Half Gamer Half Crab

Go here. Ponder the words! You will see the truth before too long.

So today Bethesda announced that Fallout 3 will indeed be getting both DLC and a mod making kit, along the lines of the TES Construction Sets which have given so much life to Morrowind and Oblivion. Actually which just made Oblivion good.

I'm quite surprised. The reason I am quite surprised is due to a controversy which occurred when Oblivion had its heyday. Specifically, the business surrounding the game's re-rating, primarily due to a mod which made women topless in the game. Much as with the Hot Coffee business back with GTA: San Andreas, the developer and publisher got into trouble because of something a user did. Now it's true that R* could have handled the Hot Coffee business better than they did, but that's beside the point. One of the fundamental advantages of PC gaming, one of the things which most involves players in games over the long term, and indeed one of the few ways into the industry for someone with no real qualifications, is modding.

So, they've learned their lesson and not included topless skins at all, we can presume. Why would the modding tools be in doubt, especially given that we're talking about a company renowned for treating its modding community very well, by industry standards? Well, because Fallout 3 contains children. Fallout 1 and 2 originally allowed the killing of children, and this could be modded back in very easily. And given that it's often asked about on the forums - it's only a matter of time before someone mods child killing into the game. I'd give it about two hours after the necessary tools become available (it might actually already exist, I've not checked).

This was contentious enough with games that looked like this. Now we're talking about a game that looks like this. Headshots and gore like that. With kids. Yeah I don't see this ending well!

In other news I finally got Wrath of the Lich King, and I've been playing it loads. It's pretty awesome; Borean Tundra is good, but Howling Fjord is truly epic. And now that I'm getting the hang of my DK she's becoming pretty neat as well. That whole zone was just awesomely done though, absolutely great.

First, I finally got to 70 in WoW (Wrath is due sometime this week). Huzzah! Only a year late. The thing is that I am a chronic altoholic; if a game offers multiple ways of making characters, I am all over every possible permutation forever, always thinking of something new to try. Morrowind, Oblivion, all three Fallouts, and World of Warcraft. Only in WoW there's not so much variability, so I'm not sure what's up with that. Maybe I just love those little flashes of yellow light too much?

At any rate, I then went and bought myself a flying mount, which is nice. Now I can fly about the place freely, if somewhat slowly! Hooray! So that's a little update on the WoW front.

And now to something I've been thinking about for awhile: Final Fantasy VII. Now I know some consider the game overrated, but for me it's tremendous and I absolutely love it. I've probably played more FFVII than anything else barring X-Com, Civs II and III, and maybe WoW. So I'm all about that, even if none of the spinoffs and whatever have appealed to me.

What does interest me is the possibility of a remake. I know that's been bandied around for years now - somewhat senselessly before the 8th gen arrived, in my opinion - but I've a particular theory on it. See, Yoichi Wada claims the franchise could last up to twenty years. Now we've had a few other things set in the FFVIIverse so far, and I'd expect the enduring popularity could mean more to come. But I think the last game, the one which closes the circle on FFVII, could be the much-desired remake. It makes a lot of sense to me.

You'd have the 'complete' universe of FFVII to work with at that point; all movies, games, books, etc. would be done and known, and the framework would exist to set FFVIIr in it. They'd obviously cherry-pick and retcon, but that would merely mean FFVIIr could be claimed as the final, definitive production in the series and the ultimate canon.

By that point - 2017 - we're likely to be two gens ahead of where we are now, or four gens ahead of the PS1. That'd be enough time for a remake to really be worth it. It offers the potential for real changes and improvements, more than just better graphics and voice acting (If one considers voice acting an improvement, that is!)

And of course, it would be the best ending possible. How better to end the compilation than with a remake, and bring the thing to a close. If they release FFVIIr in four years, and a couple before and after, maybe another movie, that wouldn't settle things. We'd probably just hear talk of another remake, endless speculation about it, and so forth. By finishing with the remake they could say "Right, that's it, you're done!" and that's all. Probably a little message at the ending screen like "Thank you for being with the FFVII Compilation for twenty years! We hope you have enjoyed it yadda yadda." Some way to put a full stop on the end. Because if they end with anything else they're never going to hear the end of it - like right now, when the slightest hint of a rumor sets the fanbase and blogs ablaze.

