Thief, Video Game Shows, ESO, Failbetter Games, and Other Obviously Connected Topics

I fucking love buffets. It's like a human feeding trough, but with better-tasting preservatives and a total disregard for respect of one's body. But it's all (one hopes) great-tasting, and it's a great chance to actually try something new.

And while buffets are great for food, it's also my favorite way to approach blogging. I don't have much of an attention span, and collies make great pets.

More Premature Reactions to Thief
I think the implementation of Thief's mechanics and the level design, in regards to these mechanics, are all under-baked. They don't quite mesh together in a totally silky-smooth way. People keep citing Dishonored as the game that this should've been, but I don't think that's right. I think the game works fine, once you reach the level of control refinement that Titanfall hit. In Titanfall, I can traverse the environment with great ease and it all feels smooth and natural. There's something that's not right about the 'oh shit' moments in this game, in which fleeing doesn't feel right. I kept running smack into things that I should've been able to traverse, but I couldn't.

Granted, this could all be from a lack of familiarity with this game, and it could be that I'm just bitching about it being hard, and maybe I'm a 'newb,' and I'm 'doing it wrong,' but it just doesn't feel right.

I'll keep plugging away at it, but I've already deemphasized the game, especially since ...

Mo Beta, Mo ESO
I'm back in the ESO beta this weekend! And Cardinals spring training games start!

AND WE'RE GETTING MORE FUCKING SNOW this weekend?!?! As a side note, fuck this winter in its stupid fucking ass.

In any case, I'm back in ESO this weekend, which is awesome. As I've said before, I'm super-hyped for the game, and I'm curious to see what changes have been made. Yeah, I could look at the changelog, but why do so when I can find a bunch of condescending pricks to do it for me, and then yell at me for daring to ask what's new.

Actually, I will look at the changelog, now that I think about it.

What's cool is that I'll have some buddies in there with me this weekend, so I'll finally get to, once again, combine cyberspace and meatspace. I hate grouping in most games, since most people, when online, slip into their 'Captain Fuckface' persona, but when I got a real buddy or two in there with me, it's a much improved experience. So long as Joel isn't rushing through like he left his car running by the quest giver.

I don't expect any huge changes in the game, mostly bug fixes, since we're probably pretty close to 'gold,' or whatever the MMO equivalent is, but I haven't really needed much in the game besides some bug fixes, anyway.

I do wish I could lose the subtitles in conversations, though. I can't stand subtitles unless the spoken language is one I don't speak.

Failbetter + BioWare = ?!
So, this came completely out of left field for me.

To put this into clearer context, Failbetter makes some amazing interactive fiction, such as Fallen London, which if you haven't played, I urge you to correct this mistake NOW.

In any case, I'm not sure what the project is, but I know David Gaider, he of the Dragon Age, is a big fan of interactive fiction, so one has to wonder if this is a Dragon Age project ... I would love love love love love love that. I'm a big IF fan myself, so this could be fantastic.

Risen 3: This Time It'll Be Good, We Mean It
Piranha Bytes is a studio that has produced a lot of games I should love, but have not. Games from the Gothic and Risen series are specifically to what I am referring.

Much like I used to say about the Bethesda RPGs, on paper, I should love these games, but I don't. At the same time, Piranha Bytes has a fierce and loyal following, so I'll probably give this series another look this summer, before Risen 3 hits this August.

Wasteland 2
By the way, I failed to mention it before, but I did get some time with the game this past weekend, and I enjoyed it, even if I was taken aback by how old school it really is. That's not a bad thing at all, but it really has been a while for me. I'm really excited to play more and not suck ass at the game. Here's a new trailer!



 

 

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Obsidian's new game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, hits next week, and I'm pretty excited. Obsidian is among my favorite developers, even if their games often require some additional *ahem* refinement after release.

 

Even with some decent gaming sneaking out right now during the 'dumping' release window for publishers, I'm still chomping at the bit for the big RPGs later this year. Ya know, The Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, Pillars of Eternity, etc.

 

I guess ESO will be here before we know it. Methinks that will do most of the tiding over until my big boy games.

 

As always, thanks for reading!

 

-Blaine



And Thus Begins a Whole Buncha Side Quests

Sorry for the no-post yesterday. Between meetings, a busy development schedule, a lunch date, and then some bizarre health issues, it just didn't happen. But, I'm back today!

