Greatest Game Ever, Roadtrips, and Overpoered PMCs

What’s up, guys?

I’d like to start today’s blog off with the thought that is foremost in my brain since Tuesday….Mass Effect 2 is, hands down, the greatest game I’ve played on the Xbox 360—possibly ever. Now, I say this with the knowledge that I am biased to the universe that BioWare has created here; I’ve read both books and even downloaded the iPhone game. However, that said, I am 100% convinced that the second installment in the Shepard Trilogy will go on to win a handful of gaming awards this year. It’s that. Damn. Good.

Now, I’ll be honest, I’m only about 5 hours into the game and have spent a ridiculous amount of time just running around the new Normandy, so I won’t do a full review on it just yet. What I will say, though, is that, so far, BioWare is has improved on the first game ten-fold. From visual tweaks to full on gameplay overhauls, the ME team has crafted a product far superior to their first game. I’ll do a full review of this incredible story-driven game when I finish it…which could be a while—it’s 2 discs!

Okay, so now that’s out of the way, as most of you know, I took a trip to Texas with my fiancé last week. The trip was Jennifer’s Christmas gift and was primarily for her to spend some time with her family; she hadn’t been “home” in roughly 2 ½ years and I wanted to do something special for her. So I packed my ass into my Jetta and drove roughly 1000 miles over roughly 28 hours (the trip itself only clocked in at around 18 but we stopped at a hotel around 1 am the first night) on my first roadtrip on which I was the “pilot.” The drive down there wasn’t so bad and I actually had a good time the whole way. While we were there we spent the week with her sister and her family—people I immediately felt comfortable around and look forward to calling family, myself—and on the last few days her folks and Granny drove over from their neck of the woods.

Most of my time was spent playing Dragon Age: Origins (the game I play between other, less-involved titles) and napping. Boring to you, yes, but I was on vacation and had no responsibilities beyond, well, being on vacation. So, yeah, I took full advantage of this. Of course, the whole trip wasn’t spent in Geek Mode. On the second full day there, Jenn and I were treated to the beach in Galveston—something this cornfed Midwestern boy always gets giddy over—and later in the week we were treated to dinner at one of those “cook the food in front of you” places (another first for me) and then Laser Tag and arcade. Both of these experiences were the kind of things that people do when they go on ”vacation” and I thoroughly enjoyed each of them and the company I was in.

On the night that Jenn’s parent’s came up, we convinced them to watch the kids and went to see The Book of Eli. Not one of Denzel Washington’s best performances, but from beginning to just before the credits, I enjoyed it. The story of a lone man on a personal mission to carry a special book from one side of a post apocalyptic country to the other, the movie does a really good job of painting the desolate world the human race has been forced to adapt to in the 30-something years since The Flash. People are scarce and humanity scarcer still, water and food are the dominant commodities and economy is back to trading goods rather than money buying them.

Denzel’s character—Eli, duh—is enigmatic at first, showing no discernible motivation beyond moving forward. There is one moment in which he comes across two travelers being attacked by bandits where you learn that he is, in fact, being guided by a specific goal and that this goal is the most important thing to him. He eventually comes across a town and more characters are introduced, the best of these being Gary Oldman’s character, Carnegie, who runs the settlement and seems to have an obsession with books (enter oh-so-subtle plot development) and is looking for one very specific book.

Well…you can see where this is going.

Overall, it’s not a specifically deep movie and the end revelations are rather predictable, the only exception being the specifics behind exactly why Carnegie wants this particular book. It makes for an interesting view on an age-old debate which I won’t get into here. The acting is—as expected—good, the cinematography is excellent and the small bit of action (most of which you see in the trailers) is well choreographed and isn’t overdone by any means. Personally, though, I think the story could have used a little more depth, but, unfortunately, the kind of depth I would like to have seen would be better suited for a novel. Though, ultimately, in a world brimming with remakes and the like, it was nice to see an original idea, albeit a slightly underdeveloped one.

So, all in all, I’d say the trip was a success. I got to know Jenn’s family, they got to spend some time with our favorite mother-to-be, and I was able to experience the fun of a roadtrip. I am happy to say that I can drive 20 hours straight (which we did on the way back, blarg) and that Jennifer was quite the trooper in her desire to keep bathroom breaks to a minimum; especially given her current state!

