Archive

PC

Diablo III BETA Impressions …

May 2, 2012
PC, Preview
Leave a Comment

A recap of the DIII BETA for Castle Co-Op, a website dedicated to Film, TV, Music and Culture – Published  04-05-2012

With the close of the open BETA servers on Tuesday, I guess it’s about time we discuss a little Diablo III (DIII). Minus the lag induced by extraneous stress placed on the servers, as a Diablo II (DII) veteran, the BETA yielded a nostalgic yet surprisingly refreshing take on my favourite RPG-Dungeon Crawler that parasitically enveloped most of my time during high school.

Welcome back to the corrupted realm of Sanctuary.

Perhaps less so than Blizzard’s efforts with StarCraft II, but DIII’s progress has been hotly debated amongst fans vying for the success of their adored franchise. From trivial debates such as transitioning from the murky, gothic visual aesthetics to the oversaturated phosphorescent My Little Pony colour palates (that might be exaggerated) or the perma-connection required for the single player campaign, DIII has undergone serious retooling since the first closed-BETA last year – with the noticeable omission of the Scroll of Companion.

During my BETA stint, I thoroughly wring the Demon Hunter and Monk through their paces as my preferred hero classes as they closely resemble the Amazon and Paladin from DIII’s predecessor, although the Monk’s uncanny resemblance to Avatar Aang was a decisive factor. Despite initial trepidations that each class would just be a shallow synergy between the previous classes (Monk = Assassin and Paladin), they all seem fresh and acutely varied that cater toward a variety of play styles.

The Monk’s swift up-close and personal melee approach was addictive and ultimately satisfying with the string of attack animations, while the Demon Hunter’s shift-clicking ranged projectiles was a might underwhelming, however it looks like the DH’s true potential unlocks past the BETA cap.

Building on the successful franchise with a few UI cues from World of Warcraft, the most notable changes revolve around the oversimplification of the Stats and Skills Tree. This lack of class diversity will take a noticeable hit in PvP (an omitted feature from DIII’s release), but I can see where it benefits the more casual players, alleviating the unnecessary burden associated with creating the perfect warrior. I’m somewhat satisfied with the auto stat allocation, as they remained pretty constant with each class from DII, but the skills – I’ll need to play much more of the campaign before I’ll form any lasting opinion.

As I write, I’m trying in earnest not to engage myself in an egotistical antagonistic discussion; but I can see both the benefits of eliminating the Skills Tree and its drawbacks. Having Skills simply unlock as to have each available and subsequently levelled for use in any situation is a convenient joy. However, to justify this open-ended skill customisation, it creates the demand for the game to be throwing a lot more than simple point-and-click enemy AI at players.  Otherwise the ability to switch skills on the fly becomes nothing more than a poorly executed gimmick.

With all characters evolving similarly, there drops any real customisation in terms of class mechanics, however the new Rune system satiates the void providing a viable source of diversity. Also there will be heavy reliance on custom forging weapons, armour, and accessories as there hasn’t been much change to the pot-luck loot drops that mercifully have evolved from a mad scrounge for the boss’s corpse to personalised drops only for each party member.

Inventory management has always been the crux of my frustration during The Lord of Destruction expansion pack, with the introduction of Charms. Luckily DIII has revamped the UI as you will no longer be thwarted by a never ending game of Inventory-Tetris. Blizzard has also taken action against Potion-Spamming, with a new Health-Orb drop system in place. Their presence seems innocuous enough not to be considered a high-value resource you need to actively hunt during gameplay – unless teetering on the brink of death, then it’s a god-send.

At its heart, Diablo has always been an action centric RPG-Dungeon Crawl with a heavy influence on combat, and a ‘lucky-draw’ loot system that had myself and thousands more on constant Bloody Foothill, Ancients and Baal runs. DIII has made a valiant effort to uphold their convictions to deliver a wickedly fun BETA without losing any of its old charm that players fell in love with over a decade ago.

Looking at the game exponentially, unfortunately there isn’t much beyond the hype of a new Diablo game. All these shiny additions and supposedly fresh innovations seem to cater toward the unruly casual market, however I’ve condemned myself not to make any rash accusations and shape ill-informed opinions until these mechanics have been fleshed out and thoroughly experimented in the retail release.

