic guide, much like the Super Guide from New Super Mario Bros. Wii (huh, that was a mouthful. Or eyeful, I guess), new abilities like the newly-revealed cloud suit, upgraded multiplayer (nothing like the aforementioned NSMB Wii, of course), and even rumors of Luigi being in the game.

Basically, the reason this is SMG 2 and not another world, is because there is so many more tricks they couldn't put into the first one. They had to rein the devs in so they could fit everything into the 120 star limit and the release date. Everything I've seen points to an incredible game that will likely drown quite a bit of my life.

But not as much as this next title.

Halo: Reach

This is it. The big one. You though you finished the fight in Halo 3? (Let's not talk about Halo Wars or ODST, ok?) Think again. Reach is going to be Halo's last, defining hurrah of awesome. At least from the current developers, Bungie. Anything after this will be viewed with rampant skepticism, by me as well as others. I just don't think anyone else can do Halo as well, at least not and keep it Halo.

Anyways, Reach looks awesome. This is emphasized by the MUCH improved graphics, with higher tolerance, particle effects, shadings, and all that awesome stuff. Animations are better too, including these really awesome looking assassinations.
Next, instead of everyone starting with the same weapons, there will be different loadouts to choose from, which have specific weapons paired up with "armor abilities", which take the place of equipment from the previous game. Don't worry, no one's going to starting out with anything like the Sniper Rifle, Energy Sword, Rocket Launcher, etc.

That's fairly simple, but the armor abilities are a bit more radical. You've probably seen the dev videos and trailers with jetpacks. That's one of the abilities. It seems it's best used for mobility, for example jumping up a cliff or to the top of a relatively tall building. Of course, you're a sitting duck up in the air, as you're quite a bit easier to kill than a Brute. Which reminds me of a couple of things. Elites will be faster and more powerful than Spartans, but this is made up by Elites being bigger and thus harder to hide and easier to shoot. This is explained by the main characters being Spartan III's, not II's like Master Chief, and having an earlier version of the Mjolnir battle armor, because this is on Reach, and thus before even Halo 1.

Ok, back on track with armor abilities. Another one is Armor Lock, which makes you invincible for a short time, and discharges an EMP blast to give you a chance to kill the guys that are inevitably waiting for you. Also included are Evade, which is exclusive to Elites and allows you to roll away from danger (always wondered how they could do that and I couldn't! It's in their armor!), and Sprint, which is a Spartan exclusive that, well, sprints. Pedestrian, but extremely useful. Oh, and there's also an Active Camo that works like the invisibility from earlier games, but the faster you go, the easier you can be seen.

There's also new multiplayer modes, including Headhunter, Stockpile, Invasion (my personal favorite), and Generator Defense.
Headhunter is a slayer-inspired mode with a twist. You kill people, collect their skulls, and return it back at your base. The catch is, if you die with skulls, they'll scatter everywhere, free for anyone who happens to be waltzing by to pick them up. So it's either waste time walking back to turn in your skulls, or risk losing a bunch at once and losing the game. Your choice!
Stockpile is like Capture the Flag-with a twist! Bet you didn't see that coming. Anyways, the way this works is that each team has a base where you turn in flags, like normal, but this time there's 4 flags scattered around the map, and the base collects the flags every minute. So if you miss one round and have several flags there for like 30 seconds, but they manage to get them out before the minute is up, guess what? No points. So sad.
Invasion sounds awesome. This is a larger scale, more vehicle-oriented mode. The Spartans are defending a base, and the Elites are trying to get in. Simple, right? Not quite so much. There's 3 different phases, and each phase new loadouts and vehicles unlock. It gets pretty frantic, with all the vehicles everywhere and heavy weapons dropping near the end.
The last new mode is Generator Defense. The Spartans are defending three generators, and the Elites are trying to destroy them. Fairly simple, but the Spartans can make one generator at a time (I believe) invulnerable for about thirty seconds, with a slight downtime afterward. So if the Elites are focusing on one generator, a pretty good tactic, as the Spartans have to cover all 3, one of the Spartans can lock that generator down and the Elites have to go somewhere else.

