It's been a few weeks since my WOW guild imploded, and you know what? I've found it pretty easy to disengage from the game completely. I've done a few TOC 10 mans, even a few attempts in heroic; but that's about it. Quite frankly, the break is doing me some good. And it's given me a chance to play a few other kinds of games, do some reading, and some other things that I haven't done much in a while.
Like, Uncharted 2!
I remember the original Uncharted, which was a good game with some frustrating controls and stellar production values. I don't think I actually finished the original...at the time something came up and I wasn't able to do any gaming for a few weeks, and never came back to it.
Uncharted 2 has been hyped to hell and back. And while I would say to ignore the hype, the game really IS good. I've had a ton of fun with it. The controls are tighter, there game play elements are more refined and varied, and the action sequences longer and more interesting both in game elements and presentation. It's a bit longer than the first game, and there is a welcome, yet abrupt increase in difficulty after a certain point in the game.
There are a few problems with the game.
First, the stealth elements are so simplistic as to be unrealistic. It is very easy to stealth past, and kill people, in the open, with others watching, and not sound an alarm. Sure it makes it easier, but when you stealth-kill the middle guy in a 3-man patrol; then stealth kill the other two and no one ever notices...it just becomes a joke. The stealth element is welcome in the game, but certainly could have been a bit more refined if for no other purposes as to make it a little more realistic.
Second, there are some annoying sections of platforming which are extremely forced. And I'm not talking about stuff in the temples/ruins, but mundane sections where you are forced to do really complex platforming to...get past a pipe on the floor; or exit a building with open doors. Of course, Uncharted is 50% platforming, so that is probably a nitpick.
Third, I would have liked the end section to have been expanded slightly. Shambala was very pretty, and I would have liked to have seem more of it. And maybe had some more complex action sequences set there.
Fourth...they don't let you play with Doughnut Drake from the start. Doughnut Drake is the perfect avatar for this game.
Overall, Uncharted 2 was probably the closest experience to playing Raiders of the Lost Ark of any game I've ever played. Some of the action sequences are very similar and may of the characters, betrayals, and story seem very similar. In particular I loved the whole train sequence; the helicopter gunfight in the city, and the truck chase through the mountains--all of which had shades of Indiana Jones written all over them.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
End of (Another) Era
Well last night something pretty unexpected happened. My WOW guild of the last year dissolved with little-to-no notice last night. They'd been doing pretty good, but were having problems with hard modes, and no progressing as fast as some of the members wanted.
I'm still a bit shocked by it. I'm not completely surprised, there were some signs, but it did happen way too quickly. Very little drama though (unlike the Nerfed breakup).
From what I can tell, the breakup was caused by a combination of:
1. Core Players Leaving.
2. Ulduar Burnout.
3. Aion drawing players away.
I'm going to miss them. Arete was a damned good guild. It may not have been comprised of the most skilled players. But they were all fine people who were fun to play with. And very few assholes.
So next up, I guess I have to decide what I'm going to do with WOW. If anything at all.
I'm still a bit shocked by it. I'm not completely surprised, there were some signs, but it did happen way too quickly. Very little drama though (unlike the Nerfed breakup).
From what I can tell, the breakup was caused by a combination of:
1. Core Players Leaving.
2. Ulduar Burnout.
3. Aion drawing players away.
I'm going to miss them. Arete was a damned good guild. It may not have been comprised of the most skilled players. But they were all fine people who were fun to play with. And very few assholes.
So next up, I guess I have to decide what I'm going to do with WOW. If anything at all.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Magic: The Return!
It's been years, but last week me and my friends decided to start playing Magic: the Gathering again. I used to play this game quite religiously with a rather large group of friends, but then pretty much quit when all of my friends got out of it. That was over 15 years ago.
Now, times are different. And Magic is now on it's 11th edition (my last was FOURTH). Times have changed. The cards look different (no more white bordered core sets lol), everything is more vibrant and colorful and the artwork is top notch...much higher quality than it used to be.
At least one of my friends is a hardcore player...he seems to be able to name any card he sees based on what it does; and he'll scour entire sets for that one card that will help him construct the deck he's wanting. I'm not like that, though I'd made some pretty good decks in my day, they were generally simple to understand and relied on only a few core mechanics to operate.
So now, years later, I spent way too much money and bought quite a few cards from the new edition. Partly to play, but I'm also thinking about doing some collecting again...mostly because that hobby can be fun...and also because I'm not sure how much we'll be playing. There's six of us, but a few really don't have the money to put down for cards somewhat limiting what we can do with it. Our tenative plan at this point is to create decks, and then randomly pick who plays them instead of everyone having to buy their own cards to play.
