Limbo

Well I tried to write a post about Limbo a few days ago when my browser decided it would be a dick and crashed as I was about to post it up. So now I get to re-do the entire post...joy. Essentially I was super late to the Limbo scene and most of what could be talked about has already been discussed on various threads located elsewhere. However, Limbo is an incredibly interpretive game and can be taken in many different ways depending on how you look at the facts the game presents to you. This is my take on it.

Just a little disclaimer here, Limbo is an incredibly ambiguous game and gives you very few solid facts to work with. There is no dialogue or plot necessarily and the entire game takes place in a world that makes no sense and is left up to the player to interpret. That ambiguity is potentially one of the reasons that Limbo is such a great game, players tend to like being able to draw their own conclusions even though it can be frustrating at times. Anyway, onto the interpretation!

The description we are provided with in regards to the game is just a simple sentence. "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters Limbo". So we start the game off with the basic plot, we're looking for this kid's sister in this crazy world filled with darkness, monsters, and even a few other people. Now I'd like to point out here that this world is exceedingly cruel and filled with death and punishment, you can see the results in the scattered corpses and decay all around the world. Despite this world being so cruel this little boy pushes straight through it in pursuit of his ultimate goal, how badly must he want to find his sister? I think that they boy's motive is sort of unique and he is obviously not trying to check on her in a traditional sense since he has to traverse this odd world to do it. I think that, based on some of the conclusions at the end of the game, the boy is dead and he cannot pass on until he knows what happened to his sister.

About 3/4 of the way through the game you encounter the boy's sister sitting under a tree-house picking flowers but just before you reach her you get one of those lovely bugs biting into your head and are forced to go the other direction for a while. After ridding yourself of the pest you return to where your sister was and she is no longer there. In her place are only more obstacles. This is a key point in the game in my opinion simply because it demonstrates that the world is clearly not a solid world or even a real one. The boy clearly idealizes the finding of his sister and as soon as he is about to grasp that goal it is moved away from him. I think his time in Limbo is symbolic of a journey back to reality and it ends with the completion of the boy's goal. I'm not entirely sure if his sister is dead as well but I'll get to that in a moment.

The ending. As you finish the final puzzle you are flung through a barrier of sorts. People have interpreted this to symbolize the event that cause his death (car accident, falling out of a window, etc). I, however, interpret it a tad bit differently. I think this was the barrier between the living world and the world of the dead. The game description we are given almost implies that at least one of the characters (the boy and his sister) is dead but I find myself drifting more towards the idea that the boy had died and wanted to know what happened to his sister. To support this conclusion I would call attention to the fact that upon passing through that "barrier" you can move backwards and there is no remnant of the area you had just passed through, only more forest. Also, upon approaching the boy's sister she looks up as if to communicate that she felt something, but she does not turn around.

After the credits we see that the previously intact tree-house is now in disrepair and there are flies above two spots on the ground, implying they are both dead. I found this to sort of represent the passage of time. Perhaps the girl was putting flowers over the boy's grave under the tree-house? Maybe she was buried there later, as indicated by the flies over the two spots? Or I could be wrong and they were both dead from the start, as symbolized by their shadowy figures. It's kinda great that we can't actually know.

Hope you enjoyed reading! If you've played the game please comment with any thoughts!

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Skyrim! Pickpocketing! Yay!

So I finally got Skyrim to stop doing that super fun thing where the first menu box just keeps looping itself over and over and am able to play Skyrim again...not that there is a whole lot left for me to do on it right now. There was still one last thing I wanted to do to have some fun and finish up a few of those Daedric quests as well as other random quests. That last thing was maxing out pickpocketing and then stealing everyone's shirts.

It is quite hilarious to walk up to guards in places like Solitude where they are busy hitting practice dummies with their swords or bows and then nick their weapons and armor so they just sort of stand there and go...."I feel like I had clothes on a moment ago...oh well". Needless to say, the entirety of Solitude is now naked. Of course since I didn't want to lug all that useless crap around with me it is scattered all over the ground throughout the city. It's also fun to completely strip unsuspecting enemies of their gear and then make my presence known to them and watch as they attempt to punch me to death in confusion. Oh Skyrim, will you ever cease to entertain me?

On a slightly more serious note: Pickpocketing rocks for anyone who likes leveling quickly and having nice things. I lifted an Elven bow off an npc when I was like level 4 or something, Stole the Skyforge weapons from the various Companion members and got myself about a thousand arrows which helps a lot when all I'm using on this new character is a bow. I'll probably do the thieves guild again on this character and keep the Skeleton Key to solidify my role as an unstoppable thieving bastard.

I'll also be finishing the final few Daedric artifact quests to complete my list, getting 100% of the artifact masks, and writing about the main story line/completing all the shouts. Posts on all of those will be made available as I finish them.

Daedric Artifacts remaining:

Hermaeus Mora: Oghma Infinium - Book

Sanguine: Sanguine Rose - Staff

Hircine: Savior's Hide/Hircine's Ring - Ring

Malacath: Volundrung - Warhammer

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Lineage 2 Rebooted: Goddess of Destruction

Me and a couple friends decided to leave Aion to give Lineage 2 (L2) a shot since they turned it into a free to play and overhauled a lot of features to try and make it a competitor with other newer MMOs. However, L2 is not a new game by any means and this update doesn't change that as much as I had hoped. That being said, I know I had pretty high expectations for the update and since I have yet to reach the level cap (far from it) I can't exactly pass judgment on it but from what I've seen so far it's essentially the same game with just a few tweaks and added content. I'll talk about what I liked and what I thought they really needed to improve and didn't.

Starting with the negative!

