Virtual Adept

I wrote a review of the horror first-person shooter Clive Barker’s Jericho for Playstation 3 for the web site GameChronicles a couple of weeks ago, forgot to mention it but now I did so go read it and let me know if you liked the review or not. There should be a review of Conan coming up pretty soon also.

Had a really good time this weekend playing EverQuest 2 that I got in the SOE Station Access Collection. Lyndal and I got it at the same time to try out. For one thing we have been using Xfire and/or Teamspeak to do voice chat during the game and that just makes it a heck of a lot more fun. So we got some evil characters up to around level 9 or so in EQ2. Here are some random thoughts about the game.

First, leveling up is way faster than EQ was, but maybe it will slow down a lot later. I think it’s even faster than wow up to 9. Secondly, the game has some very decent quests. Way better than the quests from EQ1. About on par with WoW, really. I enjoyed the quests, especially the one where you have to go murder this guy’s ex girlfriend because since they are for opposing factions he can’t have her so he’d rather her be dead. There were other choice ones, like poisoning a loud mouth dark elf, and of course the standard go kill N mobs, or collect X widgets. But I did enjoy them overall.

The graphics to me are not as good as World of Warcraft. Sure, technically they are fairly impressive, but artistically I just think WoW is heads and shoulders above EQ2 and pretty much every other MMORPG. I also think the animations in WoW are much smoother and nicer looking than EQ2’s. Also the environments are nowhere near as compelling as WoW’s, at least not so far as I’ve seen. I was able to get EQ2 to run in a window much like the way WoW works so that was nice, I like being able to access Firefox or whatever while playing. EQ2 didn’t want to play nice with Xfire though, so I had to disable that.

The bottom line… would I pay $15 a month to play EQ2? Well, in a world without World of Warcraft, for sure, no problem. But I think I still prefer WoW over EQ2. I can see myself getting a toon or two up into the mid teens or early twenties in EQ2, though, because it is pretty fun. I will say that EQ2 is so far the best MMORPG I’ve played besides World of Warcraft, even better than City of Heroes which I liked a lot. So if you don’t like WoW for some reason and still want a fantasy MMORPG, check it out.

Here is a nice review of Titan Quest, the latest Diablo 2 style game for the PC. I tried the demo for this and was pretty impressed, so I bought the game. But I haven’t had time to sit down with it for much quality time. My initial impressions of it are that it’s a very good D2 style game, and if you liked Diablo 2 you should definitely take a look at the demo at least.

I recently resubscribed to World of Warcraft in anticipation of the imminent release of the expansion pack, The Burning Crusade. Well now Blizzard has decided to delay the expansion until January. Bummer. On the plus side, this means I’ll probably actually be able to log into the game over the holidays.

You can get Lumines Live now on Xbox Live Arcade. The demo seems just okay to me. I think they have overpriced this and the nickle-and-dime pricing model really sucks. Not a good value really. I might just get this for PSP instead.

First of all I’ve only spent about two hours messing around with this and I haven’t gone online yet with it, and since this is primarily an online game take this preview with a grain of salt. The graphics for Test Drive Unlimited for the Xbox 360 are excellent, the cars all look realistic and the road and the terrain is very cool. If you go off-road you can start to see that the world isn’t quite as densely populated as it should be, but sticking to the roads and your illusion will be safe and quite believable.

The game is set on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and the game has the entire island mapped out. This is very cool, especially if you’ve ever been to Oahu and seen the places from the game in person. As I drove around I would recognize something I’d seen on our vacation a few years back and I’d go “Cool! That’s just how it looked!” Now, the level of detail isn’t at reality-level of course, so some things don’t look the same. But You can definitely get a feel that you’re actually there.

The game starts you off with 200 grand, 150 of which you’re going to have to spend on your first house (and there were only two houses offered in the price range at the start of the game). That leaves you only 50g to buy your first car. I recommend getting the most expensive car you can afford at the start. I went the other way and got the cheapest, thinking I’d upgrade to a better car quicker that way. Well, my car sucked too much and I had a really hard time winning races which is how you get money. So I would say pick something faster.

