Guild Wars 2 Impressions - Almost a little step forward for MMO's

Several months ago I got caught up in all the hype surrounding Guild Wars 2 and I decided that I needed to place a preorder and get in on the ground floor.
I have to admit that my excitement for this non-subscription based MMO has since dwindled significantly, but I was still looking forward to jumping into the game this weekend, when the head start launch kicked off.

It's now Tuesday evening, I have probably spent around 10 hours playing GW2 in total and I can't say that I am feeling a massive pull from the game.

Don't get my wrong though, in lots of ways I think that GW2 is a very competent game and I even believe that it is showing a positive innovative way forward in certain areas.
But at the end of the day this is another 3rd person fantasy MMO where you click on skills on your skill bar, run quests for various NPC's that seem incapable of completing even the most basic of tasks without your heroic assistance and generally spend your time doing things that you have done hundreds and thousands of times before in WoW, Rift, SWTOR, Everquest and so on and so forth.

Guild Wars 2 proudly carries on the MMO tradition of completely practical armor designs for female characters...

When I first started playing GW2 the thing I immediately enjoyed was that the combat is much more fast paced than in most MMO's. If you've played Tera Online (which you probably have not, if the sales figures are to be believed) then you have an idea about the GW2 combat system.
Instead of simply standing around and mindlessly clicking your skills until such time as either you or your enemy keels over the combat in GW2 relies much more on you moving around, dodging attacks like a medieval Max Payne. It's a nice change of pace, and together with skills being dependent on cooldown timers rather than a mana/wrath/discipline/etc-meter it creates a faster flow in the games combat.

This also means that the traditional "holy trinity" of MMO's with a dedicated tank, healer and damage dealer class has been mostly gotten rid of. In GW2 every player is expected to do a little of everything and not be narrowly focused on one of these specific roles. Another great move in my opinion.

Mass Effect 3 Impressions - A mixed bag of massed effects

I've spent the last few days trying to save the galaxy from the Reapers in Mass Effect 3, clocking up about 20 hours of dialogue wheeling and Cerberus blasting.
I'm still a little ambivalent about my feelings of Mass Effect 3, but from a shaky start I'm now really warming up to the game and find myself itching to get back in the thick of Reaper busting.

As you may know from my previous article about the things that I was looking forward to seeing in Mass Effect 3, I'm a huge Mass Effect fan. The Mass Effect games are some of the very few RPG's where I actually go out of my way to clear all side content instead of just barreling straight through the main story.
I really love the fiction of the universe and the characters feel excellently realized, in no small part due to the great voice acting and cinematic camera work during dialogue.

Shoot Brutes in the face for maximum chance of sending them into a murderous rage

Naturally I was therefore extremely excited to finally getting to play the final installment in the ME trilogy.
The demo, which I've previously given my impressions on, reminded me about how much I love these games, so as soon as I got my hands on the game I wasted no time importing my Shepard and getting down to business.

But after the first couple of hours with ME3 I started to get more than a little worried about BioWare's efforts.
Much of the first hours of the game was spent listening to voice work that felt flat and badly timed, with lines often being delivered without any sense of appropriate emotional intonation and responses sometimes coming after several seconds of awkward silence.
Furthermore it seemed that whoever was in charge of lip syncing the game is a heavy drinker or a tragic stroke victim, with dialogue several times coming out of characters' mouths in ways that made it look like they were in some kind of redubbed B-movie.

Finally, while the initial part of ME3 does a good job of setting the scene and showing you some cool looking set pieces, I felt that I was being lead down straight corridors with no room to explore or choose my own approach.

"Oh Mass Effect 3!" I cried to no one in particular "What have they done to you?! You were supposed to be a seductive Asari, beautiful and perfect, but you look more like a scarred up Krogan".

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning impressions - I reckon I'm not impressed

Back in January I played through the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo and was none too impressed with it. The demo left a rather poor taste in my mouth, like bad ale washed down at the local inn, but I hoped that my worries would be proved wrong once I got my hands on the full game.

Therefore I was cautiously excited when I finally got a copy of the PS3 version of KoA. Would I be immersed in a fantastic fantasy world of adventure and excitement, or would my fears of a game that was rougher around the edges than an axe crafted by a drunk Dwarf prove to be all too valid?

