Wednesday, February 27, 2008 

Lost Odyssey

I picked up Lost Odyssey about a week ago, and I have to admit, I’ve been more than pleasantly surprised with the amount of enjoyment I’m getting out of it. I wasn't sure what to think at first, as it is only putting up scores in the mid-70s on MetaCrititc, which isn’t usually a good indicator. But, after finishing Mass Effect I found myself still very much in the mood for good, story-driven gameplay, so I decided to give it a shot.

I’m about 11 hours into the game, and judging on the fact that I just finished disk 1 of 4, I’ll estimate that I’m only about a quarter of the way through it. So, keep in mind that whatever opinions I have, they are based on that much exposure. The game might go completely to hell from here, and I just don’t know it yet. That being said, I like what I’ve played so far very much – so much in fact that I find the reviews the game is getting a little bit bewildering… I have some theories as to why we are seeing the scores that we are, and I’ll touch on them as I go.

At its core, Lost Odyssey is a Japanese-style RPG very much in the vein of Final Fantasy X – not surprising considering that the game’s developer, Mistwalker was founded by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series. The game follows all of the conventions of a solid, old-school J-RPG: a turn based battle system with an emphasis on special class skill and leveraging elemental strengths and weaknesses, a large cast of characters that grows as you move through the game, and a deep, plot full of politics and intrigue that drives the game along. For me, this was fantastic, because I haven’t particularly been a fan of the shift to the real-time combat systems we’ve seen in the more recent j-RPGs, still preferring the tried and true turn-based combat and all of the rock-paper-scissors gameplay inherent to it. At the same time, my guess is that the game is losing point in reviews for not doing enough “innovation” inside the genre. Too bad really, because what Mistwalker did create is very well executed for what it is trying to be.

You play the role of an immortal mercenary named Kaim, who has served on battlefields for the highest bidder for over 1,000 years. As the story opens, Kaim has almost no memory of his past, leaving his history, and much of his recent circumstances, a mystery. While a little cliché, it works well as a plot device, allowing you to enter the game’s lush world content with the feeling that you don’t understand everything going on around you because you’re not supposed to yet. As the game plays out, small things slowly trigger Kaim’s memories, which come back to him a little at a time.

Those memories are played out as short stories – literally written prose that that fades in artistically over muted backgrounds while thematically appropriate music plays. Many of them can actually be quite lengthy, some upwards of twenty “screens” worth of text. These “memories” are superbly written (by award-winning Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigenatsu), and I found myself engrossed while reading them. They are emotionally charged, giving you a connection with Kaim and his plight: You feel the suffering that must come with living for 1,000 years, watching those you love die off around you while you never age. They serve to transform Kaim from a dark, brooding protagonist to a truly tragic hero. Still, I imagine that this was a second point that cost Lost Odyssey points in their review scores, and it’s my guess that it will have a very polarizing effect: you will either love it or absolutely hate it.

One of Kaim's memories...Graphically, the game looks great. Built on Unreal Engine technology, the world is well detailed, with the kind of striking panoramas we have all come to expect from the genre. The game world is in the middle of an industrial-magical revolution, and “magic engines” are the foundation of technology in the world. It gives the game an everpresent mystical steam-punk flavor that I find really cool.

I wasn’t too sure how I felt about the character designs at first, but they began to grow on me almost immediately, thanks to their expressive animations and the excellent voice acting. The characters are distinctively Asian-flavored, both in dress and facial features, and have a more “mature” bent to them than past J-RPGs. It is definitely nice to play a leading character that isn’t either effeminate, pre-pubescent or has spiky blonde hair (or in the case of FFX and FFXII, all three.)

As you can tell, I really like the game at this point. I’m a little disappointed at the lukewarm reception it’s getting, but at least it seems to be selling well. If you’ve been on the fence about picking it up, I’d say it’s definitely worth the play time, and there is enough solid gameplay there that you will definitely get your money out of it, especially if you are a fan of the older-style turned based combat systems.

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12:37 PM | |

Sunday, February 03, 2008 

Coffee is for Closers!

I've been wrapping up games like crazy on the XBOX over the last week. Nothing like a couple of snow-bound sick days to help a guy finish off games.

I finished Mass Effect, which only seemed to pick up momentum all the way to the end. It's been a long time since I have finished a game and immediately found myself wanting more. It's a great game - it just doesn't get any better for me. I'm glad to see that rumors of a sequel are already boiling.