Okay, one last thing before I go…

Along with Mass Effect 2, I was able to purchase the retail version of MAG and, last night, was able to get a few games in. So far, overall, the final version of the game is basically what I’d experienced with the Beta. That is, with one minor exception…

Apparently, during the beta period, Zipper Interactive was convinced that the “terrorist-like” PMC known as S.V.E.R. was underplayed. There simply weren’t as many people interested in playing this particular group as there were for the other two. As a result, they seemingly offered special equipment for S.V.E.R.—and only them—with pre-ordered copies of the game. Now, normally, I’d have to tip my hat at this attempt to draw attention to an obviously underappreciated aspect of the game, thus helping to spread the player base out a little more. However…and that’s a big damned however…Zipper apparently got a little overzealous with their free goodies. Now, instead of spreading the player-base out a little, they flooded most of it into one and gave them weapons and gear that tips the balance of the game unfairly in S.V.E.R.’s favor.

Under normal circumstances, with a game I know is solid, I would attribute my being on the losing end of a stand-off to my lesser skill. I love playing FPS’s, but I’m not especially awesome at them—I tend to get a little jumpy, thus throwing off my aim just enough to give the other guy a slight advantage. But, this isn’t the case here. I played the beta and was relatively good at it—I was no Lord Nolan, but I held my own—but here, in this post-pre-order world, I can come around a corner, get the drop on a S.V.E.R. soldier and still get smoked after emptying a clip into his center mass. One or two times and I’d have written it off as needing to improve or a difference in levels between combatants. But it’s not just once or twice…it’s every damn time! And it’s not just stand-up fights, either. More than once I’ve sent two or three consecutive sniper rounds into a S.V.E.R. soldier’s brainpan with little to no effect aside from drawing their attention…at which point I’m often killed by his assault rifle from the games equivalent of a long fucking ways away!

This broken balance hasn’t killed the game for me since I don’t really care about losing as long as I get a kill here and there. My only options would be to jump ship and join S.V.E.R.—which simply isn’t going to happen—stop playing the game, or just bail out of a game if I’m matched against the big S. This latter option is, in fact, what Nolan and I took to doing the other night. I can’t fathom giving the game up, simply because, when we’re playing against Valor (the remaining PMC other than my own) I have a shitload of fun. We don’t always win, but the fights are close enough that I feel it was skill and better teamwork that got them the win.

Oh, well. For now I guess we’ll just stick it out and hope that Zipper gets tired of the emailed complaints and forum trolling and just fixes their mistake.

Well, that’s about it for me today. I’m going to finish out my shift, go home, play some Mass Effect 2 and then break in the brand new bed (which was delivered while writing this)!

Later!

MAG-nificent Review

Okay, yeah, so the name's lame. But I thought it was funny...and I'm the one writing this, so there!

Alright, anyway, let me start out by making it a point to note that I have yet to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 online. Thus, whenever I compare MAG (the game I'm reviewing here, in case the oh-so-clever title didn't inform you) to "Call" it is the first CoD:MW. Of course, I've read a lot of reviews and watched a handful of videos about the second installment of the MW series and may level my experience with that. But, in doing so, I'll reitterate that this is speculation.

Okay...here we go!

Earlier this week I had the pleasure to download and partake in the Open Beta for Zipper Interactive's new Playstation 3-exclusive First Person Shooter, MAG. While I have no idea what the name of the game means--is it an acronym for something or just the common use of "mag" for "magazine"--but what I do know is that the game's story revolves around a near-future Shadow War being fought by three Private Military Company's (Valor, S.V.E.R., and Raven). Each PMC represents an area of the world (not simple countries, but a coalition of existing powers) and the player is tasked with joining one and taking up the offered arms. From here you create a character and customize loadouts then head out into one of the gametypes offered to your current level; the beta only had one gametype available while I was playing it, but allows you to take a look at the others. There is promised 264-player combat and, though I'm not sure how that is going to work out, during my time with the game, the mode offered sported 64 players and ran silky smooth.

Now, let's dive into the meat of the game: Gameplay.

