Game Review: Prince of Persia (2008)

Now I've not had a good relationship with the prince of Persia games.... Oh there good games, nothing bad about that.... it's just.... As someone who picks apart story lines and notices architecture, the things put int just offended me in very possible way. Don't even ask me about it (Basically none of the traps make any sense in any context).

The newest one in the 'franchise' is detached from the others, and could very well be an another universe for all we know. First off I'd say it's a good game... but it does have problems. Luckily it removed alot of the stuff I couldn't handle in the past games, so I was able to play this without leaving in a huff. The game is very very easy in that you can't actually lose.... But that's not necessarily a bad thing, I'd say this game is perfect for anyone looking to get into games but don't want to have their nuts crushed the instant they have a go.

Another thing people disliked were the characters themselves, and I can't blame them really... It will depend on what your like (For example the main guy is a jerk face, but I am also a jerk face so we got along well). There is of course the undercurrent of romance.... But bad ubisoft, you are clearly terrible at writing romance... flirting does not equal love (This point becomes important because its why the ending is stupid). Interestingly what I thought was the best interaction between the characters is when you can 'choose' to catch the girl after you've jumped down form something.... It doesn't add anything to the game, but I thought the act looked sweet.

Now addressing the easiness of the game... It will be too easy for usual gamers, but I didn't mind so much as I knew what I was getting (Plus it didn't run so good on my pc, so the fact I couldn't die stopped me from rage quitting). The trouble of course with immortality is obstacles are no longer dangers, just time sinks.... As the game goes on it adds more and more, but all it does is slow you down... And there's alot of automatic moving and dangerous things that look like they can get you but never actually can.

If your just looking for a pretty platformer with little hassle, this will work just right.


*Spoilers*


Okay first one thing I liked that they should have done waaaaaayyyyy more. There's one boss that creates illusions and she kidnaps your girl and plunks down a bunch of copys, when you go near any of them they vanish. The idea is you have to make her do something only she would do.... which is funnily catch you as your falling to your death (I thought it was cool cause I was like.... Wait.... Time for a leap of faith). But that sort of interesting dynamic only happens once.... That is a wasted right there.

Ok so onto the ending. First of all if your gonna make a cinematic boss fight it is important you do nothing that can interrupt the flow of it. If I'm restarting because the game is doing something stupid I'll not be happy about it (Never, Never take the camera away form the player.... I'm just going to jump into walls and kill myself.... A fixed camera in a 3d platformer has never been a good idea, so dont do it).

At the end the dark god is resealed (It's a pretty generic storyline, nothing really special done with it) and all is well expect your girl is dead now.... sacrifice and all that. Now I was told the ending was stupid, but I wasn't quite prepared for how stupid it was. Basically the game forces you (Not in a cutscene, in the actual game) to release the dark god and bring her back to life. Now this is stupid because A. It voids the effort of the entire game B. She is not that likable.... She's nice but she knew what she was doing (and had already died once) and finally C. Your guy at no point does not strike me as the kind of guy that would do that.

I know it's sad that she didn't get the life she wanted (It's not really, poor writing and so on) but she'd already died.... Her time was up even before you met her. He'd clearly let go before (What with being a dashing rouge and so on) so there's no reason he couldn't do it again.

Worse thing is they released an epilogue as DLC, and I watched it (Not buying it, Ha) and it;s an even worse ending.... Not cool. Not cool.

Lets Talk About: Mass Effect

Ugh....


God damn it Bioware, why do you do this to me...

It should be no secret that I have a problem with Mass Effects overall narrative. The problem I have of course is that alot is really stupid, and not thought out well. Saying that, some of the stuff in there is really good.... for one reason my favorite is the exploration of the fact that not only do salarians have shorter lives, but that their perception of time is completely different from everyone else's (The blue chicks are supposed to live for like hundreds or thousands of years, but talking to one you would never believe that... their own perception of time seems to run alongside our own, and if that was the case then they would mentally age into something we would be totally unfamiliar with... but no.... There just blue 'hot' chicks.... le sigh).

One of the main problems I had with the last one was the fact that in the end everyone was like "OMgosh there after Earth next!" but then if you actually look at it.... the collectors ship is not equipped for that... not even a single reaper would be equipped for that. A species home planet would be massively defended... and I did not believe for a minute that the collectors could have pulled that off.... Taking out fringe colonies no one cares about... fair enough... but anything above that? No.

Now it has been revealed that in Mass Effect 3 earth will mostly likely be the main stage, as the reapers are coming for it.

This is a poor decision for the writer.

It's the same issue I have with any sort of made up medium.... if your not using the tools of your genre, why are you even in that genre? There are over a billion possibilities for location for this battle against the reapers... and you pick the boring option...

