There will be Blood

So who are the Blood Knights? I'm not sure myself but at least they gave me this rather spiffy tabard:

Beyond the Stars

Well a new game in the Starcraft 2 trilogy is upon us in the form of Heart of the Swarm. And the question I want to ask is....

...what will Blizzard have Kerrigan do this time around?

I've already spoken on how I felt cheated out of victory at the end of Starcraft 1 but I have to give Blizzard credit: With Kerrigan, they created a character that made such an impression. As a result she is written about by academics, makes popular character lists and she inspires defenders who will stand by the Queen of Blades as a knight would the Holy Grail. It's such a response that most writers can only dream of but it does place the Blizzard writing staff in a rather awkward position:

What is there left for Kerrigan to do?

She destroys Arcturus' empire, brings the Protoss empire to it's knees, obliterates the UED, cons help out of the the other characters only to betray them and consolidates her position as unchallenged ruler of the Zerg. That's quite a lot but what is there to do? After declaring herself 'Queen Bitch of the Universe' it's near impossible to imagine Kerrigan doing something decent and to keep on acting as a destroyer can only last for so long - like until the destroyer runs out of things to destroy.

Personally, I see Kerrigan being in the same boats as Kratos and Lara Croft in that they are characters whom are being handled by writers who have no idea what to do with them (though to be fair the new Tomb Raider game shows some degree of writers having a clear goal in mind). If anything, I believe all three characters could benefit with a mirror character.  You know, someone who does the same things the protagonist does to ultimately confront said protagonist with their actions. How would Lara react if someone else was hoarding artifacts to prevent an apocalyptic catastrophe? How would Kratos react if some sod challenged him over the murder of the sod's wife simply because she was in Kratos' way? And how would Kerrigan react if some other force was razing empires as well as making and breaking alliances on a whim?
In addition I still think my idea of the restored Sarah Kerrigan going out of her way to revert back to her infested state still has weight. After all, how awesome would it be that Sarah resents her previous/human state so much that she would rather stamp it out of existence completely? It would go a long way because a lot of time is spent having Infested Kerriagn acting in a ruthless/smug fashion that seeing her get angry or insulted would make for a worthwhile change of pace.

But alas I don't work for Blizzard so whatever ideas I have aren't worth jack.
Oh well....

The job that will never get done

I've never understood the Garrus fans - if anything Garrus doesn't strike me as someone you'd want to hang around with.
You'd be like: "Hey Garrus! Lets go out tonight to a bar! I bet I could drink you under the table!"
To which he'd respond: "Can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations"

Plato they say / Could stick it away

I may have returned to World of Warcraft but that doesn’t mean I can’t find the time to strike another game down from my Hall of Shame. And which title is out on their arse this time around? None other than Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis!

 As is often the case with the games I play, this is a game that I’ve waited a long time to play. I was keen on it when I first heard about in the early nineties (!!!) but it is only now that I’ve managed to sit down and have a crack at it. For a while I was beginning to worry that this game would forever be out of my reach but lo and behold it showed up on Steam (seems like signing up for it wasn’t really a bad idea).

Of course, saying I beat Fate of Atlantis doesn’t mean I am completely finished with the game itself when there are multiple paths through the game. Yes I beat the game (on the Wits path for the curious) but someday I will return to this game and try a different path. For now though there isn't much I can say about this game that hasn't already been said before: The writing is top notch and the design invested into elevates this game head and shoulders above a lot of other games in the adventure genre (seems the two years of development was truly worth it). The graphics hold up pretty well and the voice acting is great too. I went into this game with very expectations and needless to say I wasn't disappointed.

Ultimately though, this game may well be the endpoint for my interest in the LucasArts Point and Click Adventure games. I've been playing a lot of them over the past few months and I'm at a point where it may be time to try something new. Still, in my mind, playing these games have been a point of reassurance to me: For one, it proved to me that LucasArts could make something without the Star Wars brand. For two, it proved to me that LucasArts could take a risk with making a wide range of new IP. And for three, it proved to me that there certainly was a lot of creativity going on in that think-tank.
Of course, LucasArts is now owned by Disney. So not only does the House of Mouse has ownership to Star Wars but access to a incredibly rich library of games. Indeed it would be interesting to see what they will do next with it....

