Half Life 2 - Final Impressions

All good things must come to an end, and my playthrough of Half Life 2 is no exception, even though the experience spanned a good three weeks. This is a game that constantly made me feel like there was something else to do, through clever additions to the existing game mechanics, including mixing driving stages into simple shooter stages, controlling swarms of antlions, managing squads of resistance fighters, and the thoroughly enjoyable romp through the Citadel with the powered up Gravity Gun in the last level of the game. I could talk about the visuals in the game (still crisp and sharp, even though they are starting to show their age) or the atmosphere (it could just be me, but I felt that the game developed an overarching tension that became more palpable in the later stages), but all of this has been hashed and rehashed many times. That's the price you pay for playing a game that's 4 years old.

The area of the game that really impressed me, and the one I'd like to focus on, is the character development, specifically that of Alyx. When you first run into her, rescuing you from Civil Protection forces, she's a cocky and brash girl, the daughter of Eli Vance. As the game progresses, she becomes an ally, a director, a savior, and a friend, all through the development of her dialogue and how the voice acting communicates her feelings and moods to you, the player. Valve pulled off something that you don't see in video game writing: a relationship between the player and an NPC that seems to transcend the in-your-face obvious motivations and cues. There were two specific points to illustrate my point, and they both occur near the end of the game. The first is Alyx's talk with you as you ride the elevator while following Breen up further into the Citadel. Her facial features, her words, and the tone conveyed by Alyx's voice actor, Merle Dandridge, clearly add up to Alyx possessing deeper feelings for your character (Dr. Freeman). What makes me mention this scene is the fact that it's not thrown at you with an obvious physical cue, but more of the sum of all the cues you can heed from this NPC. It was refreshing to see some subtlety utilized in video games.

The second point comes when Alyx activates the elevator for you to follow Breen into the reactor core of the Citadel. As the elevator starts to descend, Alyx approaches the elevator and wishes you luck. The gripping part of this is the tone of her voice and the way she places her hands on the glass as she disappears from sight. Those simple cues communicate genuine concern and feeling for you as you embark on what ends up being the final conflict of this chapter in Half Life 2. While I really enjoyed everything about the game, including the gunplay, the level design, the puzzle solving aspects, the graphics and sound, it was the fact that I really cared about the fate of the characters in the game that will stick with me when I remember this game.

On another note, the fact that I finally finished the game paves the way for me to pick up Fallout 3 tomorrow. I made a vow to myself that I wouldn't buy another game until I finished Half Life 2 and I've done my best to live up to that vow. Tomorrow I move from the post apocalyptic world of City 17 and Black Mesa to the future-retro post apocalyptic world of Washington, D.C. I'm sensing a disturbing trend in my video game taste. I think I need to go play a game of Super Mario Brothers to cleanse my palette.

Fallout 3

Ok, so I was always interested in this game, because of the great time I had with the original Fallout back in college. However, it wasn't seriously on my radar recently because (a) my brother now has my 360, and (b) my computer wasn't beefy enough to even think about running it. Now that I've taken care of problem (b), I can now consider getting it. I've saved a fair amount of Gamestop credit, so it won't set me back that much (again, a concern for my financial situation). Still, even then I wasn't incredibly excited about it.

Until yesterday. I had been on a fair amount of media blackout regarding this game, intentionally avoiding any videos and most screenshots. Afterfinally watching a few of the gameplay videos floating around, all I can say is, "Holy crap!" The presentation of the game is great, and Bethesda seems to capture the post-apocalyptic feel well. The animation of the characters (especially those involving blowing up heads or dismembering raiders) are quite well-realized and perfectly gory for the action-movie fan in me. The description of all of the possibilities in how to deal with a situation (violence, stealth, talking, tech, etc.) really get my gaming juices flowing. Combine all of those and you have a game that I'm going to make sure I have as soon as humanly possible.

This is going to sound strange, this is a refreshing feeling. Because my day consists of listening to a lot of video game podcasts and visiting gaming websites, to experience this rush of anticipation for a game so close to its release is quite a marvel. We live in a day where Triple A titles are known years in advance and the anticipation can wax and wane several times in the time between announcement and actual release. Having intentionally avoided most of the coverage regarding the game, I find myself in the position of not being able to wait until next week to get my hands on it. This isn't a claim I can make very often these days.

So, until next Tuesday I'll entertain myself with Half Life 2. In the short half-hour I had to play last night, I made my way deeper into the facility to save Eli. It's an interesting dynamic, having Alyx support you via radio in the control room. I left off in the second area where you can set up turrets to help defend against a horde of Combine forces storming your position. I failed the initial attempt and then hung it up for the night. While settling in for bed, I realized what I might have done wrong and have a plan for success on my next attempt. We'll see how that goes...

A Plague Upon Our Home

...Or at least that's how it feels. My wife and nearly 9-month old twins have all come down with colds, and I'm the only healthy one left. Boy are they in trouble! Trusting their care to me is like trusting the care of a china shop to an angry bull; it's bound to end badly. Right now, it almost feels like we could recreate the scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," featuring the cart being pulled through town and a crier announcing, "Bring out your dead!" Well, it's really not that bad, but let's pretend it is, for literary purposes anyway. If I weren't their father and love them more than life itself, I would probably say my children look pretty nasty right now, with their runny noses and their tired, expressionless stares. Since I'm their father, I think they're the best babies ever and wouldn't trade them for the world, even when they're sick!

This drastic turn of events limited my free time this weekend, so I wasn't able to finish Half Life 2 (for the second straight weekend). However, I did make some progress, in the hour or so I was able to sneak away while everyone was napping. I'm now at the beginning of the Entanglements sections of the game, trying to help Alyx save her father. Hopefully it won't be too difficult to keep her alive through this stage, but since I've already gotten her killed once, I'm not optimistic. This feels like a glorified escort mission, one of my least favorite mission types in any game. Valve does have a way of surprising me, though, so I haven't completely given up hope yet. My wife is on the gaming rig downstairs, while I type this on the communal laptop up in the kitchen, so there's no chance of advancement this evening. Maybe tomorrow evening some game time will avail itself of me, but I'm not holding my breath.

The Red Sox season ended last night with a loss to the Rays in Game 7 of the ALCS. I'm proud of both teams, but sad that the Sox won't be vying for the World Series crown this year. They can't win them all, and if they had to lose, I guess I'm glad it was to the Rays. Of course I'm rooting for the upstart Rays to take home the title, from the perspective of the perennial doormat making good on a phenomenal season. It would be a great feel-good story for sports in general.

Well, that's all for now. I'll be back soon with an update on my HL2 progress. My new goal, which is a bit more conservative and attainable, is to have the game completed before Fallout 3 arrives in stores next Tuesday. I refuse to buy another game until finishing this one. Wish me luck!

Week in Review - Less than Stellar Edition

What a week it's been! The week started off alright, with work going relatively smoothly on Monday, but quickly made a downward turn when it was discovered that we had no hot water at our house. Before our kids, this would be an inconvenience, as two professional adults could make do, and deal with the hassle until we could find proper help. With two kids, and the mountains of clothes they go through, the bottles and dishes that need to be washed, the baths that need to be taken, and so forth, this is a big problem. I went down to investigate the issue. If you were to know anything about me, it's that I'm not very handy around the house, so me looking at the water heater is like a first-grader looking at a rocket. Sure, it looks shiny and cool, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about how it works or where to start troubleshooting the problem. I eventually made my way to the bottom of the unit (the heat in this case is provided by natural gas as opposed to electricity), and found that the pilot was out. Using the directions conveniently placed on the side of the tank, I was able to get the heater working again. My mind registered the dried up trail of what clearly was water leading away from the bottom of the unit, brushing it aside as an old leak...

About an hour later, I went back down into the basement to check to see how the heater was doing, and lo and behold, the bottom of the unit was surrounded with water. Clearly, this is why the pilot went out. That will teach me to ignore the warning signs in the future. To make a long story short, I stayed home from work the next day, and $925 later my problem was solved. The new heater works well, too well in fact. The old unit was becoming less and less able to heat the water, so we've been living with cooler and cooler water. This new unit, even at the factory preset of what should be around 115 degrees, provides water hot enough to cook meat on the bone. I've since turned it down twice just to make it tolerable.

To add to the fun of that day, I then had to attend a planning board hearing in one of the towns I'm working with, to present information in defense of a special permit application. The residents in the area got the wrong impression of what the hearing was being held to accomplish, and 30 or 40 people came in very angry and misinformed. That's a really bad combination. What should have taken less than 20 minutes and been an open and shut issue turned into an hour of unpleasant questions and people ignorant of the issue at hand spouting off about unrelated topics and generally making trouble. That's New England town government for you...

