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We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others. ~Albert Camus
I've been playing The Witcher: Enhanced Edition for awhile now. Haven't finished it, but I'm near the end.
It's a Western RPG, but unlike a lot of those I'm familiar with, you're playing an actual character in a story. Geralt has a personality already and people know him, so you're not given full freedom to just do whatever the hell you want (like go around murdering people). The game does give him amnesia, though, as a way to allow you some control over decisions about the way things turn out.
The main decision, I suppose, is whether to side with the humans or the non-human rebels (Elves and dwarves are an oppressed minority, and a lot of them resort to basically terrorism as a way to fight the system). I appreciate the fact that the game eschews a formal morality system, and rather just allows you to decide whether to pick a side or remain neutral, with the appropriate consequences playing out as you'd expect. Often in RPGs the morality systems don't really make sense, for example being able to murder people and then completely make up for it (in everyone's eyes, since their opinions are based entirely on your dumb morality meter) by giving money to a beggar or something (see: Fable II, Fallout 3). So I dig the fact that choices I made earlier in the game pretty much boxed me in because certain people don't trust me enough to accept my help later.
The game is, also unlike many WRPGs, pretty linear (as opposed to open world). The story consists of a prologue, five chapters, and an epilogue; generally speaking when you're in a certain chapter you're confined to a certain area, perhaps three maps or so, and can never return there after moving on to the next one. While in theory I like open world games, the truth is that most of them don't provide much of anything to do in that open world other than travel laboriously from point A to point B. While I've been enthralled with games enough to just wander around in their environments (Morrowind), it's not common, and I'm glad they didn't go that route with The Witcher if they weren't sure it'd be compelling enough. There are usually good reasons for your inability to backtrack, so that part doesn't bother me too much. The only problem, if it even is one, is that you could miss parts of some of the game-spanning sidequests and therefore miss out on the best rewards for them.
I've been playing on the easy difficulty, because I just want to see the game and have no real reason to make things harder, but I think it's significantly dumbed down a lot of the combat experience. Or, perhaps, streamlined it. The basic idea is that you have two swords, silver for monsters, and steel for humans and some monsters that aren't really magical. With either one you can use three stances (strong for most damage, fast for enemies good at dodging the strong stance, and group for when surrounded). All you do is click on a target and it'll perform a flurry of attacks. You can time additional clicks just right to keep the chain going for awhile, I think depending on how far you've leveled your stances. It hasn't really been that bad in practice, but on paper all this is complete horseshit, if you think about it. Basically there is a correct combination of sword and stance that you're supposed to use on any given monster if you want to kill it in a reasonable time, and you're just supposed to remember the right combination or look it up in your bestiary if you have the entry for that enemy. Really doesn't sound that fun! But you can spend like 99% of your time in Silver/Fast and get away with it, at least on Easy.
There are additional complications such as oils to coat your sword with that increase effectiveness against certain monsters, bombs, and potions that provide buffs for you. All of this is, naturally, backed up by an alchemy system, wherein the deal is that each ingredient (plant or monster extract) contains one of six primary substances and zero or one of three secondary substances. Without explaining too much, this means that there are lots of ingredients which are alchemically equivalent to each other but don't stack in your inventory. Since alchemy doesn't really matter on easy beyond basic healing potions, I don't have to think about it too much and just sell most stuff. The game outright tells you that you need to worry about this stuff to tackle the higher difficulties, so I can imagine it gets painful to manage everything (also keeping in mind the inability to backtrack, and that different ingredients are plentiful in one chapter then gone the next, and there may not be a substitute).
While I can see that some of the mechanics aren't perfect, as above, I really like the game, plan to play the other path(s) later, and am cursing God that my video card apparently isn't even remotely good enough to handle the sequel*. There's really only one thing about it that's really, really bad. Maybe it's just all the threads about the feminism lately, or maybe (hopefully) I'd have noticed anyway, but the way the game portrays interactions with/between women is, for the most part, just cringe-worthy. Now, this is an M-rated game for the grown-ups, so you can have sex. But it's handled with all the class and psychological realism of a porno about a pizza delivery man. This is unfortunate enough on its own, but they didn't have to make it so that each hook-up is rewarded with a collectible trading card thing featuring an erotic picture of the woman in question, did they? I mean, that's pretty fucked up if you think about it, right? Also lol @ how revealing the outfits are despite this being the thirteenth century or something. There's more, like the behavior of certain women characters, that bothers me but I'm not really sure how to explain it. It's just all stereotypes and male fantasies. Geralt even has, among his Witcher superpowers, sterility and immunity to all diseases, so no problem, ladies! It's a shame they couldn't have done a better job on this (maybe having some female writers would help, assuming plausibly that they didn't), because otherwise the story, dialogue, and everything are well done and believable enough to make the game highly absorbing overall.
