The Quarter to Three offices will be shut down for the holiday so our employees and interns can spend time with their families. Happy holiday to everyone, best wishes if you’re going to wade into Shopping Hell, and whatever you do, don’t forget to spend a little time leveling up as well.
I want to trade some items with you, I tell Lydia by selecting that choice from the menu. Which is oddly placed several entries down. What a terrible place for my most common interaction with Lydia, who routinely helps me out with my inventory overflow. I don’t want to call her a mule, because she’s also a tank.
“I live to share you burden,” she says. Although you’d think a housecarl would be more professional, the actresses’ line reading sounds as if the director wrote the word “sarcastic” in big red letters on the script.
“Look, I just need you to carry these dragon bones for a while. Just until we get to the next MISC merchant, where I’ll sell them first thing. I promise.”
So when I apply a frost damage enchantment to a dwarven greatsword we found in some ruins, I name it “Lydia’s Icy Retort”. I want to trade some items with you, I tell her.
“I live to share your burden.”
I give her the newly enchanted sword. It’s pretty cool to see her swinging that big thing around. It’s not so cool that she looks so stupid in that helmet I gave her. But better safe than dignified, I always say. Thousands of years in the future, this same thinking will cause people to wear similarly ridiculous helmets when they ride bicycles.
Unfortunately, Lydia apparently doesn’t live to share my burden. I told her to wait while I ran ahead in a dungeon to test a scroll that causes area damage. When I went back, she was gone. She had taken the sword, about a dozen dragon bones, and various and sundry heavy goods that I didn’t want to carry, being that I’m a willowy mage type.
I miss Lydia’s icy retort. Both of them. After doing some research on the Skyrim wiki, I discovered that sometimes when Lydia leaves, you can find her at Breezehome, the player housing available for purchase in Whiterun. Pictured. So I purchased Breezehome and now I’m loitering in this unfurnished dusty house, waiting, sleeping a few hours at a time, flipping through the remodeling catalog, imagining the sort of home we could share, hoping she’ll come through that door.
Bethesda games are, traditionally, buggy at release. After release as well. When something weird starts happening in an Elder Scrolls game, I take it with a grain of salt. This behavior can be intended, but often enough the game’s quirky behavior is thanks to a bug. I’ve played through all of the main Elder Scrolls games, so I think of myself as a junior problem solver when it comes to wacky AI scripting (pictured).
But last night, something happened that shook me to my bug-squashing core.
After the jump, I meet Farkas. Continue reading →
And that’s a wrap on 2011. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is the last big release of the year that isn’t a Star Wars themed MMO or Mario crammed into a tiny car.
Also out this week is Serious Sam 3, a palate cleanser to all those serious tactical shooters you’ve been playing lately. Fighting game fans who like older versions of their favorite fighting games might enjoy Tekken Hybrid, a PS3 exclusive bundle that combines an old Tekken game with a Japanese cartoon you can watch you your PS3. King of Fighters XIII is the latest fighting game featuring characters who are as well known as they are thanks to the enduring success of the Neo Geo. Finally, there’s a Jaws game for your Wii in which you pet sharks.
Above is reprinted, in its entirety, the strategy guide for Serious Sam 3, which comes out next week and includes 16-player co-op for the campaign mode. Forward the guide to 15 friends with whom you might be playing so that you’re all on the same page.
I’m surrounded by beautiful terrain. A brook babbles idly as I stalk through the bush. I’ve been following this party of Imperials for the last half mile. They have a Stormcloak captive that is, most likely, bound for a rather unpleasant evening. I was in that same place not too long ago and I can’t let a fellow rebel meet that fate.
I’m a few dozen yards away from my prey. I can almost taste their acrid clothing, coated with days of road dirt and hardship. The prisoner stumbles, prompting the guards to halt. I’m close enough now to hear them speak. Oh my God, what the hell is that?
I’m no longer in the woods; I’m in my living room. The illusion is completely gone. When the guard opened his mouth, it sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “slow” cousin. We went from Patrick Stewart to this?
Now that’s not to say the entire game is voiced poorly, it isn’t, but there are quite a few moments that range from odd to flat out laughable. I suppose this next bit could be considered a spoiler, but it’s a spoiler in the same way that saying there’s a Thieves Guild in the Elder Scrolls games. The leader of the Thieves Guild in this game sounds like he suffers from an angry version of VI.