For fans in the Americas server, please feel free to add me to your friends list, as now the real challenge is finding something, anything to bide the time before the release on May 15th.

Watch this space for a full review

BioWare to Change Mass Effect 3′s Ending?

March 23, 2012
PC, PlayStation, Update, Xbox
2 Comments

For the past two weeks upon completing the Mass Effect trilogy, I just let the apparently very controversial ending to the epic space-opera sit with me until I could fully comprehend how I should react to it. According to an enlightening movement on the internet, I should be outraged at developer BioWare for not providing me with an ending that my (USD) $60 entitles me to.

Don’t worry, for those still in the midst of stemming the Reaper invasion, I will try to keep this post spoiler free.

In an unprecedented announcement, BioWare intends to satiate unrelenting fans with additional in-game content that may provide an alternate ending to the many branching outcomes of the Shepard arc. Developers describe it as “incredibly painful” seeing heavily devout fans of the series unhappy with the outcome of their 5 year endeavour. It’s not exactly clear whether BioWare will address the ending completely or just add some additional context to give players a greater sense of closure to the established ending.

To BioWare’s credit, in a statement provided by Dr. Ray Muzyka (co-founder of BioWare), this is not a move incited by any of the overtly negative feedback attacking their creation and its creators, instead taking only constructive criticisms about the game in order to give closure to players who are disconcerted with their Mass Effects ending. It’s something that as a fan and consumer can appreciate from a company. To BioWare’s discredit, I have lost a little bit of faith in the developers for even entertaining the idea that altering established fiction under pressure is the correct decision. What about the fans who enjoyed the ending and wouldn’t want it to change – which I’d wager outnumber those who are actively trying to alter ME3’s ending.

This is not a move I’m particularly fond of and quite a dangerous move on their behalf – dare I say a ‘dangerous precedent’ set.  I can also sympathise with the developers as they’ve been acquiesced into a compromising predicament.  The Mass Effect fiction is their intellectual property and gamers (I posit only a minority of gamers out of millions of copies sold, who have actively signed petitions and even alerted the Federal Trade Commission) need to accept that. However this may be an archaic perspective, as the evolution of the social network brings developers and consumers closer, these kinds of moves may seem more pertinent from the developer’s stand-point.

This truly is a multi-faceted debate. It’s great to see developers read, interact and are willing to accept constructive criticism by the community, but it’s really a shame to see a veteran games developer bend to the will of public opinion so easily. It almost suggests that BioWare was fully aware of the possible negative effects that the ending could cause and opted to ship the game regardless – there seems to be a distinct lack of commitment and support of the artists’ integrity that is seething with the possibility of an unethical business model (day one DLC, common!?).

You could also consider that this is BioWare’s game, they can do, change, and manipulate it post-release as much as they want through DLC and as the consumer it’s your decision whether or not to support their decision. Sales figures speak much louder to developers and publishers than any single ranting blog post can.

The most dangerous outcome of this announcement is a precedence set for fans of other titles to pressure game developers to change their story – compromise their artistic integrity. A common argument that will be put henceforth is ‘BioWare did it, so why can’t you?’

Generally when the conversation between developers and gamers hits this level of criticism, developers can address these issues in a subsequently released title – the disadvantage BioWare has is that this is a condemning finality to the Mass Effect fiction (at least for Shepard).

If nothing else, it just shows how devoted fans are to the much beloved series, but consumers need to accept the fact that they are just that, consumers. This is an intricately woven narrative spanning 6 years from a professional games developer, not a fanfic that some obnoxious adolescent mashed together in a darkened basement (I apologise for the stereotype).  ‘Haters-gonna-hate,’ and BioWare too needs to man-up and defend their artistic vision.

I’m in no way stating that additional information that will enrich the Mass Effect lore is a bad thing, however I will not be support this action through purchasing additional DLC (unless it also comes with some really cool armour and/or weapon). It’s near impossible to judge BioWare’s future endeavours to rectify this nonplussed issue with any amendments however I’d like to suggest that they don’t stray too far from the Mass Effects roots, or else you’ll feel the furore of the majority of fans raging against developers for tampering with their game.