From the second my digital boots hit the dirt to the time I was comfortable with the controls--which I opted to learn via fumbling around like an idiot ingame--took less than one game. I'd say I had a handle on the controls within 5-10 minutes. The game is an FPS so all the basics--run, strafe, shoot, zoom, weapon/item swap and usage--were there and easily mastered. Shoot and zoom are handled by L1 and R1, respectively, while switching items or weapons are done by tapping L2 and R2. Given that I prefer the Xbox controller, which uses the trigger/shoulder bumper system, over the PS3 controller, I was a little leery about the "trigger" set-up. However, by the end of my second game I had assimilated the layout and was using it naturally. Another aspect of the PS3 controller I am generally put off by are the thumbsticks and their side-by-side position on the controller; n my opinion, the concave layout of the Xbox's thumbsticks is simply more natural and easier on your hands. That said, I didn't really experience any of the cramping I used to with the DualShock controller. This could be attributed to the fact that I've spent a lot more time with my PS3 in the last year and may have conditioned my thumbs to the controller's shape. Either way, I had no problem playing for multiple hours at a time.

The core aspect of MAG's gameplay is skill progression and customization. Players earn experience through objective-based goals or actions during gameplay. Now, I'm not totally familiar with every detail with the leveling system, but my time with the game revealed the following: Players earn 5 xp per kill, 3 xp per Assist (typically done by losing a stand-off with another player and then being rewarded when a teammate steps in and finishes the job for you), 10 xp for reviving a downed player (something only Medic-spec'd players can do), and you lose 5 xp for teamkilling a fellow soldier. As a whole, I am happy with this system; I think, for the most part, it's fair and offers a nice reward/penalty balance. Of course, that isn't to say I don't think there isn't room for improvement; specifically with the Medic. When a player is reduced to 0 health, they are incapacitated and on a timer (much like Gears of War), thus giving a player who has allocated Skill Points in the Medic skills time to come over and revive them. As I said, the medic player is awarded 10 points for every time this occurs--a fair amount for risking one's life--but the player who was just revived is given nothing but a second chance with half their full health. Under normal circumstances I would totally agree with this system. The problem, however, comes in two flavors: 1. TeamKilling a player just to run over and revive them for free 5 xp (10 for the revive -5 for the TK) and 2. Most of the Medics I dealt with refuse to clear an area of enemies and simply run up, revive you, and dart back into hiding--this allows the guy who killed you to rack up xp and murder your Kill-Death Ratio (for those of us who take pride in such things) as he simply stands by and shoots you again in that frantic few seconds after you're revived. Kill-Heal-Kill, repeat.

There isn't a whole lot I could suggest to fix this, other than to give the player who is being revived some compensation for allowing himself to be revived instead of simply hitting X and Bleeding Out. If I'm going to risk my own score so that you can rack up the xp by continuously healing the wounds I sustain from the same asshole's gun, then I should be compensated accordingly. Right?

All that aside, though, MAG is simply fun as hell. The gametype available is simple in terms of objectives, but can drag out to the entire length of the match or end within 5 minutes based on how good your team works together; plus, parachuting into the battlefield (which is how you respawn once Objective C is unlocked) is unbelievably fun! I never once experienced an unfair disadvantage because another player was exploiting some glitch or taking advantage of some overlooked loadout which totally sodomizes the game's ballance. I had one or two issues with people just being dicks in general (one guy started shooting at the same enemy soldier at the same time and, since I got a headshot and scored the kill, he turned and knifed me in the face) but this sort of thing you can't avoid. When that many people, of that diverse an age-range, go to war, you're going to come up against (or play with) the occasional asshat. But, in the 8+ hours I spent playing MAG (accumulated, btw), I never once got frustrated or angry. I had fun. That's almost unheard of in online multiplayer of this sort, anymore.

My final thought on the game is this...

MAG is a war simulator, plain and simple. It forces players to think tactically and approach each match with the goals in mind and utilize their team's cooperation. Other games may have War in the title, but never once, did I feel like I was a soldier in the conflict talked about on the box. Instead, these games almost always devolve into a pissing contest to see who can get the most kills in each match...and, unfortunately, the one's who do, usually augment their "skills" with exploits or system mods. I'm not saying that this won't eventually happen with MAG, but so far, that stuff is just not there.

For anyone who has a PS3, I highly recommend this game. If you don't have a PS3...well...enjoy Call for as long as you can, I guess. My thinking is that a lot of players are going to migrate.

Later!

Insipid Samurai

Hey, guys!

Okay, so it’s no secret that I love samurai. That said, it’s easy to assume that I’m a fan of most things featuring samurai in one form or another. From the classics like The Seven Samurai to some more obscure things like the Onimusha series. If it’s got samurai in it, chances are I’ll give it a chance. So, in that respect, when I got a whiff of the Way of the Samurai series several years ago—I think a little over 4 years now…maybe more—it’s obvious I was excited.