Reach is also going to have customization! Nothing on the order of Modern Warfare 2, in fact it's not even going to change the gameplay. But finally, no more generic Master Chiefs wandering everywhere looking exactly the same! If you've seen the release trailer, you'll get an idea of what it'll be like. You earn credits during matches, and possibly during the campaign (I'll try to confirm that.), which you will use to buy cosmetic upgrades for your armor. The most interesting thing to me is the fact that these also carry over to single player. Awesome, huh?

So, it looks like Halo: Reach is going to be the best new thing for Halo since dual-wielding, and I'm definitely going to get it. Oh, and there's some pretty awesome extra stuff in the limited editions.. Though I still like the 2GB dogtag USB drive with SC loaded on it that you'll get with SC2's.

Speaking of Starcraft 2...

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

How do you follow up the most iconic game in the genre of all time, a game that is still played fanatically (especially in Korea. It's bigger than soccer in Europe!) more than an entire decade after the original came out.

Pretty well, looks like. Starcraft 2 is going to be released in 3 EPIC installments, each a full-length game focusing on one of each of the three races, Wings of Liberty for the Terrans, Heart of the Swarm for the Zerg, and Legacy of the Void for the Protoss. Of course, you'll be able to play any of them in the multiplayer.

The most interesting and unusual thing about SC2, at least for me, is how surprisingly open ended the campaign is. In the original, and Warcraft as well, you just went through each mission, watching the story unfold. In SC2, you'll be able to choose your missions, technologies, and upgrades as you go through the game. Yay, you're getting your RPG in my... everything! The funny part about this, is that the campaign is around 25 missions long, which is about as long as the previous one. And that's all as the Terrans, though there are rumors of a Protoss mini-campaign, and if there's one of those you can bet there'll be a Zerg one too. That's why they're making 3 games. The later ones aren't expansions, they're full-blown continuations of the story as the other races, because they each need a FULL LENGTH game to get the story across. Can you say most epic game EVER? (Except for Mass Effect.)

They're also doing tons of new units, around half a dozen new ones for each race. Which is a lot, if you didn't know. I'd detail them, but that would take it a long time. I think I'll just tease you with some things like.. hmm. Giant Colossal walkers of death, like from War of the Worlds, huge Motherships with beams of death and tons of other awesome abilities, and huge mechs called Thors that seem like walking siege tanks on steroids. (Of course, siege tanks are already on steroids, so what does that mean?)

Then, of course, there's the multiplayer. They are completely redoing Battle.net, their multiplayer matchmaking service. Now you sign in as soon as you get in, and it works almost like Xbox Live, showing your friends (throughout Blizzard games, including WoW, BTW) what you're doing and allowing you to interact. There are also going to be gaming leagues, with official matches, standings, and seasons. There's around half a dozen, including.. Practice, Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and even an honest-to-god PRO league. You'll even be automatically sorted by Battle.net after a few games into a division and league, according to your skill level. Speaking of that, it's obviously getting an upgrade to it's ability to judge that, which is always good. Sucks to get stuck in a match getting owned by everyone, doesn't it?

So, there you go. Previews of 3 of my most highly anticipated games of the year. Any questions, feel free to ask in the comments, or any other way you can think of, and I'll try to find out.

Braid part 1

2010-04-21T20:21:00.000-05:00

So. Braid.

It's unique. That's it's defining characteristic, something that has stuck with me as far as I've played. (Through world 3, but I missed a lot of pieces. Eight, I think.) I've never seen anything like the rewind that is the gameplay's biggest draw, and they sure came up with some really cool (and hard!) puzzles. For example, there are objects that are invulnerable to rewind, and you have to figure out how to get them where you need them to be. The story is there, but I haven't gotten far enough for it to mean that much. I can tell that it's definitely going somewhere, but for now I'm just trying to get that oh-so-annoying puzzle piece. It is innovative, immersive (amazingly so for an indie XBLA game), and, most importantly, FUN. I'd like to know how long it took how many people with how much money to make this game, especially compared to blockbusters like Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2, or Mass Effect 2. (Man. Someone needs to make some new franchises!)

I'll do a full review covering specific aspects, but that's all on Braid for now, going to go play it some more! These sort of in between posts are for first impressions, what I'm thinking as I'm playing. (How in the world do I get up there?) :)

I do want to mention something I never realized before, after my last post. You can't write everything. Even if you write everything you think of while you're writing, you'll think of something else. You may forget something you were going to put. I can't believe I forgot to talk about Heavy Rain, as it so happens it was perfect, absolutely perfect for my argument. I'd also like to mention that the defining characteristic of games as art is that it allows you, as the gamer, to finish it. The artist, the developers in this case, give you the restraints and then set you loose. I bet some people would be a joy to watch compared to others. There's a certain beauty, I think, to watching a master at work.