Despite your philosophical and ideological stance on the issue at hand, come April we will have our concerns answered. For a full review of the controversial title, see my Mass Effect 3 Review.

___

In completely unrelated news that I found hilarious is that Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be getting the N7 armour as downloadable costumes. FFXIII-2 has already received Assassin’s Creed costumes and I welcome the Mass Effect cross-over no matter how ridiculous Noel and Serah appear.

___

Edit: BioWare has announced that will be be providing players with FREE DLC to expand on the Mass Effect 3 ending. This is not a new new ending, but expanding on the existing fiction. This was probably the only logical solution to satiate all interested parties – those who loved the ending, hated it, or wanted more in terms of closure should be pleased with BioWare’s efforts. This doesn’t necessarily break their regard for artistic integrity (bending to the whims of die-hard fanboys) and change the overall ending, but it’d be interesting to see how the petitioning fans react to this news; happy to have their voices heard or simply insulted as this is a poor effort, patronising the haters?

Diablo III Has A Release Date … Without PvP

March 16, 2012
PC, News
Leave a Comment

In breaking news; Blizzard, a developer notorious for playing with their release schedule close to the vest has now come out with an official release date for the next anticipated Diablo instalment.

Finally, fans of the action RPG dungeon crawler can now pre-purchase a digital copy from Battle.Net right now in preparation for when the servers go live on May 15. Or you can purchase the physical copy from your favourite purveyor of gaming paraphernalia. For die-hard fans of the series, the Collector’s Edition is crammed full of desirable loot.

  • Diablo 3 PC/Mac Game
  • Behind the scenes DVD and Blu-Ray Two Disc Set
  • Collectors Edition Soundtrack
  • The Art of Diablo 3
  • Diablo Skull and 4GB USB Soulstone
  • Diablo 3 Aesthetic Artifacts (in-game)
  • World of Warcraft pet (in-game)
  • StarCraft 2 Battle.net Portraits (in-game)

Overall I’m excited by this news, and am going to re-think my opinion about the gaming release schedule in the month of May. However this joyous news is somewhat marred by the omission of PvP. Whilst not a game changer for myself – I personally enjoy partied dungeon crawling – but I can see this as a turn-off for some gamers who delight in slaying another players.

Also, this release for the PC/Mac does raise questions about a possible console release. It’s no secret that Blizzard have been tinkering with the idea to release the game on home consoles, hence this announcement has surreptitiously side-stepped the issue. Throughout 2011, Blizzard was actively trying to recruit specialist for their respective home-consoles. At Gamescom, Blizzard’s lead designer Josh Mosqueira said the company was “very, very serious about bringing the Diablo 3 experience to the console” and was “trying to build the best console team.” Even going so far at BlizzCon to say Diablo III ”actually feels better on the controller.”

Blizzard’s mantra with release dates have always been: ‘we won’t release a game until we think it’s ready’ – so announcing a release date with such fervor can only elate the hearts of many waiting fans, myself very much included.

Mass Effect 3 Review

March 11, 2012
Castle Co-Op, PC, PlayStation, Review, Xbox
1 Comment

A review article written for Castle Co-Op, a website dedicated to Film, TV, Music and Culture – Published  12-03-2012

Fulfilling a 6 year promise to gamers, BioWare has concluded its three part space-opera with the release of Mass Effect 3 (ME3) – an ambitious production where choice and consequence permeate each title release.  Tasked with the near impossible goal, developers aim to satiate die-hard fans with an endearing ending to the brilliant series steeped in rich lore and tethered emotion to the Commander Shepard story – Your Commander Shepard.

ME3 picks up back on Earth, a first in the Mass Effect series, being able to explore this beautiful blue marble. A bittersweet introduction as the 50,000 year purported Reaper ritual provides the perfect cadence for the plot, with the invading Reaper armies bombarding the globe, eager to start extinguishing all organic life in the Milky Way.

Your mission sends you galaxy-trotting the known universe in search of War Assets to potentially boost your Galactic Readiness as zero-hour fast approaches to face the Reapers head-on. These diplomatic endeavours are critical factors in the war and have players engaging in the age old socio-political grudges amongst the alien races known in the Mass Effect universe.

