nomnom.info

The Magic of Video Games

rav4ge — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:15:15 +0000

Video game magic at work.

I buy a lot of video games, for a few reasons. The first is, I like seeing what new kinds of innovation and progression developers have brought to the table with new releases. I consider myself pretty invested in the game industry, and missing out on playing a certain title, especially when said title is made up to be “the latest and possibly greatest,” is something I just can’t let happen. I get curious, and as you well know with video games, satisfying this curiosity isn’t cheap.

Slurms at Multiplaying wrote up a post this week about how he feels the same way:

There’s still some games from 2011 that I haven’t played that were on my “must buy” list. Hell, there are games from 2010 that I still want to pick up! But the new shinies are all too tempting to ignore, so I move on and dread the day when I’ll be asked if I remember a certain game that I just so happened to pass up. Then I’ll get that reaction like when I tell someone I haven’t seen one of their favorite movies.

What?

Don’t look at me like that.

I feel the same way about games. With the prices on games, one can hardly have them all. $60 becomes $67 with tax, and so it becomes the question of narrowing it down – which releases will satisfy me most? How much content am I getting here? Some will even go as far to measure titles with a simply equation – hours played divided by price, with a 1.0 ratio being ideal. Now, the results here are really up for interpretation, as some people are perfectly content playing their favorite titles again and again. My brother Calvin has played Far Cry 2 on the PC for close to 300 hours now. Now, this does include his time spent with the amazing map-making tool that comes built-in, but that’s still pretty incredible that he’s put that much time into one game. Even more incredible is that he only payed a mere $5 for the game. But when I ask him if he’s interested in Ubisoft’s very exciting (to me, at least) sequel, coming out in September of this year, he says it plain and simple. “I don’t care about [Far Cry 3].”

And that kind of reaction really isn’t surprising. He doesn’t play games like I do, like many of my friends do, where we are always looking forward to the latest and greatest – and I can respect that. He’s never spent more than $100 a year on video games, but yet he gets much more out of his games than I ever will. While I’m always looking brightly towards the future, he’s content playing what he has. Putting it like that, my curiosity for new games is almost a curse.

A great deal of this curiosity comes from this reason, and this reason alone – I, unlike Calvin, am always in search of the next, near-perfect, piece of entertainment in video-game-form. That’s what drives me to keep up with new releases and anticipate others, and I know I’m not alone here.

I talked to Conner about this recently. He brought up Call of Duty 4 and StarCraft II as two games that, upon playing, just blew his mind. He was just in a state of pure gaming bliss, where everything clicked for a variety of reasons, and the first-time experience was unlike anything. But at the same time, he told me he was also saddened by his sudden ecstasy. He knew that, given a month or more, these feelings of adoration and pure love for these games would be gone, and he would soon find himself instead anticipating another game that would give him the same “buzz.”

That right there is just it. That’s what this curiosity comes from. The search, the hope that this particular new game will be so good as to give you a gaming high, hopefully one equal or better to your best and most intense, most adored game from your past. We’ve all had that experience like I described with Conner, where everything just “clicks.” We keep ourselves excited and our wallets ready for the next best thing in the hopes that it will be the next best thing. And sometimes, just sometimes, it turns out to be exactly that.

-rav4ge

Podcast Episode 26 – Full House

rav4ge — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:45:14 +0000

On this week’s crazy episode, we manage to record with not four, not five – but six participants – a new record in Nomnom podcasting history. Bennett finally makes his return, and joining him is Dustin. Combined, our power is unmatched, resulting in one of our best episodes yet. We talk video games, news, ponies, Batman (is he a superhero or not?) and Microsoft Moon Points, and hopefully, you’ll listen.

Credits:

Games we’ve been playing:

Bennett

Tetris Battles

Michael

Bioshock
Minecraft

Cameron

Minecraft

Stefan

Mafia II

Conner

Battlegrounds (Source mod)

Dustin

Counter-Strike: Source

News:

Amazon France leaks Black Ops 2, Activision get mad (it was a surprise, you guys)
Counter-Strike co-creator unveils new tactical shooter
EA sends copies of Mass Effect 3 into SPACE!
Activision rumored to be involved with new TMNT game… yeah.

Listen:

Mass Effect 3 PC Demo Impressions

rav4ge — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:57:23 +0000

In case you weren’t aware, BioWare released the Mass Effect 3 demo to the public today across all platforms. You can find instructions to download the demo for yourself on your platform of choice here. What better way to wrap-up Valentines day than to spend it shooting up the galaxy’s worst offenders with Commander Shepard and friends?

