WharrlllggooofHWJAAAAAH!!!! - Skyrim Adventures #1

As you can tell by the awesome title, I've got Skyrim. It's very... adventure-ish. Much like Oblivion there's sort of a go through with a "tutorial" ish area where you can't do stuff for a while, but then you can, and there's a person and he's like "I'll help you!" and you're like "Yay!" so you run and you go and you escape and huzzah!

Then it opens up and says "Let's split up, go here to (progress the storyline)" and you're like FUCK THAT! My first adventure included leaving, heading... East I believe, climbing a bunch of mountains (I doubled back around Helgen) then finding some rude Half-orc who I tried to persuade into leaving me alone, and instead she killed me. What a bitch. So the second time I progressed the story just enough to do that love triangle quest in the first little town, then I skipped the claw thing thinking it wasn't important. Apparently it was indeed important, but I went to the main town (after much meandering) to see what would be there.

Eventually I got a little quest to do some smithing which was awesome. First of all I love that Skyrim has added a crafting system because crafting is bosstastic and secondly that they gave me a quest encouraging that I both use smithing and learn how it works, giving me a greater chance of retaining that knowledge and using the smithing throughout the game. Which I intend to do. Because I love crafting.

Anyways did the claw quest with relative ease, but I had to drop the difficulty level back to Adept as I wasn't properly equipped to deal with higher difficulty levels yet. I have noticed however that archery is far more valid than it was before, scoring sneak attacks with the bow doesn't necessarily mean I won't be able to make another one, so I've been having a bit of a fun time sneaking and shooting whereas in Oblivion it seemed entirely useless, like you might as well just run in at everyone. Speaking of running in, combat isn't the intense dodge-centric brawlfest that Dead Island is, but it's still fun. Counters and the "independant hand" system have made it more interesting, allowing dual wielding to be a bit more viable and interesting. For instance for charge attacks I can lead with a larger blade, then when I'm in close follow up with dagger attacks. I have no idea if that's working or not, but it seems fun.

More updates to come, currently level 10 with rather decent proficiency in one-handed, archery and sneaking. Which is awesome. Also got freaked the fuck out by a bear, which was not awesome.

MOBA Adventure #2 - November #1

This week's MOBA Adventure is actually about last week! Yay. That's League of Legends preseason week 8. I don't remember, I'm pretty sure there was like Graves, Miss Fortune... a bunch of other good people... But whatever I'm tanky (always, sigh) so I played Galio. Despite that sigh, I actually really enjoyed Galio.

League of Legends - Galio

Galio's a lot of fun, I enjoy him way more than I thought I would. Why I didn't think I would is... beyond me I guess. Anyways so this guy's nifty passive turns half (I think?) of his MR (magic resistance) into AP (ability power), so the better he gets at defending against ability power attacks the better he gets at dealing damage, which is pretty awesome. Unfortunately, the drawback is when Galio goes up against a team of AD (attack damage) characters he has to build armor to defend against those characters, which usually hampers his MR and consequently his AP, which is no fun, but usually it just forces me to take on a more supportive role and less damaging one.

I played him pretty darn well I'd say, though I just yesterday hit level 20 so I had no runes, meaning I was usually pretty mana starved early game with him. His Q, the eye laser thing (which is like a big swirly ball for some reason) is pretty expensive, but it does scary damage as a harass and also slows. I laned with a Graves so usually we'd grab some early kills when I slowed someone (or both of them) and he'd burst them down. Early game was almost always easy for me.

It seems like Galio's a really awesome tank as long as there's enough AP on the other team to keep him alive. Getting chased by AD champs is no fun though, and really can make him ineffective if the other team plays right. He's still got plenty of health and it's not like building armor makes him worse or anything, but a whole enemy team of AP characters makes him godlike and that's when he's the most fun. Beyond that, flash-ulting with his AoE taunt is one of those team fight winning ults that gives your allies plenty of time to kick the shit out of people, much like Amumu's ult, but with a lot more damage dealing and taking.

At the end of the day, I might end up purchasing him down the line, but for now I'll stick to playing the rotation.

Bus Ride Thoughts #1 - Multiplayer on XBLA

I'm a huge XBLA guy. I'm sure most people who know me know that. But this is a blog so I have to explain myself.

