Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Saturday, 12 August 2017
Don't Starve: Cheap Tricks and Fake Difficulty
Set in a fantasy world in which you must survive as long as possible, Don't Starve by Klei Entertainment is something of a rarity. It's a game with some interesting concepts that's actually really enjoyable in chunks. But then as you continue playing and more and more content is added, somehow the whole experience put together is as much fun as nailing your ball sack to a wooden plank and hanging off of it like a sleeping bat.
"Oh come on, it's not that bad."
Well, okay. I'll concede that I enjoy the core survival mechanics. The early game in particular starts you in Spring or Autumn, both relatively mild seasons, and tasks you with simple objectives such as collecting grass, twigs and berries to last you for the first few nights.
We're introduced to the first crazy supernatural element at night: if you don't have a fire going, you basically die instantly. Death is permanent, and you must start again ("Roguelike", an expression about as tired and overused as "Gate" being added to the end of any remotely scandalous occurrence).
It's harsh but reasonable, and provides an early incentive to huddle round the fire at night rather than brazenly treating it like any other time of day.
Your character possesses health and hunger levels, which spell death if they hit 0 (obviously). In addition to that there is the more opaque Sanity meter, which at 0 doesn't immediately kill you but does spawn monsters that will almost certainly guarantee that you'll die soon.
"This sounds pretty cool."
Thank you, mysterious voice. It is. These mechanics are all pretty logical, and the idea of gathering grass and sticks makes just as much sense as it would in real life.
You assemble a little camp of tents, drying racks and stoves and you start feeling like you're doing pretty well. But actually in all likelihood you're not, you just don't realise that you've already lost at this point.
The problem comes when the game starts trying to increase the difficulty, and does so in the lamest ways possible.
The first major spike is experienced at the onset of Winter. Your character must contend with the cold sapping your energy if you stray too far from the fire without good clothing. Again, while a little irritating that it slows the gameplay down, this makes sense and is reasonable.
Then we have the arrival of Deerclops, and the horse apple fake difficulty alarm begins to sound. You see, Deerclops is a gigantic monster who randomly turns up during Winter. He will walk straight towards your camp, knowing where it is no matter where he spawns. He then proceeds to prioritise smashing your buildings up over smashing you, meaning unless you already knew he was coming and magically prepared with copious weapons and armour, your entire camp will be annihilated.
Even if you did prepare for him, having already learned about him through death trial-and-error or just through sheer luck, it's very likely you'll only be able to kill him after he's trashed most of your camp. If you take him down, you get a measly couple of lumps of meat.
At this point you might be around 10 hours into the game, and you've just watched everything you built get deleted for...pretty much no reason. Fun, right?
Then we have the Hounds. On random nights, a bunch of dog-monsters will spawn and attack you. On their own this feels like annoying harassment of the player (and later in the game is sometimes deadly on its own). But have the bad luck to time their arrival with a Deerclops attack and you're basically screwed. Combine it with the instant death night-time when you're limited to just standing next to your camp fire and you're just hog-tied, bent over and...well, you get the idea. You did nothing wrong but that's game over for you, chump.
Later in the game the hounds can set fire to everything around them when you kill them, burning your whole base to the ground in seconds. Why? Because f*** you, that's why.
Not only do the enemies get obnoxious in their design and intent, but the seasons do too. Sensible design ("Gather grass to make rope") gives way to bizarre bonkers nonsense mechanics that it's very hard to plan for or even understand ("Craft an Ice-Fling-O-Matic using loot from rare chess pieces to stop fires.").
Summer arrives. That should be a time where food is plentiful and life is easier? Well no, because the game's increasing departure from logic and reason means that Summer is basically Hot Winter. Heat is so dramatic that you burn to death if you stray too long from sources of cold.
How do you keep cold? What a silly question! You build an endothermic fire that cools everything down, of course! You mean you didn't build an endothermic fire when you were surviving in the Australian outback in real life?! You dummy!
Remember how annoying the Fire Hounds were, burning your whole camp down? Well, in Summer things just catch fire at random. Because that's such a fun game mechanic. Why add it in? Because f*** you, that's why.
In fact, "Because f*** you, that's why." was probably the mission statement in Klei's design brief.
Instead of adding fun new challenges that make life interesting for the player or expand on the core gameplay, every new addition seems to have been a case of them studying the player base, realising some strategies are viable and then basically adding a new creature or mechanic designed to just mess that up completely.
The game encourages you to centralise and build a big camp to save hours collecting twigs all over the map. Then it unleashes Deerclops on you and totally ruins your life.
So next time you spread out, because the game has encouraged you to do that. You survive Deerclops this time, but instead you get murdered by the Hounds because you're too far from the area of the map that gives you some protection against them.
So next time you combine both strategies, but the new boss creature they've just added arrives in Autumn and kills you instantly because you forgot to craft a cucumber you could only grow in Summer with two bits of gold to make a Cucumber Amulet to ward it off.
I made that last one up but that's the kind of stupid nonsense the game throws at you. And I've not even mentioned all the meaningless little events that can end your game. Like getting shot from off-screen by a blow dart you're not expecting, or killed by a passive creature that somehow got aggro'd without you knowing, or killed by frogs raining from the sky.
So I don't know what I'm trying to get at in summary with this rant. I guess I'm just fed upwith how such poor design has let down such a good concept. Other developers take note: Don't Starve is not how you do difficulty.
Sunday, 11 June 2017
Blood Bowl Races: Norse
So it's been ages since I've written a Blood Bowl post, and since that's one reason I actually established this blog in the first place, I'm gonna get on it and talk today about the Norse, one of my favourite teams in Blood Bowl.
It's easy to look at Norse and dismiss them initially, or completely misunderstand what they're all about. "They almost all start with Block! What an easy team!" Wrong.
"They're like Dwarfs but faster." WRONG.
"They're a team for newbs trying to get to grips with Block before they play Dwarfs." WRONG. (I've actually seen this on the BB forums and found it kind of hilarious - they are just as hard to use as Dwarfs, if not more a heck of a lot more so in many ways).
The Norse are a team of contradictions. First of all, the players all look like beefy savages, and they're all about maiming and killing the other team. Great...except the first thing that'll make you wince when looking at the team roster is that almost everyone has AV 7, almost the weakest Armour Value in the entire game!
Even your expensive positionals only have AV 8, which is by no means tough.
You've got guys who are all Movement Allowance 6. This is distinctly average. The Runners are MA 7, which is only slightly above average speed-wise, and won't allow them to outrun Elves.
Then you realise that for a "fighting" team, your guys can only have 5 players with Strength skill access on normal skill up rolls. Compared to Orcs, Chaos and Dwarfs, who can saturate the pitch with 9-11 Mighty Blow and Guard players, you suck by comparison, right?
Well, yes and no.
A Norse team that attempts to take on an Orc or Dwarf team in a line-against-line traditional bashing competition is going to get ruined.
The Norse operate around some very specific rules.
Norse Rule #1: DO NOT LET THE OTHER GUY PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE. This is the most important rule. Avoid ending your turn in contact with anyone unless your opponent is prone and you can hit him (again) reliably and safely next turn.
Norse Rule #2: At every possibility, punch the other guy in the face. Really hard. Lots. As many damage modifiers per Blitz/block as you can.
Norse Rule #3: Always look for opportunities to crowd-surf opposing players with Frenzy.
Norse Rule #4: Always look for opportunities to gang-foul opposing high value players. Spreading out your opponent with good positioning on your side helps this.
With a lot of Frenzy on their positionals (five Frenzy players is standard on a Norse team), Dauntless on their Runners and Claw on the Yhetee (their 5 STR big guy, for the un-initiated), the Norse EXCEL at moving their damage skills to exactly where they are needed, and really *really* making them hurt. No other team has so many guys with damage-skill access that can also move a pretty long way each turn.
Each match with Norse (at least how I play them) is basically a death race. Your opponent is going to be trying damn hard to smash up your AV 7, so you need to use that bloodlust to lure him to the players on your team who can hit like a freight train. Then you make him regret squaring up to you as much as you can.
So, now I've talked general tactics, let's elaborate when discussing each type of positional the team can hire.
Dodge
Fend
Tackle
Strip Ball
Diving Tackle
Summary:
The Norse Runner adds a much-needed injection of speed into the Norse team, and makes for an excellent Blitzer against Big Guys and STR 4 players with his Dauntless skill. He is essentially a cross between a Troll Slayer and a more conventional Runner or Catcher.
In general you'll want to keep him hanging back to hit players who get through your lines, provide assists where necessary and he'll probably be your main scorer too. Definitely worth the money, they can transform your offensive game and be useful on defence too.
Otherwise notable is their default access to Dodge, which can make them hard to pin down and knock over.
Strength
Block (priority)
Mighty Blow (priority)
Guard
Juggernaut
Piling On
Stand Firm
Fend
Break Tackle
Strip Ball
Dodge
Jump Up (maybe not as solid a choice due to AG 2)
Summary:
The Ulfwerener is one of the big punchers on your team. With AV 8 and STR 4, he is one of the best players on your team for man-marking weaker opponents, especially if you've got a numbers advantage. He's fast for a STR 4 player and starts with Frenzy, which makes him very dangerous to opponents on the sidelines.
Break Tackle can make him excellent at moving around to Blitz players, and Block is pretty much essential - with Frenzy he can be quite unreliable at hitting early on and will account for many of your turnovers. Be wary of this.
He must also be protected where possible because his STR 4 and poor armour will make him a hefty target.
I used to always go Block first, but actually I much prefer to get Mighty Blow first on my Ulfwereners now. This immediate makes them very scary and your opponent will be wary of getting too close to them. They will also level up faster and get Block sooner, plus the rest of your team has Block already so the reliablity is less of an issue. It also gives you at least one STR 4 player every turn with high damage potential.
They make *excellent* safeties because they can smack STR 3 ball carriers down on their own. To that end you can skill them up to be killers with MB and PO or have a more support role. Guard is always good on these guys (and much needed in many situations).
Personally I prefer NOT to take Piling On, and leave that to the Berserkers. Ulfwereners are better for chain pushing your players out of trouble and causing lots of damage every turn while they do it.
Juggernaut and Stand Firm can be used to turn them into very dangerous crowdsurfing players.
+STR is golden on an Ulf (and I'd definitely go Break Tackle next if I got it), and I'd also consider +AV considering the team really lacks armour across the board. Always get Block or Mighty Blow first, though, unless you get +STR.