That being said, Skyrim is on my short list for Game of the Year. Thank God it does just about everything else right.
I have no idea what’s going on in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. All I know is that when I play as Phoenix Wright, my special ability is to lie down and pull an Asian woman out of my pants. It must be a Japanese thing.
It’s particularly infuriating, because whatever’s going on with Phoenix Wright, I think he’s a character I want to play. Looking over the move list in the pause screen shows that he can toggle between investigation mode, in which he picks up items and puts them into folders, and trial mode, in which he uses the items for different kinds of attacks. He’s got a third mode, but search me if I know how to activate it or what it does. Of course, the mission mode — what a misleading name for a mostly useless feature — quickly slams me against a wall in which I’m learning nothing about the character and I’m instead learning that I can’t figure out the split-second timing it takes to get two mediums, a heavy, and a special attack during an air combo. I don’t need a mission mode to tell me that.
I really want to play the new characters in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but Capcom can’t be arsed to teach me how. Which reminds me why Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (a.k.a. Penultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3) was both my favorite game of the year and my most disappointing game of the year back in July.
I’m sure Super Mario 3D Land on the Nintendo 3DS will be great for lots of folks. It just feels awfully generic to me. I blame my inability to appreciate whatever charm Mario is supposed to have, even when he dresses up as a raccoon. This week’s Rayman: Origins is more my speed. You know, weird, arty, French.
Speaking of French, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is out. And speaking of retreads, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will let you enjoy the original Halo in HD. If you like racing games where you drive down long thin roads to try to pass cars that began the race in front of you, Electronic Arts offers Need for Speed: The Run. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is as inscrutable as ever.
But the dire threat to your wallet is Saints Row The Third, reviewed here, if you want scientific proof that you should buy it.
My first kill ever in Modern Warfare 3 isn’t nearly as entertaining as my first kill ever in Call of Duty: Black Ops. But at least it has a story arc. Watch the above movie in which I avenge the death of TJ 3658. Considering that I have a kill/death ratio of about 1:3 on a good day, it’s quite an anomaly that my very first action online was getting a kill before being killed. Followed up by an immediate assist. You can see me softening up that second guy before someone else’s grenade comes along and robs me of a killsteak of two.
The latest $2 costume pack for Dead Rising 2: Off the Record lets you dress up as a fireman with a bitchin’ mustache. But Capcom isn’t content to stop there. They also offer a $5 “Gamebreaker Pack”:
Ever wanted to create indestructible combo weapons, have access to infinite ammo, and manipulate the in game clock? Well these are just a few of the things you will be able to do thanks to the Gamebreaker pack, available for 400MPs or $4.99.
Other features include:
Instant [experience points]
God Mode
Super damage
Super speed
Big head mode
Body builder mode
Dumb zombies
Flat Frank
Giant hands
Cinema filters
And more
Oh, Capcom. You make it so easy to hate you.
Activision knows what’s cool: Delta Force and Spetsnaz soldiers going toe-to-toe; an M4 with a front grip, an impact mod, and hex camo; blowing the holy ooh-la-la out of Paris; and the Honda Fit. That’s why they’ve peppered the Modern Warfare 3 levels with Honda Fits, the car of champions (pictured, shortly before getting killed because I’m standing so close to one Modern Warfare’s eminently explodable cars).
Did I mention that I drive a Honda Fit? And not just in Forza 4.
However much Majesco paid for the rights to Jaws, they apparently weren’t content with the Jaws game they did five years ago. So they’re at it again with Jaws: Ultimate Predator for the Wii and DS, which explains why the above screenshot implies this is a game about petting friendly Great Whites. Nintendsharks, if you will. Because the Wii and DS aren’t exactly ideal platforms for tie-ins to 35 year old movies.
Jaws: Ultimate Predator is out today. Get it for your kids wherever fine videogames are sold.
So before I get down to some obligatory complaining, let me make it clear that I like Modern Warfare 3, especially as a multiplayer game. The changes to competitive matches feel great. I love the co-operative survival ops, which is a unique Modern Warfare take on the horde mode you know from Gears of War and Halo. And I couldn’t be happier that private matches let you play with everything unlocked. This is going to allow for a lot of crazy game types based around odd rule sets and equipment limits in the same vein as toybox shooters like Halo, Perfect Dark, and Goldeneye.