Quick impressions time! I downloaded the demo on the PC, since that’s where I played the last two Mass Effect titles, and the version I will be playing come release. I’m going to make this post pretty general in regards to what actually happens story-wise in the game, because nothing is worse than having a BioWare game spoiled for you. Not that anything unpredictable happens in this demo or anything. If you’re up to speed with the general happenings in the Mass Effect universe, there isn’t really anything in the demo that you won’t already be expecting. Again, no spoilers, but overall, this is a very gameplay-oriented demo, which is the way it should be. The demo is cut in half – one half is a brief part from the beginning of the game, acting as a tutorial and a sort of wake-up-call, which serves to bring the player back into the universe of Mass Effect. By the way, if you’re planning on playing this game come release, you really should play the first two first. Don’t worry, you’ve still got a good four weeks or so to do so! Mass Effect really is a game series that needs to be played chronologically – the story is always pushing forward, and there’s very little emphasis on flashbacks or previous events. Suffice to say, if you go into ME2 or ME3 without having played the previous game(s), you’re doing yourself a disservice, not to mention you’ll probably be doing a lot of “who’s this guy again?” and “huh?” during the large majority of conversations. So yes, go play the others if you haven’t. I did just that recently, and man am I glad I did. It helps that they’re both great games.

The second half of the demo is where things really come together. They just throw you into a mission, with little context given, and you go from there – and man, does this game play well. It plays very close to ME2, but at the same time I found the differences and changes to be pretty noticeable. Most of what’s been changed is related to the combat and movement in the game. Overall, the shooting feels much better than it did in ME2 and much better than ME1. Again, the combat is very similar to ME2, but there are a few things they changed that just make an already exciting and satisfying combat system reach near perfection. The first thing you’ll probably notice is that there’s hitmarkers when you successfully hit enemies now. I’m a big fan of hitmarkers, and they work well here in Mass Effect as well. Not much else to say other than they make the shooting feel a lot more impactful, and therefore a lot more enjoyable.

No, this doesn't happen in the demo. Although I wish it did.

Also new is the ability to pull off combat rolls, whether it be forward, or to the left or right. I didn’t end up using this much in the demo, but it definitely comes in handy for when you’re close to dying and need to get out of the line of fire faster than walking will let you. Plus, you know, it’s awesome to have Shepard rolling around the place at will. Cover seems to be largely unchanged. They probably tweaked a few things here and there, but to me the cover system feels pretty much the same, which isn’t a bad thing, as it worked well in ME2. One thing I noticed was that Shepard seems to have a set of new animations for when he’s (or she, if you’re rolling with FemShep) taking fire, which look great. I don’t remember seeing those in ME2.

The biggest stand-out in terms of combat though was the gunplay. I don’t know what BioWare changed – again, subtle changes, but stuff has definitely changed. Combat feels much faster overall, and the guns feel very satisfying to shoot, with the shotgun being love at first shell fired. It just has so much impact - not only on the target, and let me tell you, this thing is deadly, but also in the way it handles upon being fired. Something about the animations, sounds, and deadly effects of the weaponry just totally click, resulting in excellent combat. My new-found love for the shotgun might have something to do with its tendency to pop the heads of my enemies into pure, red mush. So, so, good.

I absolutely love – and most people will – that BioWare has removed weapon restrictions on certain classes. I played through ME & ME2 with mainly pistols, simply because that’s how the classes I chose were supposed to be played. But man, I have no problems saying good-bye to those weapon restrictions. Playing a sentinel again, and being able to use that beast of a shotgun? Man, oh man was that a nice surprise. By the way, the tech and biotic abilities I got to use as a Sentinel remain mostly unchanged, with the exception of the new upgrade system. Not much to say about those, aside from that they remain as fun to use as ever, especially when combined with good old fashioned gunplay. Seeing a helpless enemy being lifted up in the air courtesy of my teammate Liara was only made better when I froze the poor suspended bastard, and then blew his frozen ass to pieces before he hit the ground with the shotgun. I couldn’t help but smile at that.

So, combat in ME3, judging by this demo? Great, absolutely great. They took ME2‘s combat, made some improvements, and the end result is often satisfyingly brutal, intense, and smooth as butter.

This demo proves Mass Effect 3 has the gameplay I wanted, and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything but excellence, which is exactly what I got. Still, there are some things that still concern me regarding the final product, based upon what we get with this demo. I wrote a post earlier about how I was hoping to see more RPG elements in ME3, and this demo doesn’t do much to ease or even heighten my fears. It’s purely a combat-oriented demo, and I wasn’t really expecting much change from the overall ME2 experience. It’s still up in the air about how the story will play out, what kind of crazy missions Shepard will be getting into, how the new probing (or equivalent) system will work, and how this (presumably) final chapter in the ME trilogy will finish things, since the demo is really about showcasing the new galactic conflict setting and the new combat improvements. Still, I’m as excited as ever to get my hands on the full game in March.

-rav4ge

Podcast Episode 25 – Man Vs Wolves

rav4ge — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:43:58 +0000

This week, we share our thoughts on the movie The Grey, Conner and I talk about our multiplayer adventures in Far Cry for the PC, and Cam and Michael share their undying love for Halo Wars (but only in co-op mode). We also bring up some news, including Double Fine’s successful Kickstarter fund for their next game, Naughty Dog’s reasoning for skipping the opportunity for a new Jak & Daxter game, and Michael has some exciting Collector’s Editions to bring up. Be sure to skip ahead to 8:00 if you’re not prepared for spoilers regarding The Grey!