I ended up buying 2 M2010 core set booster boxes, and a core set of 5 decks. That almost completed a full M2010 set (I think I'm missing 10 cards at this point). And I'm also buying some Shards of Alara, Conflux, and Alara Reborn mostly because they are designed for multi-color (and I LOVE multicolor decks).
Along with that, I've bought a bunch of supplies designed to help me store this crap. And to properly put away a lot of my old cards which have been sitting in boxes for the last 15 years. The cards are in very good shape, but I'd like to get them properly put away.
Now, times are different. And Magic is now on it's 11th edition (my last was FOURTH). Times have changed. The cards look different (no more white bordered core sets lol), everything is more vibrant and colorful and the artwork is top notch...much higher quality than it used to be.
At least one of my friends is a hardcore player...he seems to be able to name any card he sees based on what it does; and he'll scour entire sets for that one card that will help him construct the deck he's wanting. I'm not like that, though I'd made some pretty good decks in my day, they were generally simple to understand and relied on only a few core mechanics to operate.
So now, years later, I spent way too much money and bought quite a few cards from the new edition. Partly to play, but I'm also thinking about doing some collecting again...mostly because that hobby can be fun...and also because I'm not sure how much we'll be playing. There's six of us, but a few really don't have the money to put down for cards somewhat limiting what we can do with it. Our tenative plan at this point is to create decks, and then randomly pick who plays them instead of everyone having to buy their own cards to play.
I ended up buying 2 M2010 core set booster boxes, and a core set of 5 decks. That almost completed a full M2010 set (I think I'm missing 10 cards at this point). And I'm also buying some Shards of Alara, Conflux, and Alara Reborn mostly because they are designed for multi-color (and I LOVE multicolor decks).
Along with that, I've bought a bunch of supplies designed to help me store this crap. And to properly put away a lot of my old cards which have been sitting in boxes for the last 15 years. The cards are in very good shape, but I'd like to get them properly put away.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Star Ocean, a short review
I did a rather dumb thing last night and went ahead and finished Star Ocean 4 when I really just should have gone to bed. Hurray for seemingly endless dungeons with a derth of save points. (Isn't the save point mechanic one of the worst things to come out of the consoles...ever?)
So, I really don't have a lot to say about the game. I liked it, but for the most part there isn't much really to say about it. The game's story was haphazard, and towards the end got needlessly talky and rather out there in regards to plot. I generally liked the characters, with some caveats.
Edge was OK, until he turned all emo.
Reimi was OK, but too passive and unsure of herself. Still there were some pretty funny scenes with her. Very powerful in combat.
Lymle sucked, 'kay?
Faize was a bland annoying twit. There was so much they could have done with this character too, but they didn't.
Myuria, the hot red head elf chick. Was devistatingly powerful in combat and otherwise a total man-slut who had no real purpose in the game.
Arumant...Faize's replacement, and he isn't really all that better of a character.
Sarah...wtf don't even get me started.
Bacchus is fairly cool. Not very important story wise, but he's got a very good mix of abilities and was fun to use in combat
Hmm, ok, maybe I didn't really like the characters so much. Still Reimi, Myuria, and Baccus were fairly cool.
As I write this, I'm actually having a hard time describing -why- I liked it. And that sounds like a back-handed insult to the game, but it's really not that bad. It has a fun combat system, and lots of stuff to find and explore. It has a central mystery that the game ignores for large parts of the game, and a general plot revelation that is quite out of left field even though it is also completely telegraphed.
I spent a lot of effort trying to get all of the endings, and was completely disappointed with every one of them. But it also means that I pretty much saw everything there was to see in the game in regards to story. Though I did skip some end-game quests and chests, mostly because by that point I was just ready to be done with the game.
I never messed much with item crafting, or synthesis. Not doing so did not really affect the game. Due to some farming I did, I was way overpowered in regards to level compared to what the game expected (I entered the last dungeon at level 92)...it was so easy to get a 120% xp bonus and chain it for hours that near the end I was regularly getting 20-30k xps per fight.
One other thing...what was up with group SPs? I couldn't figure out how to spend them, and by the end of the game had close to 20,000. During the discovery process I maybe used 200 total? Were SPs used in Item Synthesis maybe?
Ahem, anyway...
The main draw of the game was the more action-oriented combat system, which was more complex and engaging that a lot of other RPGs, without bogging it down and making it too slow. Fights could be completely pretty quickly, especially if you slightly out-leveled the content (and it was very easy to stay ahead of the curve). It actually may have been TOO fast, as combats typically didn't require much character switching.
