Saving Up

So it's been a while since I posted consistently, and some may be wondering why. Frankly, I haven't been playing a lot of video games lately. I don't have the new systems, so my exposure to all of the great next-gen games is still limited (I read extensively but play only occasionaly, when I'm lucky).

What I've really been up to lately is trying to save up so that I can correct this problem.

I was recently hired as a tutor at my college, so I've been earning cash while helping young minds to expand (not really so young, they're often in my grade). It requires a lot of thinking and caring, so it definitely isn't an easy job, but its fun in its own way. And each paycheck is going into the cookie jar to save up for a glorious XBox 360.

I've been eyeing the XBox 360 ever since I started playing Halo 3 last fall. Since then I've watched closely, and I'm still convinced its the best of the three for me. While I hope the Wii succeeds, I just wouldn't be as satisfied with it. I've played Smash and Mario Kart and Zelda all before, and while the new games are undoubtedly fun, its still more of the same. There is a reason I watch movies instead of TV shows, I want fresh experiences. The Wii offers fresh control setups, and some fresh game-play, but the characters, stories and genres all feel the same.

I've already decided on which 360 I want, I'm definitely going with the Pro. It costs $350, but comes with the 20g hard drive, the headset, all the cables and the starter subscription to Live. The Arcade just isn't worth it without the hard drive, and the Elite is far more than I need.

The real question isn't what system I am going to get, it's when I will get it and what games I will be able to afford. With $350 for the system, another $50 for a second controller, and $50 for the year's worth of Live, I'm already up to $450. And every game after that is another $60. My birthday is in a week, so I'm hoping that with some cash presents I'll have enough to finally leave the gaming stone-age.

When it comes to games though, I don't know where to best put my bills. Halo 3 I think is a must, but there are so many other best-buy games out there as well. I can't stand not knowing what all of the twists are in BioShock and Assassin's Creed, everyone keeps hinting at them and I need to play to find out what happened. As soon as I solve those mysteries, I'll have to start playing Mass Effect. I came up with a complex game proposal/design a few years back that was almost exactly like Mass Effect, and I want to see if my dreams made reality are as cool as I had imagined them.

If I could afford them, I would also buy Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, Devil May Cry 4, Lost Odyssey, Rock Band and Condemned. But who has $600 to spend on games? Not I, sadly.

So until I write a best-selling novel, I'll have to content myself with one or two games at a time. And until I do a lot more tutoring, I won't even have that. Hopefully in a week or two I'll be rolling high with a brand-new 360.

~ Lady ~

Too Little, Too Late

So I just beat P.N. 03 (Product Number 03) and I have to say, I'm disappointed.

I bought the game because it was part of the Capcom 5, and I didn't think a highly-respected publisher like Capcom would let me down. But they did.

I won't get into all of the depressing details, if you want those you can check out PN 03 in the Reviews section (that's right, I inaugurated the section with this awful title). But I will give you a quick breakdown.

The audio in the game is awful. There are only 2 scense with voice acting, and I wish there weren't. The game is supposed to be a dance/dodging based 3rd-person shooter, but the dance music also sucks.

There is no story or plot.

All of the levels are terrible. I have designed better levels in Game Design class using Source. Those were classroom levels. Classroom levels beat this shooter.

The combat is boring, the gameplay is repetetive, and most of the dodging techniques are not needed. The more powerful special attacks are fun for a few levels, but don't last long. Charging forward wildly and launching the Griffin attack kept me happy for about 20 minutes.

The bosses were lame, the regular enemies were lame, the AI was shoddy. You're supposed to rack up points to buy better suits and upgrade them. Usually I'm a sucker for RPG elements like this, but I bought as few upgrades as I could to beat the game. I never do that. This game turned me off that much.

The main character didn't turn me off. She's pretty hot actually, possibly the hottest video game character I've seen. They try to use that to your advantage, by making the final suit you unlock by beating the game on hardmode a highly-revealing outfit. I didn't fall for it, you shouldn't either.

There were a few more engaging levels and a few more difficult bosses near the end. There was also an interesting room or two. But these were the types of things you'd expect as the first level of a normal game, not as the final and best a game had to offer.

Supposedly the final boss is really hard, and takes lots of practise, patience, and timing. I just tapped A faster than usual and killed it in about a minute. Here's its sorry mug.

Next time Capcom, don't let your interns make their own games.

~ Lady ~

Brawl Released At Last!

The delays have driven us mad, but at long last Super Smash Bros. Brawl is out. I had hoped to play it over spring break and even earlier, but with the delays I was not able to play it until this week.

I was fortunate enough to not only get to play it, but also to review it for my college's weekly newspaper. Since I don't own a Wii of my own, I had to set up a deal with a friend to borrow his Wii for a few days. After a couple of days playing through every mode of Brawl, I have to say, it was time well spent. This blockbuster does not dissapoint.

If you want the full run-down on the game, I've posted the comprehensive review in the Reviews section, or you can check out the published version in Articles.

But as an overview, this game is unbelievably packed with great content.

