I think we can honestly admit that the schedule is actually Tues-Weds-Fri where I occasionally post on Monday now and then.
/koff.
Sorry, Monday is one of my days off from my Real Job OMG, so I tend to not do anything worthwhile on Mondays.
This Monday, though, they released Dominion. So it's less that I didn't do anything worthwhile - I made a whole bunch of stays for the corset I'm helping to craft - and more that the entire day was spent pwning - and getting pwned by - noobs.
It was awesome.
What can I say about Dominion ... it's very, very fast paced. That's the main thing. Slower champions, champs that only have a good lane phase, and support are generally kinda boned in favor of A) Backdoorers like Shaco and Eve, B) TankyDPS (as always), C) Movespeed champions (lookin' at you, Janna/Rammus). Stealth gets a huge buff because of the Oracle's nerf/total absence of wards, making all stealth champions infinitely better than they were in TT (since most of them are also carries and very squishy besides), and SR, where everyone with a brain will buy pink wards and pinkeye to curbstomp stealthers. Plus, both Twitch and Evelynn need to do very, very well within their first three to six levels to accomplish anything in Summoner's Rift - in Dominion, the first four levels pretty much are given to everyone, with gold to match.
Everyone dies a lot, because the entire game is teamfights, skirmishes, and running around the map killing everybody else. A pro Rammus player will pretty much carry the entire game due to being essentially omnipresent.
Rather glad I've got a friend who plays a pro Rammus, though.
Because of the fast pace, games snowball pretty hard - even worse than Twisted Treeline, actually. If you start the game and someone disconnects, it's pretty much a given that you're going to lose. On the plus side, however, that means that the game is usually over one way or another in about twenty minutes - exactly how long games that snowball that badly take in Summoner's Rift before the other team surrenders, actually.
I do like the personal score feature - it lets you know who's actually contributing one way or another, providing you a little info as to what you actually did to earn personal score as you do it. For instance, capturing a point is +40 personal score, where you periodically get an additional +5 score when defending a point. The most amusing one to me so far is the 'martyr' points - I suspect it has something to do with dying while defending or supporting an ally, though I'm not really sure.
So far my favorite champion for Dominion is pretty much Singed, though I did pick up Janna, play her, and win all in the span of about thirty minutes total (including buying the champion.)
Favorite quote from Dominion so far: "Dominion has been out for less than a day and I've already forgotten what Summoner's Rift even is, lol."
(So tired, I stayed up until derp o'clock playing League of Legends.)
Showing posts with label game review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label game review. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
I got distracted
H'okiday, so I'm seeing all the things going on in the blogs I'm following and I'm once again quite happy I decided to keep my nose more-or-less out of it, all the same.
I don't much care for parties when they're not the sort of thing you get murdered at.
So, what'd I get distracted by, if not all that?
Well, a five-year-old game, of course!
I had a revelation about the entire video game industry yesterday. You can release a buggy game that's sloppy around the edges, and people may buy it. But the way to keep people buying it is to give them the tools to fix what's broken. There is a vertiable army of modders out there, so if the product is good at its core, they will twist and tweak at it to their hearts' content and fix every little thing you never did - provided, of course, you give them the tools to do so. That's how a game that's five years old is still relevant to anything, and how there's still interest in the franchise five years later for the release of the fifth entry in the series.
Apparently Blizzard isn't the only group who firmly believes in the "when it's done" policy of game releases.
Let me explain: the game in question is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Now, there are still people who play The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, though I never took to it myself. I have a copy somewhere, I just never really got into it.
The game is solid at its core, it really is. It's got a standard 'save the world' style plot, but it's got so many sidequests and so much to do that even at basegame, it's a very worthwhile offering. The thing that makes it a gem, though, is the Construction Set. People have built entire games out of the Construction Set for Oblivion. Seriously. I have, myself, downloaded a little over a hundred plugins all told, including the ten official mods.
Let me pick at what's wrong with it, because 'it's a solid game' seems a little bit underwhelming in the face of the fact that I've done so much to my version of it that it hardly resembles the game that came in the box (or the copy I have for XBOX, for that matter).
The leveling system irks me. There are no two ways around it, the leveling system irks me. Until I did away with it entirely - and put something new in its place - I never thought too much about the sheer amount of grinding I did to no purpose in a single player game. The reason? Everything levels with you. While that sounds fine in theory - in theory only, mind - two important problems arise from doing it that way. One: although the enemies do keep up with you, make it a challenge, like, they're also never any stronger than you. There's never really any sense of progress, when everything is on par with you always. Two (and even worse than the first): If you don't fixate on your combat skills, you'll slide behind all the enemies who are keeping up with your stated levels. Even if you do, if you do it wrong, you'll still slide behind, and then all the curbstomp battles are on your skull, and you'll be lucky if they let you run away alive. So, in short, no real progress (unless you plan to lose your soul to, again, the grind in a single player game and become like unto a robot), only regress. Not good.