* There's supposed to be a console port in the works, and I'll probably have to settle for that, but it would be nice to find out the stated specs are bullshit and I can actually play it with some effects turned off or something. I kinda doubt it though, that is why they state minimum and recommended.
Got back into CoH a little, also still playing RIFT. And minecraft.
Yes, I'm boring.
__________________ Hear me / and if I close my mind in fear / please pry it open See me / and if my face becomes sincere / beware Hold me / and when I start to come undone / stitch me together Save me / and when you see me strut / remind me of what left this outlaw torn
A friend sent me a copy of Terraria via Steam. It's a 2D side-scrolling Minecraft, basically, but with heavier rpg elements, such as boss monsters, a dungeon, rare loot, epic crafted items, ect. Surprisingly enjoyable overall.
I've been playing The Witcher: Enhanced Edition for awhile now. Haven't finished it, but I'm near the end.
I enjoyed it quite a bit. I agree with pretty much all your criticisms, with the caveat that, if you play at a harder difficulty level, the potions and oils actually matter.
I'm looking forward to having time and money to spend on the sequel. The first game was a very rough gem with a lot of room for streamlining the clunky bits, and supposedly, they did a lot of work in that direction for the second one.
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There's really only one thing about it that's really, really bad. Maybe it's just all the threads about the feminism lately, or maybe (hopefully) I'd have noticed anyway, but the way the game portrays interactions with/between women is, for the most part, just cringe-worthy. Now, this is an M-rated game for the grown-ups, so you can have sex. But it's handled with all the class and psychological realism of a porno about a pizza delivery man. This is unfortunate enough on its own, but they didn't have to make it so that each hook-up is rewarded with a collectible trading card thing featuring an erotic picture of the woman in question, did they?
I think I laughed out loud the first time I was awarded a weird naked lady trading card for successfully fucking the village witch. That's just...bad. There's probably a PhD thesis topic in the humanities available for anyone who wants to compare the two modes of adolescent wish fulfillment in the gleeful collector fucking in The Witcher and the awkward romanticized puppet sex in Bioware's titles.
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It's a shame they couldn't have done a better job on this (maybe having some female writers would help, assuming plausibly that they didn't)
Part of the issue is that they're bound by source material. The Witcher is based on a series of short stories and novels from Poland, and the gender relations in the game are lifted pretty much whole cloth from the source, as are the odd anachronisms (i.e. lolrevealingclothing).
FWIW, although only the first two books in the series (well, the short story collection, and then the first novel in the series that grew out of it) have been released in English, they're worth a read if you can pick them up cheap.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
I had three months of Gamefly one summer cuz my brother got it for me as a birthday present.
It was pretty cool, if you have the free time and desire to play a lot of games, it's a good idea to save money since a lot of games are good to play through once but don't have a lot of replay value.
it's a new MMORPG, it's pretty pointless so far. I seem to have accidentally put it on the easiest level so its kinda dull. No challenge and I'm winning without even trying. I haven't even had to use any of my grenades yet either. Although ammunition is running low, but it's on such an easy level every dumb fuck who dies drops millions.
I had three months of Gamefly one summer cuz my brother got it for me as a birthday present.
It was pretty cool, if you have the free time and desire to play a lot of games, it's a good idea to save money since a lot of games are good to play through once but don't have a lot of replay value.
The lack of replay on so many games is what made me consider it, but I don't know that we play enough games to make it worth it.
OTOH paying 35-40 for a game that gets finished in a week is a waste as well
I've decided that is a really bad MMORPG and that it's just too easy after just two weeks I have already levelled to the top and defeated every enemy on every tier, so I have gone back to playing a game that has some real challenge called "real life", na only kidding playing LOTRO.
