Coming Soon: Updates!
by Morguen on Jul.17, 2010, under Random
Played a lot of games since my last update, so I’ll be picking a few of the more recent releases and tossing some notes around. Stay tuned!
Borderlands
by Morguen on Nov.11, 2009, under Gaming, PC
Borderlands. Easily one of the more highly praised new(ish) releases. It offers a little bit of everything: a unique art style, big guns, vehicle combat, a splash of humor, first-person shooting and roleplaying game elements. Oh, and psycho midgets.
At first I was skeptical of the game, having heard very little about it. I also tend not to rely on previews written by people who are paid to play videogames, the same way as I don’t read reviews written by people who are paid to watch movies. So I went in blind.
From the beginning, you get a very quick introduction into what kind of game this is going to be. Through that introduction movie and the sequence that follows (neither of which you can skip), you are welcomed to a world that is very much in the a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max, dystopian state. You are offered a selection of one of four characters and off you go into a brief tutorial.
Combat is interesting. There’s a bit of a learning curve involved if you are not familiar with FPS mechanics. There is no option for target locking seen in some other FPS/RPG hybrids, so you are on your own with the aiming. There is, however, a aim assist feature which I found got in my way more than it helped. There’s plenty of bullets and grenades and blood to cater to the most gun-happy player, and the way a critical hit (head shot) makes the head leave the body is absurdly amusing.
The RPG elements are at the core of the gameplay. It follows the standard formula: Get a quest, complete the quest, turn in the quest, get your reward, get a new quest, rinse and repeat. All of the weapons, grenades and shields have stats and “enchantments” as all RPG items should, and they drop out of enemies like candy from a papier-mâché donkey.
The story is, as most others have said, lacking. If you play RPGs for the compelling story and the character development, look elsewhere. However, it does free you from having to sit through hours of voiceovers or reading lines and lines of text. With this, it allows the player to get more action and less waiting.
The game world is broken up into zones/regions, which extends the loading time a bit but otherwise means you’ll be moving from place to place less often. The “dungeons” or “lairs” within are also quite large and oftentimes elaborate, almost always leading up to a fight with a big boss at the end (depending on the quest and/or your reason for being there).
My biggest gripe is the way the quest system is handled in multi-player. Everyone must be on the same active quest as the host of the game, so there is very little in the way of independence. It does force everyone to work together (which is kind of the point in a co-op game), but it makes it complicated for people who don’t have characters of the same level and/or on the same quest line.
Ultimately, the game is very fun. It stirred up some nostalgia for the Diablo games, as it feels a lot like them… except in first-person, with mutants instead of demons, guns instead of blades, and vehicles with rocket launchers.
First Impression: Resident Evil 5
by Morguen on Sep.29, 2009, under Console, Gaming
So I was a little late to jump at Resident Evil 5. I found the demo to be exceedingly frustrating, as there really wasn’t any guidance as to how to play the game. Even as a veteran of its predecessor, I was familiar with the controls but the overall experience seemed… more difficult.
Months later, I finally sat down with the game. My friend and I, both fans of the series, sat through a couple hours of the game and became immediately hooked. The graphics are fantastic, the storyline intriguing and the action exceptionally intense. The controls have some getting used to (I admit that I did better on the Wii version of RE4 than I did the 360 version of 5), but once you have it down it’s all good.
After that initial few hours, we sat down at the 360 later in the weekend and played through the rest of the game, nonstop, for 10 hours. Dear. Lord. I would have kept going, but I had stuff to do that day and the final boss was being a bastard.
Having finally completed it a day later, I must say that I’m quite pleased with the end-result and my original misgivings about the game based on the demo and the negativity that surrounded its setting (Africa) were definitely misplaced.
All in all, a very solid game that I would recommend to any fan of the series.
Fable 2 Revisited
by Morguen on Sep.29, 2009, under Console, Gaming
Okay, so this was a long time coming. I went into a fair amount of detail about Fable 2 in my previous post, but now that I’ve completed the main story arc of the game (and started a second character), I’m ready to finish my review.
