Dark Souls II

The Dark Souls II trailer is out now. The game is evidently set in a different world (universe?) at a different time. As far as one can tell, the new game is totally unrelated to Dark Souls. So, really, it's more of a spiritual successor (a la Demon's Souls -> Dark Souls) than a proper sequel. Sort of like Final Fantasy (sans the weird true-sequels like FFX-2).

That said, I'm really excited for a new Souls game. I skipped Demon's Souls and my backlog is so large it's unlikely I'll ever get back around to it. A new game with Dark Souls' focus on dog-eat-dog multiplayer and brutal difficulty is something many players are really looking forward to.

I'm starting to wonder what system(s) Dark Souls II will be released on. PC, hopefully, but if this game is one year or more out in the future, there seems to be a chance it could also ship as a launch title for a next-generation console such as the successor to the Xbox 360.

Planetside 2

Having spent a little bench time behind Planetside 2, I can now report some observations. First, it plays very similarly to the original Planetside. This is a very, very good thing. Controls are snappy, gunplay is satisfying, and the graphics are pleasant. It doesn't look or feel like a typical F2P title.

My first questions when approaching an F2P title are: what can I purchase, what do I need to purchase, and how much does it cost? Well, you can purchase improved equipment and weapons at your leisure. Most of them cost between $2 and $8 or so. Interestingly, you can purchase every item using in-game earned currency. You don't have to spend real money unless you simply want to acquire something more quickly (i.e. without earning it). The single greatest feature of the shop in Planetside 2 is the try-before-you-buy option. That's right, you can rent a purchasable item for 30 minutes before making a decision to purchase.

That said, I haven't yet found the need to purchase anything new. After about 15 minutes of play I caught on to the feel of the game engine enough that most players were little challenge to beat. Of course, Planetside 2 just came out. It's really new to a lot of players. I have a slight advantage in being a Planetside veteran and a heavy FPS gamer. Who knows, maybe I'll take a few weapons for the 30 minute test drive to see if any items are really worth spending money on. I think the game is still too new for the actual, relative value of items in the shop to have really settled out. Players generally spend a month or two exploring all a game has to offer before standing value is solidly established.

Did You Really Enjoy Half-Life?

I never really finished Half-Life when it came out in 1998. I'm not sure why, but I grew bored around the Blast Pit and stopped playing the single-player campaign. It just wasn't doing it for me.

So what made Half-Life so popular? Why is it widely known to be so good? It has an honest, solid, single-player campaign. It's marginally innovative, has a decent (though confusing and irreconcilable) story, and the physics engine is solid. The AI is certainly impressive, particularly given the release date in 1998.

These points make a respectable and highly successful game, but they don't make a blowout like Half-Life turned out to be.

My theory is that community mods made Half-Life. Action Half-Life, Science and Industry, Day of Defeat, Frontline Force, and of course Team Fortress Classic were, at the time, prime selling points for the game. I personally bought Half-Life because I wanted to play TFC, after all. Half-Life was just an add-on in my teen eyes.

After playing TFC competitively in a clan for over a year, I learned about Counter-Strike. It was in beta at the time, but you could tell it was going to be something special. As soon as 2000 rolled around and Valve started assisting with Counter-Strike development, the mod took off like a rocket. Today it's still one of the most popular multiplayer shooters out there. Gamers play it over Counter-Strike: Source, even.

Sure, Half-Life is a solid game in its own right. But it wouldn't have been a real blockbuster without its community mods. There's really something to be said for providing APIs and modding tools to your customers.

PlanetSide 2 Release

Back in 2003 Sony Online Entertainment released a uniquely interesting massively multiplayer online role-playing first person shooter known as PlanetSide. A couple of friends and I played for a few months. I think it was my first MMO, and I didn't even have a credit card. We payed with those pre-paid game time cards you could buy in a store.

What stands out most about PlanetSide is the sheer scale. The worlds are huge, the warring teams are massive, and the scale of the constant planetary war is awesome. On top of that, the game is simply fun. It's a shooter to the core, and you can shape and grow your character as you choose. It's a bit of an RPG in that respect; you earn experience and spend it on skills and abilities.

Astonishingly, PlanetSide is still active today. You can download and play it, though there's still a monthly fee.

A few years ago PlanetSide 2 was announced, but I never expected to actually see it come out. MMOs don't seem to be Sony's deal anymore. Let's face it, the days of Everquest are long gone. Not to mention the fact that an MMOFPS has limited appeal.

Interestingly, it's not necessarily a bad thing to sell a product with limited appeal. Just look at EVE. It may only have 400,000 subscribers but they are fiercely loyal and stick with the game for a very, very, long time.

Anyway, PlanetSide 2 sneaked up on me. It came out today, and I'm pleasantly surprised. I have numerous misgivings about it being free to play, but I'll give it a shot. Stay tuned.

Weekly Report - 11/23/2012

This report is sort of a two-weeker; since this week is a holiday and whatnot. Some progress in Half-Life these past two weekends, but next to nothing was accomplished during the weeks. It's been a bad month.

Following a bout of real-life paintball last weekend, the group gathered for some DayZ. After spawning in disparate parts of Charnarus we spent roughly two hours merely to meet up in-game. Fortunately we all have a respectable sense of direction so we did eventually find each other. The most amazing part of our DayZ experience is the amount of items and equipment we found. After about three hours of raiding everyone had full inventories and backpacks - one of us even had a full ALICE pack. Very few other players were online, however, so we called it a night. I have to say the DayZ experience is undoubtedly superior when playing with friends. There's simply no contest.

After DayZ we pulled up Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. We always start playing gravity gun-only for hilarious, toilet-throwing fun, but someone always picks up the bolt thrower or RPG and suddenly it's an all-out free for all. This match lasted almost two hours and ended well into the early hours of the morning. If you haven't played HL2DM, I highly recommend it (with friends).

Retail or Digital Download?

Reports of the second disc in the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 PC retail package actually containing data from Mass Effect 2 got me thinking about distributing games via retail versus digital download.

It seems certain owners of the Black Ops 2 PC retail package cannot install the game from disc. Once the installer prompts for disc 2, their PC reports that disc 2 is instead minted with the Mass Effect 2 installer.

It is more likely the real Mass Effect 2 installer a few years ago erroneously triggered Windows to mark its installation package file types as ME2-specific file types and these BO2 users are running into just that: a BO2 disc in actuality, but Windows thinks it's ME2 due to some error in the registry caused long ago.

In the event the discs actually are mixed up, someone, not at Treyarch or Activision or Electronic Arts, but at the manufacturing plant responsible for minting the discs has made a huge mistake. If this is the case, I feel real sorry for the users who received a copy of the game with this error. Retail stores won't take it back, because the package is already open (even though you have to open the package to read the license agreement which,  if you disagree with it, you yet again cannot return the product to the store). Their only hope is a 6-8 week turnaround from the game publisher. I bet the consumer will have to pay shipping, too.

