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Thall Shall Not Pay; LOTRO F2P
0So it’s probably not news at this point that Lord of the Rings Online went free to play. I did spend some time with it after it went free to play and my conclusion and experience wasn’t much different from when I tried it during it’s subscription model.
It’s a decent game, pretty polished and well put together but it’s just god damn boring. I mean I get the idea that it’s Tolkien lore and that hobbits didn’t ride around on skeleton dragons and power ranger armor like WoW characters do but for fuck sake; there’s only so much walking through the Shire a man can do before you just don’t care if the hobbits get their pie’s delivered on time.
Even as free to play, I don’t know how much I’d play this; if any. Well at least until I forget why I don’t play it again in 6 months.
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
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Starcraft II
After a decade of waiting, I arrived at our local Wal-Mart at around 11:30 to pick up my copy of Starcraft II. I wandered into the electronics department to scope out the nerd gathering and see if I could sneak a copy of it without having to join in some type of geek conglomerate waiting on the game to go on sale. No such luck, about 5 or so people already there before me. So after waiting in line with about 15 other Starcraft fans; at 12:01 AM on July 27th I brought home my very own copy of the Starcraft II Collector’s Edition.
Not being sure if the beta client would just patch up to retail; I had uninstalled it earlier the day. So I went ahead and went through the retail disk installation. Kind of glad I did as the installer gave a nice recap of the story from the original Starcraft and briefly touched on Brood Wars to get you ready for the campaign that I would soon be undertaking.
I had put many of hours into the beta and was itching for some multi-player but ultimately decided to go ahead and start my Starcraft II experience with the campaign first. Greeted with Blizzard’s quality CG cinematic, my personal little SC2 launch party had started. It drops you into the story pretty quick, while there’s some very beginner tutorials available from the main screen, the game doesn’t force you to go through the normal RTS, “this is how you drag your mouse over units” type of garbage. The first few missions were simple enough, just getting your feet wet and setting the stage for the rest of the game.
Once I finished the first couple missions and was greeted with the mission “staging” area I guess I’ll call it; it became apparent this wasn’t an ordinary RTS single player campaign. Blizzard had crafted something unique and different here. They really nailed how to deliver a compelling story in an interactive way in Starcraft II. While keeping the gameplay true to RTS. The story also seems a lot more focused which I assume was the point of releasing the campaigns as 3 seperate games (and of course more $$$). While Terran is my least favorite of the Starcraft races, I still felt completely absorbed into the story of Jim Raynor and his fight against the Dominion which I credit to the storytelling.
The stories core is pretty simple and a little cliché at times but it’s still very enjoyable. It’s the delivery and presentation that makes it work so well I think. The campaign is not terribly long, maybe 10 hours or so on my first playthrough on Normal difficulty (including the “secret mission”). The achievements in the game are actually sort of compelling which is a nice change from normal Xbox/WoW achievements. It’s not so much appealing for me to collect them for the sake of it, but they’re almost like little challenges like beating a mission on Hard in a restricted time frame. It makes me say, “hmm, I bet I can do that.” This gives the game some re-playability outside of just the multi-player.
There is also a “Challenge” mode in the game which is sort of interesting. It basically gives you a handful of units to use, some situations or units to fight and tested you on your method of successfully dealing with various situations. Almost like a training mode for the crap you’ll run into in multi-player. Of course there’s also the multi-player itself which will be an ongoing discussion here on Orboro.net so not going to get into that right now.
Overall I expected Starcraft II’s single player campaign to be “good”, but what I got was something pretty “amazing”. Thank you Blizzard.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance; two birds with one stone
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Marvel Ultimate Alliance
I’ve completed both Marvel Ultimate Alliance games now for a while and had quite my fill of spandex and special power button spamming. For this review I decided to talk about both games in one post. For one, they’re too similar to really need two posts and for two, it’s efficient! So let’s get to it.
Graphics
Both games look pretty good. UA2 did look like it had a little more polish on the graphics. Like there was some additional post processing effects or something going on. Both games were pretty simple graphically but looked good enough for an action/rpg’ish style game. That’s to be expected I suppose as developers get better at optimizing for a given console. Neither game are really out to set a new bar in graphics but it’s good enough.