I think you're going to need a bigger sword, dude

Well, I'm only six hours into the game by now, but the smell of dwarven booze is wafting at me strong and rank.
Let me preface this impression by explaining that I pretty quickly concluded that I am probably not the target player for KoA. There is a lot of exploring to be done in KoA and lots of quests to do that are completely unrelated to the main narrative, which makes the game slightly reminiscent of Skyrim.
I am very much a story driven gamer and while I do enjoy a fully realized gaming world to frolic around in, I generally need a strong narrative motivation to spend hours clearing dungeons and collecting flowers. So if a big world with tons and tons of side quests to dump countless hours into is really your thing, then maybe you will love KoA, despite the numerous dagger stab wounds that I am about to deliver into its head and neck area.

First off my biggest problem with KoA has to be that it simply feels half baked in a lot of places.
The game feels like it was shipped about 6-9 months before the developers had time to smooth everything out and really polish up their digital baby. The UI looks a bit coarse and the inventory management in particular feels clumsy and unwieldy with long lists to scroll through to find what you're looking for.
Then there is the way that you can only ever see one quest on your world map (though on the local map you'll see markers popping up if you get close to your non-active quest). Oh, and speaking of quests, you better be prepared to ignore a lot of quest givers or scroll through a huge ass list of quests, since you can't abandon a quest after it is accepted and the amount of side quests means that you probably won't finish them all, unless you're really OCD about completing every quest in your log (in which case this game could quite possibly drive you insane(r)).

City of Steam sneak peek thoughts

On February 28 the City of Steam "Sneak Peek" event kicked off.
The sneak peek lets us get a very early glimpse of the steampunk MMO, allowing players to jump into the steamy world of the game and go slay monsters and explore dungeons, all from the comfort of your internet browser.

City of Steam is indeed a browser based game, but while "browser based" might conjure up horrible images of "Farmville" in your head, don't think that this design choice means that City of Steam is a ghastly looking game.
While it's clear that City of Steam does not stand a chance of living up to the graphical splendor of something like Star Wars: The Old Republic, it manages to make itself look perfectly presentable and functional as it chugs along in your Chrome window.

You won't confuse City of Steam with Guild Wars 2, but the graphics aren't bad for a browser game

The game itself reminds me of something a bit like a mix between the original Diablo, with several elements from the standard MMO tool box bolted on.
You'll be moving around your character from an overhead or behind-the-back view by left clicking on the ground. When nefarious enemies rear their brassy gear endowed heads you'll left click on them to fight them with one of three standard attacks, or you can use your skills from the quick slot bar at the bottom of the screen.

Mass Effect 3 Demo impressions - Reapers with a side order of Krogan

I just finished playing through the Mass Effect 3 demo and I'm pleased to say that I'm still very excited to play the full version of the game, when it releases later this month.
The demo gives you a chance to play through two different segments of the main storyline, where one is primarily focused on the narrative and cinematic effects, while the other mission is more about showcasing Mass Effect 3's combat.
After the very mood dampening experience that it was to play the demo for "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning", I was almost scared to try out this demo, in case BioWare had managed to ruin my favorite gaming franchise.

You get a chance to spec out your Shepard before you start the demo, so you can choose if you're going to play as a male or female, your background story and also select which class that you want to play as. Sadly you don't get to import your save game Shepard for the demo, but I guess that would be a bit overkill as you'll be through the two missions within an hour or two.

"Oh crap, Reapers! This is going to significantly reduce local property values"

After a nice intro sequence the demo kicks off with the first mission, which sees Shepard back on Earth where he has been stripped of his military rank after an incident that you could play through in the last bit of DLC for Mass Effect 2.
When reports of human colonies going dark suddenly start pouring into Earth military command, Shepard is brought before the armed forces leaders to confirm the obvious; the Reapers have finally shown up and have begun nom-nom-noming on the sentient beings of the galaxy.

