First Impressions: Blackwell Legacy (PC)

I've mentioned in the past that I have a subscription to the google + account of Indie Game News, wherefrom I get a lot of my favorite Pak Watch featured games.  One thing I have noticed about Indie Game News is that they report a lot about point and click adventure games.  For this reason, I have paid more attention to that particular genre of late, and It has piqued my interest.  I pitched the idea of playing an adventure game to Jane, and she was really into the idea.  I review the best rated games at Adventure Game Studio, and settled on Blackwell Legacy.  Jane approved of my choice, and we started playing.

So far, so good.  The writing and voice acting is solid, though it takes a minute to get used to the sort of stiff flow of conversation that happens by necessity when you control the flow of scripted conversation.  It's really fun to play two-players, putting our heads together and solving puzzles.

That said, the game falls into the same problem so many games fall into:  when you can't solve a puzzle, and you just click on everything in one location, go to another location, click everything there.  Go back to the previous location, click things, talk your way through every conversation tree.  Check gamefaqs.  The answer is just some small detail you neglected, and thank god the game has begun to flow again.

When it is flowing, Blackwell legacy has interesting characters and a compelling story.  I happily anticipate the next time we get to play it.

-D

First Impressions: Dead Island Riptide (PC)

This has been a combination of my experiences playing the game so far.

Images like these:

Coupled with frequent noises like this:

The noise that I recorded is only at 80 dB whereas it can jump at random (as if this isn't random enough) to 120 dB.  This is what I have read from various sources online as I do not actually own a decibel meter. No I do not have one on my phone.

My last session lasted an hour so that I could get an idea how often the screeching static noise would last and how frequently it would grace me with its presence, so in an unscientific manner, here is what I recorded:

7:07 minutes of no noise

0:43 seconds of noise

3:12 no noise

2:29 minutes of noise

0:26 no noise

3:38 minutes of noise

1:44 no noise

6:29 minutes of noise

1:13 no noise

5:21 minutes of noise

0:35 no noise

2:27 minutes of noise

0:02 no noise

0:03 seconds of noise

12:59 (unknown as the volume was turned off).

Týr knows why, but I've presently put five hours into this game even with the sound effects volume in-game turned down to practically nil and even then, the sound (120 dB) will still poke it's ugly head out of my speakers.

Last week (as 0f when I wrote this back in December) I contacted tech support at Deep Silver relating my problem to them to see if they knew what was going on.  I was then prompted to run a diagnostic tool and email them the results so they could have a better idea as to the specs of my computer and what I was dealing with.  I felt perfectly fine doing this as I did something very similar when I applied for the Elder Scrolls Online Beta request.  Within 24 hours I received a straightforward reply which suggested that I update my drivers, which I hadn't realized that I hadn't updated in a while.  So I followed the supplied links and was able to download three of the five drivers.  The two sound card drivers I was not able to download/install  as they are integrated drivers and even knowing the manufacturer and name, I could not locate the correct driver to download.

So I went back to the game with bright polished up video drivers hoping against hope that my problems were fixed.  The game played fine for about eight minutes before the screeching wail of dying souls and banished ear drums returned to mock my computer and mine own ears.  I played for maybe another 15 minutes before ultimately giving up.

I do not know if I will be going back to Dead Island: Riptide anytime soon as it is the only game that seems to have a problem with my apparently lackluster sound card.  Even games that have come out more recently than April 2013 have operated fine without any sound issues.  Maybe after I acquire my next computer (do not know what that will be) I will come back and see if my experience improves.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental

First Impressions (Of Sorts): Weapon Shop de Omasse (3DS)

"In the world of RPGs, many heroes arise, but someone's got to make their weapons."  That's the tagline and hook for the 3DS eShop game, Weapon Shop de Omasse from developers, Level-5 (Professor Layton series).  The premise is a pretty simple one and is stated in the tagline: you are a blacksmith (actually the apprentice to the blacksmith) and are making weapons in a village during a typical JRPG setting: in that the Dark Lord has returned after being defeated 50 years prior.  It's your job to create the weapons (which vary among daggers, swords, spears, axes, katanas and the like).

I credit in large part my history with "traditional" JRPGs such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior/Quest and Paladin's Quest for easily falling into this game, similar to how I was able to buy into the gameplay and aesthetic of Witch and Hero. If you aren't immediately okay with the idea that there is an absolute evil and that there are people out questing AND that the game makes light of this common convention, then this probably won't be the game for you.

Gameplay is a mix between overly simplified blacksmith simulation crossbred with a rhythm game with a bit of multitasking (keeping the temperature of the metal between the correct temperature) thrown in for good measure.  You also have to keep track of your blacksmithing materials, which weapons you have already created and who has which weapon out on a quest.