The game itself, in all of its greatness, is rather simple. As a player, you aren’t as forced into the physical development of your character as you were in the original Fable, but your customization options are fairly limited. You have handful of adornment selections which are only vast if you decide to make your character a cross-dresser, your character’s physical appearance ranges from anywhere between tall and rather bulky to short and fat with your wondrous selection of horns if you’re evil and a halo if you’re good (in their extremes). Dyes for your attire and hair are a nice touch, but attire is utterly useless except for minor NPC perception adjustments and overall, you are just as capable at defending yourself if you’re naked as if you were wearing protective gear.
Combat is rather clunky at times, lacking any real sense of tempo or action outside of the occasional slow-motion view of a slain enemy flying through the air like a ragdoll against whatever it may have the unfortunate fate of colliding with. For the most part, you have three options for combat: Taptaptap the hell out of the X button, stand back and taptaptap the hell out of the Y button or Holdholdholdrelease the B button. The controls are simple and with that, comes the simplicity of the combat system. Many times, you find that the only reason you got hit by an enemy in the first place is because you put too much effort into developing your character to one or more extremes. For example, Will users will get hit a lot, especially if you’re looking to cast the most powerful spells. Skill users are great at sniping, but some enemies have the purely sinister ability to dodge bullets and arrows (thank you for that realism). Lastly, Strength users can absolutely tear everything they come across apart, but they will perpetually block every attack unless you put enough points into abilities to let you ‘flourish’ and break through those blocks. All in all, it feels like a step back from its predecessor.
The quest lines and stories are, as always, golden. The comedy is ever-present in the majority of the storylines and for the most part, you find yourself right at home in the Fable universe. Hannah (Hammer), the first major character you encounter in the game, is made of pure awesome. The character’s monologue (since your character never speaks) and dialogue with other characters is brilliant and entertaining. The others, however, not so much. Going into detail would spoil story elements, but I will say that introducing a character that we’re supposed to perceive as a major asset to the storyline and then having them out of the picture within a few minutes’ time is very bad form.
Lastly, the endgame story elements are garbage. Throughout the entire game, you are built up to believe that you will be engaging in a full-blown, knock-down, drag-out fight with the antagonist in this story, only to have the plot fall flat on its face by ending it with easily the most lackluster and thoroughly disappointing final confrontation I’ve ever seen in a game. I’ll just say that the saving grace is the ability to continue with additional content after the main story line.
In closing, the game is very beautiful if not a bit limited, has a high replay value despite its short main storyline, and can easily eat up hours of your time. I would personally recommend it for a 1-2 week rental and leave it at that unless Lionhead decides to expand upon it considerably.
First Impression: Fable 2
by Morguen on Sep.29, 2009, under Console, Gaming
Based on my love for the original Fable, I was very quick to pick up the sequel yesterday. As with coming into any sequel (film or otherwise), I already had a set of expectations going into it. So far, everything looks good.
To begin at the beginning, the in-game world is beautiful. Great attention has been put on detail from the environmental effects and the overall depth and variety needed to make the world immersive and eye-catching. The majority of character animations are smooth and realistic, save for combat (below) which is a bit clunky and NPC animation.
The voice acting, music and ambiance are all top notch. Everything sounds as it is expected to and the themes match the scenery and definitely add another layer of immersion to the experience on the whole.
Down to gameplay.
I played through the original Fable (on the PC), as I’ve mentioned already. Down to the basic elements, F2 feels very much like the original. However, they’ve added a good deal of new features to make things fresh and interesting.
The first, of course, is the dog companion. I was a bit wary of this feature at first, but I must say that it’s a nice touch. With the removal of the on-screen minimap, the dog acts as a scout for you and (with proper in-game training), can sniff out (quite literally) treasure chests, buried items, enemies, and even quests. And of course, there would be no point to having a dog with you without being able to play fetch. 
I admit it. I play virtual catch with my virtual dog.
Beyond this, the game offers the sometimes under-appreciated “breadcrumb trail,” which is not new to games of this scale but new to Fable. In short, it gives you the basic path to follow in order to get to your next quest. I personally like this feature, as I have a tendency to get lost in non-linear games.
