Okay so I guess I'm totally playing WoW

So this was a game that I never thought I'd play, although I admit that my reasons behind not wanting to play it were silly. But yeah, so now I'm playing it, and I'm loving it.

So what happened?

Well, a few of my friends play it, and they wanted me to start, so I did the trial a few times and came to the same conclusion. This isn't really that fun, but it is relaxing, but there's NO way in hell I'm doing this for 85 levels. Combat felt clunky, like an awfully implemented mix of real-time brawlers and turn-based RPG combat, quests were boring and repetitive, but the environments and presentation were superb.

A few months after my first few attempts at getting into it, I decided I'd give it another go via private server. I really didn't want to spend all that time leveling, but I did want to see some of the end game content. I still just couldn't fathom how this game had so many subscribers when there was so much boring garbage attached to the front 90%.

So I started playing on a private server with x12 experience, and this made it work. This made it easier for me to see what WoW was about, and how it could be fun. The early levels of WoW are really just world exploration. Azeroth is the most thorough iteration of a living fantasy world to date. A few elements of the game turn it into a race to 85, but really it's something to savor. Using the refer a friend, I got a quick 85 and immediately starting leveling alts. The hurdle that was keeping me out of the game is now the reason I play. It's still slow, still repetitive, but the detail that goes into the game is unfathomable. All the "throwaway" quests have meaningful characters, stories, and places that continuously add depth to an already colossal experience.

Podcast? Podcast

So, we're doing podcasts!

UncloudTheSky95 and myself have made a podcast for this fair blog.  If you've noticed the bar at the top of the screen, you'll notice the fancy new audio player.

So I decided that, instead of being obtrusive with the media player, I opted for something smaller, with our playlist hidden by default.  To view the playlist (which will have both podcasts, and gaming music), click the 4 horizontal bar button on the top of the screen, across from the play button.

Hopefully this will mean more content from us, for you.  You lucky people.  Our hope is that we can add more podcasts, either single person, or panel style, onto the site, which might lead to more actual posts.

Any questions comment below.

If you have any podcast requests, you can leave a comment and we'll consider it.

My Game Concept (An Appeal To The FPS Industry)

The FPS genre, as a whole, is crowded with shit, plain and simple. Even though I acknowledge that this has always been the case, far too many developers are dumbing down their once-great series or making pointless sequels that only serve to destroy the legacy of a genuinely great series, all for the sake of more sales. I know that sales are important, not only to provide funds for future developments but also for the sake of the studio staying afloat, but sales alone should NEVER be the whole reason for a product's existence. Take Call of Duty, for example. Every game in the series has been nothing more than a new coat of paint over an increasingly-tired formula, that is fancy-looking setpieces and mindless multiplayer for the proletarian masses, rereleased every single year with some new colours and shiny new additions that do absolutely nothing. Regardless of its lack of quality, each title in the series is the highest-selling game of all time, year after year. The absolutely preposterous amount of sales inspires every other major studio to attempt to get a piece of the action, so rather than make a product with some degree of actual quality, they churn out endless CoD-ripoffs which kill any sort of creativity in the genre, forcing it to rot away into eventual oblivion. This is not the way that FPSs should be. All of the big companies in the industry are whores, and the few games that are quality releases are pushed aside as niche titles while everyone makes way for Brown-And-Grey Corridor Target Practice 9.



That's the state of the industry right now, and here's how to fix it.



To me, the three most defining factors that all video games should be developed upon are Quality, Challenge, and Fun. Let me go into more depth on these tenets:



Quality: Make sure the game is well-developed and has loads of replayability and content. All game developers should strive for adding something new and innovative to their game, because owning twenty games and having all of them be, for all intents and purposes, the same is never fun.

Challenge: The game should be genuinely challenging. Yeah, you can add easier difficulties for accessibility and what-not, but the game as it's meant to be played should challenge the player, make him think outside of the box, and not merely in "THIS GUY TAKES MORE BULLETS TO KILL" logic.

