Now Playing: Civilization 4 and Mass Effect

My journey through the pile of games I picked up from the Steam Holiday Sale continues.

Civilization 4
It has been years since I played a proper strategy game.  For $13.60, I grabbed the complete Civilization 4 (Civ4) collection.  I also picked up Rome: Total War, another strategy game for $2.49.  I set zero expectations for either game, knowing that one of the two would win over my strategy sessions.

I was able to complete the tutorial and start the official campaign in Rome: Total War.  After starting the campaign I became confused and defeated.  I didn't know what I should be doing and every decision I made felt like the wrong one on the next turn.

It took me about an hour to complete the tutorial in Civ4.   That was around midnight. I didn't go to sleep until 2 AM.  Civ4 is one of those games that makes players lose track of time.  While Civ4 is not an easy game by any means, its a game that allows room for mistakes and misjudgments.  Instead of making my decisions seem worthless, Civ4 presents me with another one.  Before long, I was so far into my decision making tree that the mistakes I was making weren't anything more than learning experiences.  Its a tough thing to describe, but it feels right.

I am loving Civ4.

Mass Effect
I've ignored single-player RPGs for the past few years and Mass Effect is one of the highly-rated games I missed.  At $4.99 through the Steam sale, it was a must buy.

After an hour of play, I am on the fence about the game.  It doesn't feel like the great game that the reviews and general praise make it out to be.  The main feature, the dialogue system, feels monotone and lengthy. The bland main character, Shepard, isn't helping.

However, there were a few areas that caught my attention.  The character progression and combat is solid.  The backstory and expanded universe is intriguing.  There is enough to keep me going forward and hopefully the story will pull me in at some point.

If not, I have Bioware's other RPG: Jade Empire.

Given er all she's got captain!

One tweet says it all:

The STO server's can't take the load. They don't have the power!

Star Trek Online Open Beta Jan 12th

From Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

The big news is: Star Trek Online Open Beta opens today (12th Jan) at 10am PST (2am proper time), letting all sorts of riff-raff into the universe.

However, open beta keys are only available to those that have pre-ordered until the "partners" for Star Trek Online are announced tomorrow and start handing out massive piles of keys to everyone else.

So, if you want a guaranteed in, Amazon.com has STO for $46.99.  Live long and prosper.

Packers vs. Cardinals "wild"card

My heart, if there is one, has been trampled once again.  As a Green Bay Packers fan, its been downhill since the 4th and 26 miracle of 2004. It doesn't matter who the coach or quarterback is, the Packers continue to fall apart in big games. 

The Packers just lost to the Arizona Cardinals in a wild game.  The final tally was 51-45, ending in overtime on an unfortunate fumblerception.  Aaron Rodgers, the Packers QB starts his postseason career 0-1.  He started with a first play turnover and ended on a last play turnover.  The guy can not catch a break and has yet to prove he can win big games.

The Arizona Cardinals played a good game, but I'm pulling the bullshit card on anyone that says they played better.  They were handed 20 points (+14 more if you consider the non-calls on Fitzgerald tackling defensive backs). 

The Packers roared back from the hole they dug and proved they were the better team 3/4 of the game.  Take away the odd first quarter and the Packers win hands down, but thats dishonest to what really happened.  The Packers have no one to blame but themselves.  Turnovers and giving up field position makes winning tough.

This is a tough one to swallow.  I don't blame any single player or coach for this loss.  The Packers did everything to win this game, but made the rookie mistakes that have plagued them all year.  They failed as a team, which is the best sign for next year that I can pull from this disastrous loss.

Borderlands Configuration Editor

I found the Borderlands Configuration Editor, which is a great tool that easily allows PC players to do everything from disabling the opening movies to adjusting the field of view (FOV). 

One of the "TO DO" additions to the tool is a "Check my ports" feature, which is dearly needed for the port forwarding mess that is multiplayer on the PC version of Borderlands.  So, if you have a moment drop into the forum and place a vote to get this feature added ASAP!

Blizzard taking account security seriously with mandatory authenticators?

WoW.com is reporting that Blizzard may ratchet up account security by requiring the use of authenticators on ALL accounts.