Credits:

Listen:

Over-scripting games is bad, m’kay?

rav4ge — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:30:52 +0000

"It's scripted, m'kaaaaaaaay."

I’ve been playing a bunch of very well-loved shooter titles on the PC recently – Half-Life, Far Cry, and BioShock, to name a few. They’re all great, for various reasons, but the most apparent is how well they all pull off the atmospheres of their individual game worlds. Half-Life‘s claustrophobic research laboratory, Far Cry‘s beautiful yet dangerous jungle islands, and BioShock‘s haunting underwater dystopia that is Rapture. All three of these games totally excel at drawing you, the player into their worlds, and letting you experience them for yourself.

Keyword – yourself. Not only do these games present you with great settings to accompany great shooter gameplay, but they do so without taking away your control for the large majority of the game. And that right there, is a huge factor in why these games are so loved. By letting you experience their worlds for yourself, it creates an experience that is unique, memorable, and fascinating. This is something a lot of recent games, shooters especially, haven’t been doing. Why? Because they’re over-scripted.

Playing a heavily scripted game is like having the game hold your hand the entire time, stopping every so often to direct you to something the developers want you to see.

Look here! An explosion! Now over here! Whoa, you stabbed the guy! Wasn’t that cool?

Aside from readying their weapon, there is no player control happening here.

Sure, scripted events are fine – but like everything, there’s no reason to overdo them. The player should be able to experience these things for themselves, discover them even, experience them, not just have them shoved into their face every few minutes. It’s a lazy practice that really takes away from most modern shooters, which is the genre most plagued by this recently-popularized design.

Here’s an example of scripted events done right – the Half-Life series. There’s plenty of scripted events in these games – but with one major difference that makes these events actually add to the experience rather than dull it down. And that reason is a simple one – the player’s control of Gordon Freeman is never taken away. Everything that happens in the game is happening to the player. Scripted events don’t work when they pull you out of the game, show you something, or even worse, try to place you, the player, in danger. Without the feeling of being there and knowing that you’re still in control, danger ceases to exist. You know that what is happening on screen is supposed to happen, and that because you’re no longer in control, your character is no longer you. A million things could happen on-screen the developers wanted you to see – and not a single one will have any real effect on you, because during these scripted events, you are essentially not playing the game. You’re just seeing what the developers want you to see. And man, does this take away from the experience.

Picture in Half-Life if the G-Man encounters were cutscenes. You know, the random encounters with a pale, suited man that are so odd and abrupt that they’re incredibly creepy. The game never explains who the man is, or anything about him for that matter. He just appears at certain parts of the game – scripted, but subtle. Valve never points the player camera toward his face, as if to say “LOOK AT IT.” He’s just there. Hell, you might even not seem him if you’re not paying attention.

He's there, just look closely (or click to see the bigger picture)

If these encounters were handled differently, in that the camera would suddenly zoom in to his face and a momentary cut scene would start to play, then the effect on the player would just not be the same, regardless of the quality of the cut scene itself. There is just no substitute for first-hand experience in video games. If you want to show something cool to your audience, let them feel like they’re personally experiencing it. Taking away control from a player, no matter the reason behind it, is not something that should happen often in video games.

One of the games I’m most excited for this year is Far Cry 3, an FPS title being developed by Ubisoft. Here’s the only gameplay video that they’ve show of the game so far, back at E3 2011:

As good as that gameplay video is, there is an abundance of over-scripting, and it worries me. The part where he (the player) sneaks up on a guard, takes his knife, stabs him with it, and then throws it at the other guard? Sure, it looks cool, but I guarantee the person playing didn’t actually do that himself. It was obviously scripted, and that sucks. When will some of these game developers realize that “press X to do X, X, and X in this particular context” isn’t cool?

If you keep watching the video from there, the over-scripting continues. Once the player character runs to the helicopter, there’s another scripted part in which he hijacks the helicopter. I have to give them credit here, at least the scripting only kicks in when you get directly to the helicopter – but why not have it so the player gets to control the helicopter themselves? A few seconds after taking off, the helicopter is hit with a rocket, which propels the player character into another scripted event – the helicopter falling downwards. How about we hijack the helicopter, we get to drive it around for a bit while getting shot up, as a sort of adrenaline-fueled introduction to vehicles, and then we get eventually shot down. It makes sense, because if you throw the player into a situation where all of a sudden, they’re supposed to control a vehicle they have no idea how to control, this reflects the character in the game, who also doesn’t know how to fly one, assuming of course that the player character isn’t a pilot of any sort. This way, the outcome is the same (crash and burn), but the player gets to have a moment of impactful and exciting gameplay, not just them staring at the screen with their fingers off the thumbsticks, waiting for the artificial danger to be over with.

