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That new Xbox smell

February 27, 2010 in Ramblings by with 0 Comments

Yeah, I bought an Xbox. I was gonna do a huge post on how I was always a big PC gamer and how I never really had any interest in consoles up until this point. But I think this strip and the ones before it do a good job of telling my tale. It was either upgrade my PC’s CPU or get an Xbox. So all in all, I’m sure I made the right decision and it’s been one of my best birthday gifts ever. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it and it’s really shown me how fun console gaming can be, even if the framerate does suck from time to time (kidding).

What does this mean for you, the reader though? Well, for starters there will be more 360 reviews coming (probably Battlefield: 1943 first). So that’s good.

Anyway, thanks to all who provided me with the money to buy this SOB. Really liking it! Now it’s back to killing infantry with my thompson.

-Rav4ge

Darkfall first impressions

February 23, 2010 in PC gaming by with 1 Comment

Note: game does not actually look this good.

Yeah, it happened. I finally caved in and bought Darkfall which has probably the most mixed opinions of any MMO ever. Some people love it, others think it is a complete pile of shit, and some are sorta in between. Well, I am here to add my humble opinion to that pile.

After dropping the fifty bucks for the game over on the site, I downloaded the client and began patching. Prevab, who also plays Darkfall (and did a review of it right here on this site) chose Alfar as his race so I pretty much had no other choice than to go Alfar too. Why? Well, Alfar are the only race in the game that have no other racial alliances. So this was the only way I would be able to play with him properly. Why he chose Alfar, I will never know. I wanted to be a wolf man, not some emo british metal-loving pansy-ass elf.

After making my character (Darkfall only allows one character per account by the way) I hopped into the world of Darkfall, not knowing what to expect. My first thought post-login was this – DAYUM this game is ugly. And it was! It’s probably because I picked Alfar so the starting zone is all dark and gritty to go with the racial “style” but damn those were some ugly textures.

I picked up the first two quests – kill 4 goblins and get 4 goblin axes – and headed out to kill some goblins. I kinda got lost along the way and ended up falling off a cliff into a very large swamp. My map said there were goblins in the swamp, so I began looking. This is where Darkfall began to get me. I was so used to being able to actually see mobs plain as day in other MMOs, but this was different. I couldn’t make out anything among the destroyed buildings and rubble the swamp contained. It felt like I was actually out hunting something. I felt like I was all alone in some swamp with goblins, with no one there to help me. Everything was silent. Then out of nowhere, I heard the sound of an arrow flying through the air and a split second later my character screamed in pain. The chase was on! From there, I ran around a corner and waited. When I came out for a look I spotted a Goblin Scout, just about to launch another arrow in my face. I ran up to him and spammed my melee attack until I saw him hit the floor. Seemed to work well enough. I gathered his possessions and went back behind cover to try and spot more goblins. This went on for a while, and eventually I had killed more goblins than necessary because of all the ones that had attacked me out of nowhere when I had been looting their friends’ stuff. I felt like I was doing really well and owning these gobbos up – until the goblins got wise and ambushed me. I had been looting more stuff and had foolishly let my guard down when three goblins (shaman, scout and fighter) began attacking me. I tried to run, but the shaman finished me off with a magic missile and I fell to the ground. When you die in Darkfall, you lose everything. Even your quest items. I ended up safely gathering four more goblin axes before handing both quests in and then logging off. Nevertheless, it was a good experience and definitely a unique one.

I like this one so far though, more then I thought I would. The world can be lacking in some areas while others seem very finished but the AI provides a very different sense of tactics that I have never before experienced in an MMO. It just felt really different. The UI is pretty good too. I’ve heard people complaining about it before, but I was comfortable with it after about 30 minutes of use.

The only problem I have with Darkfall is the fear of not having much to do in the future. It seems the PvE is generally quite dry and grindy (which is not a problem when the combat is so great) but when the whole game is about grinding skills it will become a bore for me quite quickly.