The co-op functionality is bloody awesome. The original Fable would have been so much better with cooperative gameplay and I’m very happy that it ended up in this rendition. Two players can work together both off and online, and while I haven’t gone on XBox Live to play it yet, I have tested out the offline co-op. Essentially, a secondary player brings in a “henchman” to travel with you, with whom you can share experience and gold that can be transferred over to that player’s account. Alternatively, you can give them nothing and be done with it.
In offline co-op, too, both players share the same screen. This obviously has its pros and cons, but it works out very well, especially with having a button available to the henchman to teleport to the main character’s location.
The biggest downside I’ve seen with playing a henchman is that you cannot interact with merchants. So having them collect gold is only useful if it’s to be transferred back to another player.
At some point, I will probably go over the career and quest systems, but I need to get into the game more before I do. So far, however, the game is very enjoyable.
First Impression: Left 4 Dead
by Morguen on Sep.29, 2009, under Gaming, PC
I was originally going to go into how absolutely awesome Left 4 Dead is, and then roll around on the floor proclaiming my love for zombie-slaying goodness, but there isn’t anything I could say about the game that hasn’t been said by the majority of the players.
I do feel, however, that the game still plays as if it’s missing something. Versus mode still feels gimped, thanks in part to only half of the campaigns being available (at time of writing). Valve has promised new weapons, new campaigns, and the SDK for custom content since mid-December. Not seeing it yet. C’mon now… 
The lack of expansion and custom content may not have that large of an impact on its popularity since the game is incredibly infectious, but it’s only a matter of time before people start getting really impatient.
srsly valve we need moar zombees
Beta: Dawn of War 2
by Morguen on Sep.29, 2009, under Gaming, PC
If there’s any modern-day Real-Time Strategy series I’m fond of, it’s the Dawn of War series. The Warhammer series in general has a tremendously deep library of lore, a broad spectrum of characters, races, and all of the other tasty giblets that make it a perfectly robust multiverse to build a game from.
Dawn of War II’s predecessors, spanning several expansion packs, take you into the Warhammer 40,000 universe with science fiction concepts leaking from every orifice. The game is presented in the typical model: Build a base, gather resources, train units, expand. Fight. Lather, rinse repeat. Infantry are delivered in squads that can be reinforced, weapons that can be upgraded, and with accompanying specialists and/or hero-class units to make it a micromanager’s wet dream come true. They had very distinct races/factions to choose from, some with drastically different play styles that would appeal to several different tastes. All in all, it had a little bit of something for everyone.
Dawn of War II arrives soon, but is currently available as a beta through Steam. As an owner of the final expansion of its predecessor, I was able to access the beta a week early and I dived right into it. My roommate, being an even bigger of a fan than I, also jumped in.
After putting hours into the game, trying out the different skirmish modes, poking at the four basic factions (of which we only get one new one to start), neither of us really know what to think. The game’s formula has changed entirely. Gone is the concept of building a base, which essentially leaves you with a single building from which all of your units are trained. Squad reinforcement also seems to be a thing of the past, save for 1-2 weapon upgrades and a single squad leader that can support each group. Finally, the heroic characters are also very specialized, which is kind of cool on the surface but I found myself unsure of exactly what to do with them, at times. And finally, the resource-gathering rate is so mind-rapingly slow that I felt that I was moving too quickly for the game, leaving it a slow, droning pace and making getting back into the fight very time-consuming.
Not to say that the game is without cool additions, mind. The environments are very destructible, vehicles pose even larger threats in this iteration, and the graphical overhaul is very nice. But for all of its flashiness and sharp new look, it still makes me wonder if this is some kind of sick joke. I have heard only good things from publications regarding their single-player campaign, but if this is what can be expected of the multiplayer experience, I think I’ll sit this one out.
Warhammer Online: Better than Promised
by Morguen on Sep.29, 2009, under Gaming, PC
So I’ve been playing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning since a few days before launch and I have to say that it has been by far the best MMORPG experience I’ve had since the beginning.
As a brief overview, my first experience with the MMO genre wasUltima Online. From there, it went to EverQuest, then Anarchy Online, Final Fantasy XI, EverQuest II, World of WarCraft, Star Wars Galaxies, World of WarCraft(Again), EQ2 (Again), and then I gave up on them altogether. In all of the games that I had played, all of them failed to live up to the expectations that I had.