That's actually just about everyone's major gripe with the game, and it's almost impossible to swing a cat without hitting someone who's got a mod for it, although the biggest mods seem to have gotten it right overall. Check Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul for the biggest enemy deleveler, and I'm currently poking around with Oblivion XP to undermine the stupid grind. I spend enough time on the game, thank you.
So, onto some of the other gripes with the game. Loading screens. It's a very resource intensive game, so sure, I'll accept that on a lot of rigs they're necessary, but on mine they really aren't, not always. (I play League of Legends just fine with Oblivion paused in the background, even with the resource-hogging mods I've plugged in.) Better Cities addresses this one nicely, by making the cities bigger, better, and more open. Actually, just better in general. I'm pretty sure it's added a ton of new places and people, but they blend nicely, so I'm only pretty sure.
What else ... oh, I know. Vampirism. Who ever heard of starving yourself for power? Anorexic models. I don't want to play an anorexic model anymore than I want to sparkle in the sunlight. So there's a mod to flip that about (actually most of the vampire overhaul mods do a whole hell of a lot more than that, but I'm just a simple thing, see), and another to get the disease by sleeping in disreputable places and getting bit, and another to add a major quest of sorts to the game just for the vampires.
Honestly, most of my mods I picked up for realism, not necessity. The only one I pick up for necessity is the alternate leveling system, because otherwise I'll be up to my eyeballs in Daedra too tough to take out (difficulty slider aside, anyway).
Sorry for the ... odd ... slant to my writing, by the by. I sunk my teeth into a lovely book, and the main character talks thusly. I'll be over it in time for Wednesday, probably. I'd like to do a proper review on some of the mods I added.
Over all, though, I have to say, Oblivion is not a bad game, even at base game. It's got an interesting enough plot, and most of the shiny that can still tax a newer system is inherent. The combat system is pretty fun and streamlined, the magic's all right. The main complaint I can think of is the bird-brained level system and the fact that AI is a crapshoot, so the ambient conversations are generally rather inane - which, most conversations among real people tend to be a bit inane. So meh. It's got grand, epic quests if you're into that, and enough other things to do that you'll be quite content if you want no part of those.
If you like RPGs and haven't yet tried it, pick it up. If you don't, well, don't.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to playing. (And I promise, I'm actually working on this here again, too.) They release Skyrim in November.
I don't much care for parties when they're not the sort of thing you get murdered at.
So, what'd I get distracted by, if not all that?
Well, a five-year-old game, of course!
I had a revelation about the entire video game industry yesterday. You can release a buggy game that's sloppy around the edges, and people may buy it. But the way to keep people buying it is to give them the tools to fix what's broken. There is a vertiable army of modders out there, so if the product is good at its core, they will twist and tweak at it to their hearts' content and fix every little thing you never did - provided, of course, you give them the tools to do so. That's how a game that's five years old is still relevant to anything, and how there's still interest in the franchise five years later for the release of the fifth entry in the series.
Apparently Blizzard isn't the only group who firmly believes in the "when it's done" policy of game releases.
Let me explain: the game in question is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Now, there are still people who play The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, though I never took to it myself. I have a copy somewhere, I just never really got into it.
The game is solid at its core, it really is. It's got a standard 'save the world' style plot, but it's got so many sidequests and so much to do that even at basegame, it's a very worthwhile offering. The thing that makes it a gem, though, is the Construction Set. People have built entire games out of the Construction Set for Oblivion. Seriously. I have, myself, downloaded a little over a hundred plugins all told, including the ten official mods.
Let me pick at what's wrong with it, because 'it's a solid game' seems a little bit underwhelming in the face of the fact that I've done so much to my version of it that it hardly resembles the game that came in the box (or the copy I have for XBOX, for that matter).
The leveling system irks me. There are no two ways around it, the leveling system irks me. Until I did away with it entirely - and put something new in its place - I never thought too much about the sheer amount of grinding I did to no purpose in a single player game. The reason? Everything levels with you. While that sounds fine in theory - in theory only, mind - two important problems arise from doing it that way. One: although the enemies do keep up with you, make it a challenge, like, they're also never any stronger than you. There's never really any sense of progress, when everything is on par with you always. Two (and even worse than the first): If you don't fixate on your combat skills, you'll slide behind all the enemies who are keeping up with your stated levels. Even if you do, if you do it wrong, you'll still slide behind, and then all the curbstomp battles are on your skull, and you'll be lucky if they let you run away alive. So, in short, no real progress (unless you plan to lose your soul to, again, the grind in a single player game and become like unto a robot), only regress. Not good.