But ok, lets let that go.... and look at this another way....

Shepherd has almost zero attachments to earth. The writer seems to be relying on the fact that, hey, we all live on earth so you'll make a connection right? If that's the case why did you give the option for the player to choose a spacer background... You need only look at say, the Gundam series to get an idea how spacers would feel about earth (I.e. Earth can go f*** itself, I live in space).

The worst part of this decision I think is the fact that we haven't been able to visit earth once. Aren't you supposed to show us all the happy people before attacking? Couldn't you have shown us a peaceful earth, an earth we would care about in the first two games? This is a problem Bioware have keep falling into, assuming you'll care about something because they told you to care.

Honestly, the final battle should take place on the citadel.... not only does it actually belong to the reapers, but it is the core of the allied races. Surely that would be the main target? You know, the place where all your enemy's make alliances with one another against you? Plus we've been there before.... even if you hated it it would still make an interesting and stark shift if the whole place had its white shine burned away.

While were here, perhaps we can discuss Bioware's naming of stuff? It's got a very Christian theme, which isn't a problem... it just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Oh Bioware, did you get jealous of Obsidian's Mask of the betrayer? Did you get angry that it turned out they could make a great fantasy game with under tones of death, heaven, hell, and rebirth? Did you spit vile as you witnessed them ask very big questions about how gods act and if judgement is right? Did you realise that your ability to tell complicated story's appears to have floated away?


Ahem.


Finally it is bullshit there isn't girl on girl with Tali.

.... Don't judge me, you want it too....

The Final Fallacy

Now before I carry on I want to make it clear that it might be unfair of me using Square Enix as an example, I only say this because I haven’t played any of their recent games myself and this post is working purely on hearsay, but a critique was brought up against them recently and I thought it made a good topic.

Now I don’t know if you ever played or heard about Final Fantasy, but for gamer history it was kind of a big deal. Now the latest one came out of a while ago, and a lot of people didn’t like it (I’ve kept away from recent games because they remind me of everything I hate in anime right now). One of the problems someone pointed out was that Square Enix opted for style over substance.

What many final fantasy fans might not release is that the games have always walked the tightrope of style and substance. Many would claim that this ‘decline’ of substance actually started around the most popular one, 7, and continued onwards until the latest one, but these people don’t quite understand what the substance of these later games actually was.

Now you outsiders have an interesting position on this debate, if you’ve heard of Final Fantasy you’ve probably heard a fan’s almost crusader like admiration for their favourite Final Fantasy. But your just sitting there wondering, aren’t they just the same games?

This is the core issue at work here during this debate between the series, everyone, especially the fans, on some level expects them to be the same game.

You see Final Fantasy is a very interesting specimen because despite having so many similarities with each instalment, there all radically different from one another. Each game has a unique theme with which to tell its story, and at the end of the day the debate about which is the best is actually all about this central theme.

For example 8’s central film is friendship and trust, it’s about learning to believe in others and yourself. 9’s is Mortality, the inevitability of death and how the characters interact with that. 10 is all about the sins of the past, how they shape us, and asks, should we suffer for the sins of our fathers?

Now the great final fallacy (Haha, see what I did there?) is the fact that the first one you play is most likely going to be your favourite. After you have a favourite one you’ll expect the others to be much like it. So the reason that there is so much outrage between the games is because most people are expecting a continuation of their central theme, and thus are disappointed when this doesn’t happen. When you first play one you’re usually judging it on its own merits, but the instant you play another your now judging it against the one you like… There is no way to stop this, it’s just human nature.

In many cases you might simply dislike these themes, or not understand that their there at all. For example I really really dislike 7. I played it, and I hated every moment of it. I was never going to like 7 because my heart already belonged to another, and I was never going to give it a chance.

But this doesn’t just apply to the theme you see, it applies to every single aspect of these games. The graphics are different, the visual style, and even the gameplay is always different in some way… and it’s hard to not be disappointed that it’s not just all the same. I think the best example of this is the character Sid… In final fantasy Sid is always a character, there’s always someone called that, but his role in each game is usually vastly different… from being a background character, to a side char, to a main one, to even a player character… This is the point I’m trying to make, in many ways the Final Fantasy games are the same, but in just as many ways their very different.

At the end of the day this is what separates the fan base and it’s not something easy to admit to yourself. You might think to yourself “Duh I already knew this” but you need to have a good long look at yourself… no weaselling out of it, and understand that you do this and you are not correct in any way for doing it. By simple human nature it is very hard to comprehend that you could be mistaken, and that your opinion might have no merits what so ever.