There was always something missing. Perhaps in my mind, I expected that enhanced interaction with the game world itself was needed. But not just the world, but with other players as well. Too few games offer true, meaningful player versus player versus environment (PvPvE) experiences. Warhammer Online delivers.
To think for a moment that you can play the game to its fullest without PvP (player versus player) combat is ridiculous. While the vast majority of their servers offer what they call RvR (Realm versus Realm) gameplay, the Open RvR servers are where the real action is at. This allows full PvP combat anywhere in the world in addition to their PvP Scenarios, RvR battlefields, and public quests.
A public quest is, essentially, a raid style quest that anyone can join without having to go through careful organization. They typically come along with a new chapter to your characters’ faction’s story, and are offered in three scripted phases. Progression through each opens a more challenging objective and usually ends in a battle with one or more Champion or Hero-grade opponents. At the very end, your contribution to the quest is weighed against a random loot table and if you place within the first five spots, you get something out of it.
The best gear comes from contributing to the war effort. In every major region of the world, there is at least one battlefield where the factions can gain control. Controlling a region allows for better prices when buying/selling to merchants, enhanced gold and/or experience rewards, etc. Needless to say, it makes someone want to get into the war effort.
In the end, there is truly much more than I can hope to get into without getting ridiculously long-winded, so I’ll jump ahead to customer service and such.
At time of writing, they had banned thousands of accounts for attempted gold selling. As any MMO player should be aware, all of the major (and even the minor) MMO’s on the market are plagued with gold farmers and sellers who will spam your tells and/or your in-game mailboxes with advertisements for “phat lewt,” “cheep gold,” or “powerlvling.” The CSR’s in Warhammer do not fool around. Nor will they tolerate violations to the naming policy, either, which has brought quite the smile to my face.
Ultimately, my experience with this game has been the best so far. It is truly a masterpiece with the best launch I’ve experienced and I eagerly await new content from the masterminds behind this game.
Hats off to you, Mythic.
First Impressions: Rock Band 2
by Morguen on Sep.29, 2009, under Console, Gaming
Despite my claims that I would be fighting off the desire to pick up Rock Band 2 for the eagerly-anticipated release of Guitar Hero World Tour, I still somehow managed to pick it up. In retrospect, I figure that if I have played (and own) them both, I can base opinions on personal experiences instead of hearsay (which happens all too frequently with some people). 
Good rationalization, there, eh?
My first few hours with the game were pretty good. It took me a while to get the game synchronized to my home theater system and TV, mainly because I figured I was too cool to go through the automatic calibration tools. Those tools, by the way, are much much better than their predecessor. This time around, they run calibration for audio AND video separately. In the end, the game feels a lot more responsive than it did with RB1.
The track list is a little odd, and I can’t remember for the life of me the names of some of the songs at the beginning of the list that made my ears bleed, but I will say that the collection so far is… different. There are some really nice additions within the realm of music that I enjoy, from Disturbed’s “The Sickness” to Pearl Jam’s “Alive” and Soundgarden’s “Spoonman.” And then there’s the stuff like Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge” that makes me wonder what the hell Harmonix is smoking these days.
Getting back to objective observations, the game offers a nice chunk of new character customization options but the vast majority of them are all from the first game. Ultimately, they merely piled on a few new things here and there and repackaged the game.
The graphics seem a bit cleaned up here and there, with added texturing to character attire and enhanced animation to the characters and venues. Character movement doesn’t seem as random as it used to. But even then, all of the base character models still look the same.
The new “Challenge Mode” is an interesting touch, but I have yet to discover the true purpose behind it. I also have yet to try the online play, but that will definitely come soon enough.
Even based on what little time I spent with it, I’m pretty sure that if you enjoyed the first game, you’ll find this one is definitely better. But whether it’s better enough to warrant the current price tag of $60 is yet to be determined. I look forward to weighing the game’s experience with GH:WT. In the meantime, I have to unlock the rest of the stuff in this one.