It makes me a little sad knowing Far Cry 3 will most likely be much like that gameplay reveal suggests, especially because the other two games were very much sandbox-style titles. I really hope the gameplay in that video doesn’t reflect the whole game, and is instead just a sort of introduction-sequence to the island itself. If that’s the case, and everything from then on is player-controlled, or most of it is, then I will be most pleased.

At the same time, I think a lot of people in general are starting to notice that over-scripting doesn’t really make for better experiences in video games. The most recent Call of Duty campaigns, which have always been known for their scripted-nature, haven’t exactly been turning heads. Single-player games like Skyrim have been massive hits though, and Skyrim is all about doing what you, the player, wants, which proves my point. People like being in-control when they play video games. I mean seriously, is that really that hard to figure out?

The best part about this helicopter hijack is that the player is actually doing it themselves.

Whatever it is, the best experiences in video games will always be created, not simply presented in a forceful manner to the player. Seeing your first Creeper in Minecraft. Killing your first dragon in Skyrim. Surviving a head-crab attack in Half-Life. These kind of things are memorable to gamers everywhere because the player was experiencing them through playing the game for themselves. Seeing your guy jump and smash through a window pane, only to kick a guy aside and stab some other poor sap in the throat, all at the press of a button, while you sit with your hands, idly holding the controller? Hardly something you’d bring up at work to a co-worker the next day.

-rav4ge

Podcast Episode 24 – Paul Rudd’s Computer

rav4ge — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:10:47 +0000

Today’s episode is brought to you by Paul Rudd’s Computer, the hit internet-sensation video from some Tim and Eric episode. It’s pretty funny, and Conner was fed up with our usual intro song, so enjoy! I’m starting to think we will eventually have to get a theme song of our own to use, so if you’re an awesome audio editor and can put something together for us that has something to do with the podcast and video games, I would be most grateful.

Anyway, on today’s episode (which might actually be our longest yet, at an hour and 18 minutes), Cam shares his thoughts on Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga, I’m enjoying the creepy atmosphere and awesome combat of BioShock (more on that later), Conner prefers classic Doom over Doom 3, and Mike gives his opinion on the new Assassin’s Creed: Revelations campaign and multiplayer. All this and more random discussion on this week’s episode!

Credits:

Intro: Paul Rudd’s Computer (Tim and Eric)
Outro: “Mega Man 3 – Title Screen” by EliteFerrex

Listen:

LOTRO: My new MMO quick-fix

rav4ge — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:11:26 +0000

As you might have read, I decided pretty early on that SWTOR wasn’t for me. As much as I enjoyed playing it, I wasn’t enjoying it enough to really justify the subscription, something I have trouble with historically in my time with MMOs. It’s not even about the money itself, rather than the commitment.

If I put down $15 a month, I feel like I’ve made a commitment to the MMO in question, and if I go off to play other things in-between, I feel like I’m almost cheating on the MMO. It’s really not a healthy mindset, especially because I love variety in my gaming time. I like jumping around from game to game if I feel like it, and I like playing something for the sake of playing it because I know I’ll enjoy myself. Launching a game to gain a level, or do this or that, because I feel I need to play it is just not how I want to feel about video games, and usually MMOs does just that. It ties and holds me down, even when I don’t want to play it. Yes, I know it sounds like I simply have no self-control, but you have to remember money is at play here, and $15 could easily be put towards a new major release or any number of small gems on Steam.

Pretty recently though, I got a craving for some character progression, the kind only MMOs can provide. I thought about getting back into Skyrim, but decided against that because I knew this “itch” had to be satisfied with an MMO. There’s something about playing in a persistent, large open world with countless other people that makes progression so much more satisfying. Not playing a game like Skyrim doesn’t make me feel like I’m missing out, because the world is my own and will remain paused for as long as I don’t return. MMOs however, are constant, on-going worlds, so if you decide not to login for a day, you are actually missing out. On what specifically, it’s hard to say, but I love feeling like a part of a larger world, of that community. Single-player games will never be able to replicate this same kind of feel, and that’s perfectly okay. Imagine playing your favorite MMO with noone around but NPCs. It’d be totally eerie – not to mention creepy.

I always end up doing this, where I go on about other things without ever getting to my original point behind the post, but here it is.

I’ve found that LOTRO is the perfect answer to my problems with the MMO genre. The game is totally free, not to mention one of my favorite MMOs I’ve played. A friend and I grabbed the retail version a few years back (read this post for the results), but again, because it was subscription-based back then, we both forgot about it after the initial free month. But now that it’s free – oh man, this is just perfect. I was playing it today, and instantly I was having more fun with it than I ever did with SWTOR. It’s not even that the game is better than SWTOR – it’s not, in most ways. But just being able to go at my own pace, and not feel like I was being forced to play it was great. I can already tell this game and I are going to have a great relationship.

Commitment-wise, no, I won’t be playing LOTRO every day of every week. But that’s the beauty of it! Whenever I want to play it, it’ll be there, totally free of charge. And when I don’t feel like playing it, I’ll be playing other things, and it won’t bother me one bit. Awesome.