As you earn more money from racing and other little driving missions you will be able to buy new clothes, new cars, and eventually bigger houses that have more garage space so you can store more of your cars. You can also play online and race against real people if you want to. I found that the cars handle just-okay but that’s probably because I had a cheapo car, I’m sure the more expensive ones handle better and go faster. Sound effects and music were good, graphics really good, and I like this game enough that I’ll be playing it more on my rental and possibly buying it.

Had an opportunity to play World of Warcraft again for the first time in a long time. I played one of Lyndal’s characters while we tried out Xfire and Teamspeak with WoW with mixed results. Teamspeak worked well, Xfire not so well. It looks like I may decide to just did resubscribe to WoW. WoW looked great on my new computer, which I didn’t have when I quit WoW some 16 months ago. It really brought back memories. I even remembered the quests, heh. I guess it really impacted me in a major way, it’s a powerful game that can do that. Looking forward to Burning Crusade!

I have characters on Thunderhorn and Argent Dawn. Thunderhorn I’m horde and AD I’m alliance.

I have put in enough hours into Saint’s Row to finally write a few things about it. First of all, Saint’s Row is the only Xbox 360 game that I have bought new when it first came out. I paid $55, because I had a $5 off coupon at Best Buy. In my estimation, this is the only 360 title truly worth spending full price on. The game is essentially a next-gen high-definition clone of the Grand Theft Auto series, but it is a very well done clone, and it does offer some new things to the genre.

Make no mistake, this is a M rated game, for adults only. Please don’t let you kids play this game, it is extremely violent, has strong sexual themes, has lots of foul language, and the whole game is filled with criminal activities. You don’t want your kids imitating this. At all. As always, what age is responsible enough to play this game is dependent on the kids and the parents. I think anyone younger than 15 is probably too young but YMMV. The ESRB rates it for 18 and older only.

The basic goal of Saint’s Row is to increase the standing of your neighborhood gang, the 3rd Street Saints. The Saints are called that because their base of operations is an old abandoned church that is on 3rd street in the section of town called “the row”. The Saints are a mixed race gang, which is good, because with the very excellent character creation system for the game, you can make a character that is pretty much any color, any style, nearly anything you could want.

Saint’s Row has one of those facial morphing things that lets you change all kinds of things like how far the eyes are appart, the color of everything on your body (eyes, hair, skin, etc), a bajillion different hair styles, etc. If you want to make a character that looks like you, it’s probably doable with this face maker. During the game you have a lot of customization over wardrobe but you have to earn the cash to buy your hreads and some of them are excessively priced so for the really sweet looking styles you’re going to have to work your way up to them.

There is a story of a sort to this game, which you learn more about by completing missions. Most missions are blocked to you until you earn enough reputation points to unlock them. A lot of the missions and activities in Saint’s Row have a black humor to them. It’s funny, but in a sort of crude way. The radio stations also have a black satirical humor feel to them, much like they do in the GTA series. In addition to a fantastic soundtrack offered by the built in radio stations, Saint’s Row also lets you play playlists from music you have stored on the 360 hard drive.

Many missions will result in the Saints taking over more neighborhoods in the city. Controlling more neighborhoods will increase the amount of money going into the gang’s coffers. Sometimes rival gangs will try to re-take the neighborhoods you’ve already won, so you will have to go back to those neighborhoods and defeat the gangs that are invading it.

The controls for driving in Saint’s Row are extremely intuitive and work very well. It only took me five or ten minutes to get the hang of driving with the Xbox 360 controller. This is unlike GTA for PS2 which I never could get used to. The way you shoot out of vehicles works a lot better than GTA does, you can actually aim and shoot pretty much like normal, you don’t have to swith to some goofy side view mode and only be able to shoot out the sides. All in all the driving just feels right in this game. The streets also seem more realistic, especially the freeways which really did feel like driving on a freeway.

