HDO

BioShock Infinite

Keiya — Thu, 30 May 2013 15:20:17 +0000

Not so much gaming lately, but of the games I have picked up, BioShock Infinite stands out as one of the best and certainly most interesting games that I have played in recent memory. I didn't know too much about BioShock Infinite other than it had received high remakes all around, as it was kind of an impulse purchase. I guess personally speaking, I enjoy playing most game types of more when half the game isn't spoiled by trailers, previews, etc. If at all possible, I would highly recommend playing this game with a fresh perspective, before the Internet spoils it too much (though I guess it's a little late for that).

Thematically and narratively, BioShock Infinite offers depth that is seldom seen in a game. A lot of the story is told without explicitly being said. The environment is littered with clues and puzzle pieces; Not only the voxophones (be sure to listen to these as they explain much of the story), but details placed about Columbia; A pristine 19th century classical American city contrasted by ugly dark undertones. Elizabeth is a good companion who is around just when you need her and not when you don't. Which is nice, otherwise BioShock Infinite could have been the most irritating and longest escort mission ever. I am pretty sure that she is explicitly programmed to never ever stand in front of you during combat or in the line of fire. She cant die in combat and her pathing is pretty solid as well so you don't really have to worry about her.

The actual gameplay the weakest part of the game in my opinion. BioShock Infinite is extremely fun to play, but not mechanically groundbreaking in any way. The weapon choices for example, were decent in that they were sufficiently varied, but the upgrade system was sub-par and the gunplay was so-so for a triple A game. The vigors were also introduced too fast during the later half of the game. The first 2 or 3 or so were fine, but past that I swear that new vigors were basically shoved in your face at the pace of about 2 or 3 per hour of play. The gameplay isn't bad by any measure, but it feels pretty average, which is kind of an shame because the weak gameplay elements were the difference between a very good game and what could have been an exceptional game.

I think a contributing factor to the original BioShock's appeal was how unique it felt in regards to the narrative and environment were integrated into the gameplay experience as a whole. BioShock infinite treads on the same ground, but it does so gracefully. Highly recommended.

Jay Wilson on the Diablo 3 Auction House

Keiya — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:15:47 +0000

Regarding this article and this statement:

...that only a small percentage of players would use it and that the price of items would limit how many were listed and sold.

I do appreciate the admission of fault, no matter how late but, what? How could you not have expected absolutely everyone to use the auction house, especially when everyone has been bitching about it from day 1? Low hanging fruit theory states that players will more likely than not, take the path of least resistance to upgrade gear. In Diablo 3's case, that is the auction house, as it is the easiest if not the only way (good luck with actual drops) of obtaining high level upgrades.

I mean, this game is so centered around the gearing treadmill that just about everything that you do is influenced by how well equipped you are. D3 almost forces you to use it.

HearthStone, WoW, & BioShock Infinite

Keiya — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:01:38 +0000

HearthStone: Hah Blizzard the Gathering; My prediction was right on the money. I was expecting either a CCG or a mobile game since Blizzard, if i recall correctly, either outright stated or implied that the new title would be relatively minor. I was hoping that it would be a crossover between all of the major Blizzard franchises instead of just Warcraft, but it is what it is. All jokes and unreasonably butthurt comments aide, HeathStone is certainly new and actually looks fun in my opinion, but that is coming from someone who likes card games and the like. I guess popular speculation states that Blizzard is likely testing out the F2P model with HearthStone.

WoW: After about 8 years and change, I ended up canceling my WoW subscription last week. Panda time was fun, as was playing with most of the old crew again but I just haven't really had/felt the need, interest, or time to login to the game enough to warrant $15 a month. Quit permanently? No, of course not. Come next expansion pack, I am sure that I will be back for a few months. But honestly? I think I am mostly done with all MMOs until something significantly different is released. The genre as a whole just feels really outdated.