There are also some rather divergent elements to this game that are not a part of most RPGs.You are in charge of selecting the proper weapon for your customers which means looking at the weakness of the monster they are going after along with their personal preference for a certain type of weapon.  You are also in charge of polishing the weapons after they are made and when they return in order, I think, to help level up the weapons.  The most "different" thing is that weapons are rented as opposed to sold.  It sounds very odd, and even the characters in-game comment on how odd this is for a village blacksmith in an RPG game to be doing, but that's one of the game mechanics and it works pretty well.

There have been times between customers coming into the store that I wish I had time to craft some of the newly available weapons (due to new materials coming into the shop), but the store is just too busy.  Then there's downtime, which is something that exists in nearly every job.  I have created all the weapons that I needed to, all the weapons have been polished, the store is stocked with enough materials for additional smithing if need be. . . there's just nothing to do.  So your character just hangs around the store while you, the player, reads from the Grindcast (a twitterfeed-type device that lets you read about what the heros/NPCs are doing while they're out with one of the weapons they've rented from your store.

Presently, I've put almost four hours into this game and while entertained, there hadn't been that moment that often happens in games where you just sit back and are like, "Wow. . . huh."  That happened last night for me.  I had finished crafting a handful of new weapons, some of which came out dull (and I'm still trying to figure out why) and I knew that my (in-game) Grandma was coming by to pick up a weapon for a specific type of enemy.  Well, she showed up a lot sooner than I had thought, but I had just crafted a new type of axe that would give her a 60% chance of success so I rented it to her.  It wasn't until after she left that I went back to polishing some weapons when I realized that I had rented my Grandmother an unpolished weapon.  I felt shame.  That I had let my Grandmother leave a store that her grandchild worked at with an axe that I had failed to make as presentable as possible (I am just a little bit afraid that she's going to bring this fact up when she returns the weapon).  That was when I knew for sure that this game had it's proverbial hooks in me.

There is still a lot that I have not covered (artwork, music, spoken dialogue, written script, more in depth of the Grindcast, et cetera) and that will have to wait for the Full Review to come whenever I finish the game, which will definitely happen.  The game, unfortunately, is no longer on sale through the eShop, but I would have been happy if I had paid full price, even though the fact that it was on sale is what made me purchase the game, but if you're still on the fence, the demo is available and gives a great example of what the rest of the game would play like.  I highly recommend it.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

One Song We Share

First Impressions: Dark Souls - Prepare to Die Edition (PC)

So there is this game that I have heard a lot of talk about for the past year or two and last year when I saw it on sale through one Steam sale or another, I thought I would pick it up.  The idea of playing in a fantasy world with massive bosses that would be pretty difficult seemed appealing.  There was also something about a dark atmosphere and/or setting that peaked my interest as well.  Dark Souls is this game.  Dark Souls II was also brought up in a recent episode of Extra Credits, which I think the real inspiration to give this game a go came from.

Sometime last week after Conklederp had finished playing Skyrim for the night, I thought I'd start up Dark Souls as my mouse was on the other side of the room and when I first booted up the game a few months back, I knew that it would be a game that I would have to play with a controller; just take a look at the keyboard configurations required:

and

and

I felt like I was looking at keyboard set up for a flight simulator (I'm looking at you DCS World).  Just the fact that there were separate keyboard commands for the camera movement was one of the key factors for me playing the game with the controller.  Because of Goldeneye 007, I knew that I could not personally move around a camera/field of vision with buttons, the controls had to either be a mouse or a joystick.  I am simply not that coordinated.

Once I got to this stage, it was time to create a character.  Jump to me now playing my fourth character (female knight for those who want to know), and I now feel like I did something wrong in the item picking stage.  I chose the "Tiny Being's Ring" as the description said that it would increase HP slowly over time, which I read to be that your HP regenerates.  As it turns out, "Tiny Being's Ring" only increases your existing HP by 5%.  Maybe I should have chosen an item that better suited towards being a knight?  The Internets are apparently telling me that the Master Key is the item to go with for almost every class (except the Thief, which it comes equipped with).  Blarg.

Presently I am about three and-a-half hours into the game and I could not really tell you the storyline.  There is an intro cinematic that went into the an origin story of some god-like figures and their war against the dragons (who are made of rock/stone) with the help of one scaleless dragon.  The game starts with your character waking up/coming to after being tossed in a dungeon cell.  And you are already dead.  Apparently being dead is something that remains constant during the game and I do not just mean that you die a lot, which also does happen quite frequently.  You do have the ability to make yourself whole or human (ie: not dead, I think), but the reason to do that is to be "taken over" by other people playing online, or so that you can team up with other people who are also playing online, I am not really sure on either point as nothing was mentioned in-game about this.