Events really pick up when Earth itself comes under attack by Reapers and Shepard needs to escape the military compound while it is being assaulted by Reapers and the zombie-like "husks".
Your old buddy Admiral Anderson is also there to help you out, as you scramble through the apocalyptic war zone, which also acts as a tutorial for introducing you to the various controls of the game.

The Darkness 2 - The Shining Light of Over-the-top shooters?

It's time for another guest post. This time coming in from Dani, who has jutted down his thoughts on the latest entry in the "FPS with crazy snake/eel arms" genre (it's a pretty narrow genre, I'll admit).
Take it away, Dani:

The first Darkness game was an enjoyable over-the-top shooter with a strong focus on gameplay as opposed to an engrossing plot or realistic graphics. It told the story of Jackie Estacado, a young mafia hitman involved in an attempted assassination, hiding in a cemetery when an ancient demonic force called the Darkness contacts him and kills his assailants.

The game then becomes a fairly standard first person shooter with the added powers of The Darkness, which form tendrils at your side. Throughout the course of the game, Jackie also visits the otherworld to further develop the plot and sees his powers grow. One of the strongest gameplay features allow for dual-wielding of weapons whilst also using the Darkness powers, in a mechanic unofficially called ‘quad-wielding’.

Despite favourable reviews hovering around the 7.5-8 region, The Darkness was never deemed that much of a hit; however has sold a million copies and warranted enough demand for a sequel.

The Darkness 2, one of the latest game releases, continues the story of Jackie Estacado who has risen to the top rank of the mafia and now wants rid of the Darkness. I won’t explain the full details of the plot; however it is safe to say that they have really upped the stakes in the storytelling department.

Featuring an updatable ability tree that can be progressed with by collecting the hearts of the victims, as well as a stronger focus on the Darkness, particularly the Darkling. This feature allows Jackie to kill enemies from greater distances, interact with environments and access otherwise unreachable areas and paths.

A clear improvement over the original, the Darkness 2 has really found its feet and established it’s placed in the shooter genre; however unfortunately still suffers from a relatively short single-player campaign and continued issues in multiplayer (which was also one of the biggest complaints of the original).

Suspend your beliefs, crank up the sound system and immerse yourself in the comic-book world of Jackie Estacado – however, if you’re after another Modern Warfare or Battlefield-style playstation 3 games, you’re looking in the wrong place. For one of the best gameplay experiences of the year, as well as a ludicrous yet enjoyable story, packaged in an unconventional yet satisfying game, you can’t go far wrong with the Darkness 2.

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"Jagged Alliance - Back in Action" Demo Impressions - Casuals need not apply

Hey, remember back in the days when video games were cruel and unforgiving bastards that would happily destroy your pre-pubescent face with a sadistic level of difficulty?
The days where we got stuff like the "kicking-sand-in-your-eyes"-hard X-COM, which can still kick my ass and crush my spirit to this day.

Would you like to relive those times of "real challenges" and once again spend your time with a game that wants nothing more than to break your will to live? Well, then you're in for a treat with "Jagged Alliance - Back in Action"!

"I will devour your soul and make you cry tears of blood!"

Back in Action follows in the footsteps of the original "Jagged Alliance" from 1994 and the sequel from 2004.
You control a team of mercenaries through a series of missions in your attempt to overthrow the ruthless dictator of the made up country "Arulco".
Missions play out from an isometric 3D overhead view, where you can give orders to your men in real time.
Back in Action also allows you to pause the game and set up a chain of orders for your men to execute, kind of like Dragon Age only more advanced.

Controlling your men with the utmost of military precision is key in Back in Action demo, as the enemies in the demo mission are absolutely lethal and will also summon their equally lethal friends as soon as they catch sight of your merc mug.
I say "military precision", but perhaps it would be more accurate to say it requires completely anal attention to detail.
Now granted, I am not the most hardcore of tactical game players, but I've spent my fair share of time with stuff like the old X-COM games and the "Commandos", which are not exactly a walk in the park. But I found myself being constantly blown to small mercenary giblets in this demo, even when I tried very hard to be smart about my positioning and took down my targets carefully.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo Impressions

The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo was just released yesterday on both Xbox, PS3 and PC (Available through Origin).
I've just finished playing through the demo on Xbox and I wanted to share with you my impressions of the demo. So read on and find out whether this is a reckoning that is going to reverberate with awesome delight through your spine or if it will go meekly into the cold darkness of the night.