BioShock Infinite: It's funny how the games I haven't been giving much thought to are the ones I end up buying and visa versa. Popular positive internet opinions drove me to impulse buy BioShock last night. I have also heard that it is a very spoiler sensitive game, so I wanted to buy it before I end up spoiling it for myself on Reddit.

More on SimCity

Keiya — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:41:17 +0000

Hmmm, I wrote this bit earlier:

Is there even anything noteworthy coming out in the near future?

On second thought, it's actually been a fairly release heavy quarter so far. I know that Crysis 3 came out at the end of February and aside from SimCity and the new Sims 3 expansion, I had totally forgotten about Heart of the Swarm among other things. I think I sill have an $18 credit on my Battle.net account from selling some crap-ass item on the D3 RMAH. That credit if present, will likely be applied to the expansion at some point. As far as everything else, we will have to see as time and money permits.

Just to continue beating the dead horse: I am uncomfortable with SimCity's multiplayer focus which to be honest adds very little to the game in my opinion. It is nice being able to build on the same region with your friends, but interaction between players is pretty minimal. When you are forced to start removing features to allow customers to play a singleplayer game (with marginal success at that) you should probably a few items to reevaluate. But that said, I did purchase SimCity with full knowledge that it had always on DRM, so as long as the servers work, whatever.

Overall the gameplay itself is incredibly intriguing and addictive, though the AI can use some work to say the least. The crap-ass traffic AI and what not are really the only serious points of contention that I have with Simcity, which in theory should have been corrected with the most recent update. The traffic issues were bad to the extent that they make the game almost unplayable past a certain point. I mean, absolutely everything boils down to traffic at some level: Trade deliveries, fire/police services, happiness, and so forth. I do really like being able to create a working supply chain within and between cities though. If I recall correctly, this particular gameplay element is new to SimCity.

SimCity Impressions

Keiya — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:00:06 +0000

Against my better judgement (always on DRM), I purchased SimCity off of Origin. It is to say the least, kind of sad that I never really expected to be able to play this game on launch because of the expected massive server fail, particularly for a title that is and always has been a single player game as a whole. As a general rule of thumb, I try not to pass judgement on an MMO based off of launch performance but Sim City? Isn't this supposed to be the game that we play when the Internet is down?

I will try to evaluate this title as a new game or more accurately, a series reboot rather than a true sequel to Sim City 4 because from for everything that I have heard it really is most definitely not a true successor to Sim City 4, and if that is what you are expecting, disappointment will be had. But that said, aside from a fairly slow initial download ("processing large files"), I was able to connect to the west coast US servers without any queuing, play as well as resume my saved games without any problems for the entire evening.

The smaller city sizes do feel fairly restrictive. Within one evening's worth of play, I was able to build across the entire map. The trick now, will be to grow via optimization in place of map expansion. Despite the DRM hoopla and what not, SimCity is an extremely engrossing and fun game to play.

Edit: Not so much luck tonight! It took us about a half hour to successfully create and then join a game together after many failed attempts at relogging into our Origin accounts, readding each other etc. We were actually able to play for about an hour and a half until we got booted again. Poop.

FTL: Faster Than Light

Keiya — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:16:21 +0000

I keep meaning to post about this game. Even though I purchased FTL some time ago and have since set it down for the most part, it's one of the more fun titles that I have played in recent memory. I've actually known about it for quite some time; It was a Kickstarter if I recall correctly. In addition to a huge chunk of my Steam friends constantly playing FTL, I am pretty sure that I read or heard about it on most of the gaming sites, podcasts, and streams that I follow. And yet, I still managed to blow this game off completely until it went on sale a month or two (or three) ago.

FTL is a rogue-ish resource management strategy game set in space. You are tasked with delivering a critical message to the Federation fleet, which will take you across 8 sectors. Each sector contains a number of star systems to jump to; All the while the nefarious rebels are nipping at your heels. Ignore the fact that graphically, FTL looks like it probably belongs on phone or something, that really is not important. While it isn’t exactly the prettiest plate on the shelf, it’s one of those games that is hard to put down. Game content is largely based on randomization. What each sector contains, what you get from each encounter and what each store has in supply is pretty much up to the RNG.