What this all boils down to, is that I do not get this game.  Yes, it is a beautifully created game with some wonderful vistas and the architecture of the structures is massive and imposing.  If it was not that I was dying/being killed every 20 minutes, I would probably be having more fun.  Additionally, dying would not be that big of an issue if all the souls collected from killing hollows (aka: enemies) were not "lost" after you are killed, but that seems to be a core aspect of the game.  Granted, those souls could be picked back up if you make it back to the spot where you died to retrieve them, but all the enemies have also respawned.  The enemies always respawn any time you rest/heal at a bonfire (which also acts as a checkpoint).  

Screen cap during my third character who was a male warrior; not the female knight I keep referring to.

At this point, I want to progress with the game, but I feel that I am just too weak to venture out far enough so that I am not killing the same 10 enemies over and over.  Grinding required?  Three hours with this one character, seven hours overall and again, I do not understand this game.  I find it very frustrating venturing out into this demonized world only far enough to kill a handful of enemies before having to trudge all the way back to the closest bonfire, save and then deal with the exact same enemies all over again.

I also apparently do not understand ranged combat in this game.  From what I have experienced, in order to fire your ranged weapon (knives, crossbow, long bow), you have to lock on to your target, but you are unable to lock onto enemies who the game considers to be too far away.  Which defeats the purpose of having a bow, at least in my opinion.  Enemies on the other hand will chuck firebombs (clay jars filled with oil that are set on fire) indefinitely at you because of course they do.

Hand-to-hand combat is also something that I have an issue with.  Each character has a standard and powerful attack.  Each class (at least between the warrior and the knight) has different animations for their attacks, but it is the same every time.  I found this out while doing a strong attack with the knight.  The knight's strong attack is a lunge forward while swinging the sword across the horizon from back to front.  Every time.  Whereas the warrior lunges with his sword in a lunging motion.  I found this very worrisome considering that a fair portion of the combat takes place around cliffs, precipices and rooftops.  And you can very easily fall off while being surrounded in a cloud of flame thrown from a pyromancer and being attacked by some measly grunt and all you are trying to do is kill said pyromancer and in the course of the game catching up with the last time you pressed the attack button, the young knight plummets off the rooftop to die some hundred feet below.

You can also fall/die in large pools of water where your bloodstain will not show up, because fucking Dark Souls.  Also it makes sense that a bloodstain would not be floating on a body of water.

If you could not tell, I am not sure if I will continue with this game.  I know there will be (are) people who will say that the game is not about story, that it is a hack-and-slash that is supposed to be difficult and that you have to play at least 10 hours before the game starts getting good.  Maybe I am just getting old when feel that I do not have 10 hours to spend on a game to figure out if I like it or not.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

To Save Us All From Satan's Power

P.S.  And in the point between writing this article and its posting, I have created two additional characters, a male pyromancer and a female sorcerer to get a feel for the magick based characters and see if I enjoy the game even more.  Týr knows why I keep giving this game a chance.  Maybe it does have it hooks in me and I just don't know it yet.

First Impressions: Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens Teaser Trailer

I guess this would be an odd first impressions article since it's based off of a minute and twenty-eight second teaser trailer, but that was the best way I could figure to describe today's article.  Sure I might be jumping on a bandwagon if I already wasn't excited about next years installment in the Star Wars franchise.  So, for today's post, I wanted to break down the short 1m28s teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens because it came out a number of hours ago, but less than 24.  

Now, I'm not going to give you a frame-by-frame analysis and tell you that the real Millennium Falcon didn't have that buffer panel next to the radar dish in the original trilogy because I don't tend to notice things like that.  I'm also not going to be making sweeping declarations about how each scene figures into the plot as I really don't know.  I'm not up to date with my Star Wars lore.  I just want to talk about something that has captured my imagination (sigh, clichés) since I first saw Return of the Jedi back in 1983 (at the State Theatre in Woodland, CA).

But first off, watch the trailer (again), this being the real one from the Star Wars people and not one of umteen thousands that were fake and propagated the pages of every social networking site for the past month:

Now, I'm not going to be making assumptions as to who specific characters are, how they relate to each other and the returning cast from the original trilogy.  To note, I've never read any of the books in the Star Wars universe.  The last Star Wars video game I played was Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2.  I'm just going to talk about what I noticed in an almost purely non-contextual way.

Oh, and all of the sights and sounds contained herein are the property of Disney, Lucas Film and those types.

So there's this desert here right.  Probably Tatooine since that's the main (only) desert planet that the audience is associated with.  And there's a dark gruff British voice over that at first (as well as second, third, forth, fifth, etc) listen sounds a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch.  He's not in the cast listing over at IMDb.  Maybe J.J. Abrams just had him record some script lines for trailers and such?