Sound
Honestly, there’s the standard fair of web slinging noises and wolverine claws. The voice over work is decent on some characters while a little painful on others. Music wasn’t particularly memorable.
Story
Well, I actually kind of liked the first game’s story more. Maybe it was better characters as the villains or something, I’m not really sure. Both games are pretty simple for the story and neither are great. The second game also seemed much more linear while the first one seemed like it had more side quests and things to go do. The second game however added some decision making points throughout which affect the story slightly.
Gameplay
The gameplay of the Ultimate Alliance series is pretty much exactly the same. You’re a little super hero on the screen fighting swarms of bad guys and bosses. They drop in tons of Marvel characters in both games so if you like comics, one of your favorite characters are bound to show up somewhere in the game. My biggest beef with the gameplay and the same issue every one of my friends had when playing multi player in both games was it’s very hard to keep track of where your character is on the screen. There’s just so many characters and things flying all over the place the screen is so busy it gets a little disorientating.
The multi-player is pretty fun regardless and while both games are pretty short, it’s a decent co-op series to dump 6-8 hours into a piece.
Conclusion
Fun little games, if you can pick them up on the cheap and/or want a fun co-op game, go for it. Paying $60 though for such a short game with simple gameplay and not great storytelling, probably not in the cards.
Red Dead Redemption
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Read Dead Redemption
Anyone that has read some of my previous posts knows I’m a cheap ass and it’s not easy for me to come to terms with paying full price for new games. It’s just too much damn money for something that usually doesn’t last very long. The reviews and hype this game was getting though convinced me to bite the bullet and buy it. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I knew it was a Rockstar game so I assumed GTA the Western from the YouTube videos and comments I’ve read. In the end I found I was only partially correct.
Graphics
The look of the game is pretty stunning. I thought I was used to what the current generation consoles looked like and what they were capable of but somehow Rockstar really outdid themselves making a beautiful game that somehow runs great on the 360′s limited hardware a mile ahead of what other games are doing. While some people complained that the game’s landscape gets a little repetitive and I can see where they’d reach that conclusion, I didn’t really get tired of it. I guess it was just the atmosphere that it generated for me. I felt like a gritty ass cowboy fighting my way through the old West. Rockstar really delivered here.
Sound
The sound in the game is also amazing. The ambient Western score playing in the background of the game really added the finishing touches on an already gripping atmosphere in the game through the visuals. I thought they really nailed it but then on my way into Mexico an original lyrical song started playing and it blew me away. The sound and music really sets it apart as something on another level. It’s one of the few games I actually had to get the soundtrack to after I finished the game.
Controls
The dreaded aiming 3rd person shooter style Xbox game was going through my head while I was standing in the checkout line at Best Buy struggling with handing over $60. However the game eased my pain a little with it’s auto targeting mechanics and Fallout 3 V.A.T.S. style bullet time mechanic. While making the game a little extra easy at times, the aiming system did make it at least enjoyable to me. Not to mention you can pull off some pretty crazy gun fight antics with the Deadeye system. Other than the aiming, it’s pretty standard fair for controls. The horse riding controls seemed interesting enough although there is a good bit of riding around in the game, the awesome visuals and soundtrack make it bearable to do so much traveling.
Story
With the visuals, sound and controls all coming together well to make an excellent experience, the heart of Read Dead Redemption lies in it’s absolutely great storytelling. Great writing and voice over work created a compelling story of a old gritty cowboy coming to the end of his era and fighting for redemption (there’s a point to the name of the game) with his life and his family. The story of this game raises the bar for other games in the future and it’s delivery and quality is going to be talked about for quite a while.
Multi-player
I didn’t really worry about the multi-player until I finished the single player story. Mostly because I couldn’t stop playing it. I did get a bit of time with it though once I finished the story. Multi-player has a couple different modes. The first is a open ended almost mini-MMORPG mode where you can level up to earn better guns/horses and work with (or against) other group’s posse’s to take out gang hideouts and complete mini-objectives in the RDR world. Hilariously your starting character at level 1 doesn’t even get a horse, he rides around a donkey with the expected sounds that should be associated with such donkey intact. The more traditional 3rd person shooter modes exist also such as team deathmatch shootouts and the like. All of these taking place in the Read Dead Redemption setting with the Western style behind them make for a pretty good time. This gives the game some solid value after the completion of the story mode.