I generally buy retail so I have a physical copy of the game I can keep in case the digital distributor later goes out of business or pulls the game and I can never re-download a copy. But if the game must be activated online upon installation anyway, there's little point in buying retail unless you just don't have the bandwidth to download a 15GB game.

Weekly Report - 11/09/2012

Another very light week for gaming. At least I finished Arma 2 and Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead. The final mission of Arma 2 is an absolute bear; I think it took me over four hours to complete.

Arrowhead, on the other hand, was shorter - the whole game - than the final mission of Arma 2 alone! I finished the game in less than three hours. The only improvement I could find over Arma 2 is the addition of the apache chopper. Flying is great fun, but it's pretty challenging too. I recommend a joystick for flight.

After Arma I played a round of one of my favorite games ever - Left 4 Dead 2 - and decided to look through my backloggery for an unbeaten title to tackle. Turns out it's time to finally beat Half-Life.

Questioning the Industry

One perk of working at a college is the constant stream of speakers, presenters, and authors who visit campus. Occasionally they'll bring in someone interesting. Today I sat through an hour-long presentation from a former Electronic Arts game producer.

Turns out he didn't work on massive, AAA titles but I did recognize some of his work. The talk, as you might expect, was focused at instructing college students what sort of skills and technologies they would need  to be familiar with in order to get into the game development industry: C++, Lua, Python, and XML to name a few.

The most interesting - and disheartening - portion of his talk was about where the industry is heading. Most indications point toward Free to Play (F2P) as the future of gaming. I've never been keen on DLC, where publishers (not even necessarily the developers!) try to eke more cash out of consumers for a paltry amount of extra content. I'm even less keen on F2P titles where publishers literally nickel and dime gamers until outright fatigue sets in.

F2P encourages casual, pick-up-and-play gaming. It also encourages hurry-up-and-drop-it gaming because the content seriously wants for depth. There aren't any story-driven F2P games as far as I'm aware, and that's the sort of game I like to play most.

F2P titles where you buy items, upgrades, and equipment in order to gain a competitive advantage (Pay to Win or P2W) is another story altogether.

This alarming trend toward the casual and mainstream really got to me. It might soon be time to go back to playing cards. People don't play cards as much as they used to.

P.S. Bonus reading on Free to Play methodology

DayZ Wishlist

I probably shouldn't do this, just in case I ever wanted to make a massively multiplayer zombie apocalypse survival game. But seeing as that's rather unlikely, here's my wishlist for features in DayZ (or a DayZ-like game).

• Character skills. Characters should, over time or through practice, improve in some measurable way. Examples include marksmanship, stamina, speed, etc. Since characters are apt to die and lose all progress, the benefits of advancing through the skill system should be attainable a la Enemy Territory.
• Players should be able to train dogs for hunting, tracking, and other purposes. Dogs could be really interesting for tracking other players.
• More quiet weapons. Crossbows are good, but we need longbows and melee weapons too.
• More lights. It's impossibly dark at night. Sure, it's a pass at realism, but it's not a fun way to play.
• A party system.
• Some way to tell one player from another. It's hard to report cheaters when you have no idea who just clipped through the wall and killed you with a hunting knife for your can of pork and beans.
• Manufacturing. Seriously, there are abandoned factories all over the place. How awesome would it be to skill up and create your own ammunition, tools, fuel, and food?
• Bug fixes. That is all.

As it stands, the game is really hurting for lasting value and reasons to keep playing. I think some character building would fit the bill rather well. There need to be some goals or the game will end up a passing fad, at best.

Weekly Report - 11/01/2012

It's been an outright wash this week. I haven't even turned on my gaming PC since last weekend!

That said, I did make some progress in Arma 2. I have made it roughly halfway through the final mission which requires you, apparently, to conquer every single village in Chernarus. Charnarus is 225 square kilometers of foothills, forests, dirt roads, villages, factories, and a few larger towns. Fortunately you have access to a variety of vehicles and multiple squads of AI infantry and armor to assist.

In between bouts of Arma 2 I started to rebuild my ice HCE Embermage in Torchlight 2. The previous one was one-shotted through a wall by an unseen champion monster. This time around I'll be ignoring Dexterity and putting all attribute points into Focus and Vitality; I'm skeptical of the pitiful dodge rate granted by a handful of Dexterity points. I think it might also help to wield a one-handed wand instead of a two-handed staff so I can carry a shield. It's worth thinking about.

In Which Surviving Humans Are Worse Than Zombies

Now that I've spent about a week playing DayZ I feel comfortable enough with it to publish a few observations. Here are my conclusions thus far:

• DayZ is fun when played with friends, okay solo, and downright evil with strangers.
• This isn't really a game so much as it is a toy. There is no "win" objective or competitive goal. It's even less directed than EVE.

My first character stumbled through dozens of empty houses, sneaking around and trying to evade zombies all the while. Eventually I located an open barn which contained a number of canned food and soda items to quench my hunger and thirst. In the loft I located my first weapon: a Lee Enfield rifle with three full magazines. Awesome!

I shot a few zombies to see how the gunplay works. It's fun, but guns are loud and attract attention. I expected zombies to show up and investigate the noise - and they did - but so did other players.

Over the radio I heard some chatter about a group of guys driving around in a "party bus." They sounded friendly, so I tracked down the bus by following its engine noise and approached cautiously. Unfortunately they were being tracked by a sniper in a ghillie suit. This uncouth player shot one of the party-goers and stole his ATV. At the time I was hidden in the bushes less than 100 meters away from the murderer, so I gritted my teeth and aimed down my sights at him. I opened fire and put two shots in the killer's head. His body spouted blood and went down like a sack of bricks, then disappeared as if by magic. It seems the player logged off suddenly. I retreated deep into the woods to dodge the impending zombie investigation.

About two minutes later the "dead" player suddenly appeared again, right in front of my view. He shot me twice before I could react and my character fell down, dead.

I don't know his lame loggofski exploit so I had to start a new character. Anyway, this should tell you the number one rule of DayZ if nothing else: trust nothing. Don't trust other players, don't trust the game's feedback, and by golly confirm your kills.

Weekly Report - 10/26/2012

I spent most of last weekend playing Torchlight 2 on HCE with some friends. We started over with fresh characters (see my latest build) in Act 1. Everyone died along the way - some of us more than others - but a good time was had and we made progress. We were most of the way through the Frost Hills area when my Embermage succumbed and, it being Sunday evening, we called it quits for the weekend. I hope to rebuild the character with a few changes for our next multiplayer romp.

Throughout the week I focused on Arma 2, which I'm enjoying rather more than I expected. I haven't even played much DayZ due to having so much interest in the core game so far. That said, the game certainly has a number of technical issues. Hopefully Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead resolves some of these issues. I haven't played multiplayer yet, but I suspect that's where the game will really shine.

Eyes Peeled

I've experienced enough of Arma 2 to share a few conclusions I've reached about the game and, perhaps, the world in general.

There are three NPC soldiers in this shot. Can you spot them all?