On the upside, I did have the opportunity at some point during the week (it was Wednesday evening, if I remember correctly) to catch an episode of UFC Unleashed, chronicling the fight between Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Liddell. Being a relative novice to the UFC scene, this was definitely one of the better fights I'd seen, from the level of intensity of both participants and the skill displayed by both men. It was also my first experience seeing Liddell fight, after having read about him in magazines and such. I have to admit, the more I watch MMA, the more I enjoy the whole experience, and it's clear that this has supplanted the WWE for people's entertainment dollar. I could be wrong on this, but the buzz around MMA seems to be far greater than around professional wrestling these days. That's another topic, though, to be discussed another day.

The Red Sox pulled off a huge comeback last night to force Game 6 in Tampa on Saturday. I'll admit that I was long asleep when the rally came, and I had fully expected to wake up today to the eulogy of the 2008 season, but live to fight another day. This could end up being just like last year, where the Sox were down to the Indians 3-1, then came back to take the ALCS and then sweep the World Series, but even to force a Game 7 is a tall order. James Shields has been a nightmare for Sox hitters, and who knows which Josh Beckett will show up on Saturday. If any team can do it, though, it's this one, so hope is never lost.

Also during this week, I've made progress in Half Life 2. I currently stand near the beginning of the antlion area in the 'Sandtraps' stage, where I've helped the Resistance forces fight off the attack at the lighthouse and traveled down the cliff path to the beach. The poor schmuck acting as lookout has been killed by the antlions, and I've jumped on a few rocks to get to the beach. It was there I saved and shut down for the night. I'm rapidly approaching where I stopped playing the last time, just after entering Nova Prospekt. If I'm not mistaken, that area of the game is after working through the antlion area. I'm still just as bad at shooters as I always was, but the story and experience are worth working through this game.

It has been written many times about the characters in Half Life 2, and how well they are brought to life and voiced in such a way as to make the player care about them. One example that really stuck out for me during this playthrough was the character of Father Gregori, the hermit who helps you through the Ravenholm area. The voice acting was great, and I really started to care for the guy, so much so in fact that I didn't want to leave him when he held the gate open to the mine for me. As the gate closed behind me, he yelled something about his congregation and laughed. Turning back at the entrance to the mine area, the steams of headcrab zombies could be seen making their way toward him, so many that it was clear he wasn't going to make it. Even though it was just a game, and a scripted event within that game, I turned quickly and entered the mine area, because I didn't want to see what happened. For a brief moment, I had the sinking feeling in my stomach that I couldn't do anything to save him. That moment made me realize just how well-crafted the story and characters are in this game, and gave me a newfound appreciation for the fine art of storytelling in this medium.

So, what are you going to be playing this weekend? I intend to make my way through Half Life 2, and also to finish up Portal, which I started earlier in the week. After that, I'm thinking about a change of pace to something a more lighthearted and fun. This is probably a good opportunity to check out some of the free games on the Internet, as some of them show real promise. I also am looking to 'cleanse the palette,' if you will, with the release of Fallout 3 only a little over a week away. Any suggestions?

Repost from MTG: Handheld Gaming and the New Dad

If you'll indulge yet another session of navel-gazing on my part, this is (what is shaping up to be) my last post on the old blog. It erupted from an evening of way too many rum and cokes, and the desire to get some of the things I'd been doing out of my head and into a readable form. The finished product wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I repost it here for my own amusement. I can tell you that it was difficult to get to work the next day (I believe I wrote this over the course of a late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning), something I hope not to repeat too often. :)

Has it really been nearly 7 months since I last posted here? Looking at the calendar…Yes, it really has. I have a good reason, two of them, to explain why I haven’t been here, and they’re both teething a lot and keeping us up at night. Since I last posted here, my wife and I have been blessed with the arrival of twins. On January 25th, Nicholas and Isabelle joined the fray and I can truly say that my life hasn’t been the same, nor will it ever be again.

That’s not to say that I’ve completely reformed my game-playing ways. No sir! I still sneak in gaming when I can, it’s just changed forms. Prior to the kids’ arrival, I wisely invested in both a PSP and a DS, which now look far better than they did at the time. The 360 is no longer, residing with my brother back home. He’s in college, which basically means he has all the time in the world to get use out of it. My gaming is now accomplished in fits and starts, usually just before I fall asleep, because that means the kids are down too. Even though my gaming time and means have changed, I have had some opportunity to mess around with a pretty varied assortment of titles, which I’ll run down (by system), including my impressions of each one. Most of these were acquired by trading in other games that I didn’t want or play anymore, aided with some fortuitous Gamestop promos (like get 50% extra on our trade-ins, get 20% off used games, things of that sort), and some were downloaded from the Playstation Store on the web. In another post I’ll document the DS experiences I’ve had. But for now, without further ado, check out the list of PSP titles I’ve dabbled with (in no particular order) after the jump.

(My version of editor’s note: As I am writing this entry, I am indulging in, for me at least, a copious amount of beverages of the adult variety, so I feel the need to include a disclaimer that if anything seems badly worded or just sounds stupid, blame it on the Caribbean rum and cokes I’m consuming, not on my general grasp of the English language. It just so happens that I’ve been given the night off from child duty, so I’m taking the opportunity to indulge. It doesn’t happen often, so the alcohol affects me more than it used to. You have been warned.)

PSP

Echochrome (demo)

The first demo I downloaded from the Playstation Store for the PSP was Echochrome. This game was interesting, as it evoked the artwork of M.C. Escher (I don’t know who Escher is, I will admit, as I found this out reading another review of the game), and the protagonist is essentially a mannequin. The point of the game is to change the perspective of the object that the mannequin is walking on to create pathways for the mannequin to reach other stationary mannequins. The premise is unique, the game controls well, there appears to be some mind-bending challenges in there…it just wasn’t for me. I made it through the 4 or 5 levels in the demo, shrugged and moved on. I would love to be more articulate and wordy about this game, but I can’t bring myself to do so.

Patapon (demo)

I will admit that I was really excited about this demo, because the game reviewed really well. The game’s controls are based on rhythmically tapping the buttons in certain patterns to make your little characters on the screen do different things. As a drum-beating ‘god’, apparently, you control the little dudes and have them go to battle, move forward and backward, and so on. You can amass an army of different units, collect loot to better equip your army, and battle monsters to save the world, or something like that. I tried to like the demo, but whether it be that I can’t play the game very loudly (for fear of waking the kids) or maybe I don’t have any rhythm, I just couldn’t get the hang of the controls. The demo failed to grab me in the 15 or so minutes I played it, so as with Echochrome, I just moved on.

Ape Quest (demo)

As with Patapon, this was a demo I psyched myself up for as I waited for it to download onto my PSP (I’d love to rant about why we need to have the PSP connected to the PC so we can download directly to it, instead of being able to download to the PC and then transfer to the PSP at my leisure, but that’s another entry entirely). The premise of this game was unique: you take control of the inept son of the Ape King, ready to go off into the world and try to prove he’s not an idiot, as everyone believes. As an ape, the son of the king loves bananas, and that’s what gets him in trouble. Apparently not far from the palace, there are three statues of evil beings who many years ago were imprisoned as statues and are now held in place by a magical…banana. You can probably see where this is leading. You eat the banana, the evil beings are released, and now it falls to you to save the kingdom.

The whole premise aside, the game does have some promise. There is the whole RPG-aspect of gaining levels and collecting loot, improving your equipment and learning new skills. My problem with the game was that some of the random encounters were turn-based battles (fine by me) and some were completely inane mini-games that were counter-intuitive and not fun at all to deal with. I enjoyed the battles, even though the animations were a bit slow and the interface seems a bit clunky. Even with some of the good points that the game had, I couldn’t get past the mini-games, so it went the way of Echochrome and Patapon.

Lego Indiana Jones

Being a fan of Lego Star Wars, I was looking forward to Lego Indiana Jones. I went to Gamestop on release day and picked it up, along with 4 UMD movies (Joe Dirt, Starship Troopers, The Dark Crystal and The Fifth Element, all $4.99 each). Sadly the Lego magic, at least in a video game sense, was sadly gone. I played through the first level or two of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and just couldn’t bring myself to go on. I’m not quite sure why, since I completed the first Lego Star Wars, and had a good time with the second. Maybe it was the simplistic play, maybe it was the fact that the view felt a bit cramped on the PSP, maybe it was that I was just past the hook of the Lego games, whatever it was I just couldn’t get into this installment in the Lego franchise. It has since been returned for other games.

(On a side note, my parents have begun the tradition of getting me a Lego set for my birthday and Christmas. Since I’m 32 and the father of twins, that might seem a bit childish, and maybe it is, but I can’t begin to tell you the fun I have putting those things together. So far (the tradition is only a year old), I have a ship from the Star Wars prequels and the Temple set from Raiders of the Lost Ark. If I only had more disposable income, I would buy the Millenium Falcon and Death Star sets that are currently out, at a price of $499 and $399, respectively.)