If you’re ever in a similar mood, my character is a Dwarf Guardian, Barrgor on Brandywine. I’m always up for smacking some goblins around or something, if need be.

-rav4ge

Podcast Episode 23 – What would Boba do?

rav4ge — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:45:15 +0000

On this week’s exciting episode, Cam is still messing around in Minecraft’s multiplayer, Conner talks a bit about Doom 3, I bring up my thoughts on Mass Effect 2 so far, and everyone thinks I’m talking about Star Wars (lolwut?), and Mike is still liking Sonic Generations. Also notable – we talk about what games we’re all looking forward to this year, Conner eats cardboard during the recording, and we go off on a tangent about bestiality at some point. Yeah.

Credits:

Intro: “Greener Greens” by Rtnario
Outro: “Mega Man 3 – Title Screen” by EliteFerrex

Listen:

Some thoughts on Mass Effect 2 and my fears for Mass Effect 3

rav4ge — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:18:47 +0000

I’m well into Mass Effect 2 now, clocking in a good number of hours into the game over the weekend. Coming from the first Mass Effect, I was happy to find out how polished the combat had gotten, and just how much more satisfying it was to engage in combat, whether with guns or biotic abilities like throw and warp, the game just felt instantly better to play.

I was, however, a little let down when I realized the inventory system was pretty much completely gone. While it was a little overwhelming at times, I liked picking up all these different weapons throughout my adventures in space and selling them all later, while keeping some for myself and keeping my crew’s weaponry as good as it could get. I get that BioWare was trying to streamline the game down and put more emphasis on the combat and story instead. It especially makes sense when you look at the jump from ME1 to ME2 – they realized the combat in Mass 1 wasnt great, and that it was held down even further by the smaller things like the cover system never quite working all the time, and of course, the cumbersome inventory system. I say cumbersome because a lot of people didn’t like having to sell and sort through everything, so like I said, it makes sense that they took it all away in the sequel.

When I watch trailers and gameplay videos of the game, I get a little worried about how this game is going to play. As much as I love Mass Effect 2 right now, it’s about as light of an RPG as you can get. Sure you can pick up items, equip upgrades, and build upon your powers, but it’s all been very, very streamlined. I don’t want ME3 to really take this further, instead I want BioWare to actually take a step back and build upon the RPG side of Mass Effect 1. I’m not looking forward to playing a straight 3rd-person shooter, there are enough of those out that already. What I want – and I know I’m not alone here – is a game that combines the best of the first two, that doesn’t sacrifice those RPG elements, and that keeps up with the great combat of ME2.

Those up there are ME3‘s three modes of play. They work something like this:

Action mode will auto-select replies during dialogue, basically making conversations into cutscenes. Normal difficulty will be set for combat itself.
Story mode will still allow for manual conversations, but sets the game at a “minimal difficulty.” Ideal for people really playing for the story, and little else.
RPG mode will allow for manual conversations and a normal difficulty mode, basically setting up the game to play like the first two.

This is a nice little addition since it doesn’t do anything to dumb down the ME experience most are looking forward to, but instead gives other players some different ways to experience the game. I can’t really say I’d want to play the game these ways, but hey, at least the option is there.

As nice as a new feature as that is, I bring it up because it doesn’t do much to ease my fear that ME3 will be even more geared (heh) towards being a more scripted 3rd-person shooter, but at the same time, I don’t want to immediately dismiss the game as one. I’ve heard and read things across the interwebs claiming otherwise, stating space-exploration will be preserved (but to what extent is the question), a weapon modification system will be present, and larger skill trees will be put to use. These are all great changes, and I’m happy they’ve all been added in. I just really hope that ME3 doesn’t just go the way of the scripted shooter. As great as that genre is, that’s just not how I see Mass Effect, especially when I know the overall experience has that potential to be something so much bigger.

At this point, the game is pretty much done development and there’s tons of coverage on the gameplay on YouTube, so I have little hope in the game returning to its RPG roots. Still, I won’t be disappointed if this is the case, come March. I’m still excited to play the game, and my pre-order is good to go. There’s always room for more Shepardy goodness in my books.

-rav4ge

Podcast Episode 22 – Banana Jedi Guy

rav4ge — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:18:16 +0000

This week, we get back into the swing of things and talk a little bit about what we’ve been playing. Conner is clicking away at Starcraft II, Cam is playing catch-up with The King himself in his latest incarnation, Duke Nukem: Forever, Bennett is getting his dance on with Just Dance 3, Michael has some praise for Sonic Generations, and I talk about SWTOR’s good side and bad side.