That's actually just about everyone's major gripe with the game, and it's almost impossible to swing a cat without hitting someone who's got a mod for it, although the biggest mods seem to have gotten it right overall. Check Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul for the biggest enemy deleveler, and I'm currently poking around with Oblivion XP to undermine the stupid grind. I spend enough time on the game, thank you.
So, onto some of the other gripes with the game. Loading screens. It's a very resource intensive game, so sure, I'll accept that on a lot of rigs they're necessary, but on mine they really aren't, not always. (I play League of Legends just fine with Oblivion paused in the background, even with the resource-hogging mods I've plugged in.) Better Cities addresses this one nicely, by making the cities bigger, better, and more open. Actually, just better in general. I'm pretty sure it's added a ton of new places and people, but they blend nicely, so I'm only pretty sure.
What else ... oh, I know. Vampirism. Who ever heard of starving yourself for power? Anorexic models. I don't want to play an anorexic model anymore than I want to sparkle in the sunlight. So there's a mod to flip that about (actually most of the vampire overhaul mods do a whole hell of a lot more than that, but I'm just a simple thing, see), and another to get the disease by sleeping in disreputable places and getting bit, and another to add a major quest of sorts to the game just for the vampires.
Honestly, most of my mods I picked up for realism, not necessity. The only one I pick up for necessity is the alternate leveling system, because otherwise I'll be up to my eyeballs in Daedra too tough to take out (difficulty slider aside, anyway).
Sorry for the ... odd ... slant to my writing, by the by. I sunk my teeth into a lovely book, and the main character talks thusly. I'll be over it in time for Wednesday, probably. I'd like to do a proper review on some of the mods I added.
Over all, though, I have to say, Oblivion is not a bad game, even at base game. It's got an interesting enough plot, and most of the shiny that can still tax a newer system is inherent. The combat system is pretty fun and streamlined, the magic's all right. The main complaint I can think of is the bird-brained level system and the fact that AI is a crapshoot, so the ambient conversations are generally rather inane - which, most conversations among real people tend to be a bit inane. So meh. It's got grand, epic quests if you're into that, and enough other things to do that you'll be quite content if you want no part of those.
If you like RPGs and haven't yet tried it, pick it up. If you don't, well, don't.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to playing. (And I promise, I'm actually working on this here again, too.) They release Skyrim in November.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monkeys And Sharp Things
Or: WHEE OVERKILL.
So I've been playing this game at work lately, because it's relatively fun and strategy makes my brain parts happy.
I just ...
It seems like it is very, very excessive to use cannons to pop balloons. For that matter, it seems unwise to give the monkeys the cannons. In order to pop the balloons. I guess eventually they start throwing WAR BLIMPS at you, and then there's a bit of rationale behind it, because, y'know, cannon vs. blimp, all right. (Though I wouldn't imagine it would take five hundred hits of anything to take out a low-hanging blimp. How are the blimps constrained to just the linear path anyway?)
Ah well. There's something hypnotic about watching five or six hundred sun-god monkeys annihilating everything on their path with their laser beam eyeballs, missile launches blacking out the sun, stealth bomber monkeys, etc.
What it is:
A pretty standard tower defense game wherein the towers are all - or at least mostly - monkey owned, monkey operated, and also monkeys. With darts and high explosives. The creeps are all b(al)loons of various sizes, progressing through various mazes at ever-increasing densities, to the point where you might actually realistically need cannonfire to annihilate the onslaught - in part because they start unleashing the aforementioned blimps, filled to bursting with the bloons. The latest iteration includes premium (paid-for) powerups and an RPG-style level-up system. Grab the (free) cannon upgrade when you can; it is incredibly, incredibly helpful. (Goddamn Black Bloons.)
Where to play it:
http://ninjakiwi.com/Games/Tower-Defense/
So I've been playing this game at work lately, because it's relatively fun and strategy makes my brain parts happy.
I just ...
It seems like it is very, very excessive to use cannons to pop balloons. For that matter, it seems unwise to give the monkeys the cannons. In order to pop the balloons. I guess eventually they start throwing WAR BLIMPS at you, and then there's a bit of rationale behind it, because, y'know, cannon vs. blimp, all right. (Though I wouldn't imagine it would take five hundred hits of anything to take out a low-hanging blimp. How are the blimps constrained to just the linear path anyway?)
Ah well. There's something hypnotic about watching five or six hundred sun-god monkeys annihilating everything on their path with their laser beam eyeballs, missile launches blacking out the sun, stealth bomber monkeys, etc.
