Morally Correct in a Morally Incorrect World: A Look at the Character of Wei Shen

This past week has been a big one for me since Darksiders II, Sleeping Dogs, and The Last Story all came out together. I decided to start with Sleeping Dogs since Gamestop managed to not have my pre-ordered The Last Story. In addition to the game review itself I wanted to stop and take a look at a character that has now taken a spot on my "Favorite Character" list, Wei Shen.

Sleeping Dogs puts you in the shoes of a fiery undercover cop named Wei Shen as he attempts to dismantle the Sun On Yee (A play on the actual Triad Sun Yee On?) from the inside. The plot felt fairly typical at first and I honestly expected to be playing Sleeping Dogs not for it's gripping characters of plot but rather for a fun, face paced action game. However, as the story progressed, my opinions began to shift as I not only got involved in the story but the character of Wei Shen.

After completing the game the base theme I got out of Sleeping Dogs was the heavy concept of being a morally correct character in an extremely incorrect world. To me, Wei was just that. Throughout the story Wei is forced to play out the age old struggle of the undercover cop, the dynamic shift between criminal and officer that he is forced to go through. Obviously there is a great deal of attachment to his new "family" as he sees how far they would go for him, and he reciprocates.

This closeness to his cover causes great distress for Raymond, his handler for the police department, as he is the only one Wei talks to outside of the occasional case from officer Teng and the caustic interactions with Superintendent Pendrew. As Wei continues down the path of a criminal he is continually presented with morally challenging obstacles that force him to push the boundaries of what he feels is acceptable. The first instance of this is when Wei is essentially forced to take a life as a kind of test to prove he isn't a cop, which he does.

As you progress further into the story there are some very real, very painful situations that lead Wei up the food chain in the Triad. These are all things that Wei needed to complete his job but pain him greatly as he sees his friends suffer. Wei is often displayed in direct opposition to how the police attempt to treat him as well as the people he is working with, even criticizing the Officer Teng for belittling the lives of members of the Triad in a murder investigation. Wei is shown to have an incredibly deep connection to his new family for no reason other than a kind of reciprocal relationship of actually wanting to help them as they do things for him.

Eventually Wei's initial obligation to climb the ladder within the triad fades and he is propelled by his own attachments to his friends. Even though much of what is being done around him could be considered wrong or morally incorrect Wei is often forced into the protector or guardian role as he attempts to stave off attempts to harm his friends. Oddly enough, a vast portion of the crime and, specifically, murder occurs within the Triad itself, leaving the risk of harming innocents almost nonexistent. This seems to be Wei's justification for much of what he does as most of his police work is related to taking out drug suppliers and shutting down prostitution rings, things that are extremely detrimental to the innocents of the city.

However, Wei is continually haunted by many of his choices and the events he is forced into, often hearing replays of conversations in his dreams. Wei also bears a bit of his soul when talking to his Master, Sifu Kwok, as you collect his stolen statues and learn new combat techniques. Their relationship definitely is one of Mentor -> Pupil as Sifu constantly challenges Wei's morality and his choices. Sifu definitely takes the role of Wei's conscience and moral adviser as he is presented with increasingly difficult situations.

Close to the end of the game you are working to put a well-known producer/human trafficker Sonny Wo, behind bars. This set of missions involves getting moderately close to his right hand man, Ricky, and his girlfriend, Vivienne. Sonny is depicted as a raunchy scumbag and is constantly saying things like "Hey, F*** her if you want to! Just don't damage the goods! Hahaha!" Real quality guy.

At one point Sonny forces Vivienne to attempt to sleep with Wei and essentially drag him into Sonny's favor. Wei refuses her advances and sends her home, comforting the clearly surprised Vivienne as she leaves, thanking Wei for not forcing her to go through with it. This scene really demonstrated Wei's dedication to his friends and his desire to never hurt those close to him, even though he didn't know Ricky that well.