It has all of the old modes that the previous entry, Melee, had plus a lot of new ones. And all of the old ones have been improved. New modes like Rotation and the revamped Tourney mode make setting up matches easier. The brand-new solo campaign, Subpsace Emissary, is a god-send. Previous installments had nothing to offer for a campaign, but this retro-style 2d platforming adventure is awesome and enjoyable. The Event mode has been expanded, Classic mode has been updated, and the Stadium challenges retain their replay value.

The visuals and sounds have been vastly improved as well. I actually used certain moves just because they sounded so cool, rather than because they were effective. And though the character models all look the same as Melee, the special effects are far more impressive.

Of course, all of these modes, graphics and audio are all just extras: what gamers really care about are the characters and stages. These essentials do not dissapoint.

I played with most of the new characters, all of which were surprisingly-well balanced. I loved getting to play as Charizard instead of lame Pokemon like Pichu. I also enjoyed playing MetaKnight, who was much faster than his size leads you to believe. Solid Snake's ranged weapons were a lot of fun, although I didn't like getting beaten up while trying to guide my rockets. My favorite new character though was (spoiler alert) R.O.B. who is the only character who wasn't actually in a game before. He is a digital version of a peripheral for an old Nintendo system that flopped, I believe. His moves are not only powerful and versatile, he also has some of the coolest sound effects for all of his attacks. For down attacks he fricking blasts people with rocket boosters, talk about painful.

Stages were pretty sweet too. I loved playing on Castle Siege with its multiple parts, my favorite was the underground hall. I also liked the innovative levels like Pictochat and WarioWare. But again, you can see more info on the stages in the full review.

So my advice to everyone out there, be you casual or hardcore gamers, play Brawl! If you've missed out on the smash bros phenomenon for the 5-10 years, this is the time to finally get to know one of the best series ever madel.

As I say in the review, this is one hell of a game.

~ Lady ~

Video Game Soundtracks

When most people think of quality music, they probably think of the recording industry. Maybe there is a minority of people out there who think of their favorite Broadway shows or movie soundtracks. But how many people think of video games?

We all have been playing them for years, but how often do we take the time to appreciate a game's music for what it is. For most games, not often. When you're in the middle of being shot, trying to level a character, or pushing your car for those few extra seconds you really aren't worried what the stereo is playing.

But increasingly developers are putting more time and effort into games' audio. Next-gen sound has a lot to offer, and developers are utilizing their new tools. I just started playing Smash Brawl yesterday, for example, and the audio quality, even on the Wii, is outstanding. There were certain moves that I used repeatedly, even though they weren't very effective for combat, simply because the sound effects were so good.

But this focus on audio isn't brand new. One of my favorite developers, Free Radical (formed by the designers of the original GoldenEye) had some amazing soundtracks in their TimeSplitters series. And, even better, they provide full soundtracks from their games for free on their website.

The soundtrack for TimeSplitters 2 is just amazing. With great ambient tracks, like those for the wild west level, the notre dame level, or the chicago level, the music compares favorably with the best soundtracks out there. I've got the full soundtrack on my iPod, and listen to it just like I would any other music.

So it was natural for me to go to Free Radical's tracks when I was assigned to work on an audio project for one of my classes. We were assigned to create an audio composition that was exactly one minute long that conveyed the theme of "the evil inherent in mankind." I played through the soundtracks for some of TS2's darker levels, and decided on the Notre Dame level. This was only one element in a composition of a lot of pieces, but the Notre Dame piece was crucial to the final effect. (I've included a link to my audio project below)

While video games might not stick out as the best place to go for music, they often are. Nothing else I listened to had better quality or mood than the Free Radical stuff. So keep up the good work developers, and if you get discouraged, or if you decide to skimp on the audio on your new game, remember: We're listening.

Link to "The Fall of Man" - http://blogs.immtcnj.com/digital_media_spring_08/?p=670

~ Lady ~

Low-Res Demo & Campus Cops

Today was our second milestone for the Game Design course, and believe it or not, we were way ahead of schedule.

We were supposed to have a low-res version of our demo done, but we actually got further than we had hoped. We had planned to have two playable levels, the dorm room and the campus overworld. But I went in the night before and put together, in a couple of hours, a third level (a classroom).

What was in these levels was better than we'd hoped as well. The dorm room had lighting effects, triggers and actions, and scripted NPC behavior with dialogue. These were all things we had been experimenting with for the last couple of weeks, but we hadn't been able to figure out or perfect. But thanks to some help from some senior members of the team, we got some of that done. Outside of the game, we have some of the Spanish dialogue (since it is a Spanish learning game) recorded, and we have a lot of design documents that detail what else we would do with the game. And of course, the Wii-mote can be used to play the game.

I was very proud to have done the classroom level on my own, especially in such a short amount of time. It shows that I've been picking up Hammer (the level editor) and Source (our game engine) quite well.

We almost had a problem though.