Then there's this guy.  Who is this guy?  I don't know.  Am I supposed to know who he is since he's the first face in this trailer?  Again, no idea.  But he's in a stormtrooper outfit, apparently very frightened and on the run.  Very briefly you can hear the Imperial probe droid noise before the scene cuts to:

what looks to be an R2 unit head on top of a soccer ball.  I would like to think that it's all a single unit, kind of like a mix between the Dyson Ball, a Roomba and an R2 unit.  But where's this little feller off to?  I don't know.  What are those machines in the background?  One looks like a ship.  Was that a ship that was used/mentioned in that one book "Crosscurrent" that had something to do with a Jedi?  Maybe, I just made that reference up.

Then there's an obligatory multi-shot of stormtroopers that look like they're about to jump out of a plane.  Kind of like the beginning of that Godzilla trailer, but you know, at night time.  I think the helmets look a little bit different than they do in the original trilogy.  That's fine.  Things change over time, especially when your second space station gets blown up by a rag-tag group of rebels.

And here's this woman on a hoverbike transportation device thing.  It might be Tatooine again since there's sand, but that's all I can tell you.  I don't even know her connection to the story, just that she makes an appearance here and rides off towards a settlement.  I will say that it didn't look like she put down her goggles before speeding off and that thing probably kicks up a bit of dirt.  Remember, safety first.

This shot is when I got goosebumps.  I'm sure I did anyway.  But it just looks awesome.  I'm sure this shot is 60%+ CG and I'm fine with that.  I don't expect us to have functioning X-Wings for at least another 11 years.  It looks good though.  I'm also fine with X-Wings flying this low as I would do similar "maneuvers" while playing any one of the Rogue Squadron games.

And as much as people make fun of J.J. Abrams for using lens flares, this is probably the closet the trailer gets to a real life genuine lens flare, out here in the wild.

And then there's a Sith guy, trudging through the snow in a black cloak (which isn't great if you're trying to stay hidden in the snow) with a lightsaber.  A lightsaber that apparently has a little lightsaber crossguard.  Part of me thinks that this shot was included to be like the Darth Maul shot from The Phantom Menace, but less dramatic.  I've read over on reddit that crossguards are mentioned in the books so it's not 100% new or out of place.  I just think it looks a lot like a claymore.

Other people have also commented on the weird looking saber-ness of the lightsabers.  I personally just chalk it up to either being a jerry rigged lightsaber or maybe the force isn't strong enough with this one to maintain a strong beam.  Is that a thing?  Is lightsaber strength based on ones power with the force?

The voice also makes a return here and now I am less convinced that it is Benedict Cumberbatch.  Less British somehow.

And finally we have a sequence that kicks off the Star Wars fanfare with a sequence centered on the Millennium Falcon that does a flip/loop-the-loop! over sand dunes (Tatooine again?) while making a charge towards a pair of Tie Fighters.  There is now spoken dialogue from either Han or Chewie (growl or otherwise) so who knows who is piloting the Falcon.  It's a pretty awesome sequence to watch as I get a little dizzy.

I would say this is probably the most exciting part of the teaser for me since, with the exception of the desert opening, is the longest uncut section, lasting a whole 7.71 seconds.  Plus there's the fanfare by John Williams.

Lastly, there's the cut to the Star Wars titles along with the subtitle of "The Force Awakens."  I'm not about to analyze what the title means in relation to the Star Wars universe and all that I care about right now is that I like it.  It's a catchy title that has caught my attention, unlike "The Clone Wars," which just didn't sit right with me.

As the screen goes dark, there's a quick sound effect of a lightsaber being drawn.  I couldn't tell you which faction of lightsaber it belonged to, Sith or Jedi and I'm sure there's someone out there who knows if there is indeed a difference in the sounds that the lightsabers make.  Again, I'm just guessing and not making fun of the people who do notice/know if these little details exist.

So after a lot of speculation, we now have 56 seconds of visuals from the new Star Wars movie that is slated to be released in December 2015.  I can wait.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Behold Me Now

First Impressions: Mansions of Madness (Board Game)

Conklederp and I received Mansions of Madness from Salty Liver and her newly acquired hubby for our own wedding, which will be taking place in less than two weeks.  Last night, we finally broke into this monster of a game.

One of the main reasons why I wanted to play this game in particular was because despite its size as a board game, it can be played with only two players without losing any of the attempts to create fear and dread.  The other reason I wanted to play Mansions of Madness was because it is based on various stories by H.P. Lovecraft and I have already covered my issues with playing games based on Lovecraft with groups of people unfamiliar Lovecraftian mythos.  So far, knowledge of Lovecrafts stories do not seem to be dependent on having fun with this game.