Words can't describe how much I despise winter. I don't like cold, I hate driving in snow, I hate driving on ice even more, and the shortened sunlight hours slowly make me crazy. I'm no fun to be around, and my mind slowly caves in on itself as the outlook becomes bleaker and bleaker.

I think it's fair to say that this winter has been the worst I've experienced in my adult life. The lower-than-average temperatures, the incessant snow fall, and the never-ending clouds have made the usually mild and not-that-bad St. Louis winter an absolute daily horror.

Even now, we're experiencing a brief respite, with temperatures in the 60s, only to plunge back into the near-arctic 20s next week.

I hate this shit.

There are, however, two things that help staunch the emotional bleeding. 1) the big one, the beginning of Cardinals Spring Training, and 2) the resumption of decent releases in the gaming scene.

My Cardinals are looking good, as they usually do, and I'm beyond thrilled to see the pictures from Jupiter, Florida of my boys in action.

And, next week signals the kick-off of the spring releases, which usually runs March to May.

Of immediate notice is that next week, we get Thief, the following week, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the week after that, Titanfall (it's not an RPG, but I'm still very excited for it after playing quite a bit of the beta.)

Thief has gone through an interesting obstacle course since its announcement. It's from Eidos Montreal, they of the fantastic Deus Ex revival that yielded Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Those that have played through it, including myself, generally thought that, overall, it was lovely and worth missing a few meals and sexual opportunities.

So, when Thief was announced, most of us said, 'yay.' Eidos Montreal was the right studio to handle this.

Then, things started to get a little murky.

The game faced multiple delays after being announced in 2009.

Last July, studio GM Stephane D'Astous resigned, citing differences with the parent company, the increasingly notorious Squenix.

After that, over the winter, various press outlets started expressing concern over preview builds of the game.

Lately, though, more positive impressions have been trickling in, and we've gotten to see the entire first mission, in handy web video form.

 

I had a lot of internal back and forth on Thief, but ultimately, I decided to pull the trigger on the Steam preorder. The game certainly looks like a Thief game, and I love that there seems to be a lot of choice in terms of how to approach missions.

Thief hits Steam on Tuesday, 2/25.

Now, when games hit in this window, I'm typically of two minds about them. One thing about which I'm certain is that market analysis told the publisher this is when the game needs to release.

Bear in mind, release dates dictate development schedules, not vice versa. Yes, development problems can cause release dates to shift, but there is still going to be a ton of analysis done to determine what date maximizes the number of units shipped, and then sold.

So, knowing that, publishers position certain games in this early spring window for a reason. In the summer, games tend to sell poorly. In the fall, everyone pushes out their mega-huge releases. Late November is the grand-high HUGE release (Call of Duty), and then December and right after is typically the 'we fucked up, but if you still wanna buy it, here it is' window.

That early-spring window is what yields two possibilities, at least to me. 1) this is a solid title in which the publisher believes, but it just couldn't get out the door in time for Black Friday, for whatever reason, and this positions it far enough from Christmas for marketing to have breathing room to do its thing, plus it gives our Q1 financials a nice little boost. 2) this game kind of sucks, but it has a popular branding attached to it, and not much competition on that date, so we're just gonna hunker down, squeeze it out, and it is what it is. YAY PREORDERS!

Sometimes, you can use the review embargo as a metric. If it's heavily embargoed, that's usually not a good sign. That generally means the publisher has asked, 'how's the review? Oh, that bad? Okay, it stays embargoed until release day.' Typically, they'll lift the embargo for good reviews, so if you don't see any early reviews, that typically shows a lack of faith on the part of the publisher of the title in question.

As far as Thief goes, I'm feeling a lot better about it now than I was. I imagine I'll play quite a bit next Tuesday, then have some impressions to share on Wednesday.

Side Quests
 - looks like you get a free copy of Wolfenstein with the preorder of a Doom beta key. I'm actually very excited for that.
 - looks like we're on the homestretch for Wasteland 2's development.
 - here's the Thief launch trailer:

 

So, are you picking up Thief next week? Why or why not?

Thanks for reading, as always!

-Blaine

This MMO Would Be Great if it Weren't For All the Other Players

WARNING: BEGIN RANT

So, I spent a big chunk of the last weekend in a certain MMO beta, and really enjoyed a lot of it. Much of this established single player series' tropes were in place, which I enjoyed, and while it took a bit to wrap my head around some of the MMO concessions, I eventually started to 'get' the game once I started putting my preconceptions to the side.