Fun: Do I really need to explain this one? The whole point of a video game is for entertainment and fun. If your game stays true to the first two tenets but abandons this one, your product is a failure. This is the most important of the three tenets.



At this point, I'm just gonna talk about my idea for an FPS that, in my opinion, exemplifies everything that an FPS, and a video game in general should be.



My concept for a game: An FPS that gives you a whole range of superpower-equivalent abilities, like time control, temporary invisibility, flight, and all that good stuff, and then proceeds to challenge the player's skills with these abilities. Linearity would be thrown to the wolves in favor of pure, unadulterated choice. There would also be more additions to the gameplay that would not only be technically astounding but would also actually add to the gameplay, rather than being a simple gimmick. Some of these ideas include an extreme amount of customization in weapons, uniforms/costumes (Potential disguises), and the ability to control each gun's aim individually while dual-wielding. The storyline would have the same basic gist no matter what, but the events, and as a result, the levels and the gameplay would be entirely dynamic.



An ideal section of the game would be like this: There's a hostage that must be rescued before he's taken to a interrogation/torture facility. You're within a few miles of an airport, where the hostage is being taken to in the back of a heavily-armed-but-not-so-armored enemy vehicle. Potentially, you could shoot out the tires of the car, kill the guards and bring the hostage back to safety, but a more probably outcome would be that the impact causes the car to flip or crash, killing everyone, the hostage included. In this way, the player would be truly challenged, as he is forced to come up with genuinely out-of-the-box solutions. One solution would have the player placing some sort of barricade to stop the car momentarily, and then shooting out the tires, causing the guards to exit the vehicle, at which point the player could lure the guards to isolation and then knock them out or kill them, and another solution would be entirely-based on luck or nanosecond-perfect timing, as the player could rush the vehicle, flying on top of it, cutting a hole into the back, very quickly jumping in and grabbing the hostage, flying out and shooting the fuel tank of the vehicle while flying out. However, since the fuel tank is on the bottom of the vehicle, and there's no exact way to tell its location, much less while flying away from it at so-and-so miles-per-hour, so this approach would require either an acute knowledge of the vehicle or sheer luck, making it much less practical, but not impossible (Pretty much badass mode). If the player was to fail to rescue the hostage before the car gets to the airport, there would still be chances at the airport, or even on the plane itself. Let's say that the hostage was forced onto the plane, and the plane is preparing for takeoff. Potentially, you could stealth/fight/whatever your way to the control tower about a few thousand feet away and either force the traffic controller to convince the pilot of the plane that the conditions are unsafe and postpone the flight, or you could kill the traffic controller and get on the mic yourself, using either persuasion or bluffs to call off the flight, or if you really have a way with words, to relinquish the hostage. The success rate of the latter option is lower, but could potentially have stronger results if it does succeed. This is all a variable, however, as the entire thing depends on whether the player makes it to the control tower in time. The player could also do the dirty work himself, either hitching a ride on the plane using stealth, or fly with the plane, at which point the player could do whatever he wants to do. You could enter through one of the bottom shafts, use stealth to knock out/kill the guards and soldiers, and meet up with the hostage, all while never disturbing or alerting the pilot to your presence. At this point, you could wait with the hostage until the plane lands, at which point a whole other set of choices appears. You could knock out/kill the pilot, take control of the plane and fly it back to the previous airport to free the hostage. Potentially, you could do the exact same while the plane is in flight, but the risk factor is much higher, as you never know which buttons the pilot's body could lean on and press, or which way his body will tilt while holding on to the steering wheel. If the player feels he has the experience to counteract whichever consequence of his actions results from his elimination of the pilot, then he can go ahead and do whatever. Or conversely, the player could go loose-cannon, fly on the top of the plane as it takes off, sabotage it by disabling the propellers or jamming the ailerons, whichever way the player chooses to sabotage the plane, and then quickly force his way in, grab the hostage and a parachute and jump out, leaving an active grenade as a going-away present. But should the plane be destroyed or disabled while the player is parachuting out with the hostage or whatever, there's always the chance that the resulting debris falling from the sky could strike the player or the parachute, potentially wounding or killing one or both of the people. There's also the matter of if the player fails to rescue the hostage at all. In this concept of a game, decisions and outcomes play a major part of the story, as well as which direction the gameplay goes for the next mission. If the hostage is tortured, he will almost certainly let slip some very important details about the location of some very important buildings. If this happens, the next mission will take place at one of these buildings, as the player (and the rest of his army/group/whatever, depending on the location) must defend the building from a HOLYSHIT amount of enemies. If the player rescues the hostage using more stealthy and restrained methods, the next mission could be an infiltration mission, and if the player goes loose-cannon, the next mission could be a sabotage or destruction mission. No matter the type of mission, each mission would have the same level of choice as the scenario described above.



