Adventuring in Gransys

I didn't expect to come up with another post quite so quickly. But after talking about adventures in other games, I thought I would share one of my latest.

Since getting Dragon's Dogma on Friday, I've been running across Gransys (that's the game world) having all sorts of fun over the weekend. So far, I've had my heart eaten by a dragon, became the Arisen, rescued my childhood friend, killed bats and wolves and eaten their meat, recruited a band of followers (aka pawns), and gotten my arse kicked by bandits and monsters bigger and tougher than me.

So sit down, make yourself comfortable, for I've a tale to tell.

Upon reaching the capital, I made my way to the pawn guild, where the guild master, Barnaby, asked me to head down into the tombs beneath the guild to find out the source of strange happenstances down there. Nodding to my main pawn, Triska, and followed by my two current pawns, we bravely headed down, following a ramp which spiralled down around the edge of a big, central chamber. Chancing to peer over the edge, I could see that the bottom was a long way down: long enough that the fall would mean certain death. Stepping back as I really didn't feel like taking that tumble, we continued on our way down.

It wasn't long before we met our first enemies.

Undead warriors burst from the ground, and skeletons formed themselve from the bones scattered on the floor. They were hard to kill, until out wizard enchanted our weapons with fire. In the end, we emerged triumphant, and I shared an exultant grin with Triska. It didn't last. For a while, I was lulled into a false sense of security. Now we had the measure of our foe, the undead didn't seem that bad. But, halfway down, we came across an ogre.

The ogre towered above us, a squat, muscular form, perhaps three or four times our size. Not as big as a cyclops, but still big. As one we attacked it, only to find our weapons did little damage. It's skin was dark and tough like leather. Hearing the fear in Triska's voice mirroring my own, upon realising this foe was perhaps too much, I was suddenly knocked back thirty feet by a mad swing of the ogre's arm, almost killing me. Picking myself up, I ordered my pawns to disengage, and we fled. It wasn't fear, I told myself, but prudence. We would come back once we were more seasoned. I didn't stop running until I reached fresh air.

Some time later, and many hours of adventuring later, we returned. The ogre and the mystery of what lay at the bottom of the chamber kept plaguing me, so after having fought our way across Gransys, and buying better equipment, as well as bringing two new pawns to accompany Triska and I, we returned to the chamber.

This time, the undead were easily overcome, and we soon came to the ogre. Having fought several cyclops, I applied a similar strategy, leaping onto the beast's back to hack away at the back of its skull, whilst my pawns danced about attacking it, and keeping it busy. Our attackes were working. It was hard, and slow, but we were killing it.

But the beast was flailing about, and I didn't notice that our fight was coming precariously close to the edge of the ramp. And then, inevitably, staggering under our blows, the ogre took another step. Only this time open air met its foot.

I had time to mutter, 'Oh shit,' as the beast plummeted over the edge taking me, clinging to its back, with it. I thought I was going to die. When we hit the bottom, the ogre crumpled beneath me, taking the brunt of the impact as it died. Bewildered at finding myself still alive, I stumbled off the corpse as my pawns raced down to me. Triska reached me first.

'Are you alright, Master?' she asked.

I nodded in response, brushing dust off my clothes. My legs were still shaking.Turning, I surveyed the chamber - our destination. There were pillars arranged in a circle around an indentation which glowed with an eery purple light. Stepping over to it, I examined the light. It was unnerving. Suddenly, snake-like monsters rose up from the floor. They were terrifying red, scaly things. Things that didn't die when we killed them. they were too much for us.

We ran again. But this time, I think were were wholly justified.

Anecdotal Evidence

I've read a lot of articles by game journalists who tell stories of their adventures in such-and-such a game, and some of my favourites come from the chaps over at Rock Paper Shotgun. Recently, they've been running a few articles about Jim Rossignols travels in DayZ, an ArmA 2 mod, which make for fascinating reading.

