Archive for the 'Games' Category

Grinding: all massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) have it. Some more than others, but it is always there. Go forth and slay 50 rats. Collect 10 copper pieces, 32 rat pelts, 19 rat tails. Turn in same. Repeat 245 times. Graduate to killing skeletons. Repeat 895 times. Ding! You leveled! Now go forth and slay 2,655 ghouls…. It is like factory work, but without the pay cheque. In fact, we actually pay someone else for the privilege of doing this, and call it “entertainment”.

You’d think we’d hate it, that these types of games would never catch on, yet tens of millions of players log in every day, strap on their virtual swords, and head out to slay another few thousand denizens of the countryside in pursuit of the elusive level. Every new massively multiplayer online game that comes out perpetuates the grinding “feature”. It is weird, doubly so because I seem to be afflicted by the same behavioral quirk as all the millions of people playing MMOGs. There has to be some reason why…

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I’ve been playing massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) more or less since the genre got its name: about 1996. In that time I’ve played at least ten different games of this type: I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the horrendous. And I’m aware that MMOGs face a tremendous challenge beyond just the initial appeal of the first few weeks of play: they have to somehow capture and hold the players attention for years. And when those years have passed, it is nearly invariable that even the best game will end up being remembered by its flaws and disappointments rather than its strengths.

Thus it is that any review of a MMOG is purely a “point in time” perspective. And at this point in time, after about two weeks of play, I can say that Age of Conan is a brilliant game. I can not remember a MMOG that, from day one of its launch, performed so well or impressed me so much.

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I recently mentioned to my nephew, more or less in passing, that the Age of Conan massively multiplayer game was about to ship. I expected this to result in a “ho hum” sort of response: both he and I have become somewhat jaded over the years from consuming a half score or so different online roleplaying games in the last decade. We play EQ2, there are other decent games, but nothing worth getting excited about.

For reasons unexplained, my nephew ran out and bought two copies of AoC, one for his wife and one for himself. Suddenly the clock was ticking: he was playing the game and enjoying it… using up all those gaming enjoyment quanta, leaving less for me! Thus began my quest to acquire a copy of the game (which I will likely give some sort of review to in the next few days).

1. Off I go to Best Buy: not my favorite store, but they are big, and often have stuff I want. And it was at Best Buy’s subsidiary, Future Shop, that my nephew acquired his copy- the Chilliwack Future Shop, to be precise. Since I live closer to Vancouver, in the Langley area, I went to the Langley Best Buy. A scan of the lengthy shelves there revealed… no Age of Conan. A second and third scan did not change this fact: the program did not suddenly leap out and present itself to me. I hailed a Sales Associate (shudder) and asked “whither is Age of Conan?”, to which she responded “Huh? Oh, well, no, that isn’t out yet. May 22nd is the ship date. Sorry.” I replied “Your knowledge is faulty- it is available, so says the Age of Conan website, several games sites, and the Future Shop in Chilliwack”. My sales associate replied “No, they are wrong- see, it says here, in our weekly flyer- not available until May 22nd. Sorry.” I walked away, muttering curses upon the sales associate, and choosing my next possible source…
2. Across the road to London Drugs: London Drugs has a small games section, but periodically I’ve found they have games on the shelf that no one else has in stock, probably because most people don’t think to look there. The sales person there had no idea what Age of Conan was, but at least she didn’t try to convince me that the world is flat purely because the sales flyer says so- instead she shuffled through several boxes of new inventory on my behalf, but also came up empty. Steeled by a new sense of resolve, I moved on to…
3. Electronics Boutique #1: This particular EB Games store resides in a strip mall sort of midway between Best Buy and London Drugs. They specialize in console games, so I was unsurprised when they had no idea what I was talking about and had no copies upon the shelf. My destiny lay further beyond, perhaps in the realm of…
4. Electronics Boutique #2: Ah, the “EB Games in the mall”. A much more PC-friendly EB store, the one in the mall almost always has pleased me by having new games on day one of release. And lo, I was not disappointed: yes, they did have Age of Conan on day one of release… which was the day before I got there. When I arrived, they were completely sold out. By Crom! Truly the dark Gods conspire against my quest. There is only one course left open to me…
5. Future Shop, Langley: where I dislike Best Buy, I generally despise Future Shop. I have often received some of the most pathetic and uncalled for “advice” from their sales trolls, which has led to my patented “I know exactly what I want get out of my way or I’ll run you down and stomp your twitching corpse into the linoleum” shopping method. I strode across the floor, my steely-eyed gaze and unpleasant grimace driving away wave after wave of sales trolls before they could venture within my personal “space”. At last, I stood before the game shelf, scanned its length and… upon it lay my prize, a singular copy of Age of Conan. As my hand closed upon it, I swear I heard the peal of holy trumpets, and felt the touch of the Gods upon my credit card as I strode back with my prize to the checkout counter