It's not about Tombs any more is it?

Recently I had the opportunity to try out the new Tomb Raider game. True I've never been keen on the Tomb Raider series but I was prepared to at least give this a chance. So what did I think of it?

Well I died a lot. 
Seriously I couldn't get past the one section because I kept getting killed. Maybe it's because I have a bow and arrow whilst the guys I'm trying to take out have GUNS!

Oh well....

New Blood

With my current status in WoW, I have no plans to come up with a new character. For you see I have (at last count) six characters and, as I found out, it was hard to allocate the time available between them. As such, I'm more interested in working with my veterans and getting some mileage of them.
Indeed I'm not sure how people manage to juggle more than four characters.

Still I will admit I will eventually make a up a new character and it will be most certainly be a Pandarian. If anything, I find them fascinating in a) the land they live in and b) being a force outside the Horde/Alliance conflict and thinking it all inane
Besides you can't say no to Panda:

Pachyderm heat

Oh no! I killed Babar!

(Actually no: more likely it was a malformed cousin that Celeste-ville speaks little of)

I'll tell you when I've had enough

Inspired by my recent posting of the behemoth that is my games collection, I was inspired to add more of these titles to my Raptr account. Thus my game total on Raptr stands, at time of writing, at 182.
An impressive figure to be sure but it does raise a question: How big can a gaming collection get before it becomes too much to handle? When does a gaming collection get to the point where no games whatsoever are actually getting played? My current game total has nearly doubled in size from my original plan to hunt down a particular hundred but it's come to a point where it's more about the collection than the games itself.
Hardly a good a sign.
Of course it all comes down to how much time can be invested in playing so many games - and in my case I've got far too many games and staring down a incalculable amount of time that is required to get through them all. Indeed, I can only wonder how Bajo and Hex can, on a regular basis, get through so many games, still keep a fresh perspective on them AND still whip out a weekly TV show.

But I digress. It's baffling, at least to me, how my game collection ballooned to a point where it's about the games and not actually playing them. So, in an attempt to find some answers, I used Excel to make a tally of the games I've purchased from a particular date (in this case it was January 2009 when I had a PC and a Playstation) and the source of the games in question.

The result is as follows:

So what does this tell us? Well it is unsurprisingly to see large numbers with two completely new consoles (in this case the Wii and Xbox 360) but perhaps the main offender is, of course, digital distribution: A means where many games, from no matter what their era, are easily available, can be purchased & ready to play within moments and being far, far more cheaper than games available in a store.

But to me it is yet another reminder that my Hall of Shame isn't going to go away anytime soon.
Oh well....

Cooperation makes it happen

Today I want to talk about Co-op gaming.

Having lived through many years of gaming it’s been fascinating to see how co-op gaming has evolved. At first, co-op gaming was a popular idea: during the eighties to early nineties, co-op gaming was essential during the era of the arcade game. Having trouble trying to beat any particular game? Don’t worry, get a friend and the playing field is leveled! You’ve got someone to watch your back and to develop strategies with! This mentality then carried over into the consoles and computers people had at home. Indeed, it was certainly satisfying to struggle with one game – only to have a much easier time once you talked someone else into helping you out.
And better still, if you had two more friends you could form a team and go up against the computer – as the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade (and it’s successors) proved.
In retrospect the arcade era was co-op gaming at it’s finest.