I love reinvention. I love innovation. I love when games break established norms with design wide open, or when they find a way to refine and add to an existing mentality. And so for the most part retail is no friend of mine in that regard as publishers are afraid to spend so much money on risky ideas for big budget retail titles, but on downloadable markets is a lot more feasible for them. And I love my xbox, thus XBLA. It's also why I write for www.xblafans.com.

The only problem with downloadable market games, namely XBLA (because that's what I'm familiar with, not because PSN etc. don't have similar problems) is that multiplayer experiences are hamstringed by the smaller player base and inconsistent match availability.

It's really unfortunate that games like Modern Warfare 3 (because call of duty is just the name attached to it to keep the brand together) overshadow some truly magnificent XBLA experiences because it's so core and bottom line that most people can play it forever despite being very bland and straightforward from a design perspective. But perhaps as people become less interested in those games due to how similar they are they'll try more XBLA beyond just Castle Crashers, magnificent though that game is.

This has been the first installment in hopefully a long series of posts done from my phone while on the bus. Hope you enjoyed it.

MMORPG for Life (Haiku)

I need to respec
These stats and abilities
Character built wrong

Productivity at what cost?

I need to do be more productive. I feel like throwing all my gaming everything away and just... trying to do something. I feel like I have so many projects I've started, so many I want to do and need to do and I do none of them because I'm so easily distracted. It's amazing, I grew up surrounded by people who were disciplined into the damn floor and I guess I just missed that boat, when it comes to doing what I really want to do I just want it to be done already, and to be receiving the accolades or the feedback or whatever it is that happens with a finished product and do none of the work. What a crappy mentality, I know it's not going to happen and yet I think it anyways, it's so incredibly frustrating. I guess at the end of the day there's nothing to do but sit down and do things, and... I don't know. I feel like I'm going to have to make a lot of sacrifices. I may come back to them, but I don't know if I can keep going trying to be productive while just wasting time having fun. I can't tell if the work I'll be doing will make me happy but I know I'm not happy now despite how much fun I get to have.

Anyways. I'll try to be more awesome, internet.

MOBA Adventures - October #1

I think I'll do these more than once, so I'll go ahead an name this and such. Maybe sometime in the future I can turn it into something cool and fun to read. Hopefully this is fun. What ever anyways so I really really like the MOBA genre and really really hate somethings that people insist are necessary to its mechanics. Let's talk!

My only MOBA game I play pseudo-frequently at the moment is League of Legends, and honestly I'm not nearly as taken as I am with the idea of the genre itself. I feel like the massive amount of items and combinations thereof detracts from the experience as a whole, it's sort of a incredibly complicated, time-consuming method of being really lazy development-wise. Perhaps a bold statement? My point is the devs are free to develop characters often and not worry about how players will customize each champion because the customization options never change. Granted, the items are plenty and allow for massive permutations of character focus via stats, including a myrid of unique active and passive abilities which primarily alter stats but sometimes have specific gameplay uses similar to that of actual champion abilities. It's not an argument about whether or not the item system works, it's whether or not it's the best way of doing it, and I wholeheartedly believe it is not. Champion-specific upgrades and progressions (like the masteries used in the metagame or talent trees of traditional RPG fame) would provide for a much easier to understand gameplay and learning curve experience, and would allow champions to remain focused and prevent newer players from making "bad decisions", only different decisions. Any money spent is an improvement, and while certain "builds" will always exist, there are no options available to the champion that are bad. The downside to this is that customization and progression are no longer as player-driven, whereas with the items players can innovate beyond the scope of the developers, but ultimately very few players will be able to do that, a majority of them will have to learn and look up other players' builds, and the rest will all be doomed to play horribly or not at all.

But that's not what this is about. This is about the last couple of days playing Irelia, Heimerdinger and Alistar. First of all, I've lost like 8/10 games which is really frustrating, but second of all I can't for the life of me remember to use my active items. I usually play tank characters so I eventually end up with a Randuin's Omen for the most part, and I think I may have activated that item once every ten games. It's a really strange habit to not have formed by now, but dating back to my early years playing RPGs I never use items if I can avoid it. Final Fantasy Tactics, never used items. Chrono Cross, never used items. I just don't use them, I like using skills and strategy but WITHOUT the items. Unfortunately that's not the best way to play.