That being said, Mansions of Madness is an overwhelming game.  Just look at everything that is included with this beast as mere word could not do it justice:

Picture courtesy of: http://www.beastsofwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Mansions-of-Madness-1.jpg

The board is made up of double sided heavy-duty cardboard with wonderfully detailed rooms with hallway sized rectangular pieces, large room square pieces (hallway x 2) and one large main hall/front yard piece (hallway x 3).  There are I don't know how many permutations that could be created with these pieces.

Anyway, we are here to briefly talk about the hour long play session that Conklederp had last night.  We did not finish either, but came very close.

I played as The Keeper (the DM in D&D terms) while Conklederp played as the one Investigator (PC in D&D).  Being out first time playing, there were quite a few moments when I had to look at the rules to know what to do with certain cards (if an artifact could be kept after being used or had to be discarded), if the Investigator could search a room when a monster was either in the same room or space or if unlocking a puzzle/lock counts as an action the same way searching a room counts as an action (it does not if the Investigator succeeds in unlocking the puzzle/lock).  

Again, "overwhelming" comes to mind.  It would be like starting a game of Dungeons & Dragons for the first time and anyone who knows what that is like can understand the feeling of performance anxiety, even if it is with someone who is patient and understanding.  Conklederp and I were patient with each other as we asked questions about what to do or clarifying information on cards.  Still, I felt we both had a lot of fun.

Playing as The Keeper, I have to have bits of information kept secret from the Investigators, know which cards I have and when I can play them (cards kept secret) all the while holding down a poker face so I do not give away the fact that I could cripple an Investigator with the drop of a card.  I didn't.  Some cards are event specific while others are dependent on the Investigator being in a specific room or a room with a specific feature (An altar, ventilation grate, hiding spot).  It is a lot of information to take in and keep track of all the while maintaining a sense of fear for the player and role playing the story and keeping the events interesting for the player.

I love it!

Like I said, Conklederp and I played for about an hour, maybe an hour and-a-half with rule clarification happening, but not including the time it took to set up the board, place the room cards in their specific locations, and gather which specific cards I needed for the story that I was telling.  Set-up took about 30 minutes.  Overall, the game is supposed to take about two to three hours from start to finish and I can confirm that with at least two people, this prediction is pretty accurate, although I can understand this being a turnoff for a good segment of the board game playing population.

An hour in, and I have control of only four monsters.  Plenty to drive Conklederp's character insane!

Before we started playing, I also quickly created a playlist of instrumental background music that I set to shuffle.  This list included music from Bram Stoker's Dracula by Wojceich Kilar, Castlevania 64 by Masahiko Kimura, Motoaki Furukawa and Mariko Egawa, Amnesia: The Dark Descent by Mikko Tarmia and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem by Steve Henifin.  At times the music seemed to mirror the actions in the game, but I never noticed that the music was out of place, but then I was also paying attention to the music when it changed while I cannot say the same for Conklederp.

There is a lot that I have yet to cover such as horror checks, trauma cards, combat, how the choices The Keeper makes during setup affects and changes the story and how events unfold during play, and how the game is won.  I will say that while it is The Keeper's objective to prevent the Investigators from achieving their objective (which is revealed to them through the course of the game/story), if an Investigator dies, that is not the end of the game, but the player can bring in a new character (one that has not yet been killed) up until the final act in the game.  I love that this is a game designed around everyone having fun but still knowing that in the end, someone will have to come out victorious.

I am looking forward to concluding this one (of many) possible storylines with Conklederp and more so to playing with our friends next weekend.  The one downside is that the game is designed for 2-5 players and apparently can be very cluttered and may not be playable if more than four Investigators are playing as the Investigators end up just stacking up in rooms without being able to either do much "investigating" or they spread out too much, uncovering information that would have been uncovered a turn or two later, progressing the story at a slower, more manageable pace.

The point is, there is a lot to this game and I cannot wait to delve deeper into its tentically depths.  Perhaps after we are finished, Conklederp will do a write up about her experience as an Investigator playing Mansions of Madness for the first time.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Something It Appears Has Changed

First Impressions: The Blue Wizard is about the Die (Book Review)

Blue Wizard is About to Die is a book of poems about video games, by Seth 'Fingers' Flynn Barkan.  I picked this up nearly a year ago in the Humble Story Bundle - Video games collection #2.  

I hadn't cracked said bundle of ebooks in all this time, and I wasn't sure when I would get around to it.  However, I just finished 'A Dance of Dragons,' reading about half of it on my cell phone.  I had such a good experience, I knew I wanted more books available on my little portable display and telecommunications device.  

Then I remember the Story Bundle I had purchased on an impulse, and after a skirmish with my cell phone over the subject of storage space (there's space, my phone just doesn't know how to use it) - I was able to download one of the books:  The Blue Wizard is about to Die.  So far, so good.  