What it is:
A pretty standard tower defense game wherein the towers are all - or at least mostly - monkey owned, monkey operated, and also monkeys. With darts and high explosives. The creeps are all b(al)loons of various sizes, progressing through various mazes at ever-increasing densities, to the point where you might actually realistically need cannonfire to annihilate the onslaught - in part because they start unleashing the aforementioned blimps, filled to bursting with the bloons. The latest iteration includes premium (paid-for) powerups and an RPG-style level-up system. Grab the (free) cannon upgrade when you can; it is incredibly, incredibly helpful. (Goddamn Black Bloons.)
Where to play it:
http://ninjakiwi.com/Games/Tower-Defense/
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
League of Legends
Or: Aren't Microtransactions Fun?
Side Note the First: I kept getting distracted so this is gonna be a long post. TL;DR, gushing and/or bitching about League of Legends. Go buy that. Wait, it's free.
Side Note 2: not feeling too good mentally today (Monday), so forgive any typos or anything. Woke up on the far wrong side of the bed, y'know? (By which I mean, I had this bizarre dream that ended with me waking up feeling like I had something or someone invading my brain that needed to die in a fire. Makes three times so far I've had that sense ... one of them long before hearing about the Mythos. Squicky. Each time they're met with violence - or at least the thought/impression of violent repudiation - of course.) Made me grumpy all day.
Side Note Three: Revenge of the Side Note: I got yet another search hit for "How do I leave Gilneas?" The answer is, you don't. You're stuck there for all eternity. All the other Worgen are hackers. The end. No, but seriously, just play through the storyline, that's your only option. Except for maybe a Warlock summon or something, I dunno. I don't even play WoW anymore, jeez.
Anyway!
I've been playing this game for a couple of days now (not as long as I've been playing Rift - sorry! I'll get to it, I swear!) and I think I've got a fair handle of what's going on with it anyway.
It's called League of Legends, and it's the genetically identical offspring of a very, very popular map named "Defense of the Ancients" from Warcraft III. It's also completely free to play ... in theory, anyway, we'll get to that in a bit.
So what you do, you download the game client, open it up, and play through the tutorial. It actually teaches you pretty much everything you need to know, which is handy since it's been ages since I've played WCIII, and I never really got into the online side of it when I did still play.
Let's be more specific though. LoL - and I love the acronym - is, like Plants Vs. Zombies and Gemcraft (another game I've been wasting time with off and on), a kind of Turret Defense game ... insofar as there are turrets, and it's generally wise to defend them. You can't really upgrade the turrets though. In fact, other than 'blow them up' and 'hide behind them like a sissy,' there aren't really a lot of other things you can do to/with/for the turrets, and, after they've been blown up, they're gone for good. So, basically, not like any of the other Turret Defense games on the market.
I'm going to back up even further and explain what Turret Defense means, since most of my followers are from the other 99,999 SM(TP, hahaha no, just SM) Blogs and the rest of my hits are from GILNEAS, WAT DO. Seriously, it isn't that hard.
Okay, so Turret Defense, generally goes thus: you've got a maze, or a lawn, or whatever, whereby the HORDES OF EVIL are trying to get at your goodies (townsfolk, brains, children, etc.). Your objective is, normally, to build turrets along the sides of that maze, which shoot down the HORDES OF EVIL as they come, at ever-increasing rates of speed and also DEATH.
In LoL, there are two mazes, pretty much exactly mirrored, facing one another. You play as a Champion of one of the HORDES OF EVIL, setting out to stab/burn/consume the entire other HORDE OF EVIL. In the face. At the end of each maze is a Nexus, which is essentially your/the other guys' townsfolk/brain/children/goodies/shiny things. Your objective is to blow up the other guy's Nexus while simultaneously preserving your Nexus from being blown up. Generally there'll be two to four other people/robots helping you out with that, along with the entire rest of your HORDE OF EVIL.
And honestly, gladiatorial matches where the combatants are made to fight endlessly without even the reprieve of a final death kind of makes both sides pretty evil, imo. I haven't given more than a cursory glance to the lore, what there is of it. Not exactly an RPG.
So that's awesome.
It's actually a really kind of cool game, and what little I've seen of it suggests that they're trying to constantly pump out new goodies. How are they funding that, if it's totally free to play?
Well, anything game-related is, technically, free to play. They give you a selection, which changes about weekly, of Champions to poke about with. It only takes six or seven matches to buy one with Influence Points (which is the currency you get from, y'know, actually playing the game). But the better Champions can only be gotten through a whole metric fuckton of Influence Points, translating into literally days of gameplay, especially if you get unlucky and lose a lot ... or, you can buy a handful of these Riot Points with real money, and play these awesome Champions now. So, exactly like real gladiatorial matches, only the Champions never get to buy their own freedom.
Which is how they get you.