Sauron looks pissed all the time, you ever noticed that. He should take a chill pill mayhaps?
It's one of the Xbox Live featured Summer of Arcade games this year, and it is freaking awesome. I'm pretty sure there is also a Steam version for the PC-only folks.
I really can't say enough nice things about this game. It's got a short but interesting story, fun mechanics, an upgrade system with lots of tweaks and choices between different equally good options, adjustable difficulty, top notch voice acting (srsly, the narrator is one of the best parts of the game), and excellent replay value (you'll only be about halfway through the upgrade paths when you finish the game the first time).
Picked up The Witcher 2 when Good Old Games had it marked down 50%.
I'm liking it so far. I'm past the prologue and into the first chapter.
Combat is different from, and more interactive than, combat in the first game. Geralt still has the two swords (which are a defining part of the fiction), but rather than the three stances you just left click for a fast attack and right click for a strong attack. Group attack is gone. Blocking is manual now, rather than being automatic whenever Geralt isn't attacking, and consumes the same resource (vigor, I think?) as casting signs. If you time a block right, it staggers the enemy and gives you a couple seconds to hit back. There's a Mass Effect style radial menu you can pop into to choose between different signs and consumables.
You an no longer drink potions any time but, rather, need to meditate (you no longer need to find a fire to meditate) first. This is fine, and actually something I mostly find enjoyable. Instead of chugging what's essentially a small bottle of booze during a fight, you have to plan ahead and drink the potions you think you'll need ahead of time. The only problem is that the game doesn't always give you the opportunity. If I have to buff before I go into combat, cutscene-cutscene-cutscene-fight! is not an appropriate series of events to throw at me, game.
Other than that, my only real complaint is that the controls are sort of muddy, which makes me feel a bit disconnected from the game. I don't know how better to describe it...my mouse is not a precision pointing device while I am playing this game, but more of a thing I can make gestures and suggestions with. I've also hit a couple of instances where certain moves don't work, seemingly at random. Blocking seems kind of hit or miss sometimes. Even when I have energy left to block with, Geralt sometimes just stands there when I hit the block key. I also had one frustrating fight where Geralt refused to switch swords no matter how many times I pounded on the key, so I ended up having to chip away at a monster's health bar with my steel sword. As soon as I was out of combat, I was able to switch again.
I'm playing on hard and it's, well, hard. This is not inaccurate:
The first real boss fight in the game is against a tentacled aquatic horror called a kayran and is the worst kind of puzzle boss or, in technical terms, what professional game designers refer to as "some bullshit". Do the right things in the right order or you're gonna have to try again. For some reason, the quest chain leading up to it makes a huge deal out of finding the ingredients for a potion to make Geralt immune to the deadly green venom it spews. No mention is made of the half dozen other ways it has to one-shot you, including the DEADLY YELLOW VENOM, FFS. No, seriously. Minor spoilers, I guess, but these are they ways this thing can kill you in one hit:
Stood in its front 90 degree arc long enough to trigger a green venom vomiting episode and did not drink the special potion? Dead. With the potion, it's only a stun. And, for real, avoiding the green venom is probably the easiest part of the fight.
Get too close to its face? Yellow venom. Dead.
Direct hit by any of its four frontmost tentacles? Dead. A glancing blow is still like 75% of your health.
The back tentacles also hit for like 75% of your health, but when they hit you, they throw you directly back into the area where the front tentacles are crashing around, so in the two or three seconds it takes for you to regain control of Geralt you get either lucky or dead.
Fail to quickly reorient yourself after one of the hacking-off-a-tentacle mini-cutscenes and find one of the handful of safe places to stand while the thing thrashes around in pain waving its tentacles everywhere? Dead.
Fail the QTE (yes, a fucking QTE) after you've hacked off enough tentacles? Dead.
Fail to intuitively and quickly figure out what you're supposed to do after it's brought the bridge down on its own head and started tossing chunks of masonry around? Hit by a piece of weaponized architecture. Dead.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
Fail to intuitively and quickly figure out what you're supposed to do after it's brought the bridge down on its own head and started tossing chunks of masonry around? Hit by a piece of weaponized architecture. Dead.
I just saw the notes for the latest patch, which include:
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During the fight against the kayran, when the bridge collapses, a map pin appears [removed minor gameplay spoiler] to facilitate player navigation and quest completion.
