GAMEFest 2011 Star Wars the Old Republic

There is no denying that I have been waiting on Star Wars the Old Republic a while now. Probably not as long as everyone over at the SWTOR Forums, but long enough. I think a great deal of how eager I am comes from two of my faviroute things being represented in one game. First is of course, Star Wars, which I have enjoyed as long as I can remember. The second being MMORPGs, and yes I remember the RP element in them as well.

Finally I’ve had the chance at some hands-on with the game, and I can say that I personally feel that it truly lives up to the hype. Of course there are some similarities to a well known fantasy MMORPG, but that goes with out saying. After all, that well known fantasy MMORPG has similarities to many preceeding Third Person RPGs as it is. One of my inital thoughts however, is that Star Wars the Old Republic (SWTOR) has done is gone some what beyond that. Now, the hands on I got was playing the inital starter zone. I played Sith Warrior.

So of course it isn’t the greatest amount I could of been playing, only the first three levels. Anyone who knows MMORPGs knows that the game doesn’t really get started after the first several hours. SWTOR felt a little different though. For starters SWTOR feels like it remembers that RPG part of it’s genre.

This isn’t to say that the game is built only for RPers. SWTOR goes slightly beyond the standard fair of MMORPG story telling. Anyone who has followed the game knows that the game is entirely voice acted. Being a Bioware game, you expect no less. I don’t know if that means that you get to choose a voice, or if you are given one based on race. I have seen that naturally, there are aliens that speak in their own language, as you’d e xpect from Star Wars. It’d be quite nice if our playable characers can speak in non-human languages. Sticking to my main point though, it truly does draw you in, from the beginning, because you feel like your character is instantly participating in the story.

Another key difference I felt between SWTOR and other MMORPGs was the difference in combat. It felt like it walked the line between more standard click and kill MMORPGs and the likes of DC Universe and Champions that cite themselves as Action combat games. SWTOR retained the more Stratigic and controlled feel of more standard MMOs whilst still having a very action and fast paced feel. In part this will be because of the animations. Left to the “standard” fight animation, my character and the enemy were not simply swinging at each other, but were blocking and countering. It made it feel very much like a Star Wars fight.

I did notice whilst standing in line a couple of bugs that popped up on the screens of those playing. They weren’t game breakers, and are more than likely going to get fixed. Simply little glitches like a holographic message appearing a few inches away from the projecter in the hand of the character. Nothing to write home about really.

One complaint I did hear from those who got to do the PVP demo was that they all seemed to feel like the balance was off. I did think this quite funny, lets not forget that all of these guys had no real practice with the characters. To me however, the fact that everyone seemed to surive and die just as much as everyone else suggests balance? It did some times feel however as if there was no damage being done. I did wonder if this was part of  the demo, not the final version.

Either way SWTOR was one of the best parts of GAMEFest 2011, and well worth the queue time. I still look forward to the game and feel like my preorder was well placed. Here’s hoping it sticks to its 2011 release window!

GAMEFest 2011 Photos

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Just a few photos of GAMEFest 2011.

Don’t worry reviews and such are on the way, just collecting my thoughts.

Ebonrook & Turnstyle Play LOTRO Part 1 and 2

A multiplayer Let’s Play between myself and Turnstyle. Yea the audio is a little off in places, but I already worked out why and am fixing it for future episodes. Also note the video quality has been improved.

Part 1

Part 2

 

Why Series 6(b) of Doctor Who Should Kill It; But Won’t

I for one have enjoyed Doctor Who as far back as I can remember. I am technically from the generation that could only really discover it through UK Gold reruns, though I take pride in the fact that I was actually around for Sylvester! I own nearly ever Classic Who DVD available to me and many of the books. I even have action figures and other toys from the series, ultimately cementing my geekdom.

I was so excited when the Series came back. I really was. That excitement even blinded me to the horrific flaws of that inital NuWho series. Let’s be honest, even Classic Who had flaws, and if I was willing to look beyond them then I should look beyond those of NuWho.

Well I did. I do. I try.

That was until Series 6. Or what ever Moffat wants to call it now.

There in we find our first problem. Russell T. Davies was an awful writer. He went so far to pull season finales out of his arse that Deus Ex Machina was skipped entirely. Moffat wrote some truly brilliant episodes and two-parters during Davies reign of terror. Empty Child for example. So, what the hell happened?!

This guy can’t write a season storyline to save his life. I understand that it must be complex and difficult, I am not blind to the difficulties faced with making a 12 – 13 episode story arc. My god though! What’s worse is that the fanbase all scream “You just don’t get it.” Calling those who question it every insulting thing under the sun. What is worse is Moffat seemingly remains blind to criticism.