"I really..really have to pee"

Let me preface my impressions by saying that I was initially not very interested at all in Reckoning. From the first footage I saw of the game it seemed like a rather generic fantasy RPG with some slightly interesting combat. But I gradually came around to Reckoning to the point that it ended up being one of the games I was most excited to play in 2012.

So when I was finally ready to fire up the demo and have a chance to poke around in the kingdoms of Amalur I was genuinely excited.Perhaps it is this level of excitement that resulted in the following disappointment.

*UPDATE* I just had the chance to play the PC version of the demo and I have to say that it was a much improved experience from the Xbox version. In particularly the combat feels smoother and faster and I found myself more easily being able to dodge enemy strikes.
I am still not impressed by the demo but at least the PC version made me feel much better about Reckoning.

Yep, the TL;DR version of my impressions can pretty much be summed up with "Meh, is that really it?".

For those looking for something a bit more in depth allow me to elaborate.

Impressions of Heroes of Might and Magic VI - Old in all the right ways

I was 17 years old when the first ”Heroes of Might & Magic” came out in 1999. I immediately fell in love with the turn based fantasy game that mixed running your little kingdom and managing your castles with very entertaining and tactical turn based combat.

This week I've been playing the latest installment in the “Heroes” series, “Heroes of Might & Magic VI”, and I'm ready to give you my initial opinion on whether this latest in turn based fantasy kingdom management is still able to entertain.

Now, I stopped playing games in this series after the third game, which I felt was perhaps the best of them all. I played a little bit of Heroes IV and enough of Heroes V to know that I didn't care for that at all. So I was not completely thrilled about the prospect of jumping into Heroes VI.

The basic formula of Heroes VI is exactly like the five games that have come before it. You control one or several heroes traveling across a world map finding treasure, capturing resource nodes and visiting magical shrines.
The world is crammed full of stuff to find, so it's impossible to swing a dead Orc without hitting an ancient magical monolith or a gold mine.

A world of treasure and trinkets await!

Of course, most of these things are protected by some form of hideous monster or another, meaning you'll have to do a bit of wholesale slaughter before you can lay your grubby hands on your chosen prize.
Combat is again following the classic Heroes formula of taking you into a grid based field where your army is lined up on one side and the enemy army on the other. Your units then take turns trying to brutally murder each other until only one army is left standing.
Additional spice is added by your hero, who is not directly available on the board, but can cast spells from the sidelines which acts as buffs to your units, heals or just throwing large flaming balls of destruction down onto the heads of your foes.

As you roam through the countryside, butchering enemies and grabbing phat loot, you'll also come across enemy castles that you can attack and add to your kingdom.
Managing your castles is its own little game where you have to figure out what buildings you want to build and making a nice little bastion of doom. You'll have to build buildings that produce units as well as think of creating fortifications to repel enemy heroes trying to take over your castle, so it becomes a balancing act of focusing on the right type of buildings at the right time.

Like chess, only with demons, crossbows and magic

So far it's all sounding like any other Heroes game. Where Heroes VI differs just a little from the previous games is the increased focus on storytelling during the missions, which is conveyed partly through voiced over dialogue that pops up as you play through a mission, and partly through cut scenes.
This may sound like a not so great thing, especially considering that this exact increased weight on storytelling is why I disliked ANNO 2070, which is another strategy game that I have enjoyed immensely in the past.
But I think that the story parts are actually pretty well done in Heroes VI. That's not to say that the story is good, but it's certainly presented in a manner that makes it not an affront to humanity and does not immediately make you want to Alt+F4 out of the game.

So it's a Heroes game that follows closely all the traditions of the series with an extra helping of story? But is it any fun to play?

For me the answer to that is a definite “Yes”. There's something about the way that Heroes VI plays that made it immediately click with me in a way that I haven't clicked with a Heroes game since Heroes III.