With Mass Effect done, I turned my attention back to Bioshock. I picked it up back in September, and I have been working my way steadily through it for the last few months. For a shooter, this game has more story and setting than most roleplaying games. The decision to set the game at the bottom of the ocean in the 1940's was a brilliant move, giving the game a look and feel that is completely new - something we don't get enough of these days. In a time of cookie-cutter settings and licensed crap, it was a breath of fresh air. It makes me happy to see a developer take a risk and have it pay off.

I picked up The Orange Box right after Christmas, and ended up killing an afternoon playing Portal. Part of the Orange Box collection, Portal is basically a mini-game based around a gun that allows you to open portals all over the environment. You play the role of an andriod who is guided through a series of test chambers by an insane artificial intellegence. You are forced to use this portal technology to defeat a series of puzzle-rooms, each requiring more clever and complicated thinking than the last. The game itself is amazing, and despite being very short, it still manages to tell quite an intriguing story. The AI, GLaDos, ends up being the star of the game, with some fantastic dialog that manages to be both humorous and ominous. The game is worth finishing for the end song alone.

If Portal was a great appetizer, for me, the main course has been Team Fortress 2. I'm not a huge fan of online shooters, but TF2's class and objective-based system is a lot of fun, and you don't necessarily have to be a great twitch-gamer to be successful in the game. Classes like the medic, engineer and heavy gunner all make a good alternative choices for those of us who are "twitch-impared." The gameplay is well tuned, and the game has a great, campy style that makes it all the more fun. For a taste of what I'm talking about, check this out:

You can find all of the game's trailers here. The "Meet the.... " entries are all hillarious.

A friend from work just loaned me Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty 4, so the parade of A-list games doesn't look to be ending soon. I also really want to finish Final Fantasy XII, but after months of playing the XBOX 360 in HD, going back to the PS2 is like leaving the new hotness to go back to the old and busted.

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2:41 PM | |

Sunday, January 06, 2008 

Mass Effect

I’ve been completely sucked into Mass Effect. To be honest, it has been a time since a video game has this kind of effect on me – in fact, it you may have to go back to the original Baldur’s Gate to find a single player game that sucked me in like this one has. I only got the game just under a week ago, and I have already put almost twenty hours into it, which is unheard of for me.

I came at this game actually being fairly skeptical. Bioware’s last few efforts left me a little cold. Neverwinter Nights wasn’t what is should have been, and even games like Knights of the Old Republic felt somewhat clunky and dated. It is also fair to say that both games are pretty much d20 based, and while I love my d20 at the table top, it makes for a hell of a confusing mess in video game form… Still, it has always been clear that Bioware is one of the best story-telling game companies out there. I was excited to see what they could do freed from the limitations of d20-based mechanics and licensed properties.

From a story-telling perspective, they’ve nailed it. The new dialog system works beautifully, and conversations play out with a dramatic, cinematic flair. Fantastic voice acting paired with some of the best facial animation I’ve ever seen in a game lead to conversations that convey real emotion and give you a very personal connection the characters. In fact, I find myself enjoying the conversation mechanic so much that I strike up conversations whenever I have the chance. Being science fiction, you are ultimately free from the good-vs.-evil conventions that plague fantasy RPGs. The Mass Effect universe is all about shades of grey, and you can play the hard-as-nails military man who accomplishes his goals at all costs and still not feel like a “bad guy.”



While the conversation mechanics are great, the combat system kind of sneaks up on you… It doesn’t really work like anything I’ve played before, and that ends up meaning you die a lot for the first few hours of combat-intensive gameplay. At first, it looks like your typical third-person shooter (think Gears of War), but you will quickly realize that it doesn’t play anything like one. You will realize two things: First, cover is life. Okay, that concept isn’t so new, but it is very pronounced. Second, you need to use the shoulder buttons on your controller to open your “special actions” menu almost constantly. When you access this menu, the game pauses, and you are free to assess the situation, issue orders, queue up abilities and choose new targets. Getting good at doing this and actively managing your character and your team is key to survival.

The game itself does a poor job of introducing you to combat. The few hours (up to five or six if you are a completionist like me) are spent on Citadel station, mostly exploring, running various Fed-Ex missions and having conversations as the world, characters and back story are fleshed out. There are a few light fire-fights, but nothing too challenging. As that opening chapter comes to a close, the game sends you out into the galaxy with leads on three different planets. Each of them is home to fairly tough, combat-heavy adventures. I set off first for Noveria, and upon arrival died over and over and over. I was actually getting fairly discouraged, especially after I loved the first part of the game so much, and began to worry that the combat was just broken. Slogging through it (with some various forum pointers and game guides) I finally started to get the hang of it.