Strength
Frenzy
Jump Up
Mighty Blow (priority)
Piling On (priority)
Tackle
Stand Firm
Dauntless
Guard
Fend
Juggernaut
Strip Ball
Dodge
Diving Tackle
Summary:
The Norse Yhetee
Strength
Disturbing Presence
Wild Animal
Frenzy
Claw
Mighty Blow (priority)
Guard (important)
Piling On (optional, but can really heap on the pain)
Stand Firm
Juggernaut
Block (priority, an absolute Godsend)
Tackle
Summary:
The Yhetee is a controversial player. He can be amazing and clear the pitch of tough opposing players, or be or a total liability who loses you games. He can be a hammer who clubs enemies off of your players in chain push blitzes (one of the best ways to use him), or he might roll triple skulls on the Blitz and kill himself.
Out of all the Big Guys, I've always found Yhetees to be the least consistent. Lacking Mighty Blow to start with means they have a tendency to go a long time before they level up. I've had one go 10 games without his first 6 SPP!
Similarly, Frenzy plus no Block and Loner means it's *very* common for them to turnover, and AV 8 means that if an enemy big guy gets the Both Down or Attacker Down hit on you, you're normally watching your 140,000 gold Big Guy being carted off the pitch dead or unconscious.
The biggest weird thing about the Yhetee is that he's pretty much designed to be hitting opposing players as much as possible. Most Big Guys just as a road block, standing in the way and funnelling the opposition away from a key area of the pitch, maybe soaking up some knockdowns for the rest of your team.
With AV 8 and at a high cost, the Yhetee is terrible for this. If he takes hits he'll almost always bite the dust. By contrast, his Claws make him quite a danger against high AV targets when he's on the offensive, so you'll actually always want him getting stuck into tough targets wherever possible.
The Norse can REALLY struggle with high AV teams, especially if their fouls don't turn out well and they get a few send offs. Your damage skills can struggle to penetrate the armour and you start getting out bashed. For this reason, I almost always take the Yhetee.
Once you get MB on him, he can be a brutal blitzer who can kill the opposing team's hardest players before they get hits on you
Yhetee Rule #1: Always (where possible) use him LAST.
This goes for all big guys but especially the Yhetee. Whenever blocking with him, do it at the end of your turn. This limits the harmful turnovers from being game changers to usually less decisive affairs.
Yhetee Rule #2: Use him to maim weaker players who can't fight back (i.e. downed linemen behind your line).
Yhetee Rule #3: Use him to chainpush stronger players off of your line.
Yhetee Rule #4: Keep him out of scrums with stronger players.
Screen your Yhetee with Linemen and move him in for blitzes where necessary, or keep him focussed on an isolated downed player. He can push stronger guys off of your line, saving your Zerkers from taking blocks, but you don't want him bogged down or taking blitzes from killers.
After Mighty Blow, Juggernaut is a good skill pick for the Yhetee, making him more reliable. Break Tackle can help to get him out of trouble.
The Holy Grail is Block, and I might even take it over a +STR for him - in fact I almost always would, since it makes him far more dangerous to the opposition, harder to knock over and far less of a liability to my game.
--
Passing
Pass
Sure Hands
Accurate
Leader
Fend
Tackle
Guard
Dodge
Strong Arm
Summary:
It's easy to look at Norse and dismiss them initially, or completely misunderstand what they're all about. "They almost all start with Block! What an easy team!" Wrong.
"They're like Dwarfs but faster." WRONG.
"They're a team for newbs trying to get to grips with Block before they play Dwarfs." WRONG. (I've actually seen this on the BB forums and found it kind of hilarious - they are just as hard to use as Dwarfs, if not more a heck of a lot more so in many ways).
The Norse Team
The Norse are a team of contradictions. First of all, the players all look like beefy savages, and they're all about maiming and killing the other team. Great...except the first thing that'll make you wince when looking at the team roster is that almost everyone has AV 7, almost the weakest Armour Value in the entire game!
Even your expensive positionals only have AV 8, which is by no means tough.
You've got guys who are all Movement Allowance 6. This is distinctly average. The Runners are MA 7, which is only slightly above average speed-wise, and won't allow them to outrun Elves.
Then you realise that for a "fighting" team, your guys can only have 5 players with Strength skill access on normal skill up rolls. Compared to Orcs, Chaos and Dwarfs, who can saturate the pitch with 9-11 Mighty Blow and Guard players, you suck by comparison, right?
Well, yes and no.
A Norse team that attempts to take on an Orc or Dwarf team in a line-against-line traditional bashing competition is going to get ruined.
The Norse operate around some very specific rules.
Norse Rule #1: DO NOT LET THE OTHER GUY PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE. This is the most important rule. Avoid ending your turn in contact with anyone unless your opponent is prone and you can hit him (again) reliably and safely next turn.
Norse Rule #2: At every possibility, punch the other guy in the face. Really hard. Lots. As many damage modifiers per Blitz/block as you can.
Norse Rule #3: Always look for opportunities to crowd-surf opposing players with Frenzy.
Norse Rule #4: Always look for opportunities to gang-foul opposing high value players. Spreading out your opponent with good positioning on your side helps this.
With a lot of Frenzy on their positionals (five Frenzy players is standard on a Norse team), Dauntless on their Runners and Claw on the Yhetee (their 5 STR big guy, for the un-initiated), the Norse EXCEL at moving their damage skills to exactly where they are needed, and really *really* making them hurt. No other team has so many guys with damage-skill access that can also move a pretty long way each turn.
Each match with Norse (at least how I play them) is basically a death race. Your opponent is going to be trying damn hard to smash up your AV 7, so you need to use that bloodlust to lure him to the players on your team who can hit like a freight train. Then you make him regret squaring up to you as much as you can.
So, now I've talked general tactics, let's elaborate when discussing each type of positional the team can hire.
The Norse Lineman
Norse Lineman
Cost: 50,000
Movement Allowance: 6
Strength: 3
Agility: 3
Armour Value: 7
Skill Access (no doubles):
General
Starting Skills:
Block
Recommended Skills (normal roll):
Dirty Player
Fend
Dauntless
Tackle
Frenzy (if you're nuts)
Kick
Recommended Skills (double):
Guard (priority)
Dodge
Mighty Blow (only if you get 2 doubles on one guy, otherwise always Guard)
Recommended Stat-Ups:
+Strength
Summary:
The humble Norse Lineman is a real workhorse for the team. He has Block right out of the box and thus is reliable when hitting people. He can 1-dice block out of trouble with only a 1/6 chance of failure (and a 50% chance of knocking a player without Block over!) and he has AG 3, so can dodge and handle the ball when needed.
With MA 6 he can easily move around the field to provide blocking assists and screen players out of the action (something that makes him a lot more useful than a Dwarf Blocker or Line Orc in lots of situations).
His only big weakness (as with most of the team) is AV 7. This means he must be the one hitting people rather than the one taking hits. You only rarely want to man-mark players with him - it is far better to screen with him and force your opponent to blitz him.
Finally, at only 50 k, the Lineman is cheap enough to be easily replaced when killed or injured and makes an excellent cheap fouler too.
Wherever possible, your Linemen should be used to shield your better players from your opponent's Blitzes. This is their most important task. This will keep injuries restricted to your crappier, less developed Linemen rather than your star killer Berserkers and the Yhetee.
In a pinch, Linemen make good blitzers and safeties, and can take down Elf catchers and the like as they sneak backfield.
Skills, Subs and Development:
When skilled up, Guard on doubles is lovely because your team will *always* lack Guard. Otherwise always take at least 1 Dirty Player (preferably 2) and a bench of at least 2 Linemen, even in matchmaking. I take only 2 rerolls as a trade off, to keep Team Value lower.
Dirty Player Linemen are essential for both pressuring your opponent and countering any damage skills your opponent has. Your opponent will lose the bash war nine times out of 10 if he's hitting you once every turn with Mighty Blow and you are fouling him with Dirty Player and 4 assists every turn. FOUL, FOUL and FOUL again! Especially against high armour teams.
The only time you should not foul is if you can't get enough assists, or you are already terribly outnumbered.
Getting three Linemen with Fend can be useful for limiting blocks your opponent gets on the Line of Scrimmage, but I find it can be of limited use: if your opponent knocks you into next week with one knockdown, Fend is useless!
Tackle is always useful against dodgy foes and Dauntless can help you out against stronger opponents that you might otherwise struggle against (such as Lizardmen and Orcs in particular).
The Norse Runner
Norse Runner
Cost: 90,000
Movement Allowance: 7
Strength: 3
Agility: 3
Armour Value: 7
Skill Access (no doubles):
General
Agility
Starting Skills:
Block
Dauntless
Recommended Skills (normal roll):
Fend
Tackle
Strip Ball
Diving Tackle
Recommended Skills (double):
Guard (priority)
Mighty Blow (good when combined with Tackle and Strip Ball for a safety Blitzer)
Recommended Stat-Ups:
+Strength
+MA
+AG
The Norse Runner adds a much-needed injection of speed into the Norse team, and makes for an excellent Blitzer against Big Guys and STR 4 players with his Dauntless skill. He is essentially a cross between a Troll Slayer and a more conventional Runner or Catcher.
In general you'll want to keep him hanging back to hit players who get through your lines, provide assists where necessary and he'll probably be your main scorer too. Definitely worth the money, they can transform your offensive game and be useful on defence too.
Otherwise notable is their default access to Dodge, which can make them hard to pin down and knock over.
The Norse Ulfwerener
Norse Ulfwerener
Cost: 110,000
Movement Allowance: 6
Strength: 4
Agility: 2
Armour Value: 8
Skill Access (no doubles):
GeneralStrength
Starting Skills:
Frenzy
Recommended Skills (normal roll):
Mighty Blow (priority)
Guard
Juggernaut
Piling On
Stand Firm
Fend
Break Tackle
Strip Ball
Recommended Skills (double):
Jump Up (maybe not as solid a choice due to AG 2)
Recommended Stat-Ups:
+Strength
+MA
+AV
The Ulfwerener is one of the big punchers on your team. With AV 8 and STR 4, he is one of the best players on your team for man-marking weaker opponents, especially if you've got a numbers advantage. He's fast for a STR 4 player and starts with Frenzy, which makes him very dangerous to opponents on the sidelines.
Break Tackle can make him excellent at moving around to Blitz players, and Block is pretty much essential - with Frenzy he can be quite unreliable at hitting early on and will account for many of your turnovers. Be wary of this.