Saint’s Row has a lot of little touches that make an overall big impression. The water effects look amazing, with realistic reflections and wave patterns. Neon glow of the street light reflecting in the puddles of rain water, the rain effects feel realistic as well. Every building in the game looks unique. The city just feels alive, like a real city. The attention to detail of the artists and coders is amazing.

Sound effects and voice work in Saint’s Row are all exceptional. The game has a killer soundtrack which you hear by listening to the radios in your cars, much like GTA series. The cars all have a realistic sound to them. Weapons fire sounds good, and has that satisfactory feel to them. Wrecking and explosions all sound right. The rumble in the controller is put to good use here also.

While you’re out driving pedestrians will try to jump out of the way, cursing you as they do if you get too close to them. There are a finite number of character models used for the random pedestrians, but it’s a pretty big number because unlike in GTA games, you never see two identical pedestrians walking around in the same area. Even the cops that come when you start being bad will be unique. The AI is pretty good, also. Opponents will take cover if available, and will try to flank you so they can get you in a crossfire.

The gameplay revolves around story-focused missions, pick-up-anytime “activities”, and just freeform gameplay. Activities are kind of neat because you can do them over and over if you want and get more money if you need it. One of the early activities has you rounding up hos for a pimp that is sympathetic to the Saints’ cause. You drive around shooting rival “bad” pimps and getting their hos to go back with you to the ”good” pimp’s crib. If you need health you can eat food that you buy at the fast food joint “Freckle Bitches”. You get the food to go, but you can only carry four meals at a time with you. If you need ammo, head to “Friendly Fire” gun and ammo shop. Guns cost way more in Saint’s Row than they do in real life, but that is more of a game balance thing to prevent you from equipping extremely potent weaponry too early in the game. Your ride got all smashed up or you want to pimp it out? Visit the mechanics shops for repairs or lots of customization options.

A lot of activities and missions have you blowing up, stealing from, or otherwise killing rival gang members. While doing missions or in freeform mode when you kill a gang member your hostility meter with that gang goes up. The higher it gets, the more they come gunning for you when you’re in their turf. Same goes for the cops, which are essentially just another “gang” in this game except they also protect “neutrals”. You kill cops and that makes more cops come after you. Your hostility meters go down slowly over time if you stop killing rival gangs or cops. If you’re in a hurry to get them to zero, drive up to the nearest “Forgive and Forget” and for a donation they will put you back to zero on all hostility meters.

Several new-to-the-genre features in Saint’s Row eliminate much of the frustrating aspects of the Grand Theft Auto series. First of all, being killed, which is called getting “smoked” in Saint’s Row as opposed to “wasted” in GTA, puts you back at the nearest hospital and fails your mission. But you only lose some cash, your weapons are not taken away from you. Same thing with getting busted by the cops. You end up at the police station with some fines taken out of your cash, but you still get to keep your weaponry. This is pretty important because weapons cost money in SR instead of being power-ups like many of them are in GTA. 

Another great feature is that if you fail a mission, it will ask you if you want to restart or just quit. If you say restart, it takes away any weapons or reputation points you earned, and puts you back to the point where the mission started automatically. But if you say quit you keep the weapons you found and any respect you earned, but you have to drive back yourself to the mission start point and restart it. This gives the players a choice so if they want to restart a failed mission more quickly, they just pay a little price for it and don’t have to spend a lot of time driving back to the starting point.

Another great new feature of Saint’s Row is the crib and the garage. You have cribs all around the map (but you start with just one). Your crib lets you change out your wardrobe. Your crib also has a garage, where you can store a bunch of cars. I’m not sure yet what the limit is but the starting crib will let you store at least 8 cars or so (which is about how many I have in mine now). You walk up to the hot spot next to the garage and it brings up a menu asking you which car you want to drive, then you select it and the garage door opens and that vehicle is waiting for you to take for a spin. Another really nice feature is that if you blow up or somehow lose your car, you can still get it back by going back to your garage. Blowed up cars cost some money to replace but you don’t have to go find a new one and re-customize it.