After you complete the first of the three missions, you are introduced to the idea that the galaxy is really a pretty big place, and you can roam all over, surveying worlds and taking on side missions. These are typically far less intense than the plot missions, and they help to advance your charter, both in terms of level and equipment. They also make for great short session if you only have a half-an-hour to play. After you bulk your party up a little bit in these side missions, everything starts getting quite a bit easier. It’s almost a shame that the game design doesn’t do a better job easing you into the combat portions by introducing you to the side missions earlier. A little attention up front would have saved me a lot of frustration later on.


The plot itself is phenomenal, and the Mass Effect universe is more complete and well though out than many pen-and-paper RPG campaign settings I have read. As you have conversations or read terminals throughout the game, details about the universe are added to your codex to be read at your leisure. While not necessary, taking the time to read and digest all of it adds a great deal to the depth and richness of the game. In fact, if there was a d20 Future supplement for Mass Effect, I would be all over it. Somebody get on that.

Technically, they finally figured it out. This is the first Bioware game that actually looked like it belonged in the current generation. The tech is great, with great haze and depth of field effects, and as I mentioned earlier, some of the best facial animations I have ever seen. By default there is a strange ‘film grain’ effect turned on (I think to camouflage some of the strange, pixelicious shadows), but thankfully it can be turned off. The models are great, and the skinning looks awesome.

In all, it’s an awesome game. The story and conversations are great, and their new universe is incredible. There is a little wonkiness in combat, but after a few sessions you will work that out. There are a few other little user interface problems that piss me off from time to time (I can’t count how many times I have accidentally exited the galaxy map), but they are small complaints considering the quality of the whole package.

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6:19 PM | |

Friday, December 28, 2007 

Christmas Vacation!

A late Merry Christmas to everyone out there!

Every year around this time, I take a bunch of time off from work. It is one of my favorite breaks – not a lot is going on at the office, so I’m not worried about getting behind, and it’s the only time that I get to take time off and just stay home and just relax. We had company for the first half of the week, but the last of them went home this morning, leaving me next five days to relax and revel in geekish pleasures.

Knowing the break is coming, I laid out a laundry list of dorky activities I wanted to get accomplished. Of course, I wouldn’t be a true hobbyist if that list wasn’t several times larger than anything I could reasonably to hope to accomplish in the time allotted. Still, it’s my intention to give it a good effort. Here’s what I’ve got:

Wargaming: Warmachine Army

Since I got hooked on Warmachine over Thanksgiving, I’ve decided to put my Chaos Space Marine army on hold for a bit and focus on getting a full-fledged Warmachine army painted up. I have a significant amount of both Cryx and Cygnar pewter, but for now I decided to focus on Cygnar. I want to:

Finish my Trenchers. I’ve got three of ten trenchers painted now, and so far they look great. I think for the rest of them I’m going to experiment with a quasi-production line approach. I’m going to lay down the base color coats on all of them at the same time, and them probably shade and highlight them individually. As far as the models themselves, they are really beautiful and just ooze character. I am constantly amazed at the amount of detail Privateer Press puts into each model.

Finish my Stormblades. Okay, to be fair, the Stormblade unit is actually all finished, but I’m also working on the unit attachment. The Captain is done, but I still need finish the standard bearer. I’d love to leave the holiday break with two fully painted units.

Assemble my Sword Knights. I bought the Sword Knights unit boxed set along with an extra blister a while back, and then promptly stowed them away in the closet. After listening to the Pod Thralls list their “500 pts for 100 bucks” Cygnar list, I pulled them back out and decided they would be next up. Then I open the blister and looked at all the little parts. And then I puked a little in my mouth.

Roleplaying: Eberron Campaign

In my last post I talked a little bit about how much I like the Freeport setting. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a bunch of hours working on integrating it into my Eberron game, as our party will be spending a great deal of time in the Lhazaar Principalities. If there is any interest in seeing how I’m tying that all together, let me know, and I’ll post it. Beyond that, I’m “redeveloping” a significant portion of the Eyes of the Lich Queen to better fit our campaign and play style, so I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Video Games: A Cornucopia of XBOX Goodness

There is so much good stuff out on XBOX 360 right now that it is almost mind-numbing. I’ve been working through BioShock and Oblivion: The GOTY Edition, all the while playing through the Halo 3 campaign co-op over XBOX Live. To add to that already impressive list, my wife bought me Mass Effect for Christmas, and I used some Best Buy gift certificates to pick up The Orange Box. How I’m going to get through these and still take care of everything on the list above, I’m not sure, but it should be fun trying. That many A-List games at one time is truly remarkable, and that list still leaves CoD4: Modern Warfare and Assassin’s Creed waiting in the wings.

We live good lives.