Things I think needed improving that got completely/partially ignored:

1. The User Interface (UI)

2. I WANT TO JUMP.

3. Combat is still very much point, click, win, at this point (As I get more skills this will lessen)

4. Movement remains clunky and obstacles cannot be jumped over

5.Graphics are still "meh" but that's not a big deal to me

The User Interface: To me, having a shoddy UI is inexcusable for any game calling itself a current generation game or in L2's case, a game that can compete with current gen games. A good UI is not hard to accomplish by any means, games like Aion and WoW have fantastic UIs that are player friendly and don't require you to dig around through tons of boxes that are either unnecessary or just painfully difficult to access. This was probably the one thing I would have loved L2 to fix since it has a rather cluttered mess of a UI that might have been okay five years ago but that doesn't exactly fly. Now, you might say I'm too picky about this and people have no problem with it and I would tell you to eat a shoe if you've played L2 previously. You get used to it, no question about that, but when trying to appeal to a non-nostalgia market a good UI is critical and makes everything smoother for everyone playing. Maybe I've just played Aion for too long and it killed other MMOs for me :(

2. There is a reason most MMOs have a jump button. I mean when I am traipsing along through L2's absolutely MASSIVE world it gets a tad bit annoying when my character encounters a tiny rock and is like "WHAT IS THIS WALL I HAVE RUN INTO!?". Then I have to admit that the tiny rock is too much of an obstacle for my poor feet and walk around it shamefully. There is also this funny thing where some mobs will spawn ontop of rock formations, and they have bows...it then becomes a game of "find the spot" while you run around the rock looking for a way up onto it whilst being shot with arrows. You're still allowed to fall off things though, they couldn't take that away from me but you just sort of trip your way down hills and such. I want to vault myself off cliffs.

3. Fear my cursor. L2 still has its old combat system which was disappointing but I can't say I honestly expected them to rework their entire combat system since you could essentially label it Lineage 3 and people wouldn't find that to be outlandish. However it is still a point of annoyance for me since I like dynamic combat (they promised this by the by but we shall see if endgame delivers) and I especially like dynamic PvP and somehow I feel like I'm going to get blown straight to hell by mages and such since I can't move properly, which brings me to....

4. WHY DON'T MY FEET WORK?! After watching PvP videos of various L2 servers (Private and Retail) I still think they have made their PvP entirely dependent on planting your feet and getting into an immobile slugfest which I hold in the same regard as a rock em' sock em' robot battle. When I can't kite around my opponent and add that dimension of control it just encourages gear based PvP which I do not like (I put a bucket over my robot's head, you lose!).

5. Graphics. This is 50/50 for me because I actually kind of like how L2 looks but honestly when you make such a massive update I expect the graphics of this ancient game to be absolutely overhauled completely, totally, any other word that means something similar. Hell Aion even underwent a graphics upgrade about a year after it was launched (I like this a lot even though it is cosmetic it shows that the game is trying to stay current). That being said, I like the graphics they are definitely nostalgic from when I used to play avidly.

What I liked:

1. The world

2. The leveling curve

3. The gear curve

4. The player base

5. Quests are worth doing!

The world of L2. It is the single most massive world I have ever encountered in a game. If I walked from top to bottom it would take me hours. There is just so much terrain in this game and no loading screens to break the continuity which is just great. Despite every major town and grinding/quest area being packed full of people I was still able to find my own little personal leveling area simply due to the fact that the world they have made is big enough for everyone to do their own thing in. Since the update most of the main towns from before are now ransacked and lay in ruins and a lot of the previous leveling spots people used are far different than they were before the patch (I found this out the hard way).

Leveling! L2 was infamous for its debilitating leveling curve that either devoured your soul or made you quit the game. This has changed. Drastically. Essentially the first 20 levels take almost no time at all thanks to the new opening quest line and the rest of them are significantly lowered in terms of required exp which reduces the previously insane grind down to a pleasant playing experience.

I'm so shiny! The gear curve is better simply because they provide it for you. Since this patch was supposed to make L2 accessible to multiple playerbases and also involved a lot of people starting fresh on brand new servers they decided to implement a "Path of awakening" system that rewards you at various points along your leveling experience with weapons and armor suitable for your level. Some would complain that this makes things too easy and there is no doubt that it does make things incredibly easy compared to before but a lot of the playerbase consists of returning players who have experienced the grind for levels and gear before and don't exactly want to re-do that entire experience. It boils down to what will get them players and what will make them want to stay. The gear you receive is also limited though (The highest rank gear lasts 90 days) and they don't give you end game gear so this essentially levels the playing field on the way up to cap.

SO MANY PEOPLE *trampled*. I think it is absolutely hilarious that Aion can barely populate 2 servers and L2 had to open up a 4th server because all the others were running at capacity. You can be playing the best MMO ever but if you don't have a solid playerbase then you will undoubtedly fail, hard. Conversely, if you take an older game and give it an overwhelmingly huge amount of players you'll see a reinvigorated game. I firmly believe that the players make the game fun, MMOs are built around having that community, that competition.

Excuse me, I have to go save some maidens. Questing used to be a piece of crap before this patch. L2 was almost entirely a grind with very little quests since they few they did have were terrifyingly useless and time consuming. Now, we have quests that are simple and level you up quick, which is nice but the ease is offset by the sheer number of people trying to farm a limited number of mobs. I still found it easier to grind my way through the levels but once I get to a point where the quest areas are a bit less densely populated I'll return to questing.

Last thing I swear! It is incredibly important to remember that L2 is a free game now. How many free games sport all these things with such few flaws? L2 is a fantastic game and I love it to death, I am immensely happy to see life breathed back into it after such a long period of only having one server of bots/old players. Such a long post...kudos if you read it all.

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