WoW.com has learned through trusted sources close to the situation that Blizzard is giving serious consideration to making authenticators mandatory on all accounts. According to our sources, while this policy has not been implemented yet and the details are not finalized, it is a virtually forgone conclusion that it will happen.

I think this is a great move for World of Warcraft.  The negatives are limited, while the positives gained are far reaching. After the initial implementation spike in support requests die down, this will dramatically reduce support costs in the long run as hacked account support stops clogging the support queues.  Players will gain peace of mind that their accounts are secure and that should something go wrong, Blizzard's support will be able to resolve it in a timely manner.

Avatar: I should hate this movie.

Avatar: I should hate this movie.  It depicts a resource-hungry, western-style civilization destroying the native inhabitants of a planet through technological and military might.

The story is predictable and the characters one-sided.  The marine kills, the natives are misunderstood savages.  Everything fits into the expected cliches of a cultural clash on a clandestine planet.

On top of the stereotypes, the hype should have killed this movie, but it didn't.  Avatar is a masterpiece.

Top Board Games of the Decade

The Thinking Gamer has a great post up covering the last ten years of board games with yearly favorites and his top 3 of the decade.

Here's my take on the best board games of the last decade, broken down year by year:

     2000 - Carcasonne
A really good game, and a truly innovative design space to explore as well. It's no longer in regular rotation for me, but Santa brought "The Kids of Carcasonne" for Kira this year and I highly recommend that variant for anyone with a budding gamer who's 4-7 years old. It's easy to learn and no reading is required, but it's got a surprising amount of depth of strategy — enough to keep things interesting for parents too.

Trine is fantastical eye-candy

I picked up Trine last night for $4.99 on Steam as part of the Holiday Sale.  I watched the videos prior to my purchase, but I didn't realize how stunning the visuals were until I started playing. For a side-scrolling platformer, Trine delivers amazing 3D backgrounds.  Also, the character models and enemies are well done.

On top of this, the game features top-notch physics game play as all manner of items can be moved and tossed around.  So far, this has given some great variety to the levels.  I often found multiple ways to complete a challenge.  However, with such open gameplay, I found myself often wondering if what I just did was what I was supposed to do or did I get lucky? Or did I miss something?  The game has kept me guessing, but thats a good thing.

I've embedded a video below of the game.  Sit back and enjoy the visuals!

Mirror's Edge is like Portal

Mirror's Edge is a racing puzzle game, not an action FPS.  The sooner that is understood, the sooner the game can be enjoyed.  Forget that there is gun-play, this game is all about getting from point A to B in the fastest time and most efficient manner.

The only game I can compare Mirror's Edge to is Portal. Both games are frustratingly hard and require copious amounts of trial and error.  The levels are NOT meant to be beaten the first time through.  At some points, both games almost demand the player goes to YouTube to find a walkthrough video.

Both games seem to make the complex simple and the simple complex. Many times while playing Mirror's Edge I would easily complete a complex running jump only to miss the next basic jump across a two foot gap. My guess is that so much trial and error goes into the tricky parts, that players unknowingly let up on the easy stuff. Still, sometimes I think the game just wanted to punish me for figuring something out.

After mastering a level, there is almost no challenge the second time through.  Re-playability is limited to those looking to beat their previous best.

Neither game features a UI. And with so many near misses and vertigo-inducing leaps in Mirror's Edge, a UI would have ruined the experience.

Like Portal, the story for Mirror's Edge serves little purpose other than giving a backdrop to the game and motivation for completing the levels. The story in Mirror's Edge isn't that bad and the world is fairly interesting (and beautifully rendered).

For characters, just as Portal features GLaDOS, Mirror's Edge features Merc (short for Mercury) as the overseeing director of activities. Fortunately, the leading lady, Faith, tends to speak up for herself in Mirror's Edge, where as Chell remained silent in Portal.

As a final nail in the comparison coffin, both games are far too short, ending promptly after a few hours of play. Mirror's Edge, well worth the $4.99 spent.

