All posts tagged Gameage

Thoughts on Mass Effect 2

 Martin · 3 years

I've finally finished Mass Effect 2 again - and I've got a lot to say about it!

Just an FYI: if you care about spoilers for this 11 year old game, stop reading now.

I'm a fan of the Mass Effect series - I've read the books! - but I remember surprisingly little of this game from my first play-through back in 2010. I didn't replay it as many times as the first game, because I didn't really like many of the changes BioWare made. I have a better appreciation for ME2 now, although there are still some things I find annoying.

My baldy Shepard is back! I like that he's sort of a normal-looking dude, though. It helps sell the game's story.

In a lot of ways, ME2 feels like the game that Mass Effect 1 wanted to be. Gone are the long "gray box" hallways, the elevator loading sequences, and the generic planet bases reachable only by way of the Mako. In their place are a number of custom set-pieces and scenarios that never feel like they've been copied and pasted from another part of the game. There are a handful of large city areas to explore. The expanded interior of the new Normandy is more believable. The combat feels more strategic and punchy, and the game overall just feels more solid. ME2 is what ME1 might have been, had it had a longer development cycle, and a larger budget, I suspect.

Coming straight off the first game, ME2 is much darker - both in presentation and story.

The lighting effects in this game are much more dramatic than the original game, likely the result of the better-produced game world. Sometimes, it's distracting, and I did miss the softer, film-grainy look of ME1, but it's not necessarily bad.

With Shephard relegated to the seedier side of the galaxy, the subject matter in this game is accordingly much darker as well. New, more scary alien races are introduced as villains, as are a number of missions that have you exploring messy subjects like human experimentation, forced captivity, slavery, etc. Many of these themes are present in the first game's lore, but they are brought to life in ME2. There's also more cursing, which I personally don't mind, and is more a sign of the times during which the game was developed, rather than anything that services the characters or story.

ME2 still has the same expansive feel of the first game, minus (most of) the planetary romps. The galaxy map is augmented with a new mechanic where you have to buy/spend fuel to get around locally. Rather than bouncing around planets in the Mako, you now scan planets from the comfort of space and send out probes to mine resources. Included DLC adds the Hammerhead, a hovercraft that you take out on a few short missions, but those are neither interesting or particularly memorable - I didn't do any of them until I was ready to complete the game.

I appreciate all the work that went into ME2. As I mentioned above, levels feel complete and fleshed out, in both size and detail. There are a number of cool surprises in the story: Tali appearing with the Quarian strike team in the opening sequence, Ashley (confronting Shephard!) on Horizon, the reveal of Garrus as Archangel, the battle with the Shadowbroker, and the last addition to your team, a rogue Geth platform. I had a great time cruising around the galaxy collecting team members and helping them out.

The core of the game is less intimate than the first, but it's still quite engaging. I actually felt a bit touched when Shephard met old members of his team and gave them a hug. That is what humanity brings to the stars!

There are the inevitable bumps in the road, of course. One thing that I really dislike is the inclusion of a "mission complete" screen at the end of each sequence. Outside of these screens, the game retains the same cinematic feel as the first - so it is particularly strange to me that BioWare felt that constantly reminding players that this is, indeed, a game, was a good idea.

Another annoyance is that, in the Legendary Edition, it's not uncommon for some bits of dialogue to get cut off just before it finishes. It doesn't happen frequently enough to ruin the game, but it happens often nonetheless. This bug was present in ME1 as well.

The soundtrack is a little less synthy than I want it to be, but there are some cool moments there as well. It's serviceable.

One final gripe is with the end-game sequence where, after the Normandy's crew is abducted, you are given the option to keep exploring/completing missions or get right to the rescue effort. Unless you're familiar with the game, it's not obvious that you will trigger this event until you do - and then it's not obvious that there will be consequences if you don't begin the end-game immediately. Wanting to get the best ending, I had to play through the last few hours of the game twice, because on my first run, I opted to finished up all my open missions before tackling the finale, and nearly all of my crew was killed before I got there.