When we were working in the lab at about 2 in the morning, some of the campus police came in and almost kicked us out. They asked us what time the lab was supposed to close, as if we were breaking the rules and they wanted us to admit it. But after we said it closes at 3, they did a Dr. Jeckle/Mr. Hyde switch and were super-friendly. They actually ending up staying for a while to watch us work and talk to us about the game.

So once again, I found gamers in the most unlikely of places. One of the cops was likening our project to the old Quake mods he used to build, since we are technically creating a mod of Half-Life 2. The other cop talked about his first-person shooter as well. It was cool to find gamers in places of authority, maybe as this trend continues the gaming industry will cease to be looked at as the evil media.

Although, if we want to avoid that stigma, we'll need to make a slight change to our demo. We found out that, currently, you can enter a code to get guns. Which means you could run around our campus shooting the student NPC's. Talk about a public-relations nightmare...

~ Lady ~

Hidden Treasures

We all know that game developers work hard on what they do. At the end of a long development process they want nothing more than to see gamers enjoying what they have done.

But sometimes, they like to make gamers work a little bit to find the good stuff.

This is something especially true in free-roaming environments, like large RPG's or MMO's, like Guild Wars. Having beaten the game now with my Paragon as well, I've utterly destroyed the mainline missions and quests of Guild Wars. So when I went on yesterday and today, I did something far more casual, and less intensive, than I have done in a while. I simply explored.

And I was amazed at what I found. It seems that the Guild Wars team (ANet) spent a lot of time creating some really unique locations and environments to reward those players who go the extra mile.

I've included screens of many of the more exotic and breathtaking locales I visited. The first one is a part of a massive royal library in the palace of Prince Ahmtur the Mighty. The curtains are woven with symbols and knowledge and sway in a very mesmerizing and enchanting way. Most players pass ridiculously close to this spot when beating Nightfall, it is only a few rooms behind where you must meet with the 3 princes. Not only is this an impressive looking location, it is also the starting point for many of the best quests in Vabbi.
Some of these quests took me into another new area, the mines of Vabbi to the west. It was more visually attractive than most areas, with dozens of falling waterfalls and hidden alcoves. On the far side, hidden beneath a mountain, was the Basalt Grotto (shown above). This was one of the coolest towns I've found in all of Guild Wars, with its unique basalt formations forming a massive underground chamber.
After these quests, I decided to keep hunting for the hidden treasure locations. Where better to look than the Hidden City of Ahdashim, a place I had only briefly entered in order to find the treasure chest in it. This proved to be the grand-daddy of them all. It has to be one of the biggest explorable areas in all of Guild Wars. Yet every room is more breathtaking and awe-inspiring than the last, driving you to seek deeper and deeper within its underground halls.
One room, shown above, was a vast treasure room filled with a sea of gold and jewels. I zoomed the camera all the way out to take in the rich panorama. I was so distracted by the gleaming ocean that I almost died more than once in there.Then, all the way in the back of the massive place, after almost an hour of exploration, I found the final hidden valley, with the most beautiful floating terraces. I stopped to just stare for a few minutes before venturing down into the oasis. In the back of the valley was the king of the elemental protectors, Yamamoto, Ether Guardian, a large beast of a boss. I was running low on allies at this point and was unable to defeat him. So instead I left Yamamoto, to rule eternally over his hidden city.
This was a relaxing and rewarding day of Guild Wars like I haven't had in a while. Searching for these exotic places brought back the excitement and unkown of my early days with the game, when lvl. 20 seemed unreachable. If you've become bored with your MMO, and are sick of entertaining yourself with endless dance parties, delve deeper into the world. You never know what treasures you'll find.

~ Lady ~

*** I will be posting images of some other cool hidden Guild Wars locations in the Visuals section. From Grenth's Hall in the Underworld to the Mountain Heart deep in the Shiverpeaks, these are places no true Guild Wars fan should leave unvisited.

My New Paragon

Having beaten BFME's good campaign, I hadn't played any computer games for a while. So last week I decided to start a new character on Guild Wars. I had to use my last character slot, so unless I want to pay more this is my last character as well.

I decided to make a Paragon, one of the two new classes to the Nightfall expansion. It was nice to get back into the good old Guild Wars world, especially with such an interesting class. I took it nice and slow, enjoying a lot of aspects of the game that I hadn't payed much attention to since I first played over a year ago.

While I took the time to enjoy the game, I still progressed very rapidly, since after making five maxed characters I know all the ins and outs of the game. I just reached the max level, 20, with my paragon Lady Ravenna today.

It's been a lot of fun so far. The paragon class is a unique blend of a team-supporter and a ranged melee fighter. It uses spears, which can do quite a lot of damage when coupled with the strong Spear Mastery skills. The Paragon has a wide array of damage dealing options: skills that cause crippling and deep wound like Warriors, and moves that cause Blindness and Burning like Elementalist skills. I usually kept at least half of my skills as damage dealers or enhancers, so that I was sure to be able to pack a punch even when on my own.

The Paragon isn't just a solitary damage dealer though. It has probably the most options of any class to provide support to the team. It has the standard healing and protection skills like Monks use. It has skills that increase Defense and ability to dodge enemies, like the Warrior's tactics line. It also has a slew of unique buffs, like skills that make your entire party cause burning or crippling with their attacks.