He must also be protected where possible because his STR 4 and poor armour will make him a hefty target.
I used to always go Block first, but actually I much prefer to get Mighty Blow first on my Ulfwereners now. This immediate makes them very scary and your opponent will be wary of getting too close to them. They will also level up faster and get Block sooner, plus the rest of your team has Block already so the reliablity is less of an issue. It also gives you at least one STR 4 player every turn with high damage potential.
They make *excellent* safeties because they can smack STR 3 ball carriers down on their own. To that end you can skill them up to be killers with MB and PO or have a more support role. Guard is always good on these guys (and much needed in many situations).
Personally I prefer NOT to take Piling On, and leave that to the Berserkers. Ulfwereners are better for chain pushing your players out of trouble and causing lots of damage every turn while they do it.
Juggernaut and Stand Firm can be used to turn them into very dangerous crowdsurfing players.
+STR is golden on an Ulf (and I'd definitely go Break Tackle next if I got it), and I'd also consider +AV considering the team really lacks armour across the board. Always get Block or Mighty Blow first, though, unless you get +STR.
The Norse Berserker
Norse Berserker
Cost: 90,000
Movement Allowance: 6
Strength: 3
Agility: 3
Armour Value: 7
Skill Access (no doubles):
GeneralStrength
Starting Skills:
BlockFrenzy
Jump Up
Recommended Skills (normal roll):
Mighty Blow (priority)
Piling On (priority)
Tackle
Stand Firm
Dauntless
Guard
Fend
Juggernaut
Strip Ball
Recommended Skills (double):
Diving Tackle
Recommended Stat-Ups:
+Strength
+MA
+AG
The Norse Berserker is not a subtle player, but nonetheless he's one of my favourites. He exists to do an insane amount of damage to the opposing team, whenever and wherever possible. You want to totally focus on damage skills with the Berserker as fast as possible: Mighty Blow or Piling On first, and then the skill you didn't take of the two second.
Piling On synergises very well with Jump Up and makes him a killing machine able to knock someone over, pile on to reroll the hurt and then immediately hit someone else (or the same guy) next to him the next turn. MB just amplifies the hurt. Your opponent will FEAR him!
After that, take skills that will either help him get people on the ground (Tackle) or keep him safer (Dodge, Fend). Guard is also handy, though it paints an even larger target sign on him, and ideally you don't even want him in contact with standing opponents.
Also, try not to let him get isolated because he WILL get fouled after piling on if you do. One of the team's biggest killers, and definitely the most reliable, it's worth giving them the ball in early games to help them level up quickly.
They can also be used to play the ball in a pinch, and make very good safeties and ball strippers thanks to Frenzy and Block.
The Norse Yhetee
Norse Yhetee
Cost: 140,000
Movement Allowance: 5
Strength: 5
Agility: 1
Armour Value: 8
Skill Access (no doubles):
Strength
Starting Skills:
LonerDisturbing Presence
Wild Animal
Frenzy
Claw
Recommended Skills (normal roll):
Guard (important)
Piling On (optional, but can really heap on the pain)
Stand Firm
Juggernaut
Recommended Skills (double):
Tackle
Recommended Stat-Ups:
+Strength
+AV
The Yhetee is a controversial player. He can be amazing and clear the pitch of tough opposing players, or be or a total liability who loses you games. He can be a hammer who clubs enemies off of your players in chain push blitzes (one of the best ways to use him), or he might roll triple skulls on the Blitz and kill himself.
Out of all the Big Guys, I've always found Yhetees to be the least consistent. Lacking Mighty Blow to start with means they have a tendency to go a long time before they level up. I've had one go 10 games without his first 6 SPP!
Similarly, Frenzy plus no Block and Loner means it's *very* common for them to turnover, and AV 8 means that if an enemy big guy gets the Both Down or Attacker Down hit on you, you're normally watching your 140,000 gold Big Guy being carted off the pitch dead or unconscious.
The biggest weird thing about the Yhetee is that he's pretty much designed to be hitting opposing players as much as possible. Most Big Guys just as a road block, standing in the way and funnelling the opposition away from a key area of the pitch, maybe soaking up some knockdowns for the rest of your team.
With AV 8 and at a high cost, the Yhetee is terrible for this. If he takes hits he'll almost always bite the dust. By contrast, his Claws make him quite a danger against high AV targets when he's on the offensive, so you'll actually always want him getting stuck into tough targets wherever possible.
The Norse can REALLY struggle with high AV teams, especially if their fouls don't turn out well and they get a few send offs. Your damage skills can struggle to penetrate the armour and you start getting out bashed. For this reason, I almost always take the Yhetee.
Once you get MB on him, he can be a brutal blitzer who can kill the opposing team's hardest players before they get hits on you
Yhetee Rule #1: Always (where possible) use him LAST.
This goes for all big guys but especially the Yhetee. Whenever blocking with him, do it at the end of your turn. This limits the harmful turnovers from being game changers to usually less decisive affairs.
Yhetee Rule #2: Use him to maim weaker players who can't fight back (i.e. downed linemen behind your line).
Yhetee Rule #3: Use him to chainpush stronger players off of your line.
Yhetee Rule #4: Keep him out of scrums with stronger players.
Screen your Yhetee with Linemen and move him in for blitzes where necessary, or keep him focussed on an isolated downed player. He can push stronger guys off of your line, saving your Zerkers from taking blocks, but you don't want him bogged down or taking blitzes from killers.
After Mighty Blow, Juggernaut is a good skill pick for the Yhetee, making him more reliable. Break Tackle can help to get him out of trouble.
The Holy Grail is Block, and I might even take it over a +STR for him - in fact I almost always would, since it makes him far more dangerous to the opposition, harder to knock over and far less of a liability to my game.
--
Honourable Mention: Norse Thrower
Cost: 70,000
Movement Allowance: 6
Strength: 3
Agility: 3
Armour Value: 7
Skill Access (no doubles):
GeneralPassing
Starting Skills:
BlockPass
Recommended Skills (normal roll):
Accurate
Leader
Fend
Tackle
Recommended Skills (double):
Dodge
Strong Arm
Recommended Stat-Ups:
+Strength
+AG
+MA
I've not really bothered talking about the Norse Thrower here because, to be honest, I hardly use him. He's nice as a Leader (you're basically paying 20k extra for Passing Skill access on normal rolls) and that's handy because in a Matchmaking environment (like in the Cyanide games) you'll be wanting to keep your TV low.
He can add a bit of diversity and save you against very bashy teams, but frankly if you're losing the bash war you're probably losing the match big time anyway! He has much the same flexibility as a Lineman, with a few frills.
Definitely an optional position since the running game is dominant with Norse. I would take him in a league, not in perpetual matchmaking.
---
Well guys, I hope that was helpful. I will do another post on specific Norse tactics soon.
Saturday, 31 October 2015
Matt's Blood Bowl Tactics: Norse Team Overview (video)
So, after a long hiatus, I made a video this weekend discussing some opinions regarding one of my favourite Blood Bowl teams, the Norse.
Catch it below, and drop me some comments.
Catch it below, and drop me some comments.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Nostalgia Corner: What happened to ideas in gaming?
After recently hearing about and becoming interested in a game from 1996 called HyperBlade, I started casting my mind back over the older ideas in gaming and it struck me just how more stale the gaming environment has become despite technological innovation.
HyperBlade was a future sports game revolving around the titular sport. The premise was thus:
In the future, medical science has evolved to the extent that death and serious injury is simply a minor inconvenience. This lead to ever more brutal sports to entertain the masses, eventually culminating in the most popular, HyperBlade.
Armour clad players skate around a huge halfpipe arena (known as the "drome"). The ball is known as the "rok". Each player has a large blade mounted on their right arm, known as the "jak". The jak is used both to hold and propel the ball, and also to stab and slash at players on the opposing team.
The arena itself is littered with powerups and traps. One which electrifies the ball, making it a dangerous weapon, while laser grids and spiked pillars make navigation hazardous.
Points are scored for goals, with one goal at each end of the halfpipe. However, slower and nastier teams can make up for their lack of finesse by killing or seriously hurting everyone on the opposing team - this also counts as a win.
Another interesting twist - if a player is decapitated at any point in the match, their head becomes the new "rok". This means that someone can be about to score when their teammate is killed, suddenly rendering the ball they're holding useless and giving possession to the other team.
To lighten up this rather oppressive atmosphere a little, the players all have their own backstories (many of which are both interesting and funny). The sponsors of the game are the most amusing however, with lashings of dark humour. "The Vine Institute" for example, announces that "Money doesn't grow on trees, but our limbs do!".
Simply - wow! Exciting gameplay, a fresh concept and the setting for the game itself is intriguing. What would such a dehumanised society be like? How would day to day life be? The game only gives the smallest hints, but it's a really interesting world to think about.
All this from a few images, a bit of text and a cold, futuristic soundtrack.
Then look at today's games. The only one I can think with anywhere near the same kind of interesting setting is perhaps Bioshock, which was an exception. Even that got a generic sequel.
Then there's Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3...urgh. As much as BF can be great, it'd be so nice I think to see the return or remake of older, more novel ideas.
Syndicate, Speedball, HyperBlade, Flashback...they may not have been graphically amazing, but they were so much more compelling in concept and execution. So much fresher, so much more unique.
Syndicate, in fact, is getting a remake. From the sound of it you will play a rogue Eurocorp Agent who turns to being "good". Where's the fun in that? It sounds formulaic and boring.
The original was fantastic because you were an immoral, faceless Executive. You ordered your mindless killing machines around dystopian futuristic cities, conducting assassinations, brainwashing people you needed influence over, all the while slowly spreading your Corporation across the globe.
The cyberpunk setting was gritty and intriguing, with floating cities on murky water. Amazing stuff! Now it's all traded in for a generic "hero story".
It's sad to think that in the decades of progress we've made in terms of graphics, we seem to have taken 10 steps back with the things that make games special.
HyperBlade was a future sports game revolving around the titular sport. The premise was thus:
In the future, medical science has evolved to the extent that death and serious injury is simply a minor inconvenience. This lead to ever more brutal sports to entertain the masses, eventually culminating in the most popular, HyperBlade.
Armour clad players skate around a huge halfpipe arena (known as the "drome"). The ball is known as the "rok". Each player has a large blade mounted on their right arm, known as the "jak". The jak is used both to hold and propel the ball, and also to stab and slash at players on the opposing team.