For me, Sleeping Dogs became less about the fun, flowing combat, and more about watching how this great character developed. You can't help but like Wei Shen and admire the character's firm dedication to his friends and how and where he draws the line between right and wrong. He is an extremely vocal character who is both the voice of reason and of total opposition to the Triad and the Police.

Wei Shen has definitely become one of my favorite characters, and I'd like to thank everyone involved in crafting this wonderful game!

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The Darkness II: Review

Visceral. Intense. Mind-bending. All of these describe The Darkness II. Continuing where the first game left off, TD2 wastes no time in throwing the player directly into the heat of action as Jackie Estacado is forced to unleash the darkness to fend off the attempts on his life and defend his loved ones. Power comes with a price as Jackie is frequently resisting the darkness inside of him while trying to rescue the imprisoned soul of his lost love. The Darkness II takes us on a journey that phases in and out of reality in a way that really makes the player question what is real and what is an illusion.

Story: 5/5

The plot revolves around the protagonist from the previous game after he successfully "buried" the Darkness deep within himself, refusing to give into the temptation to unleash it. Despite his efforts, Jackie and his "family" (in the context of both blood and mafia family) come under siege from the notorious brotherhood, a secret society bent on world domination and destruction through the utilization of the Darkness. Forced to unleash The Darkness, Jackie rails against The Brotherhood as well as the insidious presence of The Darkness within himself. Jackie's motivation is the final destruction of The Darkness and the salvation of the soul of his lost beloved, Jenny, a victim of one of Jackie's enemies from the original game. After he death The Darkness took her soul and imprisoned it within the abyss, revealing this to Jackie in order to motivate him to prevent The Brotherhood from stealing it. Plagued with guilt, Jackie reluctantly protects The Darkness and fights to free Jenny's soul from its sinister grasp.

Throughout this endeavor Jackie wakes up in a mental institution surrounded by counterparts of his family. Some are doctors, nurses, and other patients, all of which tell Jackie that The Darkness is nothing but a voice in his head, that it isn't real. These trips to the psych ward do a fantastic job of generating the feeling that there is a much more rational reason that all of this is happening, it appeals to the player's rational sense of how the world really works. Putting the supernatural elements of the game into a real world context definitely works well as a story mechanic to both confuse the player and develop Jackie's character who is steadily being driven insane.

I AM The Darkness!

The game is quite short and only sports about four hours of solid campaign game-play which also means the story felt a little cut down. *SPOILER ALERT* when you're finally confronted with the choice between the psych ward and the real world you're actually given a choice which I assume dictates which ending you get (good/bad) I chose the "real" world which involves a powerful scene where Jackie must make the choice to abandon the manifestation of Jenny in front of him, begging him to stay. After making this choice Jackie hurls himself off a building as The Darkness screeches in rage at Jackie's ability to constantly defy it. You wake up in the abyss within The Darkness where you fight to free Jenny's soul through hordes of nightmarish ghouls. Upon finally saving Jenny you hold her one last time, the credits roll, and then there is a special cliffhanger ending afterwards that I won't mention here (Youtube it if you'd like to see it) but this ending ties the story up quite nicely and reveals the Angelus, the counterpart to The Darkness, suggesting a potential Darkness III.

Game-play: 4/5

The Darkness II has a pretty standard setup for its gun-play but the developers fully understand that our ADD society could not possible be satisfied with mere dual wielding capabilities. No, they gave us "quad-wielding". This essentially means that you can dual wield guns and fire both of them while grabbing enemies with one tendril and slashing away with the other. This can be used later in the game to seamlessly fend off enemies both near and far. I definitely enjoyed this system despite its chaotic nature, it definitely forced me to really be engaged and mindful of how I was utilizing what was made available to me. Typically on normal difficulty you can play through by simply using one thing at a time but when you make the jump up to harder difficulties it becomes more essential to use all of Jackie's tools. I only took a point off here due to the aforementioned chaotic nature of this system as it can easily overwhelm new players.