"Open wide and I'll use my giant toothpick to get that piece of chicken for you"

Controlling your heroes on the world map feels snappy, as does controlling your army in combat.
There's also a lot of side quests to do during your missions and that helps to encourage you to explore every nook and cranny of the map and not just burn out on fighting monster armies for some random loot.

I'm also very pleased with the graphical design of the game, which is more simple and “flat” than what was in Heroes V and I think that the simplicity works very well for the game. There's a very clean aesthetic to the game that makes it really enjoyable to look at, though it certainly won't impress you with its graphical prowess in any way.

So far I've only played through the initial tutorial campaign and the first mission of the first proper campaign, so there's still a very long way for me to go before I can definitely say that this is a great Heroes game, but so far it's been pushing all the right buttons for me and I'm looking forward to getting back into the game and plowing through more of the game, and that's always a good sign!




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Anno 2070 Impressions - Everything was better in the old days

I've been spending some hours with Anno 2070 this week. This latest installment in the build-em-up Anno series takes us out from the old times of wooden galleons and muskets that have been the trademark setting of the series so far, and instead dumps us into the semi-near future of the year 2070.

In Anno 2070's future Earth setting, global warming has certainly manifested itself to be anything but a myth, and has blessed millions of people with unexpected ocean views. Unfortunately it has also cursed several other millions of people with severe moisture problems and resulted in a frenzied competition for Earth's precious resources.

During the main campaign of the game you'll be tasked with assisting either of the two main factions in Anno 2070, the Gordon Gekko loving "Global Trust", who want nothing more than to suck every last piece of useful molecule out of mother Earth. Or the tree hugging "Eden Initiative", who are all about not trying to completely destroy what little remains of the planets ecological health. Also, I imagine that they smoke a lot of weed.

Jumping into the game, things will immediately look fairly familiar if you've played any previous "Anno" game.
Through an isometric overhead view you'll be overseeing your little slice of Terra and plan out small island colonies by building everything from ports, housing, mines, power plants and so on.

The important building is the tall white one... ah crap

In classic city building game fashion, everything is connected and every building adds something to your settlement, while also bringing in new requirements of its own.
You'll need to have tools to build buildings, but a tool workshop requires coal and iron, which requires mines and those require workers that need houses.
The way everything fits together is one of the most interesting things about playing these types of games.
You're constantly adding a new piece on top of your existing settlement, and every time you do, you'll have to make a tweak here and a nip there to make sure everything is still running optimally. It's not a game for people that crave action and big explosions, let me just make that clear right away.

The 3 biggest problems with storytelling in Star Wars: The Old Republic

BioWare has been pounding hard on the hype drum for the quality of the story in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
For the very first time we were going to be treated to a top quality narrative experience in a MMO. This was underlined by the way that BioWare proclaimed that making SWTOR was in many ways the same as making several sequels to the "Knight of the Old Republic" series, which was heavily story driven.

And indeed, after my experience with playing the Bounty Hunter class in the beta weekend in late November, I was very impressed with the way that story was integrated into SWTOR. I was propelled through a compelling narrative that saw me trying to make a name for myself as a infamous bounty hunter, and all the framing, cut scenes, voice acting and even missions design, really made me feel like I was playing through a Star Wars movie.

Fast forward to today, three weeks after I joined up for the full retail version of the game and created my Sith Inquisitor character.

I still feel that the basic story in SWTOR is a good one, but several critical problems have revealed themselves to me by now and I am unable to find the same enthusiasm for the storytelling mechanic as I did when I first jumped into the game.

Riding a speeder bike on Hoth is hard to ruin, no matter how badly you tell a story

Before I get into explaining my issues with how SWTOR does storytelling, let me start by clarifying that my issues are aimed at the class stories, which acts as the main thread that leads you through all the content in the game.
There are lots of other small stories that you come across as you travel from one planet to the next, but for the most part these are not nearly as interesting as your main story. They do the job well enough to provide an excuse for why you need to go right-click the blue glowing object, but as a whole they're a couple of notches lower in terms of quality from the class stories, and I'm pretty much okay with that.

With that out of the way let's look at the issues that I have with the storytelling in SWTOR:

1) Pacing

When you start out on your first planet the quests that advance your class story make up the significant majority of all your quests. You'll quickly start loading up on side quests, but generally you'll be advancing your main story very frequently.