The arena itself is littered with powerups and traps. One which electrifies the ball, making it a dangerous weapon, while laser grids and spiked pillars make navigation hazardous.
Points are scored for goals, with one goal at each end of the halfpipe. However, slower and nastier teams can make up for their lack of finesse by killing or seriously hurting everyone on the opposing team - this also counts as a win.
Another interesting twist - if a player is decapitated at any point in the match, their head becomes the new "rok". This means that someone can be about to score when their teammate is killed, suddenly rendering the ball they're holding useless and giving possession to the other team.
To lighten up this rather oppressive atmosphere a little, the players all have their own backstories (many of which are both interesting and funny). The sponsors of the game are the most amusing however, with lashings of dark humour. "The Vine Institute" for example, announces that "Money doesn't grow on trees, but our limbs do!".
Simply - wow! Exciting gameplay, a fresh concept and the setting for the game itself is intriguing. What would such a dehumanised society be like? How would day to day life be? The game only gives the smallest hints, but it's a really interesting world to think about.
All this from a few images, a bit of text and a cold, futuristic soundtrack.
Then look at today's games. The only one I can think with anywhere near the same kind of interesting setting is perhaps Bioshock, which was an exception. Even that got a generic sequel.
Then there's Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3...urgh. As much as BF can be great, it'd be so nice I think to see the return or remake of older, more novel ideas.
Syndicate, Speedball, HyperBlade, Flashback...they may not have been graphically amazing, but they were so much more compelling in concept and execution. So much fresher, so much more unique.
Syndicate, in fact, is getting a remake. From the sound of it you will play a rogue Eurocorp Agent who turns to being "good". Where's the fun in that? It sounds formulaic and boring.
The original was fantastic because you were an immoral, faceless Executive. You ordered your mindless killing machines around dystopian futuristic cities, conducting assassinations, brainwashing people you needed influence over, all the while slowly spreading your Corporation across the globe.
The cyberpunk setting was gritty and intriguing, with floating cities on murky water. Amazing stuff! Now it's all traded in for a generic "hero story".
It's sad to think that in the decades of progress we've made in terms of graphics, we seem to have taken 10 steps back with the things that make games special.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
When Storytelling Fails: "Kane and Lynch: Dead Men"
*Contains spoilers*
So I was at PC World today and saw Kane and Lynch priced at a very tasty £2.98. I happily snapped it up, figuring even if it was total turd such a low price tag would make it at least a good few hours of entertainment.
I've played about 2 hours (which, seeing the ridiculous speed with which the missions are flying by, seems to be about half the game) and it's such a frustrating experience.
Good things:
- Constant moral ambiguity of the central characters.
- A gritty feel to the plot.
- Continuous action.
- Reasonably solid gameplay.
- Some gorgeous level design on occasion.
Bad things:
- Constant moral ambiguity of the central characters
- The plot is so dark at times that it feels like it could really do with some lightening up. It's almost oppressively depressing.
- Some shitty level design. The gorgeous levels are about balanced out with ones that seem pretty bland and uninteresting.
- Swearing. Gritty or not, an F-bomb gets dropped several times a sentence sometimes. It frequently feels over the top, rather than appropriate.
- The story is ridiculously under explained at times (see below).
- The game seems very, very short so far.
An example of the annoyances: The Tokyo Nightclub level blew me away. Fantastic use of lighting and music to create an awesome feeling level - it was like the "Club Scene" in Collateral.
However, the level lasted about 5 minutes. Rather than really exploit the cool feeling you get when taking down a guard quietly near the dancefloor and have a proper stealthy infiltration section that goes on for a while, the developers inexplicably decide to let the player walk through the level for a very short time before it essentially turns into your typical shooting gallery.
Not to mention the music stops and the dancers all run off. It was real fun just walking through a set of empty rooms shooting people (The sarcasm here is so heavy it's almost dripping off of my fangs!)
-------------------------------------------
SO! THE STORY!
The story takes the biscuit for the most irritating part of the game thus far.
Kane and Lynch has a really interesting setup. Kane is a middle aged, haggard-looking prison inmate on Death Row for apparently doing Some Really Bad Stuff™. He is wracked with guilt over his criminality, and writes a regretful letter to his daughter at the beginning of the game.
Lynch is a fellow prisoner. He's a wild-haired, scowling man with a rather scary beard. It's gradually revealed that underneath the beard is positively terrifying - he suffers from severe psychosis. Every now and then he morphs into an absolute raving maniac, kept in check only by popping some rather ineffective pills. Half the time he runs out of his medication, or forgets to take it.
Lynch bails Kane out of his appointment with death, and goes on to form an uneasy partnership with him. Kane must apparently get some stuff he "stole" for his old "friends" - though they have his family hostage as leverage and plan to kill him for his past transgression.
Lynch hides his illness from Kane and all seems to be well - until, in the middle of a heist, he suddenly snaps and executes nearly all the civilians in the bank, to Kane's astonished horror. Lynch himself wails with despair when Kane later informs him of his mass-slaughter, which apparently he had no control over.
This very interesting concept is totally squandered with a meandering, stupid plot that makes less and less sense as the game goes on.
The game seems to act like it's the middle movie of a trilogy, rather than a debut videogame. Most characters get about 2 seconds of introduction, then seem to disappear just as fast and the setting changes as if the producers were on crack.
Take the main villains: Ketamoto (at least, I think that was his name o_0) and "The7", which are apparently Kane's old group. I say apparently, because I have no clue whether I'm right there or not - the game gives an appallingly crap amount of background info. It would seem that Ketamoto is a crime boss in Japan - and Kane used to know him. However, that's all we learn. Absolutely jack is explained other than that. We don't even know who The7 are or what they do.
There's a difference between creating an air of mystery and an air of "What the shit is happening?". K&L usually gets the latter vibe.
I've played the whole game without skipping cutscenes thus far, and I have literally no idea what the hell is going on. One minute you're robbing a bank for an item which is not actually identified (lolwut?), then you're in Tokyo randomly attacking a nightclub because "That old fucker is there" (No joke, that's literally the only reason you fly to Tokyo and start shooting - because some old guy who Kane doesn't even mention previously is there. Or something. Maybe he just shoots up Tokyo for a laugh?)
Then you're back in the US, then you're in Tokyo again, then someone's dead so you have to bust into a prison (?!), then you're somewhere else. Lynch spends half the time asking WTF is going on, and rather than Kane dickishly telling him to shut up, we wish he'd fucking tell us as well.
Remember how I mentioned the moral ambiguity as both a negative and a positive? There's a reason for that - the characters are total arseholes at times. Both of them.
They almost did too good a job of making them tortured souls. Kane neglects his family completely, and ends up getting them killed. He leaves his heist buddies to die because he apparently can't be fucked to help them out of a burning van. He kidnaps Ketamoto's daughter for the vaguest of reasons (the guy apparently has something he needs, goodness knows what) and then stupidly leaves her with Lynch, despite his condition. She ends up dead, naturally.
What a hero!
Lynch on the other hand is rumoured to have murdered his own wife in one of his psycho black outs. This is hinted very strongly in a certain loading screen, where he apparently breaks down after "discovering" what he may or may not have done. In the present, he spends most of his time screwing up the plan by shooting innocents and butchering people they're meant to be protecting.
The areas in which they really could have deepened the bond between the characters were really missed, which I think is where the narrative drops the ball the most.
So far, the saddest scene in the game has been when Kane's wife was murdered by The7 for his failure to complete the task they gave him. They said they would at least let him talk to her before their collective deaths, but the thug in charge of the deed didn't even give him that opportunity. This causes Kane to go berserk and beat his would-be killer to death with a shovel.
Even the bloodthirsty Lynch is shocked by these events, and he leaps to Kane's aid without any of his normal bitching. Wow, I thought - perhaps the macho "Shut up", "No, you shut up" shit is finally over, and the devs will now add a stronger bond between the characters?
Err, no. Instead we get Kane grieving over the newly dug grave of his wife, Lynch starting to sympathise and then Kane being a total wanker and viciously brushing him off. Nice going with the character development!
I think if I were a wanted man, my wife had just died, my daughter was in terrible danger and I had no one I could count on, I'd be a little more thankful for the one guy who also lost his wife and got backstabbed by the same people. In this game, apparently such human traits are not present in the characters.
I shall play on tomorrow, but damn. The game really could have been neat, if there had actually been some thought put into the progression of things.
So I was at PC World today and saw Kane and Lynch priced at a very tasty £2.98. I happily snapped it up, figuring even if it was total turd such a low price tag would make it at least a good few hours of entertainment.
I've played about 2 hours (which, seeing the ridiculous speed with which the missions are flying by, seems to be about half the game) and it's such a frustrating experience.
Good things:
- Constant moral ambiguity of the central characters.
- A gritty feel to the plot.
- Continuous action.
- Reasonably solid gameplay.
- Some gorgeous level design on occasion.
Bad things:
- Constant moral ambiguity of the central characters
- The plot is so dark at times that it feels like it could really do with some lightening up. It's almost oppressively depressing.
- Some shitty level design. The gorgeous levels are about balanced out with ones that seem pretty bland and uninteresting.
- Swearing. Gritty or not, an F-bomb gets dropped several times a sentence sometimes. It frequently feels over the top, rather than appropriate.
- The story is ridiculously under explained at times (see below).
- The game seems very, very short so far.
An example of the annoyances: The Tokyo Nightclub level blew me away. Fantastic use of lighting and music to create an awesome feeling level - it was like the "Club Scene" in Collateral.
However, the level lasted about 5 minutes. Rather than really exploit the cool feeling you get when taking down a guard quietly near the dancefloor and have a proper stealthy infiltration section that goes on for a while, the developers inexplicably decide to let the player walk through the level for a very short time before it essentially turns into your typical shooting gallery.
Not to mention the music stops and the dancers all run off. It was real fun just walking through a set of empty rooms shooting people (The sarcasm here is so heavy it's almost dripping off of my fangs!)
-------------------------------------------
SO! THE STORY!
The story takes the biscuit for the most irritating part of the game thus far.
Kane and Lynch has a really interesting setup. Kane is a middle aged, haggard-looking prison inmate on Death Row for apparently doing Some Really Bad Stuff™. He is wracked with guilt over his criminality, and writes a regretful letter to his daughter at the beginning of the game.
Lynch is a fellow prisoner. He's a wild-haired, scowling man with a rather scary beard. It's gradually revealed that underneath the beard is positively terrifying - he suffers from severe psychosis. Every now and then he morphs into an absolute raving maniac, kept in check only by popping some rather ineffective pills. Half the time he runs out of his medication, or forgets to take it.