Credits:

Intro: “Greener Greens” by Rtnario
Outro: “Mega Man 3 – Title Screen” by EliteFerrex

Listen:

Mass Effect Marathon: Mass Effect 1 thoughts

rav4ge — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 06:14:02 +0000

With everyone SWTOR’ing it up lately, myself included until just recently, I had gotten a craving to play one of BioWare’s more recent RPGs. As great as SWTOR is, I have little motivation to play it. I wrote up a whole post about that last week, and I decided earlier to cancel now and return around March/April. Yes, I know the post contradicts that – I ended it saying I’d be giving SWTOR another month now, but that’s not going to happen. Instead, I have decided to play Mass Effect 1 & 2 in preparation for Mass Effect 3, which is coming out early March!

As much as I love BioWare RPGs, I don’t think I’ve ever finished one, until now. I snagged Mass Effect for PC a few years back when it was on sale at some point, and played it up to the part where you first get to the Citadel. I pretty much stopped playing it at that point for some other games, and then my hard drive died. So, that was the end of that. I haven’t tried getting back into it until just recently, and man, am I glad I did.

I just finished the game literally less than an hour ago. I think my total time was somewhere around 16.5 hours, pretty low since I didn’t really bother with many of the side missions, something I really regret. Like Fallout 3, once you complete the final mission, there’s no going back, unless you re-load an older save of course. I actually thought the game would be a lot longer than it was, but overall it was paced very well and I’m all for good pacing over unnecessarily long games that just drag on just for the sake of being longer.

So, how’s the game? Well, for the most part, I really enjoyed it. The story has a heavy theme of discovery and mystery, which works really well because you’re in space, after all. Also worth noting, because it continues those themes, is the soundtrack of this game. It is without a doubt one of my all time favorite video game soundtracks. For the most part, all the tracks are very subtle, but they work so well in conveying the overall feel of the game. I remember seeing Tron: Legacy in theatres and thinking to myself, “Wow, this reminds me so much of Mass Effect!” And it still does, the club environments especially in both Tron and Mass Effect both evoke a lot of similarities, and I’m a big fan of both their soundtracks. But that’s enough about the music. How does shooting at stuff feel?

At first, even having played Mass Effect previously, the general feel of the combat felt very odd to me. I can’t really place my finger on it, but I think it’s the way cover works, as well as the behavior of the AI in the game – which both just feel “off.” The cover doesn’t always work, sometimes when I would take cover Shepard would still have his torso sticking out, instead of automatically crouching. I’d have to toggle crouch myself, but then I wouldn’t be able to pop in and out of cover for some reason. And then there’s the AI on both sides of combat, which is pretty poor overall. My allies would often stand around in the open, just taking shots without really giving a damn. That of course, meant frequent incapacitations for my teammates, which is a little bothersome. Enemy AI would often do the same thing, except totally fail to interpret anything that was going on, as if they were blind. This of course, was a lot more humorous than frustrating.

I picked the infiltrator class, which is pretty much based around heavy use of the pistols and sniper rifles. Although I had originally planned to do a lot of sniping, I ended up rolling with the pistols most of the time. You get this ability called marksman where your gun basically goes into rapid-fire mode, which turns your pistol into basically a sub-machine gun. There’s a cooldown on the ability, and it doesn’t last that long, but it made the combat a lot more interesting. It did feel odd running around the whole game with an assault rifle and shotgun on my back that I could never use, though. Still, I enjoyed the infiltrator, but will most likely be playing something completely different for Mass Effect 2 as well as 3.

I can’t go this far without talking about the story. It’s paced very well, as I said, and I think that’s what I really liked most about it. The game never feels repetitive or stale because there’s always something interesting and different going on. The planets you visit for the main missions all have different themes to each situation – one is a survival-horror, another is a large, futuristic city, and then are other planets you’ll visit that feel completely desolate and lifeless, until you stumble across enemy outposts. Overall, the game just always feels unique – I never felt like anything was too familiar to something I had already seen, and this kept me compelled to keep playing, because I would never really know what to expect upon landing on a new planet.

The story itself is very good – it’s interesting, climactic at all the right moments, and full of memorable characters and situations. I felt like there could have been more substantial choices to make during the course of the game, but again, I missed out on a lot of the side missions. The ending was incredibly intense and I like how the story involves Saren, your primary villain in the game. Once you find out his true motives for what he’s planning for the galaxy, the story instantly becomes that much better. I’m pretty tired of seeing villains in games plotting the destruction of the world “just because,” and the way the game gradually unfolds the bigger picture to you is just awesome. I can’t stress enough how much I love the pacing in this game, it just works out so well.

So, that’s my thoughts on Mass Effect. A great RPG for sure, and one of my all-time faves thanks to the great story, excellent pacing, and (mostly) enjoyable combat. From what I know, the combat takes a huge leap in the sequel, so it’ll be cool to experience it coming literally straight from Mass Effect 1.

Mass 2, here I come!

-rav4ge

Podcast Episode 21 – GOTY 2011 Edition

rav4ge — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:25:31 +0000

After over a month of no podcasts, Michael, Cameron, Conner and myself all finally get together to discuss the best and worst of 2011.