The end-game is cool. Instead of the standard 3-person mission, you work through a number of sequences where you choose a leader for a second strike team, an infiltrator, and other specialists. Who you choose and their loyalty status determines the outcome, and there are a number of things that can go wrong if you pick poorly.

I'm not a fan of the final boss: a human Reaper, which looks like a giant Terminator robot. It's huge and scary to look at, but the idea that the Reapers, ancient machine-beings that kill all sentient life every 50,000 years, needed to make a human version of themselves is just silly to me. There is some voiceover-provided lore about how they assimilate new sentient races to make new Reapers, but all the rest of them look like insects, so it just doesn't fit.

Anyway, I'm on to Mass Effect 3 now, and I remember absolutely nothing from that game. I will be back with another progress report once that one's behind me!

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Thoughts on Mass Effect

 Martin · 3 years

Last night, I finished the first Mass Effect, as part of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition remastered re-release of all three of the original games. I'm sort of an opportunistic completionist, so I made sure to do all the achievements. It all took me around 46 hours.

I've played the original game from start to finish a few other times before, but it has been a while, so I didn't remember much outside of the main story beats. I had a lot of fun re-experiencing it, and there were still a few things that I found surprising and noteworthy as I replayed the game.

My biggest surprise was how few mainline missions there are. The number of missions that advance the story and lead you to the end of the game is surprisingly low. They ran longer than I remembered, though, so that was nice. One early mission took me around 2-3 hours as I explored the entirety of the map and completed all the objectives. As I get older, I find it harder to devote that kind of time to games - at least, not without interruptions - so some of the missions took me multiple sessions to finish.

I was also a bit stunned at how clunky - and in the early game, strangely challenging - the combat is. If there is any part of this remastered Mass Effect that cannot hide its age well, it's the combat. Enemies are extremely basic, sliding into cover by just running into it feels weird, and the balance is off; your AI-controlled teammates either require constant babysitting or are an unstoppable force of combat and biotic abilities.

A good portion of the game is the combat, so luckily it doesn't take much time to get used to its eccentricities. But at times I wondered how this game was able to overcome how weird the combat is and become the beloved property that it is today.

If you've played the game using the default male Shephard, or you're familiar with the various promotional materials, you might be wondering who that odd-looking bald man is in the screenshot at the top of this post. Well, I was delighted that BioWare added the option to use a character code to import your old characters from previous play-throughs, and so that's how the game's hero, Shepard, looks in my game.

He is the result of me firing the game up when it first arrived 14 years ago, and in my rush to play, anxiously mashing through the character creator. I figured, once I got a taste of the game, I'd start over with a proper character that looked a bit more like me. But the game was so engrossing, I ended up not wanting to start over, and got used to the way he looked. Now I cannot hear male Shepard's voice without automatically thinking of this weird dude. I like him!

It was nice that BioWare added the option to use a custom character code at the beginning of the first game, so I could easily import this guy from my original play-throughs. It had one odd quirk, in that the skin color was wrong when I entered it the first time, but that was easily sorted out.

My experience with the Legendary Edition is limited to the first game so far, but it's been a good one. The game looks and runs great on my Xbox Series X, and was a joy to experience once more. There were certainly parts that I wish could have been touched a little more heavily by the remaster team, and a few bugs here and there, but despite all that, it's quite easy to get caught up in the sci-fi world of Mass Effect BioWare created.

On to Mass Effect 2 now, I suppose!

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Costume Quest

 Martin · 12 years

Back in 2010, a week or so before Halloween, Double Fine Productions released Costume Quest. Somewhere between then and a month or two ago, I bought it on XBLA, and I finally got around to actually playing it about a week ago. It's a cute, fun little game, and I enjoyed it.

It's basically a light RPG-type game, where you run around neighborhoods trick-or-treating houses, collecting candy, costumes, and battle stamps (which improve your abilities in combat). Encounters with monsters are the meat of the game and trigger a sequence where the cute cartoon children and silly monsters morph into giants who do battle over the town in a turn-based RPG style. It kind of reminds me of that episode of South Park where the kids morph into anime characters and battle each other.