Secret Agent Clank (demo)

I’ve downloaded this demo and played it for about 5 minutes. I don’t believe I’ve given it a fair shake, and plan on going back to it and trying once more to see what I think about it. It sounds strange, but I hope I like this one, because from all I’ve read, it’s obviously similar in playstyle, perspective, etc. to the Ratchet and Clank installment on the PSP (Size Matters). For some reason, I’d really like to play this game, because of some of the game mechanics it contains. Unfortunately, I’ve read mixed reviews on that game, which is why I’m holding off at this time. Oops, I digress. This isn’t a wish list of games I’d like to play (another blog entry as well), so let’s move on…

Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles

Strangely enough, this was one of the games that I purchased the PSP for in the first place. I was drawn to the fact that it was a Castlevania game that included not only a remake of the Rondo of Blood title (not released in the US until now), but also had the original Rondo of Blood game as well as one of my top 5 games of all time on the UMD, Symphony of the Night! The Rondo remake (the Dracula X in the title, as far as I know) proves to be as hard as billed, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to get through it. Since one of my main motivations in buying the game was to get access to Symphony on the PSP, I finally broke down and read an FAQ on how to unlock that game. The process to do this involved taking a path through the game that was previously unknown to me, because in Dracula X, there are the main stages (known as 1, 2 3, 4, etc.) and alternate paths (designated as 2’, 3’, 4’, and so on). As it goes, I had been following the main path, while the item to unlock Symphony lay on the alternate path, so back I went, to get the object of my affection. After some time in figuring out what I had to do, it was in my grasp. I excitedly exited to the main screen, and fired up Symphony of the Night…

To say I find the version on the UMD disappointing is an understatement. To maintain the original aspect ratio, the game plays in a window that’s smaller than the PSP screen, which is small to begin with. Squinting to see what I’m doing takes a fair amount of the enjoyment out of the experience. Also it seems that they’ve redone the voice acting from the original, which doesn’t make sense to me, because the horribly bad voice acting was part of the charm of the original. These two issues combined are making me consider downloading the $10 PS1 version available at the Playstation Store, which I may do if and when I get confirmation of how it’s rendered on the PSP screen and if the original voice acting is retained. If those two aspects meet my (relatively0 strict standards, Sony may get more of my money.

(Just to shed some light on this: I’ve played through Symphony at least 8 times, between the original PS1 version and the Live Arcade version available last year. It seems I have a sad obsession with this game that has yet to be resolved. Oh well…)

God of War: Chains of Olympus (demo and full game)

I have a confession to make. Before playing the Chains of Olympus demo, I had never played a God of War game. That is an admission I’m not proud to make, but I feel it important to do so. For some reason, I have never owned a PS2, which has shut me out of many, many great games of the previous generation. Because I’m horrible at twitch-based games (when I play Halo 2 or 3 with co-workers, I’m basically out there to pad kill stats for everyone else on the opposing team, while I scream obscenities at my plasma TV), I never thought I’d be good at this series. Then, on a whim (and the fact that it was free), I downloaded the Chains demo from the Playstation Store, and gave it a shot. I’m not having any delusions of grandeur that I’m good at it, but I had a great time playing through the demo that was available, so much so that I ended up ordering the full version from Toys R’ Us (utilizing a glitch I discovered on the Cheap Ass Gamer forums, I got both Chains and Crisis Core, the next game I’ll talk about, for the price of one, woohoo!) the next day.

Once the game arrived, I played through the demo section, and was surprised to find the three-way mini-game had been omitted from the demo (I know, shocker, huh?). Since I hadn’t played any of the other games, it came as a bit of a surprise to me, and was rather amused to complete it. It really is segments like that which clearly show what demographic this and most games on the market are aimed toward. Of course, I didn’t give up until I successfully completed it. :)

Anyway, the graphics on this game are incredible for a PSP game. They appear to be comparable to the PS2 games, albeit in a smaller package. I’ve found the gameplay to be a lot of fun, even though I’ve only made it through the first level or so (I’ve been distracted by another game, but will get back to this game in due time). In the short amount of game I have played, I’ve really enjoyed how smooth the controls work, and am amazed at how much I can enjoy eviscerating the incredible amount of enemies the game throws at me. As you can see, I’m thoroughly impressed with this game, and hope that we see more and more games of this caliber on the PSP. If nothing else, I want to justify the money I spent to acquire it (which I did on a whim, as always).

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

I can honestly say that I haven’t followed the Final Fantasy series for a long time. The last game in the series that I played (this is going to be heresy for some people, so please be prepared) was Final Fantasy III on the SNES (in my mostly inebriated state, I can’t even begin to translate that to its Japanese counterpart), but I thoroughly enjoyed those games. Just to keep score, that means I missed the transcendent Final Fantasy VII, although I watched my roommate in college, Jason, play a fair amount of it. So when I got the urge to purchase the Crisis Core game, it was from reading reviews of how it was a fun game, one that fit well in the handheld world with its bite-size missions and decent storyline. Because of my family commitments (which I’m thoroughly shirking tonight, at the detriment of sleep), I don’t get a whole lot of contiguous time to play games, so anything that can honestly boast about meaningful bite-sized missions that improve character advancement will gain points in my eyes.

As with Chains of Olympus, this is a visually stunning game. The rendered cutscenes are of a quality that I wouldn’t have expected from the PSP, and the in-game graphics are excellent as well. According to the game clock, I’ve played about 3 ½ hours now, and I’m only 5% completed on the game, so I have a really long way to go, but so far my impressions of the game are positive. The story has some depth (so far, my character’s best friend has seemingly betrayed our cause and aligned himself with the enemy, and murdered his mom in the process), and the missions, both main story and side-quests, provide adequate distraction and enjoyment.

The battle system takes some getting used to (I’ll admit I haven’t looked at the game manual in depth, so I’m not sure if I’m utilizing some of the game features the way I should), but it’s engaging and fun. It’s taken some time getting used to cycling through the available combat options using the R and L buttons and then executing using the X button, but I’m getting more and more used to it. As someone who doesn’t have a lot of time to invest at this point, I appreciate some of the simplicity the game affords (4 materia slots, 2 accessory slots). So far, the ‘Materia Fusion’ option remains grayed out on my menu, so I’m not sure what other avenues that will open, but I look forward to finding out.

Overall, this is the game I’ve spent the most time with in the past week or so, but I tend to bounce around between games and systems (at this time, between the PSP and DS), so who knows what next week will bring?

So this concludes my trials and tribulations on the PSP. My next installment will cover my experiences on the DS. Until then, thanks for reading and I’ll see you all soon!

(Yet another feeble attempt at an Editor’s Note: During the execution of this blog entry and while sufficiently inebriated, I downloaded the Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 Beginner demo, the Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow demo, which were both free, and the full game fLOw to the PSP. Subconsciously, I’m obviously creating more to talk about for a future blog entry. On a related note, since I need to be saving money for my kids’ college fund, I clearly need to avoid drinking and spending time on the computer. This time, it’s an $8 downloadable game. Next time, I might not be so lucky and I’ll impulse-buy a car. That is all.)

(One final Editor’s Note: I know I’m not using the editor’s note tag correctly, but it’s amusing me, so I guess you’ll have to deal with it. I just tried fLOw, and it’s really quite a trippy game, especially in my state. It’s clearly going to involve some serious thought or simply letting go and allowing the game to just show me the way. Either way, I’m impressed so far.)

Just to clarify, fLOw is a trippy game whether you're drunk or not. I've played it since and I still get that feeling of an acid trip that you can control with an analog stick.

Monday Musings

Well, I didn't complete HL2 like I had intended to over the weekend, although I'm not sure I eve had much chance to do that, considering how I digest game content. I did, however, advance to Ravenholm, one of my favorite sections during my first playthrough, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

In my defense, I did have a lot of distractions that kept me from putting in a goodly amount of game time. My kids, for one (or two, since they're twins), justifiably garnered much of Daddy's attention. The Red Sox games on Friday and Saturday nights also ate into game time. The fact that I impulsively went out and picked up Portal cost me some advancement in HL2 also, since Portal is one of my favorite experiences in gaming. Even after convincing myself that I should wait to install Portal until after HL2 was done, I couldn't resist. In only a short half-hour of actual gaming, I found myself at the start of the 14th test chamber, and I also found myself loving the experience nearly as much as the first time through. The game plays a bit differently on the PC with mouse and keyboard than it did on the 360 with the controller, probably for the better. I'm not one of those hardcore gamers who think mouse and keyboard always beat the controller, probably because I'm not a hardcore 1st person shooter player. I enjoy my games both with a mouse and with a gamepad, but I digress. That's a topic for another day...

Going back to the Sox, I was pleased to see them earn a split in Tampa, as they didn't fare very well in the Trop during the regular season (in all fairness though, nobody did, considering the Rays' 57-24 home record). Dice-K spun a gem on Friday, which was equaled in anthesis by Josh Beckett's 4-1/3 inning, 8 run performance on Saturday. On the upside, the offense woke up on Saturday, and if the hitters can keep that momentum going in the friendly confines of Fenway, the series may not make it back to Tampa.