Lynch bails Kane out of his appointment with death, and goes on to form an uneasy partnership with him. Kane must apparently get some stuff he "stole" for his old "friends" - though they have his family hostage as leverage and plan to kill him for his past transgression.
Lynch hides his illness from Kane and all seems to be well - until, in the middle of a heist, he suddenly snaps and executes nearly all the civilians in the bank, to Kane's astonished horror. Lynch himself wails with despair when Kane later informs him of his mass-slaughter, which apparently he had no control over.
This very interesting concept is totally squandered with a meandering, stupid plot that makes less and less sense as the game goes on.
The game seems to act like it's the middle movie of a trilogy, rather than a debut videogame. Most characters get about 2 seconds of introduction, then seem to disappear just as fast and the setting changes as if the producers were on crack.
Take the main villains: Ketamoto (at least, I think that was his name o_0) and "The7", which are apparently Kane's old group. I say apparently, because I have no clue whether I'm right there or not - the game gives an appallingly crap amount of background info. It would seem that Ketamoto is a crime boss in Japan - and Kane used to know him. However, that's all we learn. Absolutely jack is explained other than that. We don't even know who The7 are or what they do.
There's a difference between creating an air of mystery and an air of "What the shit is happening?". K&L usually gets the latter vibe.
I've played the whole game without skipping cutscenes thus far, and I have literally no idea what the hell is going on. One minute you're robbing a bank for an item which is not actually identified (lolwut?), then you're in Tokyo randomly attacking a nightclub because "That old fucker is there" (No joke, that's literally the only reason you fly to Tokyo and start shooting - because some old guy who Kane doesn't even mention previously is there. Or something. Maybe he just shoots up Tokyo for a laugh?)
Then you're back in the US, then you're in Tokyo again, then someone's dead so you have to bust into a prison (?!), then you're somewhere else. Lynch spends half the time asking WTF is going on, and rather than Kane dickishly telling him to shut up, we wish he'd fucking tell us as well.
Remember how I mentioned the moral ambiguity as both a negative and a positive? There's a reason for that - the characters are total arseholes at times. Both of them.
They almost did too good a job of making them tortured souls. Kane neglects his family completely, and ends up getting them killed. He leaves his heist buddies to die because he apparently can't be fucked to help them out of a burning van. He kidnaps Ketamoto's daughter for the vaguest of reasons (the guy apparently has something he needs, goodness knows what) and then stupidly leaves her with Lynch, despite his condition. She ends up dead, naturally.
What a hero!
Lynch on the other hand is rumoured to have murdered his own wife in one of his psycho black outs. This is hinted very strongly in a certain loading screen, where he apparently breaks down after "discovering" what he may or may not have done. In the present, he spends most of his time screwing up the plan by shooting innocents and butchering people they're meant to be protecting.
The areas in which they really could have deepened the bond between the characters were really missed, which I think is where the narrative drops the ball the most.
So far, the saddest scene in the game has been when Kane's wife was murdered by The7 for his failure to complete the task they gave him. They said they would at least let him talk to her before their collective deaths, but the thug in charge of the deed didn't even give him that opportunity. This causes Kane to go berserk and beat his would-be killer to death with a shovel.
Even the bloodthirsty Lynch is shocked by these events, and he leaps to Kane's aid without any of his normal bitching. Wow, I thought - perhaps the macho "Shut up", "No, you shut up" shit is finally over, and the devs will now add a stronger bond between the characters?
Err, no. Instead we get Kane grieving over the newly dug grave of his wife, Lynch starting to sympathise and then Kane being a total wanker and viciously brushing him off. Nice going with the character development!
I think if I were a wanted man, my wife had just died, my daughter was in terrible danger and I had no one I could count on, I'd be a little more thankful for the one guy who also lost his wife and got backstabbed by the same people. In this game, apparently such human traits are not present in the characters.
I shall play on tomorrow, but damn. The game really could have been neat, if there had actually been some thought put into the progression of things.
Friday, 29 July 2011
How To Make A "Realistic" FPS Game
Having played a lot of FPS games in my time and getting frustrated over all the same issues in every single one, I thought I'd write a nice little list for any developer that wishes to make one in the future :D
The Unofficial Official Design Document For Any Bestselling "Realistic" Shooter
Step 1: Get a Theme
It's an unwritten rule that FPS games can only be set in three different times:
1 - World War II
2 - Vietnam
3 - The (Near) Future
Any other setting is a breach of design ethics.
In the near future, the game must centre around America versus Unnamed Middle Eastern Nation. If you want to get really, really creative, replace the UMEN with Russia or China.
Step 2 - Create Some Maps
Maps can be set in three different locations only:
1 - Snowy mountains
2 - Bombed out Arabic street
3 - Bombed out Russian street
Any other locations aren't plausible enough.
Step 3 - Dim the Colour Palette
In real life, everything is either grey or brown. The more grey and brown you can fit into your game world, the more realistic it is. A sufficiently realistic game will be able to make even blood and explosions look a muddled shade of brown-grey colour.
Step 4 - Make Everything Hard to See
Everyone knows that walking out of your front door, you cannot see further than 15 feet in front of you due to vegetation, fog and swirling debris in the air.
To make your game really realistic, add loads of trees, plants, shrubs, bushes fog, fire, smoke and dust flying around in the air. You'll know your game is realistic enough when the people playing it are completely confused as to what is just down the road. Blades of grass on the hills in the distance should be easily mistaken for enemy sharpshooters.
When players start shooting at man-shaped trees shrouded in gloom and saying "What the heck? That cactus wasn't a Tank?" you know that your game is truly blessed with realism.
Step 5 - Make Death Inevitable And Instantaneous
War is Hell. You should educate players that this is the case by making almost every gun one-shot kill them and survival for more than 10 seconds utterly impossible.
In real life, it's common knowledge that a 9mm sidearm can punch through a three foot solid cinderblock wall and kill someone in one hit to their little toe. To make your game an accurate simulation, your firearms should be equally deadly, if not more so. Cover should be for aesthetics only - bullets and explosions should tear right through it in seconds.
To be really accurate, you should make sure players have no idea what in the holy fuck is killing them most of the time. This is best achieved by giving everyone and their dog the ability to drop artillery, silent helicopter attacks, heavy machinegun bursts and huge bombing runs from jet planes at the press of a button, anywhere they like.
Spawn points should also belch players out in front of tanks, high explosives and mines at every possible opportunity.
Step 6 - Add An Annoying Class/Ability/Weapon
Commonly known as "The Noob Cannon" or "The Noob Class" or "That Sodding Gun That All The Lamearses Use".
The high level of realism in your game may make it less attractive to "casual" gamers. To increase your mass market appeal, add a retardedly powerful bigass machinegun or rapid fire sniper rifle to your game. Hell, it's even realistic (sort-of)! Make such a gun extremely accurate, give it a massive clip and practically unlimited damage potential. You'll soon have players falling over themselves to buy the game.
Even better, make it a DLC item. Players will be shelling out their hard-earned in no time.
Some players will also be unable to work in a team. Hence you must make it easy for them to grief their teammates and/or whore kills without helping the team. A modified Sniper class is ideal for this kind of player, so be sure to include it in your game. Give it a cool name like "Recon Master" or something, to make sure all the kiddies use it.
Step 7 - Encourage The "Pro" Mentality
To really get your game up in the sales, make sure to design obnoxious achievements and add a "Humiliation" weapon. Monitor your forums, and delete any posts that aren't roughly like the following:
"Zo me an' mah clannn p0rned some pubb1e pub-serv0r bitzhesa last nite and i got Like a 50:1 K/D ratio LOL fear my pwnage LOL fuk yerrrrrrrrrr u all noobs bitczhessz LOL!!!1"
Step 8 - Let The Money And Good Reviews Pour In
Make an expansion pack that has 2 maps and 1 gun for £59.99 two weeks later. Swim in cash, repeat.
ALSO IN THIS SERIES!
How To Make A Game That Is Actually Realistic And Not "Pseudo-Realistic"
AND
How To Make A Game That Is Actually Fucking Fun To Play
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Oblivion and Schizophrenic Difficulty Settings
So I reinstalled TES: Oblivion the other day, and so far I am once again hooked. Playing as a hardcore mage for the first time, the amount of options (especially seeing as I am now finally in the Arcane University) are mind-boggling. I'm finding Wizards are considerably stronger than Warrior types so far, because they don't need to rely on a wide range of Skills or gear nearly as much, plus they can do very high damage.
However, the game still clearly suffers from a bizarre lack of balance. Upon gaining access to the Uni, I created my first spell - a Fire Damage on Touch effect that I named Ashburner I. It does a total of 62 damage in one big hit, far more than my previous 15 damage cold spell.
I proceeded to absolutely massacre wild beasts with that and my Weakness to Magic spell, plus a healthy dose of Hand To Hand punching.
Then I went to the Arena, and the fights were all pretty easy, aside from one, which just struck me as absolute BS.
The guy with the Grey Aegis shield was the opponent. I don't know the exact stats, but the shield appears to convey absolute, 100% resistance to magic on the wearer. Combined with this he has a decent longsword (Silver) and, most infuriatingly, ridiculously powerful fireball and fire touch spells.
My character relies on magic to do damage and has a crippling weakness to getting hit with it (A Breton for some resistance, but +100% vulnerability due to my Apprentice birthsign).
The fight proceeded thus - he would throw a fireball at me, ignoring my summoned partner, and it would "home in" on me as I dodged. I'd never seen that happen before, but it definitely was in this fight. Said fireball would take off 75% of my health. He'd then do it again...DEAD.
This was followed by me trying to get closer to him, to use my fists. He blocked with the shield, then Fire Touched me. DEAD.
Next time I brought my Silver Dagger, and kept poisoning it. I hit him a few times by deflecting his sword, but then he point-blank Fireballed me. DEAD.
Meanwhile, every magic attack I did was naturally 0% effective. To top it off, he had ridiculous hitpoints. I must have hit him about 100+ times with that dagger to kill him in the end, having to Quicksave part-way through the fight to actually beat him.
In the end I defeated him by standing absolutely still and dodging the fireball at the last second (worked about 30% of the time >_>) and chugging health and Fire Resistance potions like Pepsi. I'd run away at close range so he couldn't Fire Touch me to death instantly, instead waiting for him to swing the sword so I could deflect and attack.