Some of the categories we included:

Best theme song from a video game
Most attractive male/female characters
Most badass enemy
Best new weapon
Most dissapointing video game (Oh boy, that was a fun one)
Best use of blood and gore
Best Forza Award

Credits:

Intro: “Greener Greens” by Rtnario
Outro: “Mega Man 3 – Title Screen” by EliteFerrex

Listen:

SWTOR: Judgement Day

rav4ge — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:00:51 +0000

Not entirely relevant, but a good way to start off this post.

Judgement day is upon us! Well, almost. And that’s what this post is about.

Assuming you bought and activated SWTOR as soon as possible, meaning around December 20-21st of last year, you’re probably in the same situation as myself and most SWTOR players. As the days go by, your SWTOR subscription time slowly dwindles away, until you are left with a potentially difficult financial decision. To sub, or not to sub, that is the question.

Sorry, I’ve been reading/analyzing Hamlet for over a month now in Literature class. It just kinda comes out, you know.

For most players, this is an easy decision. Hell, there isn’t even a decision to make, because most SWTOR players are enjoying the crap out of the game. On different levels of course, but I feel absolutely confident in saying “most players” as in the large, large majority. SWTOR is just a good game, and in a lot of ways, a breath of fresh air for the genre. There really isn’t much negative criticism to note – the launch was smooth, the game is at a good level of polish (that $135 million sure was put to work), and the game is just generally fun to play. I have yet to read a blog post or tweet in which someone just flat-out doesn’t enjoy the game.

Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of the road as to where I want to go with this game. Right now, I’m just solo’ing it up. I log in, do a few missions, and then log out to play something else. Some days I’ll have a lot of fun with the game – like today, and everything will just “click,” and other days – like yesterday – I find myself asking “why am I playing this?” It’s not a love-hate relationship or anything. There’s nothing in the game that makes me rage, or feel angry. I like SWTOR, but I just have trouble feeling compelled to play it. Like I’ve said before, MMOs suffer greatly when you’re just not compelled to put in the time, and suffer even more when you play them as if they were single-player RPGs.

I’ve thought about my subscription over the past week, and I’ve decided I’ll be giving it another month. I won’t be committing full-time (and by that, I mean full gaming time) to the game, but I do want to give it another month before I call it quits. I do enjoy the game, but sometimes I’d just rather play other things – and that’s okay. Part of paying for an MMO though is, you know, paying for it, so it’s easy to feel like I’m cheating on SWTOR when I go off to play other things.

So yes, I will be continuing with SWTOR for another month. It’s too early to give up on the game now when I know I’m having fun with it. The question is – and always is – how much fun will I be getting for another month?

-rav4ge

5 things I’ve noticed while SWTOR’ing

rav4ge — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:37:57 +0000

I’ve been putting time here and there into SWTOR and leveling up my Sith Warrior, er Juggernaut, Octavio, who as of this writing is a mere level 17. I say “mere” because I’ve been already hearing about and seeing level 50s roaming the galaxies, but considering how much time I’ve spent on the game thus far (24 hours total), I can feel secure in my slow-leveling pace.

Anyway, I wanted to do a little list of things I’ve noticed about the game that are in some way oddly hilarious, recurring, or maybe just badass. Note that none of these are in order or anything. I’m not sure how I’d honestly rank these guys up, but that’s not the point – enjoy!

1) Sith Headgear makes everything better.

Darth Vader, Darth Revan, Boba Fett… well, technically Boba Fett isn’t Sith, but he is a bad guy right up there with the rest of Star Wars’ most legendary baddies. What do they all have in common? Wicked cool, fear-inspiring headgear, that’s what – and so can you, at a relatively early level!

It hides the mustache and makes me sound like a Principal over the school intercom, but my badass factor has increased.

2) The dialogue choice placement is hardly changed.

I’ve noticed this a lot while playing the Sith Warrior and interacting with quest-related NPCs. They give you a quick run-down on the situation at hand, and you respond in one of three ways:

Now, this isn’t always the norm, and you can’t kill quest givers obviously, but when you’re faced with meeting anyone outside of those specifics, that’s usually the recurring setup, which I find pretty hilarious.

3) Lightsabers rule supreme.

I basically covered this in one of my earlier SWTOR posts, about how I had gone from playing a Commando to a Sith Warrior because, you know, Lightsabers are awesome. And wow, what a difference that choice made. The flair, the animation, the unique humming sound, the light-freaking-saber itself… I just can’t see myself playing a non-lighsaber focused class before I get to 50 with Octavio. There’s just too much fun to be had with these iconic, bright shafts of death.

Heh… shafts.

4) BioWare loves to ravage.

I know ravage is a great verb/noun, believe me, I know. And apparently, so do BioWare, because I’ve seen several occurrences of the word throughout my adventures as a Sith. Funnily enough, I didn’t hear it anywhere as often when I played my Republic Commando. It seems the Empire has seized the word as their own and therefore established it with a negative connotation.