The point of the game as a whole would be to give the player some great new tools for him to experiment with and have fun using, and then to challenge the player to use them to the best of his ability, each time pushing the limits of what was thought possible in the game. It would have a shitton of replayability and quality content, it would be accessible to the new players on easier difficulties, but would be truly challenging in the best way that a game can be challenging on the hardest difficulty, and most importantly, it would be fun as hell. After all, isn't being fun what games are all about?



The Three Tenets of game design detailed above should be the most important things for all game developers, yet very few FPSs nowadays actually keep them in mind, while most forsake them for the sake of gaining the most amount of money with the least amount of work. Games should be games, not products. It's time something changed.

Alpha Protocol Review

So here's the deal...  This game is stellar.

Alright, let me expand on this, when I say 'stellar' I don't mean "perfect".  I mean "What I like it does pretty well".

We'll do a part-by-part breakdown here of what the game offers.

Overview: This is an espionage RPG.  You are a spy.  You are well trained.  This means, that even with 0 skill points in an ability, you can still be successful at something.  If you have 0 points in say, Shotguns, it just means you're not Blasty: The Shotgun God.  You're just Michael Thorton, Shotgun User.  This is a game that mixes research, reading characters in conversation, and gunplay.

Dialogue - There's a LOT of it.  Each thing you say has a chance to sway someone's perception of you.  You may get them to like, and hate you, all in the same conversation.  Having allies is good, but having someone fear you could be just as effective in this game.  The way the game handles conversation is not with the traditional "Pick a specific line to say", you actually pick the tone and attitude with which you say things.  Also, your choices are on a timer, meaning you have to pay attention to the conversation.  The timer pops up usually when someone else is talking, so your response feels more organic than the unnatural pause you'd find in other RPGs.  This makes conversation more engaging to me.

Characters - So far, the characters are diverse, yet believable.  Each person seems like they could actually be a real person in their own way.  Voice acting is pretty solid as well.

Gunplay - Third-person, over the shoulder gunplay.  Pretty standard.  Up on the d-pad brings up your weapon menu (2 guns you bring in with you, with 3 different types of ammo for each). Right pulls up your gadget menu, where you'll find your grenades, healing kits, etc.  The amount you can carry is limited by your perks, and your armor.  Left pulls up your active skills (like Chain-Shot: A pistol only ability that slows down time so that you can line up 2-3 shots in rapid succession, 2 minute cooldown at first).  Down switches the shoulder which your shooting over, something pretty handy in a firefight from cover.

Personally, what I've been trying to do is stealth takedowns.  Or if the takedown fails, melee combat.  I also carry a silenced pistol and an Assault Rifle.  I try to focus on stealth, but can shoot my way out if need be.

Story - The story is straight out of a Hollywood movie.  It's full of revenge, backstabbing, government cover-ups, special agents, and Paramilitary Organizations.  You get yourself involved with the Chinese Secret Police, the Triads, the Mob, CIA, and more.

Odds and Ends - One of the things I like about the game is simple.  Replying to emails.  When you find some dirt on a company on a mission, you email it to yourself, and you can view it from your safehouse.  From there, you have 3 options.  You can send the info to your friend in the media, for a reputation bump and a small monetary compensation, you can blackmail the company for a good chunk of change, or you can forgo that and sell the intel on the black market to the highest bidder.