Of course, the trick would be to balance what's best about FFVII with what can be improved. Like with everyone else, there's only one person who should be in charge, and it's me. But what I would actually do is a post for another day~

Due to I don't know why, my bank is currently being very silly. This annoys me because it makes it quite difficult to get Mirror's Edge and Wrath of the Lich King. =[ So no new games for Mister Adequate this weekend!

However, I did go through Hellfire Ramparts with a couple of guildies and a couple of Death Knights. They were pretty cool, they have a nifty pull that is literally a PULL - they heave the mob forty feet to being right next to them! And when our lowbie tree died one of the DKs rezzed her as a zombie. Much laughter was laughed! It does sound, from what they were saying, that it's hugely fun. I wish Blizz had DD for Wrath up, that way I could get it as soon as the bank gets itself together, rather than having to wait for shipping once it does.

Well, Blizzard broke their money printer! But only temporarily, I'm sure. More interestingly I'm just here to gloat that I wasted my money on a copy of the WotLK Collector's Edition. Ho ho, I've been successfully advertised to and they have established long-term brand loyalty.

I'm eagerly anticipiting Mirror's Edge until Wrath gets here. I've got to import Wrath from the colonies so it takes a few days. That's a shame, because I'm done with my university classes tomorrow, this week only~! I hope I can get my comrade-in-arms over to enjoy some Gears 2, maybe finish up the campaign or something. Can't play the game without him really, I can just mess around in Horde mode, attempting to solo it.

So I finally caved and resubbed. After some hours tinkering with the mods (How can a default UI be so dire but so easily made glorious by modders?) I got down to playing.

Hunters are easymode. I don't know about anyone else, but Hunters are officially easy to play as. I was playing for an hour and a half, and I didn't have to stop to rest once. My pet was so tough that he could stand up to anything. Mend Pet saved him from the occasional trouble he did meet. I pumped out Steady Shots pretty much constantly. My health was rarely touched; my mana steadily decreased but when it hit bottom it was restored within a single fight thanks to Aspect of the Viper.

It's nice not having to have downtime. On the other hand there's no challenge unless I completely screw up everything in every way and can't find my Feign Death button. I feel like I'm as tough as a Warrior, with the healing of a Priest (Gift of the Naaru and Bandages for me, Mend Pet for the kitty.), the range of a Hunter, the DPS of a mage, and the running away when things go wrong of a Rogue. I love being a Hunter, but it's really a bit silly. I'll have to see if other classes have changed too, especially Warriors, who are my absolute fave.

They say alcoholics never truly recover. That they have to remain ever vigilant against the allure. I'm like that, only with Blizzard games. No matter what, no matter how long it has been, you can guarantee that I will feel a random need to play Diablo II, Warcraft II/III, StarCraft, or - and this is the worst of them all - World of Warcraft.

And yes, despite all those other wonderful games floating around right now, I feel the need to WoW. I've been checking stuff out about 3.0 and WotLK for the last few days, and I read El Blogo Pike to keep up with why Hunters are awesome (We are), which doesn't help, because her enthusiasm for all things WoW really is contagious. At any rate I discovered this whole business about Glyphs and Inscription, and it sounded like a very cool idea, a neat way of more customization for your character.

Until I found this magnificent little number. What. I mean no, seriously, what? What the heck? Okay let's say that using Eyes of the Beast wasn't suicidal because you leave yourself undefended. How is it a good thing? Even with +50% Strength you're going to be doing far less damage than if you and your pet worked together on the offense. Doubly so because you're not going to get any feedback that helps both of you prosper, for instance the bonus to one of you when the other gets a crit sort of thing.

I'm quite stunned by this glyph business now!

I've been playing quite a bit of Fallout 3 since it came out. And overall, I'm very taken with it. It's compelling, engaging, and highly enjoyable. However, when it comes to the plot there are some major problems. This isn't exactly a problem in a game like Tekken, but given the pedigree of Fallout, it's a big issue.