FTL is hard proof that losing can be fun and it better be because you will lose quite a bit in this title. It’s well worth picking up and probably one of the best deals in terms of play time per dollar.

2013 Thus Far

Keiya — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:21:18 +0000

Hello all, I am still around by the way. There's so much that I have wanted to post about but this site hasn't really been my main focus as of late to say the least. One reason being that there hasn't been a whole lot of PC or console gaming lately. I am still working on XCOM and poking at FTL occasionally (and let's be honest, I am still mildly obsessed with The Sims 3). Other than that, I am not ever sure what is being released this year. Is there even anything noteworthy coming out in the near future?

Artemis is possibly the best LAN party game ever. It is a starship bridge simulator. One machine will host the server and function as the main view screen, the other networked machines each function as one (or multiple if short on crew) of five available stations: Helm, communications, weapon control, engineering, and science. The 6th crew member acts as the captain. Watch the video. Serious serious fun.

Despite greatly looking forward to playing the much anticipated Assassins Creed 3, I never did finish it and really do not feel the need to do so. As it turns out, the Revolutionary War isn't as interesting of a setting as I had hoped; Specifically, the frontier aspect. I really enjoy the urban and historical aspect of the AC series. AC3 doesn't seem to have much of either quality.

On the personal front, we are now engaged :). I will hopefully be posting about that as well as the massive backlog of airsoft GoPro footage laying around...

Games I Enjoyed This Year: Dishonored

Keiya — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 23:39:29 +0000

2012 wasn't a huge gaming year for me. Unless I am forgetting titles, which I probably am, I don't think I even bought too many AAA PC titles. Interestingly enough, most of the games that I have been really enjoying lately are either indie titles or iPhone games. Of the AAA titles that I did purchase, Dishonored comes out on top or close to being on top. I really really enjoy playing stealth games, particularly first-person stealth games to the point where I would easily consider that genre to be my favorite (such a shame that they are so rare). Needless to say, I purchased Dishonored off of Steam shortly after it came out back in early October and had enjoyed not quite a bit. Furthermore, not only is Dishonored a FPS stealth game but also brand new IP, which seems even rarer nowadays.

The gameplay is where Dishonored really shines. It has a good rhythm: Blink to a ledge, sneak around a corner, pause to avoid a patrol, look down, drop assassinate a guard, slow time, blink behind guard number two, kill, end slow time, summon rats to ‘hide’ the corpses, blink away. The spells are fun and I feel that blinking is a good solution to the age old FPS platforming problem. I also enjoy having the option to complete a game with a completely non-lethal playthrough. Though it is easy enough to kill everyone in the entire level, the lethal options are particularly fun. I found Dishonored's binary moraility system (ala Bioshock) to be a bit odd: Even though the lethal options are often the most fun (lol rats), using them will pretty much guarantee that you do not get the 'good' endings whether you are detected or not. This mechanic feels oddly contradictory but doesn’t detract from the game a whole lot I suppose.

The levels are designed to perfectly compliment Dishonored's gameplay and as such are very well done. The levels are open and contain multiple objective paths without feeling too linear and forced (eg the conspicuous Deus Ex Human Revolution human-sized vents). If there is a building with a roof, it's likely that you can climb on it. Most buildings also have an open window or perhaps a grate to climb through. Otherwise, there may be a way to obtain a key, etcetera. Along similar lines, the setting and art style are fantastic: A richly detailed, cell-shaded, dilapidated, Victorian flavored city interlaced with steel. If Dunwall looks vaguely familiar it is probably because the art direction and visual design direction were done by Viktor Antonov and Sebastien Mitton respectively (of HL2 fame). It feels a lot like a steampunk City 17. Overall the characters and story were fairly average. Plotwise, I wouldn’t say that anything too remarkable happened for good or for bad.

Overall, Dishonored was an extremely elegant and polished experience (also may still be on sale on Steam now).