The cartoon graphics are crisp and colorful, and the sound design is simple, but does all the appropriate things. Controls are easy. Overall, it's a shorter, but quality title - the quality of which I've come to expect from Double Fine.

If you haven't played Costume Quest yet, I'd recommend it. Maybe save it as a little Halloween treat for later this year.

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Diablo 3

 Martin · 12 years

Like many people out there, I've been playing Diablo 3 over the last week or so. And while I did participate in the beta, I mostly did that just to see how the game would run on my machine; I didn't really dig into the game until now. Here are a few things I've been thinking lately as I've played:

  • The mouse clicking is intense, and while the case could be made that it's a pure control concept or that it's a nice throwback, sometimes it can feel a little stale. I just hope I don't end up accidentally breaking my mouse.
  • I'm really happy Blizzard decided to get rid of town portal scrolls. Using up inventory slots for something you almost always had to have was stupid.
  • The cinematic scenes are epic. I'm honestly kind of surprised Blizzard hasn't begun developing its own in-house game-to-movie crossovers. They obviously have the talent.
  • The graphics are good, even at the lowest settings. It also runs on my years-old laptop, which is pretty neat. I'm afraid of overheating it though, so I don't play on that machine much.
  • It's hard to really nail down why, but the game feels (or rather, maybe it just looks) a bit like World of Warcraft. It just seems oddly familiar, which isn't really a bad thing I suppose.
  • The required internet connection is a little weird, especially at first. Playing a single player game with a latency indicator on the HUD is strange. I understand why they did all this, but for people with spotty internet connections / networking hardware, it's kind of a drag.
  • It's a bummer that Blizzard couldn't get the launch right. After spending a few days just looking at my shiny new pre-loaded game, I finally installed and then spent the first hour of launch trying to log in, but the game's servers were borked- no doubt totally crushed by thousands of people trying to log in at once. It's disappointing to me that Blizzard, proprietor or the world's most successful MMORPG, can't nail a launch that involves heavy server load yet.
  • Co-op play is seamless and easy to do, thanks to Battle.net.

Despite a few drawbacks, I'm enjoying my time with the game. This is definitely a more accessible Diablo, at least so far, and with achievements, weapon crafting, lots of rare items, and all sorts of stat combinations, there's no shortage of rewards for putting in time with the game.

It'll be interesting to see if that dynamic changes when Blizzard unleashes the cash-powered auction house in a few days; there's already one in operation that uses the in-game "gold" currency. Since the core of the game is still a single player experience though, the player remains well insulated from all the madness that comes with the auction house. And that's probably a good thing, lest Diablo 3 start feeling a little bit too much like World of Warcraft.

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Mass Effect 3… Multiplayer? Sigh.

 Martin · 13 years

When EA acquired BioWare in 2007, on the eve of its successful franchise launch with the original Mass Effect, I tried my hardest to reserve my criticisms until after they shipped a few more products, and we would start to see just how extensive the inevitable changes to the company would be. With BioWare's history of crafting superb games, it seemed like I owed it to them to at least wait for the dust to settle before making any judgments.

Three years later in 2010, I found myself generally happy with Mass Effect 2. The story was an interesting continuation of the epic set forth in the original game, and most of the conventions that made the first game fun were carried over successfully. Some things from the original game were shed away however, like the synth-heavy soundtrack from the previous game, and Mass Effect 2 definitely felt like a vision a little less realized (and a little more mainstream) for it. I found some other small changes annoying as well, like the end-of-level summary screens, and the (over) simplification of some of the RPG elements (weapons, armor).

I have no idea that these changes were planned additions by BioWare or the results of EA leaning on the team to try to make their game more appealing to the masses, but either way, they did nothing but dilute what would have otherwise been another grand RPG experience.