It's really hard to see people out in the field. I work in an office environment where I normally encounter other humans at a maximum distance of five meters. In Arma 2, they may start shooting at you from 500 meters away - and that's not even counting designated marksmen (snipers), mobile armor units, or static equipment like artillery.

Believe it or not, all three NPCs are less than 70 meters away.

That said, the realism is one of Arma 2's most appealing factors. I actually enjoy the challenge of tagging targets in the wilderness before they spot me. It reminds me of playing paintball in the woods, only at super-exaggerated range.

Anyway, I leave you with this piece of advice: keep your eyes peeled.

Eyes on!

Torchlight 2 Embermage Build for Elite Hardcore - WIP

This is an ice-based Embermage for Elite Hardcore mode. This build is challenging early on, but it really begins to shine above level 10 with the Hailstorm skill - especially when you have some Engineer friends using Overload for extra damage against stunned enemies.

Here's the build: every level, assign three focus and two vitality. I chose three focus, one dexterity, and one vitality the first time I built this character, but it didn't work out. The paltry dodge chance you get from the dexterity investment just isn't worth it; the Embermage is highly susceptible to being one-shotted and you can't risk it hoping for a lucky dodge.

Embermage Eldritch - level 18

I chose ice for crowd control and damage reasons. Many of the ice skills freeze, immobilize, stun, or reduce enemies' elemental damage resists which serve to make your attacks even more powerful. Start by recovering your single Magma Spear point and spend it on Icy Blast. Spend your next three points on Charge Mastery, Staff Mastery, and Prismatic Rift. Once this is done, start leveling Charge Mastery and Icy Blast up to five. When you reach level seven, skill up Hailstorm to five and put one point in Frozen Fate. At level 14, put one point into Frost Phase - this is your bug-out skill - and begin leveling Frost Brand, and Hailstorm to 10. Once Ice Wave is available level it along with Hailstorm and Frost Brand to 15. You can then branch out and take higher Charge Mastery or whatever other skills you want now that you have the core ice Embermage build.

The major disadvantage to this build is survivability. It is in grave danger of being one-shotted, so look for gear that increases your health and decreases damage (e.g. Eye of Grell). I played this build along with a poison Outcast and a tanky Engineer with great success until a champion monster one-shotted me through a wall right before Chillhoof. However, I built with a mix of focus, dexterity, and vitality so I need to rebuild again with focus and vitality only.

Weekly Report - 10/19/2012

It's been a week since I beat Torchlight 2 and while I haven't stopped playing it altogether, I have definitely slowed down. I'd like to reserve my remaining interest in the game for playing with friends (if we could ever arrange to be available at the same time). That said, it's entirely possible my interest will spark again and I'll try out an embermage or berserker in HCE. Who knows?

I eventually caved and purchased Arma 2 late this week. I've only played the first two missions but I can already report it's a fun game. The multiplayer components look even more entertaining; Shack Tactical in particular looks like a blast.

Since I bought Arma 2 primarily to play DayZ it should be no surprise that I downloaded it on my first day with the game. How is it? Well, it's something else. Stay tuned for further details, but for now I'll say this: it's a jungle out there.

Head Tracking in Arma 2

Having just purchased Arma 2, but unable to play it during the 15GB download, I started browsing the web for some tips and tricks regarding the control scheme of this exceedingly complex game.

I'm not a fan of gimmicky motion tracking and alternative methods of player input. However, what I found in terms of motion tracking for Arma 2 is actually quite interesting. The TrackIR 5 from NaturalPoint is a piece of hardware which clips on to your monitor and tracks your real-life head movements to adjust your in-game character's view accordingly.

The TrackIR 5 tracks your head movements

The TrackIR 5 apparently taps into the game's free look control scheme and allows you to move your character's head without moving your character's body. That means you can look back over your shoulder while holding your weapon toward the enemy. I can imagine a number of uses for this in a complex, realistic military simulation such as Arma 2. Imagine being able to look around dynamically while running and gunning, or while driving a truck or flying a chopper.

The TrackIR 5 features excellent support for Arma 2 as well as a number of flight sims and racing games. The cost is a bit inaccessible at $150, but the link above offers a $5 discount.

Eye of Grell Farming in Torchlight 2

The Eye of Grell is an interesting socketable item I found during my third or fourth time through the Grell boss at the bottom of the Wellspring Temple dungeon. This is one item well worth farming. Why do you want this item? It offers a +3% critical hit chance when socketed to a weapon, but that's not particularly amazing. The proper use for Eye of Grell is in armor and trinkets, where it offers a 3% reduction to all damage taken. This is a literal life saver in HCE, especially when you use multiple eyes together. The game caps you at 75% damage reduction, but that's a lot of eyes. How do you farm them all?

1. Re-roll your world in a LAN or Internet game.
2. Warp to the Temple Steppes in Act 1.
3. Run to the Wellspring Temple. It's always located on the edge of the Temple Steppes map. I usually find it to the southeast of the entrance to the area. It's typically - but not always - located near Skull Hollow.
4. Enter the Wellspring Temple and blitz through the top two floors until you reach General Grell. Depending on your level it may not be worth killing any enemies. I usually stop only to kill Elites so I can pick up their Fame.
5. Defeat General Grell and hope he drops the Eye of Grell. Place it in your shared stash and repeat from step 1. Note: the non-hardcore shared stash is different from the hardcore shared stash. Make sure you farm as a hardcore character if you intend to use the eyes in hardcore.

General Grell

The game seems to drop the Eye of Grell roughly 20% of the time, so it's well worth farming for a few hours.  Equip some magic find gear to improve your chances (fortunately, Grell frequently drops a 9% magic find helmet). The amount of defense your character will gain by stacking 10+ eyes is phenomenal and it makes HCE much more survivable.

Weekly Report - 10/12/2012

In between long hours of Elite Hardcore sessions in Torchlight 2 this week I finally squeezed my Normal Engineer through the game, so I can at least consider it beaten.

Riff died at level 31 last night. She was smashing through an infinitely spawning horde of sand rats when a vile gnasher showed up. Suddenly the two dozen sand rat corpses became vile gnashers and Riff was literally surrounded and couldn't physically remove herself from the situation. It was an atrocious set of circumstances.

Kya still lives at level 19, but she's a terrible build and I don't think I'll play her much anymore. I may push forward recklessly just to see how far she can make it.

I started Riff II last night with a new build; more details on that soon.

There has been no progress on Dark Souls this week. I'm still standing outside New Londo, ready to battle the Four Kings boss.

I've been extremely tempted to purchase Arma 2 and download the DayZ mod this week. I'm spending so much time on other things right now, though, that I might be able to wait for the standalone DayZ game.

Torchlight 2 Builds for Elite Hardcore - Update

Riff is now level 31 and going strong. This is my first foray into Act 2 in Elite Hardcore, so I'm taking it slow and cautious. As planned, I started adding 1 Strength, 1 Vitality, and 3 Focus per level after 20. As a result Riff deals a ton of fire damage thanks to Flame Hammer, Seismic Slam, and my greathammer which happens to deal roughly 50% of its attack as fire damage (unique drop from the Manticore boss in Act 2).