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10:33 AM | |

Sunday, November 19, 2006 

Can't Stop the Curb Stomp

I’m still having a blast playing NWN2, and my dwarven cleric/warpriest is cruising right along. I’ve only played a little bit of FFXII, just to check it out, and while it looks amazing I seem to only have the attention span for one RPG at a time. Vaan and company are going to have to wait for me to finish saving The Realms before they get much more attention. With so much gaming goodness, I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t buy anything new until I get some of this backlog out of the way.

Unfortunately, I failed my Will save vs. Gears of War. This game is phenomenal. It’s the kind of game you just can pile enough adjectives on top of to express the sheer amount of bad-assery contained within. It is pretty rare these days to find a game that is truly firing on all cylinders: the graphics are the best yet on the next-gen, the gameplay is tight and polished, the characters have just enough depth to be interesting but not intrusive, and the setting and story are captivating.

The game takes place in a kind of post-apocalyptic earth, opening 14 years after the invasion of the alien-like Locust. Only, in this world the aliens did not come from outer space, but emerged from the bowels of the earth itself. You fight amongst the rubble of neo-gothic buildings and through interiors that evoke the same sense of crumbling elegance that was present in many of the interiors from The Matrix. The game uses a third-person tactical shooter mechanic, where you find yourself (and your team) moving from cover to cover and throwing down in hellacious fire-fights. Within the first few minutes of playing you get the sense that this is how G.R.A.W. was supposed to work. I haven’t played multiplayer yet, as I don’t have an Xbox Live Gold account – although this is the game that will make me get one.

In other news: I’ve been a fan of the Mechwarrior CMG for a long time, so I was sad to see the open letter to players that basically says the game is on the ropes. That’s too bad, as it’s a great little strategy game. I’ve been buying boosters since Age of Destruction, and it seems like WizKids has become a little over-dependant on reusing old sculpts and just giving them new paint jobs and assigning them to new factions. There are already too many factions in the game, and just getting the same old mech for a faction I don’t really care about won’t keep me buying.

They claim they are suffering from a loss of consumer interest… I think the interest is still there, but the product has just gotten increasingly boring and convoluted. Add to this the quality issues that have dogged them since Annihilation, and it’s not surprising that they are having issues. Want to save the game? Cut back on the factions and give us some nice new sculpts. Hopefully they can figure it out, because I still love the game.

One last thought: It was interesting to see people camping out in tents this week to get a shot a buying a PS3 or a Wii. That's no small feat in Idaho's climate. Just for the record, I wasn't one of them. That's waaaaay too much work for an over-priced system and a bunch of lackluster launch titles. Call me after the first round of "greatest hits" games hit and the price drops.

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10:24 AM | |

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 

E3 Report.. Too Little, Too Late.

I am truly ashamed. It's been almost a month since I've posted last, and a whole lot of shit has gone down in that time. First, I finally got my nasty gall bladder out, which is a big part of why I disappeared for a month. The upside of that turned out to be that I had it removed the week of E3, which gave me an excuse to lay in bed and watch show feeds from Gamespot and IGN all week long.

On E3: Interesting show this year - it had a very different vibe. You could almost feel a perceptible power shift from the normal hierarchy: the powerhouse Playstation, the scrappy underdog XBOX and the retarded cousin Nintendo. The only thing that seemed to be a constant is that Nintendo remains as retarded as ever. In fact, by naming their console the "Wii", they chose to revel in it. They should have just stayed with Revelation, or better, go with something like "tits" - at least something like that would make me want to buy one. And I don't want to hear the usual line that they are the last truly creative company, and all about how bold they are for doing everything different. Lesbians do everything different, but it still doesn't make them useful to me.

Sony's press conference left me cold. Kaz Hirai was his usual arrogant self, espousing the virtues of his mythical console, building to the mighty crescendo where they unveil that the PS3 would be available for a mere five hundred and ninety-nine North American Dollars! Then there is this strange pause where all of the little mental calculators are doing their fuzzy math, followed by a tremendous psychological shockwave which said (at least what I heard in my bed 1,ooo miles away from E3) "Fuck you, Hirai!" Somewhere in the middle of all this, they also showed waaaaay tooooo muuuuuch footage of the next version of some racing game that I quit caring about the first time I played Burnout 3, and some footage of a geriatric Solid Snake which miraculously made my give-a-shit meter for all things Metal Gear Solid actually go negative. Oh, and before I forget - where there hell was Killzone 2?

All of this left Microsoft in the enviable position of being the only major player extolling the virtues of the next-generation gaming who actually has a next generation console on the market. As you can imagine, this was pretty fun for them, and it showed. Microsoft was finally able to drop all of the aformentioned "scrappy underdog" posturing, and stand as a success in their own right. Also, the Vista preview was interesting, and it's good to see that PC gaming isn't officially dead - it just remains terminally ill.