Because, see, there are a lot of Champions, each with their own unique playstyle, ranging from 'set things on fire/death/NOMNOMNOM and hope nothing looks your way' to 'although you'll take five hours to kill anything, the same applies to your enemies hitting you'. So, you'll either be playing forever if you have any slight inclination to try out something new, or you'll be paying to play anyway.
In addition, everything cosmetic is bought through Riot Points, which is sad because there are a few skins I'd like but don't really want to shell out for. Good thing my two favorite champions' defaults are all right, I guess.
Oh, and Myk, if you're reading: so far I haven't seen much elitism in game, partly because I haven't seen much talking at all. The other part I think is that there are few to no barriers to entry, though. It's free, from a dedicated server that isn't going to tell you how tall you have to be for this ride, and the game really does its best to teach you what to do before you have to singlehandedly face down a horror from beyond or three. At once.
People get a kick out of denying you things that they have that you don't.
Because they're assholes.
Side Note the First: I kept getting distracted so this is gonna be a long post. TL;DR, gushing and/or bitching about League of Legends. Go buy that. Wait, it's free.
Side Note 2: not feeling too good mentally today (Monday), so forgive any typos or anything. Woke up on the far wrong side of the bed, y'know? (By which I mean, I had this bizarre dream that ended with me waking up feeling like I had something or someone invading my brain that needed to die in a fire. Makes three times so far I've had that sense ... one of them long before hearing about the Mythos. Squicky. Each time they're met with violence - or at least the thought/impression of violent repudiation - of course.) Made me grumpy all day.
Side Note Three: Revenge of the Side Note: I got yet another search hit for "How do I leave Gilneas?" The answer is, you don't. You're stuck there for all eternity. All the other Worgen are hackers. The end. No, but seriously, just play through the storyline, that's your only option. Except for maybe a Warlock summon or something, I dunno. I don't even play WoW anymore, jeez.
Not my video, and you can't do this anymore. Got'cha!
Thanks to Soulsinger for finding this video, though.
Anyway!
I've been playing this game for a couple of days now (not as long as I've been playing Rift - sorry! I'll get to it, I swear!) and I think I've got a fair handle of what's going on with it anyway.
It's called League of Legends, and it's the genetically identical offspring of a very, very popular map named "Defense of the Ancients" from Warcraft III. It's also completely free to play ... in theory, anyway, we'll get to that in a bit.
So what you do, you download the game client, open it up, and play through the tutorial. It actually teaches you pretty much everything you need to know, which is handy since it's been ages since I've played WCIII, and I never really got into the online side of it when I did still play.
Let's be more specific though. LoL - and I love the acronym - is, like Plants Vs. Zombies and Gemcraft (another game I've been wasting time with off and on), a kind of Turret Defense game ... insofar as there are turrets, and it's generally wise to defend them. You can't really upgrade the turrets though. In fact, other than 'blow them up' and 'hide behind them like a sissy,' there aren't really a lot of other things you can do to/with/for the turrets, and, after they've been blown up, they're gone for good. So, basically, not like any of the other Turret Defense games on the market.
I'm going to back up even further and explain what Turret Defense means, since most of my followers are from the other 99,999 SM(TP, hahaha no, just SM) Blogs and the rest of my hits are from GILNEAS, WAT DO. Seriously, it isn't that hard.
Okay, so Turret Defense, generally goes thus: you've got a maze, or a lawn, or whatever, whereby the HORDES OF EVIL are trying to get at your goodies (townsfolk, brains, children, etc.). Your objective is, normally, to build turrets along the sides of that maze, which shoot down the HORDES OF EVIL as they come, at ever-increasing rates of speed and also DEATH.
In LoL, there are two mazes, pretty much exactly mirrored, facing one another. You play as a Champion of one of the HORDES OF EVIL, setting out to stab/burn/consume the entire other HORDE OF EVIL. In the face. At the end of each maze is a Nexus, which is essentially your/the other guys' townsfolk/brain/children/goodies/shiny things. Your objective is to blow up the other guy's Nexus while simultaneously preserving your Nexus from being blown up. Generally there'll be two to four other people/robots helping you out with that, along with the entire rest of your HORDE OF EVIL.
And honestly, gladiatorial matches where the combatants are made to fight endlessly without even the reprieve of a final death kind of makes both sides pretty evil, imo. I haven't given more than a cursory glance to the lore, what there is of it. Not exactly an RPG.
So that's awesome.
It's actually a really kind of cool game, and what little I've seen of it suggests that they're trying to constantly pump out new goodies. How are they funding that, if it's totally free to play?
Well, anything game-related is, technically, free to play. They give you a selection, which changes about weekly, of Champions to poke about with. It only takes six or seven matches to buy one with Influence Points (which is the currency you get from, y'know, actually playing the game). But the better Champions can only be gotten through a whole metric fuckton of Influence Points, translating into literally days of gameplay, especially if you get unlucky and lose a lot ... or, you can buy a handful of these Riot Points with real money, and play these awesome Champions now. So, exactly like real gladiatorial matches, only the Champions never get to buy their own freedom.