The first of these problems is in timescale. The game is set two hundred years after the bombs fell. It feels much more like it's 20 years later; even if this was set parallel to Fallout 1 it would be a stretch. As it stands it's a massive problem to suspend one's disbelief; this is doubly true considering the situation during Fallout 2, where several cities have moved beyond survival and are outright flourishing (The NCR is the most obvious example here, working to reunify all of California, and presiding over nearly a million citizens IIRC). The situation is different on the East Coast, but it shouldn't be this different. It's also in the smaller things. Paper and cardboard which should have long since rotted remains. Food which has sat in corrosive cans for two centuries is still entirely edible. There is NO agriculture whatsoever. I know the Fallout universe is based on Science! and not science, but it is still jarring sometimes.

The second, much bigger problem is in the ending. I don't wish to spoil anything, but suffice it to say that the supposed 200 endings are not in existence. Of the three things in the ending you can influence (Which are not nuanced; my character did something for one reason, the ending acted as if he'd done it for entirely another.), two come in literally the last minute of gameplay. There is no slideshow and narration of the consequences of your actions throughout the Wasteland, nothing like that. Hugely disappointing. I enjoyed Fallout 3 greatly until the last half hour or so. I don't expect I will be finishing the game again anytime soon.

Red Alert 3 has improved in my estimation, but not enough to rate it against the second. One problem I did manage to identify was the length of campaign missions. What should have been a mission in its entirity turned into just the first part of something larger; I had the resources and units to deal with it, but I had no desire to. It felt like I had played enough, achieved my objective, and that I deserved my reward in the cutscenes. Then again, if I'm finding the game is only worth playing for the cutscenes, that says something pretty serious.

Gears of War 2 this weekend.

Apologies to my zero current readers (Should really start actually... you know, advertising this place!) for that huge delay in updating. See the thing is that Fable II, Fallout 3, and Mirror's Edge demo.

Fable II kind of took a back seat but it proved hugely fun to play and I must invest the time to see it through. Sadly, putting rent up is apparently corrupt, even when you only put it up by 1/4 of what you potentially could raise it by. This makes my character very ugly. But she did fall in love with a whore, marry the whore, and then my co-op buddy got the whore pregnant! Hilarity! Then he murdered her.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is sadly disappointing. I can't put my finger on it but it doesn't feel right in gameplay terms. The atmosphere is great, the cutscenes are the hammiest (And therefore best) yet. But something about the gameplay just doesn't click like RA2 did. :( Sad day indeed. But I'll give it more time and see if I can get into it.

As for Fallout 3, well. It's not perfect. There are, for instance, level scaled enemies. Level scaling is largely an evil thing and it completely ruined Oblivion. Fortunately it's used with considerably more nuance here, so it isn't a total disaster, but it's still a minus point. And the D.C. area is ridiculous. There's so much rubble, the whole place just railroads you where it wants you to go - I use fast travel to get across town now, because it's so tedious trying to navigate all the streets and, inevitably, the subway system. The main quest is progressing apace however, and it's engaging and enjoyable.

And finally, Mirror's Edge. I don't really know what to say about it. It made me feel like I was a kid again - back when I was newer to gaming, when I understood it less. When I didn't know the possibilities. I downloaded the demo, played it, and without moving from my chair at all, played it twice more. It is sublime and I love it. There is a huge compulsion to get it right, too - to find the best running line and hit it perfectly. That's going to lead to a lot of replayability, as the devs once predicted.

I've been interested in Fable for a long time. I don't mean since the previews of Fable II started or anything. I mean since the game was a fuzzy pre-alpha screenshot and 40 words of text talking about a Project Ego.

So you can imagine that I was into the hype surrounding Fable. The talk of freedom and morality and so forth. And you can imagine that I was disappointed by the final game. Now don't get me wrong, because it was actually a very solid, enjoyable game. It's well made, fun, fast-paced, and all that jazz. I've got few complaints about Fable as a game, just disappointment that it was Fable and not, well, Project Ego.

Fable 2 looks like a different story. We Brits have to wait a couple more days sadly, but what I am hearing so far sounds good. Great, even. Specifically what sounds great is that you can purchase every single property in the entire game world, and then rent them out or whatever, gaining income for doing so. This, in itself, is wonderful. And I just can't help but think about the possibilities of, for instance, purchasing the business and home of someone who was unkind to me as a child, decades later, and turn him out onto the streets. I want to make him a PAUPER.