The Patriots came out in San Diego and got creamed by the Chargers, 30-10, which only confirmed my suspicion that this is a team that's going to be mediocre for the rest of this season. It's difficult to see this team, who have been among the best in the NFL for so long, struggle so mightily on both sides of the ball. Maybe the defense will figure things out and maybe Cassell will grow into his new role as starter, but I see more painful performances in the future.

As the blog moves forward, I hope to provide more 'feature-type' content as opposed to the off-the-cuff daily ramblings that make up the majority of the posts so far. I have some ideas to flesh out the content provided, now the onus is on me to bring them to fruition. That is something I've struggled with all my life (I'm full of great ideas, but often lack the follow through to see them to completion), and this blog is my latest attempt to break that cycle. Wish me luck as I push forward.

Enough of my ramblings. I'll be back soon, hopefully with something more structured and 'meaty'.

Weekend Playlist

I'm writing this as the Red Sox play the Rays in Game 1 of the ALCS (top of the 3rd, 0-0), so I probably won't get a lot of gaming in this evening. However, my official goal is to complete Half-Life 2 over the weekend. This could be a pretty tall order unless I burn some serious midnight oil; the kids, for some strange reason, demand a lot of my time during the day. Why can't they just sit quietly in a poopy diaper and ignore the fact they're hungry? Daddy has games to play! :) Yea, like that would fly...

Anyway, what are your plans for the weekend? Hopefully you're enjoying some electronic goodness in and amongst all of your other responsibilities. Leave a comment in the post talking about what you plan on tackling this weekend...

Repost from MTG: Justice, the Crackdown Way

One more nugget of gaming prose that I put together some time ago for my old blog. In this case, it was my attempt to write a video game review in a structured way. Just browsing through, I find it a bit too similar to many of the reviews you see throughout the enthusiast press. However, in the spirit of allowing me to look back and try to improve my writing style, I put it up here for consumption...

Since my last post, I've been spending hours in Pacific City, ridding the world of evildoers in Crackdown. In an earlier post, I talked about the demo and how much I enjoyed playing it, which spurred on my purchase of the title the day after it was released. Just as a guess, I've probably spent 20-25 hours on the game since then, just reveling in the game mechanics, blowing up gang members, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting civilian motorists...You know, just a normal day for a genetically enhanced freak of nature given free reign in a city overrun with crime, a boatload of weapons, explosives, cars and a license to kill. Without further ado, here's my review of Crackdown.

Story: Probably the weakest point of the game. You are a genetically-enhanced prototype, created by the Agency, to bring down the gangs of Pacific City. Your goal is to kill each of the six lieutenants, and then the kingpin, of three gangs, each controlling a distinct section of the city (for a total of 21 'bosses'). By killing the lieutenants, you weaken a specific aspect of the gang, such as recruiting, weaponry, explosives, vehicles and driving, etc. Your chances of killing the kingpin of each gang goes up as you kill the lieutenants, because the kingpin and his bodyguards are not as strong, have worse weapons at their disposal, etc. as you knock off the bosses who control those aspects of the gang. Theoretically you could kill the kingpin first, but it would be extremely difficult. After you destroy all the bosses for a particular gang, that gang disappears. The section of the city they once controlled no longer has gang members in it, and you are free to roam without fear of attack (useful for searching for agility and mystery orbs, which I'll touch on later).

Once you defeat all of the lieutenants and kingpins of all the gangs, you're finished. There are no side-quests, no mysteries to solve, nothing of the sort. While all the killing holds its own perverse satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment, it would be nice to have the ability to foil a robbery in progress if you happened to stumble upon it, or maybe you would get a mission to go eliminate a safehouse that stores gang drugs or weapons. Something of that nature might help to flesh out a very shallow storyline. I will say that the final lines spoken by your Agent contact after defeating the final kingpin were very intriguing, and clearly lay the groundwork for something in the future, but you really have to hear them to understand the impact, as it relates to the game and what story does exist. It's worth the time to hear them, in my opinion, and gives me hope for the next installment (which you can bet your bottom dollar there will be one) in this franchise.

Gameplay and Controls: You wreak havoc on the gangs of Pacific city from a third-person perspective, with the left analog stick controlling your movement, and the right analog stick controlling your view. The right trigger fires your weapon, and the left triggers targets the enemy (while holding the left trigger, you can move the right analog stick to target different points on the gang member/vehicle, such as legs, torso, arms, head, tires, gas tank, or body). You jump with the A button, execute a melee attack (mostly kicks, since you have a weapon in your hand) by pressing B, switch weapons with X, reload your current weapon with the left bumper, and throw grenades with the right bumper. You can pick up objects (if you are strong enough) by pressing and holding the B button when near the object. This can be really amusing later on in the game, when you can become strong enough to pick up buses and other vehicles.

One of the true joys of this game is the aspect of jumping and climbing. You start out with the ability to jump higher than a normal human at the beginning of the game (and let's face it, the game would be boring if you couldn't), and you can enhance that as the game progresses. Your character is also good at climbing, being able to grab onto window ledges, edges of landings, balconies, etc. and using these to further your ascent up the building in question. When you fall in the game, as you will very often, if you have the time to steer your character to one of these edges, he will catch them and stop your descent. Once you reach the top of the building, you will find some rooftops filled with gang members, or you'll find green orbs that enhance your agility. You can leap from rooftop to rooftop, and cover the entire city (almost) without ever having to set foot on the pavement below.

There exists within the game a decent array of weapons, ranging from pistols, rifles, automatic weapons, sniper rifles, grenade and rocket launchers, and hand tossed grenades. As is to be expected, the stronger enemies carry the stronger weapons, so you won't see all the weapon types in the Los Muertos area (generally considered the beginning area of the game). There is an interesting system in place to gain access to the weapons you acquire during the game. As you come across new weapons, by relieving enemies of them, you have access to that weapon immediately. If you want to have access to that weapon at later times as well, you are required to take this weapon to a Supply Point, areas scattered throughout the city where you can regain health and reload your ammo, and select what weapons you want to carry out there into the fray. Once you take a previously uncaptured weapon to a Supply Point, you can then access that weapon from any Supply Point. This mechanic creates a mini-collection quest for players (like myself) who like to have everything. I had a great time finding a new weapon and then being able to experment with it to find out its strengths and weaknesses. In the end, for my primary weapon I settled on the HMG machine gun, as it had an 80-shot clip, with the ability to carry 800 rounds at a time, as well as being relatively powerful and accurate. For my explosive weapon (you're allowed to carry two weapons and one type of grenade at any one time, so I decided to carry a firearm and explosive, to maximize efficiency), the clear choice was the Firefly rocket launcher, mainly based on its heat-seeking ability, but it also had the advantage of a 5-round clip and 15 round total carrying capacity. Feel free to mix and match, to find your optimum combination.

I can't truly comment on the driving aspect of the game, having spent little time with the vehicles. Every once in a while, during a particularly evil streak of reigning hellfire down upon the gangs of Pacific City, I would hop into one of their rides and try to mow them down. Because my driving is so weak, compared to the rest of my abilities, the task of running down moving gang members was basically fruitless, as they were intelligent enough to avoid me most of the time. Since the game allows you to continue to roam the area after all the gangs have been eliminated, I will go back and experiment more with the feature, to get a more accurate understanding of its potential.

Character Advancement: The portion of the game that seems to be drawing the masses into the game experience, the character advancement is a rudimentary implementation of RPG-type elements into a third person shooter. The last statement makes it sound as if this is a negative, but to the contrary, it very much adds to the game, and creates rewards for using your different abilities. If you shoot down a gang member with a gun, you get firearms experience. If you blow up gang members with a grenade or rocket, you get explosives experience. If you beat a gang member senseless with your bare hands or a thrown item (trash can, staging, cinder block, car, etc.), you gain strength experience. If you eliminate gang members by running them over with a vehicle, you get driving experience. If you make it your mission to gather the agility orbs scattered throughout the city on rooftops, you gain agility experience.

There are also rooftop races and driving races scattered about the city (12 of each) that, upon successful completion, add to the pertinent experience pool. The rooftop races consist of traveling to a waypoints that pop up throughout the area in a certain time frame. Unfortunately, I can't comment at this time on the driving races, more for the simple fact that I found jumping and running through the city was more convenient than trying to drive. I promise try these in the future, to give all of the game features its just due.

Overall, this advancement system really does create a risk/reward experience that adds a lot to the game, because there's nothing more gratifying to blow up a rooftop full of baddies, and then watching the explosive experience flow into you. It's instant feedback for players, and creates goals separate from the main storyline. The dynamic seemed to keep me captivated in the game, working toward higher and higher levels of experience, to see what the effects would be on my explosives, jumping, etc. and most likely kept me playing far longer than if there were no advancement system in place.