Irelia
Really awesome fun character to play, especially late game when she starts drowning everyone in blades, but I never really grasped how everyone did so well with her. Her ultimate seemed completely ineffective, and only halfway through my time with her did I start activating her W at the right time. Irelia's Ultimate summons four blades which are thrown at the enemy, however the tooltip nowhere says that you must hit R again (up to four times) to send them flying. I was under the impression it lasted for a certain amount of time and applied to every attack, which it also does not say, but it's not very specific. SO after figuring that out I started doing better with her, but ultimately I never had enough feed to be built early enough in the game and so my assassination efforts often fell short unless we were already winning. Great character, but she might be beyond my current ability.

Heimerdinger
Silly ass name, first of all. Second of all, I have a bit of an identity crisis with this guy. I can't tell if I should play him with turrets or play him with missiles, but either way I'm never good with him in team fights, only laning. Which is strange since it's normally the other way around. Normally I'll try to do things that weren't necessary at that point in the laning phase, like dying to save someone that wasn't going to die anyways... Anyways I started this post forever ago and only played like a couple of games with Heimer, suffice to say they didn't go so well and I think I'll pass on being super squishy.

Alistar
Now here's the funtimes. I'm very used to playing tanks for some reason, probably because they're the easiest to learn the game with. I'm also not very driven by kills, I like assists and always have, though less so in FPS games. Anyways Alistar's been a blast and a half, pushing lane early game and shaking off ganks with the ult, protecting squishies with the headbutt W and initiating with W/Q. I like how utilitarian his moves are, focusing on CC and less about damage, while remaining plenty tanky on his own. So far my only problem with him has been mana starvation, but I'm not sure I should re-build to deal with that, it seems more a side effect of careless mana expenditure.

Anyways, I've been on this post for days now, so let's go ahead and cap it off. New rotation started anyways, expect more of these to come!

Calling CoD:MW3 pre-orderees

Hello! This is Todd calling from Gamestop, just wanted to let you know we're going to be having a midnight release for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. That'll take place on Monday, November 7th. Starting at 6pm you can come and get your number and line up, we'll have food and entertainment as well as a tournament to win some cool prizes. Again, this has been Gamestop, we hope to see you there.

Had a couple of people that actually picked up think I was a recording, which is really a testament to my speech-preparedness, as my enthusiasm was clearly unmatched!

Need for Speed: The Run Demo

Need for Speed, a franchise which has been through somewhere between five and a bajillion iterations. When "What's the best Need for Speed?" is asked there are really only a few answers: Most Wanted and Underground 2 and Hot Pursuit 2. Most Wanted and Underground 2 were massive open world street racers, however Underground 2 did not feature police chases whereas Most Wanted made them pretty central to the gameplay and featured pursuit breakers. Hot Pursuit 2 was the first NFS title done by Black Box and gave the cops an arsenal. Why?

I have no idea, to be honest. Carbon and Undercover never struck it with the fans, though Carbon wasn't that bad albeit a bit one-trick-pony-ish, and I never played Undercover. Prostreet was reviewed really poorly, which is all well and good because it was eventually followed by Shift, and then Shift 2 Unleashed which for whatever reason dropped the "Need for Speed" bit of the title. Their Prostreet -> Shift -> Shift 2 Unleashed progression followed their entrance into the simulation racing world, which got off to an incredibly rocky start. Shift won points for its superb cockpit view and visceral feel, but was just under the cusp of awesome due to vehicle handling troubles, and then Shift 2 Unleashed polished it out nicely. Need for Speed had up until then been entirely arcade racing focused, so some people are probably upset that it's not solely arcade style.

But now there's Need for Speed: The Run! Yay. It's like Uncharted in cars. Cinematic-style action and racing mixed in with traditional arcade style racing, but all point-to-point like Hot Pursuit (as far as I can tell), complete with out-of-car quicktime events. While it seems like they may indeed deliver that awesome movie experience, driven by action scenes which the player participates in and an incredibly generic protagonist whom they can not give a fuck about, what's going to happen to those that loved Most Wanted etc.? I wonder what game they will play.

Not Need for Speed: The Run, that's for sure.