Another complaint that rises up often between the games is the fact that the main character is annoying and dumb, or that some other character is annoying. First of all you don’t truly understand what annoying is if this gets you riled up, you think to yourself that there’s no way there could be anyone more annoying than this. You are wrong. Perhaps you thought Jar Jar Binks was f*** annoying, but you took solace in the fact he’s not real… and then you will meet that person who is just like him… and your faith in humanity will die that day….

Anyway.

You might think that this critique doesn’t apply to your favourite main character, but it probably does. There would be no character growth if there were no failings, so they have to be annoying or dumb in some regards. Perhaps you were upset that the latest characters look like wimpy girls? News flash, if the hardware had allowed it that’s probably what all the characters would look like. Did you not see that amazing wind like art that *is* Final Fantasy? If you’re thinking your 2d characters were immune to that you’re wrong, that’s exactly how they would have looked.

Alright so hopefully we now all understand a little more about the Final Fantasy games, but we still need to talk about the latest one. Now as I’ve already said I haven’t played it so I can’t be sure… But from what I’ve heard I think I’d agree that the latest one has chosen style over substance and not released what a mistake that was. If you look seriously at the final fantasy series the gameplay and the story have largely been two separate entities… they might have crossed over here and there but largely the context of the gameplay makes no sense in the context of the story.

Now you might be thinking, how would that work? Surely that hurts the whole game? But actually if anything it might have been FF’s greatest strength. I mean think about it for a second… you can tell any story you want… but have any sort of gameplay that you want. For a game designer this must be great, because you’re not limited to the rules of the setting and can go bat bananas with the gameplay (Which is why the characters can summon meteors, but when the story comes around suddenly giant robots worry them).

To me it seems like the latest FF has tried to merge the story and the gameplay and discovered that if you do this you are limited by the setting, which could be one of the many reasons they chose to take out lots of gameplay features. But I don’t really know.

The point I'm trying to make is that Final Fantasy fans are insane, and you should stay away from them.

... Myself included.

(Man, you don't even know.... When someone says something bad about the FF I like I become F***ing irrational... I can not control it at all)

Episode 3

You know…

At the moment I’m trying to get back into console games (I.e. By fixing my Ps3) and so I make sure to keep up with the latest news so I’m not left behind. So I’m looking over the news and Value announce their releasing this new game… I don’t normally care about this sort of thing because the only valve game I like is portal, but it’s hard not to notice something in any of the responses following these announcements.

Episode 3.

God damn you people sound like a broken record about this shit.

It’s a weird thing to do with human nature, but at the suggestion of a new thing that you like it suddenly becomes as important as your human rights. For some reason you’re no longer looking forward to it, but now you’re entitled to it.

So haters gonna hate.

Whenever I see this I just want to sit these people down and talk about two things…

One: Development cycles of ‘epic’ games have shot through the roof, Blizzard has proven that you can spend 12 years without a sequel and it will still be successful. If episode 3 is going to be as good as you somehow believe it will be, it probably needs a long time to make.

Two:… This is my preferred response… Valve doesn’t care about Half-Life at the moment. This isn’t hard to imagine really, more than any other company at the moment Value still retains alot of its own personal identity. They’re not like the big publishers, churning out sequel after sequel, they can pick and choose what they want to work on and when they want to work on it.

From a creative stand point (The one I’m familiar with) dropping Half-Life is a great choice. Just looking at all the other games Value have released (Not even taking into account Steam) you can tell their spreading their wings and doing things they actually want to do… Half-Life might be there golden child, but like any success story focusing on only one of your hits will get you remembered… for only that. You only need to look around a little to find famous authors etc that are only remembered for one of their works… and how frustrated they were with that.

Besides Gordon Freeman might never talk to the player, but I bet he’s an asshole at work.

KOTOR: Part 2

I think I know the big problem I had with Knights of the Old Republic.

I’ve already gone over how Bioware is unable to do good evil dialogue, and how relying on a single plot twist can destroy the experience for anyone who has it spoiled. But even if they had kept these things, I now realise that it could still have been handled well…

To get to the heart of the issue you need to look at the core theme of Knights of the Old Republic. In a way it’s the core theme for many of Biowares games, wither they realise it themselves or not. You see Bioware is a firm believer in the after effect… I’m not using the right terminology here but you must have heard of the old argument, are you born the way you are? Or is it your experiences that shape you? Bioware is in the latter. Have a good long look at some of the evil characters in Biowares games, you’ll find most of their bad guys are bad for a reason.

From a writing point of view this is a very good route to take, for experiences mean backstory… and that means they become more developed… thus more relatable and therefore more believable. It’s this backstory which gets your audience interested in your characters growth.