As you get further and further up though the levels of the game, you'll find that the time between advancing the story quests becomes longer and longer. I'm still only at level 39, but I'm spending several hours on side quests exclusively before I get my next little bit of main story.

3 Reasons you should play Star Wars: The Old Republic and 3 reasons why you shouldn't

After 32 levels and around 40 hours of playing Star Wars: The Old Republic it is of course too early to say anything definitive about the game, but I feel I can already share a few key findings with you that may help you make up your mind if this is a MMO for you or not.

I've narrowed down three factors that I think are pretty significant game design points and say a lot about what kind of game Star Wars: The Old Republic is.

3 Reasons to play Star Wars: The Old Republic:

1) This is the most well crafted MMO since World of Warcraft

Since World of Warcraft launched in November 2004 there have been many challengers, but they have all lacked the quality of polish that Blizzard puts into their products. There were many bugs and issues with WoW at launch, but the overall experience was incredibly smooth and well executed.

Many other MMO's provided some interesting ideas, but most of them felt like they had been taken out of the oven before they were done, or that whoever was making them simply forgot to add several important ingredients before it even got into the oven (I'm looking at you; Age of Conan and Warhammer Online).

In SWTOR I have found a game that really feels incredibly well crafted right out of the gate. I've only had a couple of disconnects in all my play time and only run into a single quest that was bugged. Now again, like WoW there are still plenty of bugs to be found, but overall you really get a sense that a ton of work and love was poured into the game, and that really helps establish an inviting gaming atmosphere.

2) The story is better than anything you've ever seen in an MMO

There has been story in other MMO's before SWTOR, but there has never been story like what you find in SWTOR in MMO's before. Obviously the class story lines are the main set pieces for SWTOR and that is where you'll find the most interesting stories.

I have genuinely found myself pushing for just a few extra hours just to see the next part of my class quest.
It wasn't the promise of loot, a cool new ability or the draw of a new shiny mount that made me keep playing until 3:30AM. It was the lure of seeing how my Sith Inquisitor would get out of the tight spot that he found himself in, and that is a kind of motivation that I have never experienced before in a MMO.

Besides an interesting side quest story, Alderaan is also incredibly pretty

But not only are the class stories quite good, there are also several interesting quest lines to pick up as non-class specific side quests on the worlds that you visit. I particularly enjoyed the Alderaan side story quest line that saw me help out the Empire aligned noble house in its attempts to claim the throne of Alderaan.

Overall impressions from "The Old Republic" beta weekend - Adopt, Adapt and Improve

I've already dipped into my experiences with the beta weekend for Star Wars: The Old Republic, firstly by touching on the space combat missions and secondly by describing how I enjoyed my time with the Bounty Hunter class.
Today I'm going to give my overall thoughts on how I found the game and tell you if my expectations are still the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer or if they've been slaughtered like Sand People by an angry Jedi.

First up let me give you a bit of background on how much time I had with the beta and what I used my time on. I got in a good 25 hours or so, and in that time I leveled a Bounty Hunter to level 17 and a Sith Inquisitor and Warrior both up to level 10. I also dabbled very briefly with a Jedi Knight, but only got up to level 4 before the lure of the Sith Empire overwhelmed me.
My travels took me through Nal Hutta and Korriban, and I also finished up Dromund Kaas with my Bounty Hunter and just got my feet wet on Balmorra. I also played through the "Black Talon" flashpoint, so I got a taste of the "dungeons".

The first stop in my SWTOR experience was the character creator. Compared to what World of Warcraft offers there is an incredible wealth of choice on offer. I do however have two significant gripes with character creation.
Firstly I am disappointed by the race selection that BioWare has decided on. You really only have human and "variations of humans with slightly different coloration". I do appreciate the inclusion of the Chiss, which I have always thought were a very cool race ever since I saw Grand Admiral Thrawn in "Tie Fighter", but Cyborgs are nothing but humans with a few bits of metal stuck to their face and Miraluka are just humans with a veil over their eyes... Really BioWare?!

Miralukans. They're like humans... BUT! No eyes! Mind = Blown!