Here was a game that allowed me to take on the role of a wayward Ronin—masterless samurai—and choose to help the people of a village in need of a hero or take over the gang of bandits and reek havoc on the dingy citizens as I saw fit…or I could simply pass the village by and legitimately end the game in 10 seconds. I, being the paragon that I am when it comes to gaming, always choose to help those in need. And, from that point forward it was an amazing romp through the fictional life of a Ronin. I loved it.

So, when it was announced that WotS3 was on its way, I was stoked. It was one of the highest games on my list of “must haves” for October this year. But, sadly, as the game’s release drew nearer and more reviews were surfacing, the edge on the sword that was my fervor began to dull. It seemed that this latest installment in an otherwise inspired series was somewhat lacking. All the key elements were there, but the meat was a little on the lean side. After reading the last average scored review, I decided that I’d throw it on my GameFly list and wait to play it when I got around to it.

Well, last week I received the notice that the game was on its way and, low and behold, my excitement shot right back up to its original zest. I was pumped.

Then it showed up.

And I put it in the Xbox…

And was sorely disappointed.

It’s not that the game is totally horrible. It’s just that I can’t seem to figure out how to find the parts that aren’t. First off, let me tell you that, should you choose to play this game, you need to speak to a minstrel (the little old dudes with the string instrument—Biwa—found in every major area) and get him to play a song. This isn’t really made readily apparent at first and, thus, I found myself creating my character from scratch on three separate occasions. That is to say, three times from not saving; if you die, you can load from a previous save or start over with any experience, yen and weapons accrued in your previous playthrough.

As for the game itself, there are definitely a lot of great ideas here. The core concept of the game—the reason I was drawn to the series—is present but, for me at least, felt more like an inspiration than an actual element of the gameplay. From what I could tell there is little in the way of story to be found and what snippets I did experience, were few and far between and made little to no sense to me. When you start the game, your character awakens—after a brief cutscene where you pass out in front of a couple of battlefield looters—in a small home in a village. When you exit the home you are greeted by a mean old man (presumably the owner of the home) and can actually accidentally skip the whole encounter and not be able to go back, thus having no idea what the hell is going on—not that the encounter really gives you much to go on in the first place.

The accidental skipping involves a system in which every major conversation can be interrupted by one of two choices: throwing yourself to the ground and groveling or drawing your weapon. The former usually has you kneel like an idiot and then get up and walk away, completely skipping the conversation and erasing any chance of repeating it. The latter…well…you can imagine what might happen there. This is a cool system in theory, but with no explanation as to what you’re doing or what the consequences are it can make for an irritating trial and error learning curve.

The gameplay itself, from what I can gather, revolves mostly around doing odd jobs for the people in and around the major areas of the world. The starting village offered only two that I found. One was a completely incompetent housewife who has apparently lost ever single sharp object in her kitchen and wants you to cut vegetables for her. A simple enough task and, really, kind of expected given the type of game you’re playing. However, the “mission” consists basically of you standing on one side of the screen and the woman kneeling on the other. She then proceeds to throw shit at you! And it’s not just veggies, people! I don’t know if she was just completely nuts or what, but the bitch starts tossing furniture at you like it’s no big deal. So, now you’re dodging wooden lamps and the like while trying to chop this dumb woman’s produce. Okay. But does she throw them in any kind of rhythm? Hell no. She gets clever and mixes up the pace randomly. I don’t know about you, but if someone wanted me to do them a favor and then tried to bludgeon me and, barring that, went out of their way to make said favor unnecessarily difficult, I’d toss up a finger and walk the hell away. And slap her kids on the way out just for spite.

The second “task giver,” if you will, was a perverted old lady who is apparently just this side of delusional. To “earn her trust” (to what end I never gathered) she gives you tasks that she feels are menial and, in reality, are ridiculously difficult or just so…fucking weird…that it wasn’t long before I wished for the stupid housewife’s flying produce. The first task I was sent on was a mission to locate this crazy old broad’s Lucky Underwear. I’m not even kidding here. It seems that she takes this pair of sacred panties with her wherever she goes—why she doesn’t wear them, I’m not sure I want to know—and she has misplaced them on one of her many walks. Okay, so you’re being sent on your standard early-game fetch mission. Got it. But why the hell are you hunting down an old lady’s underoos?!?! I mean, I understand that this is a Japanese game and, well, the Japanese culture is, by and large, far stranger when it comes to this type of humor, but come on! The task itself isn’t all that difficult. You run out, find the old granny’s panties and you bring them back. The problem is, apparently they smell like fish or something because once you have them, you are instantly the object of desire for the crows that inhabit the area in which the underwear is found. Like moths to a flame, the little feathery bastards chase you around and try to steal the garment. Again, I ask…why?