And there you have it: my personal quest to acquire a copy of Age of Conan is complete. The game itself now resides upon my hard drive, calling to me as I sit here typing this post…

I’ve been playing less and less of EQ2 during the past year or so. Other than logging in for our regular Saturday session with my Sister Judy and her husband Bryan, my Nephew Shane and his wife Monique, and of course my wife Irene, I really haven’t been playing at all.

I’ve been playing massively multiplayer RPGs for over a decade now: I have a collectors edition version of Ultima Online So I could easily chalk it up to just being “bored” or tired of such games in general, and that’s what I did. I even tried a couple of other games. Vanguard was one, but it didn’t appeal, and ultimately the game itself sort of “died out”. More recently I re-activated my World of Warcraft account- that was fun, but more importantly I started to figure out myself and my disinterest a bit more.

Then my Nephew called up and suggested I get out of that WoW crap and create a new character in EQ2- that might be just the thing. Once I started playing that “new” character (actually one I created a year or so ago- a Kerran Paladin), the final piece explaining my ennui fell into place. I’m back to playing a couple of hours several days each week in addition to our Saturday session. And I’ll likely cancel my WoW account again shortly.

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I played World of Warcraft a couple of years ago when my Nephew and family decided to check it out. I didn’t mind it, but was just starting to get into EQ2 when we moved and so it was a bit frustrating in that regard. Within a month or two we moved back to EQ2 and have stayed there since.

I’m still playing EQ2 each weekend with my family, and having a lot of fun. But every once in a while I think back to World of Warcraft fondly and imagine that it might be fun to try it out again. Interestingly, WoW is pretty much the only MMOG available for the Macintosh, and so it seemed like a logical progression that one day I would install it on my MacBook.

Of course, I don’t want to go to the store and buy it, and I decided to try out the demo download. It often makes me chuckle when I realize that I’m using an Internet connection dozens of times faster than my modem of yesteryear… and yet the size of the things I download has more than kept pace with the increased bandwidth available:

Ah, a mere 11 hours… well, almost time to read a good book

I believe it is appropriate to note that I am not a historian before I say anything about Assassin’s Creed. Furthermore, I am not a religious person- I’m an agnostic. These two things together mean that my opinions regarding the religious or historical content of the game Assassin’s Creed should be taken with a grain of salt.

Assassin’s Creed is an open-ended third person sneaker with a strong role playing element. It is single player only, with no multiplayer or online elements other than XBox Live achievements. The main character- the guy you play- is oddly sort of a secondary character within the game itself. You are Desmond Miles, a young guy who finds himself kidnapped and held within a lab at a shadowy pharmaceutical company’s offices. The majority of the game is played through Desmond’s “genetic memories” using a machine called the Animus. You spend your time playing through your recovered memories of an ancestor named Altair: an assassin, Hashshashin, or Fedayeen during the period of the Third Crusade.

The plot involves completing a series of assassinations, partly to restore Altair’s status within his guild, and more importantly to disrupt the plans of the invading Templars. A secondary plot involves discovering why Desmond has been kidnapped and forced to live through his ancestral memories. Something is going on in modern times, something sinister and based on ancient rivalries and power struggles. The story is presented through a series of slightly interactive cut scenes (you can change your point of view and move slightly) with first rate voice acting.