Personally, I've never really had many tales of my adventures in a game. That's not to say that they don't happen, just that I rarely have something I want to tell others. The closest I've ever come to that previously was in one particular playthrough of Halo 3. Having fought across Earth and the Ark, watched the death of good friends, I finally reach my end goal: the replacement to Alpha Halo, which I, as Master Chief, destroyed in the first game. But there's a problem. Between me and the control room are flood combat forms. Taking a deep breath, I charge in, aiming to sprint up as I know that no matter how many I kill, there will always be more coming. After a gruelling fight, I made it up two thirds of the tower. I've still got a rocket left in my launcher. Suddenly, Flood forms spring from the floor below, jumping up to my platform. Feeling crafty, I work out that several, including a heavy combat form will land a few metres from me. So I fired my rocket at the floor. But there's no explosion. Bewildered, I'm frozen as the Flood swarm in and take me down.

It was only after I'd finished, that I headed into the theatre to find out what had happened. Playing the video in slow motion, I watched as my rocket hurtled toward the combat form, only to be batted aside at the last moment, and go spinning away to explode harmlessy against the cliff face. It was amazing. I didn't even know the Flood was capable of doing anything like that! Really, it was just a chance combination of events and game physics. But it was still brilliant.

Except for that one event in Halo 3, the only other adventure I can think of occurred during a wander through the forest of the Rift, in Skyrim. I was minding my own business when a dragon swooped down and started attacking, only for me to hear the whoop of a troll. Knowing I can hide behind a tree as the dragon attempts to burn me, I turned and fought the troll, felling it with a few blows. That done, I turned back to continue my fight with the dragon, only to yell in surprise to find its face up in mine as its jaws snap shut on my life.

However, I think I'm about to find more tales to tell. On Friday I picked up a copy of Dragon's Dogma. I've been looking forward to this game for a few months. It had slipped under my radar, but once I learned more about it I got very excited.

I'm pleased to say that the game certainly lives up to that excitement. The world feels vast, combat is pleasingly punchy and visceral. True the story may not be up to much - after over ten hours, I've yet to even meet the king - but I don't really care. I'm having far too much fun

Red Sun at night, Space Pirate's Delight

The other week, Heather and I met up with some friends in Market Harborough for dinner, one of whom, like me, is quite a gamer. Both of us own a PS Vita, which I was quite pleased to discover, as none of my other friends currently own one. After comparing games, and which ones we’re looking forward to, the topic of PSOne games on the Vita came up.

I’ve heard rumblings of this on various forums, and recently a PSOne game was accidentally posted on the Vita’s store (though it was abruptly taken down). Of course, both of us thought that ready access to PSOne games, as well as more PSP games would be a great idea, which neatly got us onto the topic of my favourite game on the PSOne. There are a number of games which I loved, but none stick out for me more than the Colony Wars series, and particularly, Colony Wars Red Sun.

The Colony Wars games, for those not in the know, was a series of space simulator games by Psygnosis (who have since become SCE Studio Liverpool). The first two games centred on the war between the League of Free Worlds and the Colonial Navy of the Human Empire. They followed non-linear stories with a series of missions. Whilst Red Sun had you as more of a mercenary, picking and choosing your missions as you followed a more linear story. You were paid for completed missions, the money used to buy new ships and weapons. It was an unusual game on a home console, even at the peak of space shooters in the late 90s/early 2000s, where games of this ilk were normally seen on PC (e.g. the X-Wing series, Freespace, Freelancer, X Beyond the Frontier, etc.).

I still remember the first time I saw Colony Wars after getting my Playstation, seeing a copy on the shelves of my local WHSmiths and dismissing it at first, only to later pick up that same copy and never look back. The game was a breath of fresh air, and was one I often went back to. Then came the sequel, Colony Wars Vengeance, which I enjoyed, though not quite as much. Finally, In 2000, I got Red Sun. To this day, it still remains my favourite of the series, and has one of my favourite ships (the SnapDragon).

The SnapDragon. Still my favourite.