It was very tedious and felt utterly unfair as opposed to challenging. This was followed by me looking at the shield on the floor and seeing that it was worth 15,000 gold. Lawl.
I'm now waiting for the wildnerness encounters to become ridiculous, I'm sure it will happen soon :(
However, the game still clearly suffers from a bizarre lack of balance. Upon gaining access to the Uni, I created my first spell - a Fire Damage on Touch effect that I named Ashburner I. It does a total of 62 damage in one big hit, far more than my previous 15 damage cold spell.
I proceeded to absolutely massacre wild beasts with that and my Weakness to Magic spell, plus a healthy dose of Hand To Hand punching.
Then I went to the Arena, and the fights were all pretty easy, aside from one, which just struck me as absolute BS.
The guy with the Grey Aegis shield was the opponent. I don't know the exact stats, but the shield appears to convey absolute, 100% resistance to magic on the wearer. Combined with this he has a decent longsword (Silver) and, most infuriatingly, ridiculously powerful fireball and fire touch spells.
My character relies on magic to do damage and has a crippling weakness to getting hit with it (A Breton for some resistance, but +100% vulnerability due to my Apprentice birthsign).
The fight proceeded thus - he would throw a fireball at me, ignoring my summoned partner, and it would "home in" on me as I dodged. I'd never seen that happen before, but it definitely was in this fight. Said fireball would take off 75% of my health. He'd then do it again...DEAD.
This was followed by me trying to get closer to him, to use my fists. He blocked with the shield, then Fire Touched me. DEAD.
Next time I brought my Silver Dagger, and kept poisoning it. I hit him a few times by deflecting his sword, but then he point-blank Fireballed me. DEAD.
Meanwhile, every magic attack I did was naturally 0% effective. To top it off, he had ridiculous hitpoints. I must have hit him about 100+ times with that dagger to kill him in the end, having to Quicksave part-way through the fight to actually beat him.
In the end I defeated him by standing absolutely still and dodging the fireball at the last second (worked about 30% of the time >_>) and chugging health and Fire Resistance potions like Pepsi. I'd run away at close range so he couldn't Fire Touch me to death instantly, instead waiting for him to swing the sword so I could deflect and attack.
It was very tedious and felt utterly unfair as opposed to challenging. This was followed by me looking at the shield on the floor and seeing that it was worth 15,000 gold. Lawl.
I'm now waiting for the wildnerness encounters to become ridiculous, I'm sure it will happen soon :(
Friday, 17 September 2010
Review: Mirror's Edge (PC)
So, today I decided to redownload my copy of Mirror's Edge from Steam after not playing it for a while, and that got me thinking on doing a review.
ME is a funny game. It's innovative, and that is its one key strength.
The gameplay revolves around parkour, the practice of moving physically around an area (particular urban locales) in the fastest and most efficient way possible. The first thing (and this always irritates me!) - it IS parkour, not "free running", as many people believe.
Parkour is all about efficiency of movement by climbing, running and jumping. Free running is all about leaping off of railings and doing flips as you move around to wow people. It is the "Whoah, duuuuude!" version of parkour.
ME does the whole parkour thing really well. The whole game is played from a first person viewpoint, as the character of Faith, a female "runner". Maybe I should explain that.
In the not-so-distant future, society has apparently become a utopian place. People live in huge, gleaming, permanently bright and sunny cities, decorated in almost obsessively eye-catching colours.
Underneath the pleasant exterior, the unnamed city the game is set in (and apparently the world at large) is micro-managed by a despotic regime that forbids free travel of information, and thus keeps the populace happy through apathy and ignorance.
Runners, male and female couriers of information, leap around this cityscape using parkour, delivering messages and data, trying to restore more free will to the citizens and/or start some kind of revolution. As one character says, things were better "when the city was dirty and alive".
The game's story, surprisingly for such an interesting concept, is one of it's weakest elements. It starts out pretty good, but drags on without really coughing up anything really interesting. Several characters in the game change their motives multiple times, sometimes giving the feeling that the story has gone one or two twists too far.
The ending in particular is weak (it has a rather lame deus ex machina element to it). It leaves the game at a real cliffhanger, and gave me the feeling that ultimately I had solved nothing, and made no difference during the game. Not cool.
The first person view really gives the game a "realistic" feel, despite the almost surreal surroundings of the city. You hurl yourself over walls, slide under pipes, crash through doors and kick guns from the hands of your pursuers all in first person. That means that you will literally have the camera roll over vertically when performing a commando roll, for example.
It sounds nauseating, but you soon get used to it, and it is very cool.
I mentioned guns, and that means combat. It is the one thing that drags the gameplay down, particularly in the later sections. The fun of the game largely relies on the unique movement. Building up momentum and performing a death-defying leap onto a roof is very satisfying, particularly when you look back and the chasing corporate cronies can only stare helplessly as you get away.
Unfortunately the game feels the need to crank the shooting up to 11, something that has ruined many innovative games. You find in the later levels you won't be jumping or running much - instead you'll be walking down corridors gunning down hordes of SWAT-like baddies.
That's okay if you're playing a dedicated first person shooter, but although the gunplay mechanics in ME are pretty good, they're not A+. You'll soon yearn for the freedom of running away from the guns rather than just walking around shooting Identikit Evil Man #04430 in the face.
The hand to hand combat is more exciting, and early game you'll definitely enjoy surprising the odd sluggish bad guy with a flying kick to the gob.
Finally, the game has a really interesting graphical style. The city is unnaturally clean and bright. The colours both guide you (a form of "runner sense" allows you to quickly pick out a door you can bash through, for example, by colouring it eye-searing red) and decorate the environment beautifully.
Enemies and other characters look pretty realistic, yet strangely "perfect" at the same time, much like the city. Their eyes gleam with light reflections, and armour, clothes and skin designs are top notch.
Final Word:
If you're tired of shoot-a-thon games where the colour palette seems to consist entirely of grey, brown, and brown/red, then ME will give your eyes and senses a much needed holiday.
Overall I recommend the game. Time trials tasks give the game replayability, and if you can ignore the increasingly silly turns of the story (and stomach the shootier levels at the end of the game) you should find the glowing jewel of the open gameplay shines through.
I give the game 3.5 (rounded to 4) out of 5 for really being bold and attempting something new, even though it does have flaws.
At certain times, when the gameplay really flows, it's easy to grin like a maniac. Being chased through a brightly coloured subway station as trains hurtle by was a perfect example of a level I thought was really fun to play.
[*] [*] [*] [*] [ ]
ME is a funny game. It's innovative, and that is its one key strength.
The gameplay revolves around parkour, the practice of moving physically around an area (particular urban locales) in the fastest and most efficient way possible. The first thing (and this always irritates me!) - it IS parkour, not "free running", as many people believe.
Parkour is all about efficiency of movement by climbing, running and jumping. Free running is all about leaping off of railings and doing flips as you move around to wow people. It is the "Whoah, duuuuude!" version of parkour.
ME does the whole parkour thing really well. The whole game is played from a first person viewpoint, as the character of Faith, a female "runner". Maybe I should explain that.
In the not-so-distant future, society has apparently become a utopian place. People live in huge, gleaming, permanently bright and sunny cities, decorated in almost obsessively eye-catching colours.
Underneath the pleasant exterior, the unnamed city the game is set in (and apparently the world at large) is micro-managed by a despotic regime that forbids free travel of information, and thus keeps the populace happy through apathy and ignorance.
Runners, male and female couriers of information, leap around this cityscape using parkour, delivering messages and data, trying to restore more free will to the citizens and/or start some kind of revolution. As one character says, things were better "when the city was dirty and alive".
The game's story, surprisingly for such an interesting concept, is one of it's weakest elements. It starts out pretty good, but drags on without really coughing up anything really interesting. Several characters in the game change their motives multiple times, sometimes giving the feeling that the story has gone one or two twists too far.
The ending in particular is weak (it has a rather lame deus ex machina element to it). It leaves the game at a real cliffhanger, and gave me the feeling that ultimately I had solved nothing, and made no difference during the game. Not cool.
The first person view really gives the game a "realistic" feel, despite the almost surreal surroundings of the city. You hurl yourself over walls, slide under pipes, crash through doors and kick guns from the hands of your pursuers all in first person. That means that you will literally have the camera roll over vertically when performing a commando roll, for example.
It sounds nauseating, but you soon get used to it, and it is very cool.
I mentioned guns, and that means combat. It is the one thing that drags the gameplay down, particularly in the later sections. The fun of the game largely relies on the unique movement. Building up momentum and performing a death-defying leap onto a roof is very satisfying, particularly when you look back and the chasing corporate cronies can only stare helplessly as you get away.
Unfortunately the game feels the need to crank the shooting up to 11, something that has ruined many innovative games. You find in the later levels you won't be jumping or running much - instead you'll be walking down corridors gunning down hordes of SWAT-like baddies.
That's okay if you're playing a dedicated first person shooter, but although the gunplay mechanics in ME are pretty good, they're not A+. You'll soon yearn for the freedom of running away from the guns rather than just walking around shooting Identikit Evil Man #04430 in the face.
The hand to hand combat is more exciting, and early game you'll definitely enjoy surprising the odd sluggish bad guy with a flying kick to the gob.
Finally, the game has a really interesting graphical style. The city is unnaturally clean and bright. The colours both guide you (a form of "runner sense" allows you to quickly pick out a door you can bash through, for example, by colouring it eye-searing red) and decorate the environment beautifully.
Enemies and other characters look pretty realistic, yet strangely "perfect" at the same time, much like the city. Their eyes gleam with light reflections, and armour, clothes and skin designs are top notch.
Final Word:
If you're tired of shoot-a-thon games where the colour palette seems to consist entirely of grey, brown, and brown/red, then ME will give your eyes and senses a much needed holiday.
Overall I recommend the game. Time trials tasks give the game replayability, and if you can ignore the increasingly silly turns of the story (and stomach the shootier levels at the end of the game) you should find the glowing jewel of the open gameplay shines through.
I give the game 3.5 (rounded to 4) out of 5 for really being bold and attempting something new, even though it does have flaws.
At certain times, when the gameplay really flows, it's easy to grin like a maniac. Being chased through a brightly coloured subway station as trains hurtle by was a perfect example of a level I thought was really fun to play.
[*] [*] [*] [*] [ ]
Friday, 10 September 2010
Online Accounts and Patience
*Readers should be aware that I was in a bad mood while typing this. Any such posts will be tagged with "Ragepost". Swearing and sadistic remarks may be at above average levels.*
I hate computers.