There are so many other interesting races that they could have chosen. The old Star Wars MMO "Star Wars Galaxies" offered a much wider choice including Wookies, Trandoshans and Rodians. I don't know if BioWare simply thought that people did not want to play anything that looks more alien than a red human with some small horns on his head, but I am really disappointed that we're getting treated to these "Star Trek" aliens.
I also found that the "body type" selection is too extreme with the available options. You go from skinny short guy to super Schwarzenegger and then to big fatty Mcfat with no steps in between. The end result is that pretty much 90% of the male characters that I saw in the game were all using the pumped bodybuilder body type, which is a big shame. There needs to be a more "normal" body type available that is neither skinny nor steroid filled.

On to the game itself then. Every class starts the game with the classic "Star Wars crawl" that sets the scene for your situation and finishes off with a cutscene that shows your character arriving on the relevant starting planet. It's a great way to set the mood and feels appropriately Star Wars.
You'll immediately be thrown into a conversation with a story NPC and be introduced to the voiced conversations and the dialogue wheel. Pretty much throughout my beta testing time I found the quality of the voice work to be really good and the conversations were interesting to follow. I did encounter several instances though, where I would be talking to an alien character speaking in their native tongue and their spoken lines would take only a second or two even though the lines they were speaking were two or three complete sentences, which was a bit jarring.

The Old Republic Bounty Hunter Impressions - Jetpacks and wrist rockets make everything better

Earlier this week I gave you my opinion on the Space Combat Missions of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Now I'm back with more impressions from last weekend's beta test, this time I'm going to talk about my experience of playing the Bounty Hunter class that I played from level 1-17 and got to Balmorra, which was the third planet on my journey. Read on to find out how I liked my stint as a Boba Fett wannabe.
Unfortunately the screen capture feature is still disabled in SWTOR, so you're gonna have to make do with some stock Bounty Hunter screens.

I made a Rattataki Bounty Hunter like the one in this picture. The bald scalp is practical for those unfortunate flamethrower haywire moments

The Bounty Hunter is a ranged class that is all about blasting his enemies with various high tech gadgetry. You'll immediately be treated to the ability to fire a wrist mounted rocket, which explodes and knocks the target and anyone nearby to the ground. Perfect for giving you a little extra time to pepper them with some more blaster shots before they have a chance to fight back.

As you level up you'll be granted lots of interesting new ways with which to blast, blow up, incinerate, pummel or freeze your adversaries (no disintegration though... at least as far as I got). My favorite ability that I managed to get was probably the area of effect attack that lets the Bounty Hunter rise into the air using his jetpack and unleash a volley of rockets, which is a good way of giving a whole group of enemies a really bad start to their day.

Another favorite, if perhaps more for the looks than how much I actually found it useful, was the flamethrower ability that blasts out a cone of flame in front of you, handy for lighting large quantities of birthday candles or for melting faces.

The Old Republic Space Combat Video and Commentary

I'm currently eking the last drops of Force fueled fun from the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta weekend. I've managed to get a Bounty Hunter up to level 17 and gotten myself a starship. This has allowed me to try out the very controversial "space missions" for myself and see what they're all about.

In this video I take you through a space mission in my Bounty Hunter ship.

As you will have gathered from the video, unless you were watching it with the sound turned off or have the attention span of a goldfish, I am not really very keen on the space missions in SWTOR. I don't understand the design decision to put in on rails shooting missions in a game that is all about immersing you in a believable world filled with player choice.

Saints Row: The Third Impressions - Stupid fun in all the right ways

I had hoped to be able to get a full review of Saints Row: The Third ready for you this week, but unfortunately I’ve only been able to get about half way through the campaign so far. And with The Old Republic beta testing happening this weekend there is a snowballs chance in hell of me spending time on wrapping up the game.

But I have played more than enough to give you my initial impressions of Saints Row: The Third. 


Here’s a hint: It’s pretty crazy

Saints Row has always tried to be the crazy cousin to the Grand Theft Auto series. In Saints Row 2 for example, you were able to steal a sewage truck and spray the innocent citizens with the slushy contents.