Graphics: The graphics were pretty good in Crackdown, mixing some cel-shading aspects with attempts at realistic environmental aspects. Your character, the gang members, and civilians all look as if they had jumped out of a comic book frame, in a good way. It's a unique take on, and adds a cartoony feel, which to be honest took the edge off the massive amounts of violence doled out, both by myself and by the gangs (at times). The environment is well-done, and really does give the feel of a city on the edge of despair. One of the things I found very impressive is that the clipping plane seemed infinite, as I could see tall buildings from great distances, and they actually had substance, as I could launch a rocket at the Agency tower from the furthest point in the city, and watch as it impacted, some 10 seconds after the initial launch. There's a lot of variety in the locations within the city, from nightclubs to office buildings to oil refineries, and all are rendered (from the outside) with excellent detail.

Sound: The sound was very well done, with the exception of the fact that there was no background music. In most games, there is at least some music playing, but unless you're driving around in a vehicle, there's only the ambient game sounds to occupy your ears. With that being said, the ambient sound effects were great. When you walked at street level, there was a din of a busy city, from overheard conversations, to vehicle noise, to the occasional sound of distant gunfire (hey, it happens even in real cities). The citizens of Pacific City will wish you luck, run in fear, and even curse at you, if you happen to accidentally fall on them from above or something. The gang members are constantly chattering about how they're going to kill you, and often have some comment while they die ("I can't...feel my...feet", or "It's so...cold"). The vehicle sounds, from engines, squealing tires, to the screeching of twisted metal when they crash, are outstanding.

Fun Factor: Even though the game's story is very shallow, this does not take away from the fun of the game itself. Running around the city, skirmishing with the small groups of gang members you run across, searching for agility and mystery orbs, assaulting the boss locations, character development....I could go on and on about the things I've seen in the game (I caused a massive pile up on one of the city's main highways, simply by crossing the highway on foot, and watched in astonishment as car after car rammed into the pile, even running over hapless victims who had managed to climb out of the wreckage), but it's up to each player to sculpt their game experience. The game's developer, Realtime Worlds, made a conscious effort to create a true 'sandbox' game experience, and this does not disappoint. In my opinion, this game will be what the player makes of it, because you can very quickly work your way through the gangs, and be finished in probably an afternoon of play. If you take the time to play around with the game mechanics, explore the city, and just wreak havoc with the gangs whenever and where-ever possible, you can extend the game experience far longer.

Final Judgment: On a scale of 1-10, with 5 being an average game and 10 being the best of the best, I would have to give this game a score of 8. The lack of depth to the story really knocks the score down for me, because I found the game mechanics, character advancement, controls, visual effects, and overall feel to be great. If only the game were deeper and had more side quests, it would be worthy of a 9 or higher. Due to the lack of depth, this may not be a purchase title (although the inclusion of access to the Halo 3 beta later this spring will make it so for many people), I will definitely say this is a title that you owe it to yourself to rent.

Thanks for reading my first structured game review. Hopefully you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. In the future, look for more reviews of this type, as well as some less-structured impressions I have for games that I don't deem it worthy to fully play through. Once again, thanks for reading and keep gaming!

Well, it was a good try, anyway. Now I'm hopefully on to bigger and better things.

Repost from MTG: Item Repair and Permanent Decay

As with the previous post, I'm attempting to save some of my meager writing history with this reposting of some thoughts I had on decay and item repair in MMOs. As before, take a look and see what you think...

Because of the tragic death (for the third time, as discussed in a previous post) of my laptop screen, I'm currently sitting at my work laptop installing WoW. Thankfully for me, WoW is one of those games that isn't system-intensive and will allow me to actually run the game on my work rig. The work machine isn't bad, it just lacks graphical power, which is the generally the case for all work machines in my line of work (consulting engineering).

So, as I'm here patiently switching out CDs (the five for the original build, plus the four for BC), I thought I'd put down some of my thoughts on MMOs, specifically the systems in place for item wear, item repair and item decay. This general dynamic has been handled in many different ways by MMOs over the years, from no repair or decay whatsoever (a good example of this is the original Everquest), to having to repair items over time as they are damaged during use (most MMOs have some form of this nowadays, including SW:G and WoW, and EQ2 to a small extent), but most, if not all MMOs on the market now do not deal with permanent item decay. If you have an item (let's use in this example a sword), and you use it, in many games the condition of the item will worsen. This makes perfect sense, since in the example of the sword, it's going to take a beating cleaving through rats, bats, and gnolls. As the condition of the sword worsens, it becomes less and less effective. Eventually you'll have to go to an NPC or PC with the proper skills and have your sword repaired. With no permanent item decay, though, your sword can be repaired over and over and over again, with no fear of it ever permanently wearing out, breaking or otherwise becoming unusable.

Now, in a video game world, this makes some sense, as people are not playing the game to deal with real-world issues such as having to replace things because they wear out. It's much easier to suspend disbelief and some sense of realism and just accept the fact that the repair-people have such skill that they can repair any flaws, damage, etc. that are incurred on your item. There is also the fact that players would look less than favorably on the decay of an item that they spent countless hours raiding one boss mob, or one instance, or [insert endgame aspect here] to achieve. The player puts in their time, gets the item, only to have it wear out far too soon.

However, this aspect of items never truly wearing out and/or breaking wreaks havoc on the economy. Because items never really disappear, as players find more and more of these items, they flood the user market and reduce the inherent value of the item. For example, a powerful sword for a warrior, when first discovered, is extremely valuable for its rarity and power, but after a few months of farming and just plain finding more of the sword, its value is reduced because of the greater supply and no attrition of the sword due to breakage or wearing out.

The effect of items never wearing out also affects player-created items. In the original Everquest, early on in the life of the game banded mail armor was very popular and in demand for use by warrior types. Players skilled in the armorsmithing trade could make a decent living by making banded armor for the populace clamoring for it. As time went on, more and more people hopped on the bandwagon to make armor while fewer and fewer players needed it. As better armor was discovered, and players handed down their banded armor to the new characters they created, the market for banded armor dried up and disappeared altogether.

This effect of item wear on the economy has been lessened somewhat by the inclusion of soulbound and/or no-drop equipment, in whatever form it takes on each different MMO game. There are items in all games that, either after being equipped by the player or simply picked up by the player, cannot be traded to another player. This effectively removes the item from any in-game market, because the player who originally picked up or equipped the item cannot transfer it to another character. This system addresses the issue of flooding the game market and economy, but does not address the original topic of permanent item wear and decay.

In the MMO I would design, there would exist the aspect of permanent item wear and decay, and I would propose the basic system to work as such:

Each item would have two numbers associated with its condition, separated by a slash (xxx/xxx). The first number would represent current condition, while the second number would represent overall item conditon. The current condition (number ranges from 0-100) would be affected by the use of the item (i.e. going out and fighting creatures) and would affect the item statistics. As this number goes down, in the case of a weapon, the damage dealt by that weapon would decrease. If the item is armor, the damage mitigated would decrease as the current condition number goes down.

The second number represents the item's permanent condition. This attribute does not affect the item's effectiveness, but represents the amount of wear on the item itself. The attribute goes down over time, based on many factors, including how far the player lets the current condition go down before repairing, the skill of the player or NPC attempting to repair the item, etc. When the permanent condition of an item reaches zero, the item breaks and/or becomes unusable.

Regarding the repair dynamic: Using the original item example from above, taking this item to a player or NPC for repair would (depending on the level of the item and the skill level of the player or NPC repairing the item) revert the current condition of the item back to 100. However, the permanent condition of the item would be reduced, by a little if the repairing player or NPC has high skill, by more if they have little skill or the item's owner has allowed the item's current condition to go below a certain threshold, etc. The exact values of these events can be scaled for balance.

I could go on and on about the nitty gritty details, and bore you for hours taking about the system and the all of the dynamics that could come into effect, but the main thing I'd like to try to get across is that this system could be a vehicle to improve the flooding of the market with basically ageless items that never disappear or are removed from the economy, and also make player tradeskills relevant. If tradeskillers can provide the populace with items that are relevant, desirable and need to be replaced from time to time, then it would create player-driven economy with more interaction between players, create alternate advancement trees and occupations for players who may not be as inclined to 'grind' mobs endlessly, and generally balance out the economy, reducing the flooding of the market with items that never disappear.

Of course, there are downsides to this argument, and here are some of the issues I see with this system. FIrst, how do you apply item decay to rare and/or hard to procure armor, weapons, jewelry, etc. in such a way that it's fair and equitable without angering or downright alienating your playerbase? No player wants to see a rare drop, one that took them hundreds of hours of grinding, complete luck, whatever the circumstance, just disappear from use. Do you not have the decay dynamic affect this item, and simply slap a 'no-drop' or soulbound tag on that item? Do you have a specific NPC that can repair this item for a substantial fee, thus creating a money sink to further attempt to balance the economy? Or do you have the decay dynamic slowed so much that it almost never comes into effect with any regularity? These are questions that would need to be addressed with testing and proper balancing in a game setting, because no matter how good anything sounds on paper, all bets are off when it's released to 100,000+ players.