Conclusion
Most of my game adventures are played over the course of a few weeks once I decide to commit and finish a game. 20 hours of Read Dead Redemption took place for me in about 4 days. That says something, at least to me; about the quality of this game. As a complete package, Read Dead Redemption is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in the last 10 years. Between the mini-games, solid story, and value added mutli-player; it’s going to be hard to dethrone this as game of the year. Unfortunately for RDR; Starcraft 2 is releasing this year also else there would probably be no competition for it. Regardless RDR is an experience no gamer should miss. My original impression would be a GTA Western, when I said I was partially correct – it does bring a lot of mechanics and feel from GTA but with a level of storytelling and atmosphere that sets it apart and in my opinion makes it superior in every way. Also the ending isn’t quite when you expect it to be. It’s not over till the credits roll.
Into the Battlefield of Bad Company 2
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Battlefield Bad Company 2
It’s pretty rare that I buy a game on release day as I don’t typically buy into the hype of most mainstream games, or at least try not to. I decided to give Bad Company 2 a try. I’ve been looking for a good FPS since I played Call of Duty: Modern Ware (the first one). Modern Warfare 2 was simply not an option for me. Infinity Ward/Activision’s practices regarding the PC release were unacceptable to me and I decided against buying it even though it went on to sell like hotcakes because of the hype surrounding it. Most people I talk to that that did buy find it pretty lackluster overall so if nothing else it’s a good example of what an aggressive marketing campaign can yield for you. The slanted reviews giving it an almost perfect score on most major gaming sites also bring a lot into question about the integrity of these sources but that’s another topic.
So anyway, I had the urge to shoot people in the face so I decided to pickup the latest entry into the Battlefield series. Battlefield games were always pretty decent to me, I played the original 1942 and Vietnam games and thought they were pretty good. Fair warning: If you’re playing with me and see me get into a helicopter, under no circumstance should you ride in it. There’s a 98.7% chance we will be crashing into the side of a mountain together if you do.
On my way home I decided to pick up the game at my local Best Buy. I’ve been buying stuff on Steam lately but I didn’t feel like waiting for the client to download so figured I’d pickup a hard copy for once. Installed and patched up without issue and decided to start the single player campaign first to get all my graphic settings tweaked and such. The age of my PC started showing on this game pretty good. It’s a beautiful game but you’re not going to get by on budget hardware if you want all the bells and whistles. The engine scaled down pretty well for me on medium settings, still looking impressive but yielding a playable frame rate.
I didn’t stick with the single player campaign too long on the first night. Just got introduced to the characters and then decided to jump into some multiplayer since that’s what I really bought the game for. Things were a little rocky the first few days with EA’s servers having a lot of problems and various dedicated servers not being updated to the correct PunkBuster versions. Overall, things smoothed out over the first week though and the multi-player is pretty fun.
My current stats:
So I’m not great but I’ve been improving. Been playing most Assault or Medic depending on what is needed more so far. Some games are a little sniper heavy with people trying to pad their k/d ratio’s but most of the matches are still fun.
I did finish the single player campaign as well, it’s pretty standard fare for these types of games so nothing with really knock your socks off in the story but it’s presented well and it’s good enough for a little 5 hour or so side game.
Overall, was a pretty good return to FPS games and will continue to play it off and on for a good while.
Spidey: Web of Shadows
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Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
If you’re looking for a web slinging video game fix, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows might be what you’re looking for. On my quest to find good games cheap, I ended up picking up Web of Shadows on Amazon used for $12 or so. Being a Spider-Man fan and looking for a new game to play, I decided to give it a try.
Most of the Spider-Man games I’ve tried in the past were pretty pathetic really. Usually just trying to leech off of the success of the Rami movies. In fact I don’t remember a good Spider-Man since Sega Genesis. So it was pretty surprising that Web of Shadows actually turned out to be pretty fun and well done in most areas.
First and most importantly in my opinion for a Spider-Man game – the web slinging is actually well done and interesting in this game. That was the first thing that immediately caught my attention. It’s pretty damn fun just swinging around in the city beating up criminals. It’s very acrobatic and cinematic feeling and my favorite feature of the game.