That’s the kind of humor that you need to appreciate if you’re going to enjoy Saints Row: The Third. If a giant purple dildo mounted on a baseball bat makes you do the Picard Facepalm rather than chuckle with pubescent amusement, then you need not apply. The wacky and often below-the-belt humor of Saints Row: The Third is a big part of what makes it fun to play, so you got to roll with it or go back to something more somber like Batman: Arkham City (But why so serious?).

Even the logo is silly, with silhouettes of women and guns all over the place 

If you *do* enjoy the crazy humor in Saints Row: The Third however, then you are in for a great experience. So far I’ve skydived onto a penthouse apartment to the tunes of Kanye West’s “Power”, saved a pimp that speaks only in auto tuned sentences from a SM themed brothel and driven a convertible across town with a tiger in the passenger seat.

Skyrim early hours impressions

I have been looking forward to Skyrim a lot. I was so keen on playing that I decided to stay up until midnight between Thursday and Friday and wait for the game to unlock, just so I could get in a couple of hours of play before I had to head to bed (stupid work making me get up early in the morning!).
Unfortunately I discovered too late that apparently Skyrim was going to be unlocked at midnight GMT and not local time (I'm in GMT +1), so it was 1am before I sleepily got into the game.
So I only got a brief amount of playtime in on Thursday night, and with a busy weekend I was only able to play a couple of hours more.

Skyrim - For all your fantasy fetish needs

But still, I have already seen enough to tell that I think I'm really going to like my stay in Skyrim.

Early impressions of Batman: Arkham City - Batting for a home run?

Being one of my top 5 games for Q4 2011, I was extremely excited to finally get a chance to play the Xbox 360 version of Batman: Arkham City.
So far I've only had time to scrape the grimy surface of Arkham City, but I have gotten enough dirt under my fingernails to bring you some initial observations and impressions.

It's a strange time when one of the most hotly anticipated games of the year is a comic book franchise one

Like Gears of War 3, which I reviewed earlier this week, Batman: Arkham City is a pretty looking game that feels like it is really doing its best to wring out every last drop of graphical juice that can be found in the current generation of consoles.
However, it is also clear that the graphical juices are limited, and I feel that some of the animations, and particularly the facial work, is a bit lacking.

The big question that you're all waiting to be answered is of course; did Rocksteady Studios pull off another stunning Batman game?
Since I'm only a few hours into the game I'm not prepared to give a final answer on that, but I do think that I can already answer this question with a firm yes... and no.

Impressions from the fast track on Forza 4

Being something of a racing game fan, Forza 4 made my list of my Top 5 games for Q4 2011, so it's no surprise that when it launched last Friday, I immediately picked up a copy and started burning rubber (and also playing Forza 4).

My thoughts pretty much echo all the reviews of Forza 4 that you may or may not have been reading.

Forza 4 is pretty much pure car porn

Basically I think that Forza 4 is a better game than Forza 3 in pretty much every single way.
It is further polishing the winning formula that Turn 10 has been developing over the course of the Forza Motorsport series.

However, it also feels like a much smaller step up than 3 did from 2.
Racing around a lot of the same tracks as you did in Forza 3, you will often be extremely hard pressed to see any difference at all in terms of visual quality.

Perhaps the one area that does feel like it has gotten a significant visual upgrade is the cockpit view, which now looks even better and has actually become my preferred racing view, after pretty much having been a "behind the car" racing guy for all of my life.

Spending a few hours with Kinect and finding your inner child

I got my Kinect set up and I'm just coming out of my first play session, having danced myself into a mild sweat on the virtual dance floor that is Dance Central (the original, because I'm cheap like that).

I will say a few things about Kinect that I have noted:

You can't really compare playing Dance Central on the Kinect
to any other console experience

1) It really is very cool and very different to be playing a game and controlling a console without any physical controls

It's a very peculiar experience for a lifelong gamer to suddenly have no object between me and the game.

Even if the technical performance is not perfect it's just a really interesting thing to try.
I'm glad I bought it, at least for just getting to have this experience and play games in a completely different kind of way.

If you are interested in the "evolution" of games as a thing in itself, then I think you should get a Kinect, simply to try it out for yourself and see it in action.