Cards Against Humanity Holiday Pack

Keiya — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 05:13:23 +0000

Our copy of the Cards Against Humanity 2012 Holiday Pack arrived in the mail today. It's a small expansion with 30 more cards on a pay what you want pricing structure (recommended cost is $5). Oh also, the envelope that it came in:

I think the full game as well as the expansion packs are back in stock on Amazon. As long as you aren't easily offended, this game is probably one of the more fun things that I've ever played at a party: Virtually 0 setup time, very easy to play, a good time for all. Technically you can just print the cards out I guess, but it's not the same...

11/10/12: Integrity Tactical Solutions Airsoft Event

Keiya — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 01:09:20 +0000

Integrity Tactical Solutions hosted another awesome airsoft event at Strategic Operations on the 10th of this last month, in which Dave and I yet again had the pleasure of attending. A total of 6 games (4 scenarios) were played out during the duration of the event: Capture and place the flag to establish a base, breaching (green attack & tan defend), breaching game 2 (tan attack & green defend), find the light box game 1, find the light box game 2 and attack/defend (didn’t attend the last game).

My obvious favorite being the breaching scenario; The goal of which was the breach into a specific location by chainsawing down a plywood door to rescue a 200lb dummy. By the way: The chainsawing was well supervised and operating by the STOPS staff for both breaching games (as in, safely). The teams overall, felt like they were more evenly balanced this time around. Big props to game control for keeping everything fair and fun.

We were better prepared for the evening games this time around, not wearing shaded goggles and having flashlights and all (not included on the video because the GoPro ran out of juice before the action began in the shoot house). Oh also, Airsoft GI recently posted their footage recently. There’s a pretty good shot of me fucking with my magazines about half way in.

Ding, Level 90!

Keiya — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 06:51:37 +0000

Not so much WoW time this weekend since we were out of town most of the weekend or out and about. Did manage to get enough playtime in to hit 90 while questing in the Dread Wastes, which is by the way very dready and wasty I suppose. Hopefully more instancing and what not next week. Oh man is it nice to fly again...

Mists of Pandaria, Week One

Keiya — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:57:40 +0000

Ding, level 88! I know, I’m the fastest leveler ever right? I swear that most people are either at or approaching level 90 but now and hopping on the gear treadmill. Definitely glad that I am not really feeling pressured to rush to the level cap, though being towards the bottom end of your social group's leveling curve sucks a bit. It was exciting back in the day, running heroics ASAP at the front of the pack, it I just don't seem to have the time or interest for that sort of play style anymore. Also, I will get there eventually so I don’t really see the point of rushing through everything.

I *gasp* actually got my crap together and started tanking instances the other night, which was interesting considering that the last time I had seriously tanked since what, the end of Burning Crusade? My tanking gear is mostly crap, in fact the vast majority of it was replaced by a half-night of questing. I must say, it was nice not having to wait for a tank in the LFG queue for a half hour.

So anyway, questing: Valley of the Four Winds was a fun zone, the brew quests are a blast. I like the WoW farming mini game, despite thinking that it sounded a bit silly when it was first announced. It's simple, quick, different, and feeds right into the cooking profession. Currently working on Kun-Lai Summit. I am enjoying the East Asian martial arts aesthetic quite a bit; From peaceful meditation, training montages to trekking up a mountain Everest style. Departing from run-of-the-mill high fantasy archetypes is a breath of fresh air. The lighthearted pseudo-Chinese theme reminds me of Avatar the Last Airbender, which is most definitely not a bad thing in my opinion.

Like all MMO's, I am curious as to what the general feel for MoP will be 3 to 4 months from now once the most people have settled in at the level cap. That was about the time when Cataclysm attrition has started to hit (for myself included), so I am very interested in seeing what Blizzard had planned to mitigate player loss.