What I really don't get is that you have an NPC ally who spends the entire fight shouting instructions to you, but she mysteriously shuts up during that part of the fight. Where were you when I needed you, weird NPC lady?
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. ... The origin of myths is explained in this way.
I have been playing the shit out of World of Tanks. It's a pretty arcade tank shooter game.
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We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others. ~Albert Camus
Finished this last night. One of the best CRPGs I've played in recent years. It's begging for a replay, since the story splits at the end of Chapter 1, with a key decision that determines which side of an impassible barrier Geralt spends Chapter 2 on. I'll probably put that replay off until closer to the time the third game the ending sets up comes out, though.
I went with Iorveth at the end of Chapter 1, and let Letho escape at the end of the game. I wanted to stay consistent with my playthrough of the first game, where I viewed the Scoiatel as freedom fighters with a just cause, so I took Iorveth's side, and at the end I figured there were few enough Witchers left in the world that we didn't need to be killing each other over politics, so I let Letho leave in peace. Besides, I spent most of the game hoping it would give me a chance to join him because assassinating kings? Yes, please!
The difficulty curve flattens out pretty quickly as you level up, even on hard mode. At the beginning of the game, almost every single fight was a struggle. By about the middle of chapter 2, I was only dying if I was careless. I sort of wish their was a higher difficulty available, but the top difficulty level is just Hard with the caveat that if you die, you die. Game over.
My complaints are chiefly the ones I already mentioned.
The idea of buffing before combat by drinking potions and applying oils to your swords is cool in theory, but in practice there are too many instances where you would need precognition to know that, if you enter that room, you're going to sit through a couple cutscenes and then be dumped into combat with no chance to sit and drink first. The best solution seems to be to eschew circumstantially advantageous potions in favor of just walking around with the moderately useful in any situation Swallow, Rook, Wolf, and Tawny Owl up at all times (swap one out for Cat if you're in a dark cave). The problem there is that you can't refresh your potions until their duration expires, so I periodically found myself going afk for a minute or two to let my potions run out so I could refresh before entering a new are, lest they run out in the middle of a fight (you can sometimes also just meditate for a few hours, but there are some areas where you can enter the meditation screen to drink potions, but aren't allowed to actually rest to force time to pass).
I also encountered a number of weird control bugs. Sometimes the hotkeys for using signs or items would just not work, with no indication as to why, only to start responding again a few seconds later (I suspect this is because they get disabled while Geralt is doing an attack or roll animation and some state variable gets slightly out of sync with what's displayed on the screen). At one point, I was able to use the keyboard but not the mouse, so I was stuck moving in only the cardinal directions, could not turn or swing my sword, but could block, cast signs, throw items, etc. That was a fun fight to get through.
Finally, the alchemy system has a stupid gotcha. It prefers to use ingredients that you have fewer of over ingredients that you have more of. Since ingredients don't have that second property that you need to match for extra bonuses like in the first game, there's not much reason for you to use any ingredients besides what the game auto-populates when you select a potion to brew. EXCEPT THAT AT LEAST ONE UNIQUE QUEST ITEM IS ALSO AN ALCHEMY INGREDIENT so you have to either carefully police what the game suggests you turn into potions, or else dump it into storage the minute you pick it up. So, minor spoiler, but you'll thank me for reading it, as soon as you kill the Queen Endrega (in chapter 1), take her freaking pheremones to the inn and dump them into your storage chest immediately, so that when you're asked for them later (in chapter 3) you don't have to go download a mod that adds them to a shopkeeper's inventory like I did. it's not like you can't finish the game without them, but they are required for a sidequest that nets you the best steel sword in the game.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
So I've finished the single-player campaign and logged some hours on the multi-player side for Space Marine. I posted a full review on my blog here, but the tl;dr version is that I liked it and recommend it.
I am going to answer you like a month later, hope you don't mind.
We have a Wii, and a PS2 (still lots of used games for PS2, some replayable ones we have had-Kiddo is playing my Kingdom Hearts- and we have neither the money nor the inclination to invest in a PS3 or XB360).
The Wii is actually way better for us as a family, in general, due to the controller.