And to my wondrous delight, the Paragon has an unprecedented amount of team running skills. I was able to craft a ridiculously useful Team Runner build for my Paragon, that allows you to run through areas with almost your entire team still intact. This build was not only useful for my Paragon character, but also for all of my Paragon Heroes on my other characters. Collecting Treasure and capping skills will be much quicker and easier now that I have a team runner. (I'll be detailing this build in the Walkthrough section soon)

But anyway, its been a pleasure to get back into the game without all of the addictiveness of trying to save up for stuff. I already have plenty of gear for my Paragon, so there was no need to worry about farming or saving up or anything. It was just good, pure fun.

And after all, isn't that what games should be?

~ Lady ~

Level Design & Minimaps

There's always something new going on with the Game Design crew.

Lately we've been discussing level design and the use of minimaps. More specifically, we've been debating whether or not our game should be open-world or if it should be more linear. And how we design our levles will play into how we implement the minimap.

We know that, since the game takes place at our college, TCNJ, the actual campus will serve as the overworld. From here the players will go into the various buildings, where they will find the missions, objectives, etc. But what we need to decide on is whether or not players will move from building to building as the game tells them to, or if they will have the freedom to visit whatever building they want. The central storyline will move in specific directions, of course, but we are debating whether or not the game should include side quests and stories.

One of the guys in the group, Tim, is really pushing for a Grand Theft Auto style game. I think we've settled now on a compromise, whereby the initial stages of the game will be linear and the later stages will be a sandbox setup. Once the player starts to learn some spanish they should be able to handle more unique scenarios that side quests can provide. This will also allow them to get more reinforcement of the material.

To handle our sandboxing, we are enlisting the help of an Interactive Storytelling class to come up with sidestories and quests.

To help us in analyzing the issues of map and level design, we used the traditional Game Design method of bringing in sample games. I brought in some GameCube games like Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime and P.N. 03 to look at some of the best (and worst) of the industry.

Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4 are both somewhat linear games, in terms of level design. Prime allows for a lot of exploration in gameplay, but the actual rooms are quite small and restricted. But the player never realizes how small these rooms are because of the brilliantly done graphics and level design. You really feel like you are in part of a massive canyon, you don't realize it's actually just a hallway with a cleverly designed skybox and such.

Resident Evil does the same thing, by turning a simple hallway into what looks like part of a huge forest area. The developers didn't have to actually make massive areas, but they still gave the impression of large explorable areas. Part of the success here was in the limited use of the minimaps. If players could see blatantly that they were in a hallway, they would not get the impression that they were exploring a large, vibrant world. They would know they were boxed in.

In this case, ignorance is bliss. If a developer doesn't have the time or resources to make a massive open world like in an MMO, I want to at least feel like I am in one of these. In these instances, heavy use of a minimap would be detrimental.

P.N.o3 was an example of a badly done game. The levels are all tightly made corridors that suffocate the player. And the setup of these different hallways and rooms is completely confusing and disorienting, creating the feeling that you are lost in a massive maze. In this instance, a minimap would have been very welcome.

We will probably end up using some kind of minimap in our game, but we will try to avoid ruining the open world feeling. Time will only tell if we suceed.

~ Lady ~

Fable & Choice

So we had another awesome day of Game Design II today. It was a day in which we were encouraged to bring in games that would demonstrate points we were trying to achieve.

One of the cooler of the games we looked at was Fable, from the original XBox. We looked at it for its usage of dialogue and choice. In Fable, almost every decision you make affects the game somehow. Whether it is choosing whether or not to keep an affair a secret, or whether or not to burn a village, you get a lot of freedom to do what you want.

And more importantly, the game is set up to reflect the consequences of your actions. If you tell the wife that her husband is having an affair, the husband will get angry at you. If you commit evil actions like burning villages and killing citizens, you will gradually become a darker-looking more evil character. And the ending of the game also depends on choices you make.

For the purposes of our class, we just looked at the opening level of the game, in which the young boy is running around trying to do good deeds to collect money. But man, there is a lot of opportunities to do mean stuff as well in that town. I couldn't count how many times the player got yelled at my the town guard for being a bad kid. It was pretty cool to see a system set up that could deal with consequences though, it really helped to make the town and game come alive.

We also looked at some other games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) for their use of dialogue as well. KotOR was shown as a good example of dialogue usage, but I feel like the multiple choice menu system breaks up the action a lot. It'd be nice to see a game that could make a more fluid system for choice and dialogue.

Mass Effect, the newest game out from BioWare (who made KotOR), is supposed to have a very good choice and dialogue mechanic. When I get my X-Box 360 in about a month Mass Effect will be at the top of my list of games to get, so I'll be able to see for myself.

~ Lady ~

Badass Warriors

So I know I was supposed to have broken my Guild Wars addiction about 2 months ago, but hey a guy can still play casually, right?