But still, Darkfall has serious appeal and I can see myself continuing to play it.

-Rav4ge

Review: Ghosts n’ Goblins Gold Knights

February 15, 2010 in iPhone, Reviews by with 0 Comments

Yes, it has finally happened. Capcom has brought one of the most punishing games ever created to the iPhone. And while it’s not as difficult as it was, it’s pretty damn good for what it is.

If you’re not already familiar with Ghosts n’ Goblins, it’s a basic platformer game where you assume the role of King Arthur, with your goal being to rescue a princess or… whatever else 90’s arcade heroes do these days. But the main thing here is the slaughter of every creature that you see along the way, mostly zombies but also mutant flowers, evil ghosts and goblins..? I’ve actually never seen a goblin in this game. But that’s probably because the game is insanely difficult with hordes of enemies running and shooting at you from pretty much everywhere. It also doesn’t help that you only have two hit points and dying sends you back to the start of the level. It’s been deemed one of the most difficult games in existence and if you don’t believe me for whatever reason, go search it up on google and play one of the originals. You will most likely get your ass handed to you.

Anyway, on to the iPhone version. It’s pretty much the same as what I described above but with pretty nice 3D visuals and noticeably easier. I’m not saying it’s easy, in fact it’s still a challenge but it’s good that they kept it that way. There’s not as many enemies as before, and you get four hit points this time around (well, if you choose Arthur as your character). That’s another thing, you get two characters to choose from. Arthur, everyone’s favorite lance-wielding zombie slayer and Lancelot, the other guy who is slightly weaker but can jump on enemies and kill them. And for some reason he uses a sword and not a lance which to me makes little to no sense seeing how his name is Lancelot. But whatever.

Ghosts'n Goblins Gold Knights 2 GnGBoth characters also have different weapon sets, which changes the weapons you can get from the chests in each level. This is my only problem with this game – half of the weapons are nigh useless and can really gimp you when fighting bosses. So most of the time I end up just using the default weapon.

The controls are fine, nothing special. Sometimes I found myself losing control of Arthur or that other guy as my thumb occasionally slipped off the quite small d-pad, but it’s not a big problem and only happened a few times. The levels are pretty cool looking, usually dark woods or dank caves – the usual. I kinda dig the 3D visuals, they look fitting and not just something slapped on. Sound is good too. The game has a nice theme which you’ll probably find yourself humming at some point and the actual sound effects are pretty cool but there’s not a large number of them and you’ll be hearing the same sounds pretty much the whole way through.

If you’re looking for a solid platformer on the iPhone, this might be a good choice. And if you’ve played any of the other games in the series this is definitely worth it for the 2.99 being asked (or 99 cents right now, it’s on sale). There’s a hard mode and a “boxer mode” which is basically one hit point per life for all you veterans. So if you’re thinking that there’s no challenge here, you’re mistaken. There’s plenty of Ghosts n’ Goblins waiting to tear your armor off and leave you with nothing but your boxers.

good

Battlefield Bad Company 2 beta thoughts

February 6, 2010 in PC gaming by with 0 Comments

7486

I decided to go ahead and pre-order BF:BC2 on Steam so I could get early access to the beta. I played it a good ~2 hours Friday night, and I can tell you right now that for the one map/one gametype offered, I had a lot of fun. If you’ve played the previous Bad Company, you probably know what’s going on here.

The gametype offered is called “Push” which involves one team as attackers and the other as defenders. There are sets of objectives on the map, usually two at a time that must be destroyed through bombing techniques in order for the attackers to advance to the next set. In order to do this, bombs must be planted at each objective, and it’s up to the defenders to make sure these bombs never go off. After both objectives are destroyed a second area of the map is unlocked and two new objective points appear. And the game continues on like so.