Again, as I've stated before, I'm not a game developer, so it's very possible that all of these questions have been addressed and answered hundreds or even thousands of times before, and the reason why a system as I've proposed doesn't exist is simply due to the fact that it's not practical. I'd like to think (and please don't burst my bubble too violently, I beg you) that I've come up with at least the basis for a system that could be reviewed, expanded, tested, revised, and become usable at some point. Maybe someday I'll develop a technical document including this system, and present it to a developer and see how much they laugh. An intriguing thought, to be sure...

Well, since the installation of WoW is finished, I'm going to retire from the blogosphere for now and head into Azeroth for a bit, but you can be sure that I'll be back soon, with more ramblings. As always, take care and keep gaming!

Well, what do you think? Leave any comments or suggestions in the comments section.

Repost from MTG: Dynamic Quest Systems

The following post comes from my days at ny old blog. I repost it here in essence so I don't lose the content, as I may someday want to revisit the ideas I put forth here. This particular post dates back to January 2007, and covers my thoughts on a possible implementation of dynamic quest systems in MMOs. Hopefully it's still an interesting read. Enjoy!

I've spent a decent amount of the past 5 years playing MMOs, which is pretty impressive considering my short attention span. I cut my teeth with the original Everquest, and have played several of the larger titles since (DAoC, AC2, SWG, EQ2, WoW). For many people, part of the enjoyment of the game comes with the completion of quests. There's a certain rush to working your way through a long chain of quests, and eliminating the 'boss mob' at the end, then triumphantly marching back to the questgiver for your reward. With this said, the entire experience is cheapened a bit (well, a lot actually) if and when you happen to wander past the area where you experienced the epic struggle, only to see the same boss mob sitting there, just waiting for the next player/group to come along.

This experience is fundamentally different than that of a single player RPG, where your actions can and will affect the story in direct and powerful ways. Once you've worked your way through a particular mission or quest, the gameworld is changed because that objective (killing a boss, freeing a town from occupation or assault, rescuing a damsel in distress, etc.) is gone, and the world is altered accordingly (the boss is dead, the town is free, the damsel is no longer in distress and appropriately grateful to you). Your efforts in the game move the storyline forward, closing certain avenues but inevitably opening others, and in this manner the game continues.

Another major difference between MMOs and single player RPGs is that the single player RPG has an ultimate goal to complete to end the game or finish the main questline. You free the world, kill the demon menacing the coutnryside or save the princess (sometimes all three or even more), the world is grateful, and the credits start to roll. There is a definite feeling of accomplishment and, hopefully, satisfaction in this event. An MMO does not, because the point of an MMO is to have people continue to log in and play (thus requiring them to continue to pay the subscription fee), and to have an ultimate end to the gameplay experience would be counterproductive to this goal. There may be an end boss that players strive to face and destroy, but unlike that of a single player RPG, after the end boss is destroyed, it will respawn after a prescribed period of time, just waiting for the next lucky raid group to come along and test their mettle (or most likely, get killed by the same group for the 50th time for the epic loot they drop, but that is a topic for another post).

This game mechanic is somewhat required, because there are so many players in an MMO that to have a quest or mob disappear after one player or group solving the riddle would be counterproductive to the overall experience. There would be a mad rush, as players compete to finish all of the available quests, and then there would be a general clamoring by the player base for more content, which, if not provided, would cause a mass exodus from the game. But, since there is a need for content to be available to all players that meet the requirements of the content, it cannot be permanently removed. While this is the most fair, equitable and accessible method to provide content to players available at this time, it does not lend itself to developing the 'epic' feeling that often comes from single player games of the same type.

I'd like to think that at some point in the near future the MMO genre will evolve to the point where events can alter the environment, but not to the complete detriment of players. To start, it would be great to have quests that, after the first player or group completes the quest, it disappears. For example, you talk to an NPC in a town that's been attacked by a band of kobolds on a trail outside town, and had a valuable [insert item here] stolen. They're willing to pay some intrepid adventurer(s) to retrieve this item. The player/group travels out to the area indicated by the NPC and finds the signs of a struggle. Following the signs left behind by the marauding kobolds (either simple tracks that can be followed or maybe requiring the use of a player-character hunter/ranger and their tracking skill), they come upon the kobolds at a campsite. After a fierce battle, the player/group wins and begins to search the bodies and the camp. They don't find the [insert item here], but do discover some sort of 'receipt' or clue to who the kobolds have already pawned the [insert item here] to. They then track down this character (say a shady merchant in a seedy part of town) and 'persuades' the merchant to give back the [insert item here] (by force, coercion or simply buying it). The player/group then returns to the original NPC and gives the [insert item here] back, receiving as a reward whatever was promised.

Now, in this generation of MMO, the next player/group to come along and speak to the NPC would find that this poor person has been attacked by kobolds and lost a valuable [insert item here]...What, was the NPC dumb enough to walk out of town, immediately after getting their item returned, travel back to the scene of the attack, and be attacked once again by the same group of kobolds (who should be dead, by the way)? This occurs so that all characters that so desire can experience this quest, and thus achieve the reward offered.

What if, instead of a static NPC that always gave the same quest, with the same steps, the same solution and the same reward, a dynamic quest system were to be implemented? This would involve players going up to an NPC, receiving a quest, and then no other player/group would be able to receive the same quest from that NPC. This system would involve populating citizens of all cities and towns with probabilities to have quests, and when they are assigned a quest by the system, they will hold this quest until activated by a player/group. The quest generator would have many storylines, with many segments to be able to logically mix and match to create quests for the people of the game world. Because of the nature of the world, there would always be some poor woman who's child has gone missing and needs to be found, some poor merchant who's been assaulted by thugs and needs to get his stolen wares back, some old man who's willing to pay a lot of money for the recovery of some artifact that he remembers from his early years. The segments of the quest could be varied, down to the number of distinct segments required to complete to finish the overall quest. The reward could vary according to length of quest and difficulty to complete, and any loot given could be subtle variations on loot given for other quests.

This would make the cities and towns a more vibrant, 'alive' place, as people would be encouraged to travel through and talk to all citizens to see if they're in need of help at any given time. The system could detect your level range and assign a quest of appropriate difficulty to complete. There could still be static quests, such that there are still rites of passage for classes to achieve status in their particular profession, but instead of going out and killing a named person/being that's the same all the time, the quest generator could generate a different name/beast type every time, to develop a sense of uniqueness for each character.

As I'm not a programmer or developer, I'm not sure of the inherent difficulties and resources required to develop and code a sytem of this type and magnitude. The biggest fear I'd have, after reading a blog (I wish I could remember which one) discussing the fact that many systems have not been implemented because of stress on the servers that host and run the games. This is probably one of those cases...

There is also the fact that, most likely, today's MMO players would completely revolt at the thought of a 'non-static' quest system in an MMO. If this type of system were implemented, how could the game sites that we all like to visit (the ones that have all of the detailed quest walkthroughs, including starting NPC, steps and reward) continue to thrive? Now quest walkthroughs would be essentially useless, other than possibliy revealing the structure of specific quest segments, because each quest would start at a different location, with a different NPC, have a different set of segments making up the quest, as well as a different reward. I'm not sure that this system would go over well in today's MMO world made up of games like WoW, that announces quest-givers with a very unnatural yellow '!' floating in space over the NPC's head. If players had to go in search of their quests, that might not be desirable.

This argument is not even taking into accout the effect that this system might have on the economy. If there are relatively unique rewards for each quest, this could greatly increase the value of the reward to the owner, especially once they 'outgrow' the reward (i.e. a piece of armor that is eventually replaced by a better item) and can put it up for auction, using the in-game auction system. Since there are many fewer of this type of item (if a random reward generator is used to assign items with abilities and effects, there is the good chance that there will be duplicates or very similar items generated), the theoretical value of the item is increased. This system is a topic of its own, one I may try to expound upon in a future post.

I'm not professing to be an expert on this topic, or any topic, I'm just speculating on how the next generation of MMOs might build upon the successes of this generation's titles, and evolve into the overall experience I feel is attainable from the genre. The develope rwould have to be serious about making this system work (from a hardware and coding standpoint, as well as a gameplay mechanic standpoint), but the end result would be a game that would feel a bit more unique and dynamic. This can only benefit the players looking for unique experiences every time they log in and play...

Another time, I'd like to explore other enhancements to today's MMOs that, in my opinion, would move the genre forward, but for now, I'll sign off. Take care and keep gaming!

So anyway, that was it. Does anyone have thoughts on this? If so, please leave them in the comments.