Dec 2009: What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying

Previous months: Nov 2009, Oct 2009, Sept 2009

I'm not embedding the spreadsheet this month because with the birth of a new year, I am planning a new approach to these posts. The "What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying" Google Spreadsheet is still there for the previous months.

Looking Back on 2009, Heartless' Predictions Reviewed

Its that magical time of year where I get to review my predictions for the previous year. Read my original predictions post here.  My commentary is after the jump:

In The Year 2010, Heartless' Predictions

Its nearly 2010 and without further hesitation, here are my predictions:

1. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be sold or shut down by EA.

2. Star Wars: The Old Republic will NOT launch this year.

3. Already launched MMOGs, not named World of Warcraft, will have a rough year.

4. Newer, quality F2P games will storm the market and one will challenge WoW for the mainstream playerbase.

5. WoW will remain the king cash cow as the subscription model continues its dominance.


6. Digital distribution will start being taken seriously by market analysts as Steam proves the platform's power on the PC market.

7. Digital distribution will quietly replace boxed sales completely for PC games.

BONUS REAL LIFE PREDICTION: A political uprising will shock the world and the mainstream media will only find out about it after checking their Twitter accounts.  Three days later, they will realize it was simply a mis-spelled #hashtag and re-purposed Youtube videos.

Heartless_ Game Review: Borderlands

Borderlands, from Gearbox software, blends FPS with RPG and tickles the loot center in every gamer’s brain. Borderlands is a good game, but misses greatness in every single category. Fortunately, there is a shitload of guns to make up for it.

Borderlands the RPG

Borderlands has all the makings for a great RPG: interesting characters, progression, and a story. Unfortunately, Borderlands is the king of “almost”.

The characters, like Dr Zed, come with great introduction scenes, but are quickly limited to dialogue boxes only. Other NPCs stand still, not moving, and often blend so well into the scenery that players walk by without noticing them. The only characters that stand out are the R2-D2 inspired robots nicknamed "claptraps" and some random chick that appears on screen to provide dribbles of information throughout the player's journey.

The story is fun to think about, but is not a draw for the game. It ends abruptly and does not make use of the characters or game world very well. The world itself will often make a better story than what is being sold by the random chick that pops up on the screen. The pieces are there, but the story is never put together firmly.

Character progression is handled via talent trees where players can specialize their skills in various weapons and skills. It's a well rounded, but average system. Each character recieves their unique class skill at level 5. After that, there were not any milestones that made me feel like I was achieving an important step in my characters life. Weapon skills are raised by using various weapon types

The loot is really the only RPG staple that stands out in Borderlands. It randomizes the look, stats, and effects of each weapon. With any randomized system, there is a lot of junk that is worthless, but getting a rare weapon is a treat. Getting to use that weapon to take down a giant mammoth-like Rakk Hive is icing on the cake.

10 Days of WAR: Day Ten

The final day of my return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning ended with a resounding thud as my bright wizard ate dirt for the thousandth time at the hands of a Choppa.  To some, the last ten days may seem like an excuse for me to bitch about a game I once supported wholeheartedly.  I want to say up front that I wanted to give WAR a fair shake, even if I didn't have plans on returning to a subscription.   Unfortunately, at the end of the day, WAR is still the same sub-par game I left months ago, even if it has a new zone and better technical performance.

The new positives begin with the endless trial.  This has brought new blood into the game and the newbie zones were hopping.  Whether this is translating into subscriptions is unknown.  My fear is that the experience in a well populated tier 1 zone leaves an impression that can not be held up by tier's 2 and 3.  Players that come off the free endless trial may become bored quickly as the population hits rock bottom once outside of the trial zones.  My suggestion would be to extend the free trial all the way to the end of tier 3.  Yes, that's a lot of game for free, but tier 2 and 3 are a general waste of resources as it is.  Allowing trial players into these tiers will spice life up a bit and give them a glimpse of what the end game of WAR offers in tier 4.

The new positives end with the Land of the Dead.  As I stated, LotD is the model which all tier 4 zones should follow in WAR.  The concept of separate RvR lakes does not work and actively hurts WAR's community as players do not mingle across play styles.  If the principals of LotD (minus the gating mechanic) were to be applied across all tier 4 zones, WAR would be a better game.