Which is how they get you.
Because, see, there are a lot of Champions, each with their own unique playstyle, ranging from 'set things on fire/death/NOMNOMNOM and hope nothing looks your way' to 'although you'll take five hours to kill anything, the same applies to your enemies hitting you'. So, you'll either be playing forever if you have any slight inclination to try out something new, or you'll be paying to play anyway.
In addition, everything cosmetic is bought through Riot Points, which is sad because there are a few skins I'd like but don't really want to shell out for. Good thing my two favorite champions' defaults are all right, I guess.
Oh, and Myk, if you're reading: so far I haven't seen much elitism in game, partly because I haven't seen much talking at all. The other part I think is that there are few to no barriers to entry, though. It's free, from a dedicated server that isn't going to tell you how tall you have to be for this ride, and the game really does its best to teach you what to do before you have to singlehandedly face down a horror from beyond or three. At once.
People get a kick out of denying you things that they have that you don't.
Because they're assholes.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Dragon Age II
Dragon Age II. Wheeee, Dragon Age II.
Now, Yahtzee is a hard act to follow, especially since he seems to mostly just say true things in the most caustic, angry sort of way possible.
And I'm just not very angry.
So ... yeah, this morning I woke up and, over breakfast, I asked Mom, "Hey, would you be terribly upset if I married a combat animation? I think I'm in love."
And she kind of stared at me for a long moment. "Backstab?" she finally asked.
The combat in Dragon Age 2 is pretty much the main and/or only thing about Dragon Age 2. Which ... isn't really bad. It is delightfully fun to wade into combat, jumping about from foe to foe like a giant, angry flea, only instead of sucking out all their blood, you're dismembering them with daggers made entirely of death. Death. Which is, yeah, win.
It's still a Bioware game, mind, so the writing is still good, it just kind of doesn't stand up well against its predecessor...s...es. And it's still a Dragon Age game, so it's still Darker and Edgier to boot.
The plot is just kinda ... there, to facilitate Hawke gleefully reducing all of his/her/its foes to a series of ever-growing, gooey red stains on the ground. Honestly, some of the dungeons got a new paint job. All in red. With some minor variation for organ color and bone.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'ma go dismember all the giant spiders, bandits, and Qunari that decide to get in my way. Life is hard as the Free Marches' only human-shaped lawnmower.
Now, Yahtzee is a hard act to follow, especially since he seems to mostly just say true things in the most caustic, angry sort of way possible.
And I'm just not very angry.
So ... yeah, this morning I woke up and, over breakfast, I asked Mom, "Hey, would you be terribly upset if I married a combat animation? I think I'm in love."
And she kind of stared at me for a long moment. "Backstab?" she finally asked.
The combat in Dragon Age 2 is pretty much the main and/or only thing about Dragon Age 2. Which ... isn't really bad. It is delightfully fun to wade into combat, jumping about from foe to foe like a giant, angry flea, only instead of sucking out all their blood, you're dismembering them with daggers made entirely of death. Death. Which is, yeah, win.
It's still a Bioware game, mind, so the writing is still good, it just kind of doesn't stand up well against its predecessor...s...es. And it's still a Dragon Age game, so it's still Darker and Edgier to boot.
The plot is just kinda ... there, to facilitate Hawke gleefully reducing all of his/her/its foes to a series of ever-growing, gooey red stains on the ground. Honestly, some of the dungeons got a new paint job. All in red. With some minor variation for organ color and bone.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'ma go dismember all the giant spiders, bandits, and Qunari that decide to get in my way. Life is hard as the Free Marches' only human-shaped lawnmower.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
CIV
So, Firday I purchased a new game to try to take my mind off of being so depressed/paranoid/sobbing ball of angst. That game was Civilization IV.
I think I've actually found something to do between digsites. Wow.
So the first thing you need to know about Civ that I didn't fully comprehend at first is that it's very, very long. Like, very. Like, by the time the day was out, I wasn't quite done with the game I'd started that morning.
This isn't the first or only game of its kind that I've played. I mean, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one of the bigger reasons I plan to keep a computer with XP around for a while.
But yes. Civ. Long. There are no zerg.
That said, I had a bit of fun playing around with it.
At first.
Once I got over how long it took to even get my first other unit, I ran up against the fact that I pretty much had to shoot for the score victory, because the few cultures (read all) that had survived to the modern era didn't really like me well enough to vote for me (because they didn't like each other to tolerate me associating with all of them). Next time I play peacefully I'm tempted to see if I can strong-arm my opponents into starting up long, bloody wars to ostracize and murder the competition for me.
