Something happened while I was playing tonight that made me start to think about the tipping point. Or the line of demarcation. Or the point of no return. One of those ominous phrases. What happened was I had an epiphany. Hold on a second. Don’t get excited. For while that term tends to carry with it an air of positivity and excitement, that’s not really going to apply here. I’m not sure this is a term, but I believe what I had tonight could be termed a ‘stupid epiphany’. Is that even a term? Did I just coin that?
I had been planning today to write about moving from the tutorial towns into the big cities of Pokemon White. I’m not going to do that, though, because of my stupid ephiphany. What is this stupid epiphany, you ask?
Sigh. I’m so ashamed to admit this. Deep breath. Oh well.
I was in the middle of a pretty nasty fight with some trainer in a hidden library in the back room of a museum when I realized it. I was trying to decide which Pokemon to send into battle after my electric horse fainted when I suddenly keyed on the gender symbols of my team. I’ve always been aware of them. I’ve never paid them much attention. Until now. My team is five males, and one female.
Team Tepig just became Team Sausage.
After the jump, the trading deadline Continue reading →
The story in Tactics Ogre is engaging, topical, and very dark. It’s also wonderfully written and executed. The plot centers around a handful of rebellious youths who wish to engage some knights responsible for sacking the village they live in. That turns sideways quickly and spills into a sweeping tale of treachery, war, and rebellion.
The core of the tale is your character and the choices you make as the game unfolds. Several times, you will be asked to make a choice, and several times those choices will be very hard. I had to put the PSP to sleep a few times and give some serious thought to how I wanted to proceed.
After the jump, decisions, decisions Continue reading →
As the champion of Dragon Age II, Garrett Hawke’s been dealt a shabby hand. After losing most of his family and many of his friends, he’s cast adrift. He began as a refugee and leaves the stage, in most cases, just the same. The world in tatters and ruin behind him. Nightmares of blood mages and abominations plague his dreams.
After the jump, I think we owe the man better than that. Continue reading →
(This post contains minor spoilers. You have been warned.)
I have a feeling that there are two reasons Dragon Age II slows down for some people early in Act 2. The first is that the game for the most part takes place in the only slightly changing city of Kirkwall, broken up by cookie-cutter dungeons and occasional interludes outside the city walls. The second is that by the middle of the game, you realize that Dragon Age II has abandoned almost every pretense of dressing up fetch quests.
After the jump, is this really what a hero does? Continue reading →
Right?
Uh.
I’m cruising by my son working at the computer the other morning. It’s early, before school. He likes to steal a few minutes in the morning to work on his drawings of Bionicles, these warrior toys put out by Lego. He’s got a bunch of the toys, as well as some of the newer lineup of toys called Hero Factory, also put out by Lego. These figures are made to be assembled by kids, then broken down and reassembled into new characters by swapping parts.
Anyone who has ever dealt with Lego toys will know what I mean. My kid is nuts over these things, so much so that he has researched the mythology that surrounds the Bionicles and their universe. He understands this mythology with a depth that I find astounding, and he is all about abiding by the rules of this universe in making his drawings of the Bionicles. He does sets of drawings. Each set has six characters. No more. No less. Each set is a team based on the fact that in the Bionicle universe, the Toas–basically warrior leaders of the Bionicles–represent elements over which they have power. Earth, Ice, Water, Air, Stone, and Fire. He may create new characters for his drawings. He may totally make up new names that aren’t official Bionicle names. But the teams will always be six and always represent those elements. Because those are the rules of that universe.
After the jump, you never studied Continue reading →
Final Fantasy Tactics was one of my favorite turn-based strategy games for years, and I loved the remastered edition that came out on the PSP a few years back. That was my favorite game in a genre that includes such classics as Fire Emblem, Shining Force, and Tactics Ogre. However, I never got into Tactics Ogre when it was available on the older consoles (such as the PSOne) so I was extra excited to see the return of this classic gameplay on a handheld I have little reason to power on.
After the jump, let me introduce my army. Continue reading →
A lot of people might not have realized it, but railroads used to be pretty important. Without them there would have been no hoboes in Bugs Bunny cartoons, and without the ability to sit around and build track, sell goods, and upgrade trains, a lot of college students would probably have passed their physics midterms.
After the jump, it turns out railroads were also pretty important for attacking Russia. Continue reading →
When you get past the discussion of graphics and texture size, when you get over lamenting the inevitable plot holes, when you’re done praising or damning the dialog and structure, and when you’ve had your fill of grousing about the UI, one thing makes or breaks whether you play an RPG: the combat.
After the jump, I’m talking about every game that isn’t called Planescape: Torment Continue reading →
Team Tepig had a huge victory tonight. Huge. A major upset. I can’t really talk about it at this juncture, but let me just say we’re all pretty excited. Don’t worry. I will get to it eventually. Suffice to say, it was pretty sweet. For now, however, you should probably forget we had this conversation.
Hold on a second. Let me call up my Reader Screen. There. Now I’m selecting Forget. Wait another couple of seconds. There. You’ve forgotten it. No worries about that though, because I’ve replaced your Victory Excitement power with Reader Interest. I’m activating that now. Look at that! Your Interest just rose!
Excellent.