One thing to note about Act 2: floor traps are much more deadly than anything else you might encounter. Avoid them at all costs.

Kya is stagnant at level 19. I don't think she's gonna make it. In fact, I cannot recommend her build at all. If I try another Outlander, it will likely be a glaive-throwing focus build with high poison damage output and high damage resist equipment.

DayZ of EVE

Disclaimer: I haven't had an opportunity to play DayZ first-hand yet.

DayZ places players in a massive, open map filled with the walking dead. Other hazards - including fellow players - are sure to appear along the way. Other players are likely to represent the biggest threat. Once you learn to protect yourself from the AI undead, how do you protect yourself from living, thinking humans?

The freedom and extreme potential for total, absolute loss is surely a big draw for EVE players. A few days after coming to this realization, I ran across an article in an issue of Game Informer in which DayZ creator Dean Hall is interviewed. His goal is to make a standalone DayZ game - preferably an MMO - and model the game and supporting business around CCP's EVE Online.

Why EVE? It's a perfectly viable niche game with a ridiculously loyal subscriber base. DayZ likely hopes to fulfill a similar niche market. EVE may not be as staggeringly popular as World of Warcraft, but EVE players are almost unilaterally more dedicated and tend to stick around longer. Besides, there are obvious similarities between EVE and DayZ: both offer a wide-open world with myriad opportunities to create - and destroy - value. In both games, the content is player-driven. Players create the experience rather than click through scripted events.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while. Of course, I should have jumped on it sooner. Immediately upon beginning this post I found at least one other article covering the topic.

Did I mention Dean Hall intends to release a standalone version of DayZ as soon as possible?

Weekly Report - 10/05/2012

This was a light week for gaming. I spent the entire weekend outdoors followed by a week full of birthday dinners and around-the-house chores. That said, some progress was made after all.

In Dark Souls I'm about to face down the Four Kings in New Game Plus. Last time I ended up fighting five four kings, so who knows what I'll run into? After that I'll try to crash through the rest of the game more quickly; I've really lost steam on this title over the past two weeks thanks to Torchlight 2.

Speaking of Torchlight 2, I became so frustrated with Kya, my Elite Hardcore Outlander, that I quit playing her and created a new Elite Hardcore Engineer, Riff. It's going so much easier this time around; I've spent less than half the amount of time as I did on Kya and I've already passed her in the game. I'm eager to reach Act II in Elite Hardcore for the first time.

I haven't played much multiplayer Torchlight 2, but I'd really like to. A Hardcore group run could be fun, though time-consuming and dangerous (I'm loathe to leave a friend behind).

Torchlight 2 Engineer Build for Elite Hardcore - WIP

In my ongoing experimentation with Torchlight 2, here is another work-in-progress Elite Hardcore build - this time for the Engineer. The first thing I'll say is that this probably isn't the safest Engineer build. He uses a two-handed weapon and attempts to balance tank and gank. If you want to play it safe then go for a one-handed weapon and shield with high vitality and tank skills.

Engineer Riff, Level 17 on Elite Hardcore

So here we are; up to level 20 or so I have kept Strength and Vitality as even as possible. Use enchanted gear if you need in order to buff these stats as high as possible. Once I hit level 20 I'll start putting points in Focus to improve skills like Flame Hammer.

Skill-wise I'm focusing on Flame Hammer, Seismic Slam, Heavy Lifting, Healing Bot, Bulwark, Forcefield, Aegis Shield, and Charge Reconstitution.

How's it going so far? Incredibly well. This build is so much easier to play than my Outlander it's ridiculous. I'm 3 hours and 45 minutes in and I've caught up with my Outlander (8 hours and 21 minutes) in the Frosted Hills. I begin to wonder if my Outlander is a poor build or if the class itself is just more challenging. Where the Engineer can simply run into a crowd and mow them down, the Outlander must skirt the crowd and kite every single enemy out while slowly dwindling their health away.

Weekly Report - 09/28/2012

This week was a short one for Dark Souls. I'm roughly halfway through a New Game Plus run, but I've been distracted by other things IRL and game-wise.

Torchlight 2 is obviously taking up a lot of my free time. I have a Normal Engineer smashing his way two-handed through Act 2 (level 26) and an Elite Hardcore Outlander carefully picking her battles through Act 1 (level 19). Most of my time - by far - has been spent on the Outlander. I'm finding Elite Hardcore much more fun than Normal, even though you need to take your time and progress more slowly. I haven't died yet but I know it's coming.

So there have been a lot of Torchlight 2 posts this week. The game is popular right now and it's liable to be my focus for a while, but I won't forget to include other topics here and there (e.g. Dead Island: Riptide). I also have a few words to say about some interesting gaming news I read recently regarding EVE Online, DayZ, and  Starcraft 2.

That said, I'm still looking forward to spending more time in Torchlight 2. I'd like to build up a few more Elite Hardcore builds and share them depending on how they pan out.

Torchlight 2 Sub-20 Farming

As I've mentioned before, farming is extremely important in Elite Hardcore. Take your time, level up, and loot some new gear. I try to stay roughly 4-5 levels higher than the enemies in the area, especially if I'm exploring a new region or proceeding farther than I've been before.

In light of this, I've become intimately familiar with some Act I farming areas for the sub-20 character. First, carefully proceed forward until you reach the Temple Steppes. Clear this area - completely - until you reach level 10 or so. Remember you can re-roll your world. It's a wide open area so you should be relatively safe even though the enemies will quickly reach level 8 and may really test your character.

Your next stop is located somewhere in the Temple Steps. Look for the graveyard area and find the Shady Character. He's a weird dude standing in the graveyard and offers a quest. What you want to do is open the locked gate and enter the Bone Hall. This area has a high concentration of enemies and is a great area to quickly build XP. The Mordrax boss is in here, too, at the bottom of the second floor. He's pretty easy if you kite him around the well in the center of his room. I handled him easily by using Bane Breath to convert the weak skeletons he summons into shadowlings. Be aware Mordrax respawns when you re-roll, even if you've beaten him before. Farm this place until level 15-16.

The Bone Hall

The next place you want to farm is in the area immediately preceding the Frosted Hills. Look for an NPC offering a quest slightly off the beaten path. She's next to a cave called the Widows Veil. This cave contains a lot of spiders, so equip against ice and poison damage. The end of the cave features a wimpy spider boss which is little more than a run of the mill champion monster.

The Widows Veil

Farm the Veil until you reach level 20. By then it should be safe to move into the Frosted Hills and progress the story.

Dead Island: Riptide Trailer

Dead Island: Riptide Steelbook case

Techland's followup to the 2011 hit Dead Island is a something a lot of gamers are looking forward to. It promises revamped physics for easier head-stomping, sharper controls, and clearer graphics - all very welcome improvements.