It is this concept Bioware handles really badly in KOTOR.

Let me just set up the beginning for you… You wake up in an exploding ship and are very briefly informed that you are part of the republic and that there’s stuff to do so let’s go! Here you can choose to be nice, or bad.

I’ve already gone a little over how being bad pretty much destroys any immersion with the game, but Bioware makes a horrendous mistake here if you know the plot twist. The backstory of your character is given at most, one or two lines… it has no depth what so ever. In most cases it’s expected that the player use their imagination to fill in the holes here, but if you know the plot twist there are no holes…

At the end of the day KOTOR is a story about a second chance, it gives you the option of acting differently from that but as far as the game and the stories canon goes, this is what it’s all about. It’s about being born as a good person, living virtuously, discovering your dark past and choosing to abandon it in favour of your new life.

Most people (My friends are not included) will play the game as generally nice person, and in a way Bioware bets on this. It’s for this reason the games plot twist is highly praised, because most people played the game ‘correctly’.

There are two things Bioware should really have done to make their game much better, and friendlier to people playing during the buzz of spoilers.

The first is to just straight up take out the evil dialogue at the start of the game, not only would you have avoided a lot of awkward and badly written evil dialogue, but it would have given the player time to identify with their character and decide how this ‘second’ life was going to turn out. Even if you knew the plot twist you’d at least be sent through the right door, letting you break the game later.

The second is something Bioware is actually much better at these days, but was really needed in KOTOR. More in-depth backgrounds. A line or two doesn’t cut it, you need a much bigger background if you’re going to get involved in your character. Mass Effect actually does this really well, letting you choose your past career as a soldier.

I know why they would be tempted not to go for the second one, because it has the chance to create plot holes if done badly. Also it is outright tricking your player. I know the whole plot of KOTOR is about tricking the player into making him think he’s something he’s not, but it’s more of “Well, we never really said you ‘weren’t’ this thing…” it’s cheeky but I’d consider it a more socially forgivable trick. But they should have really gone all the way, the more in-depth the background the better the reveal. If you were however spoiled this background stuff would still push you towards making a character that fit the background rather than the ‘real’ one (You’d do this because you’re a story fan, there’s no resisting it).

Because they didn’t do either of these things I was allowed to send the game, the story, and it’s theme way off track.

Having choice in games is good, but when you’re trying to tell a story that only really connects well with one of those choices… it’s frankly a better idea to remove the choice and focus on the theme.

Knights of the Old Republic

God damn you bioware you frustrate the hell out of me.

Now for those of you who don't know or have only heard of this series of games, it's all about Star Wars. Now I recently got the first game in this series and I've started to play it, but I actually played the second one first. This has caused a few.... problems for me. I've heard people say the first one is their favorite... and I really don't agree.

The problems start when you first enter the game. Your on a ship that's being attacked, so you need to escape, thats pretty normal for a game and easy to understand. Then the game decides that you, the player, needs to know more about the situation. No game I dont, the ship is under attack and is going to explode... you do not need to give me a very long history lesson within the exploding ship. A guy comes running up to you and is like "Hup hup! Here's the detailed history of the war, who we are, whats going on, whats my favorite colour, and where were going" it's alot of information that is simply totally out of place in that situation. If you want to tell your player this stuff in a game you either A) Explain it with a cinematic or B) Explain it in a place not exploding. They really destroy the immersion at the start there.

In the second one your unconscious and your ship is exploding, so you have you control a droid to fix the ship as best you can.... That's it. You learn about the setting and its history at a much more even pace later on. This is a much better opening, not only have we gotten over the tutorial but the player is now interested in learning about their character, why was the ship attacked? How did you get away? Who are you?

One of the main problems is the fact that after playing the second one you'll probably browse some forums and etc. When you do this I guarantee the plot twist of the first game will be spoiled in the first five minuets of reading, a recurring problem with the Internet. So now that we know what the plot twist is way ahead of when we should know, does that affect the enjoyment of the game? Yes it does. The plot twist is central to the story, its the big knot in the middle that explains everything. It's also done really badly.

I mean really, once you start playing and going through the story, the amount of hints they drop is ridiculous. I am terrible with plot twists, yet I could have probably guessed this one since your constantly beaten over the head with clues to it. Its like the opposite of what they did with Jade empire, I guessed the twist there solely because there were semi subtle hints.

This is the problem I'm having with the first game, it relies so much on surprising you with this 'clever' plot twist that the rest of the story falls to pieces the instant you know it.