I was rather hoping that all my game-related bile had dried up from yesterday's prolonged outburst at DLC. Unfortunately not, as an infuriating experience this morning has proved.
What is it with games (and for that matter, other online services too) having ridiculous account systems that make the user fly through freaking hoops just to do the simplest things?
Ages ago, I enjoyed playing Company of Heroes, a WW-II themed real-time strategy game, made by developer Relic. Then I bought the expansion, Opposing Fronts, and much fun (read: swearing) occurred while I faffed about trying to get the two products to work in harmony due to the game's bizarre online account system.
Recently, after a long absense from the game, I picked up the mini-expansion, Tales of Valour (I refuse to spell it the American way!) for a sweet £2.50 deal on Steam.
Right, I'm thinking, just fire up Opposing Fronts, key in the ToV code from my steam purchase, and everything should work. I can have a brief game against the AI, play with shiny things, done.
No, of course it is never that simple. I'm greeted with the Relic Online login screen. I've long since forgotten my account, so I get the piece of paper I wrote it down on (after forgetting it once in the past and having a massive pain in the neck).
Login! Oh wait, I can't, because it tells me the details are wrong. They can't be, since I haven't changed them since writing them down. That means that the game needs to be patched before it will recognise my login details.
This leads to a lengthy attempt at installing a small 26mb patch through the game's updater.
Does that work? No prizes for the answer. I open all the router ports the game requires for updating, to absolutely no avail. It just tells me that the download failed. No reason or anything, natch.
I then sod around for about 45 minutes (no exaggeration, I've been sat here for a full hour now) Googling how to actually find the patch version of the game, so I can manually update it, and then perform that. Naturally that required this weird "Cancel download to get up prompt for disc validation." dance.
Excuse me, but how the bloody hell am I meant to know cancelling the download instead of just letting it fail will let me validate my game with the disc?! Why is there no "use disc" button? /tearhairout.
Apparently all this assorted bollocks is in place to provide an easier experience for the user. Since that is obviously rubbish (having to download at least 10 patches does not equal user friendliness), it is clearly a purely anti-piracy measure. Got to love how those have a tendency to screw up the experience for legitimate customers only.
I'm pretty sure the pirates don't even have a login screen on their version, so no need to bull around with all this kind of rubbish, plus they get the game free.
Nice job gaming industry, nice job!
I hate computers.
I was rather hoping that all my game-related bile had dried up from yesterday's prolonged outburst at DLC. Unfortunately not, as an infuriating experience this morning has proved.
What is it with games (and for that matter, other online services too) having ridiculous account systems that make the user fly through freaking hoops just to do the simplest things?
Ages ago, I enjoyed playing Company of Heroes, a WW-II themed real-time strategy game, made by developer Relic. Then I bought the expansion, Opposing Fronts, and much fun (read: swearing) occurred while I faffed about trying to get the two products to work in harmony due to the game's bizarre online account system.
Recently, after a long absense from the game, I picked up the mini-expansion, Tales of Valour (I refuse to spell it the American way!) for a sweet £2.50 deal on Steam.
Right, I'm thinking, just fire up Opposing Fronts, key in the ToV code from my steam purchase, and everything should work. I can have a brief game against the AI, play with shiny things, done.
No, of course it is never that simple. I'm greeted with the Relic Online login screen. I've long since forgotten my account, so I get the piece of paper I wrote it down on (after forgetting it once in the past and having a massive pain in the neck).
Login! Oh wait, I can't, because it tells me the details are wrong. They can't be, since I haven't changed them since writing them down. That means that the game needs to be patched before it will recognise my login details.
This leads to a lengthy attempt at installing a small 26mb patch through the game's updater.
Does that work? No prizes for the answer. I open all the router ports the game requires for updating, to absolutely no avail. It just tells me that the download failed. No reason or anything, natch.
I then sod around for about 45 minutes (no exaggeration, I've been sat here for a full hour now) Googling how to actually find the patch version of the game, so I can manually update it, and then perform that. Naturally that required this weird "Cancel download to get up prompt for disc validation." dance.
Excuse me, but how the bloody hell am I meant to know cancelling the download instead of just letting it fail will let me validate my game with the disc?! Why is there no "use disc" button? /tearhairout.
Apparently all this assorted bollocks is in place to provide an easier experience for the user. Since that is obviously rubbish (having to download at least 10 patches does not equal user friendliness), it is clearly a purely anti-piracy measure. Got to love how those have a tendency to screw up the experience for legitimate customers only.
I'm pretty sure the pirates don't even have a login screen on their version, so no need to bull around with all this kind of rubbish, plus they get the game free.
Nice job gaming industry, nice job!
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Games and "Downloadable Content"
There is a new marketing technique taking gaming by storm. It is called "Downloadable Content", or DLC.
Consoles have been doing this since the XBox 360, but it's something that is now slowly creeping it's way into the PC sector.
First of all, I'm not against all forms of DLC. In the past there were always expansion packs for games that you could buy in a store to add new stuff. They typically added quite a bit of new gameplay or story. Fallout 3's DLC generally has a good reputation as it adds a lot of content, and the original game was well made.
What I am definitely against, however, is this new tide of "bullcrap DLC". Games developers have recently been making a game with a lot of content, cutting a lot of that original content out, and then re-selling it after release as DLC packs, often for £5 or more per purchase.
Alternatively they deliberately build the game around some kind of minor but irritating flaw (such as a poor ending or lack of weapons), and then bring out DLC almost immediately after release that "fixes" that problem.
Deliberately gimping your product, mis-selling it, and then re-selling lumps of it strikes me as a pretty unethical business practice and I'm surprised the companies in question are even allowed to do it legally.
Take Mafia II for example. In trailers for the game, several missions (complete with dialogue, fully rendered cutscenes and everything else) are totally missing. There are no "side-missions", but simply a main story that winds through the length of the game (which works well since the story is strong, but it still feels as though something was cut out.)
Then, a couple of days back, after the game has only been out about a week at most, suddenly the developers (2K) released a DLC pack, currently priced at £6.30 on Steam. Now, I only just paid £29.99 for the game, there is no way I'm dropping £6.30 less than a week later.
This pack is called Jimmy's Vendetta, and features a bald mercenary out for revenge. The pack is apparently far more "arcade" in nature, and features 30 tasks that have you racing around the city shooting enemies and blowing stuff up.
Thirty may sound a lot, but the whole extra content pack can apparently be finished in around 40 minutes, the tasks are so short.
Short missions with an arcadey feel? That sounds almost like the side-missions that seemed "cut" from the game!
2k vehemently denied this, insisting everything was new content that they'd freshly made (in a week, lolz). They dug their own grave with that one. In the (new) apartment in which Jimmy stays, screenshots clearly show the name "Vito" (the standard game character) engraved on the apartment ownership sign. Oops!
Honestly, if you paid for a delicious burger, would you expect a big bite out of the meat inside? And then you're told that you'll have to pay extra to have that chunk back, in a slightly different form?
Since Mafia II's ending is left very ambiguous (someone even joked that the next DLC will feature "The ending and an epilogue.") I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to release a crap-ton of missions for Vito for £6 a pop soon as well.
Someone even spotted a future pack named "Joe's Adventures" in the game files - Joe being a character that the ending hinges around.
It's not unique to Mafia II either.
Fallout 3, while generally regarded as having very good value DLC, also had a remarkably crappy "standard" ending that prevented you playing on with your established character. Many fans were annoyed by this.
Presumably the decision was made to deliberately make it quite a closed ending let down, because the next DLC pack suddenly changed it to an open-ended "keep-playing" ending. *Insert cash register sound*.
Meanwhile CoD:Modern Warfare 2 has been charging £10.99 for maps already in the original game, just ported over to the sequel in 5 minutes. You have to be joking.
Steam is also telling me that "Sniper: Ghost Warrior" (which admittedly I've never played) is now charging £9.99 for 5 new multiplayer maps. Call me crazy, but the whole game was £29.99 I believe.
So 5 new maps (for which only the mapping and artistic parts of a dev crew need to work on) cost 1/3 of the original price? Lol.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the only way to stop this pretty cynical cash-cow esque technique of selling every last drop of a game is to stop buying the lamest of the DLC packs.
Sadly time and time again gamers have proven that they don't have the will to take such an action, and I imagine it will be several years before it becomes such a rip-off that most of the public stop buying it.
Until then, I'll bitterly enjoy watching people spend £6 for a new gun/hat/car for Vito.
Consoles have been doing this since the XBox 360, but it's something that is now slowly creeping it's way into the PC sector.
First of all, I'm not against all forms of DLC. In the past there were always expansion packs for games that you could buy in a store to add new stuff. They typically added quite a bit of new gameplay or story. Fallout 3's DLC generally has a good reputation as it adds a lot of content, and the original game was well made.
What I am definitely against, however, is this new tide of "bullcrap DLC". Games developers have recently been making a game with a lot of content, cutting a lot of that original content out, and then re-selling it after release as DLC packs, often for £5 or more per purchase.
Alternatively they deliberately build the game around some kind of minor but irritating flaw (such as a poor ending or lack of weapons), and then bring out DLC almost immediately after release that "fixes" that problem.
Deliberately gimping your product, mis-selling it, and then re-selling lumps of it strikes me as a pretty unethical business practice and I'm surprised the companies in question are even allowed to do it legally.
Take Mafia II for example. In trailers for the game, several missions (complete with dialogue, fully rendered cutscenes and everything else) are totally missing. There are no "side-missions", but simply a main story that winds through the length of the game (which works well since the story is strong, but it still feels as though something was cut out.)
Then, a couple of days back, after the game has only been out about a week at most, suddenly the developers (2K) released a DLC pack, currently priced at £6.30 on Steam. Now, I only just paid £29.99 for the game, there is no way I'm dropping £6.30 less than a week later.
This pack is called Jimmy's Vendetta, and features a bald mercenary out for revenge. The pack is apparently far more "arcade" in nature, and features 30 tasks that have you racing around the city shooting enemies and blowing stuff up.
Thirty may sound a lot, but the whole extra content pack can apparently be finished in around 40 minutes, the tasks are so short.
Short missions with an arcadey feel? That sounds almost like the side-missions that seemed "cut" from the game!
2k vehemently denied this, insisting everything was new content that they'd freshly made (in a week, lolz). They dug their own grave with that one. In the (new) apartment in which Jimmy stays, screenshots clearly show the name "Vito" (the standard game character) engraved on the apartment ownership sign. Oops!