Wether over the Krogan Genophage or the Quarian-Geth rebellion cum exile to the Flotila, your duty as the heroic peacekeeper (paragon) or ruthless warmonger (renegade) is to navigate these tricky – albeit superficial (in light of an existential galactic genocide) – differences to form a united armada against the Reapers. This unusual dissonance is also echoed with the numerous side-missions encountered in the game that doesn’t reflect the immanency of the crisis, instead focusing on simple ancillary tasks. Even when faced with ominous death and destruction, folks in the Citadel still squander over petty crimes and simple fetch requests despite the ongoing catastrophe.

The story ends the Shepard trilogy and wraps up a lot of peripheral stories from former teammates aboard the Normandy – even if they didn’t survive the suicide mission at the end of Mass Effect 2, scene’s still play out regardless, sans the actual characters effect over the sequence.

Achieving galactic readiness through diplomacy is the driving force behind missions in ME3, with a host of dialogue options and actions heavily influence the story as you careen towards the end-game. For the best and most personal experience, players are urged to import their Shepard from ME2 not only for aesthetics, but for a character you’ve engaged with for 5 years – a familiar face to guide you through the inevitable battle ahead.

Claiming any emotional attachment to a save file is a weird and difficult thing to admit – but an immensely gratifying felling when you’ve been swept up in the vast Mass Effect fiction – hence an emotional investment is more likely inevitable. Especially when BioWare seems determined in its Mass Effect finale to emphasise consequence with the potency of death lingering over every choice made. In ME3, people will die. Because there are no more decisions to carry-over, the burden of each decision weighs much heavier on Shepard. Lives will be lost with their blood on your hands – ultimately what is the price you’re willing to pay for the greater good?

The moral dilemmas faced throughout ME3 are increasingly relevant and navigating these decisions will drastically alter the plots course and outcome. Seemingly inconsequential decisions made hours ago can often haunt players wishing they’d chosen the second dialogue option. The triumph of Mass Effect comes with the seemingly innocuous butterfly effect that ripples through each Mass Effect title. Each event culminates organically as you approach the stories climax with the sum of all parts, each decision made intricately woven into the story to provide the appropriate ending to your Shepard’s journey.

The combat mechanics are fluid and familiar to Mass Effect veterans, and widely accessible to newer players with some minor platforming additions. Unfortunately with familiarity come the usual problems associated with the hit-and-miss cover system. The ‘take-cover’ and new ‘dive-roll’ commands are mapped to the same button hence it can lead to some unwanted response during an intense fire-fight. Overall, while decent enough, ME3 falls short of some more recent standout third-person cover-shooters like Gears of War and Vanquish.

The elegant myriad of weapons, skills and abilities are more customisable with progressive upgrades, custom mods, and branching skill-trees for each class and weapon to tailor your Shepard to your liking. The variance in each distinct class (adept, engineer, infiltrator, sentinel, soldier, and vanguard) can lead to some very distinct custom builds. This streamlining is also noted with the omission of any dedicated hacking sequence, clumsy vehicular missions and planetary scanning for minerals; instead, scanning may lead to further War Assets, fuel and supplies, or trigger your known whereabouts to the roaming Reaper scouts.

The brutally difficult enemies are more attributed to enumeration rather than an intuitive AI. Enemies flood the narrow battlefields in seemingly endless waves constantly converging on your position; punishing players who aren’t aware of their surroundings. Gratefully the new Omni-Blade (unique to each class) sees a much welcomed melee option for the overly frisky AI. But tactical squad-based combat is the name of the game.

Squad-mates available in ME3 come in a more manageable 6-pack (with more possible through additional DLC) instead of the cast of 12 from ME2 – to me it’s a mixed reaction. While I appreciate the familiar faces and cherish a more intimate relationship, a few more familiar faces wouldn’t go astray. Continuing in fashion with ME1 and ME2, romancing ship-mates and crew-members makes a return with the inclusion (or re-inclusion) of a same-sex outcome. The system seems ostensibly more complex this time around with some romantic interests may only be possible with a prior ME2 save import.

In a Mass Effect first, multiplayer will be included in this release. While its inclusion is arguably unnecessary, the multiplayer experience does interconnect with the plot, offering a robust experience to complement the Single Player; each mission acting as more of a primer to give some context to the N7 side-missions. Apart from the Shepard arc, multi-player offers another perspective on the galactic war – fighting on every front.