It’s hard to pin down what it is that I love about the game. Yes, the story is incredibly hokey, the cut scenes terrible, wooden and with awful voice acting, and Red Sun introduced GP lasers which ruined the whole anti-shield/anti-hull laser setup of the previous games. But it’s still my favourite. I love the ship design, the fact that your craft has momentum and can’t stop on a penny (one of the things which always annoyed me about the X-wing series was that the slower you went, the slower your fighter would turn, which never made sense in a game set in space …), and that you could quite happily play it either in a cockpit view or 3^rd person.

Twelve years since I bought Colony Wars Red sun, and it still sits in my case, in pride of place with a few other PSOne games that go with me wherever I move to. Ready to be played whenever I get the need for a space shooter. Twelve years since it came out, and it still feels as fresh and brilliant as it did then.

If it comes to the PSOne digital store, and then to the Vita, will I get it?

Do pirate ships explode in a fiery death when I blast them with my GP lasers?

The answer is yes, oh yes they do.

A not so bewitching Witcher

Being a rather funds-deprived gamer, I decided to rent The Witcher 2 instead of buying it recently. I found myself very glad that I did. Having read the glowing reviews, and followed the game's progress as CD Projekt worked on the console version, I was fully expecting a brilliant and thoroughly enjoyable fantasy RPG. So it was a bit of a surprise to me when after several hours play, I came away with a feeling of 'meh'.

I feel a bit bad that I didn't enjoy it. The voice acting was mostly good (main characters notwithstanding), the graphics excellent, even for a console port of a pc game, and the controls ... not bad. I can't pin down quite what it is I don't like. Partly the design of the levels, partly that combat, and definitely the supposed maturity of the title. Having had my version of Geralt sleep with Triss, I actually felt quite uncomfortable watching her undress oh-so-sexily, removing her clothes with magic. Then came the robotic movements as the two characters attempted to couple, and it looked rather a lot like watching two lifeless manequins screwing.

So not for me. There is a ray of light though. Capcom released the demo of Dragon's Dogma a few weeks ago, and all in all, I came away quite impressed. Sure, it's another game with dragons - well, a dragon - but it seems to be mixing up the best bits of Japanese and Western action-rpgs, sort of a Skyrim/Dark Souls hybrid. It's got action heavy combat, and best of all, you can climb onto the many large monsters in the game, just like in Shadow of the Colossus.

Yes, Dragon's Dogma is looking like a generic fantasy world, but I quite like it myself, and the gameplay seems to more than make up for it. The Pawn system is also looking intriguing.

There's only a couple of weeks left until release, but fingers crossed it's going to be fun.

In the mean time, it's back to Mass Effect 3 for this intrepid gamer, as I embark on my next play through.

I Got a Life!

At the weekend, I decided to go and blow all my hard-saved cash (read: got money for my birthday), and I bought a PS Vita.

And I have to say, I'm rather pleased. for a handheld console the screen is incredibly large, so I don't feel like I'm peering down at it. The analogue sticks are easy to use, and I don't find them awkwardly positioned (possible due to having unmanly small hands). What was a surprise was how good the battery life proved to be. Having heard a lot of complaints about it getting the same sort of battery life as the 3DS (which I've also owned), I was expecting it to die pretty quickly. Not so. Yesterday, I finished charging it at 12.30pm, and got a low battery warning at 7.30pm, after having spent the afternoon playing on it. We'll see if that continues over the next few weeks.

Surprisingly for a game launched a month ago, there are a lot of decent games on the Vita, many of which are the sort I enjoy playing. I decided to pick up Uncharted, which isn't bad for a linear action game, though I find the shooting controls a bit flacid and imprecise. However, the story is good enough to keep me playing, and the voice acting is excellent, with some amusing quips from Nathan Drake.

I've also sampled a few demos, and Unit 13, though an average game, certainly dispelled any worries about whether those tiny sticks would be able to deal with a shooter. It proved far easier to control than Uncharted. Also, I was particularly surprised at how good Rayman was. I played the Xbox 360 demo and wasn't that thrilled, but here the game comes alive, as if it were made for a handheld. The graphics are sublime, and the game handles very well. I've got enough to tide me over until Christmas, with the likes of Ninja Gaiden, Resistance: Burning skies, Gravity Daze, as well as the aforementioned Unit 13 and Rayman to play, not to mention the back catalogue of PSP games I've never had the chance to play.