Random Thoughts - Thursday Edition

Because of my concerns in spending large amounts of money (considering our financial situation right now and the whole economic crisis occurring globally at the moment), I haven't pulled the trigger on a 'showcase game' that will show off the capabilities of my upgraded PC. Instead, I've found comfort in the arms of a former love, Half Life 2. Playing for about 45 minutes last night before going to bed reminded me just how good this game really is. The atmosphere the game projects is perfectly hopeless (from the run-down train station in the beginning of the game to the oppressed mood of all of City 17's population) and yet hopeful at the same time (the upbeat demeanor of all of the Black Mesa personnel and other resistance forces). I love the feeling of being chased through the buildings in the first few minutes, as well as the moment when you feel trapped by soldiers, and then hearing Alyx's voice through the blinding white light of being stunned. Even though I knew everything was going to be OK, I could still feel my heart beating rapidly during the chase. There are more impressive sequences coming up, but the introduction is enough to grab even the most hardened gamer's attention.

My hope, in regard to HL2, is to complete the original game, then move on to the Lost Coast expansion, and then from there probably bite the bullet and get The Orange Box from Steam. This will give me access to Episodes 1 and 2 of HL2, as well as the amazing Portal (which I've completed on XBox 360, but would like to try it with mouse and keyboard) and the popular Team Fortress 2. I'm not very good at multiplayer shooters, and consequently shy away from them, but I'm almost willing to give TF2 a chance, because of its cartoony art style and game experience.

(While writing this, I received a tweet in my Twitter feed that said, "Jesus saves, the rest of you take full damage." You have to love nerd culture, especially D&D references.)

I've also spent a fair amount of time playing Hinterland, which came out last week. Bill Harris, of the Dubious Quality blog, has a great impressions post on the game, which I recommend you read, as he very eloquently sums up a lot of the good and bad points of this surprisingly good budget game ($19.99 new on Steam). Before upgrading my PC, I was able to run the game, but with a lot of lag (the onboard graphics had a tough time handling everything). The upgrade allows it to run silky smooth, and really improves the experience. To sum it up, if you like your Diablo II mixed with Stronghold, then give this game a shot.

I'm currently listening to the most recent Player One Podcast, a consistently enjoyable podcast. The current episode has Dan Hsu, former Editorial Director of the 1UP network, as a guest for some interesting discussion on the recent announcement of the DSi from Nintendo. As has been speculated by others, this has to be an attempt to resuscitate flagging sales of the DS in Japan, because Nintendo consistently moves 500,000 DS units a month here in the States. A headscratcher to be sure, but I'm going to reserve judgement on this until more info is available.

Well, that's all for now. I'll be back soon, hopefully with something of more substance.

My Personal Backlog

As I mentioned in passing in the "I Am Not Alone" post, I have quite a list of games for various systems that I currently own which I haven't played to substantial completion. For posterity, I'm going to list them all now, in hopes that I can start to whittle this list down, as opposed to going out and spending more money on games that will take their place on this list in due time. Without further ado, here is my list, sorted by system, in no particular order...

PC

• Starcraft (complete game, including Brood Wars)
  
• Baldurs's Gate I and II (played about 10 hours of the first one and then got sidetracked)
• Diablo II (played 4-6 hours of this)
• Fallout (played a fair amount of this when it was new, but never completed)
  
• Fallout 2 (never played this)
• Half Life 2 (played a lot of this but never finished)

XBox

• Psychonauts (played 5 hours or so of this, and got sidetracked)
• Jade Empire (played only about an hour of this)

PSP

• GTA: Libery City Stories
• Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
• Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters
• Crisis Core; Final Fantasy VII
• Sega Genesis Collection
• Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

DS

• Professor Layton and the Curious Village
• Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
• Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
• Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja
• Etrian Odyssey
• Lunar Knights
• Shiren: Mystery Dungeon

GBA

• Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
• Metroid: Fusion
• Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
• Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

As you can see, I have a lot of quality gaming in my possession right now, and should have no business spending the money on any more until all of this is taken to at least substantial completion. Even though it won't stop me from spending more money heedlessly, there now exists a record of the games I own that I should play.

Final note: Compiling this list makes me want to go ahead and put together a personal Pile of Shame, those games I should have played when they came out but either missed or purposely ignored. This list would include games of the caliber of Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Okami, Indigo Prophecy, Beyond Good & Evil, and many, many more that I can't come up with right now. That's a project for another day.

I Am Not Alone

Finally, I've found them. I've found someone like me. Someone who can't resist the siren's song of electronic whimsy, someone who goes weak at the knees at the latest preview of 'the next big thing' (or even 'something similar to last year's big thing, but not quite as good'), someone who happily goes through their discretionary spending fund buying video games. I thought I was alone in this endeavor, and that everyone else had the common sense to pick and choose their game purchases carefully, and not fall victim to every flashy ad campaign or 'come-hither' intro video that shows up in their RSS reader. It seems there's at least one more person like me, and they've identified themselves here.

The gist of the fine piece of prose I've linked to, and coincidentally the paragraph that sums up my feelings and attitudes toward game purchases, is this:

But, as I said, I am not a compulsive spender. I can’t even find solace in suggesting that I am the victim of one of those unscientific, pseudo-addictions that have replaced the space once reserved for personal responsibility in the lexicon. I will simultaneously agonize for weeks before pulling the trigger on buying a new CD or DVD, while thoughtlessly ejecting forty dollars for a game that I have no intention of playing for at least a fortnight. I haven’t purchased a new shirt or pair of pants in more than a year, simply because I can not bring myself to spend money on woven fabrics. I recently bought a pair of sunglasses at one of those knock-off kiosks in the mall for $10 bucks and had the temerity to feel proud of myself for spending the money.

The main point that really rang true with me was the line about "...while thoughtlessly ejecting forty dollars for a game that I have no intention of playing for at least a fortnight." I often go to the game store and come home with multiple titles that, considering the length of today's games, I have no chance of getting to all of them in a reasonable amount of time. I have a stack of games in my possession that would take me months to get through, especially since the change in pace at which I'm able to digest gaming content after the kids were born, and that's without adding a single new title to the stack until I'm through with them. In fact, that's a fascinating idea for a project or challenge (or hell, just a blog post), to list all of the games I currently own that I have not played to substantial completion, and then try to plow through them before buying a single new game.

Even with this stark realization, the sheer amount of content sitting on my shelf that I have yet to fully experience and appreciate, the daily trolls through the gaming blogosphere continues, searching desperately for 'the next big thing' or something that will grab my attention and hold it firmly. While quality titles like Crisis Core, Phantom Hourglass, Psychonauts and the Baldur's Gate series (definitely ancient in terms of video game life span but games that deserve to be played regardless of age) sit sad and feeling unwanted in my collection, the relentless quest for games to buy continues.

Is it an obsession? Probably. I often placate my growing concern for the large stack of unfinished games by telling myself, "At least I'm not sitting in a bar drinking every night, or blowing my cash in a casino," but there may not be a big difference between these pastimes (looked on with disdain by a large portion of the population) and my current pastime of game buying (ironically also looked on with disdain by a large portion of the population).

There is a passage in Elysium's discourse that gives me some comfort:

But, there’s more at play here, and it’s the part of this self realization that I can take comfort in. I love video games. Sometimes I feel like the last of that dying breed, an unabashed fan of the industry, of its excesses, of its creatively compromised, morally bankrupt, lowest-common-denominator indulgences. Unlike less pleasant and more physically debilitating addictions, I still get the high when I install that new game and fire it up for the first time. I’ve been playing fake songs on plastic instruments for two years now, and I still bounce around like a professional fool when the lights are out and everyone else has gone to bed. I’ve been running fetch quests for digital avatars in artificial worlds for half a decade, and that ding of a new level is still fundamentally Pavlovian. I’ve dispatched ten million bad guys from their multitude of nefarious, world-ending deeds, and I still am close to that thrill of the hunt.

"Why does this give you comfort?" you might ask, and well you would be entitled to ask just such a question. It's easy for me to find solace with my perceived shortcomings and lack of willpower when some of the exact feelings I've had countless times are put into words by another. The feeling of 'not being alone' is strong and comforting, and is a feeling I'm sure everyone can associate with and appreciate.

Sadly, even after this journey of awareness and self-discovery, am I likely to change my ways? Most likely not. Like a junkie craving that next fix, I'll most likely continue to buy games in bunches, and have the best of intentions of playing them all to completion. Like those ill-fated titles that stare back at me all the time, these new games have a great chance of joining their predecessors, forlornly taking up space on a dusty shelf (or haunting me every time I open the Steam interface, in some cases), begging for one more chance to dominate my ever-shrinking entertainment time. Unlike before, walking this path is not a solo experience. I can hold my head high, knowing that at least one person is walking that path with me.