I'm going to shoot you, bite you, and cut you. Not necessarily in that order.

Another factor here is the use of the Darkling, a strangely British side-kick who makes a return from the first game. You'll occasionally take the perspective of this little guy to either save Jackie or open doors that Jackie can't access. He's actually a pretty funny character and frequently makes fun of, pokes, prods, and laughs at your fallen enemies. One thing I loved about this little dude is that he'll go off on his own in combat and tug on your opponent's legs or straight up maul them which is a nice bonus when you've got a lot of enemies firing at you. You can also throw the Darkling at your opponents...or at a wall if you just don't want him around for a while. I had a lot of fun with the explosive perk that causes anything you throw to explode on impact...including the Darkling.

Graphics: 4/5

Alright I need to add in a little disclaimer here, the developers of this game ported the story from a graphic novel and along with it, the art style. The artists working on this game literally hand painted a great deal of it to give it a more authentic look and feel of a comic book. At first I didn't like this style and I frequently found that many of the smaller details in the world looked almost like concept art. Over time, however, the style grew on me and I really enjoyed the mood that this art style created and I think it fit quite well with the game's theme.

Replay Value: Medium

The only reason this even gets a "medium" rating is due to the presence of multiple endings made accessible thanks to the game's incredibly short campaign. In addition to the campaign you're given access to "Vendettas", stories that happen concurrently with the main story, where you play as members of Jackie's organization who run errands for him that are mentioned in the main story. These are kind of nice if not just because they serve to flesh out the main plot a bit more with different perspectives. You choose from one of four agents who have various Darkness abilities and unique weapons. For example: the character I chose was Inugami, a man in possession of the kusanagi blade that feeds on the souls of the wicked. Using a katana in place of tendrils was a nice change of pace and provided a different perspective to view the game from.

Katana in one hand, UZI in the other.

As time marches on so do my expectations. With that being said, I expect new games to be current in all their aspects if I'm going to be expected to pay a full 60 dollars for them. When I look at the various aspects of this game I ultimately can't justify buying this for full price. With a meager four hour campaign this game will only keep you busy for a weekend at best and unless you really like the co-op I don't suggest picking this up for full price. I do, however, recommend playing this game if you've got a strong stomach (it's really brutal) and have access to Gamefly or another game rental service where you aren't required to pay full price.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Thanks for reading!

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TERA Online Closed Beta 1 Impressions

So, I get to be a part of all five of Tera online's closed betas as well as their open beta and head start event and that's pretty awesome. I love beta testing MMO's, always have, I love seeing them in their pre-launch phase since it really shows the developer's true colors in regards to how they respond to player input and where their focus is. One thing that never fails to wreck an online community is poor leadership on the developers end. I've seen Aion, one of the more interesting MMO's, fail almost entirely due to a lack of proper and professional management from NC West. I'm hoping En Masse Entertainment is able to prove just how much they care about their players and the virtual community as a whole.

The first closed beta began last Friday and lasted until Sunday, giving us about two and a half days to explore the first areas of the game (Levels 1-22). The whole thing started out a bit rough, due to either En Masse underestimating how many people were in the beta or just a faulty server, and both the open servers took a nose dive after a few minutes. Not a great start but they recovered well and we were happily playing Tera shortly after this crash. The only other thing I'd like to mention here is the queue, oh boy that was a long one...my friend and I waited about an hour to log in, probably why the server crashed, tons of people were part of this test. En Masse quickly sorted everything out and I wasn't stuck in another queue the entire beta, yay for them, it took SWTOR half a month to rid us of long queues.

The Gameplay: What do I need to say about this? Oh yeah, its awesome. I love Tera's gameplay, it gives the player such a high degree of control over their character's movement and combat unlike any MMO I've played before. With the lack of a targeting system Tera forces players to constantly think about their positioning in relation to their targets and making their strikes accurate. This is not the game for people who like to sit around and press 111 222 111 333 5 and expect to win a fight. No, the combat is extremely demanding on the player and your success in combat is ultimately dependent on your ability to be strategic with your fights. This goes double for the Warrior class, which I ended up choosing to play for this test.