Over the next few weeks, I'll post a few more impressions once I've spent some time with the system

And yes, I know the Vita hasn't sold all that well, but with such an impressive lineup, and more to come, I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will be successful. And not just because I now own one.

It was all a dream

The saga of Mass Effect 3 continues.

After making last week's post, I came across an article which theorises that the whole ending sequence for Mass Effect 3 is in actual fact due to indoctrination.

Now, I've already said that I'm quite happy with the ending, even if it was cliched, and I am still of the opinion that if that's the ending Bioware chose, that's up to them.

Then I actually listened to the indoctrination theory. the video's below if you've not already watched it, but it does pose some intriguing ideas. For example, the child at the beginning of the game. No one else seems to see him except Shepard. Even Anderson doesn't seem to notice that Shepard was talking to him. It would also explain why the 'Crucible' takes on the child's appearance. Then of course there's the recurring dream. It all adds up to a missed opportunity. Maybe bioware did consider it, and then abandoned it in favour of the ending the game now has. I don't know.

Would I like Bioware to redo the ending? I don't know. I liked the ending I chose. What I don't like is the way there's no difference except that you get a different coloured explosion. Could they have done more? Certainly. Should they do more? I don't know.

Mass Effect 3

Since finishing Mass Effect 3 last week, I've been pondering how I should write about it. I've not gone back to the game since - it was an exhausting, harrowing adventure, that left me feeling like the story had come to an end. Friends died, romances were rekindled, new romances blossomed, and the Reapers were vanquished. The galaxy promised to never be the same again.

I had closure with my Commander Shepard.

But since finishing it, I've been encountering the fan backlash. Some of it I agree with (such as the fact that the three major ending choices pretty much amount to the same thing), but some I don't. To be honest, I felt satisfied by the ending I chose, even if Bioware subscribed to the standard Hard SF trope of a Deus Ex Machina. However, I felt they'd written themselves into a corner where that was the only possibly way out. and to be fair, while the universe was brilliantly realised, the story was average, though I must admit to liking the idea that the Crucible had been built and designed over millions of years and countless cycles, each cycle adding to it. The logic behind the Reapers and said cycle, on the other hand? Not so much.

The problem with telling your audience why your big bad threat does what it does, is that it stops being scary. Perhaps some of the writers at Bioware should read the works of Neal Asher, Iain M. Banks and Peter F. Hamilton.

That the big bad is actually a computer program who takes the shape of a boy who Shepard failed to save ... That's a bit silly. Oh, and if you questioned why the catalyst takes on that shape? Because it probably read his mind, and assumed it would be something he'd be comfortable with, as the boy was prominent in his thoughts. He has been having nightmares about the kid, and we've already established the idea that things take on an appearance the character would be familiar with: the video logs of the Quarians on their homeworld. Why do you need it spelt out for you?

Yesterday, I read that Bioware are releasing a new ending. Do I agree with this? Yes and No. Yes, because the three endings (I know there are 16 possibles, but in actuality they amount to the same three choices) felt a little rushed and need to be more different. At the very least it needs to amount to more than a different coloured explosion. And no, because the story belongs to Bioware. If that's how they choose to end Mass Effect, then that's still their choice. Woudl you ask a writer to change the ending of their book if you didn't like it? No, because again, it's their story to tell.

Anyway, back to Mass Effect 3. I loved the adventure, and the underlying sense of urgency, that the Reapers are finally, truly here to wipe out all advanced civilisation. Gameplay was  excellent and gripping. It's interesting the way the series has moved away from its RPG roots, only to come back to them, yet still manage a rather good cover-based 3rd person shooter at the same time.

I fully intend to make another playthrough at some point. I've still got Liara to romance, afterall.