Or I want to buy an entire town and run it like the archetypical cruel Victorian industrialist. I want to grind them under my heels as I grow fat and gout-ridden on their toil. I want to inspire the writing of Das Kapital. Or to simply buy the entire world and ban everyone from every property, turning the nation into one of bums. (Will they commit crimes out of desperation?)

I don't expect that it will be quite that detailed and freeform. But it'd be quite lovely to get even a few of these things to some degree. And it does sound like Fable 2 comes closer than most to this sort of freedom!

My my! Rumors abound that a new installment in the much-loved Syndicate series is in the works. How fascinating! This would definitely be a good thing, but to be honest I'm just not sure anyone can work that Bullfrog magic. Even Lionhead have trouble working that Bullfrog magic. When you're talking about a stable of games like Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Syndicate Wars, and Dungeon Keeper, it's hard to match.

I'm not going to rail against EA, except to say that I hope by the time this comes out they have abandoned or toned down their ludicrous and inefficient copy protection nonsense.

I don't think co-op is being exploited to its fullest. I don't think its even close, to be honest. Co-op tends to simply mean you've got another gun at your side, and another damage sponge. Sure, they throw some extra enemies at you or maybe buff some of their hit points, and it's true that sometimes they split you up so the two of you are pursuing complimentary objectives, but ultimately they tend to be pretty uninspired affairs. Massively, massively fun, but nonetheless uninspired.

Let's imagine a game with a horror slant. Let's think it's a FPS with a horror slant. And let's imagine two people are playing it over XBL.

You've gone through a few levels with your buddy, having good times, shooting things up. You start a new level, and it has a slightly different atmosphere. Slightly creepier, slightly less actiony. As the two of you make your way through the level the number of encounters is a little lower, but the ammo is a good deal lower. The game has stepped up the difficulty, it seems.

You head into a new room and suddenly, your friend opens fire... on nothing at all. The bullets bury themselves into the walls. You start to ask what the hell they're wasting all that ammo for, but before you can get a word in they're yelling at you to start firing.

They can see enemies which you can't see, and vice-versa. Are they real? Are they hallucinations? To the person who can see them they act perfectly normally; to the other person you're shooting at shadows. Now you'd need to do this right. You couldn't overdo it, you couldn't make it a gameplay mechanic you rely on. And you certainly shouldn't have a specific enemy who acts like this - any regular enemy should sometimes have this capacity. But used occasionally and wisely, the ability to enhance the game and create tension and drama, not just between the game and players but between the players themselves, would be great.

That's just one example of how I think co-op gameplay could be more than it is.

The next few weeks in gaming are quite intense. Let me give you a quick rundown of everything I'm interested in;

October 17: Saints Row 2. I picked up the first SR cheap some time ago, while waiting for GTAIV - but it actually turned out to be hugely fun. I'm looking forward to 2 because, as their ad angle suggests, they're not taking the srs bzns route which GTAIV took. And while an incredible game, the latest from R* just lacks that possibility for silliness and ridiculousness.

October 25: Fable II. Okay, ol' Petey likes the hype, but the first one was still a lot of fun despite not being revolutionary, and this one looks like at the least an iterative improvement, if not better still. Also local co-op. In an RPG. You don't know how awesome this is, guys.

October 31: Fallout 3 & Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. Yeah two long awaited additions to two amazing franchises. I'm not expecting Fallout 3 to be a Fallout game, but I am expecting it to be a lot of fun. RA3 is going to be epic and awesome and I simply cannot wait.

Nov 7: Gears of War 2. My good friend Barry and I would spend an immense amount of time playing GoW. The new game from Cliffy B is sure to be even more balls-out insane! Plus, Horde mode looks redonkulously awesome.

Nov 14: Mirror's Edge. Wow, a game that actually tries to do new stuff! Well, except for Assassin's Creed I guess. But I love the aesthetic it has going on, and it's an interesting idea that I can dig. I will be checking it out!

Nov 21: Left 4 Dead. Well, it'd be nice to have a proper multiplayer survival horror with zombies, but this will suffice, as it does look pretty wonderful.

So that's what, seven games I want in six weeks. Pretty intense and ridiculous! Just as long as I can keep off the WarCrack, or Wrath of the Lich King sneaks onto the list as well, and that would just make things silly =[

Theme Park, made by Bullfrog, is one of gaming's venerable old men. Originally released in 1994, it wasn't one of the progenitors of the management and building genre, but it certainly had some of the most wide-reaching effects, both on the genre and on me personally.