The Dead Island: Riptide trailer was released recently, go take a look. Like last time, the trailer is very produced and doesn't include any actual gameplay. No new gameplay features are displayed or discussed, nor does the trailer feature any of the main Dead Island characters, a decision I question at this point. Still, it's an interesting trailer for all the same reasons as the original Dead Island trailer: it's well produced and tells a clear, however short, story.

I think Dead Island was a sleeper hit, with many gamers finding it "better than expected." Riptide, as a result, is likely to be held to much higher standards upon release. Let's hope Techland rises to the challenge.

Torchlight 2 Outlander Build for Elite Hardcore - WIP

Update: I can't recommend this build above Normal difficulty. It requires so much kiting on Elite Hardcore that it completely bored me out of the character. This build could be viable, however, if you put attribute points into focus instead of strength, then put a few more skill points into poison-based attack skills. The shadowling allies are still pretty useful in this modified build, so don't sacrifice them too much.

Let me begin by emphasizing this build is a work in progress. I have no idea if I'll be able to recommend this build 10 levels from now, let alone at the end of the game. I also don't know if this character will survive long enough to make a reasonable judgement call evaluating the build.

This is my first shot at an Outlander in Elite Hardcore mode. It's based on akimbo ranged weapons with an emphasis on battlefield control, minion summoning, and lots of running away (i.e. poor man's battlefield control).

Level 17 Outlander on Elite Hardcore

Meet Kya. For levels 1 - 13 she put three points in Strength, one point in Dexterity, and one point in Vitality. By then I became so fed up with the character's poor DPS that I started pumping all five points into Strength. I intend to settle back into a Strength/Vitality distribution again by level 20 or so.

On the Warfare skill tree I have six skill points in Long Range Mastery and one in Akimbo (soon to be more).

On the Lore skill tree I put one point in Dodge Mastery (soon to be more) and Poison Burst in addition to the point you're given in Glaive Throw. A word on Glaive Throw: I use it a lot. It's one of my primary attacks but I don't see much point in leveling it up because its damage only scales with your character, not the amount of skill points you assign to it.

On the Sigil skill tree I put one point in Shadow Shot, three in Bane Breath, one in Master of the Elements, five in Shadowling Ammo, and one in Death Ritual. This is the most important tree for this particular build. Shadow Shot isn't what I expected, so I don't think I'll level it anymore (I would respec that point if I could, but it was too long ago). Bane Breath is great against crowds of weaker enemies; it basically won the General Grell battle for me. Shadowling Ammo is really powerful when it works. Adding skill points increases your chances of getting a shadowling bat ally, but they don't become stronger unless you level Death Ritual too. Both are a must for this build.

Overall I'm still on the low side DPS-wise but steadily improving. I think I'll find a proper balance within the next few levels. The first 10 levels or so were really challenging and I came uncomfortably close to death multiple times. Since then, however, the character has improved dramatically.

One final tip: make sure you take time to farm and build up your character. It's a life saver.

Torchlight 2 Elite Hardcore Tip

Astute Torchlight players understand the importance of leveling up your character and collecting better equipment throughout the game. Unfortunately, Torchlight 2 has removed the concept of map scrolls so there is no way to play bonus dungeons or fresh maps full of enemies to farm.

Fortunately, it is possible to re-play content in Torchlight 2. Load up your character and choose a LAN (or Internet) game and check the Reroll World checkbox.

Reroll your world to respawn maps and enemies

Your character's world will be reset and randomized (with respawned enemies of course) so you can farm any area over and over to your heart's content. This permits you to increase your character's abilities and while finding new equipment without having to constantly push forward into increasingly dangerous higher-level areas. Of course, you don't want to farm in Act 1 forever... eventually you need to move on, but you will do so in a much stronger position, particularly if you chose a class which doesn't really kick into full throttle until level 20 or so (e.g. Outlander).

Weekly Report - 09/21/2012

This is a busy one.

Last weekend three of my friends and I got together for our first in-person Battlefield 3 LAN. It's incredibly fun with a full, four-player squad of sane, communicating, non-troll humans. I think it was one of the best BF3 sessions I've had in my 61+ hour multiplayer career. What's amazing is that I quit playing the game about six months ago because I had earned a service star in every class and had no interesting weapons left to unlock. I really look forward to playing this with friends again - it was awesome (our group has a boss helicopter pilot by the way).

I also made tons of Dark Souls progress. In fact, I beat the game on Monday and moved on to New Game Plus (it's going much faster this time around - I'm already in Anor Londo). I need a handful more items and a second copy of every boss soul to clean up some achievements, but I'm also really interested in starting from scratch with a completely different type of character. The game definitely has some frustrating technical problems, but it presents a fun user experience unlike anything I've ever played before.

And, of course, Torchlight 2 came out yesterday. I pre-loaded it that morning before going in to work so I could play as soon as I got home. About two hours in, I have a lot of positive thoughts and several topics to post about. Torchlight 2 doesn't totally revolutionize the hack-n-slash RPG genre, but it's definitely worth playing (I plan to skip Diablo III altogether for a variety of reasons).

Torchlight 2 Vindication

A PC gamer at heart, my first order of business with any new game is to check out the settings menu. I must begin by playing with all of the options and choosing the highest graphics settings possible with my hardware. As it turns out Torchlight 2 runs great on a lot of hardware; I have it maxed out on my laptop (HP dv6-6135dx) with no framerate issues so far, but I'm not here to talk about that.

This game has settings for most of the crap I tend to complain about.

Oh, so many wonderful settings...

You can also adjust the UI size, render behind walls, render player character helmets, and render player names. Or not - it's up to you! But what really brought a smile to my face is the vindicating Floating Damage & Text setting. Apparently I'm not the only gamer with a (un)healthy disdain for poor in-game feedback.

Torchlight 2 Release

Torchlight 2 will be released Thursday, September 20

Torchlight 2 comes out tomorrow on Steam. I already have it pre-ordered (since this spring, actually) and I'm clearing my weekend in order to spend some time exploring the game. T2 differs from T1 in a few fundamentals. This time around there are four character classes, the Outlander, Embermage, Berserker, and Engineer. The engineer looks particularly unique; his abilities come from ember-powered mechanical armor and equipment. I'm liable to try the engineer first.

Like the original Torchlight I plan to play through the game once on normal difficulty - perhaps with friends this time, since the new game is multiplayer - in order to get a feel for the mechanics, enemies, and game world.

Then it will be time to take on hardcore mode. I'm looking forward to posting more about Torchlight 2 in the coming weeks, including more character builds and tips for VHHC.