Saint’s Row also lets you save anywhere, anytime. No more having to run back to a hideout to save the game. You can save and quit and be on your merry way. When you load the game, however, you won’t be in exactly the position you were when you saved. For one thing, you will appear back on the map at the closest “save point” from where you were on the map when you saved. Additionaly, if you were driving a vehicle you won’t be in it anymore, you’ll be on foot. This is a minor inconvenience, and if you want to just stick with driving back to the crib to save you can do that, it’s got a save point there too.

In sum, Saint’s Row is a superb game, well worth your time if you enjoy “urban crime themed” games like the Grand Theft Auto series. The game has a different feel to GTA but it still feels and plays similar enough that fans of that series will feel right at home here. The difficulty level of SR is lower than the GTA series, so casual gamers will like this game better than they liked GTA. Keep this one away from the kiddies, however, it’s definitely too racy and too violent for the little ones. Saint’s Row is simply the best game for the 360 so far, go buy it, now!

Final Grade: A+, a must buy!

I’m proud to be an American, in the Land of the Free! I thought we learned something from the 1920’s Prohibition but apparently not. This is so stupid on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. How exactly are they going to enforce a law like this? Seems to me it just hurts the bigger, safer companies in the industry. Americans will find a way to keep playing, on that you can bet good money on.

 

Company of Heroes is the hottest new RTS (that’s Real Time Strategy for the slow learners) for the PC. Oops, I mean for the “Games for Windows” platform, which is the new branding logo dreamed up by Microsoft to try and revive the PC gaming industry. More on that later.  Company of Heroes (CoH) is a World War II themed RTS, designed by the developers of Warhammer 40K Dawn of War.

The gameplay in CoH involves basic RTS style, but the map has a bunch of important resources and areas you have to maintain control of in order to keep resources flowing in so that you can continue the battle.  The interface is pretty slick, and the graphics are fantastic, the best I’ve ever seen in an RTS. The game has a great tutorial that makes it accessible even for beginners to the RTS genre.

The one negative thing I’ve found so far is that the load times are excessively long. I am still early in the game, I will post more on this title later on.

 

Wow, is this a blast back to the past. I played Lemmings on the PC back when it came out for the PC in the 90’s. This is a classic puzzle game. You have these Lemmings, little green haired dudes that will gleefully follow the leader to their death if you don’t use the Lemming’s special functions to make a safe path from them to the level exit. You will have many obstacles, many of them deadly to the Lemmings, and the goal is to get a certain percentage of Lemmings as dictated by the level goals to the safety of the level exit. This is basically a remake with slightly improved graphics over the original, plus some 36 bonus levels never before seen, and a level editor and the ability to download new levels from a web site and share you levels with other PSP users. I haven’t tried sharing levels. I did play with the level editor for a bit and it’s pretty easy to use. I completed 29 or so of the Lemmings Original levels, and about 12 or 15 of the new ones. So far it’s pretty fun, although it’s getting pretty difficult now, and I may need to get some hints soon. I’d rate this at least a B+ so far.

More bad news for Sony fans. You won’t get any lovin’ from the developers of Splinter Cell Convicted or Bioshock.

Bioshock is going to be the spiritual successor to the System Shock franchise, set in some kind of underwater utopia where genetic experimentation went horribly wrong. If you have not yet seen the developer-commentary gameplay videos of Bioshock, definitely check it out, this game looks great and will be far more to it than just a typical FPS shooter. I think some of their claims about the AI are stretching it a bit, but even if the AI isn’t as awesome as they claim it will be, the game still looks great and has a lot of unique gameplay to it.

As for Splinter Cell, I’ve never been a big fan, but it’s got to suck for Sony since it is a very popular franchise now. Oh well, I guess Sony has Metal Gear.

Bioshock and Splinter Cell Convicted are supposed to come out for the Xbox 360 and Windows.