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I bought Halo 3 on my XBox 360 shortly after it came out. I didn’t expect much from it- and that’s what I got. The Halo franchise is good, but has never really “wow”ed me.

At its root, I’d say the problem is partly a matter of the story as presented in the game coming across as “weak”, and partly the visual perspective the game plays from. I understand the back story behind the games is very detailed and rich…but the game doesn’t convey that well to me. As for the perspective: they seem to consistently do something with Halo that combines to irritate me (”an endless stream of passages, all alike…”) and give me motion sickness. First person plus acres of similar looking views equals nausea for me. Add these considerations to the fact that I made a mistake and played 9/10ths of the game on “easy” before discovering that you have to play on “normal” to get any achievements…the thought of playing the game through again made me put the DVD away.

Along comes Crysis. This game is as “different” as Far Cry was a few years ago, and that’s not too surprising I guess as both games were developed by Crytek. Note that Far Cry 2 was *not* developed by Crytek, so who knows what that will be like.

Moving back to the topic…Crysis has the bog-standard first person shooter plot. A super-soldier is part of a squad tasked with investigating some strange happenings on an island near China. The cause turns out to be some sort of alien invasion- much gunfire ensues. What makes Crysis “better” than the standard fare has more to do with how the story is presented, how the player is allowed to interact with the world, and how natural the whole process feels.

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I don’t play World of Warcraft any more- it was fun, but lacked depth. But apparently William Shatner plays WoW, or at least he claims to in a new World of Warcraft television commercial.

And Will Shatner isn’t the only celebrity doing TV ads for WoW- Mr. T does one too, and claims to play a “Night elf Mohawk” (the off camera director reminds him that it is a Night elf Warrior, and there is no such thing as a “mohawk” class.

The commercials are kinda funny- I like them. But the more interesting thing to me is that this is the first MMOG commercial I’ve seen with “mainstream” celebrities participating. I guess Blizzard has mountains of money to spend, what with something like 10 million people subscribing to World of Warcraft at $15 a month each.

I wonder how Mr. T reacts when he gets ganked in PvP? “I pity da fool…”

I stumbled across this series of comic video game reviews earlier this week, but didn’t actually watch any of them.  You see, I had heard that this particular reviewer had given a negative review to BioShock, and my unsubstantiated reaction was that the reviewer must be a total moron.

Well, Yahtzee may be a total moron (who’s to say?), but his reviews make me laugh…even though I disagree with much of what he says.  Check this out (WARNING: somewhat crude humour, not really safe for work):

Or how about this?

And Lara Croft needs some love too…

If you don’t find these funny…well, to each their own.  Maybe check out some more of Yahtzee’s work.  But even though I disagree with his BioShock review, I still laughed.  The humour is perhaps a bit rude, but it does a good job expressing a point without trying to tell me I’m stupid for disagreeing- and that makes me listen and maybe see a different perspective.  Good stuff!

I bought Halo 3 the other day: count me as number 5,000,001.  I’ve been enjoying it: the story is intriguing.  I’d say the third installment of Halo is, thus far at least, better than its predecessors.

I selected “Easy” mode when I started.  I like easy, as I’ve explained in previous posts.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of XBox Live achievements for Halo 3 require you to at least be playing on “Normal”.  That’s okay…or it would have been if I’d known it before I got halfway (2/3rds of the way?) through the game.

Strangely, I find that I sort of want those darn achievements.  But I really don’t like playing the same content over and over again: that is at least part of the reason I play on the easy setting to begin with.  That leaves me with a frustrating choice to make: start all over again, potentially finding the more difficult “normal” mode to be as irritating as I expect it to be.  Or forego any achievements. 

I’ll make my choice.  But perhaps by posting this, someone else who might otherwise choose the easy setting will avoid the same trap I’m in