10 Days of WAR: Day Nine (Set pieces)

My ninth day and disapointment in my return to WAR can be summed up by this picture:

That is a tank sitting in the Empire starting zone of Nordland.  It hasn't moved in almost two years (and not a spot of rust anywhere!). 

After-Christmas Sales For Gamers

Update: 14 Jan, 2010 - Removed post and links as the sales are over.

10 Days of WAR: Day 8 (Live Events)

Merry Christmas!  For my eighth day of WAR I'm going to talk about Live Events.

10 Days of WAR: Day Seven (PvE)

For my seventh day of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning I did some PvE.

One of my first posts about WAR on this blog was about the importance of PvE:

WAR, without PvE, is just a mess waiting to happen.

I took a lot of flack for suggesting that WAR needed PvE.  WAR was going to be the ultimate RvR game, pitting throngs of players against each other in epic battles.  PvE was only a momentary distraction!  How wrong those people were.  It is suicide to attempt to push out a triple-A game that focuses solely on PvP-oriented conflict.  The player base is NOT there to support a game of WAR's budget size with only PvP.  Plus, with only PvP minded players, the battlefield becomes very stale, very quickly.

Ranting aside, WAR does have a good amount of cooperative PvE (I'm not talking about solo content today).  The end game features dungeons and loot progression.  The early game features a few dungeons and plenty of public quests.  Both ends of the spectrum benefit from an open grouping system that allows players to find groups on the fly in their current area.

With my time limited, I was not able to get into any dungeon groups on my rank 40 Ironbreaker.  I logged into my level 8 White Lion and journeyed to Nordland and Norsca to enjoy some public quests.

TIP: How to move Steam games to another drive in Windows 7/Vista/XP

With the Steam holiday sale blitzing everyone's wallets, there are plenty of people trying to find hard drive space to store all of their new games (seriously, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for only $1.99, Mirror's Edge for $4.99).

One of the quirks with Steam is that it only allows users to install games to the same drive that Steam resides on.  For many, that is their main C: drive, which often fills up quickly.  I will detail the process used to move 3rd party games to another drive.  This will be for Windows 7 and Vista (Windows XP users click here).

10 Days of WAR: Day Six (Crafting)

I was inspired by the furious pace of Santa's elves to meet the Christmas demand and for my sixth day of WAR I crafted.  The crafting in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has always intrigued me.  The concepts are solid, but the execution was lacking at launch. The basic premise is that most monsters and player kills would result in crafting components.  Crafted items are mostly consumable items.  There wasn't traditional blacksmithing or weapon making: there was apothecary for potions, talisman making, and cultivation (which is a gathering skill, but I consider it a craft).

Often times crafting far outpaced a character's progression in WAR due to the mismatch of ingredient levels to a player's level.  The result was often piles and piles of crafted items that were unusable for several levels.  This was not only frustrating, but also impossible to avoid unless a player ignored crafting until they were max level.  To highlight this issue, I created this screenshot a long time ago:

As can be seen, level 30-32 ingredients resulted in level 38 potions for a character that was level 30.

Unlimited Free Trials are the New MMO Hotness (Age of Conan, Champions Online, Warhammer Online, and more!)

Apparently I missed the memo.  Free trials with unlimited playtime, but level and gameplay restrictions, are popping up everywhere.

Age of Conan - LINK
Details:  Unlimited playtime. Players can play up to level 20, but only if registered for the trial before Jan 1st, 2010.  Trading and player chat limited.

Champions Online - LINK  
Details: Unlimited playtime. New players can create an account and play the beginning zone of Champions Online for as long as they want.

Warhammer Online - LINK
Details: Unlimited playtime. Players are restricted to the Tier 1 Empire vs Chaos zones, but can access all scenarios.  Trading and player chat limited.

Alganon - LINK
Details: Unlimited playtime. No leveling or zone restrictions, but trial characters are deleted after 30 days and must be re-rolled.  Limited skill progression and limited chat options.