I'm writing my first impressions, because after a delightful series of poems, I've discovered I'm about a third of the way through this book.  And, honestly, I'm scared to read the rest, because the enjoyment curve has been so delightful up to this point.  Can he keep it up?

Seriously though, this guy gets it.  I mean, he gets it!  He is approximately my age, and he has played a number of games, been moved by the experience and committed it to poetry.  After reading several of his poems, I can't believe this is the first instance of video game poetry I've seen.  Certainly the first collection of said theme.  And they're great!

I have my favorites so far.  Half Life (2?) is definitely a big plus, but his musings on Lag and his silly Mario scenarious are a great time as well.  All in all, I'm really glad I started reading this, and I recommend it to people who were playing video games in the 80s, 90s and 2000s.  Like me!  

-D

First Impressions: Outlast (PC)

Outlast is a game that came out last September (2013) and that I purchased, I think, around December during a Steam Winter sale.  A while back after watching a fairly decent (not great, but not bad either) film on Netflix, I developed the odd urge to start this game up.  Conklederp also asked me if there was a game that I wanted to play, so there was that too. 

Outlast reminds me a lot of the Penumbra and Amnesia series in that the game is in first person, you are a man going into an unfamiliar location where there are things that can kill you and since you are unarmed, your only option is to run and hide when said aggressors decide that your death would make their day so much better.  The manipulation of objects is not as detailed as it is in either of the prior mentioned series as objects are immediately picked up and doors/drawers are either opened or closed, no slowly opening them just a little.  Either doors are slightly open, open all the way or slammed shut.  Yes, your only option while in a psychiatric hospital filled with a lot of murderous minds is to slam doors, even when you know you are supposed to be quiet or are attempting to hide from your pursuer.

The story so far, is that you are a reporter who was tipped off about all sorts of things going wrong/bad at this building that is/was a psychiatric hospital.  So being the wanna-be Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, you head to said hospital in your jeep armed with nothing but a video camera with night vision and two extra batteries that power said night vision.  Your one choice for when you run into hostiles is to run and hide and hope that the baddies were not close enough behind you to figure out that you happen to be hiding in either a storage locker or under a desk.  Thankfully said antagonists are not too bright (although they do seem to have reflective retinas) so when running into a room with say, two lockers, they might check one, grumble something then walk out of the room.  Or they will scour the room, eventually find you then start wailing away on your squishy body with a not-so-squishy crowbar.

One aspect of the game that is a bit odd is the video camera.  When it is up and you are filming, you have the chance of making observations in written form, but when the camera is not up, no notes will be taken.  This I did not find out for the first hour into the game, during which if there was enough light, I did not use the camera.  The main purpose of the camera is to use the night vision in dark areas, of which there are a lot.  The night vision is powered by a separate battery (as opposed to the infinite main battery of the camera) that has a life of two and-a-half minutes before you have to change the battery.  If the battery runs out, you have a limited night vision, only being able to see a couple of feet in front of you, as opposed to the, say, 15 to 20 feet with the night vision activated.  

The visual quality between having the camera up and not using the camera is very negligible.  And you are able to zoom in with the camera up, which is a nice added bonus when you do not want to be killed by whatever that thing way over on the other side of the room.  Why then is there the option to have the video camera down if there is no added benefit?  Just a thought.

Presently I am about 4 1/2 hours into the game and I am in an area where I have to avoid at least two violent inmates at either end of a building.  Both areas are dark (ie: pitch black without the night vision function activated) and I have six batteries in reserve, so I am not doing too poorly.  

I will say that about two hours into the game, the protagonist, one Mr. Miles Upsur finally came to the conclusion that I had within the first 30 minutes.

That.  Exactly that.  Mr. Miles decided to scribe this note shortly after being chased by two very large men who wanted to do all sorts of unspeakable things to his body and then having run into a guy strapped into a wheel chair yelling about something-or-other.

I am getting the feeling that I am about halfway through the game and there are maybe five more hours of gameplay left, which would be perfectly fine with me.  I do not know how long the game would be able to keep up its sense of fear and dread without becoming old and frustrating, what with the being killed every so often and all.  But in the meantime, I am having a lot of fun playing Outlast and there is the DLC Whistleblower which was released back in May of this year, so I will have that to look forward to once I finish the main campaign.

Here is to surviving that long.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Only The Good Die Young

First Impressions: Mirror's Edge & Bioshock 2

Dr. Potts has already talked a bit about Mirror's Edge so I won't go into a whole lot of detail about the game, just my general thoughts after having played for just about four hours.  And last month (technically in March), SneakyTiki got me Bioshock Infinite for my Nameday so that influenced me to have a go at Bioshock 2 and after five hours, I would like to talk at you about it.  Yes, I ended a sentence with it.  Again.