Video games as art (And Splinter Cell: Conviction)

2010-04-20T19:13:00.000-05:00

Meant to post something on Splinter Cell yesterday, didn't get around to it. That'll be at the end, so you can just skip to the big heading if you want to.

Yeah, wall of text. Come on, read it, it's only like 10 minutes. (Depending on how much I DO ramble.)

Anyways, Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun Times posted an article responding to a presentation responding (partially) to his original article, saying that games can never be art. (Important difference from ARE not art) It might help if you read the article, and maybe watch the presentation. The video was 15 minutes, but it wasn't that bad.

I disagree. My opinion is that video games can be art, but often, even most of the time, aren't art. Go play a flash game, just any random old flash game. First random one on Newgrounds, armorgames, whatever your preferred site. Was that art? I doubt it.

Anyways, the definition of art that stood out to me was something that tried to elicit particular emotions. Now, games have always elicited emotions- you think this era was the first time people started throwing controllers at their TVs? Not so much. I mean the deeper, more elemental emotions. Love, sadness, triumph, wrath, vengeance. I also think that art can make you think. Do you think that Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, or Atlas Shrugged, is art? Their main point is to get her philosophy across. (And that communism is bad and we will lose our individuality, but w/e)

There have been a very few movies that make me do either of these, but books, a much more established art form, do it pretty often. For example: Starship Troopers. Read it, it's a lot better than the movie. (at least from what I've heard.) Heinlein makes some very interesting philosophical points, from democracy is stupid and idealistic to what happens if people settle on a planet without enough radiation for evolution. (This from a book written in like the 50's. Golden age of Science Fiction.) Next example: Harry Potter, especially the later books. NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING, has made me feel the way the later ones do. If you don't feel something at the end of the sixth book, (no I won't tell you) YOU HAVE NO SOUL (or heart, whichever). People have told me this about shows and movies, but this... man.

OK, back on topic. Have you played any games that make you do either of these things? I have. Sure, most of them don't. The most emotion Halo (MP) makes me think is a fleeting anger, (WTH man, you can't do that!) or an equally fleeting triumph. (DID YOU SEE THAT!!!) Personally, I don't think that qualifies as art.

But some do. Horror games make their money on it, but it's debatable that fear is really an emotion. RPGs the most, but that's their nature, and mine. Bioshock, Mass Effect. I haven't actually played Bioshock, but from what I've heard, it's defining characteristic, is loneliness and oppressiveness. Oh, and there's that heart wrenching cry the Little Sisters give.

Mass Effect. I could go on and on.. I'll try not to. There's a few instances I'd like to point out first. (More experience with ME1, so I'll stick to that... maybe) Anyways, when you first become a Spectre and take command of the Normandy, you make a speech. It can be toned in different ways, but along with the music, it is very stirring. (BTW, in my opinion Bioware's best moment of writing. Probably at least a dozen different possibilities, and it still sounds awesome) Second, Virmire, the STG commander's speech. "We Will Hold the Line!" It wouldn't work nearly as well without the believability and consistency of the universe Bioware had crafted throughout the rest of the game. Next, the end of Virmire (favorite part of ME1). You have to choose between two of your squad members. It feels weighty, it makes sense, it makes me so mad, so sad, and it's just awesome. (This reminds me of a discussion I had contrasting ME1 and ME2, but that's for another time.) Lastly, the final battle, and scene. The sheer TRIUMPH I feel when I down the big bad, the feeling of "oh ****" when you see the piece of debris heading for where you are, the disbelief when it hits and you think Shepard died, and then the relief and... I don't know what, when he climbs the rubble and poses. (Accidentally, but he does.) Your emotions ride the roller coaster, and it leaves you wanting more. (Games do that. It ends just when it's gotten AWESOME. Can we make a petition for better middle parts in games? Scratch that, in all forms of entertainment?)
(Oops. yeah, that was long.)