Anyway, I am replaying Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 on accounta on my main game I can't get 100%, nor unlock Voldemort and the final level, due to bugs/glitches. From what my friendly neighborhood GameStop guy told me, if you have 100% you get some kind of something bonusy on Years 5-7 which comes out at Christmas.
I figured out how to avoid the bugs, and am now having to finish a game a guest started. Went from 98.5% and all but one character to 20% and having to redo all the levels . I used cheat codes to get X10 and X8 and the various detectors to make it easier. I am about half done now.
Anyway, I expect I will play Years 5-7 after this, and try to get 100% on Lego Pirates of the Carribean
I have a copy of Batman: Arkham City. My brother got it as an early birthday present, but on the selfish and stingy condition that he got the preorder bonus code that came with it. I wasn't going to argue much because I wouldn't be getting this game until January if I had to get it myself.
It's pretty fun, it really is just more of Arkham Asylum, only in a bigger, more open environment and lots of new story stuff. Tons of side missions, and not just Riddler challenges, but those are more ubiquitous and difficult too. If you liked the last one you'll like this one.
A couple years ago, I raved about a game called Demon's Souls. The short version is that it's an atmospheric and immersive dungeon crawler that revels in being punishingly difficult. This month saw the release of Dark Souls*, which they're not calling a sequel, but a "spiritual successor". The gameplay is nearly identical, although there are a few new wrinkles, and the game does just as great a job not beating you over the head with story, but focusing on gameplay and environment, and letting the story tell itself via exploration and interaction with NPCs.
The most obvious change is that, rather than having a central hub with gateways that teleport you to each gameplay area, the environment is an open world. Well, sort of. It's not an open world like the worlds of Fallout or Oblivion are open worlds. Although much of it is outside, you actually spend the entire game in what's essentially an enormous dungeon. It is very well constructed, though. While there are initially only a few paths open, defeating certain bosses or acquiring certain keys opens up doors that eventually lead, not only to new areas, but to unexpected connections between areas that have already been explored. There are a number of shortcuts back to an initial area called the Firelink Shrine that serves a similar purpose to the Nexus in the first game, as NPCs that you meet and rescues during the course of the game migrate there and set up shop.
Rather than forcing you to travel back to Firelink to spend souls, or upon death, each area contains a bonfire that, once discovered and lit, serves as a sort of mini-hub where you can level up, repair equipment, etc. Upon death, respawning occurs at the most recent bonfire where the player rested. Your store of healing potions is also refilled at each bonfire, and a fire can be upgraded to grant a larger number of potions.
While it truly is a difficult game, the more I play, the more I notice and appreciate how much more difficult it appears to be than it actually is. The designers have done an excellent job creating environments that reward confident play, while alternately undermining the player's confidence or baiting them into overconfidence. The most basic example is the corpse run mechanic. When you die, you respawn at a bonfire with all your gear, but none of the Souls or Humanity you were carrying, and must reach the spot where you died without dying again to recover those. Even though, rationally, there's nothing to be lost that couldn't be easily regained with a little farming, the idea that YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE ALL YOUR UNSPENT SOULS unless you get to your corpse without dying puts you under just enough pressure to create doubt and hesitance, and lead to stupid mistakes. Another good example is the Curse mechanic. Certain monsters (fuck you, you bugeyed fucking frog things) have the ability to inflict a curse on you, reducing your hit point total by half. Which, most of the time? No big deal. If you're doing it right, you shouldn't be getting hit at all. It's the stress from knowing that you don't have a big hit point buffer to cover for fuckups that will kill you. I spent a dozen attempts pounding away at a boss while cursed, then finally decided there was no way I could beat him when he could one shot me, so I went out and farmed souls until I had enough to buy an item to decurse myself, after which I returned to the boss and beat him without getting hit at all.
Overall, this game seems quite a bit more user friendly than the first. Personally, I think it's a bit easier as well, but that may just be due to my experience with the first one carrying over.
In conclusion, fuck New Londo and every fucking ghost in it. I know your trick now, ghosts, and as soon as I am done in Blight Town I am going to come back there and slaughter each and every one of you fuckers.
* - Apparently, the working title was Dark Ring, until they found out that's what Leesifer's people call the anus.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
Re: Video Games - Watcha playin'?
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. I used cheat codes to get X10 and X8 and the various detectors to make it easier. I am about half done now. 
Linear Mode