But alas it couldn’t last forever: Because, according to history, the likes of Quake and Doom dominated the mid-to-late nineties era of gaming. Suddenly everyone can play games against each other over LANs and everyone has their own computer screen.
And it’s funny how the attitude towards co-op gaming not only turned around but so drastically: based on my own experiences, everyone loved playing against each other over LANs – to the point where the mere suggestion of a co-op game would result in being laughed out of the room.
Why is this so? Maybe because, following on from the arcade era, everyone realized arcade games are essentially a money thief and thus obsolete. Or maybe the computer AI wasn’t efficient enough to cater for more than one person. But the most likely reason is that there was a certain satisfaction in blowing away a human opponent – This was, after all, the era that spawned the term deathmatch.
During this era of gaming, I personally both tried co-op and deathmatch gaming. I found the former to be due and the latter to be trampled upon by someone who knew what they were doing (Stadium level of Duke Nukem 3D anyone?).

However in recent years  it seems that co-op gaming is enjoying something of a resurgence. Mostly due to online gaming where many people can come together and work together to achieve a goal. Of course deathmatches are still the sole domain of LAN parties, but it certainly is satisfying to see that people realizing, again, that to beat a game it helps to have someone watching your back. Indeed, it makes for an interest contrast where co-op gaming builds friendships while deathmatches wrecks friendships.

This presents an interesting question: is there a future for co-op gaming? It can be argued that once you beat a game, with or without help, there’s not much left to it. Indeed, with what could well be the king of gaming co-op, World of Warcraft, that has lasted so long through it being well-designed and having a stream of regular updates added to it. It is doubtful that there will ever be an end to co-op gaming in WoW considering the amount of quests available and the time it takes to get to (at time of writing) level 90. But ultimately World of Warcaft is a MMPORG: Which is more or less a complete genre where co-op gaming is a dominating force - much like how deathmatches dominate LAN parties. In a way it seems MMPORG gaming seems much like an evolution from the co-op gaming that was the arcade era.

I’ve seen certain games trying to carry the standard for co-op gaming in a different manner (Resident Evil 5 being one such example) but is there much point? For, as established above, the attention of the gamer can only last so long and the lasting power of a co-op game seems reliant on how much new material can be delivered. Furthermore, a co-op game truly works when the players have to work together and each player can provide something unique that contributes to victory. And to find examples of this, one has to look back to the arcade/early-nineties era. The best example of co-op done right is the Chaos Engine – for the unfamiliar, it was about guiding a two man team against a horde of mutants and really emphasized the co-op nature with each selectable character having unique weapons and abilities and both players being rated on how much they contributed to the objective.

Also noteworthy is the arcade game Crackdown where two players operated separately in laying bombs in a monster-filled maze before time ran out – it works because the two players were working for the same goal and could operate without being joined at the hip (something that should any potential co-op games should consider in their design scheme).

So it would seem co-op games can work – it just requires a lot of thought and some clever design. And as nay gamer will tell you any clever design will win anyone over. Even those who aren’t normally associated with any particular gaming genre.

Welcome to Pandaland

Well it happened: Earlier this week I took my first tentative steps into Pandaria.

So far, my initial reaction has been mixed: On one hand there is a lot of combat - as a result, I found myself swamped with enemies at every turn. It grew quite frustrating to get anywhere without someone or something showing up to take a swing. In fact in that one session my Hunter Pet Wolf died more times then any other. This bogged down the combat and came across as being a slog and tedious.
But on the other hand, the setting is proving to be enjoyable. I like the environments and the surroundings. In addition, the Pandas certainly have a lot of personality - mostly out of being irate at the unwelcome arrival of the Horde and the Alliance and the futility of the ongoing conflict (and the Pandas think they can break it up? There's wishful thinking). I also like how items can change appearance with different classes.

Still this is only the beginning - Only time will tell if Pandaria will stand on it's own two feet or prove to be another iteration of my belief that the further you get from Azeroth, the less interesting WoW becomes. Stay tuned....