You know. Peacefully.
Alternatively, nukes.
The Space Race is another win condition I might be able to do peacefully, except for how long it takes to get there, which I am slowly shortening down to the lowest possible number.
I discovered something in pursuing the Space Race, too.
The AI? (On Chieftan difficulty?) Not really designed to operate in a void. I started up a new playthrough after my first attempt crashed to the desktop (damn you, Windows), remaining peaceful - and isolated, thanks to living on a tiny island. By the time the other cultures' feeble wooden ships skimmed near my shores, I was exploring nuclear technology - and defending myself against the possibility that, I dunno, maybe one of my own engineers would go nuts and bomb my own cities, maybe? None of the other cultures were even in a position to try to comprehend the technologies I was developing. I was in a position to dominate the world, and I was seriously contemplating crushing my opposition under the sheer force of my nuclear might because I could do so unopposed.
And I think I'm going to do that on my next playthrough.
Which brings me to something else that amuses me greatly: Mom brought up that throughout her listening to my discovery of new technologies, there was never the mention of any kind of witch burnings, nor even the Crusades or any kind of religious warfare. Despite the fact that my technology rapidly approached the 'indistinguishable from magic' point compared to my contemporaries, and I founded four separate religions on my tiny island.
Burn the witch! Before she BURNS YOU IN THE RIGHTEOUS NUCLEAR FIRE OF GOD!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - BOOM!
I think I've actually found something to do between digsites. Wow.
So the first thing you need to know about Civ that I didn't fully comprehend at first is that it's very, very long. Like, very. Like, by the time the day was out, I wasn't quite done with the game I'd started that morning.
This isn't the first or only game of its kind that I've played. I mean, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one of the bigger reasons I plan to keep a computer with XP around for a while.
But yes. Civ. Long. There are no zerg.
That said, I had a bit of fun playing around with it.
At first.
Once I got over how long it took to even get my first other unit, I ran up against the fact that I pretty much had to shoot for the score victory, because the few cultures (read all) that had survived to the modern era didn't really like me well enough to vote for me (because they didn't like each other to tolerate me associating with all of them). Next time I play peacefully I'm tempted to see if I can strong-arm my opponents into starting up long, bloody wars to ostracize and murder the competition for me.
You know. Peacefully.
Alternatively, nukes.
The Space Race is another win condition I might be able to do peacefully, except for how long it takes to get there, which I am slowly shortening down to the lowest possible number.
I discovered something in pursuing the Space Race, too.
The AI? (On Chieftan difficulty?) Not really designed to operate in a void. I started up a new playthrough after my first attempt crashed to the desktop (damn you, Windows), remaining peaceful - and isolated, thanks to living on a tiny island. By the time the other cultures' feeble wooden ships skimmed near my shores, I was exploring nuclear technology - and defending myself against the possibility that, I dunno, maybe one of my own engineers would go nuts and bomb my own cities, maybe? None of the other cultures were even in a position to try to comprehend the technologies I was developing. I was in a position to dominate the world, and I was seriously contemplating crushing my opposition under the sheer force of my nuclear might because I could do so unopposed.
And I think I'm going to do that on my next playthrough.
Which brings me to something else that amuses me greatly: Mom brought up that throughout her listening to my discovery of new technologies, there was never the mention of any kind of witch burnings, nor even the Crusades or any kind of religious warfare. Despite the fact that my technology rapidly approached the 'indistinguishable from magic' point compared to my contemporaries, and I founded four separate religions on my tiny island.
Burn the witch! Before she BURNS YOU IN THE RIGHTEOUS NUCLEAR FIRE OF GOD!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - BOOM!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Aion Reminiscing
So, Aion: The Tower of Eternity. I did that for a while, when I was still convinced I could break my horrible World of Warcraft addiction. While I'm thinking about it (en route to EPL from Stormwind), I figure I might as well talk about it.
I have an odd fetish for winged humanoids. It's a probably unhealthy fascination, what can I say.
That's why I ended up buying Aion, that and the fact that half of my old guild was seriously considering wandering off there, and then did so (only none of them could agree on a server/faction combo).
On top of that, the story was fairly well-written, translated, and localized into English. In fact, even during the Closed Beta I don't recall seeing any Engrish, really, and there were cutscenes everywhere so even the literacy-impaired could get an idea as to what's going on, and what they were supposed to do (quests were often introduced with a cutscene).
So why am I not still playing it? It was a solid MMO, not entirely different from WoW actually. This is partly because, it seems like, all MMOs are EverQuest clones, just prettier. And oh, Aion was beautiful. One of the more recent patches for World of Warcraft improved that game's graphics to the point where it reached 'on par for minimum settings Aion.' At maximum settings. However, this beauty made Aion a graphics hog, and given that it's a PVP-heavy murder-fest (fortress battles going up to about 100 people a side), in real combat it's rare to be able to have your graphics max'd and still be able to move. Like, at all. Minimum settings for Aion also included turning off everyones' character models. (Shift + F12, if I recall correctly?)