More Dark Souls Tips

Some more tips after having spent a few hours in the game:

• The stability stat of your shield is crucial; it determines the amount of stamina required to block an attack.
• Spears and like weapons allow you to attack while keeping your shield up.
• The kick attack works wonders in disrupting shield-bearing enemies. Tap Fwd and quickly hit RB to kick.
• You can jump. Run by holding B while pointing LS in any direction, then release the button and tap B again.
• You can slide down ladders by pressing B.
• Keep an eye on your equipment weight. If you have less than 50% of your max weight, you can roll dodge (very useful). If you have less than 25% you're even quicker.
• Note that most weapons scale with certain stats (e.g. a given greatsword may scale with strength at grade C and dexterity at grade E; focus on strength if you want to use this weapon).
• If you die, make a priority of retrieving your bloodstain (all of your dropped humanity and souls) before dying again. If you die twice in a row without retrieving your bloodstain, it will all be gone.
• When you reach the first blacksmith, upgrade your gear. It's cheap and you can always farm for plenty more upgrade materials. Upgraded gear will often strengthen your character more substantially than simply leveling up.

Weekly Report - 09/14/2012

I made significant forward progress in Dark Souls this week. After passing through Anor Londo I confronted the Four Kings (and defeated five of them) and stepped into the Demon Ruins. My character now faces Lost Izalith and whatever lies beyond. I'm sensing the end coming within the next three or four areas of the game, but already I have plans for a second (and third, at least partial) playthrough to collect some achievements and accomplish some story-related tasks I missed the first time through.

In other news, I'm looking at EVE again with a closer eye. I'm interested in a number of the changes CCP has made since I unsubscribed (again) early this year and the balancing and ship updates for this winter look rather appealing. I may have to resubscribe to check it out.

It's looking like a good weekend for gaming!

New (Old) Ships in New Eden

There's a new Dev Blog out today detailing some of the ship re-balancing taking place for EVE's winter 2012 expansion. I'm glad to see some work is finally being done on this subject.

What's the story with the Kestrel? In the past I often used the Kestrel as a quick, short-range rocket vessel (or a cyno ship). CCP plans to apply a 5% missile damage bonus and 10% missile velocity bonus per level. Why are rockets excluded? I have no idea; I also have no idea what other ships actually use rockets today. If that damage bonus applied to rockets the Kestrel could be a pretty good choice in PVP.

There's supposed to be a new destroyer for each race. I've not known many people to fly destroyers in PVP so these will likely remain in the realm of new-player PVE use. Still, it's nice to have new ships now and then.

The Tristan becoming a drone boat is pretty cool. It's a much-needed addition to the drone-heavy player's upgrade path. I approve. Unfortunately I tend to get overwhelmed by micromanagement when I attempt to use drones in PVP.

The support frigates (Navitas, Bantam, Inquisitor, and Burst) are very interesting. Currently it seems to take forever to train a new pilot up to logistics ships; this looks to be an excellent addition to the upgrade path for these players. I predict they'll be (ab)used mostly PVE such as frigate-level complexes and the like by LANers or dual-boxers, but it can be fun to play said role with friends to make some ISK now and then. That said, it's intriguing that CCP also has plans to improve the t1 logistics cruisers enough to make them worthwhile. It looks like support ships are about to become more available (and important) than ever.

That's all for now. There's a lot to say on this topic, but I think I've hit the points that piqued my interest.

The Black Knights

The Dark Souls bug has bitten me, hard. I'm hooked and totally enamored with this game. It's challenging, mysterious, and, above all, rewarding. Everything in the world poses a significant risk, but the game designers made excellent choices in terms of loot drops. Risks are often worthwhile.

Take, for example, the Black Knights. Early on these enemies are quite difficult, especially for players who aren't familiar with the game yet. Fortunately, they can be beaten (try parrying and backstabbing, or just play it safe and slowly chip away and their health by hiding behind your shield and poking them with a spear).

'tis but a scratch!

Every Black Knight offers a potentially awesome loot drop: sometimes they drop their weapon! Hint: to improve your drop rate, you need to be holding humanity.

Once I defeated my fourth BK he dropped the BK Sword which deals 220 base damage, besting my Drake Sword by a fair amount. Furthermore, the BK Sword scales with both strength and dexterity. It's a little slower than the Drake Sword but well worth it.

Just when I started thinking the BK Sword was the bee's knees, I stumbled upon another BK early in the Darkroot Garden area. With zero humanity I chopped him down with my BK Sword: lo and behold, he dropped the BK Halberd. The BK Halberd has a base damage of 245 and also scales with strength and dexterity. It seems to be quicker to boot, and it has a great range. I immediately focused on leveling my character to wield it.

It was worth it. Man, the BK Halberd blows the Drake Sword away. I currently have it reinforced to BK Halberd +4. A bit expensive, but it's really opening up the game for me: I now stand a chance against enemies and bosses that used to give me fits.

P. S. Check out the Dark Souls video walkthrough series by Gaming as a Surrogate Religion. It's entertaining as well as helpful. Honestly, I prefer this man's videos over TV.

Weekly Report - 09/07/2012

As you may have noticed, I picked up Dark Souls for the Xbox 360 last weekend for $12. Aside from getting an awesome bargain, I'm absolutely thrilled with this game. It has kicked aside everything else I've been playing lately (no Skyrim this week).

I have just progressed through Sen's Fortress and my character now rests in Anor Londo. I'm led to understand this is about halfway through the game, but I don't want to read FAQs or watch video walkthroughs unless I get really stuck and frustrated.

I got lucky and found a Black Knight Halberd early on. I don't think it's game-breaking but it certainly makes bosses less of a trial. I recently acquired my first pyromancy but haven't used it yet. I'll be posting some more Dark Souls tips as I progress through the game.

Beginning Dark Souls

I waited two days after finding Dark Souls for $15. When I decided to buy it, I went back in and discovered the shop was having a 20% off sale so I landed my Xbox 360 copy of Dark Souls for $12. You just can't beat that. So there's my first tip for new Dark Souls players: shop around for a good deal; you don't have to pay $60 plus tax at Best Buy. The PC version on Steam is $40 which is a bargain itself.

The game doesn't give you much information due to the way it's delivered. The story is sparse and there is little to no tutorial content; you're essentially thrown directly into the fire. Some tips to get you started:

• Proceed with caution; don't aggro groups of enemies. You want to pick one-on-one fights until you have a good sense for the combat system.
• Keep your shield up. Look for a shield that has 100% physical damage protection so you can rely on it to protect you from most attacks.
• Learn your weapons' attacks. Each weapon is quite different but they all have a quick attack (RB), strong attack (RT), and jump attack (tap Fwd and quickly hit RT).
• Don't watch a bunch of walkthrough videos before playing. Half the fun of the game is figuring out what to do and where to do it (remember Dragon Warrior).
• When leveling up, don't put points into resistance. Focus on vitality, endurance, and one or two stats depending on the weapon(s) you want to use.
• The game doesn't give you much information explicitly, so spend time and pay attention to item descriptions and stats.

RPG Elements and Player Feedback (Redux)

Playing through Wanderlust: Rebirth has rekindled my thoughts about forcing so much irrelevant feedback at the player that it actively blocks the on-screen action the player really cares about. The most glaring flaw I can find with this game is that the RPG elements are way too in-your-face.