The Warrior Class: Widely regarded as one of, if not THE hardest class to play. It is the only class you can select with a 5-star difficulty rating (Yes, En Masse categorized their classes based on difficulty). I'm typically a guy who plays the rogue/assassin type character and I was sorely disappointed by Tera's lack of "rogues" until I realized that the Warrior might as well just be called an assassin. They utilize two swords, focus on evasion, backstabbing, high attack speed, and poisons. Yeah, they're pretty much Tera's assassins minus the focus on daggers (Sadface). My experience with the warrior was a good one, I enjoyed the fast paced combat simply because it keeps me engaged and even when I'm grinding stuff for Guild Quests I still enjoy fighting against the AI.

PvP as a Warrior: Yikes, this was a bit rough at this stage in the game, I was finding myself having trouble dealing with many of the other classes at 22. I know PvP isn't balanced around low levels and you'll typically find more balance at endgame but it was just damaging to the ego when I can't come close to dropping a Slayer despite having similar gear/level. I had the opportunity to fight several slayers (the dudes are everywhere), a few Berserkers (went better than slayers), and some Mystics (Did not go so well). The PvP is fun but I do foresee some balancing issues if not just from observing the reactions and class populations from the Korean/Japanese servers. Slayers essentially dominate most other classes in 1v1 PvP which is somewhat frustrating since most games struggle with balancing their heavy DPS classes for PvP. Aion's Templars and Gladiators were some of the easier classes to play and were near impossible to beat as another melee class unless you were another Glad/Temp. Hopefully the feedback from KR/JP servers will be enough to get some balance for future PvP.

BAM's: "Big Ass Monsters", the "Elites" of Tera Online. These guys are tough at first but the game is based on player skill so much so that you can solo these titans without much issue, aside from how long it takes. People constantly post videos of them soloing these and trying to look awesome. Well, it does kinda look awesome to see a little dude fighting a behemoth all by himself, nimbly dodging through waves of attacks and shelling out damage all the while. Killing a BAM is a lot of fun and typically very rewarding, the drop a lot of loot and crafting materials.

Boss Experience: My friend Shiggy (Slayer) and I (Warrior) decided to take on a field boss to see just how far we could get with two people against a large boss. The result was: We killed it, but it wasn't easy. The particular boss we chose was level 25, three levels above the first beta cap for us, so right away we were put at a level disadvantage. The fight started easily enough, I tanked him while Shiggy put DPS on and tried to stay behind him. This worked until about 70% when the boss started glowing and lighting began to cover over its arms. His attack speed went through the roof and he began a near non-stop barrage of powered up attacks directed at me. Eventually there was one I just couldn't avoid, I figured it was fine to get hit once...I was wrong and died immediately, crushed under this thing's titanic ass. Shiggy took aggro and kited him around while I res'd up and headed back (It was near a teleporter thankfully) and by the time I had gotten back the previously powered up boss was back to normal so we kept bringing him down slowly but surely. Every five or ten minutes the boss would "enrage" again and we were forced to kite him around until it ran out. This became difficult because he started launching projectiles at us if we got too far away...eventually we did kill him without wiping but it was an incredibly lengthy battle and really kept us on our toes. We got some good loot from him including a whopping seven uncommon boss runes which I can use for crafting in the next patch. (Typical BAMs of that level don't drop anywhere near that many). Bosses can be incredibly tough but are quite fun and rewarding.

Instances: I only did one instance that was called "Secret Base". It was a pretty fun experience, lots of elite mobs to fight through and two dynamic boss battles. The bosses are the cool part of these instances, they feel more fluid than typical bosses on MMOs, the ones we fought rarely stood still long enough to let us get in many hits. The bosses don't just sit there and let you hit them, the move around, use long range attacks, I almost felt as if the boss was kiting the players around, how backwards is that? The video of our first encounter with the boss of Secret Base can be seen here.