I first played Theme Park on the PC. However, this was a family machine, and for me to get time on it was rare, so I ended up getting the Mega Drive version instead. Once the PS1 was released and I got one, I got a copy for that as well.

Theme Park is a strategy game, where you take managerial command of, well, I hope I don't actually need to spell it out. You control the placement of rides, amenities like souvenier stores, food stalls, and so forth, and can create a park layout with very few restrictions. That's one of the keys to Theme Park's success, and what it taught me about games which might seem less than obvious when you consider the more competitive side. What's compelling about Theme Park is designing and building a park which is not just profitable, but also aesthetically pleasing. Building a park with sensible themed areas, for instance surrounding your Haunted House with a creepy, graveyard kind of place, proved far more rewarding than simply achieving the objectives. At the same time the objectives places a constraint that made design more rewarding. If you could do what you wanted to do, despite the constraints of budgets, objectives, staffing, and so forth - that was the real mark of success in Theme Park.

That's something which has always compelled me in games. I don't usually enjoy straight-up sandbox modes for very long, because the lack of challenge renders it somewhat stale. To face a challenge, succeed, and see the fruits of my success - therein lies the greatest appeal of any strategy game, to me. And for me Theme Park was the first time this was demonstrated to me.

Of course, it can be hard to get that balance of challenge and freedom just right. Theme Park isn't perfect here. For instance ensuring you have the handymen to keep the park clean, and assigning them properly, can be a chore. Balancing micromanagement is difficult for developers, because it needs to remain engaging and fun, but to also allow to some extent for challenge, but more importantly for customization in how things are done. In Theme Park you could maintain a very small business, or you could construct something vast - that freedom of objective is something strategy games ought to aim for.

If you see Theme Park around, give it a try if you haven't before. There's a remake of it on the DS, which was pretty decent for the most part, but you really want to be playing the old PC version. (A candidate for something on GoG.com.) There aren't many games I played so intensely that, upon closing my eyes, I could see sprites. Theme Park is one of those games.

So there's an indie game doing the rounds right now, you may or may not have heard mention of it. It's called Mount & Blade. It's a very interesting little piece, and one which has had me compelled for some weeks now.

If you've seen many reviews of M&B the comparison you'll have seen most often is Oblivion. This is a false comparison and I don't know where it comes from, except perhaps insofar as they both have RPG elements like stat-building, and they both have real-time combat. Beyond that they are entirely different games. A far more accurate comparison, in my eyes, is with Elite and with Dynasty Warriors.

The game centers around the fictional land of Calradia, circa 1257. The military technology is broadly analogous to our conception of medieval technology at that time - swords, spears, lances, and so forth. Guns are hidden in the game code, and several mods make use of them, but in vanilla they don't make an appearance. Also not making an appearance is magic, or indeed fantasy in any form. No magic, no race but Humans, no healing potions, nothing. Just soldiers, weapons, and horses - mounts being to some degree the game's raison d'être. The game is ultimately a combat simulator, and whilst I mention DW as a comparison that is due only to them both having real-time combat of significant numbers. With regards to how combat plays out this is almost a polar opposite of Koei's cash cow. Whereas DW is arcadey and over the top, M&B strives towards a realistic representation.

Combat here is convincing and based on physics. If you swing at someone and can't get a lot of speed up before you impact, you won't do much damage at all. If you're on horseback and smash someone at full tilt with a battle axe, they're likely to drop like a sack of potatoes. As a result of both this and how you defend yourself the game has a strong skill component in combat. Defense comes in two forms; with a shield and without. The former offers protection against frontal attacks, but your shield can be broken by repeated hits. The latter requires more player involvement, as you will raise your weapon to parry, but you won't necessarily raise it to the right position until your opponent begins preparing their swing. This requires you to pay attention - especially because the AI is smart enough to feint.

As the leader of a mercenary force, you can also give commands to your troops. This can be crucial to victory against tougher groups of foes, and it's very satisfying when you successfully execute a tactic. You recruit troops in the Elite-style side of the game, which is the world map and various towns, villages, and castles on it. You have the freedom to go anywhere on the map right from the start, to do quests for towns, villages, and the lords of any of the five nations in the game. You can recruit troops, who gain strength through combat and your Training skill level. You can hunt bandits and looters and the like. You can attack caravans. You can trade various goods between cities, making a profit for yourself.