Every single point of damage dealt and received is displayed on the screen around the characters; the font size is overly large and often drowns out the characters on-screen, making it difficult to see the action. Worse, though, are the giant “comic words” that appear during combat. Every block is accompanied by a huge comic bubble screaming “Block!” at you. The bubbles are so large and prevalent I constantly lose track of my character and enemies on the screen. It shouldn’t be such a chore to tell what’s happening, but it is - and sadly this is a major factor in the challenge level of this game.

You can't even see my character sprite, can you?

Note: I recently discovered that Wanderlust allows you to disable many of these obnoxious notifications in the graphics options menu.

Again I wonder if damage numbers, status bars, and action “comic words” are really necessary in any game, though it seems to be a mainstay of the action-RPG genre.

However, some games manage to display damage statistics in an important, meaningful, and understandable manner (e.g. any Final Fantasy title). Are we keeping damage statistics around just for the sake of tradition? Notice that popular, successful titles like Call of Duty, Fallout, Skyrim, and Batman: Arkham City have ditched the “damage numbers” motif in favor of more intuitive forms of feedback. As characters sustain damage they begin to visibly show signs of wear: blood, torn clothing, significant changes in posture and movement speed, and more.

Weekly Report - 08/31/2012

This has been another light week in terms of gaming progress. I've only spent half a dozen more hours in Skyrim. Most of the side quests are done and my character is in the low 30s with nearly maxed out Smithing and One-handed skills. I still have a few Thieves Guild quests to go through, then there's the Dark Brotherhood, a number of Daedra quests, and the College of Winterhold quests. I doubt if I'll complete the College quests since this character isn't a mage. We'll see. Sadly my attention to Skyrim is waning, as I feel that I have already experienced much of what it has to offer.

I almost purchased that Vertex 4 SSD and a GTX 670, but both were out of stock when I went to check out. I was initially frustrated but then reason settled in and I decided not to upgrade after all.

Some friends visited over the weekend and we played a bit of Dead Island, which is always a good time. Then we struggled to get Team Fortress 2 installed and running on our machines. It's ridiculously large at 10GB (for cartoon graphics, come on!) but we eventually got it set up and running after fighting corrupt files and startup failures.

Lo and behold, Mann vs. Machine wait times were 20+ minutes. Frustration mounted higher. We started a local LAN server and, following at least a half hour of software problems, we finally got to play the new game mode. With three players out of the intended six. Pretty fun, but impossible. The farthest we ever got was the third round on one map, then the Tanks showed up. Three players simply cannot deal enough damage quickly enough to beat the Tank, so we were completely stuck and the night pretty much ended there due to wife aggro.

One of the YouTube channels I follow has been posting a lot of Dark Souls content lately, and I'm really anxious to pick up a copy. I want the PC version so I can play at 1080p, but on the other hand I want to play on my couch with a controller on the Xbox 360. The PC version is still $40 since it just came out, but I saw a used 360 copy for $15 last night. I didn't buy it, but I'm sorely tempted. This is a perennial conundrum I have.

Siren's Call

Typically I play through a game once or twice (or five times, in the case of Mass Effect) and move on. There are a lot of games in my backlog that require attention so I try to keep moving forward. Unfortunately some games never end.

I've quit EVE Online at least four times now. Here's my history:

• My first stint was from June 2008 - October 2008. I was hooked, playing during the few moments between breakfast and going into the lab for work, during lunch, and as soon as I got home every afternoon. My friends and I were in a corp that had zero participation, but we had a good time between the few of us.
• Boredom struck and I lapsed until CCP offered five free days and a $10 renewal deal right at the end of December 2008. By then our corp CEO had finally left for good, leaving one of my friends in charge of all the corp assets. It was a field day and we quickly ran to set up our newly-inherited POS in Molden Heath lowsec. This proved to be incredibly beneficial for us even though the POS was a failure. A few days after setting it up, my corpmate and I were out there mining and shipping equipment to the POS. A -10.0 player showed up in a Jaguar and wiped the floor with us (Wolf + Kestrel). He mostly only spoke German but we happened to be German minors in college so we could vaguely communicate. Turns out the guy was really cool and he invited us to join his corp. So we did, and started playing PVP in earnest. A good thing too because the corp was actively scouting the region for a noob POS to bust with their dreadnaughts and ours was the next target! The corp moved to 0.0 and joined the alliance Wildly Inappropriate for a time. We left after less than one month due to a variety of reasons, then began searching for a new 0.0 alliance. We ended up helping found AGGRESSION. We tried to take some 0.0 space in Wicked Creek and succeeded for a short time, until Tau Ceti Federation showed up. AGGRO collapsed then and I faded away from EVE in August 2009.
• My friend dragged me back from February 2011 to June 2011. We joined a corp made up of old AGGRO members in a southern alliance. The alliance atmosphere was awful but we made some money and had some fun in wormholes and PVP for a bit. Eventually the Russian alliance grew too hostile to its non-Russian members so we quit playing again.
• I joined EVE once again in late January 2012 through March 2012. I left 0.0 and started up some semi-passive industry and trade work. Knowing full well how lame it can be, I tried my hand at ninja salvaging (i.e. ganking players who don't understand aggression mechanics (or who simply don't care)) to some success. I have a terrible hard time finding fights. It seems everywhere I go is empty or everyone is a pacifist. Boredom hits and I left the game yet again.

I still follow the EVE blogosphere, however, which constantly threatens to drag me back into the game. I recently read a post at Jester's Trek which turned me on to a relatively new blog called Diaries of a Space Noob. I recommend you read it from the very beginning, if you're interested. It follows the out-of-character experiences of a new EVE player who recently left World of Warcraft for our fine game of internet spaceships. It's endearing and, like so many other players, it reminds me of my early days in EVE. It's calling me back into the game and I'm not sure I can continue to resist.

The Value of Currency

I’m often perplexed by the state of in-game economies. Usually I end up with absurd amounts of cash and the shops have nothing worth purchasing, so my useless fortune grows pointlessly, laughably large. That fortune has no value because it cannot be exchanged for any tangible value.

The Mass Effect series is a recent offender (Mass Effect 1 to a slightly lesser degree). I never once worried about having enough money in these games; I was always able to purchase everything I wanted and then some. I often wonder why developers included credits (space money) in this series. If there were more compelling items to purchase (or a need to purchase supplies) the credits might have been more meaningful. As it stands, however, credits are not the primary currency in Mass Effect. Your character’s skill points are.

Oblivion represents another case of too-much-money syndrome. I found gold everywhere, but I rarely found anything worth buying in any shop, anywhere, throughout the entire game. The shops simply never sold anything better than the gear I already had, even early on. I found all of my equipment and supplies while adventuring (and I never found anything good, which is another tale). The gold economy was mostly worthless, though for some reason I continued to collect it obsessively. At least you could buy houses and furniture with it. Again your character’s skill points represent the only meaningful currency in the game.

The too-much-money syndrome is a common issue in games, but it’s more than just a balancing issue. I think it stems from a lack of intrinsic value in in-game items. This is clear in the previous examples I have discussed. Do any games handle this properly?