Overall: Tera left a good impression on me after the first test, I really feel like En Masse is invested in giving us a good gaming experience and providing consistent, innovative content for us in the future. Tera's gameplay definitely makes it stand out from typical MMOs that we've seen in the past. I'm extremely excited for the second closed test beginning on the 24th of February. Thanks for reading! If you'd like to contact me in-game I'll be on Serpentis Isle (I think?) under the name "Cross".

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A First Look: The Darkness II

If you read my Facebook advertisement for this post you'll know that my views are in no way favorable towards this game. It is essentially more of what the first game provided us and strikes me as a bit of a half-hearted effort at a sequel. The actual plot of the game revolves around a guy who is clearly a zombie pirate (see picture) and his attempts to steal your powers from you. Now, that plot is derived from my experience with the demo and chances are it isn't the "real" plot but hey, you aren't playing this game for the plot I wager, it's for the sadistic combat and gratuitous swearing! Well they carried over said gore and swearing in full force so no worries if that's why you'd like to play this installment of The Darkness series.

Arrrrr! Brains!

Sadly, I am no longer 12 years old and I remain unimpressed by the number of times they can scream obscenities as it has no bearing on the actual game or plot development, it is however characteristic of a kind of immature game that seeks to generate creative swearing in place of actual dialogue. Yeah, I'm annoyed at the lack of depth a bit which makes me somewhat biased towards the game as a whole but I'll try to remain objective about the rest of the aspects of The Darkness II.

Next we've got the combat mechanics. Well they're visceral and the finishers look pretty cool since you can essentially just have one of your evil snake things vivisection people or just slap their heads clean off, yay for gore? The environment lends itself well to this game and provides you with a multitude of things to shield yourself with (car doors) that can also be re-purposed as projectiles should you need them. The combat is fast paced with a lot of variety, for example: You can use one of your tendrils to perform melee attacks while the other is used to grab stunned enemies (this can be combo'd) all the while you can still be shooting a firearm or two. The joys of having four arms. One thing I have to point out that still proves to be a constant annoyance is the light. SCREW THE LIGHTS. Stopping every two steps to break the light fixtures dangling judgmentally above my head is terribly annoying and breaks the flow of combat occasionally. If I spun that to look positive I'd say it forces me to pay extra attention to my surroundings, but screw that, it's annoying. Overall the combat receives a passing mark from me, I enjoyed the variety it provided and I expect the full game to do even more due to the implementation of what I'll touch on next.

Skill trees! Alright I couldn't remember if the original Darkness game had skill trees, not for the life of me, it has been far too long since I played through it. Either way, is this a good mechanic for this type of game? Or will it serve only to bog down gameplay with ultimately meaningless "perks"? Time will tell. It could prove to be interesting if each tree drastically alters how the combat works for you. I'll need to take a more in-depth look at all the potential skills you can learn to get a better impression of how they'll pan out in actual combat. The only perks I got were: the ability to rip the hearts out of fallen enemies and eat them, and imbuing my revolvers with dark energy to temporarily buff up their damage.

One last gripe and then I'm done. The graphics. At least the blood graphics. I mean it looks all cool when I'm being crucified and stuff but then I fall on the floor and look down through the hole in my hand as the blood "pools" under it. By pools I mean there is a generic blood splatter image that just pops out roughly under where the hole should be. I hope it gets tweaked a little but my expectations are rising in terms of quality in all areas of the game. Plus, I know they have some talented artists on staff, my desktop background is easily one of the coolest pieces I have seen done to advertise a game. Either way, the graphics are a minor gripe and my problem still lies in the overload of crappy dialogue and questionable amounts of blood that make me feel like they're trying to sell me gore rather than an actual game. I'll probably be passing this game off to a less biased member of TI for a full review when it launches tomorrow.

Thanks for reading! Expect a full review of the game sometime in the next week or so.

-Fest

Aforementioned awesome artwork.