This side of the game is less developed than the combat, it's true, but it works well and can become very involving. There's no main plot to hold your hand, you just go about whatever business you please. I've seen some complain about this but for me, it's liberating and works well.

M&B is a compelling experiment. It's far from perfect; the quests get repetetive, there are some balance issues with regard to the economy, herding cows is the most annoying thing since itchy diarrhea. But the combat is some of the best I've seen in gaming, you grow attached to the land, your character, and your army, and it's a very brave and refreshing piece of work. It must be recommended.

Ah, the vaunted first post. How to approach it? Well, I'm just going to say hello to you, whoever is reading this down the line and has gone back to see what the first post said. Hello future! Do we have flying cars yet? Also, who wins Superbowl XXXI? I could stand to place a large bet.

Ahem. Yes well. I'm fairly new to this blogging scene so many blog features are going to be added in the future. Please bear with me as I figure it all out.

And now, to business: a post about videogames. Specifically, the recently released Spore, the latest from Will Wright and Maxis, of SimCity and The Sims fame. Now, I expect most are familiar with the premise of Spore, but for the uninitiated you take control of a species, which you design yourself, guiding them from a bacteria in the ocean deeps to interstellar glory. The game leads you through five phases; Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space. Going through these phases also highlights my biggest problem with Spore.

In the Cell phase, your adjustments to your creature can have a significant difference. Placing spikes at the front of your creature can have a very different effect to placing them on its side, for example. The differences are not generally too profound, but in this case it feels like a genuine limitation of the gameplay. You can't have too much influence because you exist on a 2D plane.

The problem is that once you move to a 3D plane, which is to say once you graduate to the Creature phase, your options don't increase. In fact, in terms of affecting the gameplay, they decrease - you simply choose parts which affect your stats. Worse, these don't stack. It doesn't matter if you build some magnificent armored beast, her maximum health will be the same as someone who simply puts one tiny instance of the best health boost item on their creature. In point of fact, it makes little difference what kind of creature you design. As long as the parts are there, they will function in the same way. This is a major disappointment to me; I was imagining the fun of trying to design the fastest creature, or a lumbering beast, or the most aerodynamic thing possible, something that could stay airborne forever. All these things are simply the result of which parts you choose. Want to run faster? Just choose better feet.

Moving on from there you enter the Tribal phase. And here customization matters even less. You can essentially add very minor bonuses to your creatures, and nothing else. You choose what buildings your tribe has, and thus what items they can use, but it's very hard to get this wrong in any way - it's very hard to do anything with it at all, really.

Next is the Civilization phase. At this point the editors are mostly superfluous. All you can choose with your vehicles is whether they emphasise speed, health, or attack. When it comes to buildings, you can do nothing. They are preset, and an untextured cube will have the same entertainment value as an intricate skyscraper dedicated to pleasure. You can improve the money production of your cities by ensuring their layout is good, but that's simply a matter of placing your three building types in the right way. There is no sense of the cities belonging, because they are so grossly simplified that they are meaningless - you just need to put the round peg in the round hole.

And then comes space. Even the residual influence you used to have disappears now. You can build colonies in the same way as the Civ-stage's cities, but that is all. Your spaceship - the culmination of your hours of play, the avatar of your entire species and civilization, and the unit you personally control - can be as beautiful or ugly, as well or poorly designed as you like, and it will make not one whit of difference.

The Cell stage is the only glimmer of what Spore should have been. The creators are integral, they have been marketed from the start as such, and to encounter such a neutered set of editors is simply not fun. Will Wright apparently thinks of this as more a toy than a game. I do not understand why it could not be both. Design would surely be all the more rewarding when you craft something you both like and which is effective.

Don't get me wrong; Spore is a lot of fun and I'm enjoying it. But that doesn't reduce my disappointment, and my feeling that the game goes in reverse: It starts at its most complex and retreats to simplicity. The reason I complain is because I was expecting something quite revolutionary, and what we got was a fairly generic creator where you just add certain parts for certain stat effects.