So there's been an expansion (for free, unless you care overmuch about purchase-exclusive minipets) called Assault on Balaurea. It bumps the level cap from 50 to 55, and, I gather, is supposed to try to help resolve the game's other issues (I wouldn't know, I never tried the expansion).
What were those other issues, anyway?
Well. Last time I played, anyway, it was a grind-fest. (Predictable enough for an Korean MMO.) Given what I know of FFXI, Aion isn't as bad as it could be, but the grind is painful, with few (mostly repeatable, kill-some-mobs-and-take-their-stuff) quests.Well no, that's not true. The early levels offered an ease familiar to WoW. 1-10 is set up so that just questing is sufficient to level you, 11-20 can be done with minimal grinding in the interim. It's only after level 20 (out of 50) that the curve starts becoming more of a drag. Quests started thinning out at 20, becoming incredibly rare around 30, when you could start entering dungeons. I made it to 44 - within a month or two of the endgame, I swear! - and quit.
Beyond that, well, I'm not much for being ganked while grinding. Especially when you lose experience for dying in PVE, and the PVPers will do their level best to make sure you suffer a PVE death - and you lose honor points for dying to the PVPers, as well. Any time I'm forced to just lose my time and effort because someone at level 50 feels like being an (expletive removed), well ... the only good news, such as it is, was that you couldn't level down, and could buy your EXP back. At generally-speaking, exorbitant prices.
Maybe I've been babied by WoW. But I'll take a totally revamped, super-speedy leveling experience over standing around in the same zone - the same fifty feet of the same zone - for five hours and making 2/20 (with five separate +EXP gain buffs) bars because there are no quests and no one needs a 'ssin. Thank you.
I have an odd fetish for winged humanoids. It's a probably unhealthy fascination, what can I say.
That's why I ended up buying Aion, that and the fact that half of my old guild was seriously considering wandering off there, and then did so (only none of them could agree on a server/faction combo).
On top of that, the story was fairly well-written, translated, and localized into English. In fact, even during the Closed Beta I don't recall seeing any Engrish, really, and there were cutscenes everywhere so even the literacy-impaired could get an idea as to what's going on, and what they were supposed to do (quests were often introduced with a cutscene).
So why am I not still playing it? It was a solid MMO, not entirely different from WoW actually. This is partly because, it seems like, all MMOs are EverQuest clones, just prettier. And oh, Aion was beautiful. One of the more recent patches for World of Warcraft improved that game's graphics to the point where it reached 'on par for minimum settings Aion.' At maximum settings. However, this beauty made Aion a graphics hog, and given that it's a PVP-heavy murder-fest (fortress battles going up to about 100 people a side), in real combat it's rare to be able to have your graphics max'd and still be able to move. Like, at all. Minimum settings for Aion also included turning off everyones' character models. (Shift + F12, if I recall correctly?)
So there's been an expansion (for free, unless you care overmuch about purchase-exclusive minipets) called Assault on Balaurea. It bumps the level cap from 50 to 55, and, I gather, is supposed to try to help resolve the game's other issues (I wouldn't know, I never tried the expansion).
What were those other issues, anyway?
Well. Last time I played, anyway, it was a grind-fest. (Predictable enough for an Korean MMO.) Given what I know of FFXI, Aion isn't as bad as it could be, but the grind is painful, with few (mostly repeatable, kill-some-mobs-and-take-their-stuff) quests.Well no, that's not true. The early levels offered an ease familiar to WoW. 1-10 is set up so that just questing is sufficient to level you, 11-20 can be done with minimal grinding in the interim. It's only after level 20 (out of 50) that the curve starts becoming more of a drag. Quests started thinning out at 20, becoming incredibly rare around 30, when you could start entering dungeons. I made it to 44 - within a month or two of the endgame, I swear! - and quit.
Beyond that, well, I'm not much for being ganked while grinding. Especially when you lose experience for dying in PVE, and the PVPers will do their level best to make sure you suffer a PVE death - and you lose honor points for dying to the PVPers, as well. Any time I'm forced to just lose my time and effort because someone at level 50 feels like being an (expletive removed), well ... the only good news, such as it is, was that you couldn't level down, and could buy your EXP back. At generally-speaking, exorbitant prices.
Maybe I've been babied by WoW. But I'll take a totally revamped, super-speedy leveling experience over standing around in the same zone - the same fifty feet of the same zone - for five hours and making 2/20 (with five separate +EXP gain buffs) bars because there are no quests and no one needs a 'ssin. Thank you.
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