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A First Look: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

KoA: Reckoning is a new action-rpg title being released across the board (Xbox, Playstation 3, and PC) that takes a little bit from several games such as Fable, Skyrim, and Dragon Age, and synthesizes them into Kingdom's of Amalur: Reckoning. Before I actually say anything about the game itself there is one detail that needs to be cleared up before anyone even tries playing the demo: It is buggy as all hell. But there is hope! A lot of people (including myself) were having issues with the game showing up as completely black except for the pause menu and the cutscenes. In order to remedy this you have to simply go into the graphics options of the game and switch "Post Processing" to "disabled". There are still numerous bugs in the demo but hey, it's a demo I think we can cut them a little slack and save the brutal judgement for when the game is released a week from now. Anyway, moving on.

Combat: This is the selling point of KoA: Reckoning, they advertise it heavily in trailers along with their open world. In short, I totally agree with the hype they are sporting for the combat, its crisp, fluid, and stylized. In addition to the basic combat working well they give us a plethora of skills as we progress through the game with an equally vast amount of weapons to choose from. This extends to all classes and even the mages will move around a lot with their skills instead of just sitting around casting spells you're more likely to be running around executing combos and giant, awesome looking AoEs.

In the demo I decided to play as a rogue and they really did a nice job providing the rogues with a lot of quick physical skills as well as some shadow arts that you can seamlessly weave into combat. Many of the combos you can perform also seem to be based on your timing. For example, the skill "Crossfire" is started by briefly pausing mid combo which then allows you to use the opening hit and follow it up with a secondary strike to send your opponent flying. The timing comes into play with this skill when you use the second hit, which automatically does critical damage if timed properly. This mechanic drew me into the combat and prevented me from just mindlessly killing stuff as I do in so many other games.

The world: Now its only the demo but the starting area is huge, really huge. You're basically given a rather large forest to explore that has it's own set of dungeons and quests that can easily occupy players for more than the 45 minutes they're given by the demo. This is a good sign, it may not be as much of a sprawl as Skyrim but hey, it'll still provide players with a lot of content to explore and plenty of dungeons to crawl through.

The classes: This is another cool area of the game since they give you a ton of classes to choose from. By choose I mean mixing and matching skills from the three basic trees in order to unlock "destinies" which give you bonuses and unlock themselves once you've put the prerequisite amount of points into the trees. You can go full rogue and become a nightblade or go half rogue half warrior and end up a blademaster, each providing different styles of play. This allows players to really experiment and find their own niche, allowing them to have a unique experience with the game.

Overall: Based on the demo I think that KoA: Reckoning could be a good kickoff for gaming in 2012 provided they fix the numerous bugs that plagued the demo. The combat really works well with the open world setting and gives the game a very unique feel that keeps you engaged. I'm still very curious to see how the story plays out, but so far the game is looking like a fantastic early 2012 release. You can download the demo on Steam/Origin (for the PC) or just wait for the full game to be released on February 7th!

Thanks for reading!

-Fest

P.S There may be a video accompanying this post in the near future, stay tuned!

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Star Wars the Old Republic: Overview

Alright so this will just be a moderately brief look at the overview of the game discussing things like various classes/roles and gameplay as well as some aspects of what makes SWTOR a good game and also some things that need touching up. I'll start with the class system.

Classes: SWTOR takes a pretty typical approach to an MMO class system. You start out as a basic class and advance to one of two advanced classes at level 10. To add more depth to this fundamental system Bioware added specialization trees to each advanced class which essentially changes your playstyle based on what spec you choose to pursue. You can also mix and match to create your own spec that suits your playstyle the best. People will always try to figure out the "best" one but that is totally subjective and most specs are viable in PvP. The class list goes as follows

Imperials: Agent, Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor (Mage-ish), Bounty Hunter