So over the past couple months I've mostly just been screwing around, doing some Hard Mode farming while I watched TV and the like. And over the course of 2 months, I can rack up a lot of cash with my Hard Mode farming, thanks to the wonderful 130 HP Dervish build I use (see the Walkthroughs section for a description of that build).

So to reward myself for my skill and wealth accumulation, I decided to splurge on a new set of badass armor for my Warrior, named General Grende. I got the Primeval Armor, some expensive but sweet looking stuff. That's it up above, with some red dyes and my minipet Aatxe in front of me.

Actually, pretty much all the armor for Warriors is badass. On the left is a shot of my Elite Gladiator armor, my other set of prestige armor on my warrior.

So while I may have broken my addiction, it's nice to log back in once in a while and remind myself how rich I am, at least in-game.

~ Lady ~

The Black Gates of Mordor

Alright, I promised I would go through the final amazing mission of BFME (the good campaign) and here it is.

The mission starts you out with all of your troops amassed before the gates, like they are in the movie. The first thing I did was to organize my army and set the different heroes and groups to hotkeys. The cavalry I moved to the back, because if left alone the cavalry often charge stupidly into oncoming pikemen and get themselves spitted. They were kind of like my reserves, ready to come riding in to crush infantry if the others needed help (which I did occasionally, see this pic for a visual).

Then I put my heroes in the front to blunt the assaults, with Gandalf smack dab at the head so his magic could be most useful. Behind them were my infantry, with the 2 divisions of archers on either side of them to fire in on the center. It was a good setup, and I recommend anyone doing this mission to try it as well.

While I was still organizing my men the first wave came charging out of the gates. These were weak orcs, meant more to distract me in my organization than to stop me. My archers and heroes slew them easily without my needing to issue any orders.

But what followed was a bit tougher: a horde of massive trolls, among them the feared, armored battle trolls. This second wave had the potential to mess up a lot of my weaker troops, so I had to head it off before it could reach my normal troops. Gandalf's amazing powers did the trick pretty well, especially his Word of Power, which sent trolls flying in every direction with its massive blast radius.

For the third wave, the enemy decided to up the difficulty even further, by sending in its Haradrim army, complete with a half-dozen of the formidable Mumakil beasts. I should have saved my Word of Power, it could have reduced the heavy toll I took from this group.

But through a combination of counter-measures I managed to take down the monsters before they could completely ravage my infantry ranks. The storm of arrows from archers and heroes like Legolas did a lot of the work. Gandalf also was important, using his beam of light and lightning attacks to take down the beasts. And finally, I used Aragorn's coolest ability, summoning a small army of the dead to re-enact the scene from Return of the King. With these combined attacks, the Mumakil were dead within a few minutes.

Just as the last of the Mumakil went down, my greatest weapon became available. I summoned my strongest ally units, the full Army of the Dead. They washed over the trolls and orcs like they were made of paper, swarming with their fluid ghostish movements. After clearing every single unit on screen, I sent them up through the Gates themselves, into the far corner of the screen where the enemy was coming from. There they wiped out the enemies before they could even appear fully on the screen. But eventually their time ran out and they dissapated, allowing the enemy to regroup for the fourth and final assault.

First came the Nazgul, flying ominously through the skies as they prepared to swoop down and maul my troops. Four of them came at once, enough to cripple any unprepared army. But before they could even attack, I had Gandalf use his long range magical beam attack to destroy one of them. My archers unleashed a storm upon the others, and faster than I could have hoped the ariel demons were eliminated.

On the tails of the Nazgul came the last constant stream of enemies, trying to destroy me before time ran out and Frodo reached Mount Doom (a clock showed me how much longer I had to hold on, to distract Sauron while Frodo finished the deed). I repelled this group with my units and heroes, all of them fighting bravely as the endless foe started to pile up amongst them. When it seemed like my troops would be completely overun, Gandalf's Word of Power was finally recharged. I activated it, causing the massive blew glow and explosion that killed almost everything on screen (see the pics for the awesome effects of this super-weapon).

The streams of enemies kept coming of course, but Gandalf's attack had bought me the breathing room my army needed, and had bought me enough time for more of my summoned allies to be ready.

And so, as the clock chimed off its final seconds, I threw all of my summoned allies against the long orc column. Rohan cavalry charged through them, Ents ran over them, and Gandalf sent out one last beacon of light. With all the hosts of Mordor poured out against me, Sauron had barely managed to dent my army. I was victorious, and Middle-earth was saved!

To reward my brilliantly executed campaign, I was given the status of "Total Victory" with my final score. Now that was a satisfying RTS campaign mode. Props to the guys from EA who made this masterpiece.

~ Lady ~

RTS/RPG Fusion

Whew!

I just beat the Battle for Middle-earth good campaign, talk about an awesome game. The campaign started out like the other RTS games I've played, where it alternated between some small levels where you control a few characters and some bigger levels where you built up armies.