So why didn’t Activision apply this mode to split-screen games on the Xbox 360? For some odd reason, you have to level up each account the same way you do in pubic games. But split-screen games are the epitome of private matches. What a lousy way to hobble what could have been a tremendous four-player split-screen shooter.
Furthermore, it looks like there’s no way to browse other people’s private matches on Xbox Live, or even support for moving parties from ranked matches into private matches. Am I limited to whatever gatherings I can scrape together on my friends list? And how does it work on the PC? Does the PC version at least get a server browser option for private matches? Activision has included a great feature in Modern Warfare 3, but they also seem to have buried it.
Furthermore, I am completely confused by all the online stuff Activision is doing. As near as I can tell, the service that tracks stats, offers social groups, and documents the game is called “Elite”. It’s free. But then there’s “Premium”, which is necessary if you want to start a clan. At $50 a year, the Premium service also pre-buys any DLC and qualifies you to enter Activision’s contests to win Jeeps and vacations and whatnot. On top of that, there’s something called “Founder”, which I think is basically a year of “Premium” bundled with the “Limited Edition”. What a lot of indecipherable verbal spaghetti. Gears of War played it pretty straightforward by just selling a Season’s Pass.
The key to dealing with a large customer support department is knowing the limitations of how much you can accomplish at any given level. When you first contact someone like, say, Microsoft’s customer support because someone stole $50 out of your account, you’re dealing almost solely with a script. At that level of service, the person on the phone is doing little more than reading from a flow chart of conditional statements. It’s a bit like a maze. You learn to find your way to one of the script’s dead ends, at which point you will be transferred to a supervisor. My particular dead end was asking why my Xbox Live access had to be shut down for 25 days before I could have the stolen money restored to my account.
“It’s for the investigation,” the script reader recited.
“Right, but why does the investigation take 25 days when it’s clear what happened? Someone hijacked my account and spent my money to download games onto another Xbox 360.”
“Because that’s how long it takes.”
After doing that particular loop for a few time, I was handed over to a supervisor who identified himself as “John”.
“Hi John. I’m trying to find out why my account has to be shut down for 25 days for an investigation when it’s obvious what happened. I know this is something you guys have been dealing with, so why do I need to be locked out of Xbox Live for so long?”
“Look, I’m not going to give you the PR line. I know you’re in the business and you don’t need me to give you the PR line.” I had told John that my job is writing about games and that this is exactly the time of year when I can’t afford to be without Xbox Live for a month. “So let me just say that the reason it takes so long is because the problem is so widespread. We’re having to deal with so many cases that’s just how long it takes for each individual case. The new dashboard upgrade that I’m sure you know about will partly help us deal with that. But for now, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
So it’s happening so often that it takes them a month to resolve each case? That means it’s happening to a whole lot of people, or that Microsoft sucks at efficiently addressing customers who’ve been screwed over by their lax security.
I told John that I wasn’t really concerned with an investigation, and that I just wanted my money back. Since we both knew what had happened, I asked him if he could just cancel all the purchases that were made on November 2nd and refund me the cost.
“It’s against the terms of service,” he said. And even though John was off script and improvising, I knew that was another dead end. The only thing on their other side of that wall was their legal department.
The bottom line is that I’ve had 4800 points stolen from my Xbox Live account, and would have had more money stolen if a credit card had been associated with the account. In order for me to get that back, I have to shut down my Xbox Live account for a month. Maybe when releases slow up next year, I’ll give in to their absurd investigation requirements. But for now, it seems to me Microsoft can’t be trusted to hold anyone else’s money. At least Sony’s outage didn’t cost me anything.
Modern Warfare 3 is out tomorrow. If you think you’re not into Calls of Duty any more, this might be the game to make you think again. Some of the new multiplayer features seem to directly address why I don’t play Modern Warfare 2 online (i.e. because I suck). And oddly enough, I don’t feel that it’s an either/or situation with Battlefield 3. They’re both very different kinds of experiences, and they’re both very good in their own ways. It’s like Dragon Age and Oblivion. What RPG fan doesn’t play both?
Speaking of which, Skyrim is also out this week. Huzzah, etc.