I don’t know if you can detect it here, but I’m feeling kind of guilty about messing with the heads of my Pokemons the way I’ve been doing. I’m feeling kind of oogy about it, and not because Team Plasma has been inundating me with all this liberation folderol. Those dudes are clearly abusive jerkwads and I have no intention of listening to them. If you’d seen the way they kicked around Munna you’d understand. I was there. I saw it. In fact, I intervened and now Munna is just fine. In fact, he’s an starter for Team Tepig and an integral part of tonight’s victory—
Crap. Now I have to use Forget on you again.
After the jump, I try to remember not to forget Continue reading →
The biggest obstacle to playing a wargame for people who haven’t played wargames is understanding what the game expects of you. Yeah, you need to capture Moscow or whatever, but the whole in-between part is so opaque I think people just don’t even bother. Part of the appeal of games is being given tasks which you can accomplish and then figuring out how to do that. I’m convinced that is the appeal of the otherwise-unfathomable-to-me RTS campaign paradigm, where some guy talks for a while and then you have to figure out the puzzle of how to defeat the space orcs.
But when the event is a more recent historical one, you kind of bring your own preconceived notions to the table. For example, it initially really bothered me that routed units in War in the East could just relocate to a new hex every time I moved adjacent to them. In my mind, I thought that routed units should just be eliminated when they engaged in combat. On one Three Moves Ahead podcast I think I called War in the East’s system “ping pong” or “kick the can” warfare. I’m pretty clever and smart. And I obviously know everything about invading Russia in the 1940s. So when I say I have all the answers, you can pretty much take that to the bank.
After the jump, it turns out I was wrong. Continue reading →
Let’s face it: an unavoidable fact of life when you play RPGs is that you are going to be spending an inordinate amount of time in dungeons. They may not all be dark, dank, moss covered caves or yawning caverns. They take the form of the interior of castles, the basement of suspicious taverns, or a cursed church. Regardless of how they are skinned, they are all dungeons: corridors separated by doors and puzzles, with enemies around every corner and usually a boss at the end of the road. Dungeons can be the best part of an RPG or a nagging problem in an otherwise good game. Despite the traumatically awful experience of the Fade, Dragon Age: Origins featured varied, interesting dungeon design, enough to keep me coming back through an expansion and seven downloadable adventures. Surely Dragon Age II wouldn’t disappoint.
After the jump: No honey, I didn’t make a wrong turn. Continue reading →
Call in the intervention squad. I’m starting to get hooked.
Actually, maybe ‘hooked’ is too strong a word. I can’t say I am going to keep playing this game the way I’ve kept playing, say, League of Legends. Since wrapping up that joint game diary with Kelly and Tom I have to say I’ve played that game fairly regularly. Or as regularly as possible. I cannot imagine that is going to happen with this game unless my kid somehow gets interested in it. We will see about that in the next few days. If I’m just considering myself alone, I don’t see it happening. It’s ugly and the learning curve looks too weird. Easy easy, la la la. Followed by, “That’s your team? Suck it!” From here it looks too much like the rocket ramp from When Worlds Collide.
Right now, though, the learning curve feels good. Right now, I’m picking up speed. I’m kicking serious Pokemon a–
After the jump, spamageddon Continue reading →
I have another confession: I’m a goodie two shoes when I play RPG’s. The first time I run through an RPG, I feel compelled to be the world’s biggest ass-kisser, suck up, do gooder, and holier-than-thou moralist. I don’t know where the habit started. Possibly as far back as the original Baldur’s Gate, though I don’t recall a morality system beyond influencing your party members. But it has stuck with me. It has so permeated my playing style that even when I try to play RPGs a second time as an evil take-no-prisoners jerk, I usually end up choosing at least a few good options to ease my conscious. This would likely make for the world’s most boring game diary though, so I decided that I was going to pick every bit of dialogue based on how I thought it fit with the game world. No reloading, no second thoughts. The first thing that came to my head was the right choice.
After the jump, that’s not what I meant to say Continue reading →
Turns out the bad guys are Russians and Ukrainians. There’s some fluff about how Georgia (the former Soviet republic, not the US state) joins NATO and Russia decides to invade and such. Which is a bit odd, because Eagle Dyanmics is a Russian company, but I guess if you’re making a combat sim about an American aircraft you can’t make the Americans the enemy. Whatever, it’s the cold war gone hot twenty years too late, and that’s fine by me. Newly confident after having successfully completed the tutorials, it’s time for me to dive into a combat sortie.
After the jump, I pick out the first campaign mission, and away we go. Continue reading →
I really can’t get over how much Pokemon White does not want me to play it.
I’m trying to get past my early frustration with how much this game is about reading and hand-holding. I really am. I’ve never played a game like this, and my nature is getting in the way as I navigate this world. Wow. Look at that sentence. It’s only been a couple of days and already the game is starting to dictate the way I construct sentences. Conspiracy alert.
Here’s the thing. I had a moment a few game-hours ago when it seemed like Pokemon White was going to force me to think. A moment when I literally sat up in my chair and focused on my DS fully. My feet came down off my desk and everything. This moment came when I finally found my first gym leader. It took me forever to find that guy, and when I finally did he dismissed me by saying, basically, that I had chosen the wrong Pokemon as my first Pokemon. I had chosen a fire-type Pokemon, and that was going to mean trouble for me in matching up with him in the gym. Match-ups? Whoa. It’s bracket-time, ladies and gentlemen. You start me thinking about match-ups and you’ve got my attention. The possibility of having to strategize quickly wiped away my earlier frustration.
Now the game is going to challenge me. I smile, thinking to myself, It’s on. It’s on like Donk–
After the jump, it’s off Continue reading →