Computer Upgrade (and Sickness)

It's been a bit since I last posted, for a couple of reasons. One, I've been fighting a cold that's made me feel like my brain is trying to function in fog, which isn't very conducive to writing a blog post. Second, I've had family here since Monday (they just left today), and one of them was staying in the basement where I keep the computer. He (my grandfather, to be precise) goes to bed early, and I write most of my blogs at night after the kids go to bed, so hopefully you can see my conundrum. Anyhow...

I'm back now, and while I'm still not 100%, I don't feel like I'm viewing the world through bong water, so I felt it safe to post this evening. While I was home sick, my new power supply and video card arrived UPS from Newegg, to my excitement and trepidation. You see, I've had a bad experience while installing computer components myself (burned out an AMD processor because the thermal paste didn't correct contact the chip during install) and the thought of blowing out my main computer while replacing the power supply was a real fear of mine. Fortunately for me, computer component manufacturers have made their products as idiot-proof as they can, and the 'heart transplant' went off without a hitch. The new video card now allows me to play most PC games out on the market, which is a huge improvement over what I had, which didn't allow me to play 5 and 6-year old games, in some cases (due to the fact that my onboard video option didn't have lighting and shading hardware).

To try out my new setup, I launched Hinterland, a game I'd picked up from Steam earlier in the week. It sounded like an interesting premise and it would run on my current machine (pre-upgrade). I'll save my impressions of the game for another post, but in a nutshell the lagging and slowdown I was experiencing earlier in the week vanished when crunched by the 8800 GT. Now I'm trying to decide what game to get next, one that will push the new video card a bit more. I'm considering Bioshock, a big favorite of my on the XBox 360. I'll keep you updated with my choice once I make it...

One other item of note: I was up late on Saturday night, because I'd slept a good chunk of the day and my normal sleep schedule was thrown off. Flipping through the channels, I saw that Kimbo Slice was due to fight that night, and having heard of him and the hype surrounding him, I figured this would be a good chance to see what all the fuss was about. Around 11pm or so the fight got underway (against a relative unknown, because Slice's scheduled opponent, Ken Shamrock, had to withdraw due to a medical reason), and 14 seconds later it was over. The unknown, Seth Petruzelli, beat Slice so badly and quickly the ref called the fight. Wow, I'm sure glad I stayed up to see that.

Back in (My) Blogging History

A friend and I started a blog back in late 2006 that is still puttering along today, and one that I occasionally still post to. While looking back at my archive there, I found the post (included below in its entirety), from January 2007, listing the podcasts I listened to at that time. It's just a bit of my history that I thought I'd share here.

(As an FYI, I still listen to Buzz Out Load, Extralife Radio, Orange Lounge Radio, and Video Game Outsiders regularly, while the others have fallen by the wayside, either from lack of interest or time.)

My Favorite Podcasts (Maine Tech Geeks)

One of the reasons that Craig (yes, he really does exist, even if he doesn't ever post here) and I decided to start this project is the fact that we both really enjoyed listening to podcasts. I first started listening to them at work, through iTunes and a cheap set of earbuds out of my notebook. Because I spend large amounts of time at my desk, working at the computer on whatever Office application requires my attention, it was a great way for me to distract the ADD side of my brain. One of the interests that's spanned my entire life, surviving the ADD affliction as well as professional responsibilities, is the love of video games cultivated at an early age. Naturally, when I started listening to podcasts, I gravitated toward those casts that dealt with all aspects of video games, from news and rumors, game-specific programs, and podcasts loosely based on gaming. Now that I've spent a solid 8 months listening to podcasts for several hours nearly every day, I've diversified the library of podcasts I listen to, and I'd like to share some of my favorites. So, without further ado (and in no particular order), here are some of my favorites, podcasts that I look forward to every week...

CNET.com's Buzz Out Loud - This is a podcast that I truly enjoy. The three hosts have great chemistry, and all seem to come from different angles as they discuss the latest news on the technology and gadget front. It's a great snippet (usually less than 30 minutes) to start the day, because they have an energy which I find useful to kickstart my day. If you're at all interested in technology and the latest gadgets, I recommend this as an entry-level podcast. Probably my most-listened to (and most looked-forward-to) podcast.

Extralife Radio - The podcast for the My Extra Life web comic. It's an amalgamation of four very different personalities, talking about sci-fi, video games, comics, web comics, movies...a really fun time. I've been listening for a while now, and I love the interaction between the hosts. The show wouldn't work if the guys didn't trash on each other (Obsidian is merciless toward Scott), crack bad jokes (that's Andrew's specialty), doing unique voice impersonations (Brian's great for this), and general chaos. I can't truly describe this podcast, so if you like sci-fi and video games, I'm sure you'll find something you like about this one. Again, a podcast I look forward to every week...

Orange Lounge Radio - A weekly podcast about video games, filled with news, reviews, and interesting guests. I enjoy this podcast a lot because it keeps alive the spirit of independent radio, and they live by their own rules. All of the hosts are true to themselves, and it is their personalities and interaction, both with each other and with their frequent guests, which keep me coming back for more. When I listen to this podcast, it's easy to imagine that I'm in the room with them, and it's just a group of friends having a conversation about video games. It's well worth the time invested.

Infendo Radio - A podcast (including the stylings of Scott Johnson of Extralife Radio) about everything Nintendo. News, reviews and the stories from the hosts make this a fun experience. One of the main reasons I enjoy this podcast is Scott Johnson, who (in my opinion) just makes me laugh, and sounds like a person I would hang out with in person. If you like Nintendo, you should enjoy this podcast.

The Instance - Another podcast (and the last, by the way) that includes Scott Johnson, this one about all things World of Warcraft (WoW). This podcast also features Andrew from Extralife Radio, and I listen to it religiously, even though I don't play WoW. Once again, I think this is a testament to the unique personality and ability of the hosts to keep me listening and entertained. There's lots of latest news and tidbits about the game, and features regular contributions from outside sources. Very specialized in its content, but fun to listen to nonetheless.

Analog Hole Gaming - This is what I would classify as a 'guilty pleasure.' This is a podcast concerning all things gaming, with a focus on WoW, which all three of the hosts play. They are rude, crude and generally not-PC, and that's their charm. Once again, the podcast feels as if you're sitting in a room, listening to a group of friends shoot the breeze about games and WoW. Not for everyone, but an enjoyable experience.

Massively Online Gamer - Another 'guilty pleasure' podcast. Two guys (Ryan and Gary) burping, swearing, and sometimes singing their way through random gaming news. Ryan does a semi-regular feature that involves a continuous story whose plot twists and turns are decided on by the listener. It's clear that Ryan is a very talented individual, and Gary provides the perfect foil for him. They are somewhat Eve Online-centric, but they discuss other games as well. Not a lot of structure, and the episodes often degenerate into one off-topic rant after another, but it works. I listen to and enjoy each episode, and recommend it to anyone not faint-of-heart or easily offended.

Virgin Worlds - The polar opposite of Massively Online Gamer, and ironically the host of Virgin Worlds (Brent) and the hosts of MOG (Ryan and Gary) sometimes release cooperative podcasts. I would liken this relationship to 'The Odd Couple.' Brent is a soft-spoken, very organized person who releases an information-packed episode each week, covering the latest news and rumors about massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. He has very structured segments with a high production value. It's very clear that Brent puts a large amount of effort into his productions, and the news and reviews are well-thought out and pertinent. If you're at all interested in the MMO genre, this is your one-stop location to get the best info.

Video Game Outsiders - An XBox 360-centric podcast, covering the latest games, with opinions and commentary given by relatively casual fans of video games. They recently won an award for their podcast, and seem to have a very dedicated following. The hosts are entertaining, and each one has their own distinct style, but all lean toward the multiplayer aspect of games. A podcast a bit on the long side (often pushing 2 hours), but an enjoyable listen.

Next Generation Podcast - An interesting podcast about the business and industry of video games. The podcast often features interviews with important members of the video game community (developers, executives of game companies, etc.) and contains a wealth of information for anyone interested in what it takes to bring the games we play to market.

Boston Geek - Definitely an interesting podcast, from two guys in the Boston area. They cover a tech, science and gaming story every week, and then talk about an upcoming event of interest in the Boston area. The two guys really do come off as traditional 'geeks', but do a great job with the podcast, one I listen to every week.

I listen to other podcasts, with some dropping out and others being added on a regular basis, but these tend to form the core of my listening week. As you can tell, I have a lot of time at my desk and driving to get through all of these regularly, but they get me through the day, and I never get bored of them. If anyone who reads this has recommendations for any podcasts you feel I'd enjoy, feel free to post them in the comments, as I'm always looking for something new to try.

Next time, I'll try to come up with a list of sites and blogs I visit often...

It's been over 18 months since I wrote that post, and while a lot has changed since then, a lot has stayed the same. I still listen to podcasts to create a 'cone of isolation' for myself, and the content of the podcasts I do listen to keep me entertained and occupied while I go through my daily grind. Who knows where I'd be if I didn't discover the podcasting world back then...