10 Days of WAR: Day Five, Metaplace shutdown

For Day Five of my return to WAR, I took a break.  However, to fill space, I want to talk about the Metaplace shutdown that was announced yesterday:

Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community. We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59pm Pacific. The official announcement is here and copied below, and you can read a FAQ guide here. We will be having a goodbye celebration party on January 1st at 12:00noon Pacific Time.

I'm conflicted on what to think. On one hand I don't see how the product could ever generate revenue, but on the other hand I could see it had potential. In the end, the first was proven correct and the latter will be left to our imaginations.

10 Days of WAR: Day Four

Day four of my return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was spent in Tier 1 scenarios.  As I stated on Day Three, tier 1 is my favorite part of WAR.  Also, I commented that the limitless trial was one of the best things going for WAR. Unfortunately, after last night, my mind has been slightly changed.

I've never had a problem with instanced content and it fits well in WAR.  Instanced scenarios offer quick and easy action and offer varied challenges. However, I was not having much fun playing last night.

My problems with scenarios in WAR are two fold: teams are rarely balanced and some scenarios aren't worth playing.  Unfortunately, both of these are worsened by the limitless trial.  This came as an unwelcome shock to my plans to play the limitless trial in the future.

10 Days of WAR: Day Three

For Day Three of my 10-day return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, I ventured back into tier 1 to see how the new limitless trial was working out.  I rolled the one Order class I haven't played: the dwarf slayer.  Instead of starting in the dwarf lands, I was transplanted in the Empire starting area of Nordland.  This is meant to make sure that new players are concentrated into a single zone, allowing for the key features of WAR to shine (PQs, RvR, lairs).

I took a screenshot of a new item, the Rune of Transport, that describes exactly what it is all about:

Not only does it highlight the new combined starting area, it also makes a statement about the way the player density in WAR has been heading: down. However, the new starting area is good for WAR and it helps tremendously to hide the player density issues of the later tiers.

10 Days of WAR: Day Two

Day two of my journey back into Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning landed me in the Land of the Dead.

After checking out the map of the zone I noticed that the Public Quest (PQ) markers showed how many players were present and participating. The PQ nearest the starting area was one short of the recommended group size, so I joined in the fun. The first monster I attacked, a giant condor, didn't fall over dead as I had expected. Instead it took flight with me in it's claws and headed up to the mountainside to deposit me in it's nest! I was shocked: MMOG monsters are supposed to die and give me loot, not try and feed me to their children!

Completing this PQ reminded me why I had such high hopes for WAR. PQs are brilliant and fun when enough players are present. Unfortunately since Order just unlocked access to the LotD zone, only the PQ nearest the warcamp had any players participating.

Referencing back to Day One, there are no PQs in any of the tier 4 RvR lakes, which is a damn shame considering that is where Mythic encourages players to spend their time.  Again, it frustrates me that NOTHING has been done to the RvR lakes to encourage players to visit outside of a zerg keep or objective fight.  Also, to highlight the poor design decisions, keeps and battlefield objectives reward increased experience/influence gain in zones where there is NO FUCKING CONTENT! 

I refuse to use the term zone for the RvR areas, as they are one-dimensional lakes.  Players returning to WAR to jump into the tier 4 RvR action are going to find the same sub-par game they left in the first place.  Anyways, back to LotD.

After a few runs of the PQ, I decided to see the rest of the zone. What I found next, blew my fucking mind:

10 Days of WAR: Day One

I started my holiday-inspired return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning by logging into my level 40/ RR 35 Ironbreaker on Badlands. The first order of business was restoring my UI. WAR's default UI serves its purpose, but there are a few things my minimalist gamer brain needs: clean unit frames, consolidated info bars, and easily customized hotbars.

Rebuilding a lost UI can be aggravating, but for WAR, there is a great tool available from Curse for management and automatic updates/installs of most UI elements. I highly recommend the Curse Client.

For clean unit frames, I settled with Pure. Hotbars are managed via Vertigo. Info bars are kept organized with Warboard. The rest: Phantom, Squared, and MOTH.

 

After thirty minutes of  UI customization, I was ready to helicopter on out to the Tier 4 RvR lakes.