This game makes you either regret, or embrace your decisions.  Spare an arms dealers life?  Well you can either arrest him, or take his bribe of weapons, money, and black market dealer contacts.  But he may come back to haunt you in the future.  Or you could just kill him to remove a potential threat.  If you go all gung-ho on a mission, you may end up pissing off the CIA and they may send more reinforcements for your next mission.  this game is very ambitious when it comes to consequence.

I love playing the spy role.  I read the dossiers on everyone.  I gather intel from the black market, from missions.  I like knowing about these people.  Reading can give you a leg up in a conversation, you can find out what they like, or dislike, and turn it against them. A good piece of information can sway a conversation.

Downsides - Some of the character models can look a little weird at times.  Not quite uncanny valley weird, but not top-shelf graphics either.  A few bugs like bullets occasionally passing through a wall, or the rare freeze are all that's plagued me thus far.  If I can play through this game, and encounter only these bugs, I'll chalk this up as a good purchase that's not broken.

Recommendation - If you're looking for a pretty smart, third person RPG, you could do much worse than Alpha Protocol.  Gunplay is average, but you're here for the story and role-playing.  You can make your Thorton behave just how you picture a spy to act.  He can be the Suave Bond, the Hot Headed Bauer, or the sneaky Bourne.  Or a mix of all 3.

Semi-Obscure Retro Game Review: Einhänder

Anyone who played games in the 90s, and early 00s recognizes Squaresoft. Always known for their stellar RPGs like the Final Fantasy series and the Mana series, Squaresoft had a certain consistence in its library. All top-notch games, all JRPGs. Until 1997, that is, when after the release of Final Fantasy VII, Squaresoft decided to develop something different, something completely unexpected fron the famed RPG-developers.

A shoot-em-up. A sidescrolling shmup with retro difficulty and gameplay, but with super-detailed 3D models and textures. It would feature hulking bosses, a still-innovative and original weapons system, five different ships, each adding a new spin on the gameplay, and a level of control seldom seen in 2D shmups. It was to be the most technologically-advanced shooter of its time.

It would be called... Einhänder.

GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay in Einhänder is pretty much what you'd expect from a 2D shmup. You move vertically and horizontally, shoot things, collect power-ups, and shoot more things. However, Einhänder adds some new features that were unparalleled at the time, and (considering the decline of the 2d-shmup market since those times), are still relatively so today. You have the ability to change your speed on the fly by using the L2 and R2 buttons, which can be really useful in the flow of the game, when one minute you're fighting a boss, dodging waves upon waves of bullets, and the next you're fighting a horde of enemies that takes up the entire right half of the screen. In addition, you have the ability to steal the weapons off of an enemy ship (although you'll always have your main machinegun fire), which is one of the game's main gimmicks. The weapons are quite varied, both in style and usability. There's a Spreader, which... is a Spread Gun, obviously, a W.A.S.P, which fires homing rockets, a Riot gun which shoots powerful bolts of lightning that can be charged manually, a Vulcan minigun, which is quite weak, but is superb for taking out hordes of smaller enemies, and a LASER SWORD, among many others. With the manipulator arm, you can change the perspective of any alternate gun you pick up, such as using the Spreader as a rear attack. There are five different ships in Einhänder, each adding a different twist on the gameplay. On one ship, you can hold three different alternate guns and switch between them at will, but on another, you only have one gun slot that is upgradeable. Yes, the changes are on the smaller side, but it does add that extra bit of variety to the game. There is a score system that rewards you points for kills and all the normal things, but it also gives multipliers for killing things quickly. Once you stop killing, the multiplier starts to decrease. It's a fun little system.

AESTHETICA:
The graphics in Einhänder are great for their time. Each model is highly detailed, the futuristic art style pops, and the textures are quite well-drawn. It is also worth mentioning that throughout the game, there are various camera shifts, which are executed seamlessly and do nothing to change the general gameplay, although it does highlight the at-the-time great graphics. The sound effects are varied, detailed, and used well. The game's soundtrack is top-notch, being an energetic mix of techno, fast and frantic during boss fights, and more subdued when need be. Unfortunately, the OST was only released in Japan and is relatively costly to import, and the game disc itself has no redbook audio.