The second of the three tasks she gave me was to push her around. She’s old—duh—and doesn’t have the energy to walk down the friggin’ road from where she is and stand on the bridge overlooking the creek she’s already standing next to! Okay, gently push the old nut few yards down the road. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. So very…very…wrong. First off, the designers made the controls for movement roughly two speeds, standing still and sprinting like a maniac. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with movement being sped up in a game where I have to walk everywhere. But when you want me to push an old lady without pissing her off by being too rough, give me an option to toggle a walk mode, eh? Or, at the very least, allow me to grab onto her or pick her up. No, what you have here is the equivilant of pushing a chair covered with bacon grease! There doesn’t seem to be any point of contact that will last more than an inch before you slip off and start running past her. It’s unbelievable, really.

But! That’s right…BUT!

As annoying as that task was, she isn’t through! It seems that three of the village’s children like to run away once in a while and you—the nameless stranger with a sword—are the best possible option for finding them and bringing them home. Okay, okay, okay…no. That’s just too much for me. The lady just fucking met you and she wants you to find the kids who ran away?! You were dragged off a battlefield and no one knows if you’re a bloodthirsty murderer or amnesiac pedophile! I mean, c’mon! You willingly went on a mission to find her panties! That, in my mind, does not a good babysitter, make! But, okay, it is a game, after all so let’s take the job. The three children are hiding randomly in one of the major areas and you have to talk to them one at a time and get all three to follow you before the mission’s over. The problem, though, is that if you bump one of them (which is easy to do given the aforementioned movement control) the little bastard then spends the rest of the mission kicking the shit out of your shins.

Now, this would be a little funny if it didn’t take a decent sized chunk of your life away as well as make it irritatingly difficult to speak to the other children since every kick knocks you out of the conversation! By the end of this mission I found myself running from a 6-year-old just to talk to his friends and keep from pulling my sword and taking that little foot right the fuck off! By and by, not a fun mission. Not a fun mission at all!

Well, that about covers the milk and honey of what I played of the game. The bulk of the filler gameplay, if you will. So, what about the combat? Nearly non-existent if you don’t want to murder everyone in sight. Yes, you can fight pretty much anyone, but unless you do something untoward around them or attack them directly, no one wants to fight you. I spent roughly 3 or so hours with this game all said and done and got into maybe 5 fights. For a game about a wandering warrior, this seems a might on the weak side. One of those fights is pretty much necessary when you leave the mean old guy’s land—unless you want to help the thugs picking on a woman right outside the gate—and serves mainly as a way to get a feel for the fighting. Which, by the way, is relatively straightforward: A to jump, X for weak attack, Y for strong attack and right bumper for block. Other than that, your options are to attack with the lethal side of the weapon (be it sword or staff) or flip it and use the blunt side. Using the blunt side inspires some interesting dialogue from your foes while the lethal side offers a chance to Quick Kill your opponent which, in this case, is an homage to how most sword duels played out. It wasn’t always a lengthy volley of blades, but, rather, a contest of who could unsheathe their sword first.

The second of my small list of fights was the result of the way a conversation played out and was actually rather cool in that respect. The fight itself was short and felt as if I had murdered the man. But, hey, I don’t think butterflies are the most beautiful thing in the world, what can I say? The next fight was Butterfly Guy’s friends (another cool aspect of the game’s ability to track who you’ve killed) and the last two were random encounters with a Killer and the daughter of some samurai I supposedly killed in battle.

Both of those, sadly, ended in my untimely demise.

Hey…that chick could handle a sword!

The last death was, unfortunately, the last time I played the game. Quite simply, it bored the hell out of me. It’s just not interesting. There are a lot of solid ideas and the pieces for a great game, sure. But they were put together by a monkey with Down Syndrome…and, judging by the PS2-quality graphics, that monkey was blind as well.

Poor monkey…someone should get him a better job.

Meanwhile, I’ll play some more MAG and forget about being a samurai.

For now…