Honestly, if you paid for a delicious burger, would you expect a big bite out of the meat inside? And then you're told that you'll have to pay extra to have that chunk back, in a slightly different form?
Since Mafia II's ending is left very ambiguous (someone even joked that the next DLC will feature "The ending and an epilogue.") I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to release a crap-ton of missions for Vito for £6 a pop soon as well.
Someone even spotted a future pack named "Joe's Adventures" in the game files - Joe being a character that the ending hinges around.
It's not unique to Mafia II either.
Fallout 3, while generally regarded as having very good value DLC, also had a remarkably crappy "standard" ending that prevented you playing on with your established character. Many fans were annoyed by this.
Presumably the decision was made to deliberately make it quite a closed ending let down, because the next DLC pack suddenly changed it to an open-ended "keep-playing" ending. *Insert cash register sound*.
Meanwhile CoD:Modern Warfare 2 has been charging £10.99 for maps already in the original game, just ported over to the sequel in 5 minutes. You have to be joking.
Steam is also telling me that "Sniper: Ghost Warrior" (which admittedly I've never played) is now charging £9.99 for 5 new multiplayer maps. Call me crazy, but the whole game was £29.99 I believe.
So 5 new maps (for which only the mapping and artistic parts of a dev crew need to work on) cost 1/3 of the original price? Lol.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the only way to stop this pretty cynical cash-cow esque technique of selling every last drop of a game is to stop buying the lamest of the DLC packs.
Sadly time and time again gamers have proven that they don't have the will to take such an action, and I imagine it will be several years before it becomes such a rip-off that most of the public stop buying it.
Until then, I'll bitterly enjoy watching people spend £6 for a new gun/hat/car for Vito.
Friday, 3 September 2010
Sturm Von Stahl BB League Week 1 Report
So for Season 6 of the online Blood Bowl league I play in I decided to do a "video-comic" match report.
I spliced in-game sounds into the mix and hopefully it will be reasonably enjoyable even to those who don't play the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6zoRHbmPWU
Youtube was kind enough to desynch the sound about halfway in onwards, but meh.
There are a few lame in-jokes there. One in particular is that for some reason it always seems to look like my guys are getting hit in the nuts when I take screenshots :\
I've had several matches since then, but unfortunately real life got a little crazy a few weeks back and so far I've been unable to give them the same treatment. All in good time, with a little bit of luck.
I spliced in-game sounds into the mix and hopefully it will be reasonably enjoyable even to those who don't play the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6zoRHbmPWU
Youtube was kind enough to desynch the sound about halfway in onwards, but meh.
There are a few lame in-jokes there. One in particular is that for some reason it always seems to look like my guys are getting hit in the nuts when I take screenshots :\
I've had several matches since then, but unfortunately real life got a little crazy a few weeks back and so far I've been unable to give them the same treatment. All in good time, with a little bit of luck.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Mafia II, District 9...and swearing and censorship in movies and games.
This is something that has bugged me for a while. Swearing in both videogames and movies seems to be steadily heading towards dropping f-bombs every second word.
Personally, I have nothing against violence and/or swears when it would typically be appropriate, but sometimes I find the sheer volume of excessive gore and cursing just turns me off of a film or game entirely.
Take District 9 (which I will review shortly). I really enjoyed that film, though I felt the action-heavy big robot scene dragged on a bit and felt tacked on.
The one single thing in the whole film that grated for me was the cursing - sometimes justified (I'd be swearing too if someone wanted to cut my arm off), but by the end of the film, where one of the bad guys was inserting obscenities into every sentence, it felt a little strained.
Can't the bad guy just say "Then just kill him." rather than "Then just ****ing kill him."?
Or "I'm going to kill you." rather than "I'm going to ****ing kill you."?
Or "How do I open this thing?!" instead of "How do I ****ing open this ****ing thing?! ****!"
>_> <_<
There were also plenty of gory body explosions that were a little gratuitous, but performed more to give a sense of power than out of mean-spirited sadism - no problem with that.
Then similarly in the videogame world, I was recently playing the Mafia II demo and I've gone on to purchase the game new, something I generally don't do. However the demo was very impressive and the first game had a fantastic story. Despite playing more curse-heavy games like The Getaway (every second word in that game is literally an F-bomb, ridiculous) I was still struck by the level of cursing in the game.
Now, take a scene from the demo - you ("Vito") and your Mafia colleagues (Joe and Henry) have to assassinate some kind of mob boss as he shows up to a whiskey distillery. Things go wrong and his workers are able to drag him inside as you ambush his car, leading to a long gunfight and the distillery catching fire.
During this exchange many swears are dropped, mostly by Joe, who is easily the most foul-mouthed of the lot. He screams curses and bellows furied insults as bullets spark off of the car he's crouched behind. It all feels justified and very intense.
Then, after taking out the enemies, he calls on you to kick a door open. "You first Vito, you're the ****ing war hero."
Hmm, little unneccessary maybe, but he's a coarse guy, so it makes sense.
Inside the distillery there's more swearing. Eventually the target is reached, and there is a cutscene that is both violent and swear-filled, but with good reason - the cornered boss begs pitifully, then sneakily wounds his would-be killer before finally being shot. It manages to be very uncomfortable viewing for all the right reasons, and Vito's expression flickers uncertainly as it plays out before him.
Unfortunately, this is followed by Joe literally swearing at everything that happens afterwards, however mundane, as if the dialogue writers gave up with their adjectives. I dawdle for a moment as he carries the wounded man...
"What the **** are you doing Vito?" is my reward for slowing down for two seconds to grab a Tommy Gun - even though Joe isn't actually moving himself at the time either.
Outside, I bump into a pedestrian and he barely stumbles. "Watch where you're ****ing going!"
Then I apparently drive too slow in the car (though I'm not being chased). "You drive like my ****ing grandmother!"
The list goes on, leaving a distinctly District 9-esque vibe of "was that one really neccessary?"
The short of it? I think both swearing and violence can be used very effectively to convey mature and thought-provoking messages, but I think care has to be taken not to cheapen the impact by throwing in lazy swears every five minutes. If anything I think that really detracts from immersion and any kind of meaning being conveyed.
* On a related note, Mafia II's collectable items are apparently made up of 50's Playboy pin-ups. Really I have no idea what they were thinking - it seems laughably tacked on and, as a gaming website put it, apparently put in to make sure to alienate the female audience.
There are no GTA-style prostitutes in the game and Vito can't fist-fight women due to his own personal morals (though he's free to shoot them and run them over...)
Of course the silly side content apparently had to be put in just to make sure that girls can't just enjoy the story like guys can after all...and guys can't share the game with their partner or families without feeling uncomfortable.
Very lame "collectables", 'nuff said ¬_¬
Personally, I have nothing against violence and/or swears when it would typically be appropriate, but sometimes I find the sheer volume of excessive gore and cursing just turns me off of a film or game entirely.
Take District 9 (which I will review shortly). I really enjoyed that film, though I felt the action-heavy big robot scene dragged on a bit and felt tacked on.
The one single thing in the whole film that grated for me was the cursing - sometimes justified (I'd be swearing too if someone wanted to cut my arm off), but by the end of the film, where one of the bad guys was inserting obscenities into every sentence, it felt a little strained.
Can't the bad guy just say "Then just kill him." rather than "Then just ****ing kill him."?
Or "I'm going to kill you." rather than "I'm going to ****ing kill you."?
Or "How do I open this thing?!" instead of "How do I ****ing open this ****ing thing?! ****!"
>_> <_<
There were also plenty of gory body explosions that were a little gratuitous, but performed more to give a sense of power than out of mean-spirited sadism - no problem with that.
Then similarly in the videogame world, I was recently playing the Mafia II demo and I've gone on to purchase the game new, something I generally don't do. However the demo was very impressive and the first game had a fantastic story. Despite playing more curse-heavy games like The Getaway (every second word in that game is literally an F-bomb, ridiculous) I was still struck by the level of cursing in the game.
Now, take a scene from the demo - you ("Vito") and your Mafia colleagues (Joe and Henry) have to assassinate some kind of mob boss as he shows up to a whiskey distillery. Things go wrong and his workers are able to drag him inside as you ambush his car, leading to a long gunfight and the distillery catching fire.
During this exchange many swears are dropped, mostly by Joe, who is easily the most foul-mouthed of the lot. He screams curses and bellows furied insults as bullets spark off of the car he's crouched behind. It all feels justified and very intense.
Then, after taking out the enemies, he calls on you to kick a door open. "You first Vito, you're the ****ing war hero."
Hmm, little unneccessary maybe, but he's a coarse guy, so it makes sense.
Inside the distillery there's more swearing. Eventually the target is reached, and there is a cutscene that is both violent and swear-filled, but with good reason - the cornered boss begs pitifully, then sneakily wounds his would-be killer before finally being shot. It manages to be very uncomfortable viewing for all the right reasons, and Vito's expression flickers uncertainly as it plays out before him.
Unfortunately, this is followed by Joe literally swearing at everything that happens afterwards, however mundane, as if the dialogue writers gave up with their adjectives. I dawdle for a moment as he carries the wounded man...
"What the **** are you doing Vito?" is my reward for slowing down for two seconds to grab a Tommy Gun - even though Joe isn't actually moving himself at the time either.
Outside, I bump into a pedestrian and he barely stumbles. "Watch where you're ****ing going!"
Then I apparently drive too slow in the car (though I'm not being chased). "You drive like my ****ing grandmother!"
The list goes on, leaving a distinctly District 9-esque vibe of "was that one really neccessary?"
The short of it? I think both swearing and violence can be used very effectively to convey mature and thought-provoking messages, but I think care has to be taken not to cheapen the impact by throwing in lazy swears every five minutes. If anything I think that really detracts from immersion and any kind of meaning being conveyed.
* On a related note, Mafia II's collectable items are apparently made up of 50's Playboy pin-ups. Really I have no idea what they were thinking - it seems laughably tacked on and, as a gaming website put it, apparently put in to make sure to alienate the female audience.
There are no GTA-style prostitutes in the game and Vito can't fist-fight women due to his own personal morals (though he's free to shoot them and run them over...)
Of course the silly side content apparently had to be put in just to make sure that girls can't just enjoy the story like guys can after all...and guys can't share the game with their partner or families without feeling uncomfortable.
Very lame "collectables", 'nuff said ¬_¬
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