It’s a lot of fun, and coming from MW2 I was surprised at how realistic the gun play is. Weapons (like in the first game) have some pretty nasty kickback and the accuracy isn’t great so you really have to make sure you’re firing in bursts and keeping your recoil down. There are a bunch of different weapons in the game, and as you rank up you gain access to them, similar to MW2. There’s also vehicles of varying sorts but I’m not big on vehicles in FPS games so I mainly went on foot, though I did have fun riding the quads provided to the attackers. And of course you have the Frostbite engine here too which means hiding in buildings isn’t always a good idea. Everything (well… almost everything) can be destroyed.

The game also looks pretty nice, on par with MW2. There’s a lot of action going on around you almost always so I really had to crank the settings down in order to get a decent frame rate. While I didn’t get huge lag on high settings, the framerate was somewhere between 20-30 FPS which for me is not acceptable. That’s something I’m hoping will be improved because right now the game is pretty hard on your system.

So far though, I had a lot of fun with this one and I anxiously await the release in March. I’ll definitely be playing this from here on out, it’s a blast and more maps and gametypes can only make it better. See you on the Battlefield!

-Rav4ge

MMO Experiments: Age of Conan

February 3, 2010 in PC gaming by with 0 Comments

It’s time for another dose of MMO, with this edition’s game of choice being Age of Conan. AoC is set in Hyboria, a pretty beautiful and sometimes brutal world full of fantasy fun and incredibly bloody and entertaining battles! Seriously though, this is the only MMO I’m not totally comfortable playing around my parents. It’s not the large amount of blood and gore (my parents are completely okay with that) but rather the more “explicit” vocabulary and hardly subtle sexual references. Hell, female characters can even go topless.

The combat in this one if you haven’t already heard is pretty different from what you would get from a normal MMO. It feels a lot more like a fighter, like one you would get on the Xbox. There’s no auto-attack and you have to make sure you’re hitting enemies in the right spot to guarantee above average damage output. There’s also combo moves, which if done right can result in some satisfying fatalities. Off the top of my head:

  • Stick your blade into the guy, taunt him, pull the sword out and watch him fall
  • Cut a guy down to the ground with one swipe, and then with another cut off his head while he’s down
  • Good old fashion decap

But hell, just watch this video. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Anyway enough about that. I’m really enjoying the game so far. Levelling is fairly easy and the quests don’t involve any grinding. I love how all the NPCs have pre-recorded dialogue too. It makes getting quests something fun, and not just you reading some text and clicking accept. Good stuff. There’s also somewhat of a *gasp!* storyline here, which is nice as a break from “Garnok needs wood! Get him Viagra from the nearby drug store Chop some down in the forest nearby. There’s still errand quests but even these have bits of background to them.

I rolled a Barbarian (of course) because… well just watch that video up there. I have to admit though, at first I really did not like this game. I don’t know why exactly – I just really didn’t like the starting area of Tortage, which is pretty much a jungle island with a city in the middle. There’s gorillas too. It’s probably because when I bought the game I was picturing this and not Swiss Family Robinson. But after giving it another go I got back in it and it’s been really fun so far. I didn’t think much of the combat at the beginning either but after I learned how to use fatalities that opinion changed too.

The only problem I have with this one so far is a problem which I probably could have avoided from the start, and is my own doing. I chose a PvP server. Well, a RP-PvP server. It seemed like a good idea then, but then I realized that PvP in AoC means anyone can kill you as long as you are in any of the PvP areas… which includes pretty much everything except the main city and around it. So I’ll go into an area to gather some stuff for a quest and some guy vastly superior in level will come running at me, and slit my goddamn throat. But that’s okay! I’ll just respawn outside the area and – NOPE! You spawn right where the entrance/exit is to the area where the same guy will be waiting so he can do it all over again. Granted, only one guy did this and in other places it wasn’t a huge problem. But still, I can see it causing me trouble in the future.

I leave you with a picture of Bargorr the Barbarian standing in front of Tortage. It’s pretty, aside from being a pretty effed up place in the game.

AoC_lol

Until next time, this has been Rav4ge with MMO Experiments. Adventure ho!

-Rav4ge

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