As far as games, there wasn't that much I came away excited about... Of what I did see, BioShock got me the most excited. System Shock 2 is still in my top five favorite games of all times, and BioShock appears to be a fitting spiritual sequel in every way. Gears of War looks amazing, and I like the look of Assassin's Creed. Heavenly Sword is one game that looks every bit as good in action this year as the trailers did last year. It was nice to finally see a lot more about Neverwinter Nights 2, which I am very excited about. I was hoping to finally get some info on Bioware's Dragon Age, but that was a no-show.

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10:32 PM | |

Monday, April 10, 2006 

Down Time...

Well, I've managed to go well over a week without an update. While not my intention, this does put me on par with about 99% of all blogs out there. The truth of the matter is simply this - I blog about gaming, and not a lot of gaming has gone on for me over the past week. My wife is out of town visiting her sister in New York City, and so I'm doing the solo-daddy thing, or at least semi-solo. My mom and dad are in town to help out, which makes taking care of the kids that much easier, but just shifts my job to taking care of the grandma and grandpa.

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't been feeling too hot lately, which is the other thing that has bit into my gaming time. A couple of nights back this culminated with me in the emergency room getting all kinds of pokes, prods and scans. Turns out that I've got a monster stone in my gall bladder, and I'll probably get to have surgury soon to take that bad boy out. At least a few days laid up in bed means I have a good chance to finally finish Grandia III.

I picked up the Dawn of War "Game of the Year" edition at the start of last week. I've always had some interest in Warhammer 40K, although I've never played the table top game. I've seen the minis at the hobby store for years, and I've always found them incredibly compelling on a visual level - it's cool looking stuff. I'm only a few missions in to the video game version, and so far I'm having a blast. It's a great counterpoint to the slow and deliberate pace of Oblivion. The intro sequence is spectacular - even if you know nothing about the Warhammer 40K universe, I can't imagine not being hooked after that intro. Makes me want to pick up a rule book and check out the table top version.

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7:50 AM | |

Wednesday, March 22, 2006 

BLACK, Bioware, and Bye-Bye to Azeroth

I rented BLACK on the PS2 over the weekend just to take a look. So far the reviews have been luke-warm, with the general consensus being that the game was a solid, if uninspired, shooter. Based on this, I went in with only the shallowest of expectations. What I found instead was a great looking game that did a fine job of balancing the best aspects of the fast action shooter with more tactical games like Ghost Recon. This isn’t an all out run and game – situational awareness and judicious use of cover (as well as the extraordinarily abundant exploding vehicles) are the keys to your survival. The few maps I played were nicely varied and all flowed well. The only real drawback for me was they absurdly durable heavy-armor shotgun guys. (Tip: don’t waste bullets on these fuckers – rush ‘em and wail on them with the butt of your rifle.) Other than that, what I saw was shiny.

In other news, I saw that Bioware is opening a MMO studio in Austin, I assume to take advantage of the large number of talented folks who have been left adrift by a nasty string of corporate implosions. What can I say – more Bioware can’t be a bad thing. Ever. Baldur’s Gate is still probably my favorite game of all time (if you are wondering, StarCraft is a close second). While I think their last few games have been a little flat, they are still better than most of the shit out there today. Beyond that, Co-CEOs Greg Zeschuk & Ray Muzyka just seem like good, savvy dudes, who are doing things for all the right reasons. I hope they kick some asses in that space, because right now Blizzard is the only shop that even kind of gets it, and frankly, they probably get it just a little too well for the good of the market.

On that note, tonight marks my exit from the lands of Azeroth. I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since about a month after retail, and I have to admit that it’s been one of the most amazing gaming experiences I have ever had. The depth and breadth of the world Blizzard has created is astonishing. But, as with all things, there comes a time to move on, and for me, this week is it. At this point, the high-level content is just too much of a time sink. Between work, wife, and kids, I just can’t find a continuous three to four hours to get a decent group and run an instance. Still, the game is a masterpiece, and it’s hard to leave behind a character and a group of people that you’ve grown so attached to. It’s been fun.

Now, it’s onto Oblivion. I picked up the Collector’s Edition last night (a nice package by the way) and dove in. I haven’t made it too far yet, because I spent over an hour in the insanely detailed character generation. The game itself looks amazing (even if there is something somewhat disturbing about the character's faces) and it has the same epic, wide-open feel that made Morrowind so great. I can’t wait to dig in deeper.

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8:11 PM | |