The second one didn't really have a plot twist. It had a kind of... mystery, and throughout you were trying to solve it. Oh sure there was a plot twist (But no one could have possibly been surprised by it) but the story didn't rely on it, hell the plot twist was so unimportant you wouldn't have even noticed if it was taken out. So the story stands strong regardless of what you know of the plot.

Then there's your companions.... and god damn it. No Bioware, I do not care if that guy has trust issues, I do not care if the alien chick has abandonment issues, and god damn it that jedi can take her holier then thou attitude with her when I eject her into the sun. Bioware's much better at this sort of thing now, but the main crux of this issue is the fact that the first game pretty much forces you to talk to your companions.

You'll just be walking along and the game will go "Oh look, they seem worried, why don't you talk to them?" and you have to say yes, because this is an rpg and you bought it for the story damn it. This makes talking to them more of a road block then an actual conversation, something I have to get passed so I can carry on playing. It doesn't help that most of them are annoying as f*** either.

In the second game you tend to talk to your companions during down time when your resting in your ship. This means you get to talk to whoever you want, not who the game wants. It also helped that they weren't annoying as f***.

Finally the biggest problem I'm having is the fact that Bioware want you to play as a good guy. This is one thing I've always held against Bioware, they can not do evil dialog right. All the evil options make you come off as a massive prick, with child like outbursts, not some dread Sith of the universe. It either makes you sound like a retard, or a psychotic retard.

Bad language does not a villain make.

But you can tell the game wants you to play as a good guy, cause half the shit you do doesn't make sense unless you want to 'help' people. Then when you try to break out of that, more often then not the game will punish you for doing that. Every time this happens I get the impression the game is saying "I know I put that evil choice there, but you weren't supposed to take it!". I feel like Bioware really misses the point of being evil.

The second game on the other hand hits this nail on the head. You still sound like a complete psycho, but for Star Wars it begins to make sense why your such an asshole. Because it works motherf***er. I played as a good guy throughout on my first try, swinging my lightsaber, shooting the odd lightning (Cause if your gonna fight with the force, you need lightning). I was pretty strong, ruining the bad guys and saving the day.

Then I played as a bad guy. And holy shit.

Death walks with you when you are a villain.

Throughout the game there are all these chances to steal force power from things, wither it be locations or people (They die if you do this). As a good person you wouldn't do this, but an evil person is greedy and the dark side breeds a lust for power. So you take that shit whenever it is offered, and my god it makes you powerful. Before when I was a good guy I could cut my way through enemies at a fair pace... But as a bad guy the instant I entered a room everyone would be dead, I was that strong.

This is what I feel should be at the heart of any Star Wars rpg. The dark side is power, and from a gameplay point of view you need to give evil players more power to show this. But it should also end in tragedy, wither it be your own self destruction, or the destruction of everything you care about... Because at the end of the day that is all the Dark Side does, destroy.

Now if you don't know the second game was actually made by a similer but different company, Obsidian. Now they aren't perfect either, and they got some major issues of their own. But they don't frustrate me Bioware.

They don't frustrate me.

Dead Space

Ok, here's another of my little gaming embarrassments,

I can not deal with scary games.

I think I did talk a little about this during my bioshock talks, but lets go again. I really can't deal with them. When your watching something scary that's not so bad, I mean you might jump a little but otherwise? It's just pretend.

When I play games I get really into them. It's not my character in their fighting monsters, that's me. So stuff that would normally only kinda creep you out makes me completely wig out. One thing that helps keep me out of that, and treating it like a game, is if I have a friend with me for the ride.

Tell me, did you think Dead Space was easy?

If so, you clearly did not do what me and my friend did.

He was the mouse, I was the keyboard. Imagine that for a moment, you can't control what direction your facing, only which way you step. We had to play on easy just to make it doable, cause you die when you stop working perfectly together.

Anyway, that's not actually what I wanted to discuss, I wanted to talk a little about Dead Space 2.

Looks great, I probably won't play it... But it looks great. But an interesting shift in narrative has taken place, where before the main character was silent... now he talks.

There's alot of complaining going on and you have to give it... if you suddenly change something people will complain. But I think alot of people are missing an important point. In a game that wants to have horror elements you need characters to relate to, and to express your fear along with. I think not having a talking character in the first game was a mistake.

If you want proof of what I'm talking about check out some gameplay of Dead Space: extraction. All the characters talk and I thought it was pretty good. My favourite bit is the first chapter when your a simple miner going completely insane.... When stuff first goes weird you don't know if people are turning into monsters or if you've gone insane and your just killing people now. That's interesting... and the easier way to pull it off is if the character talks.