This week, it was announced that the upcoming Mass Effect 3 would feature a multiplayer element, and I find myself utterly disappointed. Why? Because this is just another step towards mediocrity for what started out as a really outstanding series of games. Instead of spending time working on improving the storytelling in the game engine, adding more side-quests and expanding, what I find to be, a very interesting universe for the upcoming game, EA / BioWare are squandering their time developing a multiplayer mode that will likely not fit within the canon of the story, or even be something that players want to buy the game for.

It's almost as if we've gone backwards a step. I really thought we'd mostly gotten past the days of executives trying to check off all the boxes, making developers create bolted-on, forgettable multiplayer experiences just so they'd have another item to highlight on the back of the game's box.

Maybe EA isn't to blame here; maybe this was BioWare's decision. Either way, I think it's a mistake, and is ignorant to all the things that made the series popular to begin with.

Mass Effect is a single player experience. If I buy the third game, it's going to be because I want to continue that experience. I want to play a game with a carefully crafted world, where story is king, and the game isn't interrupted by lag, idiots cursing at me over their mics, etc. I'm not going to buy Mass Effect 3 for multiplayer; I've got Gears of War, Halo, and Team Fortress 2 for that.

But hey, I could be wrong; Mass Effect 3's multiplayer could turn out to be just fine. From the outset however, it doesn't seem like a very fun idea to me.

Ultimately, I really just hope that Mass Effect 3 (the single player role-playing game) doesn't lose its edge because BioWare had to spend months tacking on a multiplayer component. It would be a real shame to end such a brilliant trilogy on such a sour note.

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I’m a Team Fortress 2 Free-to-Play Noob

 Martin · 13 years

So the other day I was playing Team Fortress 2, and someone accused me of being a "free-to-play noob". I was chided as being one of the newbie players who only recently got into the game because it became free-to-play, despite my owning and playing the game since 2007.

But let me back up a little bit. I was playing Team Fortress 2 the other day, and having a less than stellar round. Some people on my team, who had been playing on the server before I got there, were using their microphones to play the game. These players were being too vocal, to the point that I couldn't concentrate on the game because of all the "mic spam". Being annoyed at my repeated effort and lack of results, coupled with the inane chirps and squeals of the mic spam, I did what any right-minded online gamer would do: I told them to "shut the fuck up".

Bear in mind, I merely typed this phrase into the game's chat; most of the time, these messages are either not read by those they are directed at, since that person is too busy playing the game, or it is swept off the screen quickly by in-game announcements. My message was immediately recognized by the person who I considered to be the primary offender, however.

What was seconds before only friendly banter and playful chatting suddenly became a shrill torrent of insults, disagreeing with my command and demanding that I "shut the fuck up" myself. The tone of voice degenerated into what I could only describe as "ghetto". It's funny how quickly someone's world can come crashing down at the slightest bit of confrontation.

So we argued a bit more, me click-clacking away at my keyboard, and the annoying mic spammer answering my few messages with an elevating level of shrieking. Another player said I should get banned.

Then, the original mic spammer decided that the best way she could deal with me was to call me out as a "free-to-play nub".

A little bit of history, before I continue: back in 2007, Team Fortress 2 used to come as a standalone inclusion in the Orange Box, with Half-Life 2. After that, it became possible to buy the game separately. Finally, as of June of 2011, the game became "free-to-play", meaning anyone could download the game and play with everyone else. Since then, the newest, greatest community-spawned insult is to call someone a "free-to-play noob", meaning they stink at the game because they've only recently begun playing, since the game was made free.

Obviously, I do not fall into this category, and I stated that plainly. Ms. Mic Spam backed off rather quickly after this, and was quite quiet after. And rightfully so, since most of my characters in Team Fortress 2 are outfitted with either The Proof of Purchase hat, my Primeval Warrior pin, or both. These items show that I bought the game back when it was still for sale, and that I have been playing since September 18, 2007, respectively. They are not tradable, and anyone who has them is very obviously not a Team Fortress 2 free-to-play inductee.

So what's the lesson here, other than that I like to have petty arguments with stupid people while I am playing games?