But unlike most RTS games, BFME is like an RPG as well: All of your units can rank up and be re-used in the next missions! Certain key units, aka the Fellowship, got a ridiculous amount of experience by the end of the campaign. For the final level I had Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, etc. all up to lvl. 10, the maximum. Not only does their attack and defense go up, they learn some sweet new abilities too (sounds just like an RPG doesn't it?). Gandalf's powers are displayed in some of the screens here, as is Aragorn's ability to summon a small group of ghost warriors.

While this RPG style application was really sweet, I was even more excited to see that my general units could level up, get upgrades and be re-used as well. Towards the beginning of the campaign I built up a shock-force of well-armored, well-armed Rohirrim Cavalry, which could pretty much roll over anything in its past. Later in the game I formed my massive Gondor army, to which the Fellowship members would later be ended. Units could be upgraded with things such as Heavy Armor, Forged Blades, Fire Arrows, etc. (see this screen for some decked-out cavalry).

I was worried for a while though, because the game would only let me play so many missions of my choosing (like pick which part of Rohan to defend with Eromer) before it made me do required missions (like defending Helm's Deep or the path of Cirith Ungol). But after I had defended Minas Tirith (which was an insanely awesome mission btw) it let me play as many battles as I wanted before I moved on to the final mission. The more missions I played, the more I could level up my units, so I conquered the entire world before finally moving against Mordor itself (I had even come up into southern Mordor, to the Lake of Nurn). By the time I went up against the Black Gates of Mordor (the final mission) I had crafted quite an imposing army.

To take on all the hosts of Mordor, I moved in with my Gondor Army and the Fellowship. I had about 50 veteran cavalry, fully equipped with Heavy Armor & Forged Blades. I also had 2 divisions of archers, about 30-40 archers each, which were also maxed out. Add the members of the Fellowship and all of my ally summons, and Mordor didn't stand a chance.

Tomorrow I'll give a play-by-play of that final level. It's one of the most fun and most difficult levels in the game, and is an excellent example of combat in BFME. Until then, adios!

~ Lady ~

ROCK BAND!

WOA!

So I just played this game today for the first time (yeah I know I'm behind the times) and it rocks!

I had been skeptical about all of these music games, but Rock Band is remarkably well-designed. We played it during our Game Design II class today, and I have to say it was addicing. We were politely fighting over the guitars and the microphone all morning (people were afraid of how difficult the drums were). This is an awesome party game, unless you have more than 4 people, then it becomes a war over the spotlight :P

I hadn't played the guitar before, and I sucked. I had to play bass on easy on a couple of songs to get the hang of the keys, but even after that I couldn't do to well. And I didn't get a chance yet to play the drums. But on the mic, I shone.

I only knew the lyrics to a handful of songs, but the ones I knew, I knew. I've sung along to Dani California so many times that I could have sang for that song without the words scrolling across the top. It really felt like being the signer in a band, it was quite a rush. Plus, most of the instrument players were sitting down always, so I felt like I was at the center of attention in the room too.

Letting loose during the Star Power sequences was a bit embarassing at first, but I started to get into it at the end. I decided that, hey, this was an awesome game, and I shouldn't be afraid to get into it and start really rocking out. The last couple of songs I did I really kicked ass on, and I can't wait for the chance to play this again.

Until then... I'll have to stick to the shower for my rock-star-wannabe moments.

~ Lady ~

MMO Opinion Feedback

So I just published my opinion piece about MMORPG's last week, and the feedback has been great.

I had argued that Guild Wars was a better game and a better deal than WoW, and that WoW has a reputation that is bigger than it deserves. I am arguing against the grain, that's for sure. See the Articles section for the full story, it's a pretty quick read (the screens in this post accompanied my article, to show the difference in the 2 games' graphics).

But I couldn't believe how many people I heard from about the article. There was the usual comments, friends of mine that said they saw it and liked it. But there were a lot more meaningful responses as well. I got text messages from a couple of friends I hadn't talked to in a while, saying that they liked the article and were playing Guild Wars again. When someone takes a slug at WoW, all the closet-Guild Wars players come out of hiding and show themselves. I also got a couple of new Facebook friend requests from other Guild Wars players.

But of course, not everything was rainbows and sunshine. I had a lot of WoW fans coming up to me to argue the merits of their game, and many of them made good points. I had lunch today with an aquaintence while we discussed MMO's. He has played quite a few, including WoW, Everquest and Guild Wars, so his insight was welcome. He brought up some good points against Guild Wars, but also just as many against WoW.

Whether the responses were positive or negative, I was happy to get the topics out in public. I don't think we've ever had gaming related opinion pieces in the paper before, and I've never had so many conversations about online gaming in such a short amount of time. I'm just trying to do my part to bring this little hobby of ours to mainstream :)

Check out the article, and let me know what you think!

~ Lady ~

P.N.03 - Fighting with Flair

So I just started playing PN o3, the unique third-person shooter from Capcom that came out exclusively on GameCube a few years back.

The game was part of the Campcom Five, a group of five high-profile Capcom games that were to come out exclusively on GameCube. Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7 and Resident Evil 4 were also part of this group, but those 3 all came out on PS2 later, making PN 03 the ONLY game from the Campcom Five to stay exclusive. The fifth game (dubbed Red Pheonix or something like that) was never completed.