Consider EVE Online, where any and all player-owned items are subject to sudden, irreversible destruction. Items in that universe have value because they can be destroyed and must be replaced if you intend to continue playing. As an EVE player I always feel pressed for cash. As a side note, the vast majority of items in the universe happen to be player-created. EVE’s ISK economy is bustling as a result because players can not only create value, but destroy it as well.

All three of the games mentioned have a character skill point economy as well as a more traditional credit/gold/ISK-based economy, but only one of these titles manages to make both types of economies meaningful. Notice how the possibility of loss makes value greater? I’ve mentioned this concept before, only in slightly different terms.

Weekly Report - 08/24/2012

This is a shorter report than usual, partly because last week's report ran a few days later than normal and included the weekend.

As previously mentioned, I finished the drab main quest in Skyrim and moved on to play some of the side quests. The Thieves Guild has been occupying a lot of my time this week.

I also recently discovered the High Resolution Texture Pack DLC (it's free) on Steam. I wish I had known this existed earlier, but oh well. After downloading and installing the DLC (it weighs in at roughly 3GB) I fired up the game for some questing. Wow! The upgraded textures stand out immediately even though my loaded save is underground. The stone walls of the Ragged Cistern really pop with the enhanced graphics. My framerate has suffered quite a bit but the game is still quite playable.

I play at 1920x1080 on a 24" monitor. The in-game settings are Ultra with 8xMSAA + 16xAF, so everything is maxed out (except I leave FXAA disabled because I don't like it). My system is an i5 2500k with 8GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 560 Ti. It feels like I could use a video card upgrade since downloading the new texture pack, but I'm not sure it's worth it. We'll see. It's $300, but I'm eyeing a new GTX 660 Ti. I'd like to upgrade to a 256GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD as well, so there's another $180. I'm just not sure I play my PC enough to warrant the expense anymore (I like to relax on my couch so the Xbox 360 is used more and more).

Morality Play: BioShock

One highly touted feature of BioShock is the recurring moral dilemma of whether to free or harvest the Little Sisters. If a Little Sister is freed, the player earns a small amount of ADAM. On the other hand, the player receives a much larger portion of ADAM if a Little Sister is harvested.

Dr. Tenenbaum, the caretaker of the Little Sisters, presents these options to the player. It is in her interest that the girls be freed, and she offers an extra incentive to the player if enough Little Sisters are rescued. Remember the media fervor over this feature of the game? I suspect most journalists who decried the immorality of allowing players to make such a “barbaric, inhuman” decision never played the game in the first place, let alone paid enough attention to understand Dr. Tenenbaum’s offer.

Is it selfish greed that drives players to harvest the Little Sisters in order to earn more ADAM? Perhaps, but it’s a foolish decision. If the player frees all Little Sisters in the game, their ADAM plus Dr. Tenenbaum’s gifts (which often include bonus ADAM) handily outweigh the benefits of harvesting the girls.

It’s an interesting concept to me because the truly selfish decision is to rescue the Little Sisters since the payout is better, but this is the path that’s cited as “good” whereas harvesting would be considered “evil.” The “evil” path is not particularly selfish - it’s just short-sighted. As BioShock points out, “selfish” and “good” are not necessarily at odds.

Weekly Report - 08/17/2012

I had little time to spend on gaming last week, so not much progress was made until this weekend. This report is really a week-and-a-half report, then.

I was able to spend an hour or so each night on Skyrim, then this weekend I completed the main quest line. It was unexpectedly bland. The story is ignorable, even. Some nonsense about destiny, special powers by birth, dragons, and time travel. Most of the dialogue provided by the Greybeards and the dragons was deplorably boring; I ended up skipping a lot of it which is something I almost never do. I usually play games just for the ambiance and the story.

I'm having a lot more fun with some of the side quest lines. I'm working with both the Companions and the Thieves Guild. The Guild in particular has some entertaining quests.

Sadly, I made zero progress on Wanderlust or Chinatown Wars.

Gravity Games

I recently completed Prey, a six year old FPS from developer 3D Realms. The most noteworthy feature of the game is its interesting take on perspective. Perspective is vital in Prey, where most of the gameplay involves navigating an alien spaceship filled with expansive, twisting rooms and corridors. What appears simple at first is quickly complicated by the aliens’ gravity-altering technology. Some rooms are wrapped with “gravity belts” so Tommy can walk right up a wall and onto the ceiling. Other rooms contain gravity panels which, when activated, flip gravity around (kind of like turning the room on its side). All of these devices must be used in order to progress through the game.

I’ll admit to finding this rather disorienting at first, but it quickly became an enjoyable twist to the otherwise rote nature of most shooters. Some of the more elaborate spinning rooms kept a grin on my face as I shook my head and forged on, regardless of vertigo and a sense of uncertainty. Some of these rooms are so convoluted for the player that I cannot imagine the mind of the game designer himself.

Some high points include a puzzle that traps Tommy inside a massive cube which he must rotate using gravity panels until he can escape and the floating planetoid objects on which Tommy must land and circumnavigate to solve puzzles. It’s really satisfying to moonwalk around (literally) a tiny planet whose curvature you can actively experience (a la King Kai’s planet in Dragon Ball Z).

How the player solves this all comes down to a matter of perspective. Is the ceiling on which Tommy stands really a ceiling, or is it now a floor since he’s standing on it? What about that enemy Tommy’s shooting at, the one who appears to be standing on the wall - is he on the floor or is Tommy? Any time I encountered this situation in the game I thought of Ender Wiggin from Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card: “The direction of the enemy is always down.” When fighting in a zero-gravity environment or, indeed, a variable-gravity environment, it seems prudent to consider your target or your goal to be down. After all, it’s easier to go downhill than up.

Weekly Report - 08/10/2012

Last weekend a friend and I began Wanderlust in earnest. It’s a challenging game for us, though mostly due to player feedback issues in my opinion. We spent well over an hour trying to beat the final boss on normal difficulty. Every time we whittled him down to about 10% health, he would fly to the center of the arena and flood the screen with light which appeared to kill us. Then we were treated with a confusing cutscene about how the boss fight was “just a vision” and wasn’t real. We retried the boss over and over. We actually died a lot, but several times we made it far enough to see the “just a vision” cutscene. Could that really be the ending? After digging on the Wanderlust forums for a while we discovered that it truly is the normal difficulty ending. What a cop out. Regardless, I look forward to playing on hard for the “real” game.

I actually opened Skyrim this week! I’m about 10 hours in and enjoying it immensely. It’s not without its problems, of course. The open world gameplay is filled with distractions (I’ve spent a lot of my time smithing) and I have a hard time following any single thread of missions to its completion without being pulled in a different direction for something else. I also think destinations are too far away from each other. The world is simply too large. I’ve found a number of missions that start in Whiterun near the beginning of the game but require you to walk (!) all the way to the northwest corner of the map.

Unfortunately with all the time I spent in Skyrim I haven’t made any progress in Chinatown Wars, though I’d like to finish it off so I can move on to the rest of my unfinished DS backlog.