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Tera: Alting it up

May 7, 2012 in PC gaming by with 0 Comments

Do I play as the giant-sized, brute-force of a stone warrior, or the unrealistically hot pink-haired elf supermodel? Hmm...

Things in Tera have been pretty good. Not only has the game been holding my attention reasonably well (although I’m still eyeing Max Payne 1&2 as MP3′s release date draws ever closer), but my guildmates have provided what I would honestly consider an essential part of the whole experience. We had a guild picture event a while back during the last hours of open beta, vent is always active on some level, and we just hit 100 members. I bring all this up because without these guys, my interest in this game would not be anywhere near what it is now. I’ve discovered I need that social draw of MMOs in order to keep me playing. Alone, I’d much, much rather go off to play, well anything else. As good as Tera’s combat is, soloing in MMOs is not something I really enjoy, so I’m really grateful to be a part of these great bunch of guys and girls. Also, ponies.

During my past week with the game, I decided to try something a little different. I had been playing a Baraka Slayer, and although I was enjoying the class and being lovingly referred to as “Mr House” by several guildmates because of my character’s size, I felt an urge to try out one of the ranged classes in the game.

I went with the Mystic, which is the support caster of Tera. You get ranged AoE/Cone abilities, heals, and the ability to summon minions of varying sorts. Unfortunately, I found the minions to be mostly useless – sure, they draw aggro and can hold their own pretty well – but their attacks are, for the most part, rather weak. The only thing they’re really good for is creating distractions. It’s kinda nice sending in your minion over as a punching bag of sorts to a group of mobs while you fire off bolts at them from afar. Of course, the fun doesn’t last for long once the mobs get wise and realize you’re the real target. Still, ordering your little guy with his club towards a pack of ravenous wolves or something similar and watching him take off eagerly is kinda smile-worthy.

Something that initially bothered me upon making the character – and will continue to bother me in the future – is that Tera’s questing zones are pretty much the same for every character you make. That means you’ll be doing the same stuff again if you decide to make an alt. That’s a serious flaw. Most MMOs start you off in different areas of the world depending on what race you pick, but for Tera, everyone starts in the same place and continue from there. Luckily for Tera, the combat saves it again regarding this problem. I basically just played through the same content this past week, only with a different class, and I definitely enjoyed myself. The Mystic is a lot of fun to play since you can teleport around past or behind enemies pretty frequently, and then line them up for quick AoE/Cone attacks for pretty substantial damage. It’s a nice contrast to the Slayer, where missing attacks and combos felt like a huge letdown because of how slow your attacks generally are. With the Mystic, I felt a lot more nimble and quick, and mistakes are less penalizing since cool downs on most abilities are very short. Overall though, it’s quite the change going from a giant piece of walking stone with a sword to a pink-haired elf who is roughly half the size or less – but big where, you know – where it counts.

Anyway, just wanted to piece some of my thoughts together. I’ll probably be hitting 20 on my Mystic tonight. Some of my guildies are already level 60, which is just crazy.

-rav4ge

Tera – Open Beta Impressions

April 20, 2012 in PC gaming by with 0 Comments

As you might know, the Tera servers opened up for all pre-order accounts yesterday at 12:00 PM Pacific. I just happened to get out of school much earlier than usual, at 11:45 instead of 12:55, so I made my way home, poured myself some celebratory Dr Pepper (67 cents for a litre, couldn’t go wrong at that price), logged into my guild’s vent, and got playin’!

Now, I didn’t play Tera’s closed beta, so apart from what I had seen in videos, the game was completely unfamiliar to me. I literally took a leap of faith when I pre-ordered this game, and so far that’s proven to be a good decision. Continue Reading…

Please be good to me, Tera Online

April 14, 2012 in PC gaming by with 0 Comments

I have a love/hate relationship with MMOs of all kinds, as you can probably tell from past blog posts. The last time I was totally in-love with an MMO was my first month with World of Warcraft. Warhammer Online was fun for a good while too, but after the first month, I was done. Same with Champions. Same with Rift. Same with every MMO I’ve ever played.