Republic: Smuggler, Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Trooper

Imperial Agent: Sniper, Operative

Sith Warrior: Juggernaut, Marauder

Sith Inquisitor: Sorceror, Assassin

Bounty Hunter: Powertech, Mercenary

Smuggler: Scoundrel, Gunslinger

Jedi Knight: Guardian, Sentinel

Jedi Consular: Sage, Shadow

Trooper: Commando, Vanguard

I personally play a Sniper as my main character so I'll discuss that in depth in my next post. The cool thing about all the classes is that there are multiple roles that each can fill based on which skill tree you pursue (same as a spec). For example, the "Assassin" class has a basic DPS (damage per second) spec that makes for a great PvP tree but it also has a spec for tanking that is filled with defensive skills. What kind of assassin can tank stuff? Point being, SWTOR has pushed some classes that are, by themselves, very traditional into very non-traditional roles. There are also options to turn your character into a healer for three of the four basic classes meaning that depending on your group's needs you can fill the role of healer if need be. This also makes things interesting in PvP because you can have a mercenary who sits there firing missiles off his back and another one healing. It makes it difficult to determine target order until you're part way through a match. That's enough about classes for now though I'd like to move onto some of the aspects of the stories that make SWTOR stand out.

Story: Story? In an MMO? Nonsense! Is what many people might say about your typical MMO since, by in large, MMOs have basic lore and not much else in the story department. But even the lore in most MMOs is shaky at best and eventually it develops into something really, really stupid. Like pandas. Yeah, thats right WoW I'm looking at you. Thank the lord I never touched that game. Anyway, WoW's megafail isn't my point here. SWTOR's story is actually quite well done and plays out in a similar manner to it's predecessors, KOTOR and KOTOR II. Each class has a unique story that follows the same underlying plot and it takes you from level one right to level 50. My Sniper's story quest was actually the last quest I completed that leveled me right to cap which I found to be quite amazing that they pieced together a three part story for every class that brings them straight to the level cap and through all the different planets SWTOR has to offer. So lets think about that real quick. There are eight classes in total with their own unique story that lasts, if you did them all in a straight line without stopping or factoring in your level, about 15-20 hours in total. Multiply that by eight and you've got the content that Bioware developed just for the story.

Having a story you can experience by yourself is a strange concept to me since most MMOs focus on the group aspect of playing. However, this was incredibly nice since my satisfaction was not based on how many of my friends were playing at the time, I didn't have to wait for a group to get on to experience content. In reality the story plays out more like a single player game with the option of inviting friends along for the ride but you can complete the story all by yourself if you want to. Giving players the option to play and level their characters solo or questing with a group is a nice change of pace from other MMOs.

Leveling: The typical grind of an MMO is not present in SWTOR. There are hundreds of quests and a large amount of content you can use for leveling via questing but that isn't the only way to level. You can also level using space missions which essentially play out like a Star Fox 64 level where you fly around in your spaceship on a pre-determined course shooting down baddies for experience and commendations to buy things for your ship. Any space mission of "heroic" mission will also reset every morning allowing players to repeat content at their leisure to gain significant experience without having to log on for five hours a day just to get a level.

Yet another way to gain experience as well as money and even gear is the instanced PvP or "Warzones" which net you the average quest experience for your level and it scales up as you level as well so it remains a constant option for leveling, money, and gear. Warzones also buff up your stats to that of a level 50 character which allows for equal play in the non-50 bracket despite the level gaps.

So that went a bit longer than I expected...more later as I do a sort of "Meet the Sniper" kinda thing.

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Break is over!

As of tomorrow I will be starting my Spring Semester of my "Junior" year of college. Should be tons of fun and I've got high hopes for both my academic success as well as being consistently posting things about various games I'm playing, have played, and am looking forward to playing. I'll try to keep it interesting and really go in depth with whatever I'm talking about which may involve multiple posts discussing one game.

The first thing on my list of stuff I need to write about is the new Star Wars MMO. In case you've been living in a cave/hole/box for the past month or so its basically Bioware's attempt at creating an MMO out of their successful KOTOR franchise. I'm a KOTOR fan and an avid MMO gamer so I hopped right on board the SWTOR train and leveled myself a character to 50 (current cap) over my break. But much more on that later.