An experience best endeavoured by players who’ve played the previous titles in succession (albeit difficult for PlayStation owners), ME3’s does well that every decision distinctly shapes my Shepard; my experience.  That my efforts in shaping the universe manifest such because of my choice, my decision, my humility, my selfishness – it’s all about my choice, consequence, and contribution over the course of the entire Mass Effect trilogy.

It’s truly a shame that this near pristine masterpiece of story-telling is marred with frustratingly common technical issues such as lip-syncing, texture drop-ins, mandatory disc-swapping on more than one occasion (Xbox users) and the shameful framerate (especially noticeable on the PS3 version), dipping well below 30 fps when the action really heats up. What’s unacceptable – in a game that prioritises your efforts in past titles – is the import function from ME2 to ME3 is not fully functional, but is promised to be addressed in a future patch.  Disappointing as these are the exact same complaints inherited from its predecessor.

Mass Effect 3 is truly a wonderfully melancholic experience through a masterfully told story bringing an end to one of this generation’s best sci-fi saga’s – with an ending that Mass Effect fans will be discussing long after the credits roll. I’m still not quite sure how I’m supposed to feel with the trilogies conclusion. Now let’s see how badly Hollywood can botch up this superb story through a videogame-to-screen adaptation.

DISCLAIMER: This was a PlayStation 3 review and didn’t use the Kinect feature. But have heard from trusted sources it’s a neat construct – but ultimately fails to be practical when barking commands ensue instances of delayed reaction in lieu of a more immediate and simpler process is to just use the face buttons. 

___

DEVELOPER: Bioware

PLATFORM(S): PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
PUBLISHER: Electronic Arts

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review

March 9, 2012
Castle Co-Op, PC, PlayStation, Review, Xbox
Leave a Comment

A review article written for Castle Co-Op, a website dedicated to Film, TV, Music and Culture – Published  12-03-2012

When you think ‘Indie Game’, you think about the plethora of 99 cent apps available for your Smartphone and Tablets. Never would you imagine the massive open world that is Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the debut title from the upstart independent game developer 38 Studios. Founded by ex-pro league Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling, and backed with the incredible creative minds of R.A. Salvatore (New York Times best-selling fantasy author), Ken Rolston (executive game designer from the Elder Scrolls series) and Tod McFarlane (the comic book genius behind the Spawn series) – a celebrated team with an illustrious pedigree to breathe life into this fantasy realm.

This ambitious game offers players the perfect blend of an expansive fantasy world with an incredibly satisfying combat system other Western RPGs have been severely lacking. This noticeably absent element is felt in The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series that are fully capable of building a superb narrative and universe, only to stumble with clumsy and unappealing gameplay mechanics. Reckoning aims to rectify this with an in-depth and intuitive combat system combined with an immersive narrative that could be the makings of a new first-class RPG series.

In the world of Amalur, fate defines all. It’s not something you can escape, and the residents of the world seem contempt to their condemned fate. This is the catalyst that justifies your characters presence in the world. Newly resurrected from the Well of Souls, unbound by fate you begin your journey – the only being in the Faelands capable of shaping the fate of the world.

Powered by the creative writing of fantasy novelist R.A. Salvatore, there is an impressive 10,000 year history of Amalur that the game tends to emphasise – the vast lore and compelling historical backstory is interesting yet somehow takes precedence over your interactions with the world.

Now despite this free and unbound premise, how you engage with the inhabitants of the world is deceptively linear. Different dialogue options and moral choices give the illusion of choice, yet no real consequence manifests from your decisions or actions (ala Mass Effect) – just different responses invoke a preordained reaction that feels more obligatory than necessary. Reckoning contains a wide array of well scripted conversations that unfortunately has little difference in its impact on the story as a whole.


Be forewarned, exploring Amalur can be a costly endeavour. The main quest can occupy roughly 30 – 40 hours, but aiming to see and do everything in Amalur will have players sinking well over a hundred hours of gameplay – and being an EA publication, I wholeheartedly expect more of the world to be expanded via upcoming DLC.