And it’s not the subscription fees that throw me off – I know that because Free2Play-MMOs capture my attention even less than paid ones. I’ve never spent time with an MMO in the long-term. I’ve just never had one “click,” although again, my first month with WoW was just totally magical, utter awesomeness, and I did come back when I could. Playing with some kids from my school, talking over vent and having a good time, exploring this beautiful, seemingly infinite world – it was total bliss. I don’t use the word lightly. Few games – non-MMOs especially – have managed to do that.

I’ve learned time and time again that MMOs are never an option for me in the long run. Yet I keep coming back to the genre because a part of me has hope that somehow, just somehow that MMO-magic will be found once more and I will once more be totally immersed in an ideal role-playing world. I love MMOs, or the concept at least. I think they stand out above all other genres as something totally unique because of what they are – giant, persistent,  but ever-evolving worlds that house millions of players. Experiences are made, friendships are forged, and countless monsters are slain. It’s all great, and just going over it all with you now has made me kinda happy in the pants to play one again. See?! MMOs always seem to have this incredibly strong allure, and it gets me to drop-in every couple of months – after playing the subscription fee, of course – to get a taste of what I’ve been missing.

But the realistic, frugal side of me knows I’m better off never playing MMOs because I always leave on a rather sad note, historically when my included 30 days expire. Then I return to single-player and multiplayer games for a while. Then I get curious again, and subscribe. I’ll play for a bit and, well… off I go again. Hence, that picture up there that very accurately depicts a rather depressing side of my gaming life.

*Ahem*

Tera Online is a new MMORPG releasing officially on May 1st. The main difference between it and most other MMOs – and the reason you should care – is the combat. Tera features a combat system where positioning, timing, and aim factor in to combat, meaning your attacks won’t register on foes automatically. There’s that, and the absolutely beautiful graphics, which are being powered by the Unreal 3 Engine, if I’m not mistaken. The game also passes my MMO-Racial standards (lololol racist), featuring the following:

Elves, check. Humans, check. Arch-demon looking things, check, furry otter-racoon looking guys, check, Elves check again, and then you’ve got the big stone giants who out of all six, appeal to me the most. Not a bad selection, could use a little more variety though. Actually, I think I’m missing a race here -

Oh.

And little girls too, apparently. Out of everything following Tera’s western release (it was originally a Korean title), this is what’s creating the most controversy, easily. I’m pretty much indifferent towards the idea because I think giving people more character options is always a good idea. But um, yeah. Little girls.

I’ve already pre-ordered because of the nice bonus incentives, like early character creation and a little bit of a head start – if all goes to plan. Sounds good to me. I’m pretty excited to try this one out, even if it is totally on a whim.

Expect some impressions posts and whatnot when the open beta starts on the 19th. Keeping this post in mind, I’m going to be brutally honest about what I think about this game. That being said, I really, really hope I like it. Again, the combat alone has my interest piqued.

-rav4ge

Quake 4 – Keep it simple, stupid

April 6, 2012 in PC gaming by with 0 Comments

Since we’ve been in a bit of a slump for exciting new game releases recently, I’ve been going through my backlog of Steam games and playing things I’ve been meaning to finish. One such game is Quake IV – the sequel to Quake II, made back in 2005 by Raven Software.

As you might expect, Quake IV is a first-person-shooter, and a rather good one at that. I played the demo several years ago and really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t until the Steam holiday sale of last year that I picked it up. The game is pretty much about running around through these very detailed, technological-looking claustrophobic environments – which by the way, hold up very well due to the amount of extreme detail – and shooting these cyborg things called Strogg. The Strogg are pretty much like Terminators, but instead of having synthetic outer skin, Strogg soldiers are made by capturing humans and fitting them with a series of cybernetic implants. This is demonstrated many times throughout the game, because for some reason the Strogg also use humans as data terminals and all other sorts of things, which is really creepy, to say the least. I mean seriously, look at this shit.

And that is one of the Strogg’s cleaner pieces of work. There are other areas of the game that resemble, well… butcher shops. This is something I really did enjoy about Quake IV though – when it does horror, it does it in a very unique fashion. Corpses nailed onto the walls, heads on sticks – we’ve all seen that done many times before in horror-themed games. The way the Strogg do their “art,” though? Totally different, and it works. You have to give them credit at least for doing something with all the bodies that stack up because of war. Waste not, want not.