Subversion

I'm not into horror games but I can enjoy them IF they are done right. For you see, unlike movies or books, horror games have a distinct advantage in that the player is an active participant. Thus horror that work are they type the eschew sudden shocks and emphasis mood. It's a platform where the age-old rule of 'it's what you don't see' is truly in it's element. Which is more scary in a horror game - being chased by an axe-murderer or the player thinking that they're being chased by an axe-murderer?
Better still are horror games that establish one perception and gradually pull the rug from underneath the player. Where everything looks friendly and inviting at first and eventually erodes away leaving a sense of despair, discomfort and unease. Thus if a game can make people physically look over their shoulders whilst playing then it is doing something right. If a game can make people uncomfortable enough to stop playing playing then it is doing something right. And if a game can build up such an intense mood without resorting to sudden shocks then it must be doing something right.

Anyway, yesterday I struck another game from my Hall of Shame: Eversion!
Boy, was that a fun game

Drop the Bomb

I recently read that SquareEnix is currently in a rather precarious position: Following the flop that was Final Fantasy XIV, the once revered JRPG company is in the position where if yet another flop comes along, it'll be curtains for SquareEnix as a whole.

Personally, I hope such a thing does come about. Yeah that's right: I sincerely hope that SqueeEnix does close it's doors for good and we can all move on. Sure that may not be an opinion shared by a group of people who vastly outnumber me but I speak as someone who's realized that the glory days of SqueeEnix are well & truly past and it's unlikely they will ever get back on their feet again.

Call me a cynic (or a heretic) but it is a somewhat realistic approach: SquareEnix is not the giant it once was and it's continued presence is looking more like a deadweight. Why? Well several reasons actually:
Key figures within the company have left the company and struck on their own (in the form of Mistwalker and Monolith Soft); no new talent is being groomed or developed in the wake of the aforementioned departures; the company is sticking to their RPGs and not trying (or, more accurately, risking) anything new; the possibility of a Kingdom Hearts 3 game is looking unlikely with each passing year; and SqueeEnix seems to be running on established ideas with it's recent involvement in the recent Tomb Raider and Deus Ex games. All of which suggests that SqueeEnix seem unwilling to try/risk new ideas and/or get some new blood into the stable.

So maybe it is time to move on: If SqueeEnix aren't prepared to try something new and would rather keep milking the cash cows of previous successes then maybe it is time to let it die in peace. The world has changed considerably since 1997-2000 and instead of basking in nostalgia how about finding something new you haven't discovered before? Who knows, you might actually find something enjoyable.

______________

Addendum:
To those who still want a FF7 remake: You're not helping. Yes we get the idea that Final Fantasy 7 may well have been the zenith of JRPGs but there are other games out there - including JRPGs - so you should at least give them a chance (apparently Xenoblade Chronicles is really good). Besides, it's better to got out and explore than giving up completely right?
And besides, if you keep claiming that doing an update of a 2d-game-done-3d in modern tech can be done then how about producing some evidence to back it up?

Gotta Catch Them All

Well folks here we are: post no. 400 in this blog. When I started this blog back in 2010 I had no idea I would last this long. I'm still not sure myself: Am I still finding plenty to say? Or am I just being to dumb to quit?

But I digress. Four hundred posts is still quite an achievement and so I intend to do something to celebrate. How? By posting an image of my gaming collection!

No just kidding. Here's the real image(s):

 

Those who've been following my blog would know that this collection was started in 2006. So what this is the end result of seven years of work. Not bad eh? 

Also, some of you may recall a pair of posts I did, dating back to the beginning of this blog, where I listed the games I owned. Since then, this list has changed dramatically with titles being added, other titles removed and, in some cases, titles changing system and even physical formats.

However these photos represent half of the collection: This is not taking into account the games I have on the Virtual Console, XBLA, Steam and the other games I purchased in digital format (the latter however is somewhat represented through the presence of the disks out front). And in fact now that I think about it, what these photos may represent is the end of the era of games being on a physical format. Sure building up a gaming collection like this one may be impressive but why would you do it when the digital offerings have many more advantages with easy acquisition, cheaper prices and much less physical storage space?

Still even if the age of gaming as a physical format were to end tomorrow, at least it was fun while it lasted...

Anywho, here's to 400 posts!