To me, the combat system HEAVILY favored the ranged characters. Which is why I generally used Reimi, and then later Myuria and Bacchus; all of which are very good at ranged combat (so is Lymle, but I couldn't stand her, 'kay?'). Considering that it was easily to have your bonus board broken when using melee, the game actually punished being melee. I'm not saying that melee characters weren't powerful in the game--they were...but ranged gave more options, more control, and was generally safer.
So, thinking about it, I'm going to give the game a B-. The game had a solid and fun combat system. There was a lot of interesting exploration possible in the game. And the story was ok, if bland and fragmented it was at least not offensive (except Edge's Emo stint). And while the characters themselves didn't really appeal to me, only Faize and Lymle were actively disliked. The others just didn't add much to the story, which admittedly had a hard time coming to a point in the first place.
The general suckiness of the 'secret' hidden endings though, really disappointed me. Considering how many cut scenes were in the game and how much pointless exposition was wasted, I was really expecting more than a few 1 minute shorts regarding the fates of each character. But, oh well.
So, I really don't have a lot to say about the game. I liked it, but for the most part there isn't much really to say about it. The game's story was haphazard, and towards the end got needlessly talky and rather out there in regards to plot. I generally liked the characters, with some caveats.
Edge was OK, until he turned all emo.
Reimi was OK, but too passive and unsure of herself. Still there were some pretty funny scenes with her. Very powerful in combat.
Lymle sucked, 'kay?
Faize was a bland annoying twit. There was so much they could have done with this character too, but they didn't.
Myuria, the hot red head elf chick. Was devistatingly powerful in combat and otherwise a total man-slut who had no real purpose in the game.
Arumant...Faize's replacement, and he isn't really all that better of a character.
Sarah...wtf don't even get me started.
Bacchus is fairly cool. Not very important story wise, but he's got a very good mix of abilities and was fun to use in combat
Hmm, ok, maybe I didn't really like the characters so much. Still Reimi, Myuria, and Baccus were fairly cool.
As I write this, I'm actually having a hard time describing -why- I liked it. And that sounds like a back-handed insult to the game, but it's really not that bad. It has a fun combat system, and lots of stuff to find and explore. It has a central mystery that the game ignores for large parts of the game, and a general plot revelation that is quite out of left field even though it is also completely telegraphed.
I spent a lot of effort trying to get all of the endings, and was completely disappointed with every one of them. But it also means that I pretty much saw everything there was to see in the game in regards to story. Though I did skip some end-game quests and chests, mostly because by that point I was just ready to be done with the game.
I never messed much with item crafting, or synthesis. Not doing so did not really affect the game. Due to some farming I did, I was way overpowered in regards to level compared to what the game expected (I entered the last dungeon at level 92)...it was so easy to get a 120% xp bonus and chain it for hours that near the end I was regularly getting 20-30k xps per fight.
One other thing...what was up with group SPs? I couldn't figure out how to spend them, and by the end of the game had close to 20,000. During the discovery process I maybe used 200 total? Were SPs used in Item Synthesis maybe?
Ahem, anyway...
The main draw of the game was the more action-oriented combat system, which was more complex and engaging that a lot of other RPGs, without bogging it down and making it too slow. Fights could be completely pretty quickly, especially if you slightly out-leveled the content (and it was very easy to stay ahead of the curve). It actually may have been TOO fast, as combats typically didn't require much character switching.
To me, the combat system HEAVILY favored the ranged characters. Which is why I generally used Reimi, and then later Myuria and Bacchus; all of which are very good at ranged combat (so is Lymle, but I couldn't stand her, 'kay?'). Considering that it was easily to have your bonus board broken when using melee, the game actually punished being melee. I'm not saying that melee characters weren't powerful in the game--they were...but ranged gave more options, more control, and was generally safer.
So, thinking about it, I'm going to give the game a B-. The game had a solid and fun combat system. There was a lot of interesting exploration possible in the game. And the story was ok, if bland and fragmented it was at least not offensive (except Edge's Emo stint). And while the characters themselves didn't really appeal to me, only Faize and Lymle were actively disliked. The others just didn't add much to the story, which admittedly had a hard time coming to a point in the first place.
The general suckiness of the 'secret' hidden endings though, really disappointed me. Considering how many cut scenes were in the game and how much pointless exposition was wasted, I was really expecting more than a few 1 minute shorts regarding the fates of each character. But, oh well.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Star Ocean
Well, with my sister and her family in town I didn't get a lot of play time it (or more specifically more video game play time). But I did get to spend some more time with SO4.
