Gaming of 2012 ... so far

soundtrack - Brad - 'United We Stand'

Yeah, so I bit off way more than I could chew with that 'best of 2011' thing I was trying. I actually did lay out all the groundwork for it. I really did. I was just way more than effort on the execution side than I was willing to put in.

But, I already posted about that kinda stuff in my personal blog.

I'm here to talk about what I've been doing gaming-wise so far this year.

Star Wars: The Old Republic
To knock out over half of it, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Dude. Wow. I can't say enough great things about this game. Including the beta, I've put about 280 hours into this game. There is so much to do in this game, it's unbelievable. It plays a lot like a single-player Bioware game, and I've soloed nearly all of it. If you play it, though, let me know. I'd love to play with someone else for more than a handful of missions. I've got a Consular, Trooper, Sith Marauder, and Bounty Hunter, so let me know.

Really, your enjoyment level in this game comes down to one of two things.

First, did you enjoy Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic? If so, you'll love this.

Second, have you ever enjoyed any Bioware game? If so, you'll probably like this.

I've heard people say it copies a lot of things from World of Warcraft. I wouldn't know, since I've never played WoW, but if it does, it works really well.

Oh, and by the way, I tend to not enjoy playing MMOs, and I love this.

Here's the key thing: every mission is fully voice-acted with no text boxes and this makes everything you do feel meaningful. Period.

Anyway, if you're interested, I'm on the Darth Bandon server.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (PC)
I actually really dug this. For about 20 hours or so. It plays a lot like Jade Empire (PC), which I really, really liked, but a few things kinda bug me about KoAR.

First, the characters. The color scheme works very well, but something went wrong with the character models. They're all dead-eyed at all times, and the facial animations are barely there. They're like talking dolls. It really hurts the storytelling.

Second, the dialogue scenes. They're hindered greatly by the dead, talking dolls I mentioned, but the worst part is that you can't turn off the subtitles. I don't know about you, but my eyes are inexorably drawn to subtitles when they're on, so the dialogue scenes get real boring, real fast. I wonder, at times, if they realized that the character models were so badly animated that they forced subtitles on so people wouldn't stare at the horrid presentation.

Also, some really irritating accents and 'performance choices' by the voice actors don't help matters, either.

That being said, the rest of the game feels like pretty solid. It's really big, and makes me wish it was the only game I'd been playing when it came out.

I've really cut back on the number of games I buy, but games like this, which deserve attention, make me want to cut back more.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)
Hmm. Kind of a mess. I got stuck in a very boring and terrible casino as Sazh and had to reboot in order to back out of it and swear to never go back. Kind of brilliant in terms of 'level structure' by using selectable time periods as ways to manipulate the overall hame a la Chrono Trigger. The problem is, it's nowhere near as compelling. Maybe the best Final Fantasy titles are all mutiples of three? I mean, FFVI, FFIX, and FFXII are in the discussion for 'best Final Fantasy,' right? After the PlayStation One era ended, this series has been a mess. FFXII is the only one that's really been a great game. FFX, FFXI, and FFXIV were all plagued by serious issues, and while FFXIII was better than all of them (except XII), it just never stopped feeling flat, especially after FFXII.

But this isn't a dissertation on what's wrong with the series. Final Fantasy XIII-2 has a lot of good things going for it, but it just isn't compelling. I just don't give a shit. I want to, but I can't. I think Tony actually had a much better experience with this one than I did.

If Squenix wanted to fix this series right now, they'd do the following: bring Sakaguchi-san back, point at Lost Odyssey, and say 'more like that.'

Guild Wars 2 (beta)
This is MMOs done right. Where SWTOR goes to great lengths to disguise its MMO-ness, Guild Wars embraces them and makes them fucking work. The world is dynamic, and feels huge and alive. I was running around some farms when all of a sudden I got a notification that a nearby farmer's crops were being burnt by bandits. I, as well as several other players, ran over there, fought off the bandits, dumped water on the crops, and earned some XP in the process. These kinds of events pop up every so often and are a nice optional way to do things like engage other players, or even grind, if you want.

Oh, and since I've been harping on story and presentation so much here, let me tell you how well GW2 handles it. It eschews the hyper-cinematic approach to which Bioware adheres, and puts the time and effort in that 38 Studios wouldn't, and instead creates their own very stylized approach, in which two characters are super-imposed over a nice-looking background. I know I've seen this kind of thing before in some JRPGs, but they don't immediately come to mind.

However, it moves the story along well and I actually laughed out loud several times. It's well-written, well-acted, and moves things along.

Okay, this turned into way more blabbing than I intended. I'm sure I'll be back with more game-blabbing soon.

Whatcha been playin'?

Blaine

Buy my book!