I can fully understand the appeal of this game as it fulfills one of the core reasons why I play video games: Mirror's Edge allows me to do something I cannot do in real life.  

Presently, I have played through the tutorial and, I think, the first four levels.  The tutorial threw a lot at me, almost too much for my liking.  I agree with Dr. Potts that Portal does a better job of introducing the player to game mechanics and I feel that the tutorial stage should have been a whole series of levels and not just a series of jumps (good, now you know that one), wall climbs (now you know that one), falling rolls (good, you didn't die, moving on) and wall-to-wall jumps (did you accidentally make it up the wall and not really know what you did, that's okay, moving on).  And that's just dealing with the terrain.  You are also given a very rudimentary crash course in assailants, disarming said assailants and avoiding them.  The tutorial/training course takes maybe 10 minutes and at the end, I feel like the game expects that I now have a firm grasp on being able to complete the game.  Not true, at least in my case.

So far, I get the impression that the game is broken up into sections.  First, there are the sections where you are chased by Blues (coppers) and shot at extensively by them and helicopters.  I somewhat understand them being included so that the player doesn't linger and they add a sense of urgency to get through the stage.  The down side is that I am not having fun.  I feel like these stages I could play in any first person video game and are not special to Mirror's Edge.  The other sections are chase stages, where you have to get from point A to point B while following someone who is just a hair faster than you.  There is still that same sense of urgency, but instead of being shot at, you run the risk of losing sight of your target.  This is what is keeping me playing the game, to have the chance to free run through a level with the only threat of death being my own stupidity as I jump a fence only to fall thirty flights down and hear by bones shatter and body splat as it greets the pavement.

One very interesting thing that I had to do with the game was lower a lot of the video settings.  This game came out back in 2008 and I would like to believe that my laptop is capable of running a game that was released four years before  the components were created could handle the graphic requirements.  Initially I had "everything" turned up to max (except Anti-aliasing which was at 2x), but I began experiencing sever lag whenever I was being shot at by more than one source.  The skipping/lag became so bad that I was unable to time my jumps, which is a rather important ability in a game that centers around parkour.  I then went back into the settings and turned down texture detail and graphics quality to medium and was forced to turn off anti-aliasing and "phy sx" support.  I can now play the game while being shot at by five coppers and a helicopter without having to worry if the game is going to start skipping as I approach that highlighted red board leaning haphazardly over the side of the building leading me to that other building across the street and two stories down.

Oh, and lastly, I have noticed, perhaps not too surprisingly, that I get motion sickness after playing for about 3o minutes.  The effect is more pronounced when I play on my laptop, but on the TV, I can play for about an hour.  So there's that too.

I won't talk to much about Bioshock 2 as I ended up talking more about Mirror's Edge than I had planned and I don't feel like editing down or breaking this up into two posts.  In short, I am very much enjoying Bioshock 2.  I have played about five hours and after the initial disorientation at the beginning, I am having a lot of fun.  I enjoy being back in Rapture and once I figured out that the prologue takes place before the first Bioshock and then the rest of the game begins after those events, I was able to enjoy the game even more.

What I find interesting, is that I had a preconceived notion/impression that Bioshock 2 received bad reviews.  That people did not like taking control of a Big Daddy, that the gameplay was redundant of the first game, that the story did not offer anything new to the world of Rapture and that the game needed a constant internet connection all played towards the game being a disappointing followup to the masterpiece that was the first Bioshock.

As it turns out, at least according to Wikipedia, Bioshock 2 was actually a very good game that expands on the universe.  As is the case with any game, there are going to be negative reviews so maybe that was where my pre-playing impression originated from.  So it turns out I am not as alone as I thought I was going to be by stating that I am currently liking what Bioshock 2 has offered in the way of story, game play, voice acting and music.  It feels good to be back in Rapture.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

While I Look Around For My Possibility

First Impressions: The Elder Scrolls Online (PC)

I really wish that there was a game stats screen  in The Elder Scrolls Online, similar to what you would find in Skyrim and Oblivion, that way I would know how much time I have put into ESO in the three weeks and change that I have spent playing the game since its early access release on March 30th.  I would not say that I have been dumping truck loads of time into ESO at this point, but I have been neglecting some of the other games that I had been working on before (Assassin's Creed, Bioshock 2, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Papo y Yo, Final Fantasy VII, et cetera) and I think that part of that is that since I have paid for the game and am on a monthly subscription, I want to feel that I am getting the most out of the game for the money I have and currently am putting into it.

However, that argument will not be valid until, I believe, May 6th, which is when the 30 day free period for my account ends and the paid subscription starts.