To make matters worse he even pulls stupid lines, plot devices and yes even worse types of Deus Ex Machina completely out of his backside. I mean series 5 didn’t just have a metaphorical reset button that Davies used, no Moffat went full hog and had a LITERAL reset button that took us back to the start of series 5. Series 6 he opens it with “killing the Doctor.” Series 6b he opens it with “killing the Doctor a different way.” Infact, this brings me on to the biggest complaint since Doctor Who rebooted.

The unnecessary American style mid-season gap. It makes sense for American shows, they are more than 12 episodes long. I realise that in the UK we usually go for 6 or 7 episodes to a season, ya know, in Sitcoms, but why have a mid-season gap for Doctor Who? Really? What was the logic there? What’s worse is that where as the first half was slightly lack luster, at least it wasn’t as totally abismal as the this half has been. That first half at least had the Doctors Wife, and the Rebel Flesh wasn’t too bad. Granted the series opener was lame, and the mid-season “finale” was a bit lack luster (though cooler than the opening), but at least they weren’t just crap.

So far we’ve had an episode called “Let’s Kill Hitler” with Hitler in it for about 2 minutes. In this episode Moffat pulls River Songs regeneration out of his arse. I know, I know they are trying to say she’s the little girl from the first episode, but WHATS THE POINT OF HER REGENERATING FOR ONLY ONE EPISODE?! Also, way to have the Doctor point out a plot hole, scratch that, plot canyon IN DIALOGUE! – “Who is Mel? I mean I have never seen her, and I know EVERYONE who knows you guys.” I mean come on, wouldn’t it have been wiser to at least use some one who HAD been in previous episodes, even if it was only for a fraction of a second?

Then we went and got, Night Terrors, that did genuinely look good in the trailer, then had nothing in it. Nothing at all. There was no really creepy factor to it. Most of the episode was a kid breathing too hard next to the boom mic. I mean come on, they try to build tension but all they do is bore the audience to death. Nothing happens at all! Whats worse is I feel like this whole episode just tries to say “Hey are you adopted? Did you know your parents will drop you instantly over anything?” or “Wanna  adopt? You aren’t really the parent!” I mean come on, I know they went for the kid being an alien and scaring the guy a bit, but come on, he’d been the kids DAD for EIGHT YEARS. He would not so quickly not want to be anymore!

The Girl Who Waited was another weird one, I mean it was better than the other two, but that doesn’t say much. The only reason this one was any better was because the Doctor wasn’t condensed to stupid catch phrases or infact, turned into a gibbering idiot. He didn’t die and he wasn’t made a mockery of. Notice that of course he was still in danger. Notice that Moffat, how the Doctor can still be made vunerable with out KILLING HIM? The best part of this episode was a return to the Doctor’s darker side. Which I am sure will be ignored in these last two episodes.

All of this though will not kill the show. No matter how bad it gets, Moffat will go on being the lead writer, oblivious to what the state of the show actually is and slowly the show will go down the pan. Why will it survive. Well that’s simple. Hope. I still watch the show, regardless. Not just to moan about how awful it is, but to celebrate when it is actually good again. I hope for the show, I hope for my childhood. So if even I am going to still watch this show, that means everyone else who disagrees with me about how terrible it has been still will.

Of course there are theories on how to make the show good again. My faviroute idea is to have Moffat go back to writing only two parters, which he’s good at, and have some one like Gaiman write the series story. After all he is novelist, he’s used to writing longer ideas. He did also write the only really good episode for the whole of Series 6.

Either way, series 6b has been awful, continues to be awful and probably will only get worse. Who knows maybe we can have another cheesy, bland and boring Christmas special in a couple of months to round it all off!

Here is hoping for my childhood!

 

Addendum. I just found out that Steven Moffat has started Blocking me on Twitter. How lovely of him to prove my point about him being blind about what people have to say eh?

Let’s Play Lord of the Rings Online Part 1

My first ever Let’s Play. I clearly need practice, but who knows maybe this could become a new thing.

Also any ideas why my channel doesn’t show up at all (videos included) when searching YouTube?

The Witcher 2; Out-dated and Lame!

That’s right, I finally got around to playing more of the Witcher 2. It’s a game I’ve had since launch and I just haven’t really played it. To be fair, this was initially because of my own set up, playing games on my PC was literally uncomfortable because I don’t have a desk, I have a bed. So I was trying to play it on my laptop. Oddly enough it didn’t go that badly. Just like the first Witcher they claim this game is “future-proofed,” which is another way of saying they haven’t really bothered to make the game run properly. On my laptop, on the near to lowest settings, it mostly ran at a playable rate. Not great looking, a bit juddery. Of course as soon as instant death quick time events popped up in the form of a dragon, during what is essentially a tutorial portion of the game. Yea I was screwed.