In conclusion, I believe that games are their own form of art, and that when people come to appreciate and believe that they will achieve things they had only imagined. For now, they are an incredible bridge between sports and other games, and true art.

... Now for a segment that needs a title. Not a review, or I could say that... ANYWAYS.

SPLINTER CELL: CONVICTION

Main thing I've heard: This isn't Splinter Cell. Personally, I prefer that, but I think that's a bad thing. (no, it's not a contradiction. Think about it.) Series have a certain feel, and changing that DOES NOT WORK. Change the gameplay radically, and you will pay. (there are exceptions, it is true.) There are people that loved splinter cell for what it was, stashing bodies and long stealth parts included. You should respect that, and your own games, and continue on in that tradition.

Now why I (extra caps) would prefer it. To be blunt, I didn't like the small parts of previous Splinter Cells I played. I kind of sucked at it. Stealth is good, but I prefer it as to how it relates with combat and individuals- stealth kills, sneaking past a guard room, etc., as opposed to the ENTIRE BASE. I don't WANT everyone to know I'm coming if I don't carefully strategize who I'm going to kill first so no one hits the alarm, as well as avoiding the cameras and various other traps. Conviction seems to hit that sweet spot: plenty of awesome stealth kills, but accepting the inevitable firefights, and also accepting the fact that you WILL DIE if you fight a dozen people with machine guns using a pistol. It sounds and looks fun, and I'll probably give it a rent some time.

Now, off to play Braid. Maybe I'll review it in a few days or so. Not sure how long it is... Yes, I will do reviews, it just kind of helps if you've actually, you know, PLAYED THE GAME! (You just lost it, and so did I.)

P.S Comments are helpful. I suck at titles, so if anyone think of any ideas for segment names, or even the segment itself, please tell me! Thanks in advance.

P.P.S Don't worry, this was a really long post. I had a lot to say, and I wanted to get the Conviction part out today.

What I like

2010-04-15T07:08:00.000-05:00

Major genres and what I like.

FPS: Second on my list of what to get.
Just had to get the major one out of the way. They're fun, but most of the time they don't scratch that itch I get. I want some huge, overarching game that seems to mean something, and you just don't get that in most FPSes. The multiplayer for the best ones is really good, though.
P.S. just put Third person shooters in here too, they're not that different.

RPG: What I live for.
Ah, here we go. I like western RPGs and JRPGs, but the latter hasn't been winning any points with me lately. I liked the old systems, when it was turn based and you could actually tell everyone what to do. I used to like traditional RPGs like Neverwinter Nights 2, (More recently, Dragon Age: Origins) but my taste for them seems to be spoiled by my absolute favorite games- Action RPGs. The open-world ones (TY, Bethesda) are pretty good, (scratch that, awesome!) but I need more of a reason to explore. So, that pretty much leaves Mass Effect and Bioshock. Haven't played the latter, just happened to get ME1 first... and ME is awesome. Will get Bioshock, though. I just love the stories.

Action: When I see a game that catches my eye.
Pure action games are a lot more single-minded in what makes them work. If you have a good combat mechanic, you have at least a decent game, and if you don't... well, that's not a good thing. I like playing them, but I'm not going to dump a couple hundred hours into it like I could a good multiplayer FPS or a good RPG.

RTS: When the right one comes out.
Generally have cool overarching stories, and the most complex gameplay I know of. They can be hard, repetitive, or just long, but when done just right they can be amazingly fun. I tend to go for the less realistic ones like Warcraft and Starcraft. (Yes, I like Blizzard, despite my extreme lack of motivation to play WoW)

Platformers: Mario is reliably good, but other than that... dunno.
Yay for jumping on random platforms! There are pure platformers, like Mario, and then there's action platformers like Ratchet and Clank. Pure platformers are good for small doses, like half an hour at a time, with no connection to previous playing, whereas action platformers generally have more of a coherent story, where it actually might become more of an experience instead of just mindlessly jumping to the end. Not that I dislike Mario, far from it.

Sports: I'll get one occasionally. Not every year, though.
... If you like sports, get the game for that sport. (If you don't mind it ripping into shreds more often than not. Ok, I'm being uncharitable, they do a decent job nowadays.) Otherwise, don't. Simple.

P.S. BTW, my favorite compliment for a game is that it's epic. I mean this in the literal sense of the word. FPSes, are rarely epic, and the multiplayer almost never is.