However, because of the way I'm wired, no matter how hard I try, if someone's whining in general chat, I can't help but look.

And lemme tell ya, for a beta, I was blown away by the amount of bitching going on. It was as if the average mouthbreather doesn't understand what a beta is, nor do they understand that they're not playing the latest internal build of the game.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I tend to solo anything I can in an MMO. I like having huge worlds and tons of quests, and I love having new content added to this huge world over time, and I only group when a) I know the person or b) I absolutely must.

Yes, that is somewhat antithetical to playing a lot of MMOs, but really, I don't like most of you. Most of you can't communicate in a coherent fashion, AND, and this is my big irritation, just wanna click through and race through an instance as fast as possible.

I'm super-chill in MMOs. I like to take my time, explore, talk to folks, and really, zone out and absorb the world and the story through which I'm playing. Most MMO players are the second-worst human beings on earth, second only to the cesspool known as Xbox Live.

Actually, the average game article commenter is the worst. So, we'll say MMO players are a distant third-worst.

In any case, and yes, I could close gchat, but I like being helpful to new players, and sometimes, there are worthwhile discussions, especially back in pre-F2P SWTOR, but IN ANY CASE, nothing induces eyerolls like seeing a political discussion while you're tromping through the wastes of Korriban, or just trying to chill for a bit in Daggerfall, when someone starts ranting about the proliferation of gays in pro sports or some either equally dim-witted perspective.

Of course, nothing makes me lose hope for the future of humanity like the 'armchair developer.' These motherfuckers, because they know a guy that reads Gamasutra sometimes, know all about what it takes to develop a game, and the asshats that make THIS GAME are LAZY and GREEDY and WON'T LISTEN TO ME and I KNOW WHAT EVERYONE WANTS and FUCK THIS GAME and I'M STILL PLAYING THIS GAME BUT FUCK THIS GAME.

Yeah, criticism is fine, but damn, man, find a way to express yourself in a more constructive manner.

END RANT

So, anyway, I really enjoyed a lot of the beta I was on, and can't wait to test more, as well as play the production version.

I generally am not an MMO player, but have made exceptions for MMOs that make story a big part of the game, like Guild Wars, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and, I assume, Elder Scrolls Online.

When beta testing a game I assume I'm going to play the shit out of, I always try to pick the character build that I'm least-likely to enjoy, since I want to save as much of the 'real' game as possible for when I first start really playing. I try to hold all the awesomeness back for the game I really wanna play.

Again, I did that with this beta, but because of the awesome flexibility of the character leveling, I accidentally put together a character I really like, and I'll probably borrow a lot from this when I finally build my real 'main' when the game comes out.

I did a similar thing back on the SWTOR beta, when I built a super-awesome Sith Sorcerer, a build I never thought I'd want in the real game. I had so much fun with it, that I re-rolled that character last year.

I can't wait for the NDA to lift, because I wanna gush about this game. Until then, just know that your past weekend was far inferior to mine.

Side Quests
 - the South Park: Stick of Truth achievements are as horrifying as I imagined, and then some. This should be a very interesting game. I have it preordered on Steam.
 - PCGamer has a cool preview of Pillars of Eternity up

That's all, folks! Thanks for reading!

-Blaine

Pre-Orders and the Gaming Space

Because I'm a sad little man that is constantly trying to fill a void where once my soul resided, I finally caved and spent some cash on Steam. I bought 'early access' Wasteland 2 and Age of Decadence, bought The Banner Saga, then preordered Thief, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall. Dragonfall hadn't even been on my radar. I had completely forgotten that was coming, but luckily, I follow Harebrained Schemes on RSS, and caught a glimpse of it on my Windows Phone RSS Live Tile (yes, folks, sorry, but Live Tiles really are fantastic and useful.)

I poked around a bit at Age of Decadence, and came away from it with the certainty that I do not have any idea how to play it. This is one that will require a few hours, 2-3 monitors (game, research, video), and some patience from my wife. It's all good, though. I like complex games, and I really enjoyed the bits I understood. I'm really looking forward to trying more.