So f**k comfort, I installed the game on my PC, and will do my back in to play this game. Maximum settings. Hmm whats this – Ubersampling. I can’t really work out what it does, it seems to be only on Witcher 2, and from what I can really gather is that; ITS A GIMMICK. It’s a word thrown in to the options. Why? Because their game is “future proof.” All this option seems to do is slow down the frame rate, it doesn’t do anything I even noticed to the graphics! Even what I had hoped would be imformative YouTube videos of people with better PCs than me seem to have the same issue. The maximum settings work just fine, minus the ‘Ubersampling.’ Then you switch it on and *BAM* exact same image, just now you get to view it longer.

This game also pretends to be the “adult” roleplaying game, with actual sex scenes, copious swearing, blood and gore, etc. Just a thought, but you shouldn’t really need sex, swearing and violence to make your game good. All of the great roleplaying games; Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect etc all have one thing in common. They have a great story. Now I am sure that people will point out that Witcher is all based on books. As if that makes it instantly great. Though now I have played quite a bit in and there’s one thing I can say. I’m fed up with all the swearing, I am fed up with all the sex. Ok the blood doesn’t bother me because to be honest the “gore” only seems to be really in the cartoony cut scenes. Samurai Jack was far more gory! Yet, my god, beyond all the unnecessary sex and swearing, the story is just BORING! I mean come on guys, what’s even more annoying is the story gets all pretentious and tells most of it through flashbacks. This ISN’T Memento!

The biggest issue though. The game breaking, terrible issue? This game is outmoded in the world of RPGs! I can’t think of any other western RPG to come out in the last five to ten years that’s had as little choice as this game. Even Borderlands is more open to choice than Witcher 2! Role playing games can not survive nowadays without the player feeling like they have control over what is actually happening, with out feeling like the character is theirs. It’s bad enough that we can’t create or modify the character to look how we would like him to look. Then the game has the audacity to pretend like there are choices, but there isn’t. All of the choices are essentially Dragon’s Lair. There is only right or wrong answers. That isn’t a roleplaying game. It’s a f**king arcade game.

The best examples are as follows. Near the beginning you are being interrogated by one of what goes for your friends in this game. Mostly because they think you killed the king. Yea it’s a retarded concept when you remember how many times you are meant to have saved this guy at the risk of your own life, and dive in front of and face a dragon for him moments before his assassination, but nevermind. During this interrogation, you have a few options in the conversation. You can instantly be a pansy and ask him to help you, and he talks about setting up your escape. The other option is to antagonise him, and eventually attack him. “Ah-ha!” I thought, “I can escape without asking for his help! That way making sure he can’t get any blame! That’s so cool!” – clicks conversation “Attack Him” option. Cut scene – I die. Wait; the game just killed me in a cut scene during a conversation!

I could be wrong but I don’t think that happens in Mass Effect 1 OR 2. Did I miss something but since when is it normal to just kill the player off for trying out options in games? Okay back to the beginning of the conversation, the only way to get through of course is to beg the guy for help. Our hero ladies and gentlemen, a pussy who begs for help. F**k sake.

The next example of how lame this game is, when I got bored (not the first time) in the game, I decided to screw around. I saved, knowing this game probably autosaved several hours earlier, and decided I’d attack some guards. Haha! That was cool I threw him off the tower! Now to attack some others. Oooh a conversation, pay the bribe or resist arrest! It’s like Oblivion! Maybe there are some options in this game after all? *Resist* – Cut scene, dead. Yea the game shot me with lots of arrows for wanting to play it my way. “Bad gamer! Bad!” Next I am sure it will punish me for wanting to do side quests.

The only choice I seem to have been allowed to make is that I killed a guy instead of talking him into surrendering. I can imagine the only effect that would have had on the game is the person who I would have seen as I escaped the dungeon. I see the Emissary for the Empire, I am sure I would have seen the guy I helped escape. Though that is hopeful, as I am sure that it would have STILL been the Emissary, perhaps they just would have cut the dialogue about me killing the other guy.

Seriously, as roleplaying games go, this is seriously boring and lame. It will just disappoint time and again for true roleplay fans. Now I am off to play some Oblivion whilst I wait for Skyrim. Save yourself the heart ache, do the same!

GAMEFest 2011 @ NEC Birmingham and Gears 3 Release

Hey guys,

Just thought I would give you a heads up that I will be attending GAMEFest on Sunday 18th September 2011. I will be live tweeting, and possibly even live blogging whilst I am there. So be sure to follow me on twitter.

It should be a fun time with some really interesting games. Staff in GAME have informed me that there are titles not mentioned on the website to keep an eye out for aswell. Also, if any of you are going, drop me a message on here or on twitter, and maybe we can discuss what we see.

Also, on September 20th (19th kinda) I will be at the midnight opening to pick up my limited edition Gears of War 3 Xbox 360! I haven’t got one yet, but when I do, I look forward to playing with you guys, so please drop me a message with your user names and I will add you to friends. I’m looking forward to finally getting into this Chainsaw-gun generation!

See you then guys!