Tag Archives: PC

Jan 06 2010
Games

Borderlands

I did enjoy Diablo and Diablo II.  I think I enjoyed them to the point where I actually wore out a mouse from clicking, which was probably the worst part of the Diablo titles.

On the other hand, I picked up Torchlight which is basically Diablo, right down to the Soundtrack, much more streamlined, and not as annoying.

But, I’m going to talk about Borderlands now, and the references to Diablo aren’t completely apparent until I talk about guns and equipment.

Borderlands has four classes, 50 levels, and about 87 bazillion guns.  The equipment is procedurally generated, so there’s no real set list of equipment, merely modifiers for elemental types of damage, manufacturer, type of gun, magazine size, burst fire rate, melee damage bonuses—the list goes on, but you can see how you would end up with lots and lots of different guns.

Borderlands is so much fun that I have beat it.  And gone back to play it again on the harder difficulty.  I have 90% of the Achievements for it for the Xbox 360 version, including the ones for the Zombie Island DLC.  That almost never happens.  I’m also playing it again on the PC with some friends who only got the PC version.  So it’s kind of embarrassing how much I’ve been playing this game.

It does not have the most critical acclaim for the best story, nor game mechanics, nor the graphics.  What it does have is solid, fun, and engaging gameplay.  It’s well put together.  To be honest, I think they could have gone back and actually touched the main character’s back stories a lot more.  It’s just that once the main storyline starts, it’s just a rollercoaster ride because you finish quests quickly, and often.

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Dec 29 2009
Games

Dragon Age: Origins

I have this on again, off again relationship with any game that features the Role Playing Game genre.

While I do like the stories, it’s quite often that I’ll get about 14 hours in before I find that I’m no longer engaged, and the gameplay isn’t enough for me to continue.

This has happened to me across all platforms and all varying types of RPGs.  It’s happened with Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Chrono Cross, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, The Legend Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Final Fantasy VIII through XII*, Brave Story, Rune Factory: Frontier, Persona 3, Baldur’s Gate, Oblivion,Fable II, The Witcher, Shadow Hearts, and whatever top rated, critically acclaimed or friend recommended game with the RPG acronym as one of its genre descriptors you want to add to the list, it’s probably on there as well. Continue reading →

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Jan 04 2009
Games

Revisiting Azeroth

Azeroth, of course, being the mythical land that World of WarCraft is set.

From a purely technical standpoint, they’ve streamlined a lot of things.  I’ve played a Warlock to the mid teens and was surprised at how much they’ve removed from the experience.  Just as an example, they’ve removed demon trainers from the game entirely.  Previously, you would have to purchase grimoires to teach your demon minions new skills.  Now, they just learn them as they level up with you.

That makes a lot of sense to me, from a gameplay standpoint.  I can definitely spend that virtual money on something else, and it removes another treadmill from the game.  I’d rather be cursing things and setting my demon minions on them.  I don’t have the time nor the impetus to teach them how to do that.

Also, from a sound design standpoint, they’ve decided to give them voices, instead of text chat, so that was surprising to me when I heard my voidwalker speak for the first time.  In a way, I preferred them to be silent and creepy, but this new characterization of the voidwalker isn’t a bad thing.

I haven’t gone back to my level 44 rogue, I just feel like the rogue class is something I’ll have to ease back into.  With the warlock, I didn’t have anything to unlearn from having a mid teen warlock from before.  On the other hand, trying to figure out the gameplay differences from two expansions and dozens of patches for one of my highest level characters would have been something else.

They did seem to speed up the leveling process, as I have only really played for a couple of sessions, and having leveled up two entirely different characters past 10 is fairly exciting to me.  I definitely ran into that wall the last time I played WoW.

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Dec 06 2008
Games

Persistent Growth

Persistence. I’m going to call it a feature. Three really excellent titles feature persistence this year:

  1. The World Ends With You, by Square Enix for the Nintendo DS
  2. City of Heroes, by NCSoft, for the PC (and MAC!)
  3. Fable 2, by Lionhead studios for the xbox 360

The World Ends With You had a great system of character growth. Your skills are attached to wearable pins. The more you use them, the more they level up. What was also interesting was the fact that they would earn experience when you weren’t playing, but only to a certain level cap.

In addition to being a great game, it was always a major draw to come back to it after a couple of days to check on the pins and swap them out so that other attacks could become more powerful. Even when I wasn’t playing, my characters were getting stronger. It felt like the game was going on, even when it was switched off.

In MMOs the world goes on without you regardless of whether or not you’re in it. But nothing directly happens to your character. There’s no growth–at least in most cases. (World of WarCraft toys with this idea, but it’s merely a case of accruing a period of time where you earn double “rested” XP. This is done, presumably so you can log back in and level up twice as quickly to make up for the time you’ve spent falling behind your friends who raid full time, in addition to their 40 hour a week day job.) Continue reading →

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Aug 27 2007
Games

BioShock

BioShock is the best anti objectivist essay I have ever played through.

Ultimately, that’s not a good one sentence review.

Let me try again.

“BioShock is one of the few games in my collection that has compelled me to its completion.”

In fact, I’m playing through it again, and that should tell you something else.  I’m doing it for two reasons.  One, to watch the plot develop again, knowing what I know now about the game’s protagonist and the twist that occurs roughly two thirds into the game.  Two, I’d like to see how the 360 version stacks up to the PC experience I had on my first run through.

There are hints even in the game’s opening cinematic (itself remarkable because it happens entirely in the first person point of view) that I have discovered on the second playthrough.  This second playthrough is a different affair, with the comfy chair, big screen, wireless controller and 5.1 surround.

The control is taking me a little while to get adjusted to, there’s a bit of autoaim, hacking is quite different from the PC to the 360 version, but overall the flow of the game is the same.  I’m trying a different “route” this time, just to see how it plays through, but that’s only in terms of plasmid (power) development.  I’m still rescuing the gatherers, which is the “good” choice.

I just can’t bring myself to go the other route.

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