I've been back into playing some console games, but SO4 was the first JRPG I've played in a while. Playing it right after Fable 2 really shows the difference in contrast between what is essentially a traditional JRPG and other different RPGs out there.
I wasn't sure how far into the game I was, but now I know...I'm pretty close to the end. Sure there are a bunch of side quests, and item creation quests to do--but I'm probably going to skip those. I've used a game guide for parts of the game, mostly because I didn't want to miss out on any of the endings--I don't have any intention of playing this game again anytime soon (hell, I'm lucky to have had enough time to play through it once and I still have a ton of new games to get through).
Like many JRPGs, the story takes center stage--but the story in SO4 is very fractured and random. In fact the best way to describe it is: Humanity begins exploring space. Random Shit Happens(TM). More Random Shit Happens (TM). Arch demon? WTF? UNIVERSE ENDING DUE TO RANDOM SHIT! AAHHHHHHHH
More seriously, the basic plot involves some form of extra-dimensional non-living entity using dark crystals to mutate life to make it easier for it to absorb the life-energy of other races, so it can use this energy to reform the Universe to it's own liking. Or something like that. Though half of the story really doesn't have anything to do with this. There's also a journey to an alternate dimension which serves as a major plot device involving the main character turning Emo for the next, and by far the largest segment of the game involving some Archfiend's return that doesn't have anything to do with the main plot at all.
So, for the most part, the story isn't the strong suit of this game. The characters themselves aren't too bad, except for Lymle, k? Her feature is to follow everything she says with k, k?
Despite the lackluster story, the game has been a lot of fun and I've clocked way to many hours in it. Current time listed in 70, though I'd say at least 30 of this involved me being idle and away from the console because I forgot to turn it off. :) So I'd say it's a pretty average length JRPG that can be completed in about 40 or 50 hours or so.
I might have some more specific thoughts about the game after I finish it, but right now I'm still wondering how it's going to end. It seems pretty obvious, but we'll see. Surprisingly, I've mostly liked the characters (except Lymle, and Faize), so I'm interesting to see how it turns out.
I also picked up a couple of movies this weekend, but I didn't get a chance to watch them yet: Push, and Knowing. I haven't heard much good about Push; Knowing is supposed to be good, but I'm not sure that I'll like it or not.
Either way, hopefully I'll get at least a little free time this week.
I've been back into playing some console games, but SO4 was the first JRPG I've played in a while. Playing it right after Fable 2 really shows the difference in contrast between what is essentially a traditional JRPG and other different RPGs out there.
I wasn't sure how far into the game I was, but now I know...I'm pretty close to the end. Sure there are a bunch of side quests, and item creation quests to do--but I'm probably going to skip those. I've used a game guide for parts of the game, mostly because I didn't want to miss out on any of the endings--I don't have any intention of playing this game again anytime soon (hell, I'm lucky to have had enough time to play through it once and I still have a ton of new games to get through).
Like many JRPGs, the story takes center stage--but the story in SO4 is very fractured and random. In fact the best way to describe it is: Humanity begins exploring space. Random Shit Happens(TM). More Random Shit Happens (TM). Arch demon? WTF? UNIVERSE ENDING DUE TO RANDOM SHIT! AAHHHHHHHH
More seriously, the basic plot involves some form of extra-dimensional non-living entity using dark crystals to mutate life to make it easier for it to absorb the life-energy of other races, so it can use this energy to reform the Universe to it's own liking. Or something like that. Though half of the story really doesn't have anything to do with this. There's also a journey to an alternate dimension which serves as a major plot device involving the main character turning Emo for the next, and by far the largest segment of the game involving some Archfiend's return that doesn't have anything to do with the main plot at all.
So, for the most part, the story isn't the strong suit of this game. The characters themselves aren't too bad, except for Lymle, k? Her feature is to follow everything she says with k, k?
Despite the lackluster story, the game has been a lot of fun and I've clocked way to many hours in it. Current time listed in 70, though I'd say at least 30 of this involved me being idle and away from the console because I forgot to turn it off. :) So I'd say it's a pretty average length JRPG that can be completed in about 40 or 50 hours or so.
I might have some more specific thoughts about the game after I finish it, but right now I'm still wondering how it's going to end. It seems pretty obvious, but we'll see. Surprisingly, I've mostly liked the characters (except Lymle, and Faize), so I'm interesting to see how it turns out.
I also picked up a couple of movies this weekend, but I didn't get a chance to watch them yet: Push, and Knowing. I haven't heard much good about Push; Knowing is supposed to be good, but I'm not sure that I'll like it or not.
Either way, hopefully I'll get at least a little free time this week.
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