Tell me any major ones I missed, and I'll talk about them, too. And remember, feel free to disagree, or give suggestions, or anything else! :)

What I think

2010-04-14T07:14:00.000-05:00

Here's a general rundown of my opinions of the major consoles, handhelds, and the PC:

PC: Best thing to play video games on, IMO. It has better graphics, more precise controls, and is just all round better, except for one thing. Simplicity. I tend to get RPGs and other single-player games on here.

X360: Best multiplayer. So much simpler than on the PC... matchmaking, choose match, ok ready to go! Instead of painstakingly finding the right server... PSN is good, too, but there's just way more people on Xbox Live. Until recently, the 360 had better exclusives, too, (they still get some, but mostly shared with PC) but the PS3 is making a HUGE comeback. I get my multiplayer, esp. shooters, and action games like Assassin's Creed. Also, for some reason I feel like getting Bioshock on it. Atmosphere is better on my 50'', I guess.

PS3: Dang, I want one. It has a higher hardware potential (graphics esp.) than the 360, and has come out with some REALLY good exclusives lately, including Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, the generally accepted GotY last year, and God of War III (can't call it GoWIII any more...), one of the contenders for that award this year. (I think Mass Effect 2 is going to win, personally)

Wii: Full of squandered potential. Nintendo's hardcore games don't even pretend to use the motion controls that much, (except for Metroid Prime, I've heard) so it's up to the 3rd person games. Sadly, most of them just haven't cut it. Motion Plus is a TON better, but most developers seem to have moved on to bigger and better things. For now, it's just something to play the next Mario and Zelda on.

DS: See above, except less hardcore Nintendo games. (not counting the everpresent Pokemon) There ARE quite a few really good games on here, but they're hard to find. Square Enix seems to do quite well on here, with half a dozen or so FF games, and the new Kingdom Hearts. (Still haven't played that...)

PSP: Exactly what it's called, Playstation Portable. It uses discs (sort of), and it even has a control stick. I just prefer the Gameboy's style of games. Which leads to...

iPhone: I just had to put it in here, say something about it. Ultimate time-killer. Nothing as satisfying on any of the other consoles, even the DS, just a bunch of games that I could play clones of (or even the same game) for free online. Flash FTW!

What I have

2010-04-13T15:36:00.000-05:00

Simple intro post, what consoles and games I have.

I have a really good PC (I played ME2 on top settings) which is my main platform, with ME 1 and 2, DA:O, Fallout 3, Oblivion, BF2 and BF2142, Civ IV, and various other games.

X360 that I got last fall, all I have for it (for now) is Halo 3 and Assassin's Creed. Biggest things I'd like to get for it include Borderlands, Bioshock 1 and 2, and Bad Company 2.

I have a Wii with casual and hardcore games, like Wii Sports (Resort), Wii Fit (plus), Twilight Princess, SSBB, Super Mario Galaxy, and The Force Unleashed. Oh yeah, and Blazing Angels. I'd like to try some of the 3rd person games that have come out, like the Conduit and Red Steel 2.

Nintendo DS with FFIII, FFXII Revenant Wings, Eragon (yes it does suck), and Scribblenauts. (Somewhere, I can't seem to find it.)

I also have a PS2 that I occasionally play, a GCN and an N64 that are both still hooked up.

Welcome to my blog!

2010-04-12T20:24:00.000-05:00

Okay, here goes nothing.

Hey everyone, and thanks for reading this. This blog is where I'm going to be dumping all my thoughts about the games I'm playing, looking at, or paying attention to (and occasionally some other stuff). I will attempt to do a weekly segment with my thoughts on major game releases, and there will be more in-depth posts concerning what I'm playing at the moment. Sometimes I'll be on the same game for weeks, sometimes only a couple days. (Finished Mass Effect 2 essentially in a weekend, but I've been playing Dragon Age: Origins for.. a couple weeks now? Just depends.)

The next couple weeks I'll be doing intro posts, saying my favorite games, preferred genres, my opinions of the consoles, and just a general spread of things to help you get to know me as a gamer. Just bear with me as I try to figure out how I'm doing this, and hopefully you'll enjoy reading along with me and get some information to boot.

Feel free to post any comments of what you think, any suggestions, or pretty much anything else. This is new for me, too!