The game is pretty crazy compared to most shooters. It does not focus much on your accuracy, as the auto-targetting is so strong there really is no skill involved there. It also doesn't allow for many changes in attack weaponry, so the skill doesn't lie there either. The tricky part is in learning how to dodge.

I can't help but feel, as I play this, that it was inspired by that famous Matrix exchange - "You mean I can dodge bullets?" "When you're ready, you won't have to." The girl in the game, Vanessa, moves around as if she is in the middle of some kind of techno-dance competition, but in a good way. Her jumps are exagerated and acrobatic, and make platform jumping actually kind of fun to watch. You will rely heavily on the L and R buttons, which dodge in the respective directions. These dodges go from shrugging to the side, to spinning out of the way, to doing sideways cartwheels. It can be fun for a while to dance back and forth, adding a few jumps and crouches into the mix, watching as your robotic enemies fire shot after shot without touching you. Capcom obviously put a lot of time into perfecting this dodging/acrobatic effect, and it turned out great.

Unfortunately, it seems from what time I've spent so far that this is the only mechanic that they delved into deeply. The level designs are repetitive squeaky-clean labs, the enemies are all some variety of security robot (they are cool robots, but still get boring after a while), which as a creative choice isn't bad, but as an AI choice is awful. The enemy AI is something you would have expected from an old computer game like Duke Nukem or something, its not even as engaging as shooters on the 64. The music is a bass-heavy techno mix, which pumps you up for about the first half hour of playing, but takes you no where after that.

Fortunately, the RPG elements and scoring system add a bit of challenge and reward to the mix. While the bots are sometimes painfully simplistic, this makes racing through a level for a time bonus more feasible. And building up points to buy new suits and power-ups adds a bit of excitement to keep you interested.

This game does some interesting things with the concept and the dodging mechanics. But at the end of the day, it is a slightly-below average game with only a few novel ideas to save it. This game is best in small doses, and at a cheap price.

~ Lady ~

Game Design II

Wow! So I just had my first session with this class today, and I have to say it was awesome.

The course is run as if the class were a developing team, and the two instructors are the publishers. We are going to be graded at four milestones on how we have performed and whether we have reached our deadlines. This parodies how real development teams work; their publisher sets a milestone, at which time the developer shows what work they have accomplished, and if the publisher is satisfied they will continue to pay the developer for the next step of the process.

There are about 10-11 of us right now in the class, all of us with varying degress of skill and different areas of expertise. I've been pulled in for my writing/storytelling skills, my basic knowledge of the spanish language (much of the game is in spanish), and for general design and creativity.

The class is four hours long, but it went by so fast I wished it was longer. I repeat: I had a four hour course, no break, and I wanted it to be LONGER. For the vast majority of the class we just sat around in a computer lab giving progress reports, throwing ideas around and developing what we had started with. I caught on to what the project was pretty quickly, so it wasn't a problem that I joined late. I actually started to give my input and some new ideas within the first hour. I proposed a relationship meter for in the game, similar to what to the relationships with the gods in the upcoming title Rise of the Argonauts. I also helped out a bit with the story and believability of the game.

The idea of the game is pretty cool. On the most basic level, its an educational game designed to teach spanish. But that makes it sound lame, which it is not. It is a new type of educational game, called an immersive learning game. This means that gameplay and entertainment value are still high priorities, so it doesn't become a text-based or multiple-choice "game." The game will run on Source, Half-Life's engine, it will be played with Wii-motes and involve the appropriately silly Wii actions, and will utilize a brand-new virtual reality style mechanic.

This is going to be one kick-ass spanish learning game.

~ Lady ~

Making it Official

Well, I've been talking about games, reading about games and playing games for years, but I've finally made the big commitment.

I have now switched my second minor to Interactive Multimedia (IMM) which is popularly known as "the gaming major." I'll be working over the next three semesters with advanced photo and graphic editing programs, HTML, web design, programming languages, Flash and Scratch. Depending on how the program changes slated for this summer turn out, I might also get to take a course called Game Design, in which we actually create a full-fledged game. Last year they worked with Half-Life's graphical engine to create their own sci-fi game, and this year they are working on a very different kind of survival game.

So, what does this mean for the site? Hopefully, over the next couple of months or semesters, I will actually learn how to edit all of this stuff, including the html, to make GameLady look and function better. I'll post updates occasionally on how my "game/web design training" is going.

I'm not just an enthusiast anymore, I'm actually formally studying this stuff!

~ Lady ~

Typical Gaming Coverage

So I was reading through some articles about the Presidential race on Newsmax.com, when an article caught my eye. It was in the technology section, and was about profits for Nintendo Co. So I read the article, and to no surprise, it is just another example of the typical coverage the gaming world gets. A piece of crap article, with no relevant information, unless perhaps you wanted to invest in Nintendo stock. If that was the purpose, it should be in the Business section.