(Of course, a legendary designer would find a way of getting that across with only visual clues... But that takes some serious above and beyond talent to pull off correctly)

Plus whenever there's a new voice in any game I find people complaining. What's the matter? Do you not like the concept of talking? Does an audible language offend you?

God Damn You Bioware...

Ok, seriously, you need to stop doing that. It was fine the first time, we were all very impressed... it does not mean you should do it a second time...

Now you might be wondering what I'm talking about... Why? Aren't you psych yet? You... Eh... your just making my life harder.

Anyway.

I think everyone should know Mass Effect by now, right? Good game right? No arguments here. Dragon age? That was a good game too.

Bioware, there both good already... you don't need to make them the same godamn game.

Oh you think I didn't notice? This trend your starting to follow? I'm calling it now, Biowares games are going to slowly look more, play more, and seem more like Mass Effect. Why? Well thats easy, cause Mass Effect sells bitchs.

For a long time people have been fighting against, and accepting the concept that Pc gaming has been dieing. However both sides are only half right. PC gaming is not dieing, but pieces of it are... because it's changing, and has been for a long time now. Despite whatever contempt you have for them, the fact is games can sell really well on consoles. Certain games anyway. And people notice this, their drawn to it... there is no fighting it... They have to go where the big bucks are.

You know what sold really well on consoles? Mass Effect? You know what else did? Dragon Age, and everyone would agree that that was primarily a PC game. Now there have been some pretty nasty rumors going about, how Bioware might be cutting alot of PC features and basically making it a console port instead... If thats true... Well that's a sad day indeed...

But there's something else I wanted to bring up.

In Dragon Age 2 you follow the main character. Important to note this, not your character... but the main character.

....... FFFFFFF-

Basically Bioware have decided to follow the design decision they took with Mass Effect and apply it to Dragon Age, where you follow a premade characters. Now for an RPG this is great on the design floor... I mean, when you can have over 30 different types of characters (race, class, blah blah blah), that's alot of extra dialog you have to go through?

But when you only have one character to worry about? Wow, that's a load off your mind. This is not a decision I'm really behind.

Oh it's so easy to see why Bioware did it... But damn it... This isn't a book, or a film Bioware... This is a game... and games can do things books and films can't... and that's starring everyones own personal character. Why would you throw that away? It's something bold, something that truly marks games above other mediums.

I'm sure the story will be fine, you've proven your not completely stupid when it comes to that (Only sometimes), but this is not the path you should be walking down.

Didn't you say how J-RPG's were bad? And yet here you are, doing the exact same thing they did? The reason I liked western RPG's is because I could make any story I wanted!

Why would you throw that away?

Blizzard: Should I admire you? Or pity you?

An interesting thought hit me today.

I was going over some gamer news, alot of it never really applies to me but I like to know whats going on for when I jump back 'in', when I came across a story about a new blizzard game.

Now what got me thinking was this comment from this clearly cherry eyed youth (In spirit only perhaps) hoping that they come up with something new and innovative. Oh how I wanted to take this person away from this cruel cruel world so no one could hurt them.

Ok, I want you to really think about Blizzard for a moment, especially if your a fan, really think about the sort of games they've made. There is one thing you should notice about all of them, it's not something to be ashamed of... but it is the truth.

Blizzard has never come up with an original idea for a game. No, where blizzards success lies is in taking good games, and refining them to a crisp perfection (For those genres, wither you dislike them or not is not an issue here). There's nothing wrong about that, it's arguably harder to improve something that already exists then to create something (I don't believe that for a second, but that's just me).

It's at this point you should realise the problem Blizzard faces today....

They can never make a new game.

It's gonna be Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, or nothing.

This isn't a failing on their part, but it is a trap they unknowingly put themselves into. You need to look no further then the new starcraft game or the up and coming new diablo game... fundamentally nothing has changed... because they cannot afford to risk such a move.

Sometime ago I reviewed the new Command and Conquer and told you I had the utmost respect for the guys behind it. The series was running dry anyway, and so they took a gamble... A gamble that was, to some people, a slap in the face of all their old time fans. But at least they tried to do something, even if it was their last gasp in some respects.

Blizzard can't make this gamble, at least not yet. They've basically hit this point where all their doing, all they can do, is refining their old games... but how long will that last? Will someone speak up, and tell them that this time of bliss cannot possibly last unless they take a risk? Or will they all stay silent, and waste away like so many high mountains that came before them? Or worse yet, perhaps they will turn to stone... and only speak when you funnel money into their mouths...

Did you see the parody's of other stuff in Starcraft 2? Is it just some gamers giving elbow nudges to the past? Or a shriek into the wild that says "I don't know what else to add!"? When does parody became a lack of ideas?