Things to look forward to! Woo! I love looking forward to games that are coming out in the coming months its so exciting to see what my future holds in the gaming world. First of all, the Resident Evil 6 trailer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS_bGpe9qE8 ) can anyone say...HELLLLL YEAAAAAA? I sure can, and I did, many times while watching this reveal. Old heroes, new ones, and zombies! Yay zombies! It looks like they've tweaked a lot of gameplay issues that arose in RE 5 and are kind of implying that this is a climactic conclusion to this saga with mention of a cure and all sorts of other thinly veiled concepts shown in the trailer. Looks epic. In an earlier post I mentioned Darksiders 2 and was all giddy about it and whatnot. Well, I still am giddy but now even more so since they released a full trailer which I will provide a link to once Youtube stops being weird and not letting me sign in...but anyway! Lots of tweaks and improvements appear to have been made and it gives me something to look forward to for a good kickoff to my summer.

What I'm playing right now. Still derping around on SWTOR with PvP and some alts and helping some friends work their way up to cap but I'll probably have very little time for it with the semester starting up, got plenty to write about it anyway :). Also playing through one of my absolute favorite games remade on the 3DS...Ocarina of Time. I have dabbled a little bit with the ICO/Shadow of the Colossus HD remake for the PS3 recently and that is one of many games on my list to complete. Keeping with the fantasy theme I'm also going to dig into Skyward Sword after I finish Ocarina of Time. So many great games to play right now, plenty to keep me busy throughout the next month or so.

Expect much more soon, thanks for reading!

-Fest

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Gaming Tradition

I don't know how other people feel on this topic but I am quite saddened by the new generation of RPGs. I'm a huge traditional RPG fan who still finds enjoyment in playing/replaying older RPGs on the original Playstation. Stuff like, Legend of Dragoon, Legend of Legaia, Final Fantasy 7-9 (10 I suppose as well), "Tales" games (Symphonia and the like). The question I find myself asking is where on earth have those kinds of games gone? Have we just transitioned out of the structure that all those games revolved around?

It's not that people wouldn't play them, I mean we've been seeing large amounts of people expressing interest in a FFVII remake and that's a game we've already experienced as a gaming community. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way but I find that we've shortchanged the story in favor of "better" gameplay. We've effectively reduced our idea of an "epic" game to things like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, games that only require around 30 hours to thoroughly complete. Don't get me wrong, I love Mass Effect but it's a completely different type of RPG and we're getting the third installment of the franchise shortly but honestly, I'm somewhat certain that I put more time into a single Final Fantasy game than both ME1 and 2. That saddens me greatly, especially since we haven't seen a good Final Fantasy game since 9/10 (My Opinion). I feel like we're losing touch with a genre of games that put out some of the most influential titles of their times.

The gaming industry is very preoccupied with innovation and I often find myself enjoying their new and fancy additions to their games but I'd trade every nuance in the book in exchange for a story that really floored me. I'm not attracted to games by all their bells and whistles or their super awesome gameplay (sometimes), I just want a lengthy game that doesn't try to be anything but itself. The Elder Scrolls games are a great example of an "epic" that continued to evolve over the years and is now widely regarded as one of, if not the best, game of 2011. Why have no other games come through in such a big way? Nobody wants turn based combat anymore, I kinda get that but at the same time it was a model that worked for people for a very long time and honestly, it wasn't a big part of the game, the story was the main focus.

I suppose if I were to summarize this I would say that my wish would be for a game to come out that, while it may not have the best gameplay, has a phenomenal story and allowed me to really dig into it for much longer than most current generation games allow. I've logged over 100 hours into several games, Skyrim being the newest addition to that list. Things like Legaia, Dragoon, FFVII, Persona 3/4. They all have their flaws but there was something that kept me coming back.

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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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