STORY:
The story in Einhänder is actually fairly decent for a shmup, even though predictably, it's relagated to the backstory. A colony on the moon, Selene, is fighting for independence from its Empire on Earth. As a last resort, the Selenian army developed prototype manned tactical fighters, codenamed Einhänder, to be used for suicide runs on the Empire, doing as much damage as they can before they are destroyed. You are one of the pilots of these ships, sent to Earth to do as much damage as you can before you're shot down. It's more fleshed-out in the manual, but that's pretty much the gist of it, and as per the norm, it's just a backdrop to shooting things.

REPLAYABILITY:
The game, regrettably, is a bit on the short side. I'd estimate the game length at around an hour and a half. It's even more regrettable that the game lacks a 2-player mode, which would have made the game absolutely flawless in my eyes. As mentioned before, there are five ships in the game, two of which you need to unlock. There's a score system, three different difficulties, and a gallery of concept art and models that you unlock things in by progressing through the game. Einhänder is of an older time, so not as many bells-and-whistles were implemented. The terms are simple, but you can get a lot of replayability out of this game.

OVERALL:
Einhänder is definitely one of the best non-RPG Squaresoft games. If you like old-school shmups like Gradius and R-Type, definitely track this one down. It's one of the lesser-known gems in the PSX library and, although somewhat hard to find, it is totally worth it if you crave retro action, shmups, or just well-executed action games, pick Einhänder up.

Real Time Strategy and the League of Legends

I really really enjoy the flow of StarCraft.  There's a lot I like.  The balance, the races, the tech, the battle...

I'm just not any good at it.  I've had the game for over 5 years now, and I've only completed the Terran missions... In the default campaign.  I finished roughly 4 of the Zerg missions in the core game, and about 2 of the Protoss.

I like this game.  It's just... hard.  Difficult... something.
I don't know if it's the micro-managing of the resources, or the paying attention... but I suck at the game.

Seriously, ask my friends.  They'll tell you.  I get a second base going, pbbbt, wiped out.

Not much I an do about 3 dozen carriers knocking at my door.  I try using Wraiths to counter.  Noooope.

Goliaths?  Also no.

So the obvious solution is to build defensively, right?   *buzzer*  By turtling like that, I run out of resources and don't have a supply to go on the attack with.

What about playing offensively then?  Well, i usually don't find the enemy base.  And when I do, they're also building offensively... but have built a bigger force, and better defenses.

So what about trying a different race.  Well, I suck with the Zerg, and I'm even worse with the Protoss... the expensive bastards.

So then I tried my hand at WarCraft III.  More of the same really.  Just more races.  I finished the human campaign, and then a little of the Undead.  The AI is much more forgiving in that game.  So I played a game online with some friends... well LAN, but whatever.  Anyways, only LAN game I played, I was about to win, then my laptop got unplugged.  This was the laptop with the crappy charger port, so I couldn't charge my battery.  So my computer was basically a more flimsy desktop in terms of power.  So the cord came out, my laptop turned off... my friend won... with almost no army or buildings remaining.

Haven't played since then.


I am not good at these types of games.  I can't scan my whole screen at once because of my vision.  I can't see the minimap to know glean the information I need.  Which leads to frequent lapses in judgement and mistakes.

This also transitions over to League of Legends.  In that game, you need need need need NEED to be able to multitask.  If you can't, well, I hope you enjoy people typing angrily in your direction.  Have to be able to know when someone goes missing from another lane, or when a specific neutral buff comes up.  And if you're trying to coordinate via text in the game, that's just another distraction for me.

I don't consider myself terrible at this game though.  It's less to manage.  Since you're only playing one character, and not a whole colony/race, I don't have to worry about these things.  The action in LoL is fun too.  Fast paced, and almost any character in the game can turn the tide of any battle in the right player's hands.

Catch-up Post

So... since I'm the only one really posting here... periodically... shut up, you know what I mean.