ITS Airsoft Event at Strategic Operations

Keiya — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:24:26 +0000

Dave and I had the pleasure of attending Integrity Tactical Solutions' inaugural game at Strategic Operations a few weeks ago on the 22nd of September. It was $65 for an all day event + lunch (1pm to 9pm) at the STOPS training facility in San Diego. The price point seems a little steep but really, it's not bad for all day play on such an excellent field (with pyrotechnics!) I am used to casual pick-up games at Mr. Paintball so being a apart of an event where just about everyone is geared out and uniformed appropriately (alpha = green, bravo = tan) was pretty sweet.

This event was so much fun. The music, the pyrotechnics and the detailed field really added to the experience. There were a few communication issues regarding game rules and the respawn locations probably should have been better clarified. But overall, good times; We are definitely planning on attending their next event in November. Videos below:

Kind of got lazy with the second video and just stitched a couple of clips together from the rest of my footage.

Black Mesa

Keiya — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:46:10 +0000

Part of last week's pre-panda gaming time was spent playing Black Mesa. I can't believe that it's actually out. To be honest, I had always assumed that it was the type of game that would just vanish into oblivion. I remember being really excited about it over 5 years ago and then really disappointed when I realized the project was most likely vaporware. Needless to say, I am very pleased to be wrong. To those who live under a rock: Black Mesa is a third-party Half-Life 2 total conversion modification that faithfully recreates both the experience and spirit of Half-Life 1.

Black Mesa isn't just a cheap half-assed remake. The fact that a fan mod is effectively being treated as a 'normal' game is a testament to just how much care was put into recreating almost every single magical moment. Black Mesa also accurately captures the original aesthetic for better or for worse. On one hand, I don't think that fans would have it any other way. On the other, staying this true to the original design serves to highlight outdated level design techniques (mostly the lack of reasonable proportions in certain areas). Then again, the whole point of the project to understanding was to repolish not completely remake every aspect of the game. Regardless, it's amazing how fun Half-Life still is, especially considering its age. There really aren't many games of that age, particularly first-person shooters, that are even playable nowadays.

I was impressed with the quality of most the voice acting. Though to be honest: I most more pleased that the voice acting wasn’t outright terrible like virtually all projects of this sort. The added dialogue is also decent and for the most art blends in with the original content. The music is fantastic, even though the mixing is a bit off. One annoying thing: I really don't remember if the original game was like this but for whatever reason the vertical jumping speed in Black Mesa is set really low to the point where you have to literally crouch jump over almost everything. If this also bothers you, it can be changed by editing a config file.

If you are looking for a nostalgia run or if you've never had the pleasure of playing the original half life, now is your chance.

Mists of Pandaria: Day One

Keiya — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 07:39:22 +0000

Two miracles happened today when logged into WoW (thus ending my approx 6 month hiatus). One: My user interface didn’t explode and utterly break as expected. Aside from a few errors and missing elements (my holy bar had vanished...), I didn’t have to do much of anything other than download an updated copy of my addons (against my better judgement I used an addon updater because I am lazy). Two: There were no server problems or queues on Proudmoore when I had logged in during prime time on release day. I downloaded the updated last night, logged in when I got home from work this evening, played, logged out when I was done. No queue, no serious lag, no server crashing. I’m not sure if that means anything anymore, but release days have traditionally been somewhat of a nightmare for past expansions.

I am half way through level 85. I did one of the starting dungeons shortly after logging in, leveled in Jade Forest and did the other starting dungeon. Had an absolute blast playing with friends again, which is really what much of the game is about for me; Good times all around. Jade Forest is a gorgeous zone by the way, hard to imagine that a game approaching it's 8th year can look this good! Not planning on rushing to level 90 to raid as I did with past expansions. I think that I am looking forward to taking my time for once and not rushing through everything to stay on level with everyone else. Also, I don't think I can really commit to a hardcore or even just a 2 to 3 night a week raid schedule anymore. I would love to raid again with a regular group at some point though.

Totally forgot how to play my paladin which was interesting considering that I was invinited into an instance right off the bat. Yay muscle memory! Also, I may actually go tankadin again this expansion but we'll see.