Simply this: if you're going to be an asshole and toss around the "free-to-play noob" insult liberally every time you disagree with someone in Team Fortress 2, make sure you know what the hell you're talking about first. It's not hard to check out people's loadouts first. Unless of course, you're some kind of noob.

Also, if you want to chat with people constantly, start up a private Steam voice chat conversation, or use Xbox Live, Skype, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or some other chat client. You can even play games while you're doing it. Just leave everyone else out of the conversation, because I assure you, we're not interested.

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Team Fortress 2: Meet the Medic

 Martin · 13 years

So Valve finally got around to releasing one of the two final Meet the Team videos - the newest being for the Medic, and arguably the most epic video they've created so far. Watch below!

Oh, and if you didn't bother to watch all the way through, they've also just announced that Team Fortress 2 is now free to play for all! A generous move, surely, though I'm not sure if there are many people left out there who are interested in the game and haven't gotten it yet. Still, this is great news for the continuing popularity of the game.

And if it's proof of anything, it's proof that sales of virtual goods must be a profitable business for Valve. This wouldn't shock me at all.

Anyway, it's a great game by a great team. Get it for yourself if you haven't already!

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Team Fortress 2 Video!

 Martin · 13 years

Another thing that happened while I was gone was that Team Fortress 2 got video capturing, editing, and rendering tools, and me and my buddy Dave used them to become YouTube sensations!

Well, the first part happened, anyway. The second part almost happened, but alas, not many people watched our video. I've taken the liberty of including it at the head of this post, if you're interested in watching a Pyro and Medic take on a handful of bad guys. Spoiler alert: lots of people get burned.

I used a combination of Team Fortress 2's built-in tools, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Premiere to create the video. Oh, and a little help from a tool called GCFScape.

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Minecraft Renders

 Martin · 13 years

One of the things I've been doing in the time since my last major blog post was dabbling with rendering some of my Minecraft exploits.

One of my biggest projects in the game (before I started "cheating" with INVedit and MCEdit) was Skull Island. Across a wide expanse of water from my original spawn and home base, I found an island with a large mountain near the water. It could be seen faintly from the water's edge near my spawn, and I thought it'd be a cool project to carve a large skull into the cliff face. After a few weeks of work (not always consistent play, but it did take a while), I was finished. It wasn't the best thing I'd ever seen made in Minecraft, but I liked the result, was proud of my work, and have decided to post the results here, for the curious.

In order to render my Minecraft levels, I first output them to OBJ format using mcobj, which is a great little tool. I used my old 3D standby, trueSpace, to do the actual rendering, and did a little work in Photoshop afterwards for some of them as well.

Here's the final render I did of Skull Island. The depth of field effect, which was part of the original render, gives it a nice little tilt-shift photography effect that I feel is very appropriate for Minecraft. I also did some post-process color work in Photoshop.

That line coming out of the water and going into the skull's mouth is actually my mine cart track that leads back and forth between the two land masses. On the way over to Skull Island, you come flying up a long incline and immediately see the giant skull looking ahead before your cart goes sailing between the front teeth!

I also did an alternate view from my home base area on the other side of the water. There's no sky output when you export maps from Minecraft using mcobj (and I don't see how there could ever be, really), so I had to make my own. The following two images show the render with and without my faux-Minecraft sky.

I also did a render of a small lake, to test water transparency / reflectivity and depth of field.

And finally, just for kicks, here's an image of my poor computer trudging through a rendering... the phrase "firing on all cylinders" comes to mind!

If you play Minecraft and you don't mind getting your hands dirty with some simple 3D work, rendering your worlds is a pretty fun way to make the whole experience a little more artful. There's a good sub-reddit for mcobj at r/mcobj, and people have also written up some decent tutorials for creating renders with Blender too, so there are lots of resources out there to help get you started if you're interested in all of this.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any tips, tricks, or other things to share about creating Minecraft renders, be sure to add them in the comments below! And of course, if I create any more interesting renders, I'll be sure to post 'em here on the blog!

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