The world is set up with a distinctive MMO structure rather than a traditional RPG, with areas divided into clusters that are free to roam at any time, considering you can survive long enough to enjoy its splendour.

The environment varies from dense forestation and arid deserts, to a bustling medieval metropolis populated by gnomes. There is an intrinsic endearing aspect to each locale and some of the NPCs that despite my adoration for the lush environmental design and stunning artistic styles, the world feels empty and somewhat forgettable. While there are townsfolk to converse with, enemies to slay, and the dungeons to explore do well occupy the open realm, there is an understated lack of dimension for players to invest.

The amount of task and quests initiated through Amalur are vast yet not varied. They conform to the familiar tropes of the sandbox RPG; hunting the hidden nasties in a cave to fetching particular items from the clutches of bandits. These quests serve as a welcome distraction and a provision for players to explore the lovingly crafted world of Amalur.


Customisation and preference is at the heart of everything you do in Amalur. The levelling system lets you tailor your character to suit your personal play style. Skill points can be distributed amongst Might (strength and defence), Finesse (speed and stealth), and Sorcery (magic and support) as well as a set of peripheral abilities ranging from lock-picking and potion-alchemy to blacksmithing and improved stealth.

While investment solely into the Might, Finesse and Sorcery skill trees grant players to a bevy of powerful skills unique to that discipline, players can instead mix and match skills from each discipline with the diversity not providing any real disadvantage for players. The skill-point allocations unlock different destinies that confer unique bonuses to your character.

In these instances I generally choose the stealth, ranged type character – so my time with Reckoning saw a pretty nifty fast-striking magical-nuke, spending my points to master Finesse and Sorcery skills. Even if you make a mistake or find yourself wanting to experiment with different combinations of weapons, skills or ability preferences, you can always visit your local Fateweaver to have all stats and skills reset to be redistribute points as you like – this takes away some of the pressure of building your perfect hero as your never tied down to any one particular play style.


Choice, customisation and preference aren’t limited to the plot but naturally lend itself to the immersive dynamic combat mechanics. Combat is fast and the controls are very responsive, allowing the seamless switch between weapons and a range of magical skills that feels fluid and organic – allowing for a satisfyingly string of attacks for a devastating combo.

The range of weapons isn’t diverse, yet each fulfils a unique role in your arsenal and caters toward any preference. Your standard hack-and-slash Sword for close-ranged moderate damage; for speed, players can master the Daggers and Faeblades; Bows and Sceptres for players with an affinity for ranged attacks; Chakrams and Staffs for devastating magical AoE and the mighty Hammer for crushing damage at an insanely slow speed.

On the surface, combat seems shallow with the single button execution of attacks, but I’d define it more of a delicately choreographed dance against an innately aggressive AI – a flurry of metal, raging magic, dexterous dodges and well-timed blocks and parries complete the dynamic combat mechanics necessary for survival. Reckoning mode is the another unique battle mechanic introduced that grants players a tactical time slow-down, increased power, and abilities whilst reaping the benefits of better loot drops and increased experience.

Animation and sound effects from art director Todd McFarlane is superb, especially the Quake animation and the crushing Ice AoE sound effect from the staff. You can feel the distinguished weight and power of the hammer and the speed and swiftness of the daggers (especially when you achieve a stealth kill) with the obsessive detail apparent in the animation and sound design, matched perfectly to reflect the reality of the world.

It’s disappointing to see the usual pitfalls of the massive open world RPG ubiquitous in Reckoning considering the immense scope and ambition of the game. The minor technical performance issues (occasional framerate drops, overlapping dialogue and texture drop-ins) can easily be forgiven, and the lack of investment in a vast and empty world can be tolerated, simply because the combat, story, and RPG elements are superb. Not since Diablo II have I enjoyed combat in an Action RPG.

It cannot be understated how amazing this debut game from an upstart studio is. It has all the staples and the makings of an amazing Action RPG with an incredibly satisfying combat. Mix in the amazing talent and experience of R.A Salvatore, Ken Rolston and Todd McFarlane, you can bet this will be a contender to 2012’s Game of the Year.

___

DEVELOPER: 38 Studios, Big Huge Games

PLATFORM(S): PlayStation 3, PC, Xbox 360
PUBLISHER: 38 Studios, Electronic Arts