Anyways, here are some quick-reviews for what I've been playing of late.

Saints Row: The Third
I am a child.  I enjoy spending most of my time in this game doing running melee attacks.  They are all sorts of gratifying.  In fact, I plan on getting the unlimited sprint JUST to do that.  Speaking of upgrades, you buy them in this game.  Yeah, money has a better purpose in SR3 than SR2.  In my current Saints Row 2 file, I'm sitting on half a million dollars, and nothing to spend it on but property and ammo.  In Saints Row: The Third, you buy your upgrades with money.  Things like More ammo for guns, more grenades, followers, more sprint/health, etc. The catch is, you still need a required Respect level before you can purchase these unlockables.

Gun play is a bit different.  Your radial menu replaces the dedicated grenade slot with the specialty weapon slot (like my attack drones).  The upside is that the d-pad now selects which one of the four grenade types you have equipped.  The button layout is different, but the new layout allows you to aim down the sights easier (helpful), and have a dedicated grenade button (which I accidentally hit instead of the "shoot fiery lead based projectiles very fast" button).

DC Universe Online

Anybody remember when Sony charged you to play this game?  Financial bust is a term for that plan.  Now that it's Free-To-Play though, I hear it's doing decent financially.  So there's that.

Now enough business talk... how does it play?  Fun.  Fast frantic action.

You can play as either a hero or villain.  Then you choose your type of power from a pool of things like Nature, Mystic, Gadgets (wheeeeeeeeeeee), Fire, Ice, and a few others.  You then choose a Mentor.  If you're a hero, your choices are Batman (gadget-type), Superman (meta-type [ice, fire, general genetics mutations]), or Wonder Woman (Mystic powers).  The villain's line up is the Joker (Gadgets, my current mentor), Lex Luthor (Meta) and Circe (Mystic).

After you choose your powers, you choose your weapon of choice (Bow, brawling, martial arts, dual pistol, assault rifle, dual wield, hand blasts, one handed weapons, two handed weapons, and a few others).

So, with powers and weapon and costume picked out, you begin your adventure.  In this game, you'll be fighting against the opposite faction (both PvP and PvE) as well as a common enemy in Braniac.  So as a Hero, you may end up fighting against the Joker or Penguin at some point.  And as a Villain, you can expect Batman or The Flash to show up on your mission log.

Movement is broken down into three choices.  Super Speed, ala the Flash, Acrobatics (climbing and scaling buildings with gliding and a slightly faster than normal run speed), or Flying.  I chose Acrobatics, since you don't need to fight with a camera and it's fun for exploring.

one last game to throw in...

Dragon's Blade for the WP7.

It's a throwback to early Final Fantasy games.  You grind, you try to earn money, you learn spells by buying them.  You start with a party of 4 characters that you make by selecting from about 7 classes.  The bonus is that you can create new characters at the inn (3 of them), but they start at level 1.  So my starting line-up was Porshe the Templar (Hybrid between a healer and a tank, Mystic Knight for those who've played FFV), Singarith, a Warrior (standard tank), Dave an Archer (Can attack all enemies in a line from him, but more enemies he hits, the less damage the arrows do), and Carde the Mage.

After playing a bit, I realized that the Archer and the second tank didn't fit how I wanted to play, so I remade Singarith as a Juggernaut, a light armor wearing Brute who uses two handed weapons for massive damage.  And then I replaced the archer with a Cleric named Kat for healing.

Now combat is fairly simple, but what's interesting is that whatever character is at the front of your order, is more likely to be attacked.  So the top two are the targets of most attacks.

Another interesting thing is that each class has their own innate chance like thingies.  Example: the Templar has a chance to protect allies, Archers occasionally produce a "hail of arrows" when they attack, which attacks the enemies again, and slows them down, Mage sometimes recovers mana and boosts damage of spells for a turn after casting a spell, the Cleric sometimes can heal the whole party a small amount when they cast any of their spells, and the Juggernaut has a chance to hit all enemies after attacking one enemy.

For a free phone game, it's a good time kill.  I play it on the bus to and from school.