I also popped in to SWTOR briefly, and ... I mean, I still like the game, but every time I'm in there now, I just ... I dunno, I always get the itch like I should be doing ANYTHING else. I don't hate the game, I actually quite love it, but close to 2.5 years in, I feel like there should've been a proper expansion by now. Instead, it's just outfits and a space battle bit about which I give no fucks. Not even one.

Hurry up, ESO.

My play-through of Morrowind has slowed somewhat. I'll be honest. I'm losing motivation. I'm at the point in which Caius has told me that I might be the Nerevearereveeaerrine, and I'm to go talk at some Ashlander dudes about it. I decided to start blowing through some side quests, since this seems like a good time to grind some stats. I'm wondering if some of my fatigue relates to how dated Morrowind is, and the illusion of a living world just isn't holding up. I'm not sure. I'm gonna stick with it, but I'm itching to move onto Oblivion.

Meanwhile, Fallout 3 has been my fallback for when I'm just not feeling Morrowind. I've been enjoying the hell out of it, and recently had an episode with it that completely reinforced the fact that I love being a PC gamer. Fallout 3 is, by now, a bit of an older game, and is not properly configured to know how to handle multiple cores in a proc. This was causing repeated crashing when it was time to flee Vault 101. I poked around a bit, found the issue, added a couple lines to an .INI file, and I was good to go. I was playing a 'last-gen' game with no problems, moving between my desktop and laptop all weekend, with minimal effort. Were we talking about a console release, it would've been a whole other story. First, your locked to playing on that aged box, through a TV. Second, if you're experiencing a known bug, you're at the mercy of the developers, publisher, and platform holder to ever get it fixed. No thanks. Because I'm a PC gamer, I was able to find the known issue, see the fix, then implement it myself. Easy.

In any case, I'm now in Megaton, talking at folks, and I'm having a great time saving, trying something crazy, then reloading. For reference, I have played a fair amount of Fallout 3 in the past, but never all the way to completion. I aim to do so before the GFWL servers die July 1st.

I think part of what's constantly nagging at me about Morrowind and Fallout 3 is that the Bethesda approach to RPGs veers sharply into the uncanny valley (not literally, but thematically), and thus, because so many things seem 'alive' and 'true to life,' the things that aren't really fucking jump up and flick you in a single gonads (did that once to a buddy in high school, and he was almost squealing. Hilarious). People in Morrowind aren't on a schedule. They're wandering aimlessly in the streets for DAYS. The animal population is pitifully low. Guards can know I killed someone via the Force (I guess. Not sure how they know it otherwise.)

Also, for as real as some of these characters feel, they don't feel real at all. It's hard to explain, but it's that 'uncanny valley' thing.

I have a feeling that this is incrementally improved in each Bethesda release.

And don't get me wrong. I really like aspects of Morrowind. I'm eager to see where all of this leads. I just wish it had a stronger central narrative, and I wish it wasn't 13 or so years old.

All this should continue to make this my Year of Bethesda (and Witcher, and Dragon Age).

In closing, I have a question for all the 'Bethesda Veterans' out there. How do you all stay motivated in these games, as opposed to games that have a more linear approach, and more insistent main story thread? I'm doing it, but I'm finding that my motivation to keep playing is starting to diminish. I don't like that it's diminishing, but it is what it is.

I'm also thinking about starting to stream some random shit via Twitch. My Twitch channel is here. I can promise it won't be exciting, but it might be interesting. I'll probably stream some of the early access stuff, for those that wanna check it out.

Word. Thanks for reading!

-Blaine

2014: The 'Maybe' Games

When it comes to unreleased games, I tend to veer sharply in one of two directions.

On one hand, I'm stupidly loyal to series that are long past their expiration date. I've been that guy that's chugging down a gallon of curdled Final Fantasy releases for quite a while now, to the point where it's easier to beg them to stop that it is me.

On the other, I'm also pretty good at reading the tea leaves, and knowing when a game is going to be shit. See: Aliens - Colonial Marines. I've been at this long enough now that I can typically get a good feel based on not only what the publisher let's us see in advance, but also what they won't let us see in advance.

Sadly, though, #2 never overrides #1. Maybe we can change that this year.

Fable: Anniversary (Xbox 360)
I really enjoyed the first two Fable games, even if they fell well short of Molyneux's promises that they were going to be full life-simulators and that real children were going to literally burst forth from the original Xbox (it was about big enough to gestate a human embryo.)