But enough of that, what about the game?  How does it compare to the beta test?  How buggy is it, even after just under a year of beta testing? How have the early access perks given you an advantage over the regular players?  What are the quests like?  Does it feel like an Elder Scrolls game?  You know, the usual.

To answer, what I feel is the most important question: yes, The Elder Scrolls Online does feel like it belongs with the rest of the games in The Elder Scroll series.  Like every game in the series, you start out as a prisoner (this time finding out how and why you are in prison), you escape by going through a tutorial level and are then plunged into the larger world with a brief hint that something larger that does not involve (or maybe it does and I just don't know about it yet) the war in Cyrodiil between the three factions.

One aspect that has been retained, to a certain extent, from the Elder Scroll series has been the inclusion of books and reading about the lore of Tamriel throughout the various eras.  While in previous Elder Scrolls games you could read individual books on a bookshelf/table/floor/cauldron, in ESO, you can only read from a bookshelf.  This initially made me sad that I could only read one randomly (?) selected book from a bookshelf full of books.  Once I realized that this was how the game was going to operate, then I grew to accept it as is.  As in the other Elder Scrolls games, you still learn skills and can gain quests by reading books.

I do greatly appreciate though that Bethesda still maintains the level of quality of the books in ESO that the community has come to expect.

While you can simply run up to a bookshelf, click to open a book, see that you've gained a level in your Heavy Armor skill then run away without reading a word, I love that I can crack open a tome and read two and-a-half pages of text.  I know this isn't for everyone, but for me, it's a key component for immersion and I love its inclusion in an MMO game.

Another Elder Scrolls staple is the quality of the voice acting, which so far has been very well executed.  Bethesda has reused a lot of the voice actors from their previous games and the have even brought on a fair amount of "Hollywood talent" to voice both main and minor characters.  Most notably has been Michael Gambon (Sleepy Hollow, Harry Potter) as the character of "The Prophet," whose reading of "Let the will of Molag Bal be denied!" is chilling.  Kudos as well to the script writers.

I have noticed a few changes between the released game and the beta tests, the most notable is that I have only experienced one real bug that impeded my progress:

One other bug was similar to the "MISSING" box bug that I encountered during the January beta test, just something else that went missing in a different location.  Other minor bugs have been missing dialogue to text, but those come across as purely cosmetic.  I have, however, seen other people bring ask about potentially broken quests, but I personally have yet to encounter a broken quest so I do not know if I should count myself fortunate or maybe I am simply progressing slowly enough that the bugs are being fixed by the time I reach the formally broken quest.

I have noticed that the combat feels more "real," which was one of the biggest complaints that I kept seeing creep up during the beta test.  It is a hard thing to explain, that when you attack someone that it should feel like your hits are connecting.  Without a rumble feature, this has to come across visually and whatever was done between the middle of March and release has been a great improvement.  I no longer feel like my weapons are simply passing through the enemies, but are coming into contact with them, it is very satisfying.

Personally, when I think of MMOs, I tend to have a mental image of some crowded plaza in World of Warcraft and to date, the greatest number of people I have seen congregate anywhere was at the bank, where you can store items to use between characters, group members and guild members.

There is also a lot of grouping around crafting stations, where you can craft your own armor (heavy, medium and light), enchanting, woodworking (shields, bows, staffs) et cetera, but the nice thing is that you do not have to wait for the station to be free for it to be used.

So far, I have been playing solo and without grouping or questing with others.  There have been certain events such as when Dark Anchors (portals that lead into Oblivion) start depositing beasts of all sorts into the world.  These events, which happen pretty frequently usually draw about 10 other players and a decent sized battle en mass commences against the forces of darkness.

While it is possible to approach the above Dark Anchor or certain quests solo, these are events/instances that are specifically designed to be taken on by a group of people.  I have tried, accidentally to take on a Flesh Atronach (flesh golem) who was supported by two skeletons alone and quickly found myself dead.

This battle was not on purpose either.  I was approaching the two skeletons and right as I "killed" the one, the Flesh Atronach came through a portal as the skeleton archer backed up.  Let it be known that I died with honor.

There are plenty of aspects to The Elder Scrolls Online that I know I have not covered, most importantly the PvP area in Cyrodiil that deals with siege engines and storming castles.  I also did not mention anything about the lack of lag, even in areas that appear to be heavily populated by both PCs and NPCs.  There is just too much information to convey.  I also have not even mentioned the music, but that I will cover in Friday's post (so come back for that if music is your thing).

I will say in closing for today that I am having a lot of fun with the game and, presently at least, I feel that the cost of the game plus the $15/month subscription fee has been and will be worth the experience contained within.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Skies of Hell Unfell to Earth