I have this image of all the blizzard guys, riding the ship of dreams and success, and reaching their promised land of fame and fortune. It is a grand time, and the party shows no sign of stopping. But one member looks out the door, into the endless sea and asks "Hey... where did the boat go?"

Game Review: Duels of the Planeswalkers

Being a magic fan I feel i am both best and the most ill suited at reviewing this.... so were going to disregard that for a moment.... and instead...

As a yugioh fan I feel I am best suited to review this new card game for your pc or xbox.

The game focus on the card game Magic: The Gathering by giving you a number of decks you can play with and unlock. The idea is the more you play the more cards you unlock to add to the decks.

Now those of you who enjoy this game may want to turn away, as I am about to say some mean things that will distress you. Keep in mind though at £7 I don't feel too badly ripped off, and I still enjoy the game.... but it has certain problems.

First lets go over what's good about the game:

* Very good for new players of Magic to learn the rules
* A good place for veterans who no longer have time or money to carry on playing normally
* And it has online play

I am afraid that is it. Unless you are new to magic or you really just want a casual game with no strings attached, then this is not for you.

Now the main complaint people have against the game is the fact that you can not change the decks, which normally is part of the main point of a card game. While I see where their coming from, and note certain cards I would like to remove, I think this can be argued as actually something good.... because at least in this game everyone is on equal footing and you don't need to worry about people ruining the game and winning in like turn 1 or 2.

The lack of an actual storyline strikes me as more lazy then anything else, I know not every ones too interested in the actual settings of magic (I barely know much of it myself), but you could at least supply a deeper context to the duels rather then a short sentence or two.

Laziness actually seems to be one of the main things hurting the game, since you can instantly tell that the pc version is a straight rip of the xbox. Because of this the game actually demands a massive amount of processing power for its AI, while normally fine on an xbox, will actually hurt quite a few Pc's. It's also buggy as hell. One thing I noticed, it has these massive borders covering the top and bottom of the screen with some sparkly background turning in the center.... but I've noticed sometimes during loading the top border goes away and you can actually see the background is just like a round room spinning... that seems lazy and stupid to me.

But James? What about the challenge mode? Lots of people love that?

......





HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I'll not call those people stupid, as that seems unfair.... No I call them deluded because those 14 challenges were retarded. Basically your given a set up where you have to win in a turn, so it's a puzzle, the problem lies in the fact that some of the answers are... well... kinda stupid. For example I was having trouble with the last one cause I couldn't quite do enough damage with my spells, so in my usual trail and error method I just attacked with all my creatures off-handily.

I beat it.... Cause the Ai didn't bother blocking one of them.... What? Are you kidding me? You beat that puzzle cause your enemy is retarded? ERRRRRR.

Overall they were simple, sort of.... take some time but easy to do puzzles.

Now you may be wondering why I mentioned yugioh a little while ago, and that is because they already made a game like this magic one awhile ago... its gone through some changes but is largely the same now.

It basically does everything this game does, but 100 times better.

Off the bat you get over 2000 cards you can unlock and use to make your own deck, any deck you want, it has opponents of pure ball crushing pain to test your deck, the Ai is so simple and yet comes off as an actual asshole and not just a machine, and has hundreds of puzzles and challenges that will make you cry. Finally its just a gameboy/Ds game, so you can play it anywhere.

I mean.... wtf? Duels of the Planeswalkers is by no means a failure.... it's just an embarrassment. Magic would like to get back to the days of lots of young people buying their product, but I think those days are largely past and I believe magic will always be a niche product.... frankly I think that's better. Instead of trying to grow, Magic should just try and keep a firm foot on it's current audience.... Cause in the entertainment market if you relie to much on a massive audience your actually setting yourself up for a fall.... a fall caused by your customers pushing you out of the way to get to the next big thing.

I find it deeply amusing, cause Magic players are usually considered mature, so you'd think smarter... but Yugioh players will laugh at you if you buy this game.

Luckily I don't know any so I dodged that bullet.

Crazy Crazy Crazy

I need more things to make fun of....

No, actually there's plenty of stuff to make fun of... what I need is the motivation to do it. God how lazy am I?

Steam

Now I wasn't too sure of steam at first, like most of the pc crowed I'm sort allergic to installing anything foreign onto my computer. But as steam went into its Christmas sale I became a follower solely because I am a cheap bastard.

But today I saw something weird. Steam was actually selling strategy guides...

HAHAHAHHAHAHA




HAHAHAHAHAHAHA



.... What?