Still, “ravage” manages to make a place for itself in SWTOR as a melee ability (and an awesome one at that), a quest item (the Ravager), a server name (The Ravager), and a formidable Sith Lord, who goes by Darth Ravage.

Totally coincidental, of course, but a nice little observation nonetheless.

5) The Sith are pretty nice guys (and gals).

SWTOR is a solo-friendly MMO, meaning you could play all the way to 50 without grouping, talking, or acknowledging anyone aside from NPCs and your companions. However, this is an MMO after all, and doing so definitely has an impact on the experience. Hell, the only times I’ve ever really enjoyed playing this genre of games for a span of longer than two weeks is when I’ve been involved in an active, friendly, welcoming guild. Soloing MMOs for me quickly becomes rather boring and mundane, especially when there’s better, more engaging single-player games that work better in creating immersive worlds and compelling stories because they’re single-player focused. A good example being Skyrim.

I’m pretty much just soloing SWTOR at the moment, which does kinda explain why I haven’t put much time into it, but I can’t help but want to group up when I come across a Flashpoint NPC or an area of elites. I don’t like that feeling of having to “pass” on a quest because it involves grouping, and luckily SWTOR makes this process pretty easy (most MMOs do), even on the Sith side.

Now, I’m playing on a Role-Playing server, and role-playing a Sith character usually means being kind of a dick, to put it simply. Let’s be honest, Sith are basically power-hungry, self-centered, arrogant parasites who create alliances only to benefit themselves while they last – and when they don’t, someone usually turns up dead.

But even with all of this considered, all of – and I do mean all of the Sith players I have grouped with have been extremely pleasant to play with and talk to. Sometimes, I would honestly forget I was playing a ruthless Sith-in-training up until we’d reach a group NPC conversation and one of my groupmates would execute him or her. And even then, we’d all laugh about it after. I mean, it is just a video game after all, and I bet there are a few players out there trying their best to be the epitome of Sith Role-players, i.e. complete dicks. Which is cool I guess, if that’s your thing. It’s just nice to know that Sith can be nice people/players, too.

So there you have it, five things I’ve noticed in SWTOR that I felt were worth writing about. The adventures continue.

-rav4ge

SWTOR: Sith Adventures in Dromund Kaas

rav4ge — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:35:30 +0000

I’ve been playing SWTOR here and there between other games. It has yet to really “grab” me and have me dedicate all my gaming time to it, but I am enjoying my time with it. In my last SWTOR post, I talked all about the Trooper class and my impressions playing through the prologue. At the end of the post, I said this:

Still, I have to admit I’m a little envious whenever I see a Jedi roll by. Undoubtedly I’ll end up making a Sith Warrior/Inquisitor at some point, because lightsabers have always been pretty awesome.

Thing is, upon my arrival to Coruscant with my Trooper, that envy really started to set in. I wanted a lightsaber in my (avatar’s) hands, and I was also kinda fed up of going through my dialogue choices as a well-mannered Republic Soldier who always made good moral decisions, especially because when evil-oriented choices are presented to my Trooper, they always feel like stupid evil choices, not revenge-fueled backstabbing ones. I did this one flashpoint (group instance) where we had this Twi’lek Republic Ambassador following us, and at one point some NPC suggested I kill her. Why? Because EEEEEEEVIL!

I literally knew nothing about this Ambassador and there’s the choice, clear as day, to kill her. That’s like the equivalent of killing someone’s innocent Grandma and then posting it on your Facebook as something you’re proud of. That’s not cool evil, that’s just stupid evil! Cool evil was Darth Vader ordering the Death Star to destroy Alderaan in front of Leia. Cool evil was The Chancellor executing Order 66. Cool evil was Anakin acting like a child, thirsting for more power, and falling prey to the ways of the Sith, which lead him to kill a bunch of small children. Wait, no, that wasn’t cool evil at all. I guess what I’m trying to say is that mindless killing (especially of those inferior in power, like some kids) does not equate to respectable, threatening evil.

So anyway, the solution to all my problems – and to hopefully establish the concept of cool evil throughout the Galaxy – was to join the empire and make a Sith Warrior.

Well, that's debatable.

As of this writing, my Sith Juggernaut (Octavio) is level 13. Low, I know, but I haven’t been devoting much time to SWTOR as I should be, especially if I really want to get out there and promote cool evil.

The second place you’re sent to after the Sith Warrior Prologue is Dromund Kaas, home to an established city of the Empire. And man, is this a nice zone. It’s definitely my favorite zone I’ve visited thus far. Rainy, dark, and cloudy – it’s a nice balance of hostile jungles, large canyons, and Empire architecture. Here, have some screenshots.

Bioware did such a good job on this zone, it just feels so massive and overwhelming, but in a good way. And the sheer amount of detail put into every corner of the whole thing just makes the whole thing stand out. It’s definitely one of my favorite zones in an MMO ever. Which reminds me, I should make a list some time.

The adventure continues. Cool evil will prevail!

-rav4ge