Web of Shadows let you play the game with some moral choices affecting the game. You can either use the black (symbiote) suit or the classic red (and blue) suit. You also are prompted to make different decisions at certain points of the game and you can either choose the black (evil) response or the red (good) response. I choose to play through the game as “good” although there were a few times when the choice was pretty hard to stick with. I’m finding that my moral compass in these decisions doesn’t always match up with my intended play-through.
The combat is pretty damn good. It’s very fast paced and the differences between the black suit and red suit are noticeable. The red suit is more classic, fast, acrobatic style Spider-Man while the black suit is much more aggressive and powerful in it’s attacks. Both suits have their uses in the game and while I liked the flashy moves of the red suit by about half way through I was favoring the black suit’s “get over here” move to much to really use the red suit anymore.
There are a lot of aerial, fighting above the skyline fights in the game that make things pretty fun to watch and play. Overall, between the swinging and combat style of the game, it’s worth it alone.
The story starts off seeming decent but quickly gets drawn out and predictable. Also, Mary Jane appears to be a complete hoe-bag now also. Kind of strange.
There are some issues with the game. Twice the game became unplayable for me. One time in my wolverine fight, my Spider-Man just froze in place and no buttons would respond anymore. I just had to wait for the bad guys to kill me off and reload my save. The other time, Rhino got stuck in the wall and wouldn’t move. Had to reset the game and reload my save point. Besides these few bugs and the camera being pretty wonky at times I found the game to be good overall.
Worth picking up if you want some web slinging, fast paced fighting. I’ll keep an eye on these developers for any other games I might want to pick up.
My experience with the Pip-Boy 3000
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Exploring the Capital Wasteland
Last November I decided to revisit single player RPGs and to try and catch up with the rest of the gaming world and had heard about a couple different games that were good, Mass Effect and Fallout 3. I ended up ordering both of them and started playing through Mass Effect initially and my first impressions were going well but decided to give Fallout 3 a spin just to make sure the disc and such worked (I buy used games usually – no way in hell I’m forking over $60 for a game unless it’s AMAZING beyond belief or it at least tricks me into thinking it is. Right Tekken 6? *grumble*). Well, my Mass Effect disc was probably pretty lonely for the next 35′ish gaming hours because I played Fallout 3 pretty exclusively on my Xbox from there on till I finished it.
I did end up choosing the Xbox version over the PC version for the ability to sit around on my couch and felt I could enjoy the game more playing in my living room instead of sitting at my computer desk. There is a mod SDK for the PC version which gives it some more variety and options over the 360 though so I’m not sure if I made the right choice there but I enjoyed the game regardless so I wasn’t too worried about it.
Story
The story of Fallout was pretty compelling for a video game and the ability for your decisions to affect the outcome of some things in the game is a welcome feature. There’s actually a consequence for being a saint in a disturbing wasteland or being a complete douche. I opted for sort of a middle-ground, slightly “good” character but didn’t really take shit from the NPC’s either and my moral compass did slip a few times and got impatient with something and just slaughtered someone to steal a quest item or objective or whatever.
The main story line seemed like it was in line with my “good guy” attempt at playing the game and while there was some predictable events through the main story, some of the events were pretty damn cool also which left a pretty fulfilling story experience.
Graphics
The graphics in Fallout 3 were just plain good. The weapons, characters and everything was well modeled and looked great. I thought I’d get pretty tired of the wasteland themed desert look and it turned out I was right but it took a lot longer than I thought to reach that point so it beat my expectation there. I haven’t really ran into many new games that have bad graphics and it seems one of the main reasons for the huge budgets of these games these days.
Gameplay
More aiming on a console controller. This was one of the other reasons I started second guessing my decision but Fallout’s new VAT targetting system makes the console aiming pretty bearable for my PC gamer roots. The VAT’s targeting system allows you to sort of pause the fire fight and lock on to specific parts of your enemy, like shooting their leg to keep them from running from you or towards you, etc. I found myself using this system quite a bit through the game.
Conclusion
Overall, Fallout 3 was an excellent RPG experience and am now looking forward to Fallout New Vegas which is coming out soon. I may get around to trying the DLC’s for Fallout 3 before then also if I can get through some of my backlog of games. If you haven’t played Fallout 3, what are you waiting for?