Are you serious? This seems like something that will be solely marketed at stupid people. I mean I can understand why someone would buy a strategy guide from a shop.... I mean it's a physical book that tells you how to complete a game cause your too much of a puss- Ahaha.... No... No I've never understood why you would buy a strategy guide. Not that I'm saying I've never needed help with a game, or was just too lazy to work some things out.... But that's what the Internet is for.... free things.

I can only imagine what was going through the heads of the people behind these digital strategy guides.

"So..... Money right? We could use some?"
"Why don't we try the Internet? There's lots of money on there right?
"Dar durp durp"

This might have been a good idea say.... 20 years ago... But seriously? Wow, that takes some series ignorance to think that'll come away with any kind of profit.

Anime

Also today I went on a little quest to find the worst anime ever shown. Turns out it's not easy because you have to have a pretty strict requirements, for example if there aimed at children then you can't fault them too much for being silly.

I got to thinking about this after reading about a certain anime which is regarded by anime fans (Remember these people are capable of watching some of the most bizarre crap ever) as the worst thing ever. Of course I watched it to see if it’s true.

I think it’s a little unfair to say it’s the worst anime ever. Don’t get me wrong however, it is terrible. More than once I laughed out loud and just said to myself “what the f***?”. But the reason I’m not quick to declare it the worst anime ever is because it is simply a 1 episode OVA. For those of you who don’t know OVA’s are like little projects of anime, the longest ranging to like 6 episodes. So immediately you know this piece of trash has a low budget with no aspirations of achieving anything.

To give you an idea the OVA is called Mars of Destruction, it is only 20 mins long but it attempts to go through an introduction, two action scenes, basic character development all leading up to a big plot twist. The story is basically the bed rock for a couple of anime’s actually, just stripped of everything that could be good, and there’s a dark humour in there.... basically saying that alot of anime is not far away from being just this.

I think the worst anime ever basically has to cause you to die violently.


Anime (Again)

Me and my friends have now watched 160 episodes of Yugioh and while we have gained a profound tolerance to brain rot, I think cracks are beginning to show. I would not be surprised if one of us died at the end of this ordeal.


Games

Been trying to record myself playing through some games. So far my only successful attempt has been the first clock tower game, although I have yet to add all the videos to the Internet. One of the reasons I'm falling behind with that is because of lazyness, but there's actually two other legitimate problems.

One is the fact that I'm using fraps and that takes up a f*** ton of space on my little laptop, so I can only have so many videos at a time. The other reason is that there are simply too many games in this world. See I've found that when I'm spoilt for chose I tend to snap and not do anything, more then once I've bought a pile of games and only actually played one of them. If it's a new game I usually finish it, which is odd.... cause on the one hand I miss certain games from the past.... but on the other it's easy to notice how far we've come and just how... easy it is now to just sit back and have fun without alot of the hassle.

It's not that I don't like or can't play any old games.... it's just sometimes I'm really not bothered to deal with it's poor controls or terrible graphics. As much as I hate to admit it, I have trouble playing old games that have bad graphics... Its just... I can't go back to those days.

Anime (Yes Again)

I'm considering doing another let's watch series. Mostly because I do enjoy doing them and there not really that hard to set up. I mean anyone can do it (If you have a good sense of humor like me). Of course the only drawback of doing this is the fact I won't be able to cover any other airing series.... cause they all suck.

It's just a much better experience if I'm actually enjoying the series I'm gonna make fun of.

TV

Do you watch Dr.Who? Of course I watch it, don't be absurd. It's a great and fun series. But whenever I'm watching it there's this little nagging voice at the back of my head.

Where is the villain?

This isn't a new problem for Dr.Who, the whole show is basically one big monster of the week. But with this new series I keep thinking like there really should be some sort of big bad guy... Someone who slaps the Doctor around every once and awhile. Cause the trouble is this new Doctor seriously doesn't have anyone to contend with.

The daleks are as terrifying as always, but there pretty much the big monster of the series.... there not really suited for going toe to toe against the Doctor at his own game.

The master has always been a good candidate for this role, but I doubt we'll be seeing him again anytime soon. His story's still to fresh you see, need put it away and let it simmer.

The current problem with the Doctor is that he appears to be his own villain, which is a bit too overdramtic. The focus of the series lately seems to be about the Doctors roguish and frankly selfish nature catching up with him. And don't say he's not cause he totally is, its one of the reasons we like him. It's interesting cause the doctor seems to be totally addicted to facing dangerous problems, which he wasn't always... Back in the day when he was older he loved a good challenge but took a calm pace about it (sometimes), these days he's pinging off the walls for adventure (Which makes sense, cause he physically grows younger, so why not mentally as well?).

What a Doctor needs is a problem he can't solve.... because someone is stopping him.... I really feel like that's the only thing missing from the show at the moment.