It’s a shame the story doesn’t really go anywhere past “the Strogg are a threat, shoot them as much as possible, and maybe if we shoot them enough we can end the war,” but I don’t mind the lack of story-telling, really. There is dialogue, but it’s pretty much what you’d expect from an all-action movie like Doom, ironically enough. The main reason I like this game though is because of the great the level design, especially with all the detail put in. Secondly, of course, is the gunplay. It’s fast-paced, satisfying, and just plain fun.

As I came to the conclusion of the game’s single-player today though, I got rather angry – which isn’t something games tend to really do to me. I do have a bit of a loathing for end-bosses in shooters though because by that time in the game, I just want to see what happens more than anything else, and shooters have a nasty habit of making the end boss something of a bullet-sponge, which is really never that fun.

Quake IV’s last boss does just this, but the boss goes down easily enough. It’s what happened right after that pissed me off.

** Very minor spoilers for Quake IV follow – just a friendly reminder.**

Continue Reading…

The Magic of Video Games

February 24, 2012 in Console gaming, PC gaming by with 0 Comments

Video game magic at work.

I buy a lot of video games, for a few reasons. The first is, I like seeing what new kinds of innovation and progression developers have brought to the table with new releases. I consider myself pretty invested in the game industry, and missing out on playing a certain title, especially when said title is made up to be “the latest and possibly greatest,” is something I just can’t let happen. I get curious, and as you well know with video games, satisfying this curiosity isn’t cheap.

Slurms at Multiplaying wrote up a post this week about how he feels the same way:

There’s still some games from 2011 that I haven’t played that were on my “must buy” list. Hell, there are games from 2010 that I still want to pick up! But the new shinies are all too tempting to ignore, so I move on and dread the day when I’ll be asked if I remember a certain game that I just so happened to pass up. Then I’ll get that reaction like when I tell someone I haven’t seen one of their favorite movies.

What?

Don’t look at me like that.

I feel the same way about games. With the prices on games, one can hardly have them all. $60 becomes $67 with tax, and so it becomes the question of narrowing it down – which releases will satisfy me most? How much content am I getting here? Some will even go as far to measure titles with a simply equation – hours played divided by price, with a 1.0 ratio being ideal. Now, the results here are really up for interpretation, as some people are perfectly content playing their favorite titles again and again. My brother Calvin has played Far Cry 2 on the PC for close to 300 hours now. Now, this does include his time spent with the amazing map-making tool that comes built-in, but that’s still pretty incredible that he’s put that much time into one game. Even more incredible is that he only payed a mere $5 for the game. But when I ask him if he’s interested in Ubisoft’s very exciting (to me, at least) sequel, coming out in September of this year, he says it plain and simple. “I don’t care about [Far Cry 3].”

And that kind of reaction really isn’t surprising. He doesn’t play games like I do, like many of my friends do, where we are always looking forward to the latest and greatest – and I can respect that. He’s never spent more than $100 a year on video games, but yet he gets much more out of his games than I ever will. While I’m always looking brightly towards the future, he’s content playing what he has. Putting it like that, my curiosity for new games is almost a curse.

A great deal of this curiosity comes from this reason, and this reason alone – I, unlike Calvin, am always in search of the next, near-perfect, piece of entertainment in video-game-form. That’s what drives me to keep up with new releases and anticipate others, and I know I’m not alone here.

I talked to Conner about this recently. He brought up Call of Duty 4 and StarCraft II as two games that, upon playing, just blew his mind. He was just in a state of pure gaming bliss, where everything clicked for a variety of reasons, and the first-time experience was unlike anything. But at the same time, he told me he was also saddened by his sudden ecstasy. He knew that, given a month or more, these feelings of adoration and pure love for these games would be gone, and he would soon find himself instead anticipating another game that would give him the same “buzz.”

That right there is just it. That’s what this curiosity comes from. The search, the hope that this particular new game will be so good as to give you a gaming high, hopefully one equal or better to your best and most intense, most adored game from your past. We’ve all had that experience like I described with Conner, where everything just “clicks.” We keep ourselves excited and our wallets ready for the next best thing in the hopes that it will be the next best thing. And sometimes, just sometimes, it turns out to be exactly that.

-rav4ge

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