The piece had absolutely no information on the technology part of the Wii, nor did it go into the entertainment part of the Wii. Hardware belongs in technology, finances in business, and the rest of the gaming industry in Entertainment, since it is an Entertainment industry.

This is probably the most common type of article in the mainstream media these days, the type of article that is basically just a journalist re-printing a press release about sales information or new releases. Then we have the "video games are evil and are causing all of America's violence" stories, which are in the paper every month or two. And then once or twice a year we get a story about Second Life or about a big release, like the new systems last year or Halo 3 this year. What does an industry have to do to get some real coverage around here?

There were also some errors and other annoyances. The article refered to the Wii throughout the entire story as the "Wii machine," and it was alongside the "DS portable machine." The DS has new games, said the article, including one that shows new cooking recipes (is this their mis-understanding of Cooking Mama?). The article also said that the "new" game called Wii Sports has been a big hit and is causing increased sales. Can the game that came with the system at launch really be called new?

It's time for our mainstream media to wake up and see the light: the game industry deserves and demands better.

(the article: Nintendo Earnings Nearly Double on Wii)

~ Lady ~

Xbox 360 Line-up

So the view of the cashier the other day got me thinking about the 360 more in-depth. He is right in a way: if you want shooters, the 360 has the most quantity and highest quality. It has blockbusters like Halo 3, Gears of War and the Call of Duty series. It also has stellar shooters like GRAW 2, Rainbow Six Vegas and the newest Splinter Cell games.

But I wouldn't quite say that the 360 is just for your standard FPS. First off, there are a number of "shooters" that are far more innovative or action-oriented than the standard FPS. BioShock and Mass Effect are pushing gaming forward, trying new things and getting amazing reviews in the process. Others like The Darkness, Lost Planet and Crackdown are taking a different attitude or approach to shooters, adding special powers, bigger boss battles or a GTA-style atmosphere.

Here are some other genres that have received a solid showing on Microsoft’s new system:

Racing:
There is a pack of great racers on the system, both exclusives and non-exclusives. Games like Project Gotham Racing 4 or Forza Motorsport II give 360 owners something to boast about. Others include Burnout Paradise, Need for Speed: Carbon, Juiced 2 and Dirt.

RPG:

Sony has historically been the RPG powerhouse, but Microsoft is working to satisfy their RPG fans as well. Current favorites include Elder Scrolls IV, Eternal Sonata and 360-exclusive Blue Dragon.

Survival/Horror:

Capcom has not graced the Xbox or 360 with its glorious Resident Evil games, so Microsoft has helped popularize some new interesting franchises. I would kill for the chance to play Condemned, a creative and brutally realistic game about investigating psychopaths. Dead Rising, which featured a mall as the setting for a survival game, was also quite creative and well-received.

Multiplayer/Music:

These games have made a huge hit in the last few years, and their lack of showing on Nintendo’s system has been a hit. But the 360 is sporting all the latest, including Guitar Hero 2 and 3 and the newest Rock Band.

Real-Time Strategy (RTS):

This is a genre with a nasty history on consoles. Without the quick-moving precision of a mouse and wide array of keys on a computer, it’s hard to keep up with the fastest moving RTS games. But once again, Microsoft is out to change things. First, they got the LotR: Battle for Middle-Earth 2 on the 360. Then they made an even bigger leap with the 360 version of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. C&C 3 is one of the most anticipated RTS’s of the year, from the series that has not only rocked the RTS world, but is one of the top 20 gaming IP’s (according to a chart by Game Informer from last summer, before C&C 3 even launched). Reviewers of C&C 3 on the 360 said that it was perhaps the greatest console RTS they had ever seen.

Action

Many of the afore-mentioned shooters could fall under this category, but there are some other noteworthy pieces that are making a sparkle on the 360. One is the new GTA-style franchise Saints Row, which is yet another example of Microsoft responding successfully to a Sony exclusive (the GTA series in this case). Ace Combat 6, a flight sim that got fantastic reviews, is another action exclusive to add to the 360’s roster. And of course, who can forget Assassin's Creed. The game was one of the most anticipated for all of the next-gen systems, was originally a PS3 exclusive, and has gotten stellar reviews for its innovative and engaging game-play and story.

Fighting

This is one area where the 360 might lag a bit, but not many good fighters have come out yet for any of the next-gen systems. PS3 has a decent Fight Night game and Virtua Fighter 5, and the Wii got a mediocre Mortal Kombat game and a horrible rendition of Soul Calibur. The 360 got Virtua Fighter 5 as well, but from what I've heard it is better than the PS3 version. Which means, once again, Microsoft has bragging rights.

So where does the 360 falter? It obviously isn’t in any of these categories, nor is it in sports games (which I didn’t list because I don’t follow them as closely as other genres). The only place it might be lacking is in platform adventures and puzzle games, but these are often the favorite genres of Nintendo. Rather than try and out-do Nintendo at its specialty, or compete with the Wii for the younger and more casual audience, it is going straight for the core gamers with knockout games.

Contrary to what the cashier may think, the 360 is a well-rounded system.

~ Lady ~