I enjoyed them, and then finished them, and never envisioned a world in which I would ever go back and play them. Yes, this looks neat, and it has ACHIEVEMENTS, and yes, as I said, I really did enjoy the original game.

However, it has two strikes right out of the gate. One, I've already played this. Two, I can't play it on my Xbox One. Yes, my 360 is still hooked up in another room, but I don't like playing consoles, especially retired consoles, and while this looks kinda interesting, between my backlog and the crush of new releases this year, I'm leaning toward 'no.'

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy: XIII: 3: Lightning Again (Xbox 360)
This whole Final Fantasy XIII franchising thing has always had me scratching my head. My two least-favorite non-MMO numerical Final Fantasy games (X and XIII) both got the sequel treatment, and I've never understood this.

I don't think either is outright offensive, nor a bad game, per se, but there are much better Final Fantasy titles out there with which to build franchises.

Rather, there are better Final Fantasy titles out there with which to make true JRPG sequels, and not horrible third-person shooters that make children and cute animals cry tears of anguished blood.

Either way, Lightning is apparently Returning, and it looks like they've revamped the combat to be more action-oriented after 25 years of success with a more menu-heavy system. Why, you ask, would they do this? Well, it's obviously, uh, hmm, I, uh, well, it's obviously the next step in further alienating a once-tremendous fanbase. And we'll all still buy this shit, so there ya go.

But, it might be great. After the horrid story & characters (but awesome combat) that was Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2 was a pleasant surprise.

Honestly, I'll probably end up being a sucker bitch and buying it, but my logical Vulcan mind says that's a potentially stupid decision.

South Park: The Stick of Truth (PC)
This is one that should be on the 'Curious,' or even 'MUST HAVE' list, given it's blend of pedigrees.

Here's why it's not. Too many delays + change in publisher. Sometimes, when something's allowed to have too many hands changing core concepts over a period of time, the game can end up having a ton of cool features, none of which is particularly polished. This isn't to say it's doomed. It might be great, but I have to wait and see.

Also, it's Ubisoft, so the PC version might get delayed until god knows when.

BUT, it is being developed by Obsidian, which is usually a great thing, and a lot of the marketing has suggested that Matt Stone and Trey Parker are heavily involved.

I actually have a better feeling about this than I do my next game ...

THIEF (PC)
Yeah, it's not really an RPG, but DXHR came close, so I'm counting it.

This game is supposed to be great. It's the same studio, Eidos Montreal, that made Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and you'd think this game would be right up their alley. But ... the tea leaves have me worried. Between the lukewarm previews citing very specific issues with the game, and the studio GM bailing last year because of irreconcilable differences with Squenix ... ya gotta wonder ... it's too bad, because I wanna buy this game and love it. I loved DXHR. I like the Thief series quite a bit, too.

At the same time, some of the issues presented in the previews sounds pretty fucking nitpicky, so it may be alright. We'll find out in less than a month.

Final Fantasy XIV - new content (PC)
My paid time is running out in Eorzea, and as much as I didn't hate my experience there, I'm not sure my subscription to this game is going to survive my summer purge of MMOs, in which only sub will be left standing.

I don't like the lack of voice acting, and while the game itself is actually pretty decent, I'm guessing that its lack of narrative hook will end up dooming it for me.

We'll see, though. A substantial story-based release for the game could keep me in. Anything they can do to make it more a true 'Final Fantasy' game, but online, will make it very hard for me to dump. I'd love nothing more than to immerse myself in a real Final Fantasy world, and this game already comes pretty close, but ESO and SWTOR already have made stronger cases for my $15/month.

In closing ...
I don't want to be a negative Nancy, but these are games I want to want, and something about them makes me cautious, or has diminished my interest.

It is worth noting, too, that these games are all coming out soon, away from the releases in which publishers typically have more confidence. If something hits about this time of year, it indicates either a just-missed holiday release, or it's being dumped, to avoid competing with better games. Bigger releases typically crank up from April to June and then September to November. Games released outside of those windows, due to observed publisher habits, typically bear a little more scrutiny.

These could all be fine games, but have all, for various reasons, incurred a 'wait and see' attitude from me.

What say you? What are your thoughts on these games? You gonna take a chance on them, wait and see, or just avoid them altogether? Let me know!

Tomorrow, I'll be back with my 'Curious' games, the games that I'm very curious about, and am